Similarly, Maria-Theresa, who ascended to the Austrian throne in 1740, also introduced reforms in order to compete - with Prussia who she was defeated from in the war. Her changes to primary education was also not for enlightened reasons; more that she felt that the capacity to read and write, in the utilitarian view, would make more useful subjects to the state. She suppressed the Society of Jesus in order to gather sufficient funds for this. Although in 1775 she created the Robotpatent which fixed a limit of 3 working days for serfs and Treasure remarks that she “was sensitive to the suffering and injustice”, Maria-Theresa failed to properly deal with the issue of serfdom, even though the Cameralist influence was of free peasantry.
On the subject of religion both Peter and Marie-Theresa were very intolerant and they both believed that in confessional absolutism and divine right. Peter intended to eliminate the Church as a possible source of resistance with the 1721 Holy Directing Synod and secure the Church’s wealth as a proportion of the state’s income. The vehemently Catholic and anti-Semitic Maria-Theresa said that “Religion has much good to do in Hungary” and she maintained an incessant attack on other churches throughout most of her reign. Geoffrey Treasure remarks that “toleration made next-to-no progress as long as Maria-Theresa was alive.”
Succeeding Peter in Russia was Catherine the Great, who Treasure remarks was an “emancipated, cultivated woman… [who] confidently embodied the values of the west.” Catherine travelled and read the works of the philosophes, particularly Voltaire’s ‘Universal History’ and Montesquieu. Her instruction, ‘Nakaz’, influenced by these works, was =meant to reform the archaic legal system, but significantly nothing was ever done. And although she re-established the Senate, she was greatly cautious of her personal security and so divided it into 6 departments to avoid it gaining too much power, which is an autocratic rather than an enlightened move. Catherine’s Great Reform was “to furnish the empire with the institutions necessary” to make Russia easier to govern. In her ‘Charter of the Rights of the Nobility’ in 1783 she delegated not power, but only superficial privileges to the nobility. When Radischev wrote his ‘Diary of a journey from Moscow to St Petersburg’ criticising serfdom, Catherine had him put under house arrest. Treasure says that “In Catherine the Great’s Russia serfdom actually increased in extent and severity.” Catherine’s final years and reforms ended in an atmosphere of repression, particularly after the 1795 Pugachev rebellion, mainly because of her fear for her security.
Paralleling Catherine was Joseph the II in Austria who was described by Festetics as “our Philosophical and Enlightened Monarch.” Joseph has been called an “Aufklarung” – a child of the Enlightenment and Treasure says that “real reform only came after 1780” with his accession. Though being a devout Catholic he issued several Toleration Patents in the early 1780s. However, this was a more utilitarian than enlightened move and it was also due to his economic self interest; he wanted “without taking account of religion [anyone] to employ and own lands” which included the Jews so he could increase his revenue. Joseph also reduced the number of monasteries from 2,000 to 1,250 in 1790, to provide the revenue to fund his educational reforms. His truly enlightened move was the 1781 emancipation of the Bohemian serfs, which sought to improve the legal status of the serf. In addition, probably due to his frustration at being co-regent with his mother, he often pushed through reforms without listening to advice, thus antagonising people. Treasure summarises that his reforms “did not amount to complete emancipation or civil and religious equality” for all.
In conclusion, the rulers in the second half of the C20th- Joseph II and Catherine the Great were more enlightened than their predecessors Maria-Theresa and Peter the Great, who realised that they had not done the good that they could have done. But Catherine and Joseph’s reforms cannot be said to be wholly enlightened as they were generally due to fiscal and political reasons in order to make their country more revenue and more of a great power. Although the reforms were more humanitarian in Catherine and Joseph’s reign this was often for utilitarian and Cameralist reasons. Both Catherine and Joseph felt that reforms which went further than the partially enlightened ones which they had enforced would be very likely to cause havoc.
