Peter the Great’s Beard Tax
daily.jstor.org
daily.jstor.org
A more modern example is Turkey, where Atatürk revised script, clothing, education, and many other aspects of the country's culture. While no one will every know "what would have been", it's arguable that these reforms made Turkey more "European" and less "Middle Eastern" - which I think was the intent.
So, today Turkey is more like an Italy than a Syria (though that is changing), and perhaps those reforms are part of the reason why.
That's called euro-centrism isn't it. And every westerner believes wholeheartedly that it is the best most constructive thing to do. So it is neither right nor wrong politically.
But it does dull the world when every place you go to is Europe in microcosm. That is a true vision of dystopian hell itself.
If you think my statement sounds like a shallow cliche then I would remind you that a group of people connected loosely by the idea of a state have cultural norms and traditions that make their little corner of the world unique...and Id say this surpasses the idea of materialism/unbounded consumption that undertones every conversation about "Europe Vs ...." measuring progress by how many cappucino cafes per square kilometer is a rather dull way to view the world at the very least.
It's not an argument that we should replace all culture with a European facsimile, merely that some movement towards the proven model for success is needed.
history was pressuring. In both cases the more advanced, technically/militarily in particular, Europe was an existential threat - in case of Russia to make Russia (ie. Grand Duchy of Moscow) into a small dukedom far in the forests, and in case of Turkey - for example the post WW1 partitioning plan for Osman Empire included partitioning of what is modern Turkey territory.
The Grand Duchy of Moscow existed from 1263 to 1547, but the beard tax was from 1698 (Tsardom of Russia) to 1772 (Russian Empire).
You are ignoring the fact that the ottoman empire had been invaded by european powers for hundreds of years and ultimately destroyed by european powers. And that european powers were threatening to destroy Turkey completely unless the turks "bent the knee".
You are painting a rather biased picture of what the "leader of Turkey" did. It was under duress - real threat of national disintegration and even genocide. It wasn't that Ataturk wanted to take Turkey in a particular direction, it was that external forces gave him no choice. It was either submit his european masters or cease to exist.
Neither Ataturk nor Turkey was in a position to take their country wherever they wanted. They were essentially a vanquished nation and pretty much had no choice but to do as the europeans powers ( and later on america ) told them to.
> Other countries are not museums needing protection from change.
Sure, but they aren't mimics either that exist to mindlessly copy or be forced to copy the world's biggest bullies.
In an ideal world, countries can copy from others what they choose, but that's sadly not how the world works. The most brutal force their "values" on the weaker.
...
> Neither Ataturk nor Turkey was in a position to take their country wherever they wanted. They were essentially a vanquished nation and pretty much had no choice but to do as the europeans powers ( and later on america ) told them to.
This is not an accurate reading of history.
Turkey had, in fact, been destroyed at the end of the First World War. Not only had the Ottoman Empire been dismantled, the territory of modern Turkey had been partitioned and split amongst the victors, much like Hungary had lost land in addition to the Austro-Hungarian Empire being dismantled (for which Hungarian nationalists still harbour resentment to this day). Large parts of Western Anatolia were ceded to Greece as part of the Treaty of Sèvres in 1920, and Constantinople was put under Allied military administration at the end of the war.
This was the cause of the Turkish War of Independence, which began shortly after the end of the First World War. Winning this war was what made Atatürk's name, in a rather literal way - it is the very reason why he's considered the father of the nation. So rather than being the Western puppet you portray him as, Atatürk was quite aggressive in defending the sovereignty of the new nation in a way that very early on led to military conflict with Western powers, conflicts which he won. If he had been concerned about submitting to his 'European masters', events like the Greek genocide which carried on after the founding of the Republic of Turkey would never have occurred.
Is there such a thing as an "accurate reading of history"? I posit it's impossible.
> Turkey had, in fact, been destroyed at the end of the First World War.
No. The ottoman empire essentially was.
> So rather than being the Western puppet you portray him as, Atatürk was quite aggressive in defending the sovereignty of the new nation in a way that very early on led to military conflict with Western powers, conflicts which he won.
Ah yes, the turks "beat" the british empire, french "empire", the US, etc combined. Does that make any sense to you?
Ataturk did what "the West" wanted. He ended the ottoman caliphate and created the modern turkish republic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolition_of_the_Caliphate
The West offered the turks two choices. Create a turkish republic and thereby ending the ottoman empire. Or enduring the destruction of the Ottoman Empire AND the turkish nation. The turkish elites "chose" the former rather than facing complete annihilation. And turkey has been a vassal of the West ever since. Not that they had any choice in the matter, no more than japan or germany had a choice in the matter.
There is an "accurate reading of history" and deciphering what is really happening. Europe had been wanting the ottoman empire destroyed for hundreds of years. Ataturk gave them what they wanted.
To think that ataturk or the turks decided the matter rather than the US, Britain, France, etc combined is rather naive. Do you really think the turks wanted to go from being the leaders of one of the greatest and wealthiest empires to a middling nation begging for acceptance at europe's doorstep? I don't think so. But the power dynamics being what they were, it is what happened.
There are certainly worse ones.
> No. The ottoman empire essentially was.
The point of that turn of phrase was that the Turkey was born already with a significant amount of its territory ceded and under occupation. This territory was not given up back to the Turks willingly.
> Ah yes, the turks "beat" the british empire, french "empire", the US, etc combined. Does that make any sense to you?
Yes? That was what the Turkish war of independence was about. US involvement in this war was fairly limited at any rate. And as a matter of fact, the British, French, and Greeks fought on the side of the Ottomans in the war - almost as if the Ottomans were the Western 'vassals' here. You think the West really wanted to give up a compliant government which had already proven itself to bend to their demands for another which had proven itself strong enough to retake the land which had been ceded to the West?
> Europe had been wanting the ottoman empire destroyed for hundreds of years.
Europe had been wanting the empire's land for centuries, something the post-war Ottoman government was all too willing to cede.
> Do you really think the turks wanted to go from being the leaders of one of the greatest and wealthiest empires to a middling nation begging for acceptance at europe's doorstep?
This is extremely anachronistic. The Ottoman Empire had not been great or wealthy for the better part of a century, having been known as the Sick Man of Europe for the better part of a century prior to its collapse.
In light of the Ottomans' capitulation to Allied demands, of course the Turks had little desire to continue the monarchy. Why would they? It had not only lost the war, considerable amounts of territory, and the city of Constantinople, but the imperial government itself stood in the way of trying to retake any lost territory. Popular support was therefore on Atatürk's side, not the monarchy's; if it hadn't been, his revolution would have been impossible.
Agreed.
> Yes? That was what the Turkish war of independence was about.
The turkish war of independence was merely a face saving way of the west letting ataturk end the ottoman empire. It's fairly obvious if you look at it in the context of what the west wanted.
> And as a matter of fact, the British, French, and Greeks fought on the side of the Ottomans in the war - almost as if the Ottomans were the Western 'vassals' here.
Or we didn't want it to fall in the hands of the russians, etc.
> You think the West really wanted to give up a compliant government which had already proven itself to bend to their demands for another which had proven itself strong enough to retake the land which had been ceded to the West?
Yes because the goal was the end of the ottoman empire, which the ottoman government steadfastly refused to do so.
> The Ottoman Empire had not been great or wealthy for the better part of a century, having been known as the Sick Man of Europe for the better part of a century prior to its collapse.
It was great and wealthy enough to fend off any single european empire. It just wasn't able to fight everyone ( the british, french, US, russians, etc ) and deal with the european funded separatist movements in greece, balkans, arabia, palestine, etc. For a sick man of "europe", the ottomans did well to survive a collective assault by the greatest powers in the world at the time. But wasn't that the problem? This sick man refused to die so the west had to find someone who'd put this sick man out of his misery. But who would be able to do such a thing? A "war hero" perhaps?
> Popular support was therefore on Atatürk's side, not the monarchy's; if it hadn't been, his revolution would have been impossible.
No revolution has ever been won with popular support. All revolutions are revolutions of the elites. Ataturk and his elite backers ( which most likely included the west ) won over the pro-ottoman elites. Simple as that. And history is written to spin it as a "popular" victory. This applies to the american, french, russian, chinese, etc revolutions. None of them had popular support. Most of the people were either ambivalent or opposed to these revolutions.
As I stated, the goal of the west was the end of the ottoman empire. The ottoman government refused while ataturk acquiesced. Ataturk's reforms feel like they were written by the west rather than a turk. At the end of the day, europe wanted the sick man dead and Ataturk killed the sick man. The only question is whether ataturk collaborated with the west to kill the sick man or not. If you aren't blinded by nationalism or "history", it's fairly obvious ataturk was a "hired gun".
it's also quite a bad idea if it is forced upon your nation by an autocrat who tries to 'modernize' or secularize his own population without really considering if that's what they want.
Modernizers like Atatürk had nothing to do with genuine change, they were trying to impose copied values from countries they perceived to be superior onto their own populations. Same thing happened in India, or for a while in China. Today you can see pretty much every single one of these civilizations reasserting their own identity and ways of life, which are thousands of years old, not decades.
Countries should change, but they should change according to their own unique values and history, not because foreign educated or inspired elites try to impose 'Western' ideals on them out of a sense of inferiority. That world is over and it's coming crashing down quick.
Relevant reading: https://www.noemamag.com/the-attack-of-the-civilization-stat...
Is post-WW2 West Germany a product of spontaneous pro-democratic change, or was Western-style democracy imposed on it by the occupying powers and Adenauer, the first Chancellor? After all, the country was still full of resentful Nazis and hopeful Communists (who built a strictly totalitarian German state just next door) in the early 50s.
Same question, but more pronounced, for post-WW2 Japan.
And it's almost always the case. Peter the Great was concerned with Russia's military backwardness, lack of a navy in particular, while being in conflict with the Swedish Empire. The Japanese were forced to "modernize" by the American military ships. Turkey modernized after the dissolution of the Ottoman empire, i.e. after the tremendous losses to the European powers. Smaller modern states today are also pressured to participate in globalization in various ways. Also colonialism.
Erdogan has been in power for twenty years by now — much as he would have loved to dismantle it, this is as far as it has gotten. Imperfect as it is, if it manages to hand power off of Erdogan in 2023 peacefully, Turkish democracy will have passed the acid test. If that doesn’t work, nobody knows.
It also is significant because the collapse of TRY to half its prior value was both swift and for the first time ever, visibly caused by bad leadership.
There is also a massive influx of Syrian refugees who may be allowed to vote... and these refugees are said to almost entirely vote according to the Islamic perspective.
I don't see Erdoğan losing if the election were to be held today. But a lot can change in a couple of years, and as you say the economic situation may aid the opposition.
The coming election is I think another legitimately critical tests. It's not great that Turkey faces multiple critical tests, in a relatively short period of time in the grand scheme of things, but the important thing is it passes them.
Now, Turkey is trying to learn on the fly how not to be a bull in a china shop.
Was that really accepted by the Turkish people as a legitimate coup attempt? From an outside perspective it appeared almost comically staged.
Given history there’s always been a fear of the possibility of a coup at some point. Hopefully that episode has resoundingly shown coups in Turkey are not an option anymore. So yes it failed spectacularly and I think that’s the important point.
Do you think that Imamoglu (Mayor of Istanbul) will run for presidency and win?
Is there a reason to worry about a possible coup or large scale voting fraud if Erdogan is likely to lose?
The current constitution of Turkey gives a lot of power to the President. Is the opposition ready to draft a new constitution with more checks and balances?
In short, I’m hopeful about him, and he’s already doing a good job in the second most powerful post in TR in terms of visibility. I’m not entirely sure his time for presidency has come yet, but if he thinks it has, he would have a fair shot at it.
> Is there a reason to worry about a possible coup or large scale voting fraud if Erdogan is likely to lose?
Turkish elections are one of the most closely watched in the world by international observers and they have a world-leading participation rate at 80+%, which is unheard of in most western democracies. It likely very hard to pull off large scale election fraud.
> The current constitution of Turkey gives a lot of power to the President. Is the opposition ready to draft a new constitution with more checks and balances?
Yes, this is the priority #1 for any incoming president that would not be Erdogan. He wanted the system to be essentially an elected emperorship by way of the Holy Roman Empire and he got unexpectedly close. That needs to be patched up.
And yes, the opposition parties declared the next government would be a transitional one and curb the powers of the president
Erdogan has formed some paramilitary organizations in the recent years and these are worrying. However, the opposition literally watches over every single vote with multiple volunteers, lawyers and every single vote table gets recorded online in real time. It would be certainly hard to pull of a blatant fraud. Thats how opposition managed to win major cities few years back, against all corrupt judiciary branch.
Along with that, the traditional Japanese culture was jealously preserved in other areas, so as to combine the best and most important Japanese traits and traditions with the most powerful and useful European knowledge.
This is very unlike the effort of Peter the Great, who tried hard to make Russia more genuinely Western and replace as much traditional structure everywhere as he could. The success was mixed, of course.
Peter himself didn't much care for grandeur and so had a very modest building for himself that is part of the tour of the palace, with lots of baths in it. There is a list of "Peter's Rules" hanging on the wall in that "small palace" that were enforced, very short, including:
- You can have one manservant only, no matter your position [the space was really small]
- You bunk where you are assigned to, no trading, and no complaining about it
- No boots on the bed
I love the reasonableness of these!
Just in case: pretty much each country, including US, handles COVID problem in typical socialistic state way.
It's funny how Bitcoin was created as a response to 2008 but all it merely did is replicate the flaws of conventional fiat currencies that lead to 2008 in a much shorter time span. All it shows is that the demand for greedy money is unstoppable.
The Chinese probably have it more right than the Soviets in that they manage a few big things and then let the market more or less self manage to a point so long as the CCP is getting their cut and gives their blessing.
[1] Thus not including battlefield deaths of soldiers.
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excess_mortality_in_the_Soviet...
You cannot rationalize away the horrors of 20th century Russia, certainly not with these bullet points.
So we killed 30 million people, but look! Sputnik!
What about plantations? Who worked there? Sigh, under each stone of European squares you can find 1kg of gold that came from the "third world".
Not sure if this is sarcasm, but I'll assume it is not.
France and Poland send their regards.
Poland was unlucky by having mountains in south, where we have rather peaceful nations. Sea from north (Swedes invaded Poland once, but that's mostly it) and nothing (except forests) from west (with Germany) and Russia in the east. (of course now it is a bit different, but lack of natural obstacles from east/west is still real).
it was called "colony" back then and Western Europe was doing it for several centuries. For example the wonderful rubber being a major part of the European technological leap at the end of 19th - beginning of 20th century was produced in Belgian Congo where not doing your daily quota would for example result in your family members mutilated or killed:
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-48533964
"How to get that rubber, as much and as quickly as possible?
In the absence of scruples, the answer was distressingly simple. Send armed men to a village, kidnap the women and children, and if their menfolk did not bring back enough rubber, chop off a hand - or kill a family."
After hundreds of years of european colonization, half of africa still has no electricity.
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2019/11/13/more-tha...
The poorest people in america, australia, etc are the indigenuous people.
Most of india, after 200+ years of colonization is mired in poverty.
https://www.soschildrensvillages.ca/news/poverty-in-india-60...
And "the West" didn't create the modern world. The "modern world" doesn't exist without india, china, africa, etc.
Story from my step-grandfather:
He was a village school director and teacher in Ukraine at times of 1932/33 famine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_famine_of_1932%E2%80%93...). With students from senior classes he developed piece of farm land just to feed junior classes - make real breakfast at list for them.
Each day he walked to school with knapsack - prepared for detention, as all agricultural surplus should go to collectors. All that was real, indeed.
...
At WWII, he served as an artillery lieutenant, literally walked by foot from Voronezh/Russia to Berlin/Germany. They were crying "for the Motherland, for the Stalin" all way along. And that one was also real.
Later he was a father of an academic and two doctors of science in USSR.
History is really not that black and white.
in there it says that he ran away from home early and "during revolution was just a street hooligan breaking streetlamps for amusement". He did eventually complete engineering school and wound up designing and building ports and hydroelectric dams during all the heavy industrialization and the war. He said he was happy about that change that allowed him to become educated.
Nor was industrialization. You’re giving them credit for something basically every european country did in that timeframe. And many other countries besides.
Not strictly saying you’re wrong. I haven’t done the comparative argument so it’s possible they did have a comparative advantage on either front. But you’d need to compare to other countries to have a meaningful claim.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cross-country-literacy-ra...
In particular try Italy and Spain, countries with many peasants circa 1900. Virtually identical trajectories.
The USSR, if around today, would have a population of 300 million. They were a superpower. Only large powers made it to space. It was certainly impressive, but also a natural result if you have a large portion of your economy devoted to military spending and missile research. The space program in both USA and USSR allowed for ICBM delivery of nuclear warheads, a crucial strategic goal.
Basically with that base anyone could do it (I don't dispute that having a gun pointed at your and your family head wasn't mobilizing for scientists, but that's normal for authoritarian states).
The revolutionaries like the young Dostoevsky and a number of other Russian left intellectuals were quite westernized, and had the French revolution as an example, with its franternité, egalité et liberté. (Interestingly, not the American revolution which was hugely more successful but not leftist.)
There was perhaps a chance in the 19th century, when Alexander II tried to turn Russia into a constitutional monarchy. The chance died when nihilists killed him and his son reversed the course. The same ideas that gave rise to social democracy in the West turned into Marxism-Leninism in Russia. One was a great success story, another was an equally great catastrophe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qsss5phzpg&list=PLEETkM6vwQ...
It starts off kind of slow. Id say the first episode is probably the worst of the series but the guy's got a captive student audience so I don't think he's prioritizing reeling in the audience.
I don't know anything about Peter, did he take anything apart from fashion from his grand tour?
It says he worked at a shipyard which is admirable but no further mention of what impression that left.
https://www.amazon.com/Peter-Great-Robert-K-Massie-audiobook...
On the other hand, it seems that all the monarchs of this time basically treated their land as their inherited, God-given wealth. So in that respect, Peter and practically all others were extremely ego-centric and shallow. Modernization did not extend to democratization.
But also no: learning more about this age made me realize that pre-Napoleonic Western Europe was even less liberal than I had expected. It is hard to learn about this age and not feel that policy was set entirely by and for the benefit of a small clique that held the levers of power.
Certainly some Western monarchies had more liberal pretensions than others. England of course is the prototypical example, and probably was the most liberal in practice. But it was a pretty big outlier amongst Western monarchies.
Learning more about Charles XII (Sweden), Augustus II (Saxony and Poland), Louis XIV (France): which one of these considered the suffering of the common people when they embarked on their wars of conquest and personal aggrandizement? Consider also how readily nobles traded realms when a larger or more prosperous fief came along. It's hard not conclude that these rulers treated their states as nothing more than inherited estates, to use and dispose of as they wished.
Comparing France, Spain, Austria to Peter's Russia: how much more liberal were these Western states?
But the important thing that this did was to establish the concept of the rights of the subjects vis a vis their rulers, and the requirement for the latter to maintain the legitimacy of their rule. When liberal thought emerged much later, it built on those concepts, extending them to larger segments of the population. In Russia, this happened as well eventually, but much slower.
I'd say, that the most sensible tzar was Feodor, who worked before Pyotr, who worked on the same goal but much more sensible, it was a patient work through decades, but history remembers crazy kings, not sensible ones.
> It says he worked at a shipyard which is admirable but no further mention of what impression that left.
He also learned in Europe how to perform tooth extraction, and liked to pull teeth of members of his retinue. It is said, that it was a great entertainment for him to found someone with toothache.
https://www.harvard.com/book/peter_the_great_his_life_and_wo...
Peter the Great's life is extremely interesting, and that book, while being a biography, honestly reads like an exciting novel. There are so many "game of thrones"-like moments in his life.
Have you ever tried trimming significant facial hair with a pair of scissors? Holy hell is that tedious!
Then again under lockdown it's more like once or twice a week than daily. I suppose that counts against my argument though, if it was so easy why don't I still do it daily?
Now, if it cost you money to keep your beard, that would be a different situation and probably motivate you more.
Or.. the one who shaves all those, and those only, who do not shave themselves
That said, I often grow a beard during ski season. Because I just enjoy the mountain man look to go with my telemark skiing, winter clothes, accompanying border collie covered in snow, and beer belly.
I tried growing a beard for a while, but I found that it was itchy, and anything I did to try to alleviate that was as much work as shaving, or even more.
Recently, I switched electric razors again and it's a lot quicker and easier than the ones I'd been using (for like 5-7 years), and it's back to "meh whatever" category again instead of "Ugh, do I have to do this?"f
Someone said it takes less time than brushing their teeth, and that's not quite true for me... But my electric toothbrush says I should brush for 2 minutes, and my electric razor says I should spend less than 3 minutes shaving so I won't irritate my skin, so it's pretty close to that.
The Beard Tax was notoriously leveraged against religious jews, forbidden by law to shave their beards. The "civilized" authorities took much advantage of this.
FYI https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_the_Russian_Em...
"Before the 18th century Russia maintained an exclusionary policy towards Jews, in accordance with the anti-Jewish precepts of the Russian Orthodox Church. When asked about admitting Jews into the Empire, Peter the Great stated "I prefer to see in our midst nations professing Mohammedanism and paganism rather than Jews. They are rogues and cheats. It is my endeavor to eradicate evil, not to multiply it.""
Jews in Russian Empire at that time would mostly be in Pale Of Settlement area, not Petersburg.