Western Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries. Culture of Western Europe in the XVI-XVII centuries. On what basis are the rows arranged?

Changes in Europe in the 16th - 17th centuries:

1) The foundations of the capitalist mode of production have been laid. Manufactories are being built. free capital and hired workers appeared.

2) The great geographical discoveries brought fabulous income to Europe. The development of international trade strengthened the economy.

3) The need for a new foreign policy (colonial expansion). Strengthened the central government, Europe is established absolutism(a form of government in which the monarch has unlimited power).

4) The first bourgeois revolutions take place, which will lead to the fall of the autocracy, the first bourgeois republics are established in which human rights and freedoms are respected.

5) The influence of the church is weakened, so there is a rapid development of education, sciences, philosophy, art and literature.

Modernization- this is the renewal of the means of production in connection with technical progress, the emergence of new technologies, machine tools and mechanisms.

Renaissance(Renaissance) - this is the era of European culture, when the culture of the Middle Ages is replaced by the culture of the new time. Interest in antiquity, palace architecture, happy holidays, etc., has been revived since the 15th century.

Reformation(in translation - transformation) is a mass religious movement in Europe aimed at the transformation of Catholic Christianity.

Ideologists - Martin Luther (1483-1546) and John Calvin (1509 - 1564).

They opposed the mediating role of the church between God and man, against church taxes and monastic land ownership. As a result of the reformation, a new trend in the Christian church will appear - Protestantism, which is established as the state religion in most European countries: Germany, England, France and Navarre (the Huguenot movement), Switzerland, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, etc.

Question 2. Transition from traditional to industrial society in Europe 16-17 centuries.

Western Europe is the first civilization in which the first bourgeois relations were born, gained strength and triumphed, i.e. there was a formational shift - from feudalism to capitalism (and if we use the civilizational approach - the transition from a traditional society to an industrial one). They first appeared in the major trading cities of Italy at the end of the 14th century. In the XV-XVI centuries. spread in many countries of Western Europe: in Germany, France, England, Spain and Portugal. Over time, this process has covered most of the world.

1) traditional society characterized by the dominance of rural subsistence farming and primitive crafts. In such societies, an extensive path of development prevails and manual labor. The property belongs to the community or the state. Private property is neither sacred nor inviolable. The social structure of a traditional society is corporate by class, stable and immovable. Social mobility is virtually non-existent. Human behavior in society is regulated by customs, beliefs, unwritten laws. The political sphere is dominated by the church and the army. The person is completely alienated from politics. Power seems to him of greater value than law and law. The spiritual sphere of human existence has priority over the economic one.

2) B industrial society the base is the industry based on machine technology, the intensive way of development prevails. Stable economic growth is accompanied by an increase in real per capita income. Social mobility is significant in the social sphere. The number of the peasantry is sharply reduced, urbanization is taking place. New classes appear - the industrial proletariat and the bourgeoisie. A person is characterized by signs of individualism and rationalism. There is a secularization of consciousness. In the political sphere, the role of the state is growing, and a democratic regime is gradually taking shape. Law and law prevail in society.

Signs of feudalism:

• natural economy, manual labor;
• the presence of two classes - feudal lords and dependent peasants;
• the feudal lords own the means of production, the peasants have personal ownership of the tools of labor and perform various duties in favor of the feudal lords.

Signs of capitalism:

• commodity-money relations, machine labor;
• the presence of two classes - the bourgeoisie and the proletariat;
• the bourgeoisie owns the means of production, the proletariat is personally free and forced to sell its ability to work.

Question 3. Great geographical discoveries and the beginning of European colonial expansion.

The most famous navigators and their discoveries.

1) Bartolomeo Dias (1488) - Portuguese.

The first European sailed around Africa to India.

2) Christopher Columbus (1492)

He discovered the island of Haiti (Cuba), San Salvador and the Sargasso Sea. He was declared king of the lands annexed to America.

3) Amerigo Vespucci (1499-1504)

He was the first to guess that America was not India, but a new continent and discovered Brazil.

4) Vasco da Gama (1497-1498)

Traveled to India around Africa. Thanks to him, the Portuguese colonization of India begins.

5) Ferdinand Magellan (1519-1521)

First round-the-world trip.

6) Hernan Cortes - Spanish conquistador, conqueror of Mexico (1519-1521). He brutally dealt with the Indian tribes.

7) Ermak, Vasily Polyakov, Semyon Dezhnev, Erofey Khabarov (1581-1640) -

exploration of Siberia.

8) William Barents (1596-1597)

He discovered the Barents Sea and the island of Svalbard.

Significance of the great geographical discoveries:

1) A breakthrough in the economy.

2) New in culture, zoology, botany, ethnography.

3) New foodstuffs appear: potatoes, corn, tomatoes, tobacco, coffee, cocoa, chocolate, cola and rubber.

Question 4. Europe in the 17th century: state and power. Diplomacy. coalition system.

What happened in Europe in the 17th century?

Formation of centralized states, religious wars, famines, revolutions. The first bourgeois revolution took place in Holland in 1566. As a result, Holland, which was a colony of Spain, achieved independence, created a parliament and became the best European country in trade and shipbuilding.

The Valois dynasty rules, but all the kings - Francis II and Charles I - rule for a short time and die childless. In 1572, at the initiative of the Queen Mother Catherine de Medici, Bartholomew's Night took place, when all the Huguenots (Protestants) who came to Paris for the wedding of Henry of Navarre and Margaret of Valois were killed. After the death of the last king of the Valois dynasty, Henry III, who died young and childless, the dynasty ended.

The most famous kings of France

Henry IV of Navarre (1594-1610) became King of France and founded the new Bourbon dynasty. His son Louis XIII (1610-1643) dissolved the Parliament, the Estates General. Under him, the country was ruled by a brilliant politician who achieved the prosperity of France - Cardinal Richelieu. Louis XIV(1643-1715) built Versailles and strengthened absolutism. His son Louis XV (1715 - 1774) continued his policy. His grandson Louis XVI was executed by the Jacobins by court order in January 1793. In October of the same year, his wife Marie Antoinette was also executed.

Germany.

The birthplace of the Reformation: Martin Luther and John Calvin, the ideologists of Protestantism, lived in Germany.

The most famous war of the 17th century is the Thirty Years' War, in which all the countries of Europe participated. (1618-1648).

Question 5. English Revolution (1640-1649).

In 1640, England was the foremost power and had a first-class navy. The nobles wanted to transfer legislative power to Parliament, which was dissolved by King Charles I in 1628. The uprising was led by Oliver Cromwell, who created a parliamentary army, defeated the royal troops and captured King Charles I, who was executed by court order in 1649.

England became a republic. Cromwell chaired the Supreme Council and served as Lord Protector until his death in 1658. The son of Oliver Cromwell could not hold on to power and civil war begins again in England.

In 1688, a coup d'etat took place in England, a constitutional monarchy was established with limited power of the king. William of Orange, ruler of Holland, was elected king.

Question 6."Enlightened absolutism" in Austria, Prussia, Russia.

"Enlightened absolutism" is a form of government of the 17th-18th century, in which the monarch has absolute power, but in these states people feel free. The press is almost freely printed. There are many educational institutions, the Academy of Sciences. Scientific research and expeditions are financed. Emperors and empresses correspond with the most famous enlightenment philosophers (Voltaire, Denis Diderot).

Examples: Austria (Maria Theresa (1765-1780)), Prussia (Frederick II (1740-1786)), France (Louis XIV (1643-1715)), Russia (Catherine II (1762-1796)).

Question 7. Age of Enlightenment: The Theory of Social Equality. Cult of Reason.

The Age of Enlightenment is the 18th century, which gave Europe freedom of speech, the flowering of philosophy, science, culture, and education.

During the 16-18 centuries. geographical discoveries constantly expanded the horizons of the European: the world was growing rapidly. If in the 15th century the well-known lands in Europe stretched from India to Ireland, then by the beginning of the 19th century the Spaniards, the British, the Dutch, the French owned the whole world. The streak of outstanding discoveries started by Nicolaus Copernicus was continued by the works of Isaac Newton, who formulated the law of universal gravitation. As a result of their labors, by the end of the 17th century. the former picture of the world has become yesterday even in the eyes of the inhabitants: the Earth - the biblical center of the universe - has turned from the center of the universe into one of the few satellites of the sun; the Sun itself turned out to be only one of the stars that complement the infinite Cosmos.

So was born modern science. It broke the traditional connection with theology and proclaimed experiment, mathematical calculation and logical analysis as its foundations. This led to the emergence of a new worldview, in which the concepts of "reason", "nature", "natural law" became the main ones. From now on, the world was seen as a gigantic complex mechanism operating according to the exact laws of mechanics (it is no coincidence that a mechanical watch was a favorite image in the writings of politicians, biologists and doctors in the 17th and early 18th centuries). In such a well-oiled system, there was little room for God. He was assigned the role of the initiator of the world, the root cause of all things. The world itself, as if having received a push, further developed independently, in accordance with the natural laws that the Creator created universal, unchanging and accessible to knowledge. This doctrine is called deism, had many followers among naturalists of the 17th-18th centuries.

But perhaps the most important step taken by the new philosophy was the attempt to extend the laws of nature to human society. A conviction appeared and grew stronger: both the person himself and social life are subject to unchanging natural laws. They only need to be discovered, written down, to achieve an accurate and universal performance. A way was found to create a perfect society built on "reasonable" foundations - a guarantee of the future happiness of mankind.

The search for the natural laws of the development of society contributed to the emergence of new teachings about man and the state. One of them - natural law theory, developed by European philosophers of the 17th century. T. Hobbes and D. Locke. They proclaimed the natural equality of people, and therefore, the natural right of every person to property, freedom, equality before the law, human dignity. Based on the theory of natural law, a new view of the origin of the state was also taking shape. The English philosopher Locke believed that the transition of once free people to "civil society" is the result of a "social contract" concluded between peoples and rulers. The latter, according to Locke, are given some of the "natural rights" of fellow citizens (justice, external relations, etc.). Rulers are obliged to protect other rights - freedom of speech, belief and the right to private property. Locke denied the divine origin of power: monarchs must remember that they are part of "civil society."

A whole era began in the history of Western culture, bringing with it a new understanding of the world and man, profoundly different from the medieval one. They called her the Age of Enlightenment- by the name of a powerful ideological trend, which by the middle of the 18th century. widely covered European and American countries. In the 18-19 centuries. it had a strong influence on science, socio-political thought, art and literature of many peoples. Why the 18th century went down in history Age of Reason, Age of Enlightenment.

This movement was represented by outstanding philosophers, scientists, writers, statesmen and public figures from different countries. Among the enlighteners were aristocrats, nobles, priests, lawyers, teachers, merchants and industrialists. They could hold different, sometimes opposing views on certain issues, belong to different faiths or deny the existence of God, be staunch republicans or supporters of easy restriction of the monarchy. But all of them were bound by a common goal and ideals, a belief in the possibility of creating a just society in a peaceful, non-violent way. "Enlightenment of minds", the purpose of which is to open people's eyes to the reasonable principles of organizing society, to advance their world and themselves - this is the essence of the Enlightenment and the main meaning of the activities of enlighteners.

Question 8. Technological progress and the Great Industrial Revolution in Europe in the 17th century.

Geographic discoveries continue. Cities, factories, plants are being built, new machine tools, a steam engine, a conveyor belt and other technical innovations appear. Ships, new weapons, battle tactics.

The industrial revolution is a consequence of scientific and technological progress and the social development of European states, primarily England.

In historiography, the industrial revolution is understood as a set of scientific, technological, economic, social and political shifts or profound changes that marked the transition from the manufacturing stage of production to the factory system of capitalist or socialist production, based on a system of machines or machine technology. As a result of the industrial revolution, the market capitalist economy received its technical base. This society, based on private property and a market economy and capitalist production, finally established itself in those countries where this revolution took place. Speaking in Marxist terms, this formation received a base and stood on its feet. The industrial revolution took its most distinct classical form in England, from which everyone starts as a standard of measurement. This was due to the fact that in England the conditions necessary for this were ripe first of all.

Scientific and technical conditions were covered at the last lecture. This is the invention of working machines, which from the 1760s gave rise to the industrial revolution.

And the socio-economic conditions are: the development of the processes of primitive accumulation of capital, which mean the formation of two poles. Upper pole: capital that requires its application, otherwise it will be a "chest of a miserly knight." And below - huge masses of cheap means of production and people selling their hands, their labor.

This process of primitive accumulation was most profound in England, as a result of the de-peasantization of the countryside, enclosure and the formation of a land market, which was the result of two revolutions: the Great and Glorious Revolution of the 17th century.

According to the degree of transformation of society that European countries underwent, contemporaries very often compare this coup with a deep political revolution. Therefore, in historiography, in addition to the term industrial revolution, the term industrial revolution is often used.

The industrial revolution began in England in the 60s for the reasons stated.

1769 Arkwright invents the water machine, creates the first factory, which employs several hundred people. And after 20 years in England, where the population is about 6 million people, i.e. by the end of the 1780s of the 18th century, 143 such spinning mills were in operation. Each of them spins 700-800 and more people. This is all the industrial proletariat, mostly women and children so far.

The invention of the loom led to the development of not only the cotton-spinning, but also the cotton-weaving industry. Technological progress is taking place, advances are taking place in the chemical industry, because fabrics need to be bleached, dyed, and so on.

The invention of the Watt double-acting steam engine, the final version that gave England an 11% increase in gross domestic product by the end of the 18th century, leads to an increase in the demand for metal, since machine tools and steam engines are made of metal. Accordingly, technical progress covers the metallurgical, ferrous, non-ferrous industries, etc.

As a result, from the beginning of the 19th century, a revolution in transport begins. The invention of steam transport on wheels, the steamboat. The beginning of this revolution leads to the fact that in the country, in England, and then in other countries, industrial industrial centers arise, where these factories are concentrated, a working population grows, which works from morning to night in these factories for 14-16 hours. The market for agricultural products is growing. Therefore, around these centers, the same Birmingham, Manchester in England, areas of intensive agriculture, gardening, meat and dairy farming are being formed, which supply these growing cities.

The progress of industry in England, the demand all over the world for these machines and products of the factory industry lead to the fact that already in the first third of the 19th century England becomes the "workshop of the world", supplying goods to all of Europe and the whole world.

The growth of economic power contributes to the fact that the political and military power of England is growing. All this leads to a rapid change in the demographics and economic geography of the same England.

Demographics: The population of the British Isles in 1756 is 5 million 590 thousand people. In 100 years - already about 16 million people! Life has become better, and the process has begun. And this is despite the fact that England is constantly at war, and a huge flow of migrants from the British Isles leaves for a better life anywhere: to Australia, the USA, Canada.

Geographical changes: from practically nothing, from places that only know

Question 9. US education.

US education.

By the end of the 18th century, the United States consisted of 13 independent colonies: the northern colonies had developed production, the southern colonies had plantation with slave labor. The cause of the War of Independence was the policy of plundering the colonies by England. In 1774, the First Continental Congress met in Philadelphia and approved the petition for independence. In response, England launched military operations, but was defeated by the troops of George Washington. As a result, England was forced to recognize the independence of the United States.

1781 Articles of Confederation establishing the union of the thirteen states.

1787 - adoption of the US Constitution (still in force).

1791 - Bill of Rights - the first 10 amendments to the Constitution, containing the rights and freedoms of man.

Question 10. French Revolution of the 17th century.

Great bourgeois revolution (1789 - 1799)

Stages of the revolution:

1) July 14, 1789 - the storming of the Bastille. The uprising spreads throughout France, the king is arrested.

3) The coup d'état and the Jacobin dictatorship 1793: the execution of the king and queen. Massacres of nobles. Guillotine - a special machine for chopping off heads. Jacobins - Danton, Robespierre, Marat, Desmoulins - the leaders of the Jacobins, who initiated a terrible terror. For 7 months in 1793, 4 million people were executed in Paris! All Jacobin leaders were subsequently executed.

4) Coup 9 Thermidor. Establish directory mode. France has a new constitution. The country is ruled by the Council of Five Hundred instead of Parliament. The war continues.

5) The coup of 18 Brumaire (November 9, 1799) and the coming to power of Napoleon Bonaparte. Napoleon with the guards broke up the Council of Five Hundred and headed the provisional government. Three consuls acted as president - Napoleon Bonaparte, Roger Ducos and Sieyes. Soon, two other consuls gave Napoleon emergency powers. Napoleon soon became emperor, but he retained the parliament, the constitution, and all the democratic achievements of the revolution.

MAIN LITERATURE

1. Fortunatov V.V. "Story". Tutorial. third generation standard. For bachelors and specialists. SPb., PETER, 2014. 464 p. 1 copy

2. Samygin P.S., Samygin S.I., Shevelev V.N. "Story". Tutorial. M., NITs INFRA-M, 2013. 528 p. 1 copy

3. Artemov V.V., Lubchenkov Yu.N. History of the Fatherland from ancient times to the present day. Textbook for students of secondary vocational schools. Moscow, Masterstvo Publishing House, 2012. 360 p. 19 copies

ADDITIONAL LITERATURE

1. Apalkov V.S., Minyaeva I.M. "The history of homeland". Tutorial. 2nd edition. M., Alfa-M; Research Center INFRA-M, 2012. 544 p. 1 copy

2. Kuznetsov I.N. "History of the Fatherland in tests - getting ready for the exam." Rostov-on-Don, Phoenix, 2012. 224 p. 2 copies

3. Moryakov V.I., Fedorov V.A., Shchetinov Yu.A. "Fundamentals of the course of the history of Russia". Textbook.

M., TK Velby, Prospekt Publishing House, 2013. 464 p. 1 copy

4. Klyuchevsky V.O. "A complete course of Russian history in one book". M., AST; Astrel-SPb., 2012. 510 p. 6 copies

5. Soloviev S.M. History of Russia since ancient times. M., Eksmo, 2011. 1024 p. 8 copies

6. Vasiliev L.S. "General history". Textbook in 6 volumes. M., graduate School, 2010. Volume 1. 448 p. Volume 3. 606 p. 1 copy

7. Boguslavsky V.V. "Rulers of Russia: a biographical dictionary". M., OLMA PRESS Grand Cover, 2012. 912 p. 2 copies

Europe in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries

William Pitt - the great English orator of the XVIII century

Western Europe. - 1. Spain. - Spain of the 16th century, endowed by Columbus with a huge colonial state that included almost all of South and Central America with the Antilles, could become the richest trading state in Europe: the reasonable use of colonies, the development of industry and agriculture, which was facilitated by Peruvian gold and Mexican silver, could make of it what England is now.

Unfortunately, Spain became the victim of religious fanaticism, which developed in it as a result of a long war of independence with the Muslims: its kings of the 16th century, Ferdinand the Catholic, Charles V (1519-1556), Philip II (1556-1598), expelled the Moors, who were beautiful farmers, and then Jews, able businessmen; these were two irreparable losses for the country.

The number of monks increased; the monasteries appropriated vast lands to themselves; the Inquisition prevented the birth of the Reformation and killed the spirit of free inquiry, all striving for initiative.

Most of the precious metals of America, captured by the king, went to Spain to strengthen the army and to cover the costs caused by ruinous wars; the grandson of Ferdinand, Charles the Fifth, heir to the Spanish, Austrian, Dutch thrones, several Italian provinces, in addition, forced himself to be elected German emperor; all his life he fought with the French kings, with the German Protestant sovereigns and with the Turks, who threatened his Austrian possessions.

His son Philip II, who inherited only Spain, the Italian provinces, the Netherlands and the colonies, declared himself the defender of Catholicism throughout Europe: he sent troops against French, English and German Protestants; with his intolerance, he caused an uprising in the northern Netherlands (now Holland) and, fighting with them for thirty years, could not subdue them: Philip II completed the ruin of Spain.

Although in the 17th century this country produced several great painters - Velazquez, Murillo, and Spanish Flanders - Rubens and Tenier, wonderful colorists, but wars and continuous persecution exhausted Spain with people, money and killed all mental life in it. In the 18th century, her colonies wither away; she is deprived by the Peace of Utrecht of the Italian provinces and Flanders; Spain turns into a corpse.

This is what Catholicism and militarism have done in the course of three centuries from a country which, having acquired unexpected wealth thanks to Columbus, might have become the first colonial power of our time.

2. United Provinces or the Netherlands (Holland). The Netherlands was the first country to successfully take advantage of the discoveries of navigators and the impetus they gave to maritime trade and colonization.

Forced to constantly struggle with the sea and river floods that inundate the entire low-lying part of the country if it is not protected by dams, the inhabitants of the Netherlands have become fishermen and energetic sailors. In the sixteenth century they converted to Calvinism; but the Spanish king Philip II, whose subjects they were, since their country in the 15th century was inherited by the Spanish kings, wanted to force them to remain Catholics. With indomitable fortitude, under the leadership of the Dutch nobleman, William of Orange, whom they proclaimed dictator, they achieved, at the beginning of the 17th century, at the cost of a thirty-year war, political and religious independence. These liberated provinces, of which the main one was called Holland, continued to be governed separately, like autonomous republics, formed an alliance called the United Provinces, in which common affairs were decided by estate representatives.

In these republics, ruled by the bourgeoisie, trade flourished; the Dutch, whose main port was Amsterdam, became real sea "cabbies", buying local works in all countries and reselling them at a big profit. During the war of independence with Philip II, Portugal temporarily formed part of the Spanish possessions; the Dutch fleet took advantage of this to seize part of the Portuguese colonies: the Cape of Good Hope, Ceylon and the Malay Archipelago, where the trading company founded Batavia, which became a large storage place for groceries in the Dutch colonies.

With money, liberty and life flowed in a wide stream in the United Provinces; freedom of the press was complete. There, Descartes sought refuge and a publisher for his work. Discourse on Method; in the same place, in the middle of the 17th century, the philosopher Spinoza, a Jew free from all religious beliefs, applied the method of Descartes to the criticism of the Bible for the first time; the great Dutch painter Rembrandt worked there, creating chiaroscuro, which gave amazing relief to his faces and large paintings with an ingenious arrangement of colors.

In 1672, Louis XIV unjustly attacked this republic of merchants who were too free and too Calvinist, in the opinion of the Catholic despot. To prevent the French invasion, the Dutch again restored the Stadthalter (dictatorship), which they entrusted to William of Orange, a descendant of the hero of the war of independence. William of Orange ordered the destruction of the dams and flooded the country; the French troops had to retreat and the United Provinces were saved, although half ruined.

3. England.- The strong impetus given to Europe by the Reformation, the Renaissance and the great discoveries of the sea, deeply shook England.

In the 16th century, the despot Henry VIII Tudor, having been refused a divorce by the pope, took advantage of the hatred that had accumulated in the Middle Ages against papal power, and the sympathy met by Calvinism and Lutheranism among scientists, in order to break the ties with Roman Catholicism. With the exception of the Irish, who remained Catholics, all England began to profess the Anglican faith, which, according to dogma, approaches Calvinism, and according to appearance organizations - to Catholicism; Catholic celebrations and bishoprics were preserved, but the pope was not recognized; his authority was replaced by the English bishops. All monasteries were abolished, and their property was confiscated by the king and distributed partly to the courtiers, partly to the bishops.

The Renaissance caused two major phenomena in England: at the end of the 16th century, the dramatic works of Shakespeare, the greatest playwright of all time, and at the beginning of the 17th century. - Bacon's research, in which, on the basis of scientific data, he establishes a method corresponding to the study of physical and natural sciences: observation and experience.

But the fate of modern England was most influenced by maritime discoveries: they showed her, using the example of the benefits received by Spain, Portugal, and Holland from maritime trade, that her real vocation was navigation. England, which in the Middle Ages was an exclusively agricultural state, begins in the sixteenth century. to weave cloth from the wool of their own sheep, to make iron from their own mines, to build ships. New England in the district of the north-western mines and factory England is being built up slowly, and with it the rich bourgeoisie is growing. In the reign of Elizabeth (1558-1603), when Shakespeare appears, England finally passes into Protestantism and embarks on the path of commercial and maritime enterprises.

The Reformation, the Renaissance, the discoveries of navigators, the economic transformations in the 17th century had a different effect: they caused a political revolution.

After Elizabeth's death in 1603, the Stewarts, princes of the Scottish royal house, were the closest heirs to the throne. Thus Scotland joined England. Having become English kings, the Stuarts, James I (1603-1625), Charles I (1625-1649), showed their intention to rule indefinitely; they found support from large landowners and wealthy Anglican bishops ... The rich and hostile to innovations, the Anglican Church is in England the same conservative force as the Catholic Church in France.

But the bourgeoisie strove to take part in the government and create under the kings, in the form of control, a house of commons; because of the political oppositional spirit, she joined Calvinism, which is very common in Scotland under the name of Presbyterianism, which does not recognize bishops.

The people in general, in some of the more radical districts, adopted an even more simplified religion; they became known as Puritans. The Puritans led a very strict lifestyle, guided only by the Bible. In politics, they showed republican inclinations and formed a political party called the Independents.

The despotism of Charles I united the Parliamentary Presbyterians and the revolutionary Puritans with a common active bond. When Charles I began to make arbitrary arrests and raised taxes that Parliament did not agree to, a revolution broke out. Charles I was arrested, he was tried in the House of Commons, beheaded (1649): a republic was proclaimed and Cromwell, the leader of the Puritans, was declared a dictator. He won over the bourgeoisie with the Navigation Act, which closed English ports to all foreign ships and patronized British maritime trade.

After his death in 1658, the fear of the bourgeoisie of the people's party provoked a reaction; again the Stuarts were called; but Charles II and James II, two sons of Charles I, followed their father's despotic ways, and a new revolution, less bloody but stronger, broke out in 1688. James II fled to France, and the House of Commons, representing the interests of the wealthy bourgeoisie, offered the crown to James II's son-in-law, William of Orange, the Dutch stadtholder, prescribing him a constitution obliging him to govern the country only together with parliament.

Since then, throughout the eighteenth century, kings began to respect the rights of their subjects, at least the English bourgeois; they did not allow themselves any more arbitrary arrests or illegal increases in taxes, and their ministers, especially both William Pitts, imbued with bourgeois commercial aspirations, spared no people, no warships, no money, to form a vast colonial state: in the second half of the eighteenth century Canada and India were taken from the French. But in America, the English colonists were treated so unfairly that they rebelled (1775-1781), won their independence and formed the North American United States.

At the end of the 18th century, however, England emerged as the largest commercial, maritime, and colonial power in Europe.

Central Europe. - 1. Italy.- From the end of the 15th century to the middle of the 16th century, Italy, which at the end of the Middle Ages was the cradle of the Renaissance, became an excellent breeding ground for artists: the greatest of them, Michelangelo, was at the same time an amazing architect (the dome of St. Peter in Rome), a wonderful sculptor , depicting strength and majesty, and a striking painter in a tragic image the Last Judgment,- a fresco admired in the Sistine Chapel in Rome. Along with him are Raphael and Leonardo da Vinci, both great Italian artists.

But the artistic genius of Italy did not survive either its material ruin or the suffocating Catholic oppression engendered in this country by the fear of Protestantism.

Italy, still divided into principalities at war with each other, was during the entire sixteenth century, and even later, the battlefield of the Spaniards, Austrians, and French; the largest principalities passed to the Spaniards. These latter, in the sixteenth century, in full agreement with the Pope, instituted the Inquisition everywhere; literature and the arts, which require complete mental freedom for their development, were struck to death. The Italian Inquisition became famous for the trial of Galileo: this Italian scientist was the first to prove that the earth revolves around the sun. This statement seemed to contradict Scripture, especially the passage where it says that Joshua stopped the sun. Galileo, brought to the church court in 1632, in order to avoid being burned at the stake, had to renounce this belief and repent. They say that, leaving the court, he could not help saying: “E pur si muove!” "But it's still spinning!"

In addition, wars, accompanied by robberies and devastation, covered Italy with ruins; both ports, Genoese and Venetian, ill-positioned for trade with the newly discovered countries of the Atlantic Ocean, were ruined by the Turks, who conquered the Byzantine Empire, and by the robberies of the Turkish corsairs, sailing all over the Mediterranean; it was a complete fall.

2. Germany.- Germany, like Italy, has not yet achieved political unity during these three centuries. The Protestant Reformation, of which it was the cradle, was a new cause for its dissolution.

Friar Luther, supported by religious minds, who resented wealth, morals, and the general way of doing things. catholic church, as well as needy princes who were eager to lay hands on church lands, worried Germany from 1517 until his death in 1546, preaching his doctrine against the papacy and celibacy of priests, in general against what he called Roman idolatry. Almost all the North German states adopted his teaching and confiscated church property, leaving it to the secular authorities.

But southern Germany, which was in the power of the powerful Austrian sovereign, remained Catholic, thanks to the energetic and skillful activity of the Jesuits.

The Austrian Habsburgs, alone or in alliance with Spain, tried during the 16th and 17th centuries. take advantage of their position as emperors to keep the Protestant princes out of the way and become absolute masters in Germany, as they were in their hereditary dominions in Austria. For the first time, in the sixteenth century, under Charles V, they failed, partly because the French kings Francis I and Henry XVII, for their own selfish interests, supported the German Protestants; the second time, their attempt led to the terrible Thirty Years' War (1618-1648), which turned Germany into one vast field of general slaughter and into a heap of ruins. The ministers of the French kings, Richelieu and Mazarin, again made the attempt of the Austrian Habsburgs fruitless: the Peace of Westphalia provided the Protestant states of Germany with freedom of religion.

From this moment, from among the Protestant princes, one royal house, dexterous and uncompromising, is advanced and strengthened in the sight of the Austrian Habsburgs, namely the Hohenzollerns, the electors of Brandenburg and the kings of Prussia. In the 18th century, the most prominent of the kings of this house, Frederick II, a remarkable commander, emerged victorious from two seven-year wars with Austria (1741-1748 and 1756-1763) and took Silesia from her.

The Austrian princes, who by the Peace of Utrecht acquired Milan and Flanders from Spain, and who during the sixteenth century inherited Bohemia and Hungary, had vast possessions, but they were scattered possessions, ruined by wars and taxes.

Incidentally, the whole of Germany was in this position; these wars killed commerce, industry, which had flourished so much during the Hanseatic League, and also the intellectual life, which began to develop so strongly towards the end of the Middle Ages.

Eastern Europe. 1 Türkiye. Having mastered Constantinople, the Turks, thanks to their religious fanaticism and powerful military organization, conquered all of southeastern Europe; in the 16th century they captured Hungary, and in the 17th century they besieged Vienna several times.

But being fanatical conquerors, they were unable to merge with the conquered Christian peoples; they were encamped, as it were, in the conquered country.

Therefore, when by the XVIII century. their fanaticism subsided a little and their army fell into decay. Austria, with its well-organized troops, prevailed and drove them out of Hungary.

2. Poland. The Poles, belonging to the Slavic tribe, like the Russians, but professing the Catholic religion, occupied the plain along both banks of the river during the Middle Ages. Vistula; they kept the feudal system in full force: the nobles and the clergy kept the peasants in cruel serfdom; they themselves were subject to the king they chose.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, Polish light cavalry held back Turkish raids several times and saved Vienna from their attack.

But internal strife, poor military organization, almost unchanged since the Middle Ages, made it possible for the neighboring great states, Prussia, Austria and Russia, to subject Poland to three successive partitions: in 1772, 1793 and 1795, and to strike it out of the number of independent states.

3. Sweden. Sweden in the 17th century, for some time, played a very important role: this Protestant country was involved, due to the religious fervor and pride of King Gustavus Adolphus, in the Thirty Years' War between German Catholics and Protestants, and it can even be said that Gustavus Adolphus, with his brilliant campaigns to Germany saved the Protestant cause at the moment when it seemed to be dying (1630).

This military enterprise, too long due to reckless indulgence, gave rise to a taste for military campaigns among the Swedish ruling classes. At the beginning of the XVIII century. King Charles XII, an unbridled adventurer, madly threw his country into a long struggle on the continent with the Russian Tsar, Peter the Great. Sweden, bleeding from these insane undertakings, quickly sank to the position of a minor power.

4. Russia.- But, the most important event in the history of Eastern Europe in this era is the transformation of Russia from an Asian country into a European country.

Until the 18th century, the Russians, with their long beards, their clothes, their women who hid their faces under a veil, their Muscovite tsars, their boyars who were beaten with a whip, their priests dependent on the Greek Church, and therefore heretical in in the eyes of Catholics and Protestants, looked in Europe as Asiatic barbarians.

European merchants who settled in Moscow gradually accustomed Muscovites to European life. At the end of the 18th century, Peter the Great, an energetic and intelligent tsar who grew up among the sons of European adventurers and merchants who settled in Moscow, became addicted to European civilization. He visited Europe twice and decided to dress his boyars in European clothes and force them to learn European customs; he managed to remake all administrative institutions, taking as a model those that existed in the absolute monarchies of Europe. From that moment on, Russia had at its disposal a navy, diplomacy, judicial hierarchy, financial officials, etc., in a word, all the mechanism that in modern states ensures the execution of the main public services by the government.

The most tangible result of this transformation was that the Russian tsars began to intervene in the feuds and wars of other European sovereigns. Catherine II (1762-1796), continuing the militant policy of Peter the Great, expanded the borders of Russia in the west about the possessions of Turkey, Poland and Sweden.

European progress in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries.- Despite the political and religious wars that stained Europe with blood and paralyzed the development of humanity, from the end of the 15th century. and until the end of the XVIII, it is still impossible to deny the real progress that has taken place during these three centuries in the mental and material spheres.

Material progress consists in the development of industry, trade, communications, navigation, and in the increase in the luxury of the rich classes.

Mental progress is reflected in the flourishing of numerous schools of painting in all countries, original national literature: the names of Michelangelo, Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, Murillo, Velasquez, Tenier, Rubens, Rembrandt, Shakespeare, Corneille, Racine, Moliere quite convincingly indicate that the darkness of the Middle Ages was scattered.

But especially in the scientific field, a continuously progressing development is revealed. The Frenchman Descartes establishes the method of the mathematical sciences; the Englishman Bacon - the method of experimental sciences; simultaneously with the establishment of methods, valuable inventions of instruments are being made: the Dutch optician Jansen invents a telescope and a microscope, thanks to which it was possible to study infinitely small bodies (1590); In 1609, the Italian Galileo arranged the first telescope and, with the help of it, began to study the celestial abyss, and almost immediately (1619) the German Kepler, and later the Englishman Newton (1689), established the great law that governs celestial bodies: the law of universal gravitation.

In 1643, the Italian Toricelli invents a barometer, which makes it possible to measure Atmosphere pressure; German Cornelius van Drebbel invents a thermometer that shows temperature changes; the German Otto Gerick invents a pneumatic machine (1650) or a pressure gauge used to measure the pressure of gases and vapors; Frenchman Denis Papin invents the first steam engine (1682). One begins to guess already about the applications of steam and electricity; but they do not yet go beyond the realm of mere attempts.

Science, that great international force that knows neither borders nor fratricidal hatred, inspired benevolent people with a premonition of a radiant future; and the French philosophers of the eighteenth century endowed all of Europe with their hope for the triumph of human reason over obsolete prejudices and social disasters, and Europe, listening to their voices, began to tremble in anticipation of a new era.

Chapter 12. FALSIFICATION OF HISTORY IN THE 17th-18th CENTURIES Russian history, which was established in the 17th-18th centuries, is generally incorrect. In particular, in the version of the Russian