THAT FASCINATING ST. PETERSBURG
CORONATION OF CATHERINE I. Fragment of I. Zubov's engraving. Early 18th century. "I admit I could never expect to find the court here as splendid as that..," confided Friedrich Wilhelm Bergholz, gentleman of the bedchamber at the embassy of the Duke of Holstein in Russia under Czar Peter the Great (Peter I, 1689 - 1725). Such compliments fit squarely with the opinion of all foreign visitors to our country in the 18th century, as she was out to assert her status of a great power. Pages. 52 Czar Peter I assumed an emperor's title in 1721, and the following year he issued a legislative enactment that became known as the Table of Ranks and that particularized military, civilian and court ranks and offices. Such kind of hierarchy was no news to Russia; but the reformation-minded crown filled it with fresh substance by opting for Western models rather than Byzantine splendor. The court staffs kept growing meanwhile. That was true of the "big" (czarist) and "small" courts (i.e. those of most august family members) alike. And so grew their maintenance costs. Thus, in 1785 as much as 3 million roubles was spent on the courts and retinue (compare: the sum total of the taxes collected every year from the privately owned landed estates was slightly above 5.5 million roubles). That was an exorbitant sum in those days. Was all of it spent on courtiers? Hardly. In fact, they were short of money all through the 18th century. For instance, during the reign of Empress Elizabeth (Yelizaveta Petrovna, 1741 - 1761/62) a maid of honor of the bedchamber got 1,000 roubles in salary, a maid of honor - 600 roubles, and pages of the bedchamber - a mere 110 - 140 roubles. Some categories of courtiers (like ladies-in-waiting, for instance) had to perform their duties gratis, without any emoluments. There were also numerous servants, retainers and men-all those stokers, boiler-men, grooms, sta-bleboys, tablecloth-makers, coopers, cooks, vodka distillers, confectioners, pastry-cooks, footmen, ... Читать далее
____________________

Эта публикация была размещена на Либмонстре в другой стране и показалась интересной редакторам.

Полная версия: http://libmonster.ru/m/articles/view/THAT-FASCINATING-ST-PETERSBURG
Точикистон Онлайн · 2270 days ago 0 3945
Professional Authors' Comments:
Order by: 
Per page: 
 
  • There are no comments yet
Library guests comments




Actions
Rate
0 votes
Publisher
Точикистон Онлайн
Душанбе, Tajikistan
27.09.2018 (2270 days ago)
Link
Permanent link to this publication:

https://library.tj/blogs/entry/THAT-FASCINATING-ST-PETERSBURG


© library.tj
 
Library Partners

LIBRARY.TJ - Digital Library of Tajikistan

Create your author's collection of articles, books, author's works, biographies, photographic documents, files. Save forever your author's legacy in digital form.
Click here to register as an author.
THAT FASCINATING ST. PETERSBURG
 

Contacts
Chat for Authors: TJ LIVE: We are in social networks:

About · News · For Advertisers

Digital Library of Tajikistan ® All rights reserved.
2019-2024, LIBRARY.TJ is a part of Libmonster, international library network (open map)
Keeping the heritage of Tajikistan


LIBMONSTER NETWORK ONE WORLD - ONE LIBRARY

US-Great Britain Sweden Serbia
Russia Belarus Ukraine Kazakhstan Moldova Tajikistan Estonia Russia-2 Belarus-2

Create and store your author's collection at Libmonster: articles, books, studies. Libmonster will spread your heritage all over the world (through a network of branches, partner libraries, search engines, social networks). You will be able to share a link to your profile with colleagues, students, readers and other interested parties, in order to acquaint them with your copyright heritage. After registration at your disposal - more than 100 tools for creating your own author's collection. It is free: it was, it is and always will be.

Download app for Android