1E - Changes to society: the importance of landownership and the gentry
Catherine's reign expanded noble rights, educational opportunities and state control over religion. The benefits were uneven: an educated and privileged elite developed above a largely rural population whose dependence on landowners continued.
Landownership sustained the gentry
The gentry, or landowning nobility, derived wealth and local authority from estates and the peasants attached to them. Land provided agricultural produce, income and status. Landlords' control over labour and dues linked economic resources to social power. Estates also supported the officers and officials on whom the monarchy depended.
Peter III had removed the normal compulsory service obligation in 1762. Catherine retained that concession. Nobles who stayed on their estates could therefore enjoy privilege without Peter the Great's expectation of lifelong compulsory service. Others continued to seek salaries, promotions and patronage in state service. The monarchy still needed their cooperation, especially where it lacked enough paid officials to administer the countryside independently.
Catherine rewarded supporters with estates and peasants and involved nobles more closely in local government. This created a reciprocal relationship: the crown protected noble status and property, while the nobility supplied support and personnel. It also placed a political limit on reform of serfdom, because reducing landlords' power could alienate an important governing group.
The nobility was not economically uniform. Large aristocratic landowners possessed resources far beyond those of small provincial nobles. Landownership and legal privilege gave them common interests, but estate size, location, debts and access to patronage affected how much benefit individual nobles gained. Avoid treating every noble as equally rich or every peasant estate as identical.
The Charter to the Nobility of 1785
The Charter to the Nobility consolidated the privileged position of nobles. It confirmed hereditary status, rights to property and freedom from the normal compulsory service obligation. It protected nobles from corporal punishment and secured important tax exemptions. It also recognised corporate organisation through provincial and district noble assemblies, giving landowners a formal means of conducting collective affairs and electing local representatives.
This was more than an informal favour to particular courtiers. Privileges were given a general legal framework for the estate of nobility. The charter strengthened nobles' confidence that property and status would be protected, while their assemblies helped supply local administration. It did not establish a national parliament sharing sovereignty with Catherine.
For serfs, the contrast was sharp. Landlords' privileged rights were confirmed, while privately owned peasants gained no parallel charter of freedom. The arrangement strengthened the alliance between autocracy and the gentry. It was therefore possible for noble liberty to increase while the population as a whole remained highly unequal.
Education as a way to reshape society
Catherine and her adviser Ivan Betskoi regarded education as a means of improving morals and social behaviour, rather than simply providing job skills. Betskoi believed children could be educated away from harmful existing habits and grow into a better generation. This connected Enlightenment confidence in improvement with the state's desire for useful, orderly subjects.
The Smolny Institute, founded in 1764 in St Petersburg, educated girls, especially from noble and service families. It offered a new state-supported opportunity for female education. Its aims included forming educated mothers and participants in polite society. That was a significant change in opportunity, but did not amount to equal professional or political rights for women. Its social reach was limited, and education reinforced expectations about family roles as well as extending knowledge.
Later reforms moved beyond isolated institutions. The school statute of 1786 provided a system of major schools in provincial towns and minor schools in district towns, with a more organised curriculum and teacher preparation. The government drew on European experience to encourage schooling. The plan still faced shortages of teachers, funds and willing or available pupils. Rural distance, poverty and children's labour made access especially difficult for peasants.
Education therefore changed Russia unevenly. Nobles, urban inhabitants and the small reading public gained more opportunities than much of the rural population. The growth of printing, learned societies and literary activity widened discussion, but it could also create criticism the ruler disliked. Education could serve the state and help subjects judge it; those effects were not always compatible.
Religion under stronger state supervision
Catherine's religious policy combined state control with selective toleration. In 1764 she secularised monastic and other Church lands, bringing their revenues and dependent peasants under state administration. The Church's financial dependence on the government increased, while former Church peasants became state-administered peasants. This changed their obligations and ownership relationship; it did not make the whole peasant population freely equal or abolish privately owned serfdom.
The Holy Synod continued the Petrine system of governing the Orthodox Church under the monarchy. The crown could therefore present itself as the defender of Orthodoxy while reducing ecclesiastical economic independence. Arsenii, the bishop of Rostov who opposed secularisation, was removed. The handling of his opposition illustrates how strongly the state defended control over Church resources.
Catherine also reduced some forms of religious persecution. The toleration edict of 1773 recognised Muslim religious practice, and later official Muslim institutions helped connect religious communities to imperial administration. Greater toleration could support Enlightenment ideals, reduce resistance and make governing a diverse empire easier. Those motives could operate together.
However, toleration was bounded by imperial interests and Orthodox privilege. It did not mean complete equality of religions or a modern separation of religion from government. Policies towards Catholics, Jews, Old Believers and Greek Catholics differed, especially in newly acquired territories. The state's wish to organise and supervise communities persisted even where worship was tolerated.
Whose society changed most?
The answer depends on the group and the criterion. Noble legal privileges and collective institutions strengthened; some girls and townspeople gained new educational opportunities; and the state altered the economic position of the Church. These are real changes, but they do not demonstrate that all subjects became freer.
Consider the claim that Catherine created a more enlightened society. Smolny and the 1786 school arrangements support it when enlightenment means increased organised learning. Religious toleration supports it when the criterion is reduced coercion in some communities. The claim needs qualification where enlightenment means equal rights or freedom from inherited dependence: the Charter to the Nobility and persistence of serfdom show the opposite distribution of benefits.
A supported judgement is that Catherine promoted cultural and administrative improvement within an unequal order. Her reliance on the gentry helped make reforms possible, while also constraining their social reach. Change and continuity were connected: reform strengthened selected institutions partly by preserving the privileged group needed to run them.