Which of the following best explains the point of view toward Peter the Great that Voltaire expresses?

journal article

Slavic Review

Vol. 37, No. 1 (Mar., 1978)

, pp. 51-69 (19 pages)

Published By: Cambridge University Press

https://doi.org/10.2307/2494906

https://www.jstor.org/stable/2494906

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Journal Information

Slavic Review is an international interdisciplinary journal devoted to the study of eastern Europe, Russia, the Caucasus, and Central Asia, past and present.

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Cambridge University Press (www.cambridge.org) is the publishing division of the University of Cambridge, one of the world’s leading research institutions and winner of 81 Nobel Prizes. Cambridge University Press is committed by its charter to disseminate knowledge as widely as possible across the globe. It publishes over 2,500 books a year for distribution in more than 200 countries. Cambridge Journals publishes over 250 peer-reviewed academic journals across a wide range of subject areas, in print and online. Many of these journals are the leading academic publications in their fields and together they form one of the most valuable and comprehensive bodies of research available today. For more information, visit http://journals.cambridge.org.

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"Concerning the Times of Assembling at Church: That the churches be closed for the rest of the time [outside the time of services], in order that no one shall enter therein out of hours, impelled there to by superstition; and if anyone be found engaged in any special act of devotion therein or nearby he shall be admonished for it; if it be found to be of a superstitious nature for which simple correction is inadequate, then he shall be chastised.
Drunkenness: That taverns shall be closed during the sermon, under penalty that the tavern-keeper shall pay three sous, and whoever may be found therein shall pay the same amount.
If anyone be found intoxicated he shall pay for the first offense three sous and shall be remanded to the consistory [church council or governing body].
That no one shall make roiaumes [popular festivals] under penalty of 10 sous.
Songs and Dances: If anyone sings immoral, dissolute or outrageous songs, or dances the virollet or otherdance, he shall be put in prison for three days and then sent to the consistory.
Usury: That no one shall take interest or profit of more than five percent, upon penalty of confiscation of the principal and of being condemned to make restitution as the case may demand."
Ordinances of Calvinist Geneva, 1547
A historian could best use the ordinance about usury as an example of

"Among the various species or modifications of liberty, of which on different occasions we have heard so much in England, I do not recollect ever seeing any thing yet offered on behalf of the liberty of making one's own terms in money lending....No man of ripe years and of sound mind, acting freely, and with his eyes open, ought to be hindered, with a view to his advantage, from making such bargain, in the way of obtaining money, as he thinks fit: nor, (what is a necessary consequence) any body hindered from supplying him, upon any terms he thinks proper to accede to.... You, who fetter contracts; you, who lay restraints on the liberty of man, it is for you to assign a reason for your doing so."
Jeremy Bentham, Defence of Usury [Charging of Interest], 1787
Bentham's argument exemplifies which of the following processes at work in eighteenth-century Europe?

"You should know that the said King of Portugal has leased this island to Christians for ten years, so that no one can enter the bay to trade with the Arabs save those who hold the license. These Christians have dwellings on the island and factories where they buy and sell with the said Arabs who come to the coast to trade for merchandise of various kinds, such as woolen cloths, cotton, silver and coarse cloth, that is cloaks, carpets, and similar articles and above all grain, for they are always short of food. The Arabs give in exchange slaves whom the Arabs bring from the land of the Blacks, and gold dust. The King therefore caused a castle to be built on the island to protect this trade forever. For this reason, Portuguese caravels come and go all year long to this island."
Alvise de Ca'da Mosto, Venetian merchant, describing the Portuguese island of Arguim off the west coast of Africa, 1454
The Portuguese slave trade described in the passage led most directly to which of the following ?

"Peter the Great was allowed to engage several English engineers into his service, as he had done in Holland; but, over and above engineers, he engaged likewise some mathematicians, which he would not so easily have found in Amsterdam. Ferguson, a Scotchman, an excellent geometrician, entered into his service, and was the first person who brought arithmetic into use in the exchequer in Russia, where before that time, they made use only of the Tartarian method of reckoning, with balls strung upon a wire [an abacus]....He took with him two young students from a mathematical school, and this was the beginning of the marine academy.... Peter made himself proficient in astronomy, [and] he perfectly well understood the motions of the heavenly bodies, as well as the laws of gravitation, by which they are directed. This force, now so evidently demonstrated, and before the time of the great Newton so little known, by which all the planets gravitate towards each other, and which retain them in their orbits, had already become familiar to a sovereign of Russia, while other countries amused themselves with imaginary theories, and, in Galileo's nation, one set of ignorant persons ordered others, as ignorant, to believe the earth to be immovable."
Voltaire, History of the Russian Empire Under Peter the Great, 1759, discussing Tsar Peter I's Grand Embassy, which traveled to western Europeat the end of the seventeenth century
Voltaire's discussion of Peter the Great's acceptance of Newtonian physics is best understood as a critique of which of the following?

"Let London manufacture those fabrics of hers to her heart's content; Holland her chambrays [a fine lightweight woven fabric]; Florence her cloth; the Indies their beaver and vicuña [wool]; Milan her brocades; Italy and Flanders their linens, so long as our capital can enjoy them. The only thing it proves is that all nations train journeymen for Madrid and that Madrid is the queen of Parliaments, for all the world serves her and she serves nobody."
Alfonso Núñez de Castro, nobleman, Spain, 1675
"The Spanish nation today possesses the greatest wealth and the largest income of all the Christians. But the love of luxury and the comforts of civilization have overcome them, and you will rarely find one of this nation who engages in trade or travels abroad for commerce as do the other Christian nations such as the Dutch, the English, the French, the Genoese and their like. Similarly, the handicrafts practiced by the lower classes and common people are despised by this nation, which regards itself as superior to the other Christian nations. Most of those who practice these crafts in Spain are Frenchmen who flock to Spain to look for work and in a short time make great fortunes."
Muhammad al-Ghassani, Moroccan ambassador to Spain, circa 1690
Which of the following best describes the impact that the economic and political processes described in the passages would have in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries?

"I was called to England to be the arbitrator and mediator between King James and his subjects. . . . Had King James not formed the design of imposing his own religion upon all his subjects, it may be said that he would still be on the throne, but the ambition of making himself absolute and of imitating the actions of a powerful King, without possessing the same means and the same force, brought down upon himself those terrible misfortunes. . . . At the same time, these rebellious people, seeking a powerful Protector and a disinterested mediator, unfortunately cast their eyes upon me, and solicited my presence in England, and my help in securing their religious freedom.
I was in Holland, at the head of a powerful force. . . . In a short time, I found myself in London, absolute master of all things, not one of King James's subjects having had the courage or the fidelity to strike a blow in his favor. Under these conditions, in the midst of a furious people, burning with wrath against their King, I sent him secret notice to save himself, out of an excess of consideration and tenderness. I favored his flight and facilitated his departure [from England] and then, ignoring the services I had rendered him, he excited [the king of France] against me.
The Convention [Parliament] offered me the scepter, and forced me to accept it. It also forced me, in spite of myself, to allow myself to be proclaimed King, and constrained me to obey the irregularity of its election. I found myself the recipient of a crown which I am ready to renounce for the public tranquility, and for nearly five years I have reigned with that understanding."
Diplomatic correspondence from King William III of England to Pope Innocent XII, 1693
William's letter to Pope Innocent is best explained as an attempt to justify which of the following?

"At about this time there came to my notice the harm and havoc that were being wrought in France by these Lutherans [Protestants] and the way in which their unhappy sect was increasing. This troubled me very much, and, as though I could do anything, or be of any help in the matter, I wept before the Lord and entreated Him to remedy this great evil. I felt that I would have laid down a thousand lives to save a single one of all the souls that were being lost there.
And, seeing that I was a woman, and a sinner, and incapable of doing all I should like in the Lord's service, and as my whole yearning was, and still is, that, as He has so many enemies and so few friends, these last should be trusty ones, I determined to do the little that was in me—namely, to follow the evangelical counsels as perfectly as I could, and to see that these few nuns who are here should do the same, confiding in the great goodness of God, Who never fails to help those who resolve to forsake everything for his sake. . . . Thou, o God, did not despise women, but did always help them and show great compassion. Thou did find more faith and no less love in them than in men, and one of them was Thy most sacred Mother, from whose merits we derive merit, and whose habit we wear, though our sins make us unworthy to do so."
St. Teresa of Ávila, Spanish nun, The Way of Perfection, 1577
Which of the following was the likely purpose of St. Teresa's Way of Perfection?

"Assume, O men of the German lands, that ancient spirit of yours with which you so often confounded and terrified the Romans and turn your eyes to the frontiers of Germany; collect her torn and broken territories. Let us be ashamed, ashamed I say, to have placed upon our nation the yoke of slavery. . . . O free and powerful people, O noble and valiant race. . . . To such an extent are we corrupted by Italian sensuality and by fierce cruelty in extracting filthy profit that it would have been far more holy and reverent for us to practice that rude and rustic life of old, living within the bounds of self-control, than to have imported the paraphernalia of sensuality and greed which are never sated, and to have adopted foreign customs."
Conrad Celtis, oration delivered at the University of Ingolstadt, 1492
The passage above most clearly shows the influence of which of the following trends in fifteenth-century Europe?

"If the [Catholic clergy], so long paid and honored for abusing the human species, ordered us today to believe that...the world is immovable on its foundations,... that the tides are not a natural effect of gravitation, that the rainbow is not formed by the refraction and the reflection of rays of light, and so on, and if they based their [arguments] on passages poorly understood from the Holy Bible, how would educated men regard these commands? And if they used force and persecution to enforce their insolent stupidity, would the term 'wild beasts' seem too extreme [to describe them]?...
This little globe of ours, which is no more than a point, rolls, together with many other globes, in that immensity of space in which we are lost. Man, who is an animal about five feet high, is certainly a very inconsiderable part of the creation; but one of those hardly visible beings says to another of the same kind who inhabits another spot on the globe: 'Listen to me, for the God of all these worlds has enlightened me. There are about nine hundred millions of us little insects who inhabit the earth, but my ant-hill alone is cherished by God who holds all the rest in horror for all eternity; those who live with me upon my spot will alone be happy, and all the rest eternally wretched.' . . . What madman could have made so ridiculous a speech?"
Voltaire, A Treatise on Toleration, 1763
Compared with Luther's sixteenth-century critique of the Roman Catholic Church, Voltaire's critique in the first paragraph of the passage is

"Anno Domini 1618, a great comet appeared in November. To see the thing was terrible and strange, and it moved me and changed my disposition so that I started to write, because I thought that it meant something big would occur, as then really did happen. . . . Anno Domini 1619, Ferdinand became the Holy Roman Emperor, under whom a great persecution happened through war, unrest, and the spilling of the blood of Christians. . . . First, he started a big war in Bohemia, which he then oppressed and subjugated under his religion, then almost the whole of Germany was conquered, all of which I can hardly describe and explain."
Hans Herberle, shoemaker in Ulm, southern Germany, personal chronicle compiled in the 1630s
The ability of someone of Herberle's social status in seventeenth-century Germany to read and write was most likely the result of which of the following?

Sets with similar terms

Which of the following best explains why Protestant reformers sometimes come into conflict with Protestant rulers of the states in which they lived?

Which of the following best explains Briand's view as expressed in the passage?

Which would best explain why appeals such as the one in the passage had a limited effect on German public opinion in the 1930s?

Which of the following was the fundamental justification for the Jesuit establishment of missions like the one described in the excerpt?