The Great Empires of the 19th Century and Their Political and Social Challenges

1. What it was the great empires of the 1800s and which characters they?

What were the great empires of the 1800s?

In the east-central part we have the presence of two great empires: the Austrian and Russian. While much of the Balkan peninsula is occupied by the Ottoman Empire. It is actually very different between them, which however have some common elements:

- Being political entities and therefore the vast multi-ethnic character

- The difficulties encountered in these empires contain national demands for independence of peoples and individuals

- The overall economic and political backwardness, the lags behind the development of the economy and the institutions of the major Western powers, France and England

2. What it was the Eastern Question ?; as it appeared the Ottoman Empire? When and why the war broke out in the Crimea? As ended? Why it had great importance especially for Italy?

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The Eastern Question

It is in the Balkans that opened the Eastern Question. This consisted in the issue of the political and military regions under the Ottoman Empire. The problem became more dramatic as the Empire itself was weakening and crumbling. This weakening resulted from backwardness empire, by its inability to hold its own against the Western powers. Consequently they became increasingly strong pressures for independence from the various nationalities subject to the domain turkish. It was in fact an area of ​​great commercial and military importance. The first major conflict was born on this land was the Crimean War (1854-56), caused by the Russian attempt to seize the Danubian principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia. Britain and France rallied to the defense of Turkey, defeating Russia in a bloody conflict, in which he for the first time appeared the modern trench warfare. A small advantage it obtained also the Piedmont, thanks to its contribution could attend the congress of Paris posing the question of Italian independence.

3. How was characterized backwardness of Russia in the nineteenth century? What was the condition of the peasants? What events contributed to the abolition, in 1861, of serfdom? What reforms introduced Tsar Alexander II?

Russia's delay in the 19th century

It was a fragile economic and organizational, even before the military. The Russian Empire was the largest state and most populous in the world, but was saddled with a heavy backwardness in all fields. The economy was almost exclusively agricultural, and 90% of the population lived in the countryside. Russia still dominated serfdom. They were forever linked to the land and how this could be sold and mortgaged; from the legal point of view, they were subject to the justice of the Lord. Among many intellectuals and statesmen came the idea that serfdom was the main cause of the backwardness of Russia. Among many doubts and resistance, was finally abolished by Tsar Alexander II in 1861 at the outset of his reign Alexander II followed a line of reform, other important measures were:

- The reduction of military service (which was a draw) from 25 to 16 years, and 6 years later

- Easing press censorship

- The creation of provincial and municipal elected assemblies, in which the nobility had a dominant role

- The reform of the judiciary, that unified the courts for all citizens

4. What was the situation of the Habsburg Empire? Which had repercussions on it unification Italian and German? What structure assumed in 1867?

The situation of the Austro-Hungarian Empire

The Habsburg Empire walked in the same year the first phase of a slow but steady decline. Austria was put in difficulty by the need to preserve prestige before emerging Prussian power and, at the same time, to maintain order by force between the nationalities of the empire. All operations that fared poorly: the Italian unification (1861), involved for Austria the loss of Lombardy and hegemony on the peninsula; German unity (1871) meant the marginalization within the Germanic. Meanwhile, dissatisfaction of Magyars, Bohemians, Slavs constituted a constantly open wound. In an attempt to solve or at least mitigate the problem of nationality, he shook the monarchy in 1867 a compromise with the strongest of these, the Magyars. The Empire, in essence, was divided into two kingdom ("dual monarchy"), with their own governments and parliaments but unified by the imperial and government ministries, key in common.