Were Enlightened Monarchs Truly Enlightened Or Was Their Enlightenment Merely A Machiavellian Tactic?

Many places that were enlightened during around the Enlightened Age were actually absolute monarchs. The question here is where these monarchs lead by truly enlightened leaders or were they just using a scheme to promote themselves and to keep their positions. It is hard to tell which Catherine the Great is. To find out, you must look at her personality, situation, foreign policies, and economical, social, and political domestic policies. By looking at these, you can see she was, for the most part, enlightened to her in her reign of power and to gain support.

Catherine was a Polish princess who was arranged to marry a Russian czar named Peter. Catherine despised her marriage. She had many lovers and affairs which was costly since she gave her loves high official positions and lavish lifestyles. Catherine plotted against her husband to murder him. She was later on the Russian throne illegally. She then needed the support of the nobles to stay in power and maintain her lavished life. To get their support she gave them tax exemptions. Because of this, she would need to get more money from the serfs. To make sure the serfs' tax money was collected, she also gave the nobles more status and complete control over their serfs and local governments. This strengthened serfdom and gave nobles more power over their areas. Although she condemned serfdom in theory, it was strengthened in her reign.

She was enlightened in her own life since she wrote plays read Voltaire and Boyle. She continued to support and bring in Western culture, literature, and arts. Catherine always spoke her mind and loved to talk about opinions and ideas. She gathered up information about Russia and tried to modernize it. She even published the Encyclopedia in Russia. This proved to be the enlightened side of her.

Economically, Catherine tried to set up a system to eliminate trade barriers like taxes and tariffs. She also worked hard to build up the Russian middle class. She worked hard to build up productivity and wealth. If her country was wealthy, she in turn would also accumulate more wealth and become a retreat to neighboring nations.

Catherine created a unified set of codified and centralized laws. She created provinces and districts in rural areas to make the government more manageable. She reformed the justice system, but this was merely a Machiavellian policy. She abolished judicial torture and gave more religious tolerance, but went against these ideas whenever it benefited her.

Catherine was also religiously tolerant, to a certain extent. But even within her toleration, she had her restrictions and beliefs. Although tolerance is an enlightened idea, this was a Machiavellian tactic to maintain power within her empire and to create more wealth for herself. She allowed certain religions, such as the Calvinist (which were the business or commercial class). They were able to build up the economy and create a middle class.

She improved the education system to better the economy. She built up schools and universities.