Buzási Enikő szerk.: In Europe' Princely Courts, Ádám Mányoki, Actors and venues of a portraitist's career (A Magyar Nemzeti Galéria kiadványai 2003/1)
János Kalmár: POWER AND THE PRINCELY COURT IN EARLY 18th-CENTURY EUROPE
Carriage used for ceremonial processions, ca. 1740 Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum by having a new city, St. Petersburg, constructed along the Baltic Sea coast. Serving as his new residence, it superseded Moscow as the capital city. 30 ) Russia, however, was not satisfied with its hegemony over the Baltic region, and strove to expand its power to the coastal regions along the Black Sea, to the detriment of the Ottoman Empire. The invasion of the Crimean Tartars into Russian borderlands served as the casus belli in 1736. The peace signed at Belgrade in 1739 secured Russia a significant part of the steppe region along the shores of the Black Sea, although not a passage to the sea. The Russian government managed to draw the Habsburg Empire 31 into the war on its side. For the Habsburgs, however, the conflict ended with military defeat and a loss of territory: Oltenia and northern Serbia, including Belgrade, which the Habsburgs had acquired in the war of 1716/17, had to be turned over to the Ottoman Empire. 32 France, which had traditionally maintained good relations with the Turks, mediated the peace negotiations. In return the sultan received favourable trade conditions in the eastern basin of the Mediterranean. This diplomatic and economic success helped France to free itself from the isolation imposed by the Treaty of Utrecht. 33 Russia demonstrated its interests in not only the Baltics and the Black Sea region, but also in east-central Europe. During the Great Nordic War, Russia intervened in the question of succession to the Polish throne, 34 a matter once again at hand in 1733 with the death of the Russian-backed Augustus II (the Strong) (1703-1733), also the elector of Saxony. 35 The majority of the Polish nobility had chosen Stanislas Leszczynsky (1715/23-1774), the son-in-law 36 of Louis XV, the French king. But Russia and the Habsburg Monarchy - fearing French influence in the region - supported the deceased Augustus II's son, Frederick Augustus, the elector of Saxony. 37 Eventually it was Stanislas who triumphed in the struggle for the throne, ruling Poland as King Augustus III (1733-1763), although he spent most of his time in Dresden, the seat of his principality. The problems surrounding the succession of rule in the Habsburg Empire helped Prussia to achieve the status of a great power. 38 After the death of Emperor Charles VI in 1740, several powers, including Prussia, questioned the right of Maria Theresa (1740-1780), his daughter, to inherit the throne. The war of the Austrian succession was begun when Frederick II (the Great) of Prussia (1740-1786) invaded the Austrian crown land of Silesia in 1740, occupying nearly the entire territory. Before long the conflict had embroiled all of Europe and even North America. 39 The peace signed in Aachen in 1748 left Silesia in Prussia's hands, thereby confirming the significant economic and territorial losses suffered by the Austrian House. 40 Nevertheless Maria Theresa managed to have her husband, Francis Stephen of Lorraine, elected ruler of the Holy Roman Empire following the death in 1745 of the Bavarian elector, who had only just assumed the throne at the start of the war. This is all that saved the Habsburg Empire's status as a great power in the midst of the territorial losses of the previous years. 41 What fundamentally shaped the power structure in Europe were the conflicts outlined above and the pursuant peace agreements. Leopold von Ranke, the great German historian, had already recognised the decisive role of five countries in his study of 1833. 42 In addition to France and the Habsburg Empire, which were already considered great powers, the list contained the new powers of Great Britain (Utrecht), Russia (Nystad) and Prussia (Aachen). The small and middle powers of the period had to search for a niche in the force field created by the five. Alliances were constantly being modified according to the neecis of the moment, but the common interests of the big five, in which all of Europe was enmeshed, continued to exist, and were decisive. This is why even contemporaries were already referring to this as a system of power (in Latin: systema), an expression which prior to the 18 th century had not been used in this sense; it came into usage in the field of political science as an adaptation from Christian Wolff (1679-1754), a German philosopher and legal scholar. 43 THE EUROPEAN PRINCELY COURTS Power was exercised - in the 18 th century for the last time - by the royal court, which played a role as administrative centre too. It was there that wars were decided on and peace treaties were ratified. At that time Versailles/Paris, Vienna, London, Saint Petersburg, and Berlin were the primary political, representative, and cultural centres, while the residences of the lesser powers also played the same role on their own levels.
