Ivan The Great Centralization Analysis

The sovereign state in Russia developed under the influence of Ivan the Great (III) and Ivan the Terrible (IV), who are known as the two key figures in the process of centralization. When Ivan III began/started his reign Moscow had become the political and religious centre of Russia (Dukes, 1998, p.42). One of the major contributions in the centralization process were made by Ivan the Great since he took part in the ingathering process of Russian lands and thus, expanded and centralize the Muscovite state and consequently ended the period of Appanage Rus (Ziegler, 1999). He conquered new territories and distributed these to loyal army officers which in return had to support him in military campaigns; accordingly with this. In 1480 Ivan ended foreign conquests of Russia by raising the military apparatus and defeating the Mongols. Furthermore, in 1497 a national law code called Sudebnik was emerged by Ivan III. A united judicial authority was therefore created in central and

Ziegler (1999) examined that Peters more significant actions to establish the state mainly consisted of the emergence of a representative legislature. Furthermore, he improved the Russian military by generating the Baltic Fleet and increasing the military apparatus to strengthen the state and make it internationally compatible. The focus on war-making and competition with Europe made St. Petersburg the strategic capital city as a ‘window to the West’. Such a link to Western states and societies generated the act of Russia increasingly applying European war technologies and strategies onto its own state. Peter, therefore, modernized Russia geographically, due to the possibility to expand with a strong military and being a valuable competitor, nevertheless, he disregarded European liberal ideologies for the state (Ziegler,