The groups of interest at Elisabeth Petrowna’s court : A study to analyse the position of a monarch in an absolutistic system
Abstract
The study pursues the problem to whom the Russian monarch Elisabeth Petrowna (1709-1762) gave the power to rule over the land and to which point those groups of interest made the most important decisions. Further questions, which are being discussed in this study, are to which point the court groups influenced tsarina Elisabeth Petrowna, how they varied in social origin and foreign policy, to which point they effected the personal changes in the government and the differences between these groups and similar groups active at other courts, mostly the Austrian and Prussian court.
Those questions are tightly bound with the question of the position of foreigners at court and in the administration, meaning what impact xenophobic beliefs had on the composition of these groups of interest, and finally how the number of foreigners in the most important ranks sank.