Debts, Reforms, Wars. Russia's public finances during the Napoleonic Wars, 1796-1816.

• Applicant: Dr. Benjamin Conrad
• Subject Area: Modern and Contemporary History
• Term: from 2014 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 267276794

The project Debts, Reforms, Wars. Russia s public finances during the Napoleonic Wars, 1796-1816 concentrates on the development of public finances in the Russian Empire in the transitional period from early modern to modern times. Its main focus is on the functioning of the Empire. At the time of Catherine the Great s death in 1796 the debts of the Russian state already amounted to 158 million rubles in assignats and 40 million rubles to foreign creditors. By 1815, however, the debts had even risen to the value of 825 million rubles in assignats. Finance ministers and officials tried to reform the public finances several times, but they found no other way to cover the enormous costs of the wars than to issue more assignats. Thus, the Empire got into an unprecedented situation of debt and forced modernization. Despite this increasingly serious situation in the area of public finances Russia, unlike many German states of the early modern period, did not go bankrupt. The state survived this deep crisis although it struggled with the effects up until the 1840s. This project focuses on four dimensions. The aim of the first dimension is to study the unsuccessful attempts of the Russian financial policy to establish a balance between state income and expenses. The second dimension discusses the way institutions were reorganized around 1800, the political measures seen as rational and the problems that occurred in practice. The objective of the third dimension is to establish a link between financial history on the one hand and social and political history on the other hand. It aims to identify the social and political leeway of players and to examine the state creditors. This dimension also analyses the officials of the Russian Ministry of Finance founded in 1802. The fourth dimension focuses on two selected local authorities. The aim of the project is to fill a gap in the internal development of Russia after Catherine the Great s reforms, which have been studied in detail.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants