Both Catherine the Great and Peter the Great sought to enhance and further Russia’s international position. This I believe is most consistent with classical realism as they both sought to place their country in a more powerful position, through the expansion of both their state abroad and within their nation-state. These readers without a doubt westernized Russia, but were limited by the constraints of the Russian culture and power structure.
The first issue I would tackles is the attempt of Peter the Great to establish Russia as a formidable regional power by taking the traditional metrics of power such as a more centralized government and modernizing the Russian military. In addition, to these reforms he sought to westernize Russia in other ways, whether it was the dress of those in the Russian courts, the establishing of Western style education and creating a state that effectively raised revenue. With that being said Peter would expand taxes, which would prove to be particularly burdensome for peasants (Riansovsky 234). But this was necessary so that Peter could
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Much like Peter she was bent on establishing naval bases for the Russian navy and was able to once again secure ports as Russia annexed Crimea and land along the Black Sea from the Ottoman Empire.
An excellent example of this was Catherine the Great as she sought to emulate the West, by releasing statements in support of Western ideals of human rights. But in reality she also expanded serfdom and violently crushed peasant revolutions. This shows, that although Catherine may have wanted to emulate western culture, she also wanted to maintain her power and would crush these uprisings at the cost of these values. She also pursued alliances with Austria and Prussia to partition Poland, and expanded serfdom into this newly acquired