Editing Anna of Russia (section)

==Empress of Russia==
[[File:Ministers Cabinet of Empress Anna Ivanovna.png|250px|thumb|right|Cabinet Ministers of Empress Anna Ivanovna, painting by [[Valery Jacobi]]{{efn|In Jacobi's ironic and critical historical pastiche, the thoroughly Frenchified ministers, their weaknesses symbolized by crutches and a rolling invalid's chair, are dominated by the absent presence of the Empress, through her empty seat at table and her shadowed portrait looming on the wall; at right a courtier behind the screen eavesdrops on the proceedings.}}]]
[[File:Jesters of empress Anna Ioanovna by V.Jacobi (1872).jpg|thumb|right|250px|Court jesters of Empress Anna Ivanovna; painting by [[Valery Jacobi]]]]
Anna continued to lavish architectural advances in St. Petersburg.{{sfn|Longworth|1972|p=111}}  She completed a waterway that began construction under Peter the Great and called for seafaring ships to accompany this new canal and continue naval expansion.{{sfn|Longworth|1972|p=112}} Anna's lover [[Ernst Johann von Biron]] was a Baltic German and due to his influence [[Baltic Germans]] were favored with government offices, leading to the resentment of the ethnic Russian nobility, though the American historian Walter Moss cautioned that the popular image of the ''Bironovschina''  as one of total Baltic German domination of Russia is exaggerated.{{sfn|Moss|1997|p=254}}

===Cadet Corps===
Anna founded the [[Cadet Corps (Russia)|Cadet Corps]] in 1731, one year after coming to the throne. The Cadet Corps was a group of young boys starting at the age of eight being trained for the military.  It incorporated a very rigorous training program which included all the schooling necessary for someone to hold an important position in the military. As time went on, the program was improved upon by other emperors and empresses, such as Catherine the Great. These began to include the arts and sciences into cadets' schooling, alongside established studies of military topics.{{Citation needed|date=January 2021}}

===Academy of Science===
Anna continued to fund the [[Russian Academy of Science]], started by Peter the Great.{{sfn|Lipski|1959|p=2}} This school was designed to further the sciences in Russia, in order to help the country reach the level of the Western countries of that period. Some of the subjects  taught were mathematics, astronomy, and botany. The Academy of Science was also responsible for many expeditions; a notable example was the Bering Sea Expedition.{{sfn|Lipski|1959|p=2}} While attempting to determine if America and Asia had been at one point connected, Siberia and its people was also studied. These studies were referenced long after the expedition returned from Siberia.{{sfn|Lipski|1959|p=2}}
The academy suffered interference from outside parties. Frequently the government and the church would meddle with funding and experimentation, altering data to match their respective points of view.{{sfn|Lipski|1959|p=2}}
This school of science was very small, never exceeding a population of twelve students in the university and barely over a hundred in the secondary school. Still, it was a huge step forward for education in Russia. Many of the teachers and professors were imported from Germany, bringing a Western viewpoint to instruction students received. Some of the students taught by these German professors later became advisors or teachers to future leaders, such as Catherine the Great's tutor, Adodurov.{{sfn|Lipski|1959|p=4}}
During Anna's reign the Academy of Science began to include the Arts into the program, as there was no school for the arts yet, and the Empress was a firm supporter of the arts. Theatre, architecture, engraving, and journalism were all added to the curriculum.{{sfn|Lipski|1959|p=5}} It was during this time the foundation of what is now the world-famous Russian Ballet was laid down.{{sfn|Lipski|1956|p=488}}

===The Secret Office of Investigation===
Anna resurrected the Secret Office of Investigation, whose purpose was to punish those convicted of political crimes, although some cases were occasionally taken that were not of a political nature.{{sfn|Lipski|1956|p=481}} It has been rumored since Anna's reign that Biron was the power behind the Secret Office of Investigation when in fact it was run by the senator A. I. Ushakov. The punishments meted out for the convicted were often very painful and disgusting. For example, some people that had supposedly been plotting against the government had their noses slit in addition to being beaten with the [[knout]].{{sfn|Lipski|1956|p=482}} Russian authorities listed a total of around 20,000 Russians—including some of the highest native nobility—who fell victim to Biron and Anna's police.{{sfn|Baynes|1878}}

=== Office for the Affairs of New Converts ===
The government under Anna established an Office for the Affairs of New Converts in 1740 to expand the conversion to Orthodoxy. The office which was situated in the Bogoroditsky Monastery in [[Kazan]] was staffed by monks and aided by state authorities. Under the empress' decree, they presided under a huge increase in conversions, where converts were provided goods and cash in return for a "reward for accepting baptism". However, intimidation and violence also played a role in conversions, as a [[Chuvash people|Chuvash]] petition described how the clergy "mercilessly beat them and baptized them against their will". In addition, hundreds of mosques were destroyed. By the 1750s, over 400,000 pagans and Muslims had converted.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Werth |first=Paul W. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JWHwAgAAQBAJ |title=The Tsar's Foreign Faiths: Toleration and the Fate of Religious Freedom in Imperial Russia |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2014 |isbn=978-0-19-959177-0 |pages=76–77 |language=en}}</ref>

===Nobility===
Anna gave many privileges to the nobility. In 1730 she ensured the repeal of Peter the Great's primogeniture law prohibiting the division of estates among heirs. Starting in 1731 landlords were made responsible for their serfs' taxes, which had the effect of tightening their economic bondage further. In 1736, the age for a noble to begin his compulsory service to the state changed to 20 with a 25-year service time. Anna and her government also determined that if a family had more than one son, one could now stay behind to run the family estate.<ref>{{citation |first=Richard |last=Pipes |title=Under the Old Regime |page=133}}{{full citation needed|date=December 2016}}</ref>

===Westernization===
Westernization continued after [[Peter the Great]]'s reign in areas of prominent Western culture such as the Academy of Science, cadet corps education, and imperial culture including theater and opera.{{sfn|Lipski|1950|pp=1–11}} Although not at the fast-paced speed of Westernization under her Uncle Peter's reign, it is evident that a culture of the expansion of knowledge continued during Anna's rule and affected mostly the nobility. It is argued that this success in Westernization is due to the efforts of the German court nobility;  the foreigners' impacts are viewed both positively and negatively.<ref>Lipski.{{full citation needed|date=December 2016|reason=Not enough to tie into one of the three long citation}}</ref>

Anna's reign was different from that of other imperial Russian rulers in one respect: her court was almost entirely made up of foreigners, the majority of whom were German. Some observers have argued that historians isolate her rule from Russian history due to their long-term prejudice towards Germans, towards whom Anna seems to have been sympathetic.{{sfn|Curtiss|1974|p=72}}

There is a lot of mention of Germans throughout the reign of Anna. For example, she often gave them ruling positions in her cabinet and other important decision-making positions. This was because she had very little trust in the Russians. It was because of this strong German influence in government that many Russians came to resent them.{{sfn|Lipski|1956|p=488}}

The Imperial Theatre School, known as [[Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet]] after 1957, was founded during Anna's reign on May 4, 1738.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=Vaganova Academy - History of the Vaganova Ballet Academy |url=https://vaganovaacademy.ru/academy-eng/history-eng.html |access-date=2024-02-05 |website=vaganovaacademy.ru}}</ref> It was the first ballet school in Russia, as well as the second in the world. The school was established through the initiative of the French ballet master and teacher Jean-Baptiste Landé.<ref name=":0" />

===Foreign affairs===
During Anna's reign Russia became involved in two major conflicts, the [[War of the Polish Succession]] (1733–1735) and another [[History of the Russo-Turkish wars|Turkish war]].{{sfn|Bain|1911|p=68}} In the former, Russia worked with [[Austrian Empire|Austria]] to support [[Augustus II of Poland|Augustus II]]'s son [[Augustus III of Poland|Augustus]] against the candidacy of [[Stanisław Leszczyński]] who was dependent on the [[Kingdom of France|French]] and amiable with [[Swedish Empire|Sweden]] and the [[Ottoman Empire|Ottoman]]s. Russia's involvement with the conflict was quickly over, however, and the [[Russo-Turkish War (1735–1739)]] was much more important.{{sfn|Bain|1911|pp=68–69}}

In 1732 [[Nader Shah]] had forced Russia to return the lands in northern mainland [[Persia]] that had been taken during Peter the Great's [[Russo-Persian War (1722–23)|Russo-Persian War]]; the [[Treaty of Resht]] furthermore permitted an alliance against the Ottoman Empire,{{sfn|Tucker|2010|p=729}} the common enemy and, in any case, the provinces of [[Shirvan]], [[Ghilan]], and [[Mazanderan]] had been a net drain on the imperial treasury for the entirety of their occupation.{{sfn|Baynes|1878}} Three years later, in 1735, conforming to the [[Treaty of Ganja]], the remainder of the territories taken more than a decade earlier from Persia in the [[North Caucasus]] and [[South Caucasus]] were returned as well.{{Citation needed|date=January 2021}}

The war against the Turks took four and a half years, a hundred thousand men, and millions of rubles;{{sfn|Bain|1911|p=69}} its burdens caused great stress on the people of Russia,{{sfn|Lipski|1956|p=479}} and it only gained Russia the city of [[Azov]] and its environs.{{sfn|Bain|1911|p=69}} Its effects, however, were greater than they first appeared. Osterman's policy of southern expansion prevailed over the 1711 [[Peace of Pruth]] signed by Peter the Great.{{sfn|Lipski|1956|p=487}} Münnich had given Russia its first campaign against Turkey that had not ended in crushing disaster and dissipated the illusion of Ottoman invincibility. He had further shown that Russia's [[grenadier]]s and [[hussar]]s could defeat twice their number of [[janissaries]] and [[spahi]]s. The Tatar hordes of the [[Khanate of Crimea|Crimea]] had been exterminated and Russia's signal and unexpected successes greatly increased its prestige within Europe.{{sfn|Bain|1911|p=69}}{{efn|The English minister [[Claudius Rondeau]] noted soon after that "This court begins to have a great deal to say in the affairs of Europe".{{sfn|Bain|1911|p=69}}}}

The Russians also established a protectorate over the khan of the [[Kirghiz people|Kirghiz]], sending officers to assist his short-lived conquest of [[Khanate of Khiva|Khiva]].{{sfn|Baynes|1878}}

Two [[Qing Dynasty|Chinese]] embassies to Anna's court, first at Moscow in 1731, then at St Petersburg the following year, were the only ones China dispatched to Europe through the 18th century.{{sfn|Baynes|1878}} These embassies were unique also in that they represented the only occasions where officials of the Chinese Empire kowtowed before a foreign ruler.<ref>Hsu, Immunel C.-Y. (1999), ''The Rise of Modern China'', New York, Oxford University Press, pp. 115–118</ref>