<P> Catherine the Great was a German princess who married Peter III, the German heir to the Russian crown . After the death of Empress Elizabeth, she came to power when her coup d'état against her unpopular husband succeeded . She contributed to the resurgence of the Russian nobility that began after the death of Peter the Great . State service was abolished, and Catherine delighted the nobles further by turning over most state functions in the provinces to them . </P> <P> Catherine the Great extended Russian political control over the lands of the Polish--Lithuanian Commonwealth . Her actions included the support of the Targowica Confederation, although the cost of her campaigns, on top of the oppressive social system that required serfs to spend almost all of their time laboring on their owners' land, provoked a major peasant uprising in 1773, after Catherine legalised the selling of serfs separate from land . Inspired by a Cossack named Pugachev, with the emphatic cry of "Hang all the landlords!", the rebels threatened to take Moscow before they were ruthlessly suppressed . Instead of the traditional punishment of being drawn and quartered, Catherine issued secret instructions that the executioner should carry the sentence out quickly and with a minimum of suffering, as part of her effort to introduce compassion into the law . She also ordered the public trial of Darya Nikolayevna Saltykova, a member of the highest nobility, on charges of torture and murder . These gestures of compassion garnered Catherine much positive attention from Europe experiencing the Enlightenment age, but the specter of revolution and disorder continued to haunt her and her successors . </P> <P> In order to ensure continued support from the nobility, which was essential to the survival of her government, Catherine was obliged to strengthen their authority and power at the expense of the serfs and other lower classes . Nevertheless, Catherine realized that serfdom must be ended, going so far in her Nakaz ("Instruction") to say that serfs were "just as good as we are"--a comment the nobility received with disgust . Catherine successfully waged war against the Ottoman Empire and advanced Russia's southern boundary to the Black Sea . Then, by plotting with the rulers of Austria and Prussia, she incorporated territories of the Polish--Lithuanian Commonwealth during the Partitions of Poland, pushing the Russian frontier westward into Central Europe . In accordance with the treaty Russia had signed with the Georgians to protect them against any new invasion of their Persian suzerains and further political aspirations, Catherine waged a new war against Persia in 1796 after they had again invaded Georgia and established rule over it about a year prior and expelled the newly established Russian garrisons in the Caucasus . By the time of her death in 1796, Catherine's expansionist policy had turned Russia into a major European power . This continued with Alexander I's wresting of Finland from the weakened kingdom of Sweden in 1809 and of Bessarabia from the Principality of Moldavia, ceded by the Ottomans in 1812 . </P> <P> Russia was in a continuous state of financial crisis . While revenue rose from 9 million rubles in 1724 to 40 million in 1794, expenses grew more rapidly, reaching 49 million in 1794 . The budget allocated 46 percent to the military, 20 percent to government economic activities, 12 percent to administration, and nine percent for the Imperial Court in St. Petersburg . The deficit required borrowing, primarily from Amsterdam; five percent of the budget was allocated to debt payments . Paper money was issued to pay for expensive wars, thus causing inflation . For its spending, Russia obtained a large and well - equipped army, a very large and complex bureaucracy, and a court that rivaled Paris and London . However the government was living far beyond its means, and 18th century Russia remained "a poor, backward, overwhelmingly agricultural, and illiterate country". </P>

Primarily where were russia's major territorial gains in the nineteenth century