Peter (I) the Great (1672–1725)

Tsar of Russia from 1682 on the death of his half-brother Tsar Feodor III; he took full control of the government in 1689. He attempted to reorganize the country on Western lines. He modernized the army, had a modern fleet built, remodelled the administrative and legal systems, encouraged education, and brought the Russian Orthodox Church under state control. On the Baltic coast, where he had conquered territory from Sweden, Peter built a new city, St Petersburg, and moved the capital there from Moscow.

When Feodor III died in 1682 without an heir, the patriarch of Moscow (leader of the Russian Church) and leading noblemen chose the ten-year-old Peter to be tsar rather than his 16-year-old half-brother Ivan, who was mentally incapable of taking on the position. Ivan's older sister Sophia organized a coup by the palace guards that resulted in the coronation of Ivan and Peter as joint tsars, with Sophia as regent.

Taking power

Peter spent the next seven years with his mother in a village near Moscow. Although he received no formal education, he was physically and mentally far in advance of his years. He gained a mass of knowledge and technical skills, mainly from foreigners in Russian service who lived nearby; for example, he spent much time in the German quarter of Moscow, learning from the scholars of the German university there. In 1689, having been warned that Sophia was plotting against him, Peter forced her to resign. He let Ivan remain as official joint tsar, but was now able to rule the country alone.

Peter realized how undeveloped Russia was compared to Western European nations such as Britain and France. He decided to bring Russia into the modern world and focus its future on the advanced ideas of Western Europe. His first task was to form an army on Western European lines. He also strove to create a navy and a merchant fleet to increase Russia's trade with Europe and so boost its economy. He hoped that greater trade would increase Russia's contact with the outside world and so encourage the spread of new influences and ideas within Russia.

One of Russia's great problems in the 17th century was that it lacked a permanently ice-free port. This limited its naval activities and increased its isolation from the rest of Europe. Thinking that the possession of a portion of the Black Sea coast would best give Russia a seaboard and port, he declared war on Turkey and took the city of Azov in 1696, after a long siege.

Foreign travel
Eager for knowledge, Peter left Russia in April 1697, joining an embassy of Russian officials and travellers led by François Lefort, a Swiss diplomat in Russian service. Peter posed as Sgt Peter Mikhailov, a junior official of the embassy. He amassed information wherever he went, studying astronomy, natural philosophy (physics), geography, and even anatomy and surgery. At Amsterdam in the Netherlands he worked for several months as a shipwright in the dockyard. King William III of England invited him to London; while there he worked for a few weeks at the Royal Naval dockyard at Deptford.

Peter left England in April 1698, taking with him 500 English engineers, craftsmen, surgeons, and artillerymen. He intended that these skilled men should work for him in Russia, and pass on their knowledge to Russian workers. Peter reached Austria, and was about to visit Venice when news of a military rebellion made him hasten back to Russia. The revolt was savagely crushed. Peter's wife Eudoxia was suspected of involvement in the revolt. Peter divorced her and placed her in a convent.

The Northern War
In 1700 Peter entered into an alliance with the kings of Poland and Denmark to make a combined attack on Sweden, which occupied territory which separated Russia from the Baltic Sea. This gave him the opportunity of seizing the land where he founded St Petersburg. Within a few years the new city became the Russian commercial depot for the Baltic, as well as Russia's capital. In the long contest with Sweden the Russians suffered a series of defeats, until Peter totally routed the Swedish king Charles XII at the Battle of Poltava in July 1709.

Peter next prepared to fight the Turks, who at the instigation of Sweden had declared war against him. In this contest Peter lost his previous conquest, the port of Azov and the territory belonging to it. In 1712 he married his mistress, a Lithuanian peasant woman named Catherine. She later succeeded him on the throne as Catherine I. In 1716–17 Peter made another tour of Europe. Soon afterwards he ordered the execution of Alexei, his son by his first wife, for suspected treason, but Alexei died before the sentence could be carried out. In 1721 peace was made with Sweden. In 1722 Peter began a war with Persia (modern Iran), which he compelled to hand over territory on the Caspian Sea, including the towns of Derbent and Baku.

Reforms
At home Peter introduced many reforms, the most important of which were the abolition of the Moscow patriarchy, which controlled the Russian Orthodox Church, and its replacement by a Holy Synod under the total control of the tsar. The patriarch was seen by Peter as a potential challenge to his authority, and he could not allow so much power to be in the hands of one man; spreading this power among many men enabled greater control over the church.

To control the powerful nobility, and bind them to the state, Peter introduced compulsory state service for all male nobles for life. The ruling meant that all noblemen had to work for the government or armed forces during their adult life, thus reducing the ability of the nobles to undermine the tsar or government as they had done in the 17th century. Peter changed central government and set up specialized departments, known as colleges. He reformed local government administration by appointing provincial governors; introduced a properly organized military and civil service open to any suitable person irrespective of origin; and introduced a poll tax. After the end of the Northern War in 1721 Peter was proclaimed emperor, and in 1722 promulgated a new law of succession, which enjoined that each monarch should nominate his or her own successor.

However many of Peter's reforms were not as effective as he had hoped. For example, the reform of central government had limited effect because the ministers and civil servants had no independent powers. They still had to seek the approval of the tsar for all their actions, which discouraged the dynamic government that Peter had sought to create. In addition to this, the reforms of the civil service that sought to ensure the promotion of the most able people had limited effect. The new system worked according to a ‘Table of Ranks’; progress up the table gave higher positions in the armed forces and government. To achieve promotion on the table, exams had to be taken that should have ensured that only the best progressed. However, the nobility still dominated the government service and, with their connections and wealth, were able to work around the Table of Ranks and gain promotions to which they were not always entitled. Only the nobility had access to education in Russia, so this class alone had the skills to progress in the government.

Peter did much to develop Russia's trade and industry, and encouraged scholarship. Though personally cruel and barbaric in many of his habits, he was a great monarch who transformed Russia and made it one of Europe's major powers. Peter was successful in many ways in moving Russia away from its Asiatic past and forcing it to accept European ideas. Education and literacy increased greatly among the Russian nobility, many of whom copied Peter in travelling to Europe, as well as collecting libraries for their homes. Although he never managed to convince all Russia's nobles of the wisdom of adopting European ways, he was powerful enough to overcome any opposition to his plans.

Peter the Great

Peter (I) the Great (1672–1725)

Taking power

Foreign travel

The Northern War

Reforms