Famous Men-18th Peter the Great

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Peter the Great Born 1672, Tsar of Russia from 1682 ‐ 1725

In the history of Russia there is no name more famous

than that of Peter the Great. Before his time the Russians

were far behind the other nations of Europe in knowledge of

the arts and the comforts of life. Russia had no navy and its

army was viewed with contempt.

Peter devoted a large part of his reign to improving

the condition of his country and his people. He made Russia

prosperous, powerful, and respected.

He was born in 1672, and was the son of the Tsar Alexis (Tsar is the Russian word

for Emperor). His mother was Natalya Naryshkina, the second wife of Tsar Alexis.

Natalya had an unusual background for a Russian noblewoman. She had been raised as

a ward in the household of Tsar Alexis’ chief minister, Artemon Matveev. Matveev’s wife

was Mary Hamilton, the daughter of a Scots nobleman who had fled Scotland and

settled in Russia after the overthrow and execution of King Charles I. Artemon and Mary

raised their ward, Natalya, and gave her a western style education – at a time when it

was exceedingly rare for any Russian woman, peasant or noble, to be allowed to learn

to read or write. After Tsar Alexis’s first wife died, the 42‐year‐old widower fell in love

and married the nineteen‐year‐old ward of his chief minister. Fifteen months later,

Peter was born. When Peter was three and a half, Tsar Alexis died and was succeeded

by his fifteen year old son, who became Tsar Fedor. Tsar Fedor was a mild, soft‐spoken

young man, who earnestly wanted to rule well. Sadly, he died just after he turned

twenty‐one. Next in line for the throne was Fedor’s younger brother Ivan, age 16 and his

ten‐year‐old half‐brother, Peter. Ivan had always been a sickly child. He was half‐blind,

Famous Men of the 18th Century

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lame, and had difficulty speaking. The champion of Ivan’s right to be Tsar was his older

sister, Sophia. The Russian nobles wished to name Peter as Tsar. Sophia insisted that

Ivan was the rightful heir. The solution, which pleased neither side, was to proclaim the

two boys joint emperors of Russia. Their older sister, Sophia, was appointed as regent.

Sophia was not content to simply be regent for her two younger brothers. Sophia

determined to make herself empress, and conspired with Galitzin, the prime minister,

with that end in view.

"Madam," said Galitzin, "we need fear nothing from Ivan, but Peter alarms me.

He has a thirst for knowledge that cannot be quenched. He wishes to know everything."

It was as the minister said. Peter’s mother had sought out for him tutors who

could satisfy his thirst for knowledge. Peter asked questions about everything. He was

particularly interested in maps, boats, and in all things military. In order to keep him

distracted, Sophia allowed him to form his own military regiment and assigned soldiers

to obey his commands. But Peter did not want to command simply because he was Tsar.

He joined the regiment with the rank of a private and insisted that the sergeants and

officers teach him the duties and skills of a soldier.

When he was about seventeen years of age Peter was informed that his half‐

sister Sophia and Prince Galitzin intended to murder him. Peter, with the help of his

mother and his friends in “his” regiment acted first. He escaped from Moscow to a

nearby monastery where he could defend himself. He made public the details of

Sophia’s plot and called on the officers of the palace guard in Moscow to abandon their

support of her and join him in the country. The palace guard (called the Streltsy)

complied and Peter had won. He banished Galitzin to the icy region of Archangel and

confined his sister in a convent. He thus became, at about eighteen years of age, the

active ruler of Russia; for Ivan was not healthy enough to take any share in the

government.

Peter the Great (1672–1725)

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The Russia which Peter became the ruler of was landlocked and ringed by

enemies. Russia was rural and agricultural, with Moscow the only city of even moderate

size. Even in Moscow, in 1690, most of the buildings were constructed of logs. In the

northwest, Sweden controlled both shores of the Baltic and had strong garrisons in all of

the port cities. To the west was Poland, ancient rival of Russia. To the south, the

authority of the Tsar dwindled to nothing only a few hundred miles from Moscow.

Though they were ethnically Russian, and adhered to the Russian Orthodox Church, the

Cossacks did not recognize the Tsar, but paid tribute to the Turkish Sultan in

Constantinople. Further to the south, along the northern shores of the Black Sea were

the Crimea Tatars. The Tatars were descendants of the old Mongol tribes. They had

been converted to Islam. They recognized no foreign ruler, but like the Cossacks they

paid tribute to the Turkish Sultan and sometimes joined his army. In 1382 and 1571, the

Tatars had sacked and burned Moscow.

Russians feared and disliked all foreigners. At the same time, the Tsars had

recognized that military officers and technical experts from other European countries

were desperately needed in Russia in order to help her catch up. The decrees of Tsar

Alexis, Peter’s father, illustrated both ideas. On the one hand, he ordered that

foreigners be forbidden to live inside the walls of the city of Moscow. On the other

hand, he decreed that a special city be built a few miles outside of Moscow for

foreigners, where they would be permitted to own land and construct their own

churches. This new city became known as the German suburb. Russians called all

foreigners, generically, “Germans”. Turmoil in France, Germany, and England (along

with some discreet recruiting by representatives of the Tsar) soon resulted in a

significant population of military officers, engineers, artists, doctors, merchants, and

schoolmasters. They came from England and Scotland (mostly Catholics fleeing Puritan

rule and the exclusion acts. After Louis XIV revoked the edict of Nantes, a surprising


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number of French Huguenots arrived seeking a new life in Russia. Some came for the

opportunities. Some came just for the adventure.

Peter, naturally, was attracted to the German suburb. Some of the officers in his

play regiment had come from the German suburb. Two of the foreigners there became

his closest friends. One was General Patrick Gordon, a Scottish catholic who had fought

for both the Swedes and the Poles before accepting a commission as an officer in the

Russian army. The second was Francis Lefort, originally from Geneva, Switzerland who

had left Switzerland seeking adventure. Fighting first with the Dutch against the armies

of Louis XIV, he eventually made his way to Moscow via Archangel and received a

commission as an officer in the Russian army at the age of twenty‐one.

Peter himself had served for a few months under the command of Lefort as a

common soldier. After he became Tsar, Lefort advised Peter that the army should be

made larger, and be better drilled and equipped. The young emperor accepted this

advice. He appointed Lefort to be commander of one division of his army, and directed

him to equip and drill it in the very best manner. Under Lefort's direction the army was

made a splendid body of fighting men.

One day, in the early part of his reign, Peter noticed on the river which flows

through Moscow a small boat with a keel. He inquired what the keel was for, and was

greatly interested to learn that it was to enable the boat to sail against the wind. The

boat had been built for Peter's father by a Dutchman named Brandt; and this man was

at once instructed to put it into first‐rate order. This being done, the Dutchman gave

Peter some lessons in sailing, so that the young czar became quite an expert sailor.

Russia at that time had only one seaport. It was Archangel on the White Sea. So

to Archangel the tsar went, and made it his home for several months. While there, he

made the acquaintance of a Dutch captain named Musch; and from him he learned all


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about ships and their management. He began as a cabin boy, and worked up through

every department of a seafaring life until he was fitted to be a naval commander.

Peter then began to dream of a Russian navy that would sail from a Russian port

and harbor in the south, on the Black Sea. he began the building of the Russian navy in

southern Russia, on the Verona River. The vessels built were small gunboats. While they

were being built, someone said to Peter, "Of what use will your vessels be to you? You

have no good seaport."

"My vessels shall make ports for themselves," replied Peter; and before long

they did so.

The first port captured was Azov at the mouth of the Don. It was taken from the

Turks. The Russian fleet sailed down the river, and made the attack by sea; while twelve

thousand troops attacked by land. Peter himself was sometimes with the army on land,

sometimes on board one of his vessels.

The success of the Russia gunboats against the Turks was just the beginning.

Peter was determined that the Russian navy must have larger ships, great sea‐going

sailing ships with rows of cannon. No one in Russia knew how to build ships like that. He

therefore determined to go to Holland and learn the art of shipbuilding.

Putting the affairs of his empire in charge of three nobles, he left Russia in the

spring of 1697. With Lefort and some other companions, and went first to Amsterdam,

the most important city of the Netherlands. Because he was impatient and frustrated by

the formal protocol required for those who wished to meet with the tsar, he resolved to

travel in disguise. , The Russian delegation would be led by Lefort, as the ambassador of

the Tsar. Among his company would be a servant by the name of Peter Mikhailov. Of

course the secret of the servant’s real identity was impossible to keep. Peter, now

twenty‐five years old, was six feet eight inches tall and easy to recognize. Nonetheless,


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throughout the Great Embassy, Peter refused to respond to anyone who addressed him

as Tsar.

After traveling through Germany, the Russian embassy reached Holland. After

visiting Amsterdam and examining its shipping and its docks, Peter went to a little town

called Zaandam nearby, and there became a workman in a yard where ships were built

for the famous Dutch East India Company. He lived in a little cottage near the yard and

cooked his own food. After working some time in Zaandam he spent four or five months

as a shipwright near London, at the invitation of King William III. When it came time for

the Russian party to leave England, William ordered the English fleet to divide into two

squadrons and conduct a mock naval battle. Peter was fascinated. He greatly admired

the old, widowed King of England, and spent many hours in conversation with him. For

his part, King William seemed grateful that the Russian Tsar wanted to dispense with

ceremony and simply sit and talk.

When Peter returned to Russia, he was struck by the vast differences between

Russian dress and court manners and what he had seen in Germany, Holland, and


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England. One of his first decrees was that all members of the court in Moscow must

shave their beards and cease wearing their long‐sleeved Russian robes. He was serious

about the decree, and for some months he carried a razor and a pair of scissors with

him. If any nobleman appeared in his presence with a long robe with long sleeves he

would cut them off with the scissors. If he had a beard, Peter might cut off the beard

and shave him on the spot!

Peter’s decrees were accepted by most of the nobles. Some grumbled. Some

were outraged and plotted a rebellion with the Streltsy palace guard. Peter found out

about the plot and arrested the plotters. Many were tortured and executed. The Streltsy

were ordered out of Moscow and dispersed to garrison duty across Russia.

The capture of Azov had given Russia a port on the Black Sea. But the entrance

to the Black Sea was still closed to the Russians by the Turks at Constantinople. A

greater work was to be done in the north, at the mouth of the Neva River on the Baltic

Sea.

When Peter came to the throne, Sweden was the great military and naval power

of northern Europe. The Swedes were masters of the Baltic Sea, and of the Gulf of

Finland. Peter said that the Swedes were the oppressors of Russia; and that he would

free the land from their presence.

Soon after this began the Great Northern War, which was to last for over twenty

years, from 1700‐1721. Peter had entered into an alliance with the King of Denmark and

the King of Poland in which each ruler agreed to support the others in attacking Sweden.

Each ruler wished to conquer some of the territory ruled by Sweden and add it to their

own kingdoms.

When in the Netherlands, Peter had lived near Amsterdam. It was a great

seaport near the mouth of a river. The land upon which it stood was swampy; and its


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dwellings, its warehouses, and its magnificent churches and public buildings rested on

piles.

Peter determined to build a Russian Amsterdam on the swampy banks of the

River Neva which flows into the Gulf of Finland. The king of Sweden, the famous Charles

XII, claimed the province at the mouth of the River Neva. In spite of this Peter laid the

foundations of his new city and called it St. Petersburg.

When the king of Sweden heard what was going on he said, "I shall soon put

those houses into a blaze." The Swedish king was astonished soon after hearing that the

foundations of St. Petersburg had been laid, to learn that Peter's new army and navy

had captured his two fortresses, and that the province at the mount of the Neva was in

Peter's hands.

The King of Sweden, Charles XII, went to war with all three of his enemies at

once, but he devoted his attention to defeating them one at a time. He quickly defeated

the King of Denmark and forced him to sue for peace. The next year Swedish troops

marched along the southern cost of the Baltic towards the port city of Narva (in

modern‐day Estonia) which had been seized by the Russian. In late November of 1700,

about 8,000 Swedish troops reached the walls of the city. The Russian army numbered

35,000. Believing that the Russian troops in Narva would be besieged for many months,

Tsar Peter left and returned to Russia to organize an additional army. But the day after

his departure, in a blinding snowstorm, King Charles of Sweden suddenly ordered an

attack. Within just a few hours, the Swedish army had broken through the Russian lines

and forced their surrender. Peter was stunned when he received the news. King Charles

and the Swedes made the most of his departure from Narva in their accounts to the

other European capitals. The Russian army was widely held to be incompetent.

King Charles of Sweden devoted the next seven years to defeating Augustus of

Saxony, who was also King of Poland. Peter returned to Russia determined to raise and


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new army and to equip it and train it so that he would be able to defeat the Swedes. He

also used the respite to build and expand the city of St. Petersburg.

In 1708, Charles XII was ready to deal with Russia and its upstart Tsar, Peter. King

Charles had 70,000 men ready for invasion. He intended to occupy Moscow and force

Peter to surrender and sue for peace. By mid‐summer, the Swedish army had reached

the Dneiper River, several hundred miles south of Moscow. But, although King Charles

did not lack for courage, he had seriously miscalculated the costs of the invasion of

Russia. The distances were immense, and his army had exhausted its supplies. A relief

column, bringing supplies from the Baltic ports was intercepted, defeated, and captured

by the Russians. And then it began to snow. The winter of 1708‐1709 was one of the

coldest ever recorded in Europe. The Baltic froze solid. The Thames in London froze.

Even the canals in Venice froze. In Russia, the soldiers of the Swedish army starved and

froze.

Over 3,000 Swedish soldiers froze to death in Russia in the winter of 1708. In the

spring there was no more talk of marching on Moscow. But Charles refused to retreat

back towards the west, to Poland and Saxony. Instead he slid his army to the south

towards the grassy plains of the Ukraine, home of the Cossacks where he hoped his

army could find food for both men and horses. Peter’s army got there first. They

destroyed the Cossack capital and burned all the boats which had been assembled to

ferry the Swedish army across the Dnieper River. Finally, Peter and the Russian army

cornered the Swedes near the town of Poltava.

A tremendous battle was fought and the Russian army defeated the Swedes

decisively. Peter commanded from near the front lines. His clothes were shot through

with holes and one musket ball had made a hole in his hat. He felt he had redeemed his

military reputation. King Charles of Sweden fled the battlefield with fewer than 1,500


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men towards the south and took refuge just across the border of the Turkish Empire.

King Charles was to spend five years in exile, under house arrest by the Turks.

The victory at Poltava was followed by naval successes in the Gulf of Finland.

Abo, then the capital of Finland, and Helsingfors, which is the present capital, were both

captured, and the Russians became masters of the gulf.

Peter now determined that his people should become a commercial nation. He

urged them to engage in foreign trade and encouraged foreigners to bring their

merchandise to Russia's new ports. Less than six months after the first stone of St.

Petersburg was laid, a large ship under Dutch colors ascended the Neva and anchored

off the city site.

Peter himself went on board to welcome the strangers. The skipper was invited

to dine at the house of one of the nobles. Peter and several officers of his government

bought the entire cargo; and when the ship sailed from St. Petersburg the captain

received a present of about two hundred dollars, and each of his crew a smaller sum of

money, as a premium for having brought the first foreign vessel into the new port.

Peter encouraged his people in the different parts of Russia to carry on

commerce with one another, and he made it easy for them to do so. He improved the

roads, aided in providing boats for navigating the rivers, and undertook the gigantic

work of uniting the great seas, the Baltic, the Black and the Caspian Seas by canals.

Toward the close of his reign, in 1716, Peter made another trip abroad. He

visited the town of Zaandam in Holland where he had learned the trade of shipbuilding.

There he found some of his old companions, and was delighted to hear them salute him

as Peter Bass, the name by which they had known him nearly twenty years before.

He went to the little cottage in which he had lived. It is still carefully preserved.

In one room are to be seen the little oak table and three chairs which were there when

Peter occupied it. Over the chimney‐piece is an inscription which every boy who is


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making his way up in the world might well take for his motto, "To a great man nothing is

little."

Peter went to see an old friend, Kist the blacksmith, who was at work in his

smithy. The czar took the job from him. He blew the bellows, heated the piece of iron

and beat it out with the great hammer into the required shape. Though he was the ruler

of millions of people he was proud of being a workman and of being able to do things

for himself.

From Holland, Peter went to Paris, where he met the young King Louis XVI. But

most of all, he enjoyed traveling unannounced through the countryside and stopping to

inspect anything that caught his fancy – a windmill, a canal, or a country church.

Peter returned to St. Petersburg in 1717, to face the final crisis of his reign. While

he had been in Amsterdam, his oldest son and heir, Alexei had foolishly run away from

home and sought refuge first in Austria and then in Italy. Alexis was then 26, and he and

Peter had been at odds for years. Peter had ordered Alexei to join the Russian army in

the field and serve as a soldier. Alexei refused. Peter had arranged a marriage for Alexei

when he was 21, but Alexei declared that he hated his wife. He lived in a separate wing

of their home with his mistress, a Finnish serf named Alfonsina. When he ran away,

Alfonsina went with him.


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Peter was embarrassed by his son’s escapade. He demanded that he return to

Russia, to the court at St. Petersburg. Alexei finally agreed to return, only on the

condition that his father agree that he would not be punished, but allowed to live

quietly in the country and to marry Alfonsina. Peter agreed, but once Alexei returned,

he had him arrested and demanded that he name all those who had conspired with him,

either to flee or to overthrow the Tsar. Several dozen accomplices were identified and

executed. The Tsarevich Alexei continued to be held in prison. Twice he was ordered to

be flogged. A special court considered the evidence against him and pronounced him

guilty of treason for wishing for the death of his father. Before this sentence could be

carried out, it was announced that he had died of a seizure in prison. Peter pardoned

Alfonsina and later allowed her to marry an army officer.


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Peter spent the last years of his reign devoted to the building of St. Petersburg

and further reforms of the government. When he died in 1725, he was succeeded by his

wife, who ruled as the Empress Catherine for two years before she died. In 1727, Peter’s

grandson, Peter (the son of Alexei) became Tsar Peter II.

In many ways, Peter truly deserved the title "Great." He found his empire feeble

and left it with a well‐drilled army and a large navy. He found it without commerce. He

secured for it ports to which foreign ships might bring merchandise; and he dug canals

so that the different parts of the country might easily carry on trade with one another.

He won great victories on the battlefield (after an embarrassment or two),

against both Turkey and Sweden and expanded the territory of Russia. He made his

country great; and improved the lot of his people.

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Famous Men-18th Peter the Great