The Great the Adventurous Tsar Took an Isolated Country and Willed It Into a Great Power

Peter the great The adventurous tsar took an isolated country and willed it into a great power

BY DAVID HOLZEL

Peter the Great in 1717. An imposing figure at 6 feet, 8 inches tall, he served as emperor of Russia from 1682 until his death in 1725.

4 s u mm e r 18 BOSS 2015 History Archive/Newscom World he storehouse had been born into on June 9, 1672, locked for years. That can seem about as alien as only made the question the moon. Tof what was inside more tantalizing “Russia was an empire of to 16-year-old Peter Alekseyevich villages, a collection of simple Romanov. He and his companions log houses centered on a broke in, and in the misty gloom, church whose onion dome Peter—tsar of Russia—found an gathered up the prayers and old boat about 20 feet long, its passed them along to heaven,” timbers rotting. writes Robert K. Massie in his Long forgotten on this royal estate biography Peter the Great. outside Moscow, the vessel, so different At the time of Peter’s birth, from the riverboats that plied Russia’s Russia had a population of inland waterways, ignited the teenager’s 8 million, about the same as fierce curiosity. Could it be repaired, he contemporary Poland. While asked one companion, a Dutch trader the tsar was known as the who was the young tsar’s makeshift absolute ruler, Russia’s tutor. The Dutchman believed it could. Orthodox Church, which In 1688, when this story took place, traced its authority to the Russia’s foreign residents were restricted Greek Orthodox Church of

to “the German suburb” outside Constantinople, was more History Archive/Newscom World Moscow. There, the old Dutch trader powerful. The state barely A chromolithograph captures Peter the Great in his found another countryman, a carpenter, touched life in the village. younger years. who repaired the boat, fitted it with The Church, in its quest for masts and sails and took it on rollers purity, isolated Russia. The Russia of Feodor. A sickly youth, Feodor died to a nearby river. Peter’s birth was defensive and inward in 1682. Peter was named tsar—he was And so on an early summer day, looking, as it strove to exclude foreign robust and lively, unlike another older Peter saw a boat tack against the wind influences and heretical thoughts. half-brother, Ivan, who was passed over. for the first time. Soon he was learning If Russia was, according to the Ivan’s mother’s family feared the loss of from his Dutch teachers how to handle Orthodox Church, spiritually power would bring ruin to them and the vessel himself. “And mighty vulnerable, it also was a land revolted. They were supported by the pleasant it was to me,” he later wrote. surrounded by powerful physical streltsy, “the shaggy, bearded pike men That boat opened up the world for enemies—Turks, Poles, Lithuanians who guarded the Kremlin and were a teenager of boundless energy who and Swedes. Its vast grasslands Russia’s first professional soldiers,” as was looking to escape the cramped and provided no natural defenses. Russia, Massie describes them. bloody world of politics in Moscow. It whether from the religions or armies In the Kremlin, the citadel that was led the young tsar to the sea, to Western of Europe and Asia, was always home to the tsar and the Orthodox ideas and the creation of the Russian under attack. patriarch, the streltsy massacred the navy. In the process, Peter the Great, as In 1676, when Peter was 4, his relatives and supporters of Peter’s he was called by the end of his reign, father, Tsar Alexis, died, and the crown mother, hacking them to death as the recreated Russia, turning a vulnerable, passed to Peter’s 15-year-old half-brother, 10-year-old watched. The political inward-looking land into a great, expansive European empire. That boat opened up the world for Isolated and Vulnerable a teenager who was looking to escape For people of our time, who only know the cramped and bloody world of politics Russia as the largest country on Earth, a superpower or a force to be reckoned in Moscow. It led the young tsar to the with, a European country on the far east of the continent and a place where, for sea, to Western ideas and the creation so long, the individual counted for less than the state, the Russia that Peter was of the Russian navy.

www.dixonva lve.co m s u mm e r 2015 4 BOSS 19 playing general. Following a pattern he The streltsy revolt marked Peter for often used when trying to master a skill, he entered his regiment as a drummer life. From then on, the tsar had a loathing boy, and promoted himself only when of the Kremlin, Moscow, the Orthodox satisfied he had met the requirements of a higher rank. Church and the ancient rites of the In this way, Peter challenged the old Russian ways of doing things. “From Moscow nobility. the beginning, Peter set this example,” according to Massie, “degrading the importance of birth, elevating the outcome was that, in 1682, Ivan was adolescence, shunning most of the necessity for competence.” crowned co-ruler with Peter. Power responsibilities of royalty but taking As Peter grew older, the war games shifted to Ivan’s sister Sophia (Peter’s advantage of its perks. grew more elaborate, with imposed half-sister), who was proclaimed regent. Answering to no authority, he was discipline and live ammunition. His free to follow his interests, and he army spent a year building a fort of An Extended Adolescence mastered skills and areas of knowledge earth and timber and then bombarded that touched his boundless curiosity. The streltsy revolt marked Peter for it, to see if they could knock it down. He befriended foreigners and learned of life. Biographer Massie writes that Technical knowledge for Peter’s the world outside Russia. His favorite from then on, the tsar had a loathing “army” came from foreign officers in the of the Kremlin, Moscow, the Orthodox childhood game was war. German suburb. It was there—among Church and the ancient rites of the Peter began attracting and the pipe-smoking Dutch, Germans and Moscow nobility. welcoming boys his age to his play Scotsmen—that he learned to enjoy Peter’s mother removed him and army. Boys of low birth were embraced alcohol. Just as he was indefatigable in a younger sister to a small estate outside alongside the sons of nobility, whose building a boat or constructing a fort, Moscow. Meanwhile, in the capital, families saw an association with the Peter took to drinking with gusto and half-sister Sophia ruled, while half- young tsar as good for their fortunes. good humor. Still in his teens, he brother Ivan carried out the formalities But Peter was not a boy who jumped to established the Drunken Synod, required of a tsar. Peter only returned to the capital for state occasions. A 1717 painting by Jean-Marc Nattier depicts the Battle of Poltava, in which Peter the Great defeated the Swedish king Charles XII. Oil on canvas, 90 x 112cm. Otherwise, Peter began an extended

A steel engraving, colored by W. Steelink after Johannes Bosboom, depicts Peter the Great as a carpenter. akg-images/Newscom akg-images/Newscom

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An engraving of Peter the Great supervising the building of St. Petersburg

multi-day-long revels whose symbols in an attempt to end Russia’s isolation Baltic, had its window on Europe and mocked the Church and which he led from the sea. The attack ended in replaced Sweden as the dominant until the end of his reign. failure. But it convinced Peter that power in Northern Europe,” Nicholas In 1693, Peter’s love of ships drew Russia needed a large, modern navy, V. Riasanovsky writes in A History him to the open sea. In those days, all of and he set about building it. The next of Russia. Russia had only one seaport, Archangel, year he returned to Azov and with In the process, Peter reformed near the White Sea. Archangel is 130 the aid of 30 Russian ships, captured Russia’s army. He took a force that miles south of the Arctic Circle and the fortress. disbanded every winter and he built frozen six months of the year. From Ivan died in 1696, leaving Peter as a standing army, a professional fighting there, Russia conducted its meager sea sole ruler of Russia. The country would force manned by soldiers who served trade. But it was still the sea. And at the be at war for all but a single year until for life and were cared for by the state. height of summer, Peter and his retinue the end of Peter’s reign. For most of the By the end of Peter’s reign, the army had started out on the 1,000-mile journey time, the enemy would be Sweden. 200,000 men, a number slightly smaller from Moscow to see the sea for the first In 1700, Peter looked north to gain than that of the continent’s powerhouse, time. He wrote his mother letters of a foothold on the Baltic. To do that, he France. The burgeoning army expanded what he saw there and signed them would need to defeat the Swedes, who the population of Russians who lived in “Skipper Peter.” were the preeminent northern power. service to the state. And so, Massie writes, “impelled by Peter launched what became known as Peter’s gains in the war allowed him the will of this strange sea-dreamer, the the Great Northern War. Begun with to turn his back on Moscow and build a huge landlocked nation stumbled the disastrous Battle of Narva, it came glittering European capital on the Baltic. toward the oceans.” to an end 21 years later when a treaty He established St. Petersburg in 1703. gave Russia lands on the Baltic that He discovered his love for European Peter Rules had previously been ruled by Sweden— culture and technology early, on his including present-day Estonia. Grand Tour of Europe in 1697. Peter’s extended adolescence ended Russia agreed to pay Sweden 2 million Disguised (largely unsuccessfully) as in 1695 when at age 23 he set his sights Riksdaler and returned to the Swedes Peter Mikhail, the tsar accompanied a on the Black Sea, controlled by the most of Finland, which Russia Russian delegation to win assistance Ottoman Empire. No longer playing had captured. from the kings of Europe for Peter’s war war, he led an overland march to “Russian victory over Sweden meant against the Turks. In this, Peter was capture the Turkish fortress of Azov Russia was firmly established on the unsuccessful, but particularly in the

www.dixonva lve.co m s u mm e r 2015 4 BOSS 21 Peter the Great on his deathbed, in a 1725 painting by Ivan Nikitin.

Netherlands and England, he was able tsar or, at worst, the anti-Christ. Known to soak up the social and scientifi c for his ruthlessness (his own son, advances of Protestant Europe, as well whom he suspected of treason, died as technological skills like shipbuilding. aft er being severely tortured, and Peter He brought to Russia Western had at least two of his mistresses tried innovations like coff ee houses and on false charges of adultery), he newspapers, Western dress and nonetheless left an indelible legacy. education. And he infamously required Peter died in February 1725, at his noblemen to shave their beards, the age of 52, from kidney failure. levying a tax on those who refused. During the course of his 42-year reign, Like Peter’s other reforms, the tsar’s the giant of a man had transformed beard edict was met with fi erce Russia from an isolated medieval nation suspicion. “Traditionalists objected on to a major European power. Th e cultural the ground that shaving impaired the revolution that Peter oversaw replaced image of God in men and made the antiquated social and political systems Russians look like such objectionable with ones that were modern, scientifi c beings as Lutherans, Poles, Kalmyks, and westernized. Today, many existing Tartars, cats, dogs and monkeys,” institutions of Russian government Riasanovsky writes. trace their origins back to his Th roughout Peter’s reign, there were momentous reign. many who believed that he was, at best, a foreigner installed in place of the real akg-images/Newscom

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