18c: Peter the Great

Alexei died in 1676, succeed by his eldest surviving son Fyodor III. Like his father and grandfather, Fyodor III did not leave much of a personal mark on Russia. So far the Romanovs had been competent but not brilliant: keeping the boyars in line, avoiding aggressive wars; not actively offending the peasantry. Fyodor died in 1682, leaving behind two full siblings: 27 year old Sofya and 16 year old Ivan, and a 10 year old half brother, Peter. At first, young Peter's mother Natalya had him crowned Tsar.  Then the faction of Alexei's first wife - that is the mother of Fyodor, Sofya, and Ivan - got control. Ivan and Peter became co-tsars , while Sofya served as regent and called all the shots. She and her advisor/lover, Prince Golitsyn, sought alliances with the West while trying to expand Russia's boundaries southward. While Ivan was feebleminded and uninterested in holding power, but Peter yearned to be Tsar. In 1689, Sofya tried to rouse the streltsy against Peter and declare herself Tsarina. But the streltsy refused to rise up and Sofya was banished to a nunnery. Ivan was allowed to keep his empty share of the throne until his death in 1696, leaving Peter, at long last, as sole Tsar. At last, the Romanov dynasty had produced a ruler who would leave his mark on Russia.

Peter realized that Russia was backward - economically, militarily, and intellectually. There would be no chance of equality with the West unless Russia adopted emerging technologies, improved its economy, and made its government more effective. In other words, Peter determined to Westernize Russia. Peter's first step was to experience Western culture at first hand. So he spent 1697 and 1698 traveling, supposedly in disguise, through Germany and the Netherlands and Great Britain. He never achieved his goal of starting a great European crusade against the Ottoman Turks. But he did learn a wide range of trades including shipbuilding and dentistry, and recruited Westerners to teach Russia their ways. His tour was cut short in 1698 by news that the streltsy had revolted with the intent of putting Sofya back on the throne. He rushed back to Moscow and put the uprising down in streams of blood, himself helping execute more than 1,200 streltsy on Red Square. Sofya was sent to the convent for good, giving Peter the free hand he needed to begin Westernizing Russia. His first initiative was intentionally drastic. He outlawed the long beards and wear the long flowing caftans which were part of a boyar's traditional dress. He personally preferred going clean-shaven and wearing Western attire; he expected his court to do likewise. He also made changes to the Russian Orthodox Church. When the Patriarch of Moscow died in 1700, Peter refused to let a new Patriarch be elected, leaving the church effectively headless. Shortly before his death, he put the church in the hands of a Holy Synod of ten churchmen appointed by the Tsar. Orthodoxy would always remain at the center of Russian life, but henceforth it would always be an instrument of the Tsarist government.

Peter's greatest dream was to establish what he called "a window on the Baltic." In Kievan Rus's earliest days, Great Novgorod (although inland) had been a great center of Baltic trade. Ivan the Terrible had opened up the port of Arkhangelsk in 1553, but it was ice blocked half the year; his attempt to find a Baltic outlet resulted in the disastrous Livonian War. First Peter needed to conquer a site for the Western port he coveted. His first campaign against the Swedes, in 1700, ended in utter disaster. The poorly trained Russian army ran in terror from the smaller but more disciplined force of King Charles XII. For some bizarre reason Charles XII turned his back on Russia and declared war on Poland. This gave Peter more time to modernize his army and conquer a marshy patch on the Baltic Sea where, in 1703, he began building the city of St. Petersburg. Whatever time, money, and energy he could spare from his war with Sweden was devoted to this new obsession. In 1707 Peter even offered to cede to Charles XII practically everything but St. Petersburg and the land connecting it to the rest of Russia. But Charles was obstinate and invaded Russia in 1708. Given Russia's lack of natural defenses, Peter resorted to a time-honored Russian tactic: retreating and leaving nothing but scorched earth behind him. He drew drawing Charles ever deeper into Russia and farther away from his lines of supply in Sweden. On June 28, 1709, Russia inflicted a stunning defeat upon Sweden at the battle of Poltava. Carried off the battlefield on a stretcher Charles fled to the Ottoman Empire, where he was forced to remain for four years. He would return to Sweden and resume the fight against Russia, but died frustrated in 1718. In 1721, Russia and Sweden signed a peace treaty which marked Sweden's end as a major European power, and enabled Peter to style himself Emperor of All Russia.

When anyone refused to cooperate with his grand dreams, Peter was furious. He thought nothing of personally cutting off the beards and caftans of those boyars who dared cling to the old Russian look. His oldest child, the Tsarevich Alexei, was  a great disappointment. An extremely devout Christian (unlike Peter himself, who openly scorned religion), Alexei was neither willing nor able to succeed Peter as Tsar. Peter hounded Alexei until he escaped from Russia in 1716, lured him back, tortured him terribly and allowed him to die in prison two years later. He suspected his beloved second wife, the Tsarina Catherine, of having taken a Dutch lover (the brother, oddly enough, of Peter's former mistress), and had the man drawn and quartered. The greatest illustration of his obsessive drive, however, was the building of his beloved Saint Petersburg. Because it was built during wartime, it had to be not just westernized Russian city, but as a naval and military base. Thus Peter spared no expense. Peasant aborers were forced in by the tens of thousands; when they died of overwork or malnutrition or disease, Peter had more sent in. To this day, the natives of St. Petersburg say that their city was built on bones. Peter also hired the best architects, craftsmen, and materials available; for years it was illegal to construct a stone building in Russia anywhere but in St. Petersburg. In 1712, Peter officially named his new city the capital of Russia. Lavishly adorned by his successors, and terribly tested by siege in the Second World War, this gorgeous city is but the greatest of Peter's indelible marks upon the Russian state..