PETER THE GREAT
[Sidenote: His Accession and Early Travels]
The grandson of Michael Romanov was the celebrated Peter the Great, who may rightfully be designated as the father of modern Russia. His older brothers, with whom during his youth he was nominally associated in the government, died in turn without leaving direct heirs, and Peter became sole ruler in 1696. From the outset he showed an insatiable curiosity about the arts and sciences of western Europe, the authority of its kings and the organization of its armies and fleets. To an intense curiosity, Peter added an indomitable will. He was resolved to satisfy his every curiosity and to utilize whatever he learned or found.
From childhood, Peter had displayed an aptitude for mechanical tools and inventions and especially for boat-making. Shipbuilding and ship- sailing became his favorite pastimes. When he was barely twenty-one, he launched at Archangel, on the ice-bound White Sea, a ship which he had built with his own hands. Now in 1696, being sole tsar at the age of twenty-four, he fitted out a fleet which defeated the Turks on the Black Sea and allowed him to capture the valuable port of Azov. No other successes were gained, however, in this Turkish War; and the young tsar began to perceive that if he were to succeed in his cherished project he would have to obtain Western aid. In 1697, therefore, a special commission left Moscow for the purpose of soliciting the cooperation of the principal Powers against Turkey, and to this commission the young tsar attached himself as a volunteer sailor, "Peter Mikhailov," in order that he might incidentally learn much about ship-building and other technical sciences.
In its primary purpose, the Russian commission failed signally. Western Europe was on the eve of the War of the Spanish Succession, and all the European sovereigns seemed to be engrossed in the distractions of dynastic politics. No help against the Turks was forthcoming. But personally Peter learned many useful things. In Holland he studied ship-building as well as anatomy and engraving. In England he investigated industry and commerce. He closely scrutinized the military establishment of Prussia. In all places which he visited he collected artisans, sailors, engineers, or other workmen, whom he sent back to Russia to instruct his people.
[Sidenote: Suppression of the Streltsi]
While he was on his way from Vienna to Venice, news reached him that the royal bodyguard, called the streltsi, had taken advantage of his absence of a year and a half and had mutinied at Moscow. In hot haste he hurried home and wreaked dire vengeance upon the mutineers. Two thousand were hung or broken on the wheel, five thousand were beheaded, and Peter for many days amused himself and edified his court by the wonderful dexterity he displayed in slicing off the heads of streltsi with his own royal arm.
The severe punishment of the rebellious streltsi and the immediate abolition of their military organization was clear evidence that Peter was fully determined both to break with the past traditions of his country and to compel all the Russian people to do likewise.
[Sidenote: Military Reform]
His first care was the reconstruction of the army on the Prussian model. Officered and disciplined by foreigners dependent entirely upon the tsar, the new army replaced the streltsi and proved a potent factor in furthering the domestic and foreign policies of Peter the Great.
[Sidenote: Introduction of Occidental Customs]
The young reformer next turned his attention to the customs of his people—their clothing and manners—which he would transform from Oriental to Occidental. Edict followed edict with amazing rapidity. The chief potentates of the empire were solemnly assembled so that Peter with his own hand might deliberately clip off their long beards and flowing mustaches. A heavy tax was imposed on such as persisted in wearing beards. French or German clothes were to be substituted, under penalty of large fines, for the traditional Russian costume. The use of tobacco was made compulsory. The Oriental semi-seclusion of women was prohibited. Both sexes were to mingle freely in the festivities of the court. These innovations were largely superficial: they partially permeated the nobility and clergy, but made little impression on the mass of the population. Peter had begun a work, however, which was certain of great results in the future.
[Sidenote: Development of Autocracy]
The reign of Peter the Great is notable for the removal of serious checks upon the power of the tsar and the definitive establishment of that form of absolutism which in Russia is called "autocracy." By sheer ability and will-power, the tsar was qualified to play the role of divine-right monarch, and his observation of the centralized government of Louis XIV, as well as the appreciation of his country's needs, convinced him that that kind of government was the most suitable for Russia.
[Sidenote: Subordination of the Orthodox Church to the Russian State]
[Sidenote: The Holy Synod]
We have already observed how Peter replaced the independent, turbulent streltsi with a thoroughly devoted and orderly standing army. That was one important step in the direction of autocracy. The next was the subordination of the Church to the state. The tsar understood the very great influence which the Holy Orthodox Church exerted over the Russian people and the danger to his policies that ecclesiastical opposition might create. He was naturally anxious that the Church should become the ally, not the enemy, of autocracy. He, therefore, took such steps as would exalt the Church in the opinion of his countrymen and at the same time would render it a serviceable agent of the government. Professing the warmest faith in its religious tenets, he deprived the patriarch [Footnote: Until late in the sixteenth century, the metropolitan of Moscow was in theory under the authority of the patriarch of Constantinople; thereafter, through Boris Godunov, he became independent with full consent and approval of the whole Greek Orthodox Church and was styled the patriarch of Moscow.] of Moscow of his privilege of controlling the ecclesiastical organization and vested all powers of church government in a body, called the Holy Synod, whose members were bishops and whose chief was a layman, all chosen by the tsar himself. No appointment to ecclesiastical office could henceforth be made without the approval of the Holy Synod; no sermon could be preached and no book could be published unless it had received the sanction of that august body. The authority which the tsar thereby obtained over the Russian Church was as complete and far-reaching as that which Henry VIII had acquired, two centuries earlier, over the Anglican Church. The results have been in keeping with Peter's fondest expectations, for the Orthodox Church in Russia has been from his time to the present the right-hand support of absolutism. The tsars have exalted the Church as the fountain of order and holiness; as a veritable ark of the covenant have the clergy magnified and extolled the autocracy.
[Sidenote: Secular Power of the Tsar]
A remodeling of the secular government of Russia along autocratic lines was another achievement of Peter the Great which long endured. At the head of the state was the tsar or emperor, possessing absolute, unlimited powers. An ancient assembly, or Duma, of nobles, which had formerly exercised vague legislative rights, was practically abolished, its place being taken by an advisory Council of State whose members, usually noblemen, were selected by the tsar. All traces of local self- government were similarly swept away, and the country was henceforth administered by the tsar's personal agents. To enforce his autocratic will, a system of police was organized on a militia basis, its chiefs being made dependent on the central authority. In these, as in all his other reforms, the tsar encountered a good deal of opposition, and for a while was obliged to rely largely on foreigners to carry them out. As soon as possible, however, Peter employed natives, for it was a cardinal point in his policy that the Russians themselves must manage their own state without foreign interference or help.
[Sidenote: Attempted Social Reforms of Peter the Great]
Like his contemporaries in western Europe, Peter gave considerable attention to the economic condition of the monarchy. He strove, though often in a bungling manner, to promote agriculture and to improve the lot of the peasantry, who still constituted the overwhelming bulk of forms of the population. He certainly deprived the nobles of many of their former privileges and sought to rest political power and social position on ability rather than on birth. He understood that Russia grievously lacked a numerous and prosperous middle class, and he aimed to create one by encouraging trade and industries. His almost constant participation in wars, however, prevented him from bringing many of his economic and social plans to fruition.
[Sidenote: Ambitious Foreign Policy of Peter the Great]
Internal reforms were but one-half of Peter's ambitious program. To him Russia owes not only the abolition of the streltsi, the loss of the independence of the Church, the Europeanization of manners and customs, and the firm establishment of autocracy, but also the pronouncement and enforcement of an elaborate scheme of foreign aggrandizement. On one hand, the tsar showed a lively interest in the exploration and colonization of Siberia and in the extension of Russian dominion around the Caspian Sea and towards the Persian Empire. On the other hand,—and this, for our purposes, is far more important,—he was resolved to make the cultural and commercial connection between Russia and Europe strong and intimate, to open a way to the west by gaining outlets on both the Black and Baltic seas—"windows" to the west, as he termed them.
On the Baltic Sea, Sweden blocked him; toward the Black Sea, the Ottoman power hemmed him in. It was, therefore, against Sweden and Turkey that Peter the Great waged war. It seemed to him a matter of dire necessity for the preservation of European civilization in Russia that he should defeat one or both of these states. Against the Turks, as events proved, he made little headway; against the Swedes he fared better.
In order that we may understand the nature of the momentous conflict between Russia and Sweden in the first quarter of the eighteenth century, it will be necessary at this point to notice the parallel development of Sweden.