A Short History of Russia

by Mary Platt Parmele

But Peter was not thinking of the impression he made. With an insatiable inquisitiveness and an omnivorous curiosity, he was looking for the secret of power in nations. Nothing escaped him—cutlery, rope-making, paper manufacture, whaling industry, surgery, microscopy; he was engaging artists, officers, engineers, surgeons, buying models of everything he saw—or standing lost in admiration of a traveling dentist plying his craft in the market, whom he took home to his lodgings, learned the use of the instruments himself, then practiced his new art upon his followers.

At The Hague he endured the splendid public reception, then hurried off his gold-trimmed coat, his wig and hat and white feathers, and was amid grime and dust examining grist-mills, and ferry-boats, and irrigating machines. To a lady he saw on the street at Amsterdam he shouted "Stop!" then dragged out her enameled watch, examined it, and put it back without a word. A nobleman's wig in similar unceremonious fashion he snatched from his head, turned it inside out, and, not being pleased with its make, threw it on the floor.

Perhaps Holland heard without regret that her guest was going to England, where he was told the instruction was based upon the principles of ship-building and he might learn more in a few weeks than by a year's study elsewhere. King William III. placed a fleet at his disposal, and also a palace upon his arrival in London. A violent storm alarmed many on the way to England, but Peter enjoyed it and humorously said, "Did you ever hear of a Tsar being lost in the North Sea?" England was no less astonished than Holland at her guest, but William III., the wisest sovereign in Europe, we learn was amazed at the vigor and originality of his mind. The wise Bishop Burnet wrote of him: "He is mechanically turned, and more fitted to be a carpenter than a Prince. He told me he designed a great fleet for attacking the Turkish Empire, but he does not seem to me capable of so great an enterprise." This throws more light upon the limitations of Bishop Burnet than those of Peter the Great, and fairly illustrates the incompetency of contemporary estimates of genius; or, perhaps, the inability of talent to take the full measure of genius at any time. The good Bishop adds that he adores the wise Providence which "has raised up such a furious man to reign over such a part of the world." Louis XIV. "had procured the postponement of the honor of his visit"; so Peter prepared, after visiting Vienna, to go to Venice, but receiving disturbing news of matters at home, this uncivilized civilizer, this barbarian reformer of barbarism, turned his face toward Moscow.

There was widespread dissatisfaction in the empire. The Streltsui (militia) was rebellious, the heavily taxed landowners were angry, and the people disgusted by the prevalence of German clothes and shaved faces. Had not the wise Ivan IV. said: "To shave is a sin that the blood of all the martyrs could not cleanse"! And who had ever before seen a Tsar of Moscow quit Holy Russia to wander in foreign lands among Turks and Germans? for both were alike to them. Then it was rumored that Peter had gone in disguise to Stockholm, and that the Queen of Sweden had put him into a cask lined with nails to throw him into the sea, and he had only been saved by one of his guards taking his place; and some years later many still believed that it was a false Tsar who returned to them in 1700—that the true Tsar was still a prisoner at Stockholm, attached to a post. Sophia wrote to the Streltsui—"You suffer—but you will suffer more. Why do you wait? March on Moscow. There is no news of the Tsar." The army was told that he was dead, and that the boyars were scheming to kill his infant son Alexis and then get into power again. Thousands of revolted troops from Azof began to pour into Moscow, then there was a rumor that the foreigners and the Germans—who were introducing the smoking of tobacco and shaving, to the utter destruction of the holy faith—were planning to seize the town. Peter returned to find Moscow the prey to wild disorder, in the hands of scheming revolutionists and mutineers. He concluded it was the right time to give a lesson which would never be forgotten. He would make the partisans of Old Russia feel the weight of his hand in a way that would remind them of Ivan IV.

On the day of his return the nobles all presented themselves, laying their faces, as was the custom, in the dust. After courteously returning their salutations, Peter ordered that every one of them be immediately shaved; and as this was one of the arts he had practiced while abroad he initiated the process by skillfully applying the razor himself to a few of the long-beards. Then the inquiry into the rebellion commenced. The Patriarch tried to appease the wrath of the Tsar, who answered; "Know that I venerate God and his Mother as much as you do. But also know that I shall protect my people and punish rebels." The "chastisement" was worthy of Ivan the Terrible. The details of its infliction are too dreadful to relate, and we read with incredulous horror that "the terrible carpenter of Saardam plied his own ax in the horrible employment"—and that on the last day Peter himself put to death eighty-four of the Streltsui, "compelling his boyars to assist"—in inflicting this "chastisement!"

CHAPTER XV

CHARLES XII.—NARVA—ST. PETERSBURG

The Baltic was at this time a Swedish sea. Finland, Livonia, and all the territory on the eastern coast, where once the Russians and the German knights had struggled, was now under the sovereignty of an inexperienced young king who had just ascended the throne of his father Charles XI., King of Sweden. If Peter ever "opened a window" into the West, it must be done by first breaking through this Swedish wall. Livonia was deeply aggrieved just now because of some oppressive measures against her, and her astute minister, Patkul, suggested to the King of Poland that he form a coalition between that kingdom, Denmark, and Russia for the purpose of breaking the aggressive Scandinavian power in the North. The time was favorable, with disturbed conditions in Sweden, and a youth of eighteen without experience upon the throne. The Tsar, who had recently returned from abroad and had settled matters with his Streltsui in Moscow, saw in this enterprise just the opportunity he desired, and joined the coalition.

At the Battle of Narva (1700) there were two surprises: one when Peter found that he knew almost nothing about the art of warfare, and the other when it was revealed to Charles XII. that he was a military genius and his natural vocation was that of a conqueror. But if Charles was intoxicated by his enormous success, Peter accepted his humiliating defeat almost gratefully as a harsh lesson in military art. The sacrifice of men had been terrible, but the lesson was not lost. The next year there were small Russian victories, and these crept nearer and nearer to the Baltic, until at last the river upon which the great Nevski won his surname was reached—and the Neva was his! Peter lost no time. He personally superintended the building of a fort and then a church which were to be the nucleus of a city; and there may be seen in St. Petersburg to-day the little hut in which lived the Tsar while he was founding the capital which bears his name (1703). No wonder it seemed a wild project to build the capital of an empire, not only on its frontier, but upon low marshy ground subject to the encroachments of the sea from which it had only half emerged; and in a latitude where for two months of the year the twilight and the dawn meet and there is no night, and where for two other months the sun rises after nine in the morning and sets before three. Not only must he build a city, but create the dry land for it to stand upon; and it is said that six hundred acres have been reclaimed from the sea at St. Petersburg since it was founded.