Peter I biography

Dromo's Den

Peter the Great Biography

PETER I, Alexeyevitch (1672-1725). Emperor of Russia from 1682 to 1725, generally known as Peter the Great. He was the son of the Czar Alexei Mikhailovitch by his second wife, Natalia Naryshkin, and was born at Moscow, June 9 (May 30), 1672. Peter's half brother Feodor, who succeeded his father in 1676, died without issue in 1682, having named Peter as his successor, to the exclusion of his own full brother, Ivan, a feeble-minded prince. The Grand Duchess Sophia, Peter's half sister, attempted to set aside this arrangement and to obtain control of affairs. To this end she brought about an insurrection of the Streltsi (q.v.), and after much bloodshed Ivan and Peter were crowned as joint rulers and Sophia became Regent (July, 1682). Peter's education was not carefully looked after, and at an early age he gave evidence of those stormy passions which were to characterize his entire life. In February, 1689, Peter married Eudoxia Feodorovna Lopukhin, and soon after he called upon his sister to resign the government. This she would not do without a contest, and Peter was forced to flee from the capital, but the foreigners in the Russian service, led by Lefort and by Patrick Gordon (q.v.), joined his party, and when the Streltsi deserted her the Regent yielded and was shut up in a convent. On Oct. 11, 1689, Peter made his public entry into Moscow, where he was met by Ivan, to whom he gave a nominal precedence, reserving the sole exercise of power for himself. Ivan died in 1696. Peter grasped the value and significance of Western civilization much more thoroughly than any of his predecessors. He at once began the slow task of forming out of the barbarous and undisciplined material available an army on the European model. His ambitions were chiefly directed, however, towards creating a navy and developing the commerce of his country. Russia had little seaboard, being shut out from the Baltic by Sweden, which possessed Finland, Ingermanland, Esthonia, and Livonia, and from the Black Sea by Turkey, leaving only the White Sea and the Arctic Ocean, with the solitary port of Archangel, available for a Russian navy. Peter therefore set on foot what has become the established Russian policy, of seeking in every direction an outlet into ice-free seas. The Black Sea seemed to him to be the most available for a first move. He launched Russia upon her career of warfare against the Turks, and succeeded in making himself master of the city of Azov, at the mouth of the Don, in 1696. Peter brought in engineers, naval architects, and ordnance experts from Austria, Venice, Prussia, and Holland; built ships; improved the equipment and discipline of the army; and sent many of the young nobility to study in foreign countries. After repressing a revolt of the Streltsi in February, 1697, Peter put the administration into the hands of a council and left Russia in April, traveling as a subordinate member of an embassy, headed by Lefort, for the purpose of acquiring at first hand the knowledge necessary to develop his Empire. He thus visited the Baltic provinces, Prussia, and Hanover, and subsequently Holland, where at Amsterdam and Saardam he worked as a common shipwright. On the invitation of William III, King of England, he visited that country, remaining for three months. He left England in April, 1698, taking with him about 500 English engineers, surgeons, and artisans, and visited Vienna for the purpose of inspecting the Austrian army. His travels were cut short by a second revolt of the Streltsi, which necessitated his return to Russia in September, 1698. General Gordon had crushed the revolt, but Peter determined to be finally rid of this turbulent soldiery, and the organization was broken up and many of its members were executed. Peter divorced the Czarina Eudoxia, who with his sister Martha was suspected of complicity in the outbreak, which had been fostered by the Old Russian party. The process of introducing Western civilization continued. Printing and education were promoted, the calendar was partially reformed, and Western methods of enumeration were introduced. Systematic taxation of commodities was adopted as a source of revenue; foreign commerce was encouraged; and much of the Orientalism in dress, manners, and customs which had grown up during the Mongol supremacy gave place to the ways of the Occident. The Church was reorganized, its government being intrusted to the Holy Synod, of which the Czar was the head.

Having secured to Russia access to the sea on the south, Peter turned his eyes towards the Baltic, the possession of whose shores he determined to dispute with Sweden. That kingdom since the time of Gustavus Adolphus had been the strongest military power in northern Europe. In 1700 Peter made an alliance with Sweden's enemies, Denmark and Poland, and threw down the gauntlet in the struggle for the Baltic supremacy. He was badly defeated by Charles XII at Narva, where his raw troops, although vastly superior in numbers, were wholly unable to cope with the Swedish veterans (Nov. 30, 1700). Peter was not disheartened. Taking advantage of the Swedes being employed elsewhere, he seized a portion of Ingermanland, in which he laid the foundation of the new capital, St. Petersburg (1703). Great inducements were held out to those who would reside in it, and in a few years it became Russia's commercial depot for the Baltic. For a long time in the contest with Sweden the Russians met with defeat, but Peter saw that reverses were administering to his troops a wholesome discipline. In 1709 Charles XII rashly invaded South Russia, and on July 8 his army was annihilated by the Czar at Poltava. This event marked the collapse of the Swedish power. In the following year Peter was master of, Livonia. He now found himself at war with the Turks, whom Charles XII, who had taken refuge among them, had stirred up to hostilities. In 1711 Peter was caught in a trap on the Pruth and was forced to conclude the Treaty of Hush (July .23), by which he gave up the port of Azov and the territory belonging to it. On March 2, 1712, Peter's marriage with his mistress, Catharine (see Catharine I), was celebrated at St. Petersburg, and two months afterward the central government was transferred to the new capital. The war against Sweden was prosecuted with energy and success. In 1713 the Swedish general Stenbock was forced by the Danes, Saxons, and Russians to surrender at Tönning in Schleswig. About the same time the Russians made themselves masters of Finland, and in 1714 the Russian fleet overwhelmed the Swedes near the Aland Islands. In 1716 and 1717 Peter made another tour of Europe. In 1718 a widespread conspiracy looking towards the undoing of Peter's reforms was discovered and among those implicated was the Crown Prince Alexei Petrovitch (q.v.). Peter caused his son to be sentenced to death, but pardoned him later. The unfortunate prince, according to the most probable accounts, died in prison from the effects of the torture to which he had been subjected. In 1721 peace was made with Sweden, which surrendered to Russia Livonia, Esthonia, Ingermanland, Karelia, and a small portion of Finland, together with all the islands along the Baltic coast from Courland to Viborg. In the same year Peter assumed the title of Emperor of All the Russias. In 1722 Peter commenced a war with Persia in order to open the Caspian Sea to Russian commerce. Derbend and Baku were the fruits of this war. The last years of Peter's life were occupied chiefly in beautifying and improving his new capital and carrying out plans for the diffusion of knowledge among his subjects. In the autumn of 1724 he was seized with a serious illness, the result of his imprudence and habitual excesses, and after enduring much agony he died, Feb. 8 (Jan. 28), 1725.

Upon the political life of Russia Peter the Great left a powerful impress and he is regarded as the creator of modern Russia, which he definitely brought into the state system of European nations. Peter the Great was a type of the benevolent despot of the eighteenth century, who sought to advance the progress of his people from above. The testament attributed to him, defining his policy, is probably spurious, but it doubtless expresses, with some elaboration, his ideas.

The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. XVIII (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 416-417.