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Soviet Union [USSR] Peter the Great and the Formation of the Russian Empire
As a child of the second marriage of Tsar Alexis, Peter was at
first relegated to the background of Russian politics as various
court factions struggled for control of the throne. Tsar Alexis was
succeeded by his son from his first marriage, Fedor III, a sickly
boy who died in 1682. Peter was then made co-tsar with his half
brother, Ivan V, but real power was held by Peter's half sister,
Sofia. She ruled as regent while the young Peter was allowed to
play war games with his friends and roam in Moscow's foreign
quarters. These early experiences instilled in him an abiding
interest in Western warfare and technology, particularly in
military engineering, artillery, navigation, and shipbuilding. In
1689, using troops he had drilled during childhood games, Peter
foiled a plot to have Sofia crowned. With the death of Ivan V in
1696, Peter became the sole tsar of Muscovy.
Much of Peter's reign was spent at war. At first he attempted
to secure Muscovy's southern borders against the Tatars and the
Ottoman Turks. His campaign against a fort on the Sea of Azov
failed at first, but having created Russia's first navy, Peter was
able to take the port of Azov in 1696. To continue the war with the
Ottoman Empire, Peter began looking for allies in Europe. He
traveled to Europe, the first tsar to do so, in a so-called Grand
Embassy that included visits to Brandenburg, Holland, England, and
the Holy Roman Empire. Peter learned a great deal and enlisted into
his service hundreds of European technical specialists. The embassy
was cut short by a revolt in Moscow that attempted to place Sofia
on the throne. Peter's followers crushed the revolt. Peter had
hundreds of the participants tortured and killed, and he publicly
displayed their bodies as a lesson to others.
Although Peter was unsuccessful in forging an anti-Ottoman
coalition in Europe, he found interest in waging war against Sweden
during his travels. Seeing an opportunity to break through to the
Baltic Sea, Peter made peace with the Ottoman Empire in 1700 and
then attacked the Swedes at Narva. Sweden's young king, Charles
XII, however, proved to be a military genius and crushed Peter's
army. Fortunately for Peter, Charles did not follow his victory
with a counteroffensive, but rather became embroiled in a series of
wars over the Polish throne. The respite allowed Peter to build a
new Western-style army. When the two met again in the town of
Poltava in 1709, Peter defeated Charles. Charles escaped to Ottoman
territories, and Russia subsequently became engaged in another war
with the Ottoman Empire. Russia agreed to return the port of Azov
to the Ottoman Empire in 1711. The Great Northern War, which in
essence was settled at Poltava, dragged on until 1721, when Sweden
agreed to the Treaty of Nystad. Muscovy retained what it had
conquered: Livonia, Estonia, and Ingria on the Baltic Sea. Through
his victories, Peter had acquired a direct link to western Europe.
In celebration, Peter assumed the title of emperor as well as tsar,
and Muscovy became the Russian Empire in 1721.
Muscovy's expansion into Europe and transformation into the
Russian Empire had been accomplished by restructuring the military,
streamlining the government, and mobilizing Russia's financial and
human resources. Peter had established Russia's naval forces and
reorganized the army along European lines. Soldiers, who served for
life, were drafted from the taxed population. Officers were drawn
from the nobility and were required to spend lifelong service in
either the military or the civilian administration. In 1722 Peter
introduced the Table of Ranks, which determined position and status
on the basis of service to the tsar rather than on birth or
seniority. Even commoners were ennobled automatically if they
achieved a certain rank.
Peter also reorganized the governmental structure. The
prikazi were replaced with colleges, or boards, and the
newly created Senate coordinated government policy. Peter's reform
of the local governmental system was less successful, but its
operations were adequate for collecting taxes and maintaining
order. As part of the governmental reform, the Orthodox Church was
partially incorporated into the administrative structure of the
country. The patriarchate was abolished and replaced by a
collective body, the Holy Synod, which was headed by a lay
government official.
Peter managed to triple the revenues coming into the state
treasury. A major innovation was a capitation, or poll tax, levied
on all males except clergy and nobles. A myriad of indirect taxes
on alcohol, salt, and even beards added further income. To provide
uniforms and weapons for the military, Peter developed a
metallurgical and textile industry based on the labor of serfs.
Peter wanted Russia to have modern technologies, institutions,
and ideas. He required Western-style education for all male nobles,
introduced "cipher" schools to teach the alphabet and basic
arithmetic, established a printing house, and funded the Academy of
Sciences, established just before his death in 1725. He demanded
that aristocrats acquire Western dress, tastes, and social customs.
As a consequence, the cultural rift between the nobles and the mass
of Russia people deepened. Peter's drive for Westernization, his
break with past traditions, and his coercive methods were
epitomized in the construction of the new, architecturally Western
capital, St. Petersburg, situated on land newly conquered on the
Gulf of Finland. St. Petersburg faced westward but was constructed
by conscripted labor. Westernization by coercion could not arouse
the individualistic creative spirit that was an important element
of the Western ways Peter so much admired.
Peter's reign raised questions regarding Russia's backwardness,
its relationship to the West, its coercive style of reform from
above, and other fundamental problems that have confronted
subsequent rulers. In the nineteenth century, Russians debated
whether Peter correctly pointed Russia toward the West or violated
its natural traditions. Historians' views of Peter's reign have
tended to reveal their own political and ideological positions as
to the essence of Russia's history and civilization.
Data as of May 1989
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