Episode 476: Peter the Great

become not only a tzar but a major reformer. He was a visionary, he was an autocrat, and sometimes he was a tyrant. His reign was long, from sixteen eighty two to seventeen twenty five, and he would fundamentally reshape Russia's political, military, and cultural life, marking its beginning as really a European power. Now. Peter came to the throne jointly with his half brother Ivan the Fifth in sixteen eighty two, but because they were so young, their sister

Sophia acted as regent. The child's are was restless and curious, with a particular fascination for all things mechanical and all things foreign. He spent much of his time not in the Kremlin, but in the German Quarter of Moscow, a suburb where foreign artisans and merchants lived. There, Peter mingled with Dutchmen, Scots and Germans, absorbing their customs, their clothing,

their language, but most of all, their technology. It was there that he first encountered modern Western European military and naval practices that would obsess him for the rest of his life. He would later rate quote, I am a pupil of foreign nations, and he meant that quite literally. He learned shipbuilding with his own hands, studied fortification techniques,

and surrounded himself with foreign advisors. In sixteen ninety seven, Peter sent off on an unprecedented diplomatic mission throughout Europe, known as the Grand Embassy. Disguised under the name of Peter Mikhaeloff, the rather recognizable six foot eight inch tall Zar traveled kind of incognito throughout the Netherlands, England and part of the Holy Roman Empire. He studied shipbuilding at the Dutch East India Company Shopyards in Zandam and in

Deptford on the Thames. He visited scientifics societies, he hired engineers, and he met with monarchs John Evelyn, the English diarist described the strange Russian visitor as a quote man of genius and uncommon spirit, very understanding and desirous of knowledge end quote. But the Tsar's European tour was cut short by a rebellion back home. The Streltzi uprising forced him to return. What followed was a brutal crackdown. Peter had over one thousand of the rebel guards executed, with many

personally interrogated and tortured by the Tsar himself. Their bodies were left on display as a warning. As one foreign diplomat right at the time, Moscow became a place of horror, a theater of vengeance. Peter returned from the West not just with new skills, but with a burning mission to reform Russia in its image. At its heart of the agenda was a transfer of society, government, and military to

match what he had seen back in Europe. Peter created Russia's first ever standing army and established a modern navy from scratch. He conscripted peasants by the tens of thousands and hired foreign officers to train them in European tactics. In seventeen hundred, he adopted new military regulations based on the Swedish and Dutch models, declaring, quote, our armies shall march like those of Frederick and Gustavus end quote, referencing

Gustavus Adolphus we've talked about previously. Naval bases were constructed along the Baltic and the new fleet would soon become a central tool in Peter's geographical ambitions. In terms of administrative overhaul, he literally rewrote the machinery of what would become the Russian Empire. When Peter assumed control of the Russian state, he inherited a government as cumbersome, medieval, and

archaic as the empire itself. The Muscovite system had been an labyrinth of overlapping Pretzsky bureaucratic departments with relatively hazy duties and chronic inefficiencies. Corruption was endemic, local government inconsistent, and communication across Russia's vast terrain painfully slow. Peter, ever, the impatient engineer, began dismantling and rebuilding the machine with methodical force from the word go In seventeen eleven, he created the Senate, or more formally, what was called the

Governing Senate. This was a supervisory governmental organ while he was away on his various campaigns. But quickly the governing Senate evolved into a permanent executive body, essentially a state council for the first time, and it could extensive authority. It oversaw taxation, judicial appeals, provincial administration, and even ecclesiastical matters. To enforce its will, Peter established a new office, the

Procurator General, known as the Czar's Eye. This official was charged with rooting out corruption, ensuring bureaucratic competence and compliance, and acting as the Emperor's voice in his absence. Peter also launched an ambitious plan to reorganize the emperor's territory. In seventeen oh eight, he divided Russia into eight vast gubernayas or provinces, each headed by a governor with sweeping authority. Later these were further subdivided to improve tax collection, military conscription,

and law enforcement. These reforms were not merely logistical, they were ideological. They signaled to Peter's designer to treat Russia as a modern, centralized state where local tradition would bow to imperial command. But to make this new system worked, he needed a loyal and above all educated bureaucracy thus became one of Peter's most controversial creations, the Table of Ranks, which was established in seventeen twenty two. This document reorganized

social hierarchy not by birth, but by state service. It divided civil and military positions into fourteen ranks and allowed commoners to rise through the bureaucracy or army to attain nobility. The underlying logic was revolutionary for Russia. Now going forward, it was merit, not lineage that would determine privilege. As Peter himself proclaimed, let's service to the state be the only latter to greatness. The old boyar Duma, the advisory

council of aristocratic nobles, was simply abolished. Themselves, once clothed in massive robes and unshorn beards, were now state functionaries, dressed in western garb, expected to speak French, to dance at court, and to build lives in service to the imperial machine. The transformation was not smooth. Bureaucrats were frequently incompetent, the reforms inconsistently applied, and resistance, both passive and active, was widespread. But the foundations Peter Lade would remain the

Table of ranks, for example, survived until nineteen seventeen. His states may have been built with coercion, but it endured was startling resilience. Now, the crucible of the transformation was war, specifically the Great Northern War, which I talked about last time,

which was from seventeen hundred and seventeen twenty one. This was a grueling conflict against Charles the twelfth of Sweden for dominance in the Baltic As I said at the beginning, Sweden was the superior power, but in the end Russia's consistent persistence paid off. At the Battle of Pultova in seventeen oh nine, Peter's modernized army shattered the Swedish forces, which really ended Sweden's reign as a great power and signaled Russia's arrival. In a triumphant declaration to his troops,

Peter declared, the era of darkness is over. Russia is now born anew and so it was. In seventeen twenty one, after the Treaty of Nystad ended the war, Peter took the title for the first time of Emperor of all the Russians, officially transforming what had been a medieval kingdom a Zardam into an empire. A senate decree placed him as Peter Patre, Father of the Fatherland. Now. Peter's efforts to westernize Russian society were sweeping and at times a

little ludicrous. He issued requirements requiring the boyars to shave their beards as I mentioned that, which was a sacred Orthodox tradition. They had to do it or they had to pay a beard tax. He changed the calendar from the Byzantine system to the Julian calendar, moving New Year's Day to January the first. He required western dress. He banned Russian traditional clothing at court and imported wholescale European

art and etiquette. A seventeen oh one decree ordered all noblemen and government clerks must study mathematics and geometry, or without such knowledge, no one may serve the state. To Peter, backwardness was a sin. Efficiency, order and knowledge were sacred. But not all Russians were eager to trade their caftains for frock coats. There was resistance, especially among old believers

and conservative nobles. One of Peter's former companions, Prince ALEXI, became a symbol of conservative resistance and back when Alexi Fred abroad and plotted with enemies of the crown. Peter hunted him down and had him tried and then tortured to death. Frankly, Peter seemed to recognize the cost that all these reforms were having on traditional Russian society. He would confess in a private letter, we must break the bones of our old Russia to set them straight. Better

suffer now than perish forever now. One of the biggest changes, of course, that Peter brought, was the creation of an imperial capital at Saint Petersburg. If Peter's bureaucratic overhaul was really a cerebral endeavor, his founding of Saint Petersburg was an act of pure driven will. It was as though he had decided to simply manifest his ambitions in stone and water. He transformed with the swampy Delta of the

Neva River into a symbol of Russia's new identity. The site was actually chosen in seventeen oh three, during the Great Northern War, after Russia managed to gain control of the Delta from Sweden. It was dangerous place. It was wind swept, it was prone to flooding, it was plagued with disease, but Peter insisted on building there. He said, we need a window to Europe, and he was willing to pay to have it opened. Conscription began immediately, tens

of thousands of serfs, soldiers, prisoners, conscripts. They were all brought to the site, often with little food or shelter. Many died of exposure, malaria and exhaustion. Foreign visitors called it quote the city built on bones end quote, but Peter remained consistently relentless. He ordered that stone construction be banned in all other Russian cities so that masons would

come to Saint Petersburg. He imported Dutch and Italian architects and laid out the city along western lines, with broad avenues, canals, and elegant embankments. The first major structure was the Peter and Paul Fortress, a defensive bastion that would later serve as a prison for political enemies. In seventeen twelve, before it was even finish, Peter made Saint Petersburg the capital of the Russian Empire. He transferred court functions, government departments,

and eventually the Senate from Moscow. Nobles were required to build homes there at their own expense come westward or be left behind. One foreign diplomat wrote an amazement quote, This city, which only yesterday was a swamp, now shines with palaces, shipyards and cathedrals. It was as though Rome

has risen again in the north. At the heart of the new capital was the czar's own residence, the modest Summer Palace, and later the more formal Winter Palace, which would become a symbol of imperial opulence under Catherine the Great. But Saint Petersburg was more than a city. It was Peter's ideological statement. Here was Russia's break with her Asiatic past,

her entry into the courts of Europe. It was a city where Baroque facades replaced onion domes, where science and secularism edged out mysticism and tradition, where foreign languages and Enlightenment ideas flowed as freely as the Neva River itself. Peter would once tell a visitor in Moscow, the past grips men's hearts. In Saint Petersburg, only the future matters. Yet the irony, of course, was that, in his quest to westernize, Peter still ruled like an Eastern autocrat. He coerced,

he commanded, he compelled. His new city was beautiful, Yeah, that's true, but it was built on human suffering, untold human suffering. In that extent, there wasn't much different between him and Ivan the Terrible. His new administration was efficient, but it was autocratic. His empire had grown powerful, but it was by no means free or liberal. Still, at the time of his death in seventeen twenty five, the

transformation was undeniable. The boy who had once played with wooden ships in the German Quarter now lay buried in a stone cathedral. He had commissioned, in a city he had invented, in a state it re engineered. He had carved a new Russia into the map of Europe, and as we'll see, that mark will not be easily replaced