Summary

Pietro Alekseevič Romanov (in russo: Pётр Алексе́евич Рома́нов?, traslitterato: Pëtr Alekséevič Románov,

Considered a Russian national hero, he appears on 500-ruble bills and postage stamps; monuments and literary works are dedicated to him. He was about two meters tall, although his feet and head were disproportionate in comparison to his considerable stature; probably because of his height, he suffered from attacks of little evil, a particular form of epilepsy.

During his reign he was regarded by his contemporaries as the typical representative of the enlightened ruler, along with Joseph II of Habsburg and Maria Theresa of Austria, and as emperor he operated under the direction of the principles of jurisdictionalism.

Youth and ascension to the throne

Peter was born in Moscow at 1 a.m. on May 30, 1672, the son of Tsar Alexis and his second wife Natal'ja Kirillovna Naryškina. He was given the name Peter in honor of the apostle, and following the old custom of taking children's measurements, an image of St. Peter the Apostle was painted on a tablet the same size as the baby: 50 cm long and 16 cm wide.

The birth of the new tsarevic was heralded by the tolling of the bell of Ivan the Great's tower, and the cannons of the Kremlin fired blanks for three days while the bells of Moscow's 1,600 churches rang out festively. Peter was baptized by the tsar's personal confessor Alexis on June 29, the day of the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul.

On February 8, 1676, Tsar Alexis died and the throne of Russia was ascended by Fyodor, the semi-invalid eldest son of Alexis and his first wife Mariya Miloslavskaya. In 1674 Tsar Alexis had in fact appointed his son Fyodor as heir to the throne out of pure formality, thinking that his son would predecease him.

During the reign of Tsar Fyodor, Peter's life passed quietly alternating between playing and studying in the Kremlin palaces or in the Kolomenskoe. Peter's education was entrusted to several tutors, including Nikita Zotov.

Tsar Fyodor had no heir: his brother Ivan, first in line of succession, was disabled and mentally ill; therefore he suggested to the assembly of boyars that the crowd choose which of the two tsarevics, Ivan or Peter, should be the new tsar. On April 27, 1682, when Tsar Fyodor died, the crowd gathered under the balcony almost unanimously elected Peter as the future tsar, under the regency of his mother.

Strelzi revolt

Zarevna Sophia, the first-bed daughter of Alexis I, displeased with the choice, with the help of Ivan Miloslavsky, Prince Ivan Khovansky and Prince Vasily Golicyn instigated the Strelcs to revolt. On May 15, 1682, the knights Aleksandr Miloslavsky and Petr Tolstoy, on the orders of Sophia, went to the Strel'cy Quarter informing them that the Naryškin had murdered Zarevic Ivan and wanted to do the same to the rest of the royal family. Upon hearing such information, the uprising broke out: armed with spears, halberds, swords and muskets, the Streltsy menacingly headed for the Kremlin.

Arriving at the palace, the Strel'cy clamored for the Naryškin and Artamon Matveev to be handed over to them, who they said were responsible for the death of Zarevic Ivan. Understanding that the revolt was the result of a misunderstanding, Matveev asked the regent Natalia to show the Strel'cy that Peter and Ivan were alive. The woman, though frightened, obeyed, and this fact, along with a speech given by Matveev and Patriarch Joachim seemed to calm the crowd of rioters, but as soon as Matveev re-entered the palace, Prince Mikhail Dolgorukij, son of the Strel'cy commander, threatened the crowd, and this gesture prompted the Strel'cy to resume the uprising.

Dolgorukij was picked up by weight and thrown onto the spears of the other rioters, then his body was torn to pieces; then the rioters penetrated inside the palace where they gave vent to their wrath by plundering and massacring their rivals and those who protected them: among the victims of this massacre were Artamon Matveev, most of the boyars, Afanasij Naryškin, brother of the regent Natalia, the director of Foreign Affairs Ivanov, his son Vasilij, and the boyar Romodanovsky. The massacre ended only as night fell and all bodies or the remains of them were then taken to Red Square and to be shown to the Russian people.

The following day the Strel'cy returned to storm the Kremlin, this time in search of Ivan Naryškin, the regent's second brother, two doctors suspected of having poisoned Fyodor, and other traitors; given the unsuccessful outcome of the search, the Strel'cy returned to the Kremlin on the third day as well, threatening the royal family itself if Ivan Naryškin was not handed over to them. Ivan, hoping thus to calm the uprising, surrendered himself into the hands of the Strel'cy, who first tortured him for hours and then cut his body into pieces; the uprising and the massacre carried out by the Strel'cy was thus ended.

The two czars

On May 23, 1682, Tsarina Sophie instigated the Strel'cy to demand a change to the throne of Russia. Through a petition sent to Khovansky, whom Sophia had already appointed their commander, the Strel'cy demanded that young Peter be joined by his half-brother Ivan on the throne of Russia or else they would march against the Kremlin again. Meeting in the Palace of Facets, the patriarch, archbishops, and boyars agreed to the Strel'cy's request and unanimously decreed that two tsars would rule Russia together.

A few days later, on May 29, the Strel'cy presented a new petition requesting that, given the young age of the two tsars, Tsarevna Sofia should become regent: the patriarch and boyars agreed, and that same day a decree announced that Tsarevna Sofia Alekseevna was replacing Tsarina Natalia as regent.

As soon as she became regent, Sophia arranged for her lieutenants to be placed in the highest positions of command: her uncle Ivan Miloslavsky was her first adviser until his death; Fyodor Šaklovitij became the new commander of the Strel'cy; the young monk Sil'vestr Medvedev became her adviser and lover; Prince Vasily Golicyn became her prime minister. On June 25, at five o'clock in the morning, the double coronation of Tsars Ivan and Peter took place in the Dormition Cathedral.

Life in Preobraženskoe

Fearing for her life and that of her sons Peter and Natalia, Tsarina Natalia abandoned the Kremlin and moved with them to the Preobraženskoe mansion on the Jauza River. Here, young Peter was able to enjoy playing war along with those playmates assigned to him when he was five years old and from the noblest boyar families. Within a short time Peter created in Preobraženskoe a veritable camp of teenage soldiers.

Enlistment in this "army" was also allowed for boys from the lower social classes such as the sons of squires and serfs. It was from this acolyte of young nobles and stable boys that Peter later formed the Preobražensky Regiment, which remained in action until the fall of the Russian monarchy in 1917. Instead of assuming the rank of colonel, Peter enlisted in the Preobražensky Regiment as a drummer so that he could play the instrument he loved.

He never distinguished between himself and his other regimental comrades, even going so far as to sleep in their own tents and eat the same food. It was his belief that "...one must learn the soldier's trade and eventually make a career of it by starting in the ranks," and that if he, the tsar, behaved this way, no nobleman would dare to claim leadership roles for himself on the basis of title. This curious behavior, Peter will carry with him throughout his life; in fact, when he marches with his real army or sails with his real fleet, he will always do so as a subordinate officer and never as a supreme leader.

Spending much of his time in his military games, Peter had become fortified in body but not in culture. In fact, since leaving the Kremlin, young Peter had almost completely abandoned his studies. In 1688 Peter received a sextant as a gift from Prince Jakov Dolgorukij. Since no one was able to tell him how the instrument worked, however, the tsar went to the German Quarter in search of an expert, who was found in the person of Franz Timmerman, an elderly Dutch merchant: the man was quite willing to explain to Peter the use of the sextant, but in return he demanded that the young tsar set about studying arithmetic and geometry; Peter, driven by a desire to use the instrument, set about studying arithmetic and geometry at a good pace, and also became interested again in old subjects such as geography.

Together with Timmerman, Peter made visits to nearby villages and vast royal estates. In June 1688, while at a royal estate near Izmajlovo, Peter found in a warehouse an old boat that had been unused for some time and was almost completely rotten. On the czar's orders, Timmerman refitted the boat, and from the time it was ready onward Peter went boating every day along the Jauza River taking sailing lessons.

Eager to build new boats, together with Timmerman and Brandt, a Dutch carpenter who had come to Russia in 1660, Peter built a shipyard on the eastern shore of Lake Pleščeevo near Pereslavl'. Together with them, and other Dutch workers, the tsar worked on building five ships; however, none of them were finished when Peter was forced to return to Moscow for the winter.

Marriage with Evdokija

Meanwhile, the problem of succession to the throne had opened up. Ivan, in fact, from the marriage to which he had been forced had had only daughters, and Zarevna Sophie was prevented from marrying. Peter thus found himself forced to marry and produce an heir to the Russian throne. Since he did not show the slightest interest in this he left it to his mother Natalia to arrange the marriage.

She chose for her son the young Evdokija Lopukhina, a member of an old Moscow family. Their marriage, celebrated on January 27, 1689, turned out to be a complete failure to such an extent that, after a short time, Peter could hardly bear his wife's presence by his side. Soon strong tensions and disagreements began between Natalia herself and Evdokija.

At Lake Pleščeevo

In April 1689 Peter distanced himself from his wife and mother and returned to Lake Pleščeevo to check on the progress of the ships' construction. A peremptory order from his mother forced him to return to Moscow, from which he only managed to get away a month later to return to the lake to complete the ships.

The regency years were a disaster for Russia: the army was poorly organized, colonization of the far-flung Siberian provinces had stalled, and Russian trade languished in foreign hands. The only successes were found in foreign policy; however, this was not enough to end the people's discontent.

Forced again to return to Moscow for an official ceremony, Peter was made aware that a political crisis was approaching that would perhaps lead to the political demise of the regent Sophia. In fact, the two military campaigns in the Crimea, instigated by the regent and led by her lover, Prince Vasily Golicyn, had ended in two complete failures, and this had sparked a wave of resentment among the growing number of opponents to Sophia's regime.

The exauthorization of Sofia

In the late afternoon of August 17, 1689, an anonymous letter began to circulate reporting that during the course of the night Peter's private army would storm the Kremlin and kill Tsar Ivan and the regent Sophia. Fyodor Šaklovitij, the new commander of the Strelzi, then ordered that the gates of the Kremlin be closed and that a group of sentries patrol all the way to Preobraženskoe. In Preobraženskoe, news of the agitation at the Kremlin caused some alarm, but no precautions were taken.

That evening a chamberlain of Peter's was sent to the Kremlin with an ordinary dispatch. Knowing that he had been sent by Peter, the messenger was captured and brought into the presence of Šaklovitij. As soon as he heard what had happened to Peter's messenger, Strelzi lieutenant-colonel Larion Elizarov, who was loyal to Tsar Peter, deduced that the attack on Preobraženskoe was about to begin and sent two men to warn the tsar. The two messengers arrived in Preobraženskoe shortly after midnight and informed Peter of the impending attack by the Strelzi. Peter, together with some loyalists, fled in the middle of the night from Preobraženskoe to take refuge at the Trinity Monastery. Within a few hours Natalia and Evdokija, who had escaped from Preobraženskoe and were escorted by Peter's soldier-boys, also arrived at the monastery.

Realizing that Peter's escape to the monastery could be used to the tsar's political advantage, Sofia realized that her position was seriously threatened. When she learned that Peter had ordered the colonel of the Stremjani regiment, Ivan Cykler, to join him immediately at the monastery she flashed the fear that Cykler might confess under torture Šaklovitij's intentions to eliminate the Naryškin. When he arrived at the monastery, Cykler told everything he knew without the need for torture and offered to cross over to Peter's side. Seeing herself lost, Sofia realized that her only salvation would be a reconciliation and sent Ivan Troekurov to the monastery so that he could persuade Peter to return to the capital. Troekurov's mission was unsuccessful, however.

Peter then wrote a letter to the colonels of all the Strelzi regiments ordering them to join him at the monastery with ten men from each regiment. Sophia, in order to prevent such a mobilization of Strelzi, declared that anyone planning to leave for the monastery would be beheaded. The following day Peter sent an official dispatch to Tsar Ivan and Sophia in which he begged his half-sister to see to it that her orders were obeyed. The regent, hoping for reconciliation, begged Patriarch Joachim to go to the monastery to persuade Peter. The patriarch went to the monastery, but as soon as he arrived there he immediately sided with the young tsar.

On August 27 Peter sent new letters repeating the same orders as the previous ones and threatening those who did not obey him with death. These letters had their effect and a mass of Strelzi left the capital to go to the monastery. In a final attempt to resolve the crisis through reconciliation, Sophia decided to go to parliament herself with Peter.

She set off accompanied by Golicyn, Šaklovitij and a squad of Strelzi, but once she reached the village of Vozdviž she was stopped by Peter's men and forced to return to Moscow. A few hours later Peter sent his sister more missives in which he announced that he had discovered the existence of a plot to assassinate him and that the two conspirators were Šaklovitij and Sil'vestr Medvedev, who were to be arrested and taken to the monastery for trial. Such letters prompted most of the Strelzians to abandon Sofia and side with Peter; left alone and with no way out, Sofia attempted to harangue a crowd of Strelzians and citizens, but failed. On September 14, a proclamation from Peter arrived in the German Quarter addressed to all military personnel residing in the quarter, in which he reiterated the existence of a plot and urged them to join him at the monastery. After an initial doubt, the foreign officers, led by General Patrick Gordon, left for the monastery; the Strelzians who remained in Moscow threatened Sofia with starting a revolt if Šaklovitij was not handed over to them. The woman, fearing that she too would be killed in any riot, handed him over to them and they brought him before Peter.

The struggle was over and the regency concluded; Peter had won. Victory was to be followed by revenge. The first to suffer the harshest consequences was Šaklovitij: interrogated under torture he confessed to plotting against Peter and was for this condemned to death and beheaded four days later outside the monastery walls. Medvedev, intercepted while attempting to escape to Poland, was taken to the monastery, tortured, imprisoned, tortured again, and finally, two years later, executed; Golicyn, who had shown up at the monastery of his own free will on the day of Šaklovitij's arrest, was stripped of his title of boyar and his property and exiled with his family to a village in the Arctic. The regent Sophia was deposed and forced to retire for life to the Novodevicij convent. On October 16, 1689, Peter finally returned to Moscow amid two wings of kneeling crowds that forever recognized his title of absolute monarch.

Early years of reign

For another five years the tsar neglected government to return to the life he led at Preobraženskoe and Lake Pleščeevo, consisting of soldier-boys, boats, and lack of responsibility. During this period the government was administered by a small group of people who had supported Peter in his recent confrontation with the regent Sophia.

Tsarina Natalia was its nominal head; Patriarch Joachim was her closest aide; Lev Naryškin, Natalia's brother, was the director of Foreign Affairs; and the boyar Tikhon Strešnev was the minister of the Interior. Other prestigious names in the government included Boris Golicyn, Urusov, Romodanovsky, Troekurov, Prozorovsky, Golovkin, and Dolgorukij. Repnin and Vinius retained their mandates, and Boris Petrovič Šeremetev remained at the head of the South Russian Army to face the Tatars.

On February 28, 1690, Alexis Petrovich was born. This great joy for Russia was followed by a great mourning: on March 17 of that same year Patriarch Joachim died. As his successor part of the more educated clergy, and Peter himself, proposed Marcellus, Metropolitan of Pskov while Tsarina Natalia and the boyars proposed Adrian, Metropolitan of Kazan'. After five months of debate, despite Peter's firm opposition, Hadrian was chosen.

Beginning in 1690, after the death of Patriarch Joachim, Peter began to frequent the German Quarter more and more assiduously. There he got to know and befriend Andrej Vinius, a Dutch Russian, the Scottish general Patrick Gordon and the Swiss adventurer François Lefort. It was at Lefort's home that Peter met the young Anna Mons, daughter of a Westphalian wine merchant.

Before long Anna became his mistress and remained so for a full twelve years, during which time she more than once hoped to replace Evdokija as tsarina of Russia. The tsar, Vinius, Gordon, Lefort, Russian princes Mikhail Cerkassky and Fyodor Romodanovsky and others formed a close-knit group that took the name "Merry Company." The group led a vagabond life by suddenly swooping in to eat, drink and sleep in some aristocratic mansion to the amazement of the owners.

During the summer of 1690 Peter participated in a military maneuver during which the Preobražensky Regiment attacked the fortified camp of the Semynovsky Regiment. During this exercise, Peter himself was injured when a vessel filled with pyrotechnic powder burst near him, burning his face. In autumn 1691 two mock battles between the two regiments took place. In the second of them some soldiers lost their lives and Gordon and Prince Ivan Dolgorukij were wounded, but while the former got off with a week's bed rest, the latter died a few days later of an infection.

Throughout this period Peter had not forgotten his boats. In 1691 he hired twenty Dutch naval engineers, and when he went to Lake Pleščeevo he found them working with Brandt on two frigates and three pleasure boats. In 1692 Peter went to the lake four times, and on one of these occasions he had his mother and wife accompany him. Back in Moscow, in November 1692, Peter was stricken with a severe attack of dysentery that bedridden him for six weeks and caused him to fear for his life.

In late February 1693 Peter again went to Preslav'l to work on his ships and remained there for the duration of Lent. In July of that same year Peter, by then tired of Lake Pleščeevo, went to Archangel, a port located near the White Sea, where he began sailing the open sea aboard the St. Peter, a small boat built especially for him.

At the end of the summer Peter began construction of a larger vessel, giving orders that it be finished by winter. He also asked Lefort and Vinius to order a Dutch frigate from Nicholas Witsen, burgomaster of Amsterdam. Leaving Archangel in mid-September, Peter returned to Moscow a month later. On February 4, 1694, after an illness of only two days, Tsarina Natalia died at the age of forty-two. Peter was at a banquet when he was warned that his mother was dying.

He immediately ran to her, but after a quarrel with Patriarch Hadrian he left incensed. He was in Preobraženskoe when they informed him that his mother had died. Falling into despondency, Peter did not even attend his mother's funeral, but went after the burial to pray alone at her grave. In the spring of 1694 Peter returned to Archangel, where he found completed the ship he had begun the previous summer and to which the name St. Paul was given.

Determined to go to the Soloveckij monastery, on the night of June 10 Peter boarded the St. Peter together with Afanasij, archbishop of Kholmogory, some friends and a group of soldiers. The following day, 80 miles off the coast of Archangel, the boat was hit by a violent cloudburst. After about twenty-four hours of terror, the small ship reached the Pertominsk monastery, in whose chapel the entire crew gathered to thank the Lord for saving their lives. On June 16 Peter set sail again for the Solovecky monastery, where he stayed for three days.

His return to Archangel was greeted with joy by his friends, who feared that, given the storm, the St. Peter had been shipwrecked. On July 21, the Dutch frigate Holy Prophecy that Peter had ordered arrived at the port of Archangel. A week later Peter's small fleet escorted a convoy of Dutch and English merchantmen back home to Svjatoj Nos. Mindful of his previous experience Peter did not want to venture into the waters of the Arctic Ocean and therefore returned to Archangel, from which he departed on September 3 to return to Moscow.

In September 1694 in a wide valley near the village of Kožukhovo Peter's last peacetime military exercise was held. Indeed, the tsar decided it was time to stop playing at war and turn his army against the Turks with whom Russia was still in a state of war.

First Azov Campaign

In the winter of 1695 Peter announced that in the summer Russia would resume war against the Crimean Tatars and their master, the Ottoman Empire. Peter's desire to reach the sea and test his army along with other reasons (the continuing Tatar incursions and the need to achieve a military result that would satisfy Poland) prompted Peter to attack the Turkish fortress of Azov, which was necessary to gain control of the mouths of the Dnepr and Don rivers and thus access to the Black Sea.

Unlike previous expeditions, Peter decided to use barges as a means of transportation; two separate armies were formed: the eastern army, whose task was to move south of the Don to attack the fortress of Azov, and the western army, whose task was to move along the Dnepr to attack the two forts of Očakiv and Kazikerman and distract the bulk of the Tatar cavalry from Peter's troops in Azov. In March General Gordon left Moscow with 10,000 soldiers, moving south across the steppe while the bulk of the army (21,000 men) with Peter, Lefort and Golovin left the capital in May embarking on barges, joining Gordon in Azov on June 29.

However, the campaign proved to be unsuccessful because of several problems: there was a lack of engineers experienced in sieges, the supply system was unprepared to deal with the problem of provisioning 30,000 men for a long period, and the Strelzians refused to follow orders given by European officers. Exacerbating the situation was the betrayal of Dutch sailor Jacob Jensen, who turned to the Turks and revealed to them important information for defeating the Russian army. On August 15, the Russians launched a massive surprise attack on the fortress but failed to conquer it and suffered losses in excess of 1,500 men.

A second unsuccessful attack and the arrival of cold winter forced Peter to lift the siege on Azov on October 12. The retreat northward was a disaster, costing more in human lives than the siege campaign. For seven weeks the Russians trudged in the rain across the steppe pursued and mowed down by Tatar cavalry. On December 2, the survivors reached Moscow. Peter, imitating the precedents of Sophia and Golicyn that he himself had condemned, attempted to mask defeat by staging a triumphant return to the capital.

Second Azov Campaign

Undaunted, Peter immediately began preparations for a second attack, taking care to solve the problems that had arisen during the first one: he requested experienced gunners, engineers and skilled sailors from the emperor; he ordered the construction of 25 galleys equipped with armaments and 1,300 new barges capable both of carrying provisions and troops and of being able to deal with Turkish ships. In order for them to be ready by May 1696, Peter had new shipyards built in Voronež, a city on the Don River; expanded the existing shipyards; recruited a huge number of workers; and appealed to the doge of Venice to send him technicians experienced in building galleys.

Peter himself set about building ships.While the future "Great One" was engaged in this Herculean effort, Tsar Ivan died suddenly on February 8, 1696. Now Peter was the sole, supreme ruler of the Russian state. Although the general mobilization was more circumscribed than the previous one, the force destined to launch the second assault on Azov was twice as large: 46,000 Russian soldiers flanked by 15,000 Ukrainian Cossacks, 5,000 Don Cossacks and 3,000 Calmucchi.

On May 3 part of the Russian fleet began its voyage along the Don. Peter, who left some time later with a fleet of eight light galleys, reached the bulk of the fleet on May 26. Hostilities opened immediately. On May 29, while the Turks were transporting provisions destined for the fortress from the ships ashore, the Cossacks managed to capture ten and put the others to flight. A few days later Peter managed to get his entire force of 29 galleys past the fortress of Azov undisturbed. The city was thus completely isolated. The Russian army succeeded in completely besieging the city.

On June 26, Russian cannons opened fire against the fortress of Azov; days later the Turks announced their surrender: Peter allowed them to leave Azov but demanded in return that they hand over the traitor Jensen, had the mosques in the settlement converted into Christian churches, ordered the demolition of all siege works and the restoration of the fortified walls and ramparts of the city. Before leaving Azov, Peter attended mass celebrated in a new church. On October 10, the tsar made a triumphant return to Moscow.

Constitution of the Russian fleet

As soon as the triumph in Moscow was celebrated, Peter assembled the council of boyars in Preobraženskoe and announced his intention to colonize Azov and Taganrog and build a naval fleet: Thirty thousand peasant families and three thousand Strelzians were sent to Azov as military colonists while twenty thousand Ukrainians were sent to Taganrog to build the port.

On October 20, 1696, a decree approved the establishment of the Russian Navy; the burdens of building the new ships, which were to be prepared within eighteen months in the Voronež shipyards, were divided among the merchants, the church, and the landowners: the state would build ten ships for its own against ten; each landowner would build one; just as each large monastery had to build one.

Although naval carpenters were coming from all over Europe, many more technicians would have been needed to build the fleet Peter had in mind. Another problem would arise when the fleet was launched, since at least some officers had to be Russians. On November 22 Peter declared that he would send more than fifty Russians, mostly young scions of the noblest families, to Europe to study nautical and naval engineering. In the years that followed, dozens and dozens more young Russians were sent abroad for nautical training; the knowledge they brought with them upon their repatriation helped transform Russia.

The Grand Ambassadorship

With the seizure of Azov, however, Peter had gained access only to the Sea of Azov, because the entrance to the Black Sea was still blocked by the powerful Turkish fortress of Kerc, placed across the strait between the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea. To force this strait, Russia needed not only men and advanced technology, but also powerful and trusted allies.

With the main purpose of creating an alliance against the Turks, the "Grand Ambassaderie" was formed, in which the tsar himself would take part incognito under the name Petr Mikhajlov. Head of the Ambassaderie, with the rank of first ambassador, was appointed Lefort. The other two ambassadors were Fyodor Golovin and Prokofij Voznicyn. In their retinue were twenty nobles and thirty-five volunteers, who were followed by chamberlains, priests, secretaries, interpreters, musicians, singers, cooks, coachmen, seventy soldiers and four dwarfs, making a total of more than two hundred and fifty people.

To govern Russia in his absence, Peter established a regency council composed of Lev Naryškin, Prince Boris Golicyn, and Prince Petr Prozorovsky; nominally subordinate to these three men, but in fact viceroy of Russia, was Prince Fyodor Romodanovsky. The eve of the Ambassadorship's departure was marred by a tragic episode: the Strelzi colonel Ivan Cykler and two boyars were imprisoned on charges of plotting against the tsar.

Despite the paucity of evidence against them, they were all sentenced to death and executed in one of the most heinous ways known to history: their legs and arms were cut off first, then their heads, and Ivan Miloslavsky's coffin was placed under the executioner's box, opened so that the blood of the condemned would flow over the corpse. On March 20, 1697, the Grand Ambassade left for Novgorod and Pskov.

Having crossed the Russian frontier, he entered the Baltic province of Livonia, controlled by the Swedes. Intending to cross the Dvina, Peter was instead forced, due to the presence of ice in the river, to stop for a week in Riga, the capital of Livonia. Erik Dahlberg, Swedish governor of Riga, found himself completely unprepared to receive the members of the Ambassadorship with due honors.

No banquets or receptions for ambassadors were held throughout the week. In addition, the tsar, caught drawing and measuring the city's ramparts, risked being killed by a Swedish sentry who believed him to be a Russian spy. The affair was resolved by Dahlberg's apology made to the tsar. These events contributed to the fact that in Peter's memory Riga always remained an unpleasant and inhospitable city.

Having crossed the Dvina, Peter entered the Duchy of Courland. Although his country was poor, Duke Frederick Casimir Kettler did not make the mistake of Riga and honored the Ambassadorship with sumptuous entertainments.

Next destination was Königsberg, in the electorate of Brandenburg, where Peter was welcomed by the elector himself, Frederick III of Hohenzollern. Frederick dreamed of transforming the electorate into a powerful kingdom assuming the name Prussia and turning his own title into Frederick I, King of Prussia. The title could be granted to him by the Emperor of Austria, but the expansion of the kingdom could only take place at the expense of Sweden. Frederick therefore sought the Russian alliance to counter Sweden. Peter, still at war with Turkey, did not see fit to provoke the Swedes but established with Frederick a treaty of mutual aid in case of attack by their mutual enemies.

Regrettably, in Königsberg Peter got into trouble as well. On his name-day, counting on a visit from Frederick, Peter had prepared a fireworks display in his honor. Unaware of the importance of the day, Frederick had left the city and delegated some of his ministers to represent him at the tsar's party. Peter, left offended, loudly uttered the phrase, "The elector is an excellent person, but his ministers are the devil!" and then, seized with anger, rudely chased away a Brandenburgers who he thought was laughing at him.

Having cooled his anger, the tsar wrote a letter of apology to Frederick and before his departure made further amends by sending Frederick a large ruby. Although eager to leave for Holland, Peter wanted to stay in Königsberg until the situation in Poland, whose throne was disputed by two pretenders, was resolved: Augustus, Elector of Saxony, and Francis Louis of Bourbon, Prince of Conti, supported by Louis XIV.

A French king on the Polish throne would have meant the end of Poland's participation in the war against the Turks and the extension of France's power into Eastern Europe. If the Diet elected Conti as king, Peter was ready to invade Poland. In mid-August news came that Augustus of Saxony had been elected king of Poland. Happy about this Peter wished to reach Holland by sea, but was forced to change his plans because of the presence of French warships in the Baltic.

The tsar left Königsberg in great secrecy to avoid encountering curious people eager to see him. Passing through Germany, at Koppenbrügge, Peter got to meet and have lunch with Sophia, widow of the Elector of Hanover, and her daughter Sophie Charlotte, electress of Brandenburg. After these meetings, Peter headed for Holland.

Eager to visit the city of Zaandam, famous for its shipyards, once he had reached Emmerich on the Rhine, Peter chartered a boat and headed with it to the city. He arrived there on the morning of Sunday, August 18. Appearing incognito at a shipyard, the tsar began working with the other workers on the construction of ships. Before long his identity was discovered, and in even less time people from all over Holland came to Zaandam to see him. Peter, not withstanding all the crowds that prevented him from even leaving his house, was forced to leave the city in a hurry and set course for Amsterdam.

The magnates of Amsterdam, sensing the importance this Ambassadorship might have in the future for a commercial development with Russia, had decided to receive it with the honors and protocol reserved for kings. Therefore, receptions, opera performances and ballets were organized. It was during these festivities that Peter met Nicholas Witsen, burgomaster of the city. With Witsen's help, Peter was hired to work at the East India Company's shipyards; moreover, to help him in the apprenticeship of nautical construction, the East India Company's board of directors ordered the keel of a new frigate to be laid, so that the tsar and his companions could study Dutch construction methods right from the start. The frigate was eventually named The Apostles Peter and Paul, and Peter worked on the construction of every phase of it.

Peter's curiosity was insatiable. He wanted to see everything with his own eyes; he visited farms, sawmills, spinning mills, paper mills, artisans' workshops, museums, botanical gardens and workshops. During his months in Amsterdam he met architects, sculptors and Van der Heyden, the inventor of the fire pump, whom he tried to persuade to move to Russia. He visited the architect Simon Schonvoet, Jacob de Wilke's museum, and learned to draw under Schonebeck's guidance.

In Delft he visited the engineer Baron de Coehoorn, who lectured him on the science of fortifications. Several times Peter left the construction site to visit Professor Fredrik Ruysch, a well-known professor of anatomy. It was Ruysch who advised Peter in the selection of doctors to be brought to Russia attached to the army and navy. In Leiden Peter met Dr. Boerhaave, professor of anatomy and director of a well-known botanical garden. In Deft he met the naturalist Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, inventor of the microscope.

In Utrecht Peter got to know William III of Orange, King of England and statolder of Holland, a man the tsar had admired since childhood.Peter proposed to him an alliance of Christians against the Turks, but William, already engaged in war with France, did not want to take on the burden of opening another front of hostilities in the East. Peter, through the person of Lefort, made the same proposal to the formal leaders of Holland, Their Sovereignty of the States General, but even from them he received contrary advice.

In Holland Peter also met the famous Dutch admiral Gilles Schey, who had a large mock naval battle built for him on the Ij. Peter tried by all means to persuade the admiral to go to Russia to supervise the construction of his fleet, but the man declined the offer, proposing Admiral Cornelius Cruys in his place. During the autumn Peter, accompanied by Witsen, visited the length and breadth of Holland. Except for these outings, Peter worked in the shipyard for four months; On November 16 the ship was ready for launching and Witsen, on behalf of the city of Amsterdam, offered her as a gift to Peter.

The tsar, moved, wanted to name the frigate Amsterdam. Peter was pleased with the gift, but he was even more so with the certificate he received from Gerrit Pool, the shipyard manager, stating that Petr Mikhajlov had acquired the basics of the nautical art. Eager to learn the basic secrets of nautical design, now that the frigate was finished, Peter decided to travel to England to study English nautical techniques. On January 7, 1698, after a five-month stay in Holland, Peter and his retinue boarded the Yorke, Sir David Mitchell's flagship, which sailed for England the following day.

Twenty-four hours later the Yorke arrived off the Suffolk coast. At the mouth of the Thames, Admiral Mitchell and Peter moved to a smaller vessel called the Mary. The Mary sailed up the Thames and on the morning of January 11 dropped anchor near London Bridge. Peter spent his early London days in a house located at 21 Norfolk Street.

On January 23, accompanied by Admiral Mitchell and two Russian comrades, Peter met again with King William III, who received him at Kensington Palace. This visit was the only official ceremony Peter attended during his London stay. Incognito he loved to walk around the city curious about everything. For comfort and to escape the curiosity of the crowd, the tsar moved to Deptford in Sayes Court owned by writer John Evelyn.

Well aware of Peter's poor adherence to the Orthodox faith, Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Tenison and King William, with the help of Gilbert Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury, attempted to convert the tsar to Protestantism without success. At that time several members of other religions attempted the same thing. Also during that period, English merchants asked for and obtained from the tsar a monopoly for the tobacco trade in Russia.

Also in England, as in Holland, Peter worked in the shipyards on the lower Thames. In the times when he was not working he went around London and its environs to visit all the interesting places. He visited the naval hospital at Greenwich, the tombs of the English monarchs at Westminster, Windsor Castle, Hampton Court, Greenwich Observatory, Woolwich Arsenal, and the Tower of London.

Throughout his entire stay in England Peter devoted himself to a continuous search for qualified men to hire into his service by having them come to Russia. Eventually he convinced about sixty Englishmen to follow him. Among them were Major Leonard van der Stamm, a master naval carpenter at Deptfort; Captain John Perry, a hydraulic engineer to whom Peter entrusted the construction of the Volga-Don canal; and Professor Henry Farquharson, a mathematician from the University of Aberdeen, who was commissioned to establish a school of mathematics and nautical science in Moscow.

Peter's sympathy and gratitude for King William became even greater when the English ruler made him a gift of the Royal Transport ship and reached a climax when he was able to witness the naval maneuvers of the English fleet, organized for him in the Isle of Wight. Relations between the two sovereigns went cold when Peter discovered that William had pushed for the Emperor of Austria to conclude a peace with the Turks. If such a peace had taken place, the reasons that prompted Peter to establish the Grand Ambassadorship, namely, to strengthen Russia's alliance with other states against the Turks, would have failed.

Peter, though reluctant, was therefore forced to leave England and travel to Vienna. On April 18 he paid his farewell visit to King William. On May 2 he regretfully left London aboard the Royal Transport. He made one last visit to the Tower and a brief stopover at the Woolwich shipyards to bid farewell to his fellow workers. Setting out again, at dusk the Royal Transport arrived at Gravesend. The next morning it sailed to Margate, where the Thames estuary meets the sea. Here he found a British naval squadron under the command of Admiral Mitchell, who escorted him to Holland.

Peter never returned to England, but it remained so close to his heart that he had several times to say, "England is the most beautiful and the best of all the islands in the world."

During Peter's stay in England the other members of the Ambassadorship did not sit idly by. Upon his return to Holland Peter found a large amount of material, weapons, instruments and naval supplies waiting for him. In addition, the Ambassadorship had hired 640 Dutchmen, including Rear Admiral Cornelius Cruys and other naval officers, sailors, engineers, technicians, shipbuilders, doctors and other specialists.

On May 15, 1698 Peter and the Grand Ambassade left Amsterdam heading, via Leipzig, Dresden and Prague, in the direction of Vienna. Since Emperor Leopold I did not allow any other mortal to be his equal but the pope, problems arose about how to treat the Russian tsar. Peter obtained an informal meeting with the ruler in the Palace of the Favorites.

Despite all the official attention he received, Peter's mission to Vienna was a diplomatic failure. The Grand Embassy had gone to Vienna to try to persuade Austria to a more intense resumption of the war against the Turks. Instead, Russian diplomacy found itself arguing with the Habsburgs to avoid a separate peace between the empire and the sultan, which was in fact much more favorable to Austria than to Russia. Having realized that the Austrians were more than determined to conclude peace, Peter demanded that the emperor pressure the Turks to cede the fortress of Kerc to Russia, without which the new Russian fleet would never be able to enter the Black Sea. Although he was convinced that Turkey would never surrender the fortress by diplomatic action alone, the emperor promised that he would not sign any peace treaty with the Turks without first informing the tsar of its terms.

On July 15, 1698, when everything was ready for the departure of the Ambassadorship to Venice, an urgent dispatch from Romodanovsky arrived from Moscow with disturbing news: four regiments of the Strelzi, on orders to move from Azov to the Polish frontier, had rebelled and were marching on Moscow. Peter immediately decided not to continue, to cancel his visit to Venice and return to Moscow to face whatever was happening.

On July 19 Peter left Vienna in the direction of Poland, from which he would then proceed to Moscow. In Kraków he was met by a messenger sent by Voznicyn with new and more comforting news: Aleksej Sejn and General Gordon had succeeded in intercepting and eradicating the insurgents: one hundred and thirty had been passed by force of arms and one thousand eight hundred and sixty had been imprisoned. Peter decided in any case to return to Russia after a year and a half away, but resumed the journey much more comfortably.

Upon arriving in the city of Rawa in Galicia, Peter met Augustus, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland. The four days spent in Rawa laid the groundwork for some future events that would affect the future of Russia. It was in fact during those days that Augustus, who had already obtained Peter's support for his coronation as king of Poland, took advantage of the tsar's friendship to carry out another ambitious project of his: a joint attack on the Swedes to take from Sweden those Baltic provinces that excluded Russia and Poland from access to the Baltic.

The Grand Ambassadorship had come to an end and the purpose for which it was created had failed. In terms of practical and pragmatic results, however, the Ambassadorship was a success. Peter and his ambassadors had succeeded in recruiting more than 800 European technical experts to be placed at various levels in the Russian economy. What he had seen and learned in Europe reinforced in the tsar his long-standing opinion, born in the German Quarter, that the Russians were decades behind technologically. Peter therefore was determined to change the nation and to provide sufficient force for change himself.

First changes in Russia

On the night of September 4-5, 1698, the tsar returned to Moscow, and after a brief visit to the Kremlin he went to spend the night at the Wooden Palace in Preobraženskoe in the company of Anna Mons. The next morning, as soon as the news of his return had spread, a crowd of boyars and officials came to the palace to welcome him. Peter received them with great enthusiasm, then taking out a barber's razor he began to cut the beards of those present.

For the Russians, the beard was an ornament created by God, worn by prophets, apostles and Jesus himself. To them, cutting it off meant committing a mortal sin. Peter, on the other hand, thought beards were uncivilized, ridiculous, and unnecessary and issued a decree requiring all Russians, except peasants and priests, to shave. Those who wished to continue wearing it would have to pay an annual tax ranging from one kopeck for peasants who, exempt only if they remained in the countryside, decided to enter the city, to 100 rubles for wealthy merchants.

Not long afterward Peter also began to insist that boyars abandon their traditional Muscovite robes and dress Western-style. In January 1700 the tsar issued a decree forcing boyars, public officials and landowners to abandon their long robes and obtain Hungarian or German-style coffees.

Desiring long ago to end his marriage to Evdokija, while in Europe, Peter asked Lev Naryšlin and Tikhon Strešnev to persuade the tsarina to take vows and become a nun. Since the two men preferred that the tsar himself take on this burden, a few days after his return to Moscow Peter summoned his wife for an audience. The woman refused to become a nun, asserting the fact that her duty as a mother prevented her from doing so. The tsar then decided to resolve the matter by removing Alexis from his mother and entrusting him to the care of his sister Natalia. A short time later, one morning, a carriage was sent to the palace; Evdokija was put in it and was transported to the Okrovski monastery in Suzdal'. There, ten months later, Evdokija was forced to cut off her hair and assume the monastic name of Helena. Peter was thus finally free.

Another change imposed by Peter concerned the calendar: since ancient times the Russians had been using the Byzantine calendar, which calculated the years not from the birth of Christ but from the time they believed the world was created and in which the year began on September 1. In December 1699 he decreed that the following year would begin on January 1 and would bring the number 1700. Thus was adopted in Russia the Julian calendar, then in use only in England, which would remain in force until 1918.

Peter also changed the Russian monetary system. Until then there had been a huge amount of foreign coins circulating in Russia with the letter M superimposed, meaning Muscovy, while the only regular Russian coins were small oval silver pieces called copeche. Following a visit to the English royal mint, Peter had come to the conclusion that, in order to increase trade, it was necessary to mint a large quantity of state money, issued and protected by the government. He therefore ordered the production of a large number of copper coins to replace the copeche; he then minted other silver and gold pieces until he arrived at the ruble, which was worth 100 copeche.

On the advice of a servant, Aleksej Kurbatov, Peter also decided to adopt the stamped paper system in Russia so that all official acts, contracts and other documents would have to be written on sheets of state paper with the stamp and, on the left side, the tsarist eagle superimposed. The paper would be a state monopoly and the revenue would boost the treasury.

The extermination of the Strelzians

On the tsar's orders, Romodanovsky took all the traitorous Strelzi to Preobraženskoe where he had fourteen torture chambers built to house them: six days a week, week after week, all one thousand seven hundred and fourteen surviving prisoners were interrogated for half the month of September and almost all of October; priests found guilty of praying for the rebels' victory were sentenced to death. Those suspected of being sympathizers with the traitors were arrested and subjected to interrogation.

All of Peter's main friends and lieutenants (Romodanovsky, Boris Golicyn, Sejn, Strešnev, Petr Prozorovsky, Mikhail Cerkasskij, Vladimir Dolgorukij, Ivan Troekurov, and Zotov) attended the interrogations, and Peter himself was often present and personally interrogated the condemned men. Although the interrogations were conducted in secret, all of Moscow knew that something terrible was happening in Preobraženskoe. The patriarch himself went to Peter to ask for clemency, holding an image of the Blessed Virgin in his hand. Peter, resentful of his meddling, replied to the prelate that that was no place to take the Holy Virgin and that Russia would not be saved by mercy but by cruelty.

From confessions extracted from men annihilated by torture, Peter learned that the Strelzi intended to seize the capital, set fire to the German Quarter, kill the boyars and put Sofia on the throne. Under torture a strelez, Vaska Alekseev, declared that two letters, possibly written by Sophia, urged the Strelzi to rise up, occupy the Kremlin and call the Zarevna to the throne of Russia. Peter went in person to Novodevicij to question Sophia, who denied being the author of the letters. Peter spared her life but decided that her imprisonment should be even tighter: Sofia was forced to cut her hair and take vows under the name Susanna. She was confined forever in Novodevicij where she was guarded by a hundred soldiers and could not receive visitors.

Throughout the autumn and winter, at regular intervals of a few days, several dozen rebels were executed. The first executions began on October 10 in Preobraženskoe: two hundred were hanged from the city walls and from the posts protruding from the parapets, two Strelzi per post. On October 11, one hundred and forty-four Strelzi were hanged in Red Square from poles protruding from the Kremlin battlements. One hundred and nine were beheaded with axes or swords in a field in Preobraženskoe. For the priests who had encouraged the Strelzi, a gallows in the shape of a cross was built in front of St. Basil's Cathedral. To make the connection between Sophia and the Strelzi absolutely clear, one hundred and ninety-six rebels were hanged from a huge square-shaped gallows erected near the Novodevicij convent, where the Zarevna was imprisoned. The three supposed leaders of the revolt were hanged directly outside Sofia's window.

Finally, Peter suppressed the Strelzi Corps and replaced it with regiments, clothed, armed and trained on the Prussian model; required several sons of the nobility to serve in the army or navy as officers; and established the Preobrazinski regiment to serve as the tsars' personal guard

The Great Northern War and the founding of St. Petersburg

The prospect of a joint campaign against the Ottoman Empire having failed, Peter entered into a peace treaty with the Ottoman Empire and turned his attentions once again to the Baltic Sea, control of which had been gained by the Swedish Empire around the middle of the 17th century. Peter, with the support of Denmark, Norway, Saxony and the Kingdom of Poland, then declared war on Sweden, which was led by 16-year-old King Charles XII.

Russia soon discovered that it was ill-prepared to take on Sweden, and its first attempt to conquer the Baltic coast ended in the disaster of the Battle of Narva (1700), which seemed to put Russia out of business. Charles XII, taking advantage of the moment, directed his action against Poland and Saxony. Meanwhile, Peter reorganized his army and conquered Swedish Estonia.

Confident that he could beat him at any time, the Swedish king ignored the tsar's action and continued fighting in Poland and Saxony. While the Poles and Swedes were busy fighting each other, Peter founded the great city of St. Petersburg (in honor of St. Peter the Apostle) in Ingria, a region captured from the Swedes in 1703, using the skills of the Swiss architect Domenico Trezzini of Astano, who first built the fortress, with the cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul at its center, followed by several other important administrative and representative buildings.

Peter prohibited the construction of stone buildings outside St. Petersburg, which he intended to make the capital of Russia, so that all stonemasons could participate in the construction of the new city. At the same time Peter became romantically attached to Martha Skavronskaya, a Lithuanian of poor origins taken prisoner by the Russians during the Northern War. Martha converted to the Orthodox religion under the name Catherine; the two married secretly around 1707.

Following numerous defeats, King Augustus II of Poland abdicated in 1706, leaving Charles XII free to turn his attentions once again to Russia, which the Swedish ruler invaded in 1708. After his entry into Russia, Charles defeated Peter at the Battle of Golovcin in July 1708, but in the following Battle of Lesnaja he suffered, for the first time, heavy losses when Peter destroyed a column of Swedish reinforcements from Riga; deprived of their help, Charles had to abandon his plan to march to Moscow.

Not accepting the idea of retreating to Poland or returning to Sweden, Charles invaded Ukraine. Skillfully Peter retreated southward, destroying everything the Swedes might have needed, and they thus found themselves in a difficult situation because of the lack of supplies and the harshness of winter.

In the summer of 1709 Charles renewed his efforts to conquer Ukraine, but he faced a very aggressive enemy, and at the Battle of Poltava (June 27, 1709) Peter reaped the fruits of years of work to strengthen the Russian army, inflicting heavy losses on the enemy (10000 dead) and then capturing what remained of the Swedish army.

The outcome of this battle reversed the fortunes of the war: in Poland Augustus II reoccupied the throne, while Charles fled to the Ottoman Empire, where he worked to persuade Sultan Ahmed III to help him resume the war. Peter recklessly declared war on the Ottomans in 1711, but the campaign in the south achieved such unsuccessful results that Russia, in order to obtain peace, had to surrender the Black Sea ports it had conquered in 1697; in return, the sultan expelled the king of Sweden.

In the north, Peter's armies had better luck and conquered Livonia, pushing the Swedes back into Finland, which would be largely occupied in 1714. The Russian fleet also managed to breach Swedish waters. In the last phase of the war Peter also received help from Hanover and the Kingdom of Prussia. Despite the defeats, Charles XII continued to fight and only his death in battle in 1718 allowed peace talks to be opened.

In 1720 Sweden signed peace with all the belligerents except Russia, with whom it then signed the Treaty of Nystad, in 1721, which ended what was known as the Great Northern War. Russia obtained Swedish Ingria, Swedish Estonia, Livonia and part of Karelia; in return it paid two million riksdaler and gave up Finland, except for some territories around St. Petersburg, which had meanwhile become the capital since 1712.

The last few years

In 1717 a conspiracy hatched by executioner Aleksandr Kikin, who grouped various opponents of Peter I around his eldest son, Aleksej, was exposed. The sentence was death sentence for all the conspirators, including Aleksej, in 1718. Aleksej's mother was also prosecuted because of false accusations of adultery.

The last years of Peter I's reign were marked by further reforms. In 1721, after concluding peace with Sweden, he was acclaimed Emperor of all Russia (some proposed that he take the title Emperor of the East but he refused). The imperial title was recognized by Poland, Sweden and Prussia, but not by other European monarchs. In the minds of many, the word emperor connoted superiority over mere kings. Many rulers feared that Peter wanted to proclaim his authority over them as, in his time, the Holy Roman Emperor had proclaimed his supremacy over all Christian nations.

Peter also reformed the government of the Russian Orthodox Church: in 1700, when the seat of patriarch of Moscow fell vacant, Peter appointed a coadjutor to do all the work; he confiscated numerous clergy estates; he also avowed to himself the appointment of bishops and principal ecclesiastical offices and sanctioned that no one could enter a monastery before reaching the age of fifty; and finally, in 1721, he established the Holy Synod, a council of ten clergymen who took the place of the patriarch and coadjutor.

Then, in 1718, the central government was reformed: the 80 prikazy, offices, whose powers often intersected with each other, were replaced by nine colleges (increased to thirteen in 1722), whose duties were described in detail by the decree establishing them; then, so as to create a flexible system of control, eighty governorates were established, each under a governor, appointed by the tsar, with administrative, military and legal powers; this system, however, created some abuses and therefore Peter, in 1719, dissolved the governorates into fifty provinces each of which was, in turn, divided into smaller districts.

Moreover, in 1722, in order to deprive the boyars of their power, Peter, who had long ago abolished the Zemsky sobor and replaced it with an advisory senate (whose 10 members were appointed directly by the tsar), established the Table of Ranks, through which he sanctioned that noble position could be determined not only by census but also by merit in service to the emperor in the bureaucracy; at the same time, it mandated that every child, aged ten to fifteen, who belonged to the nobility, the clergy, or was the child of officers, had to learn mathematics, geometry, and had to undergo a final examination in order to identify suitability for public service. The Table remained in effect until the end of the monarchy in Russia in 1917.

He abolished the land and family taxes, replacing them with a per capita tax: land or family taxes were paid only by landlords or those who maintained a family while the new tax was to be paid by everyone, including servants and the poor. In 1724 he associated Catherine, his second wife, with the throne, giving her the title of Empress although he nevertheless kept all power in her hands.

His last military initiative was the expedition to Persia (1721-1724). Dawd Beg, Persian khan, in August 1721 occupied Shemakha, an important Russian emporium on the Caspian Sea, in the Shirwan khanate, plundering its merchandise.In retaliation Peter sent 50. 000 soldiers with 80 ships to the Caspian Sea, having the Agrakan Peninsula occupied and Derbent conquered, while Kartli Tsar Vaktang IV with 30,000 men and the Armenian Patriarch with 8,000 soldiers, allied with the Russians, marched with Dawd Beg to Ganjia. In 1723 Russian troops captured the provinces of Ghilan and Baku. The Ottomans rushed to Dawd Beg's aid and invaded Kartli, conquering Tbilisi and the khanates of Erivan and Tabriz.

In September 1723 the Persians asked for peace and allied with the Russians to whom Derbent, Baku, Ghilian, Mazanderam and Astrabad (western and southern Caspian littoral) were ceded. In June 1724 the Russo-Turkish peace was signed: the Ottomans obtained Georgia, Erivan, Kasvin and Shemakhá. In 1725 the construction of Peterhof, a palace near St. Petersburg that became famous as the "Russian Versailles," was completed.

Death

Having no heirs, a 1722 law granted Peter the privilege of choosing his successor, and he chose his wife Catherine. Peter died in 1725, later being buried in the Cathedral of Peter and Paul, in the fortress of the same name he wanted in St. Petersburg. Empress Catherine had the support of the imperial guard. After the latter's death in 1727, the throne passed to Peter I's grandson Peter II (son of Alexius), with whom the direct male Romanov line ended.

After him, succession to the throne was chaotic: the next two monarchs were sons of Peter I's half-brother Ivan V; Peter's direct descendants would regain the throne only in 1741 in a coup d'état. No son would directly ascend the throne occupied by a parent before Paul I succeeded Catherine the Great in 1796, more than seventy years after the death of Peter I, who dedicated the famous equestrian statue of the Bronze Horseman to his predecessor.

With these words, Louis de Rouvroy de Saint-Simon, described Peter the Great on the occasion of his trip to Paris in 1717:

This judgment is basically accepted even by modern scholars, who point out how simple in manner the Czar was, being wont to converse and make confidences even with simple artisans and sailors and having the habit of awarding public offices even to people of humble origins, provided they were capable; at the same time, however, he was rigid, terrible in anger, cruel whenever he encountered opposition: at such times only his second wife Catherine and his closest associates could blunt his excesses; as a ruler, he was an autocrat endowed with insatiable willpower, extremely diligent and stubborn; finally, as for results, although he was unable to bridge the gap between Russia and Western Europe, he actively promoted industry, trade, education and culture and made his country a great power.

By his two wives, Peter had sixteen children.

By Evdokija Lopuchina

From Catherine I

Sources

1. Peter the Great
2. Pietro I di Russia