Peter I

Assorted References

• comparison with Elizabeth  (in  Elizabeth (empress of Russia))

  ...reconstituted the Senate as it had been created by her father. As a result of this and similar measures, her reign has been generally characterized as a return to the principles and traditions of Peter the Great. In fact, Elizabeth’s restoration of the Senate as the chief governing body was only nominal (the country really being ruled by her private chancery), and the empress actually...

• disbanding of streltsy  (in  streltsy (Russian military unit))

  ...century after the government began paying them in land instead of money and grain. They then became involved in the succession struggle begun in 1682 between rival partisans of the half brothers Peter I and Ivan V. Supporting Ivan, they staged a revolt against the Naryshkin family (the relatives of Peter’s mother, who had assumed actual power), named both Ivan and Peter tsars, and made...

• exploitation of Afghan interlude  (in  Afghan interlude (Iranian history))

  In the meantime, Peter I the Great of Russia, who had long contemplated establishing a trade route to India via the countries east of the Caspian Sea, invaded the north of Iran in 1722, ostensibly because of losses suffered by some Russian merchants during a tribal uprising there. At this the Ottomans moved into western and northwestern Iran to prevent the Russians from taking over Iranian...

• place in Romanov dynasty  (in  Romanov Dynasty (Russian dynasty))

  ...succeeded his father, Michael (reigned 1613–45), and Fyodor III (reigned 1676–82) succeeded his father, Alexis. But after Fyodor’s death, both his brother Ivan and his half-brother Peter vied for the throne. Although a zemsky sobor chose Peter as the new tsar, Ivan’s family, supported by the streltsy, staged a palace revolution; and Ivan V and Peter I jointly...

• title of tsar  (in  emperor (title);

  ...“emperor of the Two Religions,” to show his supremacy over Christians and Muslims alike; and Alfonso VII took the title “emperor of all Spain” (1135). The Russian tsar Peter I the Great assumed the title imperator on Oct. 22, 1721. From that point on male rulers were conventionally called tsar, whereas female rulers were always called empress; both males and...

  in  tsar (title) )

  In 1721 Tsar Peter I discarded the title of tsar for that of “emperor of all Russia” as part of his effort to secularize and modernize his regime and assert the state’s primacy over the church. “Emperor” remained the official title for subsequent Russian rulers, but they continued to be known as “tsars” in popular usage until the imperial regime was...

association with

• Alexis  (in  Alexis (prince of Russia [1690-1718]))

  heir to the throne of Russia, who was accused of trying to overthrow his father, Peter I the Great.

• Catherine I  (in  Catherine I (empress of Russia))

  peasant woman of Baltic (probably Lithuanian) birth who became the second wife of Peter I the Great (reigned 1682–1725) and empress of Russia (1725–27).

• Demidov Family  (in  Demidov Family (Russian family))

  ...a blacksmith from the western Russian city of Tula, who took the surname Demidov in 1702. He began to accumulate his family’s fortune by manufacturing weapons and, after receiving land grants from Peter I the Great (reigned 1682–1725), by building and operating an iron foundry at Tula. Peter made Demidov, a former serf, a nobleman.

• Dolgoruky  (in  Vasily Vladimirovich, Prince Dolgoruky (Russian military officer))

  (Prince) military officer who played a prominent role in political intrigues against Peter I the Great (ruled 1682–1725) and Empress Anna (ruled 1730–40) of Russia.

• Dosítheos  (in  Dosítheos (patriarch of Jerusalem))

  His relations with the Russian tsar Peter I the Great (to whom he wrote many letters) were strained because of Peter’s church reforms, particularly the abolition of the patriarchate of Moscow and subjection of the Orthodox Church of Russia to the state. Dosítheos failed to make Peter intercede for the Eastern churches in the peace treaty with Turkey in 1702.

• Eudoxia  (in  Eudoxia (tsarina of Russia))

  tsarina and first wife of Peter I the Great of Russia.

• Fyodor III  (in  Fyodor III (tsar of Russia))

  tsar of Russia (reigned 1676–82) who fostered the development of Western culture in Russia, thereby making it easier for his successor, Peter I the Great (reigned 1682–1725), to enact widespread reforms based on Western models.

• Golitsyn family  (in  Boris Alekseyevich Golitsyn (Russian statesman);

  Russian statesman who played a major role during the early years of the reign of Peter I the Great (ruled 1682–1725).

  in  Dmitry Mikhaylovich, Prince Golitsyn (Russian statesman);

  Having been sent to Italy in 1697 by Tsar Peter I the Great to study “military affairs,” Golitsyn was appointed commander of an auxiliary corps (1704) to fight the Swedes during the Great Northern War. He later entered civil government service and occupied the posts of governor general of Kiev (1715–19), senator (after 1719), and president of the Kamer-Kollegiya (Finance...

  in  Golitsyn family (Russian noble family) )

  Russian noble family descended from the 14th-century Lithuanian grand duke Gediminas. Three members played prominent roles as statesmen around the time of Peter I the Great (r. 1682–1725). Vasily Golitsyn was chief adviser to Peter’s regent, Sophia Alekseyevna. Boris Golitsyn (1654–1714) was court chamberlain (1676) and Peter’s tutor; he participated in the coup that placed Peter on...

• Golovin  (in  Fyodor Alekseyevich, Count Golovin (Russian statesman))

  (Graf) Russian statesman and diplomat who served prominently during the reign (1682–1725) of Peter I the Great of Russia.

• Golovkin  (in  Gavriil Ivanovich, Count Golovkin (Russian statesman))

  (Graf) Russian statesman and diplomat who was a close associate of Peter I the Great (reigned 1682–1725) and became Russia’s first state chancellor.

• Gordon  (in  Patrick Gordon (Scottish mercenary))

  Scottish soldier of fortune who became a general in the Russian army and a close friend of Peter I the Great of Russia (reigned 1682–1725).

• Ivan V  (in  Ivan V (emperor of Russia);

  ...the streltsy (sovereign’s bodyguard) to riot and to demand that Ivan become tsar (May 23 [June 2], 1682). Consequently, three days later the boyar duma (or council) proclaimed Ivan and Peter corulers with Ivan as the senior tsar. On June 25 (July 5) both boys were crowned, and Sophia became regent.

  in  Mariya Ilinichna Miloslavskaya (queen consort of Russia) )

  ...Tsar Alexis of Russia. She bore him five sons and eight daughters. Two sons survived to maturity and became tsars: Fyodor III (reigned 1676–82) and Ivan V (reigned 1682–96, jointly with Peter I the Great).

• Kangxi  (in  Kangxi (emperor of Qing dynasty): Acquisition of actual power)

  ...the Russians manned the fortress again. Kangxi ordered another expedition to Albazin the following year and began a protracted siege. Concurrent diplomatic negotiations between Kangxi and Tsar Peter I the Great of Russia led to the signing of the Treaty of Nerchinsk (1689). Drafted under the pressure of a superior number of Qing troops sent into Nerchinsk by Kangxi, the treaty drew the...

• Kurakin  (in  Boris Ivanovich, Prince Kurakin (Russian diplomat))

  (Knyaz) one of the first professional diplomats of Russia, who represented Peter I the Great in western Europe.

• Mazepa  (in  Ivan Mazepa (Ukrainian Cossack leader))

  Mazepa subsequently succeeded the established hetman of the Ukraine (1687) and fought against the Crimean Tatars (1689). When Peter I the Great took power, Mazepa managed to win Peter’s favour and retain his position in the Ukraine.

• Naryshkina  (in  Natalya Kirillovna Naryshkina (Russian regent))

  second wife of Tsar Alexis of Russia and mother of Peter I the Great. After Alexis’ death she became the centre of a political faction devoted to placing Peter on the Russian throne.

• Prokopovich  (in  Feofan Prokopovich (Russian-Ukrainian theologian and writer))

  Russian Orthodox theologian and archbishop of Pskov, who by his administration, oratory, and writings collaborated with Tsar Peter I the Great (1672–1725) in westernizing Russian culture and centralizing its political structure. He also directed the reformation of the Russian Orthodox church in accordance with a Lutheran model and effected a political integration of church and state that...

• Slavophiles  (in  Slavophile (Russian history))

  But the Slavophiles also realized that their contemporary society did not represent their ideal. They believed that Peter I the Great (reigned 1682–1725), by introducing reforms imitating the West, had corrupted Russia, driven a wedge between the nobility and the peasantry, and upset the natural social relationships. They despised the state bureaucracy organized under Peter and his church...

• Sophia  (in  Sophia (regent of Russia))

  ...Sophia was tutored by the Belorussian monk Simeon Polotsky, from whom she received an exceptionally good education. When her brother Fyodor III died (April 27 [May 7], 1682), her half brother Peter, son of Alexis and his second wife, Natalya Naryshkina, was proclaimed tsar. Sophia, as leader of the Miloslavsky family, however, objected to a government dominated by the Naryshkins and...

• Tolstoy  (in  Pyotr Andreyevich, Count Tolstoy (Russian statesman))

  (Graf) diplomat and statesman who was a close collaborator and influential adviser of Peter I the Great of Russia (reigned 1682–1725).

contribution to

• Arctic exploration  (in  Great Northern Expedition (Russian exploration);

  (1733–42), in Russian history, the continuation of an enterprise initially conceived by the emperor Peter I the Great to map the northern sea route to the East. The expedition mapped a large section of the Arctic coast of Siberia and stimulated Siberian merchants to develop fur trading on islands near Alaska. It was sponsored by the admiralty college in St. Petersburg. The planner of the...

  in  Native American (indigenous peoples of Canada and United States): The northern Pacific Coast;

  Russian elites initially saw North America as rich but so distant that attempts at occupation might prove ill-advised. This perception was soon reversed, however. The Russian tsar Peter I sent Vitus Bering to explore the northern seas in 1728, and Russian traders reached the Aleutian Islands and the coasts of present-day Alaska (U.S.) and British Columbia (Can.) in the 1740s.

  in  Arctic: Early Russian exploration )

  In the 1720s Peter the Great mounted an ambitious operation to determine the geography of the Bering Strait area, because the documentation from Dezhnyov’s voyage was still filed in the obscurity of the archives. He commissioned Vitus Bering, a Danish officer in the Russian navy, for the task, and, after three years of preparation, Bering put to sea from the east coast of Kamchatka in the...

• coinage  (in  coin: Russia and the Balkans)

  ...showing a uniform design of a mounted lancer. From the 15th to the 17th century unstable social and economic conditions were reflected in clipping and counterfeiting, until reforms began in 1654. Peter the Great (1689–1725) reorganized the currency: gold was coined regularly from 1701, and silver rubles and billon kopecks also appeared, together with copper fractions. In 1725, after...

• design of Russian flag  (in  Russia, flag of)

  Tsar Peter I the Great had ambitious plans to transform Russia into a modern state. Building a Russian navy was part of that program, and he visited the Netherlands to learn about the most advanced shipbuilding concepts and techniques. The flag he chose for merchant ships in 1699 reflected the Dutch red-white-blue tricolour: the Russian flag differed only in having the stripes arranged...

• Eastern Orthodox catechism  (in  catechism (religious manual))

  ...Peter Mogila composed The Orthodox Confession of Faith. It was approved at a provincial synod in 1640 and standardized by the synod of Jerusalem in 1672. By order of the Russian tsar Peter I the Great, a smaller Orthodox catechism was prepared in 1723.

• education  (in  education: Early Russian education: Kiev and Muscovy;

  The reign of Peter I the Great (1682–1725) ushered in a new and more dynamic age, although even this ruler’s reforming zeal proved inadequate to the central task of creating a national school system, particularly at the elementary level. Religion was deemphasized as Peter strove to establish at least a few institutions that would provide graduates trained in practical subjects for...

  in  education: National education under enlightened rulers )

  ...deacons, readers), and private persons (boyars, or lower-level aristocrats). Boys were taught reading, writing, arithmetic, singing, and religion. A system of state-owned schools was started by Peter the Great as a state organization for purposes of administration and for the development of mining and industry. Peter did not intend to promote the Orthodox faith or formal Classical...

• Russian architecture  (in  Western architecture: Russia)

  ...and introduced the Rococo style to the newly founded city of St. Petersburg (e.g., Peter’s study in Peterhof, before 1721). The Rococo in Russia flourished in St. Petersburg under the protection of Peter I and Elizabeth. Peter’s principal architect, Gaetano Chiaveri, who drew heavily on northern Italian models, is most noted for the library of the Academy of Sciences (1725) and the royal...

• Russian culture  (in  Russia: The emergence of modern Russian culture;

  The gradual turn of Russia toward western Europe that began in the 17th century led to an almost total reorientation of Russian interests during the reign of Peter I (1682–1725). Although Peter (known as Peter the Great) was not particularly interested in cultural questions, the influx of Western ideas (which accompanied the technology Peter found so attractive) and the weakening of the...

  in  Russian literature: The Westernization of Russia )

  Peter the Great’s radical and rapid Westernization of Russia altered the daily life of the upper classes and all high culture. The nobility was made to conform to Western models in its dress, customs, social life, education, and state service; women came out of seclusion; a European calendar was introduced; Russians were sent abroad to study; foreign languages were learned. Western culture was...

effect on

• boyar class  (in  boyar (Russian aristocrat))

  Throughout the 17th century, the social and political importance of the boyars declined. Early in the 18th century, Tsar Peter I the Great abolished the rank and title of boyar and made state service the exclusive means of attaining a high position in the bureaucratic hierarchy.

• dress and adornment  (in  dress (body covering): Other types of legislation)

  In Russia, laws regarding apparel were used to modernize the country. As soon as Tsar Peter I the Great returned from working in the dockyards of Amsterdam and London in 1697–98, he began requiring his princes to shave their beards. Then in 1701 he ruled that his subjects must adopt Western dress. Peter’s command applied to both men and women but at first affected only members of the...

history of

• Caucasus region  (in  history of Transcaucasia: Russian penetration)

  ...alliances were concluded between the Russian and Georgian royal families, and in the 17th century Caucasian rulers were on several occasions forced to ask for Russian help against their enemies. Peter I the Great was the first to take advantage of the opportunities thus afforded to take possession of Caucasian territory. He occupied Derbent in 1722 and Baku in the following year. In 1770...

• Europe

   (in  history of Europe: Order from disorder)

  ...revolt in 1648 of the Ukraine against Polish overlordship, the acquisition of huge territories including Smolensk and Kiev (Treaty of Andrusovo, 1667), and, above all, the successful drive of Peter I the Great to secure a footing in the Baltic were to transform the picture. By the time of Peter’s death in 1725, Russia was a European state: still with some Asian characteristics, still...

  • age of monarchy  (in  history of Europe: Russia)

    ...force for building a state comparable to those of the West under a ruler strong enough to challenge traditional ways. This was to be the role of Alexis I (1645–76) and then, more violently, of Peter I (1689–1725).

• Latvia  (in  Latvia: Poland-Lithuania, Sweden, and the encroachment of Russia)

  ...though Ivan III and Ivan IV (the Terrible) had tried to do so. The Russian tsar Alexis renewed the attempt without success in his wars against Sweden and Poland (1653–67). Finally, however, Peter I (the Great) managed to “break the window” to the Baltic Sea. In the course of the Second Northern War, he took Riga from the Swedes in 1710, and at the end of the war he secured...

• Poland  (in  Poland: Augustus II)

  ...plunged into chaos. The slowly proceeding demographic and economic recovery was reversed as the looting armies and an outbreak of bubonic plague decimated the people. A crushing defeat of Sweden by Peter I (the Great) of Russia at the Battle of Poltava (Ukraine, Russian Empire) in 1709 eventually restored Augustus to the throne but made him dependent on the tsar. Having failed to strengthen his...

• Russia

   (in  Russia: Alexis;

  ...families. The Naryshkins were exiled, and the Miloslavskys, with their clients and supporters, took over. In 1682, however, Fyodor died, and the Naryshkin faction sought to place his half brother Peter on the throne instead of Fyodor’s full brother, the ailing Ivan. The elite corps of streltsy (a hereditary military caste) revolted and established...

  in  Russia: The reign of Peter I (the Great; 1689–1725) )

  The reign of Peter I (the Great; 1689–1725)

  • Moscow  (in  Moscow (Russia): The rise of Moscow as capital)

    ...executed in Moscow as a warning to the city’s inhabitants. The revolts were put down by the streltsy (hereditary militia), who in 1698, early in the reign of Peter I (the Great), themselves revolted and were suppressed only by great slaughter. Despite the frequent upheavals, however, culture flourished. Russia’s first higher educational institution, the...

  • Narva  (in  Narva (Estonia))

    ...Gulf of Finland. It was founded in the 13th century and quickly became a substantial commercial city. Occupied first by Russia (1558–81) and then by Sweden, it was important as the scene of Peter I the Great’s defeat by the Swedes in 1700 and his subsequent victory, reconquering Narva for Russia, by means of a siege in 1704.

  • Saint Petersburg  (in  Saint Petersburg (Russia): Foundation and early growth)

    ...with Novgorod into the possession of the grand princes of Moscow. Sweden annexed Ingria in 1617 and established fortresses along the Neva River. During the Second Northern War (1700–21), Peter I (the Great), seeking a sea outlet to the west, constructed a fleet on the Svir River (which connects Lakes Onega and Ladoga) and, sailing across Lake Ladoga, launched an attack on the...

  • Second Northern War  (in  treaties of Altranstädt (Europe [1706 and 1707]);

    ...by which he gave up his claim to the Polish throne, acknowledged Stanisław as his successor, withdrew Saxony from the war against Sweden, and renounced his alliance with Russia. Only after Peter I the Great of Russia inflicted a major defeat upon the Swedish army at the Battle of Poltava (July 8, 1709) was Augustus able to declare his agreement with Charles to be void, return to...

    in  Second Northern War (Europe [1700-21]) )

    ...Augustus II the Strong, king of Poland and elector of Saxony, attacked Livonia (February 1700), while Frederick IV, king of Denmark and Norway, marched into Schleswig and Holstein (March 1700) and Peter I the Great, tsar of Russia, laid siege to Narva (October 1700). Charles XII of Sweden responded first by concentrating his forces against Denmark. Landing a few miles from Copenhagen, he...

  • Tallinn  (in  Tallinn (Estonia))

    ...hill. Trade flourished, especially after Tallinn joined the Hanseatic League in 1285. In 1346 it was sold to the Teutonic Knights, and on the dissolution of the order in 1561 it passed to Sweden. Peter I (the Great) captured Tallinn in 1710, and it remained a Russian city until it became the capital of independent Estonia from 1918 to 1940. (Estonia was annexed to the Union of Soviet...

  • Voronezh  (in  Voronezh (Russia))

    ...western Russia. It lies along the right bank of the Voronezh River above its confluence with the Don. The city was founded in 1586 as a fortress, later forming part of the Belgorod defensive line. Peter I the Great built his naval flotilla there for use in his campaigns against the Turkish fortress of Azov. With the intensive agricultural development of the forest-steppe, Voronezh became a...

• Sweden  (in  Sweden: The reign of Charles XII)

  ...Baltic provinces, was shortly afterward overwhelmingly beaten by Charles’s troops at the Battle of Narva. Charles then turned toward Poland (1702–06). In so doing, he gave the Russian tsar, Peter I (the Great), sufficient time to found St. Petersburg and a Baltic fleet and to reorganize the Russian army. Charles XII began his Russian offensive in 1707. The Russians for the first time...

• Ukraine  (in  Ukraine: The autonomous hetman state and Sloboda Ukraine)

  The hetman state reached its zenith in the hetmancy of Ivan Mazepa. Relying at first on the support of Tsar Peter I (the Great), Mazepa exercised near monarchical powers in the Hetmanate. Literature, art, and architecture in the distinctive Cossack Baroque style flourished under his patronage, and the Kievan Mohyla Academy experienced its golden age. Mazepa aspired to annex the Right Bank and...

inspiration for

• Pushkin  (in  Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin (Russian author): Return from exile.)

  ...tsar’s initiative,” as he had written in “Derevnya.” This is the reason for his persistent interest in the age of reforms at the beginning of the 18th century and in the figure of Peter the Great, the “tsar-educator,” whose example he held up to the present tsar in the poem “Stansy” (1826; “Stanzas”), in The Negro of Peter the Great,...

• Voltaire  (in  Voltaire (French philosopher and author): Return to France)

  ...a carefully documented historical narrative that reads like a novel. Philosophic ideas began to impose themselves as he wrote: the King of Sweden’s exploits brought desolation, whereas his rival Peter the Great brought Russia into being, bequeathing a vast, civilized empire. Great men are not warmongers; they further civilization—a conclusion that tallied with the example of England....

introduction of

• Holy Synod  (in  Holy Synod (Russian Orthodox Church))

  Ecclesiastical governing body created by Tsar Peter I in 1721 to head the Russian Orthodox Church, replacing the patriarchate of Moscow. Peter created the Synod, made up of representatives of the hierarchy obedient to his will, to subject the church to the state, and appointed a secular official, the chief procurator, to supervise its activities. The Synod persecuted all dissenters and censored...

• Siberian exile  (in  deportation (law))

  ...during the Revolutionary period; the practice survived until 1938 despite much public criticism of the prison conditions on the islands of French Guiana, particularly the notorious Devil’s Island. Peter I the Great of Russia ordered political prisoners to Siberia in 1710, thus beginning a practice that has continued through the 20th century.

• Table of Ranks  (in  Table of Ranks (Russian government))

  ...civil services into a hierarchy of 14 categories and the foundation of a system of promotion based on personal ability and performance rather than on birth and genealogy. This system, introduced by Peter I the Great, granted anyone who attained the eighth rank the status of a hereditary noble. It thus caused dissatisfaction among the old aristocracy, which lost its exclusiveness as well as its...

reorganization of Orthodox Church

The son of Tsar Alexis, Peter the Great, changed the historical fate of Russia by radically turning away from the Byzantine heritage and reforming the state according to the model of Protestant Europe. Humiliated by his father’s temporary submission to Patriarch Nikon, Peter prevented new patriarchal elections after the death of Patriarch Adrian in 1700. After a long vacancy of the see, he...

• caesaropapism  (in  caesaropapism (political system))

  Caesaropapism was more a reality in Russia, where the abuses of Ivan IV the Terrible went practically unopposed and where Peter the Great finally transformed the church into a department of the state (1721), although neither claimed to possess special doctrinal authority.

• patriarchal suppression  (in  Russian Orthodox church)

  In 1721 Tsar Peter I (the Great) abolished the patriarchate of Moscow and replaced it with the Holy Governing Synod, which was modeled after the state-controlled synods of the Lutheran church in Sweden and Prussia and was tightly controlled by the state. The chief procurator of the synod, a lay official who obtained ministerial rank in the first half of the 19th century, henceforth exercised...

• Alexis (prince of Russia [1690-1718])
• Boris Alekseyevich Golitsyn (Russian statesman)
• Catherine I (empress of Russia)
• Eudoxia (tsarina of Russia)
• Patrick Gordon (Scottish mercenary)
• Peter I (emperor of Russia)
• Pyotr Andreyevich, Count Tolstoy (Russian statesman)

• Moscow (Russia)
• Russia
• Saint Petersburg (Russia)

• army
• Battle of Poltava (Europe [1709])
• church and state
• emperor (title)
• foreign policy (political science)
• government
• imperialism (political science)
• industry
• navy (military force)
• public administration
• Romanov Dynasty (Russian dynasty)
• Second Northern War (Europe [1700-21])
• tsar (title)