A long and violent history of Russia. Peter the Great. Part 2
Peter the Great modernized Russian army to enable it to cope with continuing foreign invasions. After Russia lost 10.000 men and most of its artillery against a much smaller Swedish force in the Battle of Narva in 1700, Peter rebuilt his army in a single year. He instituted new standards of discipline, ordered training for battle rather than for parade-ground manoeuvres, and armed his troops with British-made flintlocks to replace the swords, lances and halberds they had previously carried. He even ordered church bells to be melted down to cast new artillery.
Eight years later, the Swedes, who had postponed further conquests of Russia while invading Poland and Saxony, returned. They moved into the Ukraine and there, in 1709, were destroyed in what is considered to be one of the history's most critical encounters, the Battle of Poltava. Sweden was forced to give Russia its lands on the eastern shore of the Baltic – the European mainland – and the threat of Swedish domination of Northern Europe was permanently ended.
After this victory, Peter continued to refine his army; he also brought the Church under state control and reorganized the civil service, setting up 14 grades to which anyone could aspire. Even a peasant, properly schooled, could rise from the 14th grade to the first. Moreover, every civil servant above the 11th grade automatically gained the right to own land and serfs; above the eighth grade, such status became hereditary. Travelling this egalitarian route to advancement, Ilya Ulianov, son of a serf and father of the 20th century revolutionary known as Lenin, managed to climb the ladder to the fourth grade and hereditary land entitlement. Thus Lenin himself was technically an aristocrat.
With the final victory over Sweden, Peter at last acquired his "window on the West", a safe, year-round route through the Baltic Sea to rest of Europe. In expectation, he had already begun to build a port, the city known as Leningrad but originally named after Peter's patron saint, and thus in a way after Peter himself: St. Petersburg (Sankt-Peterburg). It would seem to have been set on the worst possible spot – marshland at the mouth of the Neva River, where it flows into the Gulf of Finland.
Peter imported a multitude of French and Italian architects and artisans and proceeded at top speed. Tens of thousands of peasants, prisoners of war and army recruits were dragooned for labour. Often they dug with their hands, slept in the open and drank stagnant marsh water. So many died that the city was said to have been built on bones. In nine years, however, Peter had his great city – a metropolis of 34.500 buildings. He proclaimed it Russia's capital.
Peter's plan for his city included a network of canals, like those of Amsterdam, and broad, tree-lined streets. Houses were sized according to the status of their occupants. Common people were to have one-storey houses with four windows and a dormer; prosperous merchants, two-storey houses with dormers and a balcony.
Peter's own palace was a modest wooden building next to the naval headquarters, where he often took his meals, dining on rations of smoked beef and beer. However, his suburban Summer Palace on the banks of the Neva River, Petrodvoretz (also called Peterhof, a German name), was a 14-room mansion surrounded by elaborate gardens and spectacular fountains. Some of these waterwork catered to Peter's delight in practical jokes: "surprise" fountains sprayed water on the unwary when they happened to step on a particular stone.
It was at Petrodvoretz that the Tsar ha a tragic confrontation with his only living son. Alexis had been born to Peter's first wife, a woman he never liked; eventually he banished her to a convent, in effect divorcing her. His second wife, with whom he lived for 23 years, was a commoner. They had 12 children, but only two survived childhood. Both were girls.
Alexis, the logical successor, was the pawn of conservatives who wanted to depose Peter. At Petrodvoretz, the Tsar accused his son of joining in a plot against him. When Alexis answered equivocally, Peter had him imprisoned and "questioned" so severely that Alexis died. Peter himself died only seven years later, without ever having named a successor. His death was caused by an illness he contracted when he jumped into the icy water of the Gulf of Finland to help rescue a boatload of foundering sailors.
Peter's modernization was beneficial in many respects, but it also proved divisive. It created a Western-oriented gentry at odds with peasantry and clergy that violently resisted change from old Russian ways. Barely half a century later, another strong leader widened this chasm, Catherine the Great.
Eight years later, the Swedes, who had postponed further conquests of Russia while invading Poland and Saxony, returned. They moved into the Ukraine and there, in 1709, were destroyed in what is considered to be one of the history's most critical encounters, the Battle of Poltava. Sweden was forced to give Russia its lands on the eastern shore of the Baltic – the European mainland – and the threat of Swedish domination of Northern Europe was permanently ended.
After this victory, Peter continued to refine his army; he also brought the Church under state control and reorganized the civil service, setting up 14 grades to which anyone could aspire. Even a peasant, properly schooled, could rise from the 14th grade to the first. Moreover, every civil servant above the 11th grade automatically gained the right to own land and serfs; above the eighth grade, such status became hereditary. Travelling this egalitarian route to advancement, Ilya Ulianov, son of a serf and father of the 20th century revolutionary known as Lenin, managed to climb the ladder to the fourth grade and hereditary land entitlement. Thus Lenin himself was technically an aristocrat.
With the final victory over Sweden, Peter at last acquired his "window on the West", a safe, year-round route through the Baltic Sea to rest of Europe. In expectation, he had already begun to build a port, the city known as Leningrad but originally named after Peter's patron saint, and thus in a way after Peter himself: St. Petersburg (Sankt-Peterburg). It would seem to have been set on the worst possible spot – marshland at the mouth of the Neva River, where it flows into the Gulf of Finland.
Peter imported a multitude of French and Italian architects and artisans and proceeded at top speed. Tens of thousands of peasants, prisoners of war and army recruits were dragooned for labour. Often they dug with their hands, slept in the open and drank stagnant marsh water. So many died that the city was said to have been built on bones. In nine years, however, Peter had his great city – a metropolis of 34.500 buildings. He proclaimed it Russia's capital.
Peter's plan for his city included a network of canals, like those of Amsterdam, and broad, tree-lined streets. Houses were sized according to the status of their occupants. Common people were to have one-storey houses with four windows and a dormer; prosperous merchants, two-storey houses with dormers and a balcony.
Peter's own palace was a modest wooden building next to the naval headquarters, where he often took his meals, dining on rations of smoked beef and beer. However, his suburban Summer Palace on the banks of the Neva River, Petrodvoretz (also called Peterhof, a German name), was a 14-room mansion surrounded by elaborate gardens and spectacular fountains. Some of these waterwork catered to Peter's delight in practical jokes: "surprise" fountains sprayed water on the unwary when they happened to step on a particular stone.
It was at Petrodvoretz that the Tsar ha a tragic confrontation with his only living son. Alexis had been born to Peter's first wife, a woman he never liked; eventually he banished her to a convent, in effect divorcing her. His second wife, with whom he lived for 23 years, was a commoner. They had 12 children, but only two survived childhood. Both were girls.
Alexis, the logical successor, was the pawn of conservatives who wanted to depose Peter. At Petrodvoretz, the Tsar accused his son of joining in a plot against him. When Alexis answered equivocally, Peter had him imprisoned and "questioned" so severely that Alexis died. Peter himself died only seven years later, without ever having named a successor. His death was caused by an illness he contracted when he jumped into the icy water of the Gulf of Finland to help rescue a boatload of foundering sailors.
Peter's modernization was beneficial in many respects, but it also proved divisive. It created a Western-oriented gentry at odds with peasantry and clergy that violently resisted change from old Russian ways. Barely half a century later, another strong leader widened this chasm, Catherine the Great.
