Cultural and educational measures
From January 1, 1700, Peter introduced a new chronology, making the Russian calendar conform to European usage with regard to the year, which in Russia had hitherto been numbered “from the Creation of the World” and had begun on September 1 (he adhered however to the Julian Old Style as opposed to the Gregorian New Style for the days of the month). In 1710 the Old Church Slavonic (Old Church Slavonic language) alphabet was modernized into a secular script.
Peter was the first ruler of Russia to sponsor education on secular lines and to bring an element of state control into that field. Various secular schools were opened; and since too few pupils came from the nobility, the children of soldiers, officials, and churchmen were admitted to them. In many cases, compulsory service to the state was preceded by compulsory education for it. Russians were also permitted to go abroad for their education and indeed were often compelled to do so (at the state's expense). The translation of books from western European languages was actively promoted. The first Russian newspaper, Vedomosti (“Records”), appeared in 1703. The Russian Academy of Sciences was instituted in 1724.
Beside his useful measures, Peter often enforced superficial Europeanization rather brutally; for example, when he decreed that beards should be shorn off and Western dress worn. He personally cut the beards of his boyars and the skirts of their long coats (kaftany). The Raskolniki (Old Believers (Old Believer)) and merchants who insisted on keeping their beards had to pay a special tax, but peasants and the Orthodox clergy were allowed to remain bearded.
The church
In 1721, in order to subject the Orthodox Church of Russia (Russian Orthodox church) to the state, Peter abolished the Patriarchate of Moscow. Thenceforward the patriarch's place as head of the church was taken by a spiritual college, namely the Holy Synod, consisting of representatives of the hierarchy obedient to the tsar's will. A secular official—the ober-prokuror, or chief procurator—was appointed by the tsar to supervise the Holy Synod's activities. The Holy Synod ferociously persecuted all dissenters and conducted a censorship of all publications.
Priests officiating in churches were obliged by Peter to deliver sermons and exhortations that were intended to make the peasantry “listen to reason” and to teach such prayers to children that everyone would grow up “in fear of God” and in awe of the tsar. The regular clergy were forbidden to allow men under 30 years old or serfs to take vows as monks.
The church was thus transformed into a pillar of the absolutist regime. Partly in the interests of the nobility, the extent of land owned by the church was restricted; Peter disposed of ecclesiastical and monastic property and revenues at his own discretion, for state purposes.
The nobility
Peter's internal policy served to protect the interest of Russia's ruling class—the landowners and the nascent bourgeoisie. The material position of the landed nobility was strengthened considerably under Peter. Almost 100,000 acres of land and 175,000 serfs were allotted to it in the first half of the reign alone. Moreover, a decree of 1714 that instituted succession by primogeniture and so prevented the breaking up of large properties also removed the old distinction between pomestya (lands granted by the tsar to the nobility in return for service) and votchiny (patrimonial or allodial lands) so that all such property became hereditary.
Moreover, the status of the nobility was modified by Peter's Table of Ranks (Ranks, Table of) (1722). This replaced the old system of promotion in the state services, which had been according to ancestry, by one of promotion according to services actually rendered. It classified all functionaries—military, naval, and civilian alike—in 14 categories, the 14th being the lowest and the 1st the highest; and admission to the 8th category conferred hereditary nobility. Factory owners and others who had risen to officer's rank could accede to the nobility, which thus received new blood. The predominance of the boyars ended.
Personality and achievement
Peter was of enormous height, more than six and one-half feet (two metres) tall; he was handsome and of unusual physical strength. Unlike all earlier Russian tsars, whose Byzantine splendours he repudiated, he was very simple in his manners; for example, he enjoyed conversation over a mug of beer with shipwrights and sailors from the foreign ships visiting St. Petersburg. Restless, energetic, and impulsive, he did not like splendid clothes that hindered his movements; often he appeared in worn-out shoes and an old hat, still more often in military or naval uniform. He was fond of merrymaking and knew how to conduct it, though his jokes were frequently crude; and he sometimes drank heavily and forced his guests to do so too. A just man who did not tolerate dishonesty, he was terrible in his anger and could be cruel when he encountered opposition: in such moments only his intimates could soothe him—best of all his beloved second wife, Catherine, whom people frequently asked to intercede with him for them. Sometimes Peter would beat his high officials with his stick, from which even Prince A.D. Menshikov (Menshikov, Aleksandr Danilovich), his closest friend, received many a stroke. One of Peter's great gifts of statesmanship was the ability to pick talented collaborators for the highest appointments, whether from the foremost families of the nobility or from far lower levels of society.
As a ruler, Peter often used the methods of a despotic landlord—the whip and arbitrary rule. He always acted as an autocrat, convinced of the wonder-working power of compulsion by the state. Yet with his insatiable capacity for work he saw himself as the state's servant, and whenever he put himself in a subordinate position he would perform his duties with the same conscientiousness that he demanded of others. He began his own army service in the lowest rank and required others likewise to master their profession from its elements upward and to expect promotion only for services of real value.
Peter's personality left its imprint on the whole history of Russia. A man of original and shrewd intellect, exuberant, courageous, industrious, and iron-willed, he could soberly appraise complex and changeable situations so as to uphold consistently the general interests of Russia and his own particular designs. He did not completely bridge the gulf between Russia and the Western countries, but he achieved considerable progress in development of the national economy and trade, education, science and culture, and foreign policy. Russia became a great power, without whose concurrence no important European problem could thenceforth be settled. His internal reforms achieved progress to an extent that no earlier innovator could have envisaged.
Leonid Alekseyevich Nikiforov Ed.
Additional Reading
Pis'ma i bumagi Imperatora Petra Velikogo, 11 vol. (1887–1964), contains Peter's correspondence as well as valuable documents on Russian history up to 1711. Biographies include M.M. Bogoslovskiĭ, Petr I, 5 vol. (1940–48, reissued 1969), a detailed study up to 1700; Ian Grey, Peter the Great, Emperor of All Russia (1960); M.S. Anderson, Peter the Great (1978); Alex De Jonge, Fire and Water: A Life of Peter the Great (1979); Robert K. Massie, Peter the Great: His Life and World (1980, reprinted 1991); and Henri Troyat, Peter the Great (1987; originally published in French, 1979), a popularized account. Peter's reign and the reforms he instituted are analyzed in Sergeĭ M. Solov'ev, Publichnyia chteniia o Petrie Velikom (1872, reissued 1984), by a famous Russian historian; B.H. Sumner, Peter the Great and the Emergence of Russia (1950, reissued 1972); Reinhard Wittram, Peter I, Czar und Kaiser, 2 vol. (1964), and Peter der Grosse: der Eintritt Russlands in die Neuzeit (1954); Ivan I. Golikov, Dieianiia Petra Velikago, 2nd ed., 15 vol. (1837–43), on his reforms; James Cracraft, The Church Reform of Peter the Great (1971); Alexander V. Muller (ed. and trans.), The Spiritual Regulation of Peter the Great, trans. from Russian (1972); and Evgenii V. Anisimov, The Reforms of Peter the Great: Progress Through Coercion in Russia (1993; originally published in Russian, 1989). J.G. Garrard (ed.), The Eighteenth Century in Russia (1973), provides a collection of essays on different aspects of the Westernization of Russia. Peter's military campaigns and his role as the founder of the new Russian army are explored in the works of a prominent Soviet historian, Evgeniĭ V. Tarle, Russkiĭ flot i vneshniaia politika Petra I (1949), also available in a German translation, Russisch-englische Beziehungen unter Peter I (1954), and Severnaia voĭna i shvedskoe nashestvie na Rossiiu (1958). Foreign relations are described by Leonid A. Nikiforov, Russko-angliĭskie otnosheniia pri Petre I (1950); and B.H. Sumner, Peter the Great and the Ottoman Empire (1949, reissued 1965).Xenia Gasiorowska, The Image of Peter the Great in Russian Fiction (1979), is a study of some 60 historical novels written since Pushkin's time. Nicholas V. Riasanovsky, The Image of Peter the Great in Russian History and Thought (1985), examines Peter's influence and how he has been perceived in Russia from 1700 to 1983.Works that put Peter the Great and his reign into historical perspective include Vasili Klyuchevsky, The Rise of the Romanovs, trans. and ed. by Liliana Archibald (1970; originally published in Russian, 1912); E.M. Almedingen, The Romanovs: Three Centuries of an Ill-Fated Dynasty (1966); John D. Bergamini, The Tragic Dynasty: A History of the Romanovs (1969), based on English- and French-language sources; Ian Grey, The Romanovs: The Rise and Fall of a Dynasty (1970); and W. Bruce Lincoln, The Romanovs: Autocrats of All the Russias (1981).Leonid Alekseyevich Nikiforov Ed.