Period because the state came to include more and more peoples other than the Great Russians, that is, the old Muscovites. The epoch lasted for approximately two centuries and ended abruptly in 1917. Although the chronological boundaries of Imperial Russia are clearly marked - by contrast, for instance, with those of appanage Russia - the beginning of Peter the Great's reign itself can be variously dated. The reformer, who died on February 8, 1725, attained supreme power in several stages, and with reversals of fortune: in 1682 as a boy of ten he was proclaimed at first tsar and later that same year co-tsar with his elder half-brother Ivan; in 1689 he, or rather his family and party, regained effective control of the government; in 1694 Peter's mother died and he started to rule in fact as well as in name; finally in 1696 Ivan died, leaving Peter the only and absolute sovereign of Muscovy. Therefore, before turning to the celebrated reformer and his activities, we must consider a number of years during which Peter's authority remained at best nominal.
Tsar Alexis had been married twice, to Mary Miloslavskaia from 1648 to 1669, and to Nathalie Naryshkina from 1671 until his death in 1676. He had thirteen children by his first wife, but of the sons only two, Theodore and Ivan, both of them sickly, survived their father. Peter, strong and healthy, was born on June 9, 1672, about a year after the tsar's second marriage. Theodore, as we know, succeeded Alexis and died without an
heir in 1682. In the absence of a law of succession, the two boyar families, the Miloslavskys and Naryshkins, competed for the throne. The Naryshkins gained an early victory: supported by the patriarch, a majority in the boyar duma, and a gathering of the gentry, Peter was proclaimed tsar in April 1682. Because of his youth, his mother became regent, while her relatives and friends secured leading positions in the state. However, as early as May, the Miloslavsky party, led by Alexis's able and strong-willed daughter Sophia, Peter's half-sister, inspired a rebellion of the regiments of the streltsy, or musketeers, concentrated in Moscow. Leading members of the Naryshkin clique were murdered - Peter witnessed some of these murders - and the Miloslavskys seized power. At the request of the streltsy, the boyar duma declared Ivan senior tsar, allowed Peter to be junior tsar, and, a little later, made Sophia regent. It might be added that the streltsy, strongly influenced by the Old Belief, proceeded to put more pressure on the government and cause further trouble, but in vain: the new regent managed to punish the leaders and control the regiments.
From 1682 to 1689 Sophia and her associates governed Muscovy, with Ivan V incapable of ruling and Peter I, together with the entire Naryshkin party, kept away from state affairs. Prince Basil Golitsyn, the regent's favorite, played a particularly important role. An enlightened and humane person who spoke several foreign languages and arranged his own home and life in the Western manner, Golitsyn cherished vast projects of improvement and reform including the abolition of serfdom and education on a large scale. He did liberalize the Muscovite penal code, even if he failed to implement his more ambitious schemes. Golitsyn's greatest success came in 1686 when Russia and Poland signed a treaty of 'eternal peace' that confirmed the Russian gains of the preceding decades, including the acquisition of Kiev. Yet the same treaty set the stage for the war against the Crimean Tartars, who were backed by Turkey. This war proved disastrous to Muscovite arms. In 1687 and again in 1689 Golitsyn led a Muscovite army into the steppe only to suffer heavy losses and defeat as the lack of water and the huge distances exhausted his troops, while the Tartars set the grass on fire. Golitsyn's military fiasco, together with other accumulating tensions, led to Sophia's downfall.
As Peter grew older, his position as a tsar without authority became increasingly invidious. Sophia, on her part, realized the insecurity of her office and desired to become ruler in her own right. In 1689 Theodore Shaklovity, appointed by Sophia to command the streltsy, apparently tried to incite his troops to stage another coup, put the regent on the throne, and destroy her opponents. Although the streltsy failed to act, a denouement resulted. Frightened by the report of a plot, Peter escaped in the dead of night from the village of Preobrazhenskoe, near Moscow, where he had
been living, to the Holy Trinity-St. Sergius Monastery. In the critical days that followed, the patriarch, many boyars and gentry, the military units trained in the Western manner and commanded by General Patrick Gordon, and even several regiments of the streltsy, rallied behind Peter. Many others wavered, but did not back Sophia. In the end the sister capitulated to the brother without a fight and was sent to live in a convent. Shaklovity and two of his aides were executed; several other officers and boyars, including Basil Golitsyn, suffered exile. Thus, in August 1689, Peter won acknowledgment as the effective ruler of Russia, although Ivan retained his position as co-tsar. Still, at seventeen, Peter showed no desire to take personal charge of affairs. Instead the government fell into the hands of his mother Nathalie and her associates, notably her brother, the boyar Leo Naryshkin, Patriarch Joachim, and, after his death in 1690, Patriarch Hadrian. The years 1689-94 witnessed the last flowering of Muscovite religiosity, ritualism, parochialism, and suspicion of everything foreign - it was even forbidden to train troops in the Western manner. But in 1694 Nathalie died, and Peter I finally assumed the direction of the state at the age of twenty-two.
The impression that Peter I commonly made on his contemporaries was one of enormous strength and energy. Almost seven feet tall and powerfully built, the tsar possessed astonishing physical strength and vigor. Moreover, he appeared to be in a constant state of restless activity, taking on himself tasks normally done by several men. Few Russians could keep up with their monarch in his many occupations. Indeed, as he walked with rapid giant strides, they had to run even to continue conversation. In addition to his extraordinary physical attributes, Peter I exhibited some remarkable qualities of mind and character. The tsar had an insatiable intellectual curiosity coupled with an amazing ability to learn. He proceeded to participate personally in all kinds of state affairs, technical and special as well as general, becoming deeply involved in diplomacy, administration, justice, finance, commerce, industry, education, and practically everything else besides. In his reforms the tsar invariably valued expert advice, but he was also generally independent in thought and did not hesitate to adapt projects to circumstances. Peter I also developed into an accomplished military and naval commander. He studied the professions of soldier and sailor from the bottom up, serving first in the ranks and learning the use of each weapon before promoting himself to his first post as an officer. The monarch attained the rank of full general after the victory of Poltava and of full admiral after the successful conclusion of the Great Northern War. In
addition, the sovereign found time to learn some twenty different trades and prided himself on his ability to make almost anything, from a ship to a pair of shoes. With his own hands he pulled the teeth of his courtiers and cut off their beards. Characteristically, he wanted to be everywhere and see everything for himself, traveling indefatigably around his vast state as no Muscovite monarch had ever done. In a still more unprecedented manner he went twice to the West to learn, in 1697-98 and in 1717. Peter I's mind can best be described as active and practical, able quickly to grasp problems and devise solutions, if not to construct theories.
As to character, the tsar impressed those around him by his energy, unbending will, determination, and dedication. He recovered quickly from even the worst defeats and considered every obstacle as an invitation to further exertion and achievement. Less attractive, but at times equally imposing, traits included a violent temper, crudeness, and frequent cruelty. The sovereign could be an executioner, as well as a dentist, and his drunken, amorous, and blasphemous pastimes exceeded the measure of the rough times in which he lived. Yet Peter the Great must not be confused with Ivan the Terrible, whom he, incidentally, admired. The reformer never lost himself in the paranoid world of megalomania and delusions of persecution, and he even refused to identify himself with the state. To mention one significant detail, when reforming the army, Peter I crossed out 'the interests of His Tsarist Majesty' as the object of military devotion and substituted 'the interests of the state.' Consistently he made every effort to serve his country, to bring to it change and enlightenment. As the sovereign wrote in the last month of his life, in connection with dispatching Vitus Bering's first expedition: 'Having ensured the security of the state against the enemy, it is requisite to endeavor to win glory for it by means of the arts and sciences.' Or, to support Peter the Great's emphasis on education with another quotation - and one especially appropriate in a textbook- 'For learning is good and fundamental, and as it were the root, the seed, and first principle of all that is good and useful in church and state.'
Although a precocious child, Peter received no systematic education, barely being taught to read and write. Instead, from a very early age he began to pick things up on his own and pursue a variety of interests. He devoted
