himself in particular to war games with a mixed assortment of playmates. These games, surprisingly enough, developed over a period of years into a serious military undertaking and resulted in the formation of the first two regiments of the guards, the
dockyard in Archangel and constructed a large ship there all by himself. For information and instruction Peter went to the foreign quarter in Moscow. There he learned from a variety of specialists what he wanted to know most about military and naval matters, geometry and the erection of fortifications. There too, in a busy, informal, and unrestrained atmosphere, the tsar apparently felt much more at ease than in the conservative, tradition-bound palace environment, which he never accepted as his own. The smoking, drinking, love-making, rough good humor, and conglomeration of tongues, first discovered in the foreign quarter in Moscow, became an enduring part of Peter the Great's life. The determined attempt of Peter's mother to make him mend his ways by marrying him to Eudoxia Lopukhina in 1689 failed completely to accomplish the desired purpose.
After Peter took over the conduct of state affairs and began to reform Muscovy, he found few collaborators. His own family, the court circles, and the boyar duma overwhelmingly opposed change. Because he discovered little support at the top of the state structure, and also because he never attached much importance to origin or rank, the sovereign proceeded to obtain assistants wherever possible. Before long an extremely mixed but on the whole able group emerged. To quote Kliuchevsky's colorful summary:
Peter gathered the necessary men everywhere, without worrying about rank and origin, and they came to him from different directions and all possible conditions: one arrived as a cabin-boy on a Portuguese ship, as was the case of the chief of police of the new capital, de Viere; another had shepherded swine in Lithuania, as it was rumored about the first Procurator-General of the Senate, Iaguzhinsky; a third had worked as a clerk in a small store, as in the instance of Vice-Chancellor Shafirov; a fourth had been a Russian house serf, as in the case of the Vice-Governor of Archangel, the inventor of stamped paper, Kurbatov; a fifth, i.e., Oster-mann, was a son of a Westphalian pastor. And all these men, together with Prince Menshikov, who, the story went, had once sold pies in the streets of Moscow, met in Peter's society with the remnants of the Russian boyar nobility.
Among foreigners, the tsar had the valuable aid of some of his old friends, such as Patrick Gordon and the Swiss, Francis Lefort, who played a prominent role until his early death in 1699. Later such able newcomers from Germany as the diplomat, Andrew Ostermann, and the military expert, Burkhard Munnich, joined the sovereign's entourage. Some of his numerous foreign assistants, for example, the Scot James Bruce
who helped with the artillery, mining, the navy and other matters, had been born in Russia and belonged to the second generation of foreign settlers in Muscovy.
Russian assistants to Peter ranged over the entire social gamut. Alexander Menshikov, Paul Iaguzhinsky, Peter Shafirov, and Alexis Kurbatov, among others, came from the lower classes. A large group belonged to the service gentry, of whom only two examples are the chief admiral of the reign, Theodore Apraksin, and Chancellor Gabriel Golovkin. Even old aristocratic families contributed a number of important figures, such as Field Marshal Count Boris Sheremetev and Senator Prince Jacob Dolgoruky. The Church too, although generally opposed to reform, supplied some able clerics who furthered the work of Peter the Great. The place of honor among them belongs to Archbishop Theophanes, or Feofan, Prokopovich, who, like many other promoters of change in Russia, came from Ukraine. Of all the 'fledglings of Peter's nest'-to use Pushkin's expression - Menshikov acquired the greatest prominence and power. This son of a corporal or groom, who reportedly was once a pie vendor, came closest to being the sovereign's alter ego and participating in the entire range of his activity. Beginning as the boy tsar's orderly in the Preobrazhenskii regiment, Menshikov rose to be Generalissimo, Prince in Russia, and Prince of the Holy Roman Empire, to mention only his most outstanding titles. Vain and thoroughly corrupt, as well as able and energetic, he constituted a permanent target for investigations and court proceedings and repeatedly suffered summary punishment from Peter the Great's cudgel, but somehow managed to maintain his position.
War against Turkey was the first major action of Peter I after he took the government of Russia into his own hands in 1694, following the death of his mother. In fighting Turkey, the protector of the Crimean Tartars and the power controlling the Black Sea and its southern Russian shore, the new monarch followed in the steps of his predecessors. However, before long it became apparent that he managed his affairs differently. The war began in 1695, and the first Russian campaign against Azov failed: supplied by sea, the fortress remained impregnable to the Muscovite army. Then, in one winter, the tsar built a fleet in Voronezh on the Don river. He worked indefatigably himself, as well as ordering and urging others, and utilized to the best advantage the knowledge of all available foreign specialists along with his own previously acquired knowledge. By displaying his tremendous energy everywhere, Peter the Great brought thirty sea-going vessels and about a thousand transport barges to Azov in May
1696. Some of the Russian fleet, it might be noted, had been built as far away as Moscow and assembled in Voronezh. This time besieged by sea as well as by land, the Turks surrendered Azov in July.
With a view toward a further struggle against Turkey and a continuing augmentation and modernization of the Russian armed forces, the tsar next sent fifty young men to study, above all shipbuilding and navigation, in Holland, Italy, and England. Peter dispatched groups of Russians to study abroad several more times in his reign. After the students returned, the sovereign often examined them personally. In addition to experts, the tsar needed allies to prosecute war against Turkey. The desire to form a mighty coalition against the Ottoman Empire, and an intense interest in the West, prompted Peter to organize a large embassy to visit a number of European countries and - a most unusual act for a Muscovite ruler - to travel with the embassy.
Headed by Lefort, the party of about 250 men set out in March 1697. The sovereign journeyed incognito under the name of Peter Mikhailov. His identity, however, remained no secret to the rulers and officials of the countries he visited or to the crowds which frequently gathered around him. The tsar engaged in a number of important talks on diplomatic and other state matters. But, above all, he tried to learn as much as possible from the West. He seemed most concerned with navigation, but he also tried to absorb other technical skills and crafts, together with the ways and manners and, in fact, the entire life of Europe as he saw it. As the so-called Grand Embassy progressed across the continent and as Peter Mikhailov also took trips of his own, most notably to the British Isles, he obtained some first-hand knowledge of the Baltic provinces of Sweden, Prussia, and certain other German states, and of Holland, England, and the Hapsburg Empire. From Vienna the tsar intended to go to Italy, but instead he rushed back to Moscow at news of a rebellion of the streltsy. Altogether Peter the Great spent eighteen months abroad in 1697-98. At that time over 750 foreigners, especially Dutchmen, were recruited to serve in Russia. Again in 1702 and at other times, the tsar invited Europeans of every nationality - except Jews, whom he considered parasitic - to come to his realm, promising to subsidize passage, provide advantageous employment, and assure religious tolerance and separate law courts.
The streltsy had already caused trouble to Peter and suffered punishment on the eve of the tsar's journey to the West - in fact delaying the journey. Although the new conspiracy that was aimed at deposing Peter and putting Sophia in power had been effectively dealt with before the sovereign's return, the tsar acted with exceptional violence and severity. After investigation and torture more than a thousand streltsy were executed, and their mangled bodies were exposed to the public as a salutary lesson. Sophia
was forced to become a nun, and the same fate befell Peter's wife, Eudoxia, who had sympathized with the rebels.
If the gruesome death of the streltsy symbolized the destruction of the old order, many signs indicated the coming of the new. After he returned from the West, the tsar began to demand that beards be cut and foreign dress be worn by courtiers, officials, and the military. With the beginning of the new century, the sovereign changed the Russian calendar: henceforth years were to be counted from the birth of Christ, not the creation of the world, and they were to commence on the first of January, not the first of September. More important, Peter the Great rapidly proceeded to reorganize his army according to the Western pattern.
