Peter The Great

Peter the Great: Russian Revolutionary

In the history of Russia, there were countless emperors, Tsar’s, and all sorts of nobility, but through it all none of them truly succeeded in bringing Russia to its enlightenment. “Through out the decades and out of the ashes rose a giant; sailor, soldier, carpenter, Tsar; Peter the Great” (Land of Tsar’s). Peter was determined to change Russia’s “moskovite isolation and backward” way of living. With persistence and determination Russia’s new day dawned and all because of this six-foot-eight gargantuan of a man. Peter ended xenophobia, religious isolation, and introduced statecraft in this great nation that was Russia. He centralized the government, modernized the army as well as created a navy, and single handedly started the Cultural Revolution which ultimately brought Russia out of the dark ages.

Pyotr Alexeyevich Romano was born June 9, 1672 in Moscow which was the capital of Russia at the time. Born into royalty, Pyotr Romano started his conquests early. He was named “co-tsar” when he was a mere ten years old in 1682. Due to a power struggle, Peter had to share his title with his brother Ivan and his half-sister Sofia. In 1689 Sofia was over thrown, and in 1696 Ivan passed away, thus leaving Peter sole Tsar. When Peter gained total control, he reformed Russia in ways that he was unable to do when he had his brother and sister to undermine him. A self relying person, “Peter made all crucial decisions alone with the aid only of a small number of close confidants, primarily his new favorites F.A Golovin and Menshikov” (Bushkovitch 213).

Finally, Peter was able to make the reforms he desired and first on his list was slowly but surely making Russia a European nation. “Peter's aim, therefore, was to overtake the developed countries of western Europe as soon as possible, in order both to promote the national economy and to ensure victory in his wars for access to the seas” (http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-14794). First on his list of changes was the nobility. The nobility seemed medieval with their long beards and kavtans and he was not going to accept this backward way of living any more. Peter had started what was known as a westernization revolution, he personally ripped off beards and cut robes to remove the “dark ages” look. Europe was Peter’s main inspiration for this westernization revolution. It was unacceptable to be Russian therefore everyone had to be European. Peter was determined to bring Russia out of the dark ages and into a new world even if it meant discomfort and pain for everyone around him.

Peter centralized Russian government; the old fashioned forms of government gave way to an effective tyranny. In 1697, Peter abolished the Boyar Council which was; members of a higher class of Russian nobility whom headed the civil and military administration of the country. To replace this, he established the Senate for which he was the supreme “head” of state. As senate, they had the responsibilities to coordinate the action of the various central and local organs, to supervise the collection and expenditure of revenue and to draft legislation in accordance with Peters’ edicts.

Peter was an experienced army officer and navy admiral, a skilful shipbuilder and an amazingly energetic personality, but he was also known to be very cruel. вЂ?In the summer of 1698 there was a revolt of the “Streltsy”, Russia’s military corps, and because of this Peter returned to Russia where he suppressed the revolt. As punishment for this revolt and for murdering his family members and friends he had 1,182 members of the streltsy executed, and the rest were exiled to distant towns, and the Streltsy was disbanded. Peter was not afraid to get involved himself, it is reported that he even contributed in the killings of these conservative musketeers’ (Land of the Tsar’s).

As a child, Peter was always interested in building ships and sailing, and in turn it comes to no surprise that Peter would be solely responsible for creating Russia’s first navy. Peter frequently traveled to different countries trying to find supreme builders, carpenters, revolutionaries, to bring back to Russia. “…Peter took Leibniz academic structure and used it as the apex of both his educational projects and new manners reforms designed to transform Russia into a вЂ?Western’ state” (Gordon 1). In order to learn how to build ships, he traveled to Britain, which is where the first fleet ships were created. In November of 1695, Peter started building his dream navy. After about a year of building up his navy, his men had built approximately 30 ships, some of which were built with his own two hands.

Peter never sat on the back burner and watched others do the tasks he wanted completed, he was a determined man who knew what he ultimately wanted Russia to become. There were several special schools which prepared their pupils for military or naval service and finally enabled Peter to dispense with foreign experts. Creating a navy was a major step in the growth of Russia (Caracraft 32) which allowed Russia to be able to assert itself as a country. By the time the navy was at its full strength, they had fifty-two battleships and hundreds of galleys and other crafts; thus a powerful Baltic fleet was brought into being. Now all they needed was a strong military back-up and they would take over the Baltic Sea from the Swedish and create Russian port on Baltic Coast. By attaining the Baltic Coast for Russia, it provided a chance for trade, opportunity of expansion and ultimately world power.

In 1700 Peter, self proclaimed Peter the Great, started war with Sweden with the prize being, Baltic Coast, the warm water port Peter had wanted from the beginning