Peter the Great was born on June 9, 1672. However, according to the Old Style calendar he was born on May 30, 1672. He was the son of father Tsar Alexis and mother Natalya Kirillovna Naryshkina. When Peter was four years old, his father Tsar Alexis died and was succeeded by Peter’s half-brother Fydor III. (Parrish, 2009) On the eve of his tenth birthday Peter the Great came to the throne despite the fact that he was still a minor. He grew up under the threat of a palace takeover and enjoyed little formal education. He was seven-foot-tall and his accomplishments would soon match that. (Hunt, Martin, Rosenwein & Smith, 2012)
Peter was only ten years old when the Kremlin saw an open and violent struggle of power between the Naryshkins and Miloslavskys. He had witnessed killings including his mother’s former guardian. These vicious and unnecessary killings created a deep hatred in Peter for the streltsy and revulsion against the Kremlin and its politics. Peter had spent the next seven years in the village of Preobrazhenskoe and his mother whom now served as a head of state. Peter then used his own devices to familiarize himself which in fact were military matters and Western technology. His mother’s death in 1694 and Ivan the Terrible’s death in 1696 made Peter the sole ruler of Russia. (Gupta, 2006) Despite the fact that he had no formal or complete education, Peter was beyond his years physically and mentally. He gained knowledge from mostly foreigners when it came to technical skills who worked for Russian service that had lived nearby. He spent a majority of his time in the German quarter in Moscow learning from the scholars from the German University. (Hutchinson, 2011) A new revolt of the streltsy took place in...
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...ore active policy on his southeastern frontier. Peter invaded Persian territory himself after hearing that the Ottoman Turks would take advantage of Persia's weakness and invade the Caspian region in 1722. In 1723 Persia surrendered the western and southern shores of the Caspian to Russia in return for military aid.
Peter the Great was tsar of Russia until 1725. He died in Saint Petersburg, Russia on February 8, 1725. He had left an empire that had stretched from Arkhangelsk on the White Sea to the Caspian, to the Baltic Sea, and to the Pacific Ocean. He had not nominated anyone despite the fact that he had back in 1722 issued a decree reserving to him the right to nominate his successor. His widow Catherine I, succeeded him to the temporary omission of his grandson Peter II. Back in 1724 Peter the Great had crowned Catherine as empress. (Alekseyevich, 2012)
I believe that there was so much attention given to Peter the Great because of his extensive reforms. Peter brought both social and economic changes to his country. He wanted to make Russia big. Peter transformed the culture; he wanted his people to wear the western European fashion. Many of the people were not thrilled with the change because they did not like the ways of the western European societies. He made his navy stronger, he reformed his army to meet the western standards, and he gained control over the church.
Peter the Great, the Russian Czar, inherited his absolutist power from his brother, Ivan V. Born in aristocracy, Peter’s dad was the Czar, and later his brother, and after his brother’s death, him. He was a firm believer in the possible benefits from the control of a single leader to make decisions for the people, and he exercised this divine right to create many renouned institutions. At the beginning of Peter’s reign, Russia was in a poor condition: many rejected modernization from the Renaissance, and large spending from his brother’s reign caused economic droughts. He took advantage of his absolutist power to help ameliorate Russia’s situation and first decided to minimalize power from the other aristocrats. The subduction of the rich allowed
Absolutists during the 16th and 17th centuries were often times focused too heavily on military or other such rather than the people they were ruling. Peter the Great is a good example of this type of ruler because he did great things for Russia like improving the navy; however, Peter the Great did nothing to help the people of Russia, and according to Michael Gibson in document 8, he "failed to create the large, thriving
Peter preferred to live comfortably, and didn’t have a need for extravagance as much as Louis XIV did. But that didn’t mean he didn’t think big. Peter’s main goals were to modernize Russia, and to make it a major European power—a force to be reckoned with—and also to gain control of the church. He tried to achieve these in many different ways. One way he attempted to make Russia more powerful was by westernizing the country. He traveled all over Western Europe, learning about the culture, more modern practices and way of ...
The main driving force behind Peter I’s consolidation of power and reformation of Russia was the goal of ultimately enhancing military efficiency, allowing Russia to become a world power. Throughout his reign, war raged on and became a huge part of daily life. Compulsory lifetime military
Peter redefined the duty of the Russian autocracy by binding together the notion of an autocrat who rules over the populace without any limitations and the notion of the autocrat who reforms society for the benefit of the populace (Whittaker, 1992, p. 78). Catherine wanted to become the enlightened and reforming despot that Peter the Great was, but she also realized the flaws that he possessed that she saw in herself. She criticized Peter for moving the capital to St Petersburg as opposed to moving it elsewhere and Peter’s failure to change the Sobornoye Ulozheniye of 1649 (Rasmussen, 1974, p. 56). However, Catherine was also unsuccessful in changing the Russian legal code as the Legislative Commission was a failure because it had not accomplished its task and she realized that this showed she herself had shortcomings much like Peter did (Rasmussen, 1974, p. 59). Nevertheless, Catherine had a vast amount of respect toward Peter and she used his image to her advantage as a political device. She used his image to overthrow Peter III and gain power over the throne. She realized that this was a necessity because “her claim to power was shaky and she worked to buttress it by projecting the image of a reforming tsar […]” (Whittaker, 1992, p. 92). Catherine did not ascend to the throne by legal right, but she had ascended to it because she had usurped her husband in order to claim power. Therefore, she
Eventually, she had a son named Paul. However, historians are unsure of who Paul’s father actually was. It is believed that his father is either Catherine’s husband, Peter, or it could be Sergei Saltykov, Catherine II’s lover at the time. When Empress Elizabeth died in 1961, Peter III and Catherine II came into power in Russia. Peter III began to alienate himself from powerful people in Russia and he also took away land from the church. Catherine II saw this as an opportunity to take control of Russia and began to become close with nobles, officials, and the military in order to have a close relationship with those whom Peter had alienated. Catherine II with help from one of her lovers, Grigory Orlov, overthrew Peter III and took the title as ruler of Russia. Catherine II had managed to get Peter III to step down, but he was strangled at one of his estates in Ropsha, Russia. In fear of being overthrown like her late husband, Peter III, Catherine II took steps in order to help her keep her seat as ruler of Russia. She gave back the land that Peter III had taken from the church and recalled the troops sent by Peter III to fight
Peter was born in June 9, 1672, in Moscow, the only son of Czar Alexis and Natalia Narishkina. Peter was not yet four years old when his father died ("Peter the Great." PDF file). Since Alexis also had thirteen children with his first wife, there were many lengthy and sometimes violent struggles over the succession to the throne. On one occasion, Peter even had to flee for his life. When Peter and his half-brother Ivan were confirmed to be the next rulers, there was a military revolt. The Streltsy revolt marked Peter for life (Massie, 52). Family blood was being spilled around him, and at age ten, he was helpless and unable to intervene. This revolt was one of the influential moments in Peter’s life. It was one of the moments that made him want to change Russia. Another influential moment was the summer of 1686, when Peter and a Dutch butler were visiting one the country houses that belonged to his family. In ...
Peter the Great had many goals during the time he ruled. One of his biggest goals was to modernize and westernize Russia. The main reason Peter the Great modernized Russia was because he did not want the country he ruled to be left vulnerable to expansionist powers in Europe. The powers were constantly at war, fighting to take over each other’...
Peter the Great was born in Moscow on Thursday, May 30, 1672 on the feast of Saint Isaac of Dalmatia (Hughes 1). Pyotr Alexeevich, his formal name, was the fourteenth child born to Alexi I and his second wife Nataliya Kryillovna Naryshkina. Peter towered an astounding six feet seven inches tall. He started out sharing Power with his step-brother, Ivan, who was an invalid, but obtained sole power when he was twenty-four, after Ivan's death in 1696 ('Peter I of Russia' 1). Through his domestic, military, and government reforms, Peter the Great enabled Russia to be considered a leading eastern European state ('Peter the Great' 1).
The age of exploration and discovery in Europe was a time of various absolute rulers. An absolute monarch is a ruler who has unlimited power and controls every aspect of life. Many rulers were great examples of absolute monarchs, but none of them even compared to the absolute monarch Peter the Great of Russia. Peter I, more commonly known as Peter the Great, was born June 9, 1672. At ten years of age, Peter took over the throne, but other people helped him make decisions. He was obliged to rule with his mentally challenged half-brother, Ivan (Beck, 609). It wasn’t until after Ivan died that he gained complete control and was the sole ruler of Russia. During his own reign, he was able to change the way Russia operated. He was aware that his country was behind the rest of his world in many things, such as culture and technology. He was determined to change Russia for the better. With his determination and love for Russia, he was able to conquer his ideas and was able to do what he wanted with his nation. His ruling is known as the period of transformation because, thanks to him, he was able to lead Russia in the right direction and modernize it. Peter the Great was an absolute monarch; he changed Russia’s culture, created new cities, and reformed the church.
According to the “Russia, A Short History” by Abraham Ascher, Peter the Great in 1697 visited Europe in order to find allies against Ottoman Empire (2009. p59. pp2). However, another purpose was to have knowledge on European industrial techniques especially on shipbuilding and navy. After returning to Russia, Peter the Great started to make reforms in order to improve status of Russia and made Russia the same as Europe in economic field. Although, there were many reforms made, Peter the Great did not develop Russia’s commercial economy as a part of Westernization because of his interests and obstacles that he met on that way.
Peter the Great was trying ultimately to make the Russian Empire more Europeanized or Westernized. He wanted to protect and enhance the vulnerable Russian Empire. Peter the Great saw that other European countries are colonizing in other regions like the New World, Asia, and Africa. Peter saw this as a threat and didn’t want for the Europeans to conquer Russia. Through decrees to shave and provisions on dress, he was trying to make them European. He also wanted to make military and economic reforms that could help the empire itself. If they built factories, they didn’t need to get supplies from Europe.
Observing that European technological superiority allowed it to enjoy extraordinary benefits, he adopted many European practices to assert his own dominance and increase Russia’s protection against its adversaries. In doing this, Peter the Great formed himself a lasting legacy. Although Peter the Great originally mimicked Louis XIV in his staunch practice of absolutism, he ultimately surpassed Louis XIV in his goal of supremacy. Peter replaced the previous head of the Orthodox Church, and had both religious and earthly supremacy. Thus, Peter achieved something that Louis could never manage: a control of both church and state. Outside of Russia’s borders, Peter succeeded in his endeavors to a much greater extent than Louis XIV. The Great Northern War against Sweden effectively gave Russia access to a warm water port: Saint Petersburg, where Peter created his own Versailles, the Winter Palace, that fulfilled goals similar to those of Louis. Thus, where Louis fell, Peter
At the time of St. Petersburg’s construction, there were no Russian play, ideas, innovations or books. The country was stuck in a medieval, peasant-based society that was based on feudalism, and religion, which left the country vulnerable to advanced European neighbors. The construction of a new city, St Petersburg, marks a new beginning. By building Petersburg on the coast, Peter sought to make Russia more cosmopolitan and advanced by importing the latest, groundbreaking technologies and ideas of the west. Ocean access was clearly meant to facilitate Russia’s exposure to the rest western world. Up until Petersburg’s construciton, Russia was landlocked and geographically isolated from the advances of the European enlightenment. Petersburg was filled with buildings and palaces built by European architects. The goal was to build a modern, European city in Russia, in which peter could gather the nobility and surround them with European culture. The fact that Peter was willing to build a city for this purpose alone, shows how backwards he thought the obility really was. Petersburg was a gateway from which European ideas could spread into Europe. It’s European style also acted as a signal to the world that Russia was capable of becoming