Officially, the beginning of the reign of Peter I is usually counted from May 7, 1682, when, after the death of his brother Fyodor Alekseevich, he, at the age of ten, was crowned Tsar of All Rus' along with his fifteen-year-old brother Ivan V. In fact, the independent reign of Peter I began not even after the overthrow of Princess Regent Sophia in 1689, who had ruled during the dual reign since 1682, but only since the death of his mother, Natalya Naryshkina, in 1694.

Beginning of the reign of Peter I and Ivan V - coronation, 1682

Streletsky riot 1682 - Khovanshchina

After the death of Tsar Fedor, the Miloslavskys, with the help of I.A. Khovansky, directed the wrath of the archers against the Naryshkin clan, resulting in the throne along with Peter I was crowned by his brother Ivan V, A Princess Regent Sophia became the de facto ruler(daughter of the first wife of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich - Maria Miloslavskaya).

The reign of Peter and Ivan - the reign of Princess Sophia

Sophia ruled based on her favorite, Vasily Golitsin. After concluding a sufficiently profitable " Eternal peace"with Poland in 1686, it was Golitsin who launched two unsuccessful campaigns against Crimean Khanate in 1687 and 1689. After the Albazin War with China for the Amur territories, the unfavorable Treaty of Nerchinsk of 1689 was concluded.

Removal of Sophia 1689

On May 30, 1689, Peter I turned 17 years old, he was married and, according to custom, no longer needed the regent princess Sophia. The princess did not want to give up power, and, according to rumors, was preparing an assassination attempt on the king. Together with his closest associates, and the amusing army representing at that time already combat-ready units, Peter I took refuge in the Trinity-Sergius Monastery. Gradually, Sophia lost power - most of her subjects and troops swore allegiance to Peter I, and the princess was exiled to a monastery.

Tsarevna Sofya Alekseevna Romanova

The first years of the reign of Peter I

After the overthrow of Princess Sophia in 1689, Ivan V actually ceased to participate in the reign - power passed into the hands of people who rallied around the mother of Peter I, Tsarina Natalya Kirillovna. She tried to accustom her son to public administration, entrusting him with private affairs, which Peter found boring. The most important decisions (declaration of war, election of the Patriarch, etc.) were made without taking into account the opinion of the young king. This led to conflicts. After the death of Natalya Kirillovna, the tsar did not displace the government of L.K. Naryshkin - B.A. Golitsyn, formed by his mother, but ensured that it strictly carried out his will.

Natalia Naryshkina

Azov campaigns

The death of the Tsar's mother, Natalya Kirillovna Naryshkina in 1694, marked the beginning of the independent reign of Peter I. His brother Ivan V, who lived until 1696, did not take part in the administration. Peter I wanted to test his new military formations in action - the Semenovsky and Preobrazhensky regiments; in addition, the Azov fortress was a key point for consolidation on the coast of the Azov Sea.

The first Azov campaign of 1695 ended in failure due to the poor organization of the Russian troops and lack of naval support, and Peter I learned his lesson - he went to build new shipyards and ships.

Gathering more troops, with the support of artillery and the fleet, cut off Turkish fortress from supply by sea, Peter I took Azov during the second Azov campaign in 1696. Taganrog was founded as a base for the Russian fleet in 1698.

Intervention of Peter I in European politics

In an effort to prevent the election of a pro-French prince to the Polish throne, Peter I sent streltsy units under the command of G. Romodanovsky to the Lithuanian border to support the party of the Elector of Saxony, Friedrich Augustus, who was also fighting for the Polish crown. As a result, the plan was a success - the Elector ascended the Polish throne under the name of Augustus II and gave his word to act jointly against the Turks.

Great Embassy 1697-1698

The Azov campaigns clearly proved the importance of the fleet and artillery for warfare. Peter I understood that technologically Russian kingdom significantly lags behind advanced Western states - he wanted to personally see advanced technologies for the production of weapons and ships, and become familiar with the traditions of Europe. In addition, it was necessary to find allies to wage wars against Turkey and Sweden for the right to gain access to the seas. This trip, undertaken by Peter I at the beginning of his reign, had a significant impact on the future fate of the tsar and radically changed cultural life in Russia.

Streltsy riot of 1698

The uprising of the Moscow archers during the stay of Peter I in the Great Embassy, ​​with a total number of more than 2 thousand people, is justified by historians by the hardships of military campaigns, insufficient salaries and the appointment of foreign officers to senior military positions. Princess Sophia planned to take advantage of events and regain her lost power.

Peter the Great for his vigorous activity associated with the transformation of Russia into a great European country, reforms in military affairs, in the judicial branch, in church affairs and others are called “Great”. He was one of greatest people of his time, had a giant stature, enormous physical strength, he did not disdain hard physical labor, in addition, he was the founder of the glorious and legendary Russian fleet, and became famous for his military campaigns against the Tatars, Turks and Swedes. The king had good health, but lived only fifty-three years and died in great agony. So what is the cause of Peter's death?
According to historians, a year before his death, in 1724, the tsar became very ill, but soon began to recover and the illness seemed to recede. But after a short period of time, Peter fell ill again. The doctors tried to restore the king’s iron health, but he, in anger from his illness, almost killed the unfortunate doctors. Then the illness went away again. One day, in November of the same year, the emperor was sailing along the Neva and saw how one of the sides ran aground. There were sailors on board. Peter jumped into the cold, autumn water and began to save people, being knee-deep in the water. This had a fatal effect, the king fell ill. His health deteriorated more and more, and on January 28, 1725, he died in bed, not even having time to leave a will. Various reasons were given. Many Europeans who served Peter or with him as diplomats expressed their own versions. Someone said that Peter suffered from stranguria, his comrade Lefort argued that the emperor suffered from urinary stones. Russian historian M.N. Pokrovsky stated that the tsar died from syphilis, which he received in Europe. Thus, the cause of Peter’s death could be either one or completely different.
The person who was then in charge of Peter’s treatment was Blumentrost. As the king’s illness progressed, Doctor Bidloo was prescribed to help him. They were engaged in improving the health of the autocrat. At first he felt better after being examined by doctors. Peter recovered a little and even intended to go abroad. But a few days later, attacks reappeared, and the monarch’s health condition worsened. On the night of January twenty-first, the king felt better, he slept well and everything seemed to be fine, but, as often happens, relief came before death. The emperor developed a severe fever, fainted and died in great agony, as stated above.
Historians of our time express different opinions regarding the causes of the death of Peter the Great.
There is a version of poisoning. The hypothesis is this: the king died before he could announce an official heir. Catherine comes to power with the help of His Serene Highness Prince Menshikov. Alexander Danilovich came from the lower classes, was the son of a simple peasant and achieved such a position at court only thanks to Peter’s disposition towards him. The Emperor was often dissatisfied with Menshikov for his constant embezzlement. In addition, the eminence grise once patronized love affair the king's wife with the foreigner Vilim Mons. The monarch would never have known about this if it had not been for the note about lovers that was planted on him. Mons was executed, but for Menshikov this accident passed. According to the king's instructions, they led for a long time case of abuse of "Aleksashka". His Serene Highness could have been interested in eliminating Peter. He did not benefit from the recovery of the monarch, nor from the coming to power of a party of influential courtiers, for they nominated the grandson of Tsar Peter the Second to the throne. Menshikov won only with the accession of Catherine, who was not distinguished by great intelligence and foresight; through her it was possible to calmly rule the state.
Similar versions were expressed by Peter's contemporaries. With the execution of Mons, Catherine herself could either end up in a monastery, as Peter did with his first wife Evdokia Lopukhina, or the tsar could find another way of retribution. Take the same block. European kings did not shy away from this method of eliminating women who cheated on them. Therefore, both Catherine and Menshikov were interested primarily in eliminating Peter, who was quick to kill. The pedestal of power on which Alexander Danilovich stood and has been shaking so much lately. Peter no longer placed his trust in him and removed him from some leadership positions.
Immediately after the death of the emperor, rumors began to circulate about his poisoning. As you know, there is no smoke without fire. Knowing the mind of the king, it was not difficult to guess that the emperor guessed who needed to transfer the throne, namely his grandson Peter. The Tsarevich was surrounded by associates devoted to the monarch, with whom he had been together for a long time, and Menshikov and Catherine could not help but understand that with the coming to power of Peter the Second, there would be no heavenly life for them, even if their rivals would leave them alive
So how could Peter’s death be caused? One day, he was presented with candy as a gift. After this, he began to feel unwell, vomiting, numbness and abdominal pain appeared.
Here's the doctor medical sciences L.L. Khundanov argued that there could be no special poison. At that time, they often tried to cure a person with arsenic, a large amount of the latter could lead to death. Instead, the professor says that the most likely cause of the king's death is an urinary stricture. In addition, excessive alcohol consumption at the “most drunken” and “most jocular” orgies, as well as hypothermia in the water, could have affected. All this could cause an exacerbation, which could then progress.

Peter I The Great (Peter I) Russian Tsar from 1682 (ruled from 1689), first Russian Emperor(from 1721), the youngest son of Alexei Mikhailovich from his second marriage to Natalya Kirillovna Naryshkina.

Peter I was born June 9 (May 30, old style) 1672, in Moscow. On March 22, 1677, at the age of 5, he began to study.

According to old Russian custom, Peter began to be taught at the age of five. The Tsar and the Patriarch came to the opening of the course, served a prayer service with the blessing of water, sprinkled holy water on the new spude and, after blessing him, sat him down to learn the alphabet. Nikita Zotov bowed to his student and began his course of study, and immediately received a fee: the patriarch gave him one hundred rubles (more than a thousand rubles in our money), the sovereign granted him a court, promoted him to the nobility, and the queen mother sent two pairs of rich outer and underdresses and “the whole outfit,” into which Zotov immediately dressed up after the departure of the sovereign and patriarch. Krekshin also noted the day when Peter's education began - March 12, 1677, when, therefore, Peter was not even five years old.

He who is cruel is not a hero.

The prince studied willingly and smartly. In his spare time, he loved to listen to different stories and look at books with “kunsts” and pictures. Zotov told the queen about this, and she ordered him to give him “historical books”, manuscripts with drawings from the palace library, and ordered several new illustrations from the masters of painting in the Armory Chamber.

Noticing when Peter began to get tired of reading books, Zotov took the book from his hands and showed him these pictures, accompanying the review with explanations.

Peter I carried out reforms government controlled(created Senate, collegiums, bodies of supreme state control and political investigation; the church is subordinate to the state; The country was divided into provinces, a new capital was built - St. Petersburg).

Money is the artery of war.

Peter I used the experience of Western European countries in the development of industry, trade, and culture. He pursued a policy of mercantilism (the creation of manufactories, metallurgical, mining and other factories, shipyards, piers, canals). He supervised the construction of the fleet and the creation of a regular army.

Peter I led the army in the Azov campaigns of 1695-1696, the Northern War of 1700-1721, the Prut campaign of 1711, the Persian campaign of 1722-1723; commanded troops during the capture of Noteburg (1702), in the battles of the village of Lesnoy (1708) and near Poltava (1709). Contributed to strengthening the economic and political position of the nobility.

On the initiative of Peter I, many were opened educational establishments, Academy of Sciences, adopted the civil alphabet. The reforms of Peter I were carried out by cruel means, through extreme strain of material and human forces (poll tax), which entailed uprisings (Streletskoye 1698, Astrakhan 1705-1706, Bulavinskoye 1707-1709), which were mercilessly suppressed by the government. Being the creator of a powerful absolutist state, he achieved recognition of Russia as a great power.

Childhood, youth, education of Peter I

For confession there is forgiveness, for concealment there is no pardon. Open sin is better than secret sin.

Having lost his father in 1676, Peter was brought up until the age of ten under the supervision of the Tsar’s elder brother Fyodor Alekseevich, who chose clerk Nikita Zotov as his teacher, who taught the boy to read and write. When Fedor died in 1682, the throne was to be inherited by Ivan Alekseevich, but since he was in poor health, the Naryshkin supporters proclaimed Peter Tsar. However, the Miloslavskys, relatives of Alexei Mikhailovich’s first wife, did not accept this and provoked a Streltsy riot, during which ten-year-old Peter witnessed a brutal massacre of people close to him. These events left an indelible mark on the boy’s memory, affecting his mental health, and on worldview.

The result of the rebellion was a political compromise: Ivan and Peter were placed on the throne together, and their elder sister, Princess Sofya Alekseevna, was named ruler. From that time on, Peter and his mother lived mainly in the villages of Preobrazhenskoye and Izmailovo, appearing in the Kremlin only to participate in official ceremonies, and their relationship with Sophia became increasingly hostile. Neither secular nor church systematic education future king not received. He was left to his own devices and, active and energetic, spent a lot of time playing with his peers. Later, he was allowed to create his own “amusing” regiments, with which he played out battles and maneuvers and which later became the basis of the Russian regular army.

In Izmailovo, Peter discovered an old English boat, which, on his orders, was repaired and tested on the Yauza River. Soon he ended up in the German settlement, where he first became acquainted with European life, experienced his first passions and made friends among European merchants. Gradually, a company of friends formed around Peter, with whom he spent everything free time. In August 1689, when he heard rumors that Sophia was preparing a new Streltsy rebellion, he fled to the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, where loyal regiments and part of the court arrived from Moscow. Sophia, feeling that strength was on her brother’s side, made an attempt at reconciliation, but it was too late: she was removed from power and imprisoned in the Novodevichy Convent. Sophia was supported by her favorite - Fyodor Leontievich Shaklovity, who was executed under torture when Peter came to power.

Beginning of independent rule

To be afraid of misfortune is to see no happiness.

In the second half of the 17th century. Russia was experiencing a deep crisis associated with its socio-economic lag behind the advanced countries of Europe. Peter, with his energy, inquisitiveness, and interest in everything new, turned out to be a person capable of solving the problems facing the country. But at first he entrusted the management of the country to his mother and uncle, L.K. Naryshkin. The Tsar still visited Moscow little, although in 1689, at the insistence of his mother, he married E. F. Lopukhina.

Peter was attracted by sea fun, and he went for a long time to Pereslavl-Zalessky and Arkhangelsk, where he participated in the construction and testing of ships. Only in 1695 did he decide to undertake a real military campaign against the Turkish fortress of Azov. The first Azov campaign ended in failure, after which a fleet was hastily built in Voronezh, and during the second campaign (1696) Azov was taken. Taganrog was founded at the same time. This was the first victory of young Peter, which significantly strengthened his authority.

Soon after returning to the capital, the tsar went abroad (1697) with the Great Embassy. Peter visited Holland, England, Saxony, Austria and Venice, studied shipbuilding while working in shipyards, and became acquainted with technical advances Europe of that time, its way of life, political structure. During his trip abroad, the basis for the alliance of Russia, Poland and Denmark against Sweden was laid. News of a new Streltsy riot forced Peter to return to Russia (1698), where he dealt with the rebels with extraordinary cruelty (Streltsy uprising of 1698).

The first transformations of Peter I

Peace is good, but at the same time you shouldn’t sleep, so that your hands are not tied, and so that the soldiers do not become women.

Abroad, it has mainly developed political program Petra. Its ultimate goal was the creation of a regular police state based on universal service; the state was understood as the “common good.” The tsar himself considered himself the first servant of the fatherland, who by example had to teach his subjects. Peter's unconventional behavior, on the one hand, destroyed the centuries-old image of the sovereign as a sacred figure, and on the other hand, it aroused protest among part of society (primarily the Old Believers, whom Peter cruelly persecuted), who saw the Antichrist in the tsar.

The reforms of Peter I began with the introduction of foreign dress and the order to shave the beards of everyone except peasants and the clergy. So from the beginning Russian society turned out to be divided into two unequal parts: for one (the nobility and the elite of the urban population) the Europeanized culture imposed from above was intended, the other preserved traditional way of life life.

In 1699, a calendar reform was also carried out. A printing house was created in Amsterdam to publish secular books in Russian, and the first Russian order was founded - St. Andrew the First-Called Apostle. The country was in dire need of its own qualified personnel, and the king ordered young men from noble families to be sent abroad to study. In 1701, the Navigation School was opened in Moscow. The reform of city government also began. After the death of Patriarch Adrian in 1700, a new patriarch was not elected, and Peter created the Monastic Order to manage the church economy. Later, instead of the patriarch, a synodal government of the church was created, which remained until 1917. Simultaneously with the first transformations, preparations for war with Sweden were intensively underway, for which a peace treaty with Turkey was previously signed.

Peter I also introduced the celebration of the New Year in Rus'.

Lessons from the Northern War

War, main goal which was the consolidation of Russia in the Baltic, began with the defeat of the Russian army near Narva in 1700. However, this lesson served Peter well: he realized that the reason for the defeat was primarily the backwardness of the Russian army, and with even greater energy he set about rearming it and creating regular regiments , first by collecting “dacha people”, and from 1705 by introducing conscription (in 1701, after the defeat of the Russian army near Narva, economist and publicist Ivan Tikhonovich Pososhkov compiled a note for Peter I “On military behavior”, proposing measures to create a combat-ready army.). The construction of metallurgical and weapons factories began, supplying the army with high-quality guns and weapon. The campaign of Swedish troops led by King Charles XII to Poland allowed the Russian army to win its first victories over the enemy, capture and devastate a significant part of the Baltic states. In 1703, at the mouth of the Neva, Peter founded St. Petersburg - the new capital of Russia, which, according to the Tsar’s plan, was to become an exemplary “paradise” city. During these same years, the Boyar Duma was replaced by a Council of Ministers consisting of members of the Tsar’s inner circle; along with Moscow orders, new institutions were created in St. Petersburg. In 1708 the country was divided into provinces. In 1709, after the Battle of Poltava, a turning point in the war came and the tsar was able to pay more attention to internal political affairs.

Governance reform of Peter I

In 1711, setting off on the Prut campaign, Peter I founded the Governing Senate, which had the functions of the main body of the executive, judicial and legislative branch. In 1717, the creation of collegiums began - central authorities sectoral management, based fundamentally differently than the old Moscow orders. New authorities - executive, financial, judicial and control - were also created locally. In 1720 it was published General Regulations- detailed instructions for organizing the work of new institutions. In 1722, Peter signed the Table of Ranks, which determined the order of organization of military and civil service and was in effect until 1917. Even earlier, in 1714, a Decree on Single Inheritance was issued, which equalized the rights of owners of estates and estates. This was important for the formation of the Russian nobility as a single full-fledged class. But the tax reform, which began in 1718, was of paramount importance for the social sphere. In Russia, a poll tax was introduced for males, for which regular population censuses (“audits of souls”) were carried out. During the reform it was eliminated social category serfs and the social status of some other categories of the population was clarified. In 1721, after the end of the Northern War, Russia was proclaimed an empire, and the Senate awarded Peter the titles “Great” and “Father of the Fatherland.”

When the sovereign obeys the law, then no one will dare to resist it.

Transformations in the economy

Peter I clearly understood the need to overcome the technical backwardness of Russia and in every possible way contributed to the development of Russian industry and trade, including foreign trade. Many merchants and industrialists enjoyed his patronage, among whom the Demidovs were the most famous. Many new plants and factories were built, and new industries emerged. However, its development in wartime conditions led to the priority development of heavy industry, which after the end of the war could no longer exist without state support. In fact, the enslaved position of the urban population, high taxes, the forced closure of the Arkhangelsk port and some other government measures were not conducive to the development of foreign trade. In general, the grueling war that lasted for 21 years, requiring large capital investments, obtained mainly through emergency taxes, led to the actual impoverishment of the country's population, mass escapes of peasants, and the ruin of merchants and industrialists.

Transformations of Peter I in the field of culture

The time of Peter I is a time of active penetration of elements of secular Europeanized culture into Russian life. Secular educational institutions began to appear, and the first Russian newspaper was founded. Peter made success in service for the nobles dependent on education. By a special decree of the tsar, assemblies were introduced, representing a new form of communication between people for Russia. Of particular importance was the construction of stone Petersburg, in which foreign architects took part and which was carried out according to the plan developed by the Tsar. They created a new urban environment with previously unfamiliar forms of life and pastime. The interior decoration of houses, the way of life, the composition of food, etc. changed. Gradually, a different system of values, worldview, and aesthetic ideas took shape in the educated environment. The Academy of Sciences was founded in 1724 (opened in 1725).

Personal life of the king

Upon returning from the Grand Embassy, ​​Peter I finally broke up with his unloved first wife. Subsequently, he became friends with the captured Latvian Marta Skavronskaya (future Empress Catherine I), with whom he married in 1712.

There is a desire, there are a thousand ways; no desire - a thousand reasons!

On March 1, 1712, Peter I married Marta Samuilovna Skavronskaya, who converted to Orthodoxy and from that time was called Ekaterina Alekseevna.

Marta Skavronskaya's mother was a peasant and died early. Pastor Gluck took Martha Skavronskaya (that was her name then) into her upbringing. At first, Martha was married to a dragoon, but she did not become his wife, since the groom was urgently summoned to Riga. When the Russians arrived in Marienburg, she was taken as a prisoner. According to some sources, Marta was the daughter of a Livonian nobleman. According to others, she was a native of Sweden. The first statement is more reliable. When she was captured, B.P. took her in. Sheremetev, and A.D. took it from him or begged it. Menshikov, the latter - Peter I. Since 1703, she became a favorite. Three years before their church marriage, in 1709, Peter I and Catherine had a daughter, Elizabeth. Martha took the name Ekaterina after converting to Orthodoxy, although she was called by the same name (Katerina Trubacheva) when she was with A.D. Menshikov".

Marta Skavronskaya gave birth to several children to Peter I, of whom only daughters Anna and Elizaveta (the future Empress Elizaveta Petrovna) survived. Peter, apparently, was very attached to his second wife and in 1724 crowned her with the imperial crown, intending to bequeath the throne to her. However, shortly before his death, he learned about his wife’s infidelity with V. Mons. The relationship between the tsar and his son from his first marriage, Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich, did not work out either, who died under incompletely clarified circumstances in Peter and Paul Fortress in 1718 (for this purpose the Tsar created the Secret Chancellery). Peter I himself died from a disease of the urinary organs without leaving a will. The emperor had a whole bunch of illnesses, but uremia bothered him more than other ailments.

Results of Peter's reforms

Forgetting service for the sake of a woman is unforgivable. To be a prisoner of a mistress is worse than a prisoner in war; The enemy can have freedom more quickly, but the woman’s fetters are long-lasting.

The most important result of Peter's reforms was to overcome the crisis of traditionalism by modernizing the country. Russia became a full participant international relations which pursued an active foreign policy. Russia's authority in the world grew significantly, and Peter I himself became for many an example of a reformer sovereign. Under Peter, the foundations of the Russian national culture. The Tsar also created a system of governance and administrative-territorial division of the country, which remained in place for a long time. At the same time, the main instrument of reform was violence. Petrine reforms not only did not rid the country of the previously established system social relations, embodied in serfdom, but, on the contrary, preserved and strengthened its institutions. This was the main contradiction of Peter’s reforms, the prerequisites for a future new crisis.

PETER I THE GREAT (article by P. N. Milyukov from the “Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron”, 1890 – 1907)

Peter I Alekseevich the Great- the first All-Russian Emperor, born on May 30, 1672, from the second marriage of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich with Natalya Kirillovna Naryshkina, a pupil of the boyar A.S. Matveev.

Contrary to the legendary stories of Krekshin, the education of young Peter proceeded rather slowly. Tradition forces a three-year-old child to report to his father, with the rank of colonel; in fact, he was not yet weaned at two and a half years old. We do not know when N. M. Zotov began teaching him to read and write, but it is known that in 1683 Peter had not yet finished learning the alphabet.

Don’t trust three: don’t trust a woman, don’t trust a Turk, don’t trust a non-drinker.

Until the end of his life, Peter continued to ignore grammar and spelling. As a child, he becomes acquainted with the “exercises of the soldier’s formation” and adopts the art of beating the drum; This is what limits his military knowledge to military exercises in the village. Vorobyov (1683). This fall, Peter is still playing wooden horses. All this did not go beyond the pattern of the then usual “fun” of the royal family. Deviations begin only when political circumstances throw Peter off track. With the death of Tsar Fyodor Alekseevich, the silent struggle of the Miloslavskys and Naryshkins turns into an open clash. On April 27, the crowd gathered in front of the red porch of the Kremlin Palace shouted Peter as Tsar, ahead of his elder brother John; On May 15, on the same porch, Peter stood in front of another crowd, which threw Matveev and Dolgoruky onto the Streltsy spears. The legend depicts Peter as calm on this day of rebellion; it is more likely that the impression was strong and that this is where Peter’s well-known nervousness and hatred of the archers originated. A week after the start of the rebellion (May 23), the victors demanded from the government that both brothers be appointed kings; another week later (on the 29th), at the new request of the archers, due to the youth of the kings, the reign was handed over to Princess Sophia.

Peter's party was excluded from all participation in state affairs; Throughout Sophia's regency, Natalya Kirillovna came to Moscow for only a few winter months, spending the rest of the time in the village of Preobrazhenskoye near Moscow. A significant number of noble families were grouped around the young court, not daring to throw in their lot with the provisional government of Sophia. Left to his own devices, Peter learned to endure any kind of constraint, to deny himself the fulfillment of any desire. Tsarina Natalya, a woman of “small intelligence,” according to the expression of her relative Prince. Kurakina, cared, apparently, exclusively about physical side raising your son.

From the very beginning we see Peter surrounded by “young guys, common people” and “young people of the first houses”; the former eventually gained the upper hand, and the “noble persons” were kept away. It is very likely that both simple and noble friends of Peter’s childhood games equally deserved the nickname “mischievous” given to them by Sophia. In 1683-1685, two regiments were organized from friends and volunteers, settled in the villages of Preobrazhenskoye and neighboring Semenovskoye. Little by little, Petra develops an interest in technical side military affairs, which forced him to look for new teachers and new knowledge. “For mathematics, fortification, turning and artifical lights” is under Peter a foreign teacher, Franz Timmermann. Peter's textbooks that have survived (from 1688?) testify to his persistent efforts to master the applied side of arithmetic, astronomical and artillery wisdom; the same notebooks show that the foundations of all this wisdom remained a mystery to Peter 1. But turning and pyrotechnics have always been Peter’s favorite pastimes.

The only major, and unsuccessful, intervention of the mother in the personal life of the young man was his marriage to E.F. Lopukhina, on January 27, 1689, before Peter turned 17 years old. This was, however, more a political than a pedagogical measure. Sophia also married Tsar John immediately upon reaching the age of 17; but he only had daughters. The very choice of a bride for Peter was the product of a party struggle: noble adherents of his mother offered a bride from the princely family, but the Naryshkins, with Tikh, won. Streshnev was at the head, and the daughter of a small nobleman was chosen. Following her, numerous relatives came to the court (“more than 30 people,” says Kurakin). Such a mass of new job seekers, who, moreover, did not know the “courtyard treatment,” caused general irritation against the Lopukhins at court; Queen Natalya soon “hated her daughter-in-law and wanted to see her with her husband in disagreement rather than in love” (Kurakin). This, as well as the dissimilarity of characters, explains that Peter’s “considerable love” for his wife “lasted only a year,” and then Peter began to prefer family life- camping, in the regimental hut of the Preobrazhensky Regiment.

A new occupation, shipbuilding, distracted him even further; From Yauza, Peter moved with his ships to Lake Pereyaslavl, and had fun there even in winter. Peter's participation in state affairs was limited, during Sophia's regency, to his presence at ceremonies. As Peter grew up and expanded his military amusements, Sophia began to become more and more worried about her power and began to take measures to preserve it. On the night of August 8, 1689, Peter was awakened in Preobrazhenskoe by archers who brought news of a real or imaginary danger from the Kremlin. Peter fled to Trinity; his followers ordered to convene noble militia, demanded commanders and deputies from the Moscow troops and inflicted short reprisals on Sophia’s main supporters. Sophia was settled in a monastery, John ruled only nominally; in fact, power passed to Peter's party. At first, however, “the royal majesty left his reign to his mother, and he himself spent his time in the amusements of military exercises.”

In honor of the New Year, make decorations from fir trees, amuse children, and ride down the mountains on sleds. But adults should not commit drunkenness and massacres - there are enough other days for that.

The reign of Queen Natalya seemed to contemporaries as an era of reaction against Sophia's reform aspirations. Peter took advantage of the change in his position only to expand his amusements to grandiose proportions. Thus, the maneuvers of the new regiments ended in 1694 with the Kozhukhov campaigns, in which “Tsar Fyodor Pleshbursky (Romodanovsky) defeated “Tsar Ivan Semenovsky” (Buturlin), leaving 24 real dead and 50 wounded on the amusing battlefield. The expansion of maritime fun prompted Peter to travel to the White Sea twice, and he was exposed to serious danger during his trip to the Solovetsky Islands. Over the years, the center of Peter's wild life became the house of his new favorite, Lefort, in German settlement. “Then debauchery began, drunkenness was so great that it is impossible to describe that for three days, locked in that house, they were drunk and that many people died as a result” (Kurakin).

In Lefort’s house, Peter “began to make friends with foreign ladies, and Cupid began to be the first to be with one merchant’s daughter.” “From practice”, at Lefort’s balls, Peter “learned to dance in Polish”; the son of the Danish commissioner Butenant taught him fencing and horse riding, the Dutchman Vinius taught him practice Dutch; During a trip to Arkhangelsk, Peter changed into a Dutch sailor suit. In parallel with this assimilation of European appearance, there was a rapid destruction of the old court etiquette; ceremonial entrances to the cathedral church, public audiences and other “courtyard ceremonies” fell out of use. “Curses against noble persons” from the tsar’s favorites and court jesters, as well as the establishment of the “all-joking and all-drunk cathedral,” originate in the same era. In 1694, Peter's mother died. Although now Peter “he himself was forced to take over the administration, he did not want to bear the trouble and left the entire administration of his state to his ministers” (Kurakin). It was difficult for him to give up the freedom to which years of involuntary retirement had taught him; and subsequently he did not like to bind himself to official duties, entrusting them to other persons (for example, “Prince Caesar Romodanovsky, before whom Peter plays the role of a loyal subject), while he himself remained in the background. The government machine in the first years of Peter's own reign continues to move at its own pace; he interferes in this move only if and to the extent that it turns out to be necessary for his naval amusements.

Very soon, however, Peter’s “infantile play” with soldiers and ships leads to serious difficulties, to eliminate which it turns out to be necessary to significantly disturb the old public order. “We were joking near Kozhukhov, and now we are going to play near Azov” - this is what Peter reported to F.M. Apraksin at the beginning of 1695 about the Azov campaign. Already in the previous year, having become familiar with the inconveniences of the White Sea, Peter began to think about transferring his maritime activities to some other sea. He fluctuated between the Baltic and the Caspian; the course of Russian diplomacy prompted him to prefer war with Turkey and Crimea, and the secret goal of the campaign was Azov - the first step towards access to the Black Sea.

The humorous tone soon disappears; Peter's letters become more laconic as the unpreparedness of the troops and generals for serious actions is revealed. The failure of the first campaign forces Peter to make new efforts. The flotilla built in Voronezh, however, turns out to be of little use for military operations; the foreign engineers appointed by Peter are late; Azov surrenders in 1696 “by treaty, not by war.” Peter noisily celebrates the victory, but clearly feels the insignificance of success and the insufficient strength to continue the fight. He invites the boyars to grab “fortune by the hair” and find funds to build a fleet in order to continue the war with the “infidels” at sea.

The boyars entrusted the construction of ships to the “kumpanships” of secular and spiritual landowners who had at least 100 households; the rest of the population had to help with money. The ships built by the “companies” later turned out to be worthless, and this entire first fleet, which cost the population about 900 thousand rubles of that time, could not be used for any practical purposes. Simultaneously with the organization of the “campanships” and in view of the same goal, i.e., war with Turkey, it was decided to equip an embassy abroad to consolidate the alliance against the “infidels.” “Bombardier” at the beginning of the Azov campaign and “captain” at the end, Peter now joins the embassy as “volunteer Peter Mikhailov”, with the aim of further studying shipbuilding.

I instruct the gentlemen senators to speak not according to what is written, but in your own words, so that the nonsense is visible to everyone.

On March 9, 1697, the embassy set out from Moscow, with the intention of visiting Vienna, the kings of England and Denmark, the pope, the Dutch states, the Elector of Brandenburg and Venice. Peter’s first impressions abroad were, as he put it, “not very pleasant”: the Riga commandant Dalberg took the tsar’s incognito too literally and did not allow him to inspect the fortifications: Peter later made a casus belli out of this incident. The magnificent meeting in Mitau and the friendly reception of the Elector of Brandenburg in Konigsberg improved matters. From Kolberg, Peter went forward, by sea, to Lubeck and Hamburg, trying to quickly reach his goal - a minor Dutch shipyard in Saardam, recommended to him by one of his Moscow acquaintances.

Here Peter stayed for 8 days, surprising the population of the small town with his extravagant behavior. The embassy arrived in Amsterdam in mid-August and remained there until mid-May 1698, although negotiations were completed already in November 1697. In January 1698, Peter went to England to expand his maritime knowledge and remained there for three and a half months, working mainly at the Deptford shipyard. The main goal of the embassy was not achieved, since the states resolutely refused to help Russia in the war with Turkey; for this, Peter used his time in Holland and England to acquire new knowledge, and the embassy was engaged in the purchase of weapons and all kinds of ship supplies; hiring sailors, artisans, etc.

Peter impressed European observers as an inquisitive savage, interested mainly in crafts, applied knowledge and all sorts of curiosities and not developed enough to be interested in the essential features of European political and cultural life. He is portrayed as an extremely hot-tempered and nervous person, quickly changing his mood and plans and unable to control himself in moments of anger, especially under the influence of wine.

The embassy's return route lay through Vienna. Peter experienced a new diplomatic setback here, as Europe prepared for war over spanish inheritance and worked for the reconciliation of Austria with Turkey, and not for a war between them. Constrained in his habits by the strict etiquette of the Viennese court, finding no new attractions for curiosity, Peter hurried to leave Vienna for Venice, where he hoped to study the structure of galleys.

Speak briefly, ask for little, go away!

The news of the Streltsy revolt called him to Russia; On the way, he only managed to see the Polish King Augustus (in the town of Rava), and here; Among the three days of continuous fun, the first idea flashed to replace the failed plan for an alliance against the Turks with another plan, the subject of which, instead of the Black Sea that had slipped from the hands, would be the Baltic. First of all, it was necessary to put an end to the archers and the old order in general. Straight from the road, without seeing his family, Peter drove to Anna Mons, then to his Preobrazhensky yard. The next morning, August 26, 1698, he personally began cutting the beards of the first dignitaries of the state. The archers had already been defeated by Shein at the Resurrection Monastery and the instigators of the riot were punished. Peter resumed the investigation into the riot, trying to find traces of the influence of Princess Sophia on the archers. Finding evidence sooner mutual sympathy, than certain plans and actions, Peter nevertheless forced Sophia and her sister Martha to cut their hair. He took advantage of this same moment to forcibly cut the hair of his wife, who was not accused of any involvement in the rebellion.

The king's brother, John, died back in 1696; no ties with the old no longer restrain Peter, and he indulges with his new favorites, among whom Menshikov comes first, in some kind of continuous bacchanalia, the picture of which Korb paints. Feasts and drinking bouts give way to executions, in which the king himself sometimes plays the role of executioner; from the end of September to the end of October 1698, more than a thousand archers were executed. In February 1699, hundreds of archers were executed again. The Moscow Streltsy army ceased to exist.

The decree of December 20, 1699 on a new calendar formally drew a line between the old and new times. On November 11, 1699, a secret agreement was concluded between Peter and Augustus, by which Peter pledged to enter Ingria and Karelia immediately after the conclusion of peace with Turkey, no later than April 1700; Livonia and Estland, according to Patkul's plan, were left to Augustus for himself. Peace with Turkey was concluded only in August. Peter used this period of time to create a new army, since “after the dissolution of the Streltsy, this state did not have any infantry.” On November 17, 1699, a recruitment of new 27 regiments was announced, divided into 3 divisions, headed by the commanders of the Preobrazhensky, Lefortovo and Butyrsky regiments. The first two divisions (Golovin and Weide) were fully formed by mid-June 1700; together with some other troops, up to 40 thousand in total, they were moved to the Swedish borders, the next day after the promulgation of peace with Turkey (August 19). To the displeasure of the allies, Peter sent his troops to Narva, taking which he could threaten Livonia and Estland. Only towards the end of September did the troops gather at Narva; It was only at the end of October that fire was opened on the city. During this time, Charles XII managed to put an end to Denmark and, unexpectedly for Peter, landed in Estland.

On the night of November 17–18, the Russians learned that Charles XII was approaching Narva. Peter left the camp, leaving command to Prince de Croix, unfamiliar with the soldiers and unknown to them - and the eight-thousand-strong army of Charles XII, tired and hungry, defeated Peter’s forty-thousand-strong army without any difficulty. The hopes aroused in Petra by the trip to Europe give way to disappointment. Charles XII does not consider it necessary to pursue such a weak enemy further and turns against Poland. Peter himself characterizes his impression with the words: “then captivity drove away laziness and forced him to hard work and art day and night.” Indeed, from this moment Peter is transformed. The need for activity remains the same, but it finds a different, better application; All Peter’s thoughts are now aimed at defeating his opponent and gaining a foothold in the Baltic Sea.

In eight years, he recruits about 200,000 soldiers and, despite losses from the war and from military orders, increases the size of the army from 40 to 100 thousand. The cost of this army in 1709 cost him almost twice as much as in 1701: 1,810,000 R. instead of 982,000. For the first 6 years of the war, moreover, it was paid; subsidies to the Polish king are about one and a half million. If we add here the costs of the fleet, artillery, and the maintenance of diplomats, then the total expenditure caused by the war will be 2.3 million in 1701, 2.7 million in 1706 and 3.2 billion in 1710 Already the first of these figures was too large in comparison with the funds that were delivered to the state by the population before Peter (about 11/2 million).

A subordinate in front of his superiors should look dashing and stupid, so as not to embarrass his superiors with his understanding.

It was necessary to look for additional sources of income. At first, Peter cares little about this and simply takes from old ones for his own purposes. government agencies- not only their free balances, but even those amounts that were previously spent on another purpose; this disrupts the correct course of the state machine. And yet, large items of new expenses could not be covered by old funds, and Peter was forced to create a special state tax for each of them. The army was supported from the main income of the state - customs and tavern duties, the collection of which was transferred to a new central institution, the town hall. To maintain the new cavalry recruited in 1701, it was necessary to assign a new tax (“dragoon money”); exactly the same - for maintaining the fleet (“ship”). Then comes the tax on the maintenance of workers for the construction of St. Petersburg, “recruits”, “underwater”; and when all these taxes become familiar and merge into total amount permanent (“salary”), they are joined by new emergency fees (“request”, “non-salary”). And these direct taxes, however, soon turned out to be insufficient, especially since they were collected rather slowly and a significant part remained in arrears. Therefore, other sources of income were invented alongside them.

The earliest invention of this kind - stamp paper introduced on the advice of Alexei Alexandrovich Kurbatov - did not yield the profits expected from it. Them higher value the coin was damaged. Reminting a silver coin into a coin of lower denomination, but with the same nominal price, gave 946 thousand in the first 3 years (1701-03), 313 thousand in the next three; from here foreign subsidies were paid. However, soon all the metal was converted into a new coin, and its value in circulation fell by half; Thus, the benefit from deteriorating the coin was temporary and was accompanied by enormous harm, reducing the value of all treasury revenues in general (along with a decline in the value of the coin).

A new measure to increase government revenues was the re-signing, in 1704, of old quitrent articles and the transfer of new quitrents; all owner-owned fisheries, home baths, mills, and inns were subject to quitrent, and the total figure of government revenues under this article rose by 1708 from 300 to 670 thousand annually. Further, the treasury took control of the sale of salt, which brought it up to 300 thousand in annual income, tobacco (this enterprise was unsuccessful) and a number of other raw products, which brought in up to 100 thousand annually. All these private events satisfied main task- go through some difficult time.

During these years, Peter could not devote a single minute of attention to the systematic reform of state institutions, since the preparation of means of struggle took all his time and required his presence in all parts of the state. Peter began to come to the old capital only on Christmastide; here the usual riotous life was resumed, but at the same time the most urgent state affairs were discussed and decided. The Poltava victory gave Peter the opportunity to breathe freely for the first time after the Narva defeat. The need to understand the mass of individual orders of the first years of the war; became more and more urgent; both the means of payment of the population and the treasury resources were greatly depleted, and a further increase in military spending was expected ahead. From this situation, Peter found the outcome that was already familiar to him: if there were not enough funds for everything, they had to be used for the most important thing, that is, for military affairs. Following this rule, Peter had previously simplified the financial management of the country, transferring taxes from individual localities directly into the hands of the generals for their expenses, and bypassing the central institutions where the money should have been received according to the old order.

It was most convenient to apply this method in the newly conquered country - Ingria, which was given to the “government” of Menshikov. The same method was extended to Kyiv and Smolensk - to put them in a defensive position against the invasion of Charles XII, to Kazan - to pacify unrest, to Voronezh and Azov - to build a fleet. Peter only summarizes these partial orders when he orders (December 18, 1707) “to paint the cities in parts, except for those that in the 100th century. from Moscow - to Kyiv, Smolensk, Azov, Kazan, Arkhangelsk." After the Poltava victory, this vague idea about the new administrative and financial structure of Russia received further development. Attribution of cities to central points, in order to collect any fees from them, presupposed a preliminary clarification of who should pay what in each city. To inform payers, a widespread census was appointed; To make payments known, it was ordered to collect information from previous financial institutions. The results of these preliminary work discovered that the state was experiencing a serious crisis. The census of 1710 showed that, as a result of continuous recruitment and escape from taxes, the paying population of the state greatly decreased: instead of 791 thousand households listed before the census of 1678, the new census counted only 637 thousand; in the entire north of Russia, which bore the main part of the financial burden to Peter, the decline even reached 40%.

In view of this unexpected fact, the government decided to ignore the figures of the new census, with the exception of places where they showed the income of the population (in the SE and in Siberia); in all other areas, it was decided to collect taxes in accordance with the old, fictitious figures of payers. And under this condition, however, it turned out that payments did not cover expenses: the first turned out to be 3 million 134 thousand, the last - 3 million 834 thousand rubles. About 200 thousand could be covered from salt income; the remaining half a million was a permanent deficit. During the Christmas congresses of Peter's generals in 1709 and 1710, the cities of Russia were finally distributed among 8 governors; everyone in his “province” collected all taxes and directed them, first of all, to the maintenance of the army, navy, artillery and diplomacy. These “four places” absorbed the entire stated income of the state; How the “provinces” would cover other expenses, and above all their own, local ones - this question remained open. The deficit was eliminated simply by a reduction by the corresponding amount government spending. Since the maintenance of the army was the main goal when introducing “provinces,” the further step of this new structure was that each province was entrusted with the maintenance of certain regiments.

For constant relations with them, the provinces appointed their “commissars” to the regiments. The most significant drawback of this arrangement, introduced in 1712, was that it actually abolished the old central institutions, but did not replace them with any others. The provinces had direct contact with the army and with the highest military institutions; but there was no higher office above them that could control and approve their functioning. The need for such a central institution was felt already in 1711, when Peter I had to leave Russia for the Prut campaign. “For his absences” Peter created the Senate. The provinces had to appoint their own commissioners to the Senate, “to demand and adopt decrees.” But all this did not accurately determine the mutual relations of the Senate and the provinces. All attempts by the Senate to organize over the provinces the same control that the “Near Chancellery” established in 1701 had over orders; ended in complete failure. The irresponsibility of the governors was a necessary consequence of the fact that the government itself constantly violated the rules established in 1710-12. rules of the provincial economy, took money from the governor for purposes other than those for which he was supposed to pay them according to the budget, freely disposed of the provincial cash sums and demanded from the governors more and more “devices”, i.e., an increase in income, at least at the cost oppression of the population.

The main reason for all these violations of the established order was that the budget of 1710 fixed the figures for the necessary expenses, but in reality they continued to grow and no longer fit within the budget. The growth of the army has now, however, slowed down somewhat; but expenses for Baltic fleet, for buildings in new capital(where the government finally moved its residence in 1714), for defense southern border. We had to again find new, extra-budgetary resources. It was almost useless to impose new direct taxes, since the old ones were paid worse and worse as the population became impoverished. Re-minting of coins and state monopolies also could not give more than what they had already given. In place of the provincial system, the question of restoring central institutions naturally arises; the chaos of old and new taxes, “salary”, “every year” and “request”, necessitates the consolidation of direct taxes; the unsuccessful collection of taxes based on fictitious figures for 1678 leads to the question of a new census and a change in the tax unit; Finally, the abuse of the system of state monopolies raises the question of the benefits of free trade and industry for the state.

The reform is entering its third and final phase: until 1710 it was reduced to the accumulation of random orders dictated by the need of the moment; in 1708-1712 attempts were made to bring these orders into some purely external, mechanical connection; Now there is a conscious, systematic desire to erect a completely new state structure on theoretical foundations. The question is to what extent Peter I himself personally participated in the reforms last period, remains still controversial. An archival study of the history of Peter I has recently discovered a whole mass of “reports” and projects in which almost the entire content of Peter’s government activities was discussed. In these reports, presented by Russian and especially foreign advisers to Peter I, voluntarily or at the direct call of the government, the state of affairs in the state and the most important measures necessary to improve it were examined in great detail, although not always on the basis of sufficient familiarity with the conditions of Russian reality. Peter I himself read many of these projects and took from them everything that directly answered the questions that interested him at the moment - especially the question of increasing state revenues and developing natural resources Russia. To solve more complex government problems, e.g. on trade policy, financial and administrative reform, Peter I did not have the necessary preparation; his participation here was limited to raising the question, for the most part on the basis of verbal advice from someone around, and the development of the final version of the law; all intermediate work - collecting materials, developing them and designing appropriate measures - was assigned to more knowledgeable persons. In particular, in relation to trade policy, Peter I himself “complained more than once that of all government affairs, nothing is more difficult for him than commerce and that he could never form a clear idea about this matter in all its connections” (Fokkerodt).

However, state necessity forced him to change the previous direction of Russian trade policy - and the advice of knowledgeable people played an important role in this. Already in 1711-1713. The government was presented with a number of projects that proved that the monopolization of trade and industry in the hands of the treasury ultimately harms the fiscal itself and that the only way to increase government revenues from trade is to restore freedom of commercial and industrial activity. Around 1715 the content of the projects became broader; foreigners take part in the discussion of issues, verbally and in writing instilling in the tsar and the government the ideas of European mercantilism - about the need for the country to have a favorable trade balance and about the way to achieve it by systematically patronizing national industry and trade, by opening factories and factories, concluding trade agreements and the establishment of trade consulates abroad.

Once he had grasped this point of view, Peter I, with his usual energy, carried it out in many separate orders. He creates a new trading port (St. Petersburg) and forcibly transfers trade there from the old one (Arkhangelsk), begins to build the first artificial waterways to connect St. Petersburg with central Russia, takes great care to expand active trade with the East (after his attempts in the West were unsuccessful in this direction), gives privileges to the organizers of new factories, imports craftsmen, the best tools, the best breeds of livestock, etc. from abroad.

Peter I was less attentive to the idea of ​​financial reform. Although in this respect life itself shows the unsatisfactory nature of current practice, and a number of projects presented to the government discuss various possible reforms, nevertheless, he is only interested here in the question of how to distribute the maintenance of a new, standing army to the population. Already during the establishment of the provinces, expecting a quick peace after the Poltava victory, Peter I intended to distribute the regiments between the provinces, following the example of the Swedish system. This idea resurfaces in 1715; Peter I orders the Senate to calculate how much it will cost to maintain a soldier and an officer, leaving the Senate itself to decide whether this expense should be covered with the help of a house tax, as was the case before, or with the help of a capitation tax, as various “informers” advised.

The technical side of the future tax reform is being developed by Peter's government, and then he insists with all his energy on the speedy completion of the capitation census necessary for the reform and on the possible speedy implementation of the new tax. Indeed, the poll tax increases the figure of direct taxes from 1.8 to 4.6 million, accounting for more than half of the budget revenue (81/2 million). The question of administrative reform interests Peter I even less: here the very idea, its development, and its implementation belong to foreign advisers (especially Heinrich Fick), who suggested that Peter fill the lack of central institutions in Russia by introducing Swedish boards. To the question of what primarily interested Peter in his reformation activities, Vokerodt already gave an answer very close to the truth: “he especially and with all zeal tried to improve his military forces.”

Indeed, in his letter to his son, Peter I emphasizes the idea that through military work “we have come from darkness to light, and (we), who were not known in the world, are now revered.” “The wars that occupied Peter I all his life (continues Vokerodt), and the treaties concluded with foreign powers regarding these wars forced him to also pay attention to foreign affairs, although he relied here mostly on his ministers and favorites... His very favorite and a pleasant occupation was shipbuilding and other matters related to navigation. It entertained him every day, and even the most important state affairs had to be ceded to him... Peter I cared little or not at all about internal improvements in the state - legal proceedings, economics, income and trade - in the first thirty years of his reign, and was satisfied , if only his admiralty and army were sufficiently supplied with money, firewood, recruits, sailors, provisions and ammunition.”

Immediately after the Poltava victory, Russia's prestige abroad rose. From Poltava, Peter I goes straight to meetings with the Polish and Prussian kings; in mid-December 1709 he returned to Moscow, but in mid-February 1710 he left it again. He spends half the summer before the capture of Vyborg on the seaside, the rest of the year in St. Petersburg, dealing with its construction and the marriage alliances of his niece Anna Ioannovna with the Duke of Courland and his son Alexei with Princess Wolfenbüttel.

On January 17, 1711, Peter I left St. Petersburg on the Prut campaign, then went straight to Carlsbad, for treatment with water, and to Torgau, to attend the marriage of Tsarevich Alexei. He returned to St. Petersburg only in the New Year. In June 1712, Peter again left St. Petersburg for almost a year; he goes to the Russian troops in Pomerania, in October he is treated in Karlsbad and Teplitz, in November, having visited Dresden and Berlin, he returns to the troops in Mecklenburg, at the beginning of the next 1713 he visits Hamburg and Rendsburg, passes through Hanover and Wolfenbüttel in February Berlin, for a meeting with the new king Frederick William, then returns to St. Petersburg.

A month later he was already on a Finnish voyage and, returning in mid-August, continued to undertake sea trips until the end of November. In mid-January 1714, Peter I left for Revel and Riga for a month; On May 9, he again goes to the fleet, wins a victory with it at Gangeuda and returns to St. Petersburg on September 9. In 1715, from the beginning of July to the end of August, Peter I was with his fleet on the Baltic Sea. At the beginning of 1716, he left Russia for almost two years; On January 24, he leaves for Danzig, for the wedding of Ekaterina Ivanovna’s niece with the Duke of Mecklenburg; from there, through Stettin, he goes to Pyrmont for treatment; in June he goes to Rostock to join the galley squadron, with which he appears near Copenhagen in July; in October, Peter I goes to Mecklenburg; from there to Havelsberg, for a meeting with Prussian king, in November - to Hamburg, in December - to Amsterdam, at the end of March of the following 1717 - to France. In June we see him in Spa, on the waters, in the middle of the field - in Amsterdam, in September - in Berlin and Danzig; On October 10 he returns to St. Petersburg.

For the next two months, Peter I led a fairly regular life, devoting his mornings to work at the Admiralty and then driving around the St. Petersburg buildings. On December 15, he goes to Moscow, waits there for his son Alexei to be brought from abroad, and on March 18, 1718, leaves back to St. Petersburg. On June 30, Alexei Petrovich was buried in the presence of Peter; in early July, Peter I left for the fleet and, after a demonstration near the Aland Islands, where the peace talks, returned to St. Petersburg on September 3, after which he went to the seaside three more times and once to Shlisselburg.

The following year, 1719, Peter I left on January 19 for the Olonets waters, from where he returned on March 3. On May 1 he went to sea, and returned to St. Petersburg only on August 30. In 1720, Peter I spent the month of March in the Olonets waters and factories: from July 20 to August 4, he sailed to the Finnish shores. In 1721 he traveled by sea to Riga and Revel (March 11 - June 19). In September and October, Peter celebrated the Peace of Nystad in St. Petersburg, and in December in Moscow. In 1722, on May 15, he left Moscow for Nizhny Novgorod, Kazan and Astrakhan; On July 18, he set off from Astrakhan on a Persian campaign (to Derbent), from which he returned to Moscow only on December 11. Having returned to St. Petersburg on March 3, 1723, Peter I already left for the new Finnish border on March 30; in May and June he was engaged in equipping the fleet and then went to Revel and Rogerwick for a month, where he built a new harbor.

In 1724, Peter I suffered greatly from ill health, but it did not force him to abandon the habits of a nomadic life, which accelerated his death. In February he goes to the Olonets waters for the third time; at the end of March he goes to Moscow for the coronation of the Empress, from there he makes a trip to Millerovo Vody and on June 16 leaves for St. Petersburg; in the fall he travels to Shlisselburg, to the Ladoga Canal and the Olonets factories, then to Novgorod and Staraya Rusa to inspect the salt factories: only when the autumn weather decisively prevents sailing along the Ilmen, Peter I returns (October 27) to St. Petersburg. On October 28, he goes from lunch with Pavel Ivanovich Yaguzhinsky to a fire that happened on Vasilyevsky Island; On the 29th he goes by water to Sesterbek and, having met a boat that has run aground on the road, he helps remove its soldiers from waist-deep water. Fever and fever prevent him from traveling further; he spends the night in place and returns to St. Petersburg on November 2. On the 5th he invites himself to the wedding of a German baker, on the 16th he executes Mons, on the 24th he celebrates the betrothal of his daughter Anna to the Duke of Holstein. Celebrations resume on the occasion of the choice of a new prince-pope, January 3rd and 4th, 1725.

Busy life goes on as usual until the end of January, when, finally, it is necessary to resort to doctors, whom Peter I had not wanted to listen to until that time. But time is lost and the disease is incurable; On January 22, an altar is erected near the patient’s room and he is given communion, on the 26th, “for the sake of his health,” he is released from the convicts’ prison, and on January 28, at a quarter past six in the morning, Peter I dies, not having had time to decide the fate of the state.

A simple list of all the movements of Peter I over the last 15 years of his life gives one a sense of how Peter’s time and attention were distributed between his activities. various kinds. After the navy, army and foreign policy, Peter I devoted the greatest part of his energy and his concerns to St. Petersburg. Petersburg is Peter’s personal business, carried out by him despite the obstacles of nature and the resistance of those around him. Tens of thousands of Russian workers fought with nature and died in this struggle, summoned to the deserted outskirts populated by foreigners; Peter I himself dealt with the resistance of those around him, with orders and threats.

The judgments of Peter I's contemporaries about this undertaking can be read from Fokerodt. Opinions about the reform of Peter I differed extremely during his lifetime. A small group of close collaborators held an opinion, which Mikhail Lomonosov later formulated with the words: “he is your God, your God was, Russia.” The masses, on the contrary, were ready to agree with the schismatics’ assertion that Peter I was the Antichrist. Both of them proceeded from this general idea that Peter carried out a radical revolution and created a new Russia, unlike the old one. A new army, a navy, relations with Europe, and finally, a European appearance and European technology - all these were facts that caught the eye; Everyone recognized them, differing only fundamentally in their assessment.

What some considered useful, others recognized as harmful to Russian interests; what some considered a great service to the fatherland, others saw as a betrayal of their native traditions; finally, where some saw a necessary step forward on the path of progress, others recognized a simple deviation caused by the whim of a despot.

Both views could provide factual evidence in their favor, since in the reform of Peter I both elements were mixed - both necessity and chance. The element of chance came out more while the study of the history of Peter was limited to the external side of the reform and the personal activities of the reformer. The history of the reform, written according to his decrees, should have seemed exclusively Peter’s personal matter. Other results should have been obtained by studying the same reform in connection with its precedents, as well as in connection with the conditions of contemporary reality. A study of the precedents of Peter's reform showed that in all areas of public and state life- in the development of institutions and classes, in the development of education, in the environment of private life - long before Peter I, the very tendencies that were brought to triumph by Peter's reform were revealed. Being thus prepared by the entire past development of Russia and constituting the logical result of this development, the reform of Peter I, on the other hand, even under him does not yet find sufficient ground in Russian reality, and therefore even after Peter in many ways remains formal and visible for a long time.

New dress and “assemblies” do not lead to the adoption of European social habits and decency; in the same way, the new institutions borrowed from Sweden are not based on the corresponding economic and legal development of the masses. Russia is among the European powers, but for the first time only to become an instrument in the hands of European politics for almost half a century. Of the 42 digital provincial schools opened in 1716-22, only 8 survive until the middle of the century; out of 2000 students recruited, mostly by force, by 1727 only 300 actually graduated in all of Russia. Higher education, despite the project of the Academy, and lower education, despite all the orders of Peter I, remain a dream for a long time.

According to the decrees of January 20 and February 28, 1714, children of nobles and clerks, clerks and clerks, must learn numbers, i.e. arithmetic, and some part of geometry, and was subject to “a fine such that he will not be free to marry until he learns this”; crown certificates were not given without a written certificate of training from the teacher. For this purpose, it was prescribed that schools should be established in all provinces at the bishop's houses and in noble monasteries, and that teachers would send there students from the mathematical schools established in Moscow around 1703, which were then real gymnasiums; The teacher was given a salary of 300 rubles a year using our money.

The decrees of 1714 introduced completely new fact into the history of Russian education, compulsory education of the laity. The business was conceived on an extremely modest scale. For each province, only two teachers were appointed from students of mathematics schools who had studied geography and geometry. Numbers, basic geometry and some information on the law of God, which was placed in the primers of that time - that’s the whole composition primary education, recognized as sufficient for the purposes of the service; its expansion would be to the detriment of the service. Children had to go through the prescribed program between the ages of 10 and 15, when school necessarily ended because service began.

Students were recruited from everywhere, like hunters into the then regiments, just to staff the institution. 23 students were recruited to the Moscow engineering school. Peter I demanded that the complement be increased to 100 and even 150 people, only on the condition that two thirds be from noble children. The educational authorities were unable to comply with the instructions; a new angry decree - to recruit the missing 77 students from all ranks of people, and from the children of the courtiers, from the capital's nobility, behind whom there are at least 50 peasant households - forcibly.

This character of the then school in the composition and program of the Maritime Academy is even more clearly evident. In this planned predominantly noble and specially technical institution, out of 252 students, there were only 172 from the nobility, the rest were commoners. In the upper classes, large astronomy, flat and round navigation were taught, and in the lower classes, 25 commoners studied the alphabet, 2 books of hours from the nobility and 25 commoners, 1 psalter from the nobility and 10 commoners, and writing to 8 commoners.

Schooling was fraught with many difficulties. It was already difficult to teach and study even then, although the school was not yet constrained by regulations and supervision, and the tsar, busy with war, cared about the school with all his soul. The necessary teaching aids were either lacking or very expensive. The state printing house, the Printing House in Moscow, which published textbooks, in 1711 bought from its own reference book, proofreader, hierodeacon Herman, the Italian lexicon needed “for school work” for 17 ½ rubles with our money. Engineering School in 1714 she demanded from the Printing House 30 geometries and 83 books of sines. The printing house sold the geometry for 8 rubles a copy with our money, but wrote about the sines that it didn’t have them at all.

The school, which turned the education of youth into the training of animals, could only push away from itself and helped to develop among its pupils a unique form of counteraction - escape, a primitive, not yet improved way of students fighting their school. School escapes, together with recruits, have become a chronic ailment of Russians. public education and Russian national defense. This school desertion, the then form of an educational strike, will become a completely understandable phenomenon for us, without ceasing to be sad, if we take into account the difficultly imaginable language in which foreign teachers were taught, clumsy and, moreover, difficult to obtain textbooks, and the methods of the then pedagogy, which did not at all want students like it, let’s add the government’s view of school teaching not as moral need society, but as a service in kind for young people, preparing them for compulsory service. When school was viewed as the threshold of a barracks or office, then young people learned to look at school as a prison or hard labor, from which it is always pleasant to escape.

In 1722, the Senate published the highest decree for public information... This decree of His Majesty the Emperor and Autocrat of All Russia announced publicly that 127 schoolchildren fled from the Moscow navigation school, which depended on the St. Petersburg Maritime Academy, which resulted in the loss of the academic sum of money, because These schoolchildren are scholarship holders, “living for many years and taking their salary, they fled.” The decree delicately invited fugitives to report to school at the specified time under the threat of a fine for the children of the gentry and a more sensitive “punishment” for the lower ranks. Attached to the decree was a list of fugitives, as persons worthy of the attention of the entire empire, which was informed that 33 students had fled from the nobility, and among them Prince A. Vyazemsky; the rest were children of reiters, guards soldiers, commoners, up to 12 people from boyar serfs; The composition of the school at that time was so diverse.

Things went badly: children were not sent to new schools; they were recruited by force, kept in prisons and behind guards; at 6 years old there are few places where these schools have settled; the townspeople asked the Senate to keep their children away from digital science, so as not to distract them from their father’s affairs; out of 47 teachers sent to the province, eighteen did not find students and returned back; The Ryazan school, opened only in 1722, enrolled 96 students, but 59 of them fled. Vyatka governor Chaadaev, who wanted to open a digital school in his province, met opposition from the diocesan authorities and the clergy. To recruit students, he sent soldiers from the voivodeship office around the district, who grabbed everyone fit for school and took them to Vyatka. The matter, however, failed.

Peter I died February 8 (January 28, old style) 1725, in St. Petersburg.

On January 13, 1991, Russian Press Day was established. The date is associated with the birthday of the first Russian newspaper founded by Peter I.

Nowadays, there are a large number of books and records about the life of Peter 1. In this article we will tell a brief biography of the first Emperor of All Russia - Peter Alekseevich Romanov (Peter 1). A large number of large and significant transformations for the Russian state are associated with his name.

Date and place of birth

The last Tsar of All Rus' was born on June 9, 1672; according to folk tales, Peter was born in the village of Kolomenskoye.

Family and parents of Peter 1

Peter 1 was the son of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich and Natalya Kirillovna Naryshkina. Parents were different social status. The father is the second Russian Tsar from the Romanov dynasty, and the mother is a small noblewoman. Natalya Kirillovna was the second wife of Alexei Mikhailovich, his first wife, Maria Ilyinichna Miloslavskaya, died during childbirth.
Peter 1 had two wives: the first was Evdokia Fedorovna Lopukhina, the second was Ekaterina Alekseevna Mikhailova (Ekaterina 1). During his life, the Russian Emperor had 10 children (2 from his first marriage and 8 from his second). Unfortunately, most of the children died in childhood.

The childhood of Peter the Great

From an early age, Peter loved to play with military toys, seeing this, his father appointed the experienced Colonel Menesius as a mentor in military affairs. It is worth noting that Alexey Mikhailovich organized the “Petrov Regiment,” a small military association that served as the basis for teaching military affairs in a playful way. This shelf had real uniform and weapons. Later, such associations began to be called “amusing regiments.” Here Peter underwent his first real military practical training. At the age of ten, Peter 1 had already begun to govern Russia. It was 1682.

The reign of Peter 1. Briefly

Peter the Great finally transformed the Muscovite kingdom into Russian Empire. Under him, Rus' became Russia: a multinational power with access to the southern and northern seas.
Peter 1 is the creator of the Russian fleet, the founding date of which can be called 1696. The memory of the Battle of Poltava, in which Russia won, remains forever in the history of Russia. In the war with Turkey, he conquered Azov, and the Northern War with Sweden provided Russia with access to the Baltic Sea.
Another great deed was the founding of St. Petersburg. Under him, the first printed domestic newspaper, Vedomosti, began to appear. He created the conditions for the development of various sciences and urban planning and industry. Peter's indomitable energy allowed him to master many professions - from carpentry to sailor. One of them was that while in Holland the emperor learned the basics of dental treatment (namely, he learned how to pull them out).
He ordered to celebrate the New Year on the first of January. It is to him that we owe the cheerful custom of decorating Christmas trees for this holiday.
Peter 1 died in 1725 after a long illness, which he received while rescuing people from a sinking ship, pulling them out of icy water.

Peter I - the youngest son of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich from his second marriage to Natalya Naryshkina - was born on May 30, 1672. As a child, Peter was educated at home, from a young age he knew German, then studied Dutch, English and French. With the help of palace craftsmen (carpentry, turning, weapons, blacksmithing, etc.). The future emperor was physically strong, agile, inquisitive and capable, and had a good memory.

In April 1682, Peter was elevated to the throne after the death of a childless man, bypassing his elder half-brother Ivan. However, the sister of Peter and Ivan - and the relatives of Alexei Mikhailovich's first wife - the Miloslavskys used the Streltsy uprising in Moscow to palace coup. In May 1682, adherents and relatives of the Naryshkins were killed or exiled, Ivan was declared the “senior” tsar, and Peter was declared the “junior” tsar under the ruler Sophia.

Under Sophia, Peter lived in the village of Preobrazhenskoye near Moscow. Here, from his peers, Peter formed “amusing regiments” - the future imperial guard. In those same years, the prince met the son of the court groom Alexander Menshikov, who later became " right hand"Emperor.

In the 2nd half of the 1680s, clashes began between Peter and Sofia Alekseevna, who strived for autocracy. In August 1689, having received news of Sophia’s preparation for a palace coup, Peter hastily left Preobrazhensky for the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, where troops loyal to him and his supporters arrived. Armed detachments of nobles, assembled by the messengers of Peter I, surrounded Moscow, Sophia was removed from power and imprisoned in the Novodevichy Convent, her associates were exiled or executed.

After the death of Ivan Alekseevich (1696), Peter I became the sole tsar.

Possessing a strong will, determination and great capacity for work, Peter I throughout his life expanded his knowledge and skills in various areas, paying special attention to military and maritime affairs. In 1689-1693, under the guidance of the Dutch master Timmerman and the Russian master Kartsev, Peter I learned to build ships on Lake Pereslavl. In 1697-1698, during his first trip abroad, he took a full course in artillery sciences in Konigsberg, worked as a carpenter for six months in the shipyards of Amsterdam (Holland), studying naval architecture and drawing plans, and completed a theoretical course in shipbuilding in England.

By order of Peter I, books, instruments, and weapons were purchased abroad, and foreign craftsmen and scientists were invited. Peter I met with Leibniz, Newton and other scientists, and in 1717 he was elected an honorary member of the Paris Academy of Sciences.

During his reign, Peter I carried out major reforms aimed at overcoming Russia's backwardness from the advanced countries of the West. Transformations affected all areas public life. Peter I expanded the ownership rights of landowners over the property and personality of serfs, replaced the household taxation of peasants with a capitation tax, issued a decree on possession peasants who were allowed to be acquired by the owners of manufactories, practiced the mass registration of state and tribute peasants to state-owned and private factories, the mobilization of peasants and townspeople into the army and for the construction of cities, fortresses, canals, etc. The Decree on Single Inheritance (1714) equalized estates and fiefs, giving their owners the right to transfer real estate to one of their sons, and thereby secured noble ownership of the land. The Table of Ranks (1722) established the order of rank in the military and civil service not according to nobility, but according to personal abilities and merits.

Peter I contributed to the rise of the country's productive forces, encouraged the development of domestic manufactories, communications, domestic and foreign trade.

Reforms state apparatus under Peter I appeared important step on the path of transforming the Russian autocracy of the 17th century into the bureaucratic-noble monarchy of the 18th century with its bureaucracy and service classes. The place of the Boyar Duma was taken by the Senate (1711), instead of orders, collegiums were established (1718), the control apparatus was first represented by “fiscals” (1711), and then by prosecutors headed by the Prosecutor General. In place of the patriarchate, a Spiritual College, or Synod, was established, which was under the control of the government. Administrative reform was of great importance. In 1708-1709, instead of counties, voivodeships and governorships, 8 (then 10) provinces headed by governors were established. In 1719, the provinces were divided into 47 provinces.

As a military leader, Peter I stands among the most educated and talented builders of the armed forces, generals and naval commanders in Russian and world history of the 18th century. His whole life's work was to strengthen military power Russia and increasing its role in the international arena. He had to continue the war with Turkey, which began in 1686, and wage a long-term struggle for Russia's access to the sea in the North and South. As a result Azov campaigns(1695-1696) Azov was occupied by Russian troops, and Russia fortified itself on the banks Sea of ​​Azov. In the long Northern War (1700-1721), Russia, under the leadership of Peter I, achieved complete victory, gained access to the Baltic Sea, which gave it the opportunity to establish direct connections with Western countries. After the Persian campaign (1722-1723) it went to Russia West Coast Caspian Sea with the cities of Derbent and Baku.

Under Peter I, for the first time in the history of Russia, permanent diplomatic missions and consulates abroad were established; outdated forms diplomatic relations and etiquette.

Peter I also carried out major reforms in the field of culture and education. Appeared secular school, the monopoly of the clergy on education was eliminated. Peter I founded the Pushkar School (1699), the School of Mathematical and Navigational Sciences (1701), and the Medical and Surgical School; The first Russian public theater was opened. In St. Petersburg, the Naval Academy (1715), engineering and artillery schools (1719), schools of translators at collegiums were established, the first Russian museum was opened - the Kunstkamera (1719) with public library. In 1700, a new calendar was introduced with the beginning of the year on January 1 (instead of September 1) and chronology from the “Nativity of Christ”, and not from the “Creation of the World”.

By order of Peter I, various expeditions were carried out, including to Central Asia, the Far East, and Siberia, and a systematic study of the country's geography and cartography began.

Peter I was married twice: to Evdokia Fedorovna Lopukhina and Marta Skavronskaya (later Empress Catherine I); had a son, Alexei, from his first marriage and daughters Anna and Elizabeth from his second (besides them, 8 children of Peter I died in early childhood).

Peter I died in 1725 and was buried in the Peter and Paul Cathedral of the Peter and Paul Fortress in St. Petersburg.

The material was prepared based on information from open sources