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Peter the Great Issues Reforms, 1689-1725

Дата публикации: 04 сентября 2007
Публикатор: Научная библиотека Порталус
Рубрика: RUSSIA (TOPICS) - Imperial Russia →
Источник: (c) http://russia.by
Номер публикации: №1188915059


Principal Personages

Peter the Great, Romanov Tsar of Russia 1682-1725, ruling jointly with his half brother Ivan V until 1696

Patrick Gordon, Scottish soldier of fortune who helped to reform the Russian army

Alexander Menshikov, a close companion of Peter the Great, who contributed to the reform of the Russian army

Alexis Kurbatov, influential financial adviser to Peter the Great

Alexis Romanov, son of Peter the Great, who opposed reform


Summary of Event

The reign of Peter I ("the Great," 1689-1725) marked the emergence of decisive Russian influence in European affairs, an influence, which though altered by the Revolution of 1917, persists to the present day. In international affairs, Peter inaugurated modern Russia's vigorous and aggressive foreign policy against its three neighboring states: Sweden, Poland, and the Ottoman Empire. Through the Great Northern War, he broke Sweden's Baltic supremacy. Meanwhile his wars against the Ottoman Turks and his interference in the internal affairs of Poland set precedents which subsequent Russian rulers followed into the twentieth century. These great strides made by Russia in Eastern Europe were to a considerable extent the result of Peter's extensive program of reforms which touched all facets of Russian life.

Many of the reforms undertaken by Peter the Great were based upon his contacts with Western Europe. As a young man, his court companions included a number of Westerners, notably Patrick Gordon, a Scottish adverturer who sought his fortune at the court of the Tsars. Gordon, together with Alexander Menshikov, a native Russian companion of Peter, assisted him in modernizing the obsolete Russian army. Transfer of the capital of Russia to the new city of St. Petersburg, symbolized the Western orientation of Peter's reign, and the number of foreigners attending him increased significantly after his celebrated journey to Western Europe in 1697 and 1698. Largely as a result of this journey, he decided to undertake a qualified "westernization" of his country, especially in the areas of financial and political administration, foreign and domestic trade, the Church, education, and society in general.

The reforms which Peter brought about in each of these areas were designed not only to strengthen Russia but also to strengthen his rule over the country. Western techniques, not Western political thought and ideas, were introduced into Russia, and the result was a country half European and half Russian. This contradiction was manifested in the financial reforms carried out by Alexis Kurbatov, one of Peter's leading advisers, who used Western methods to increase tax revenues but in the process increased the misery of the serfs. The political reforms involving an overhaul of the local, provincial, and central administration of government, produced an elaborate bureaucratic framework, some of it Swedish in origin, clearly designed to augment the autocratic power of the Tsar.

Peter also improved Russia's domestic and foreign trade along Western, mercantile lines, involving extensive state control as to the type of goods that could be shipped abroad and the tariffs applicable thereto. In other reforms, Peter abolished the patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church in 1700, the same year in which he eliminated the old Russian calendar in favor of the Julian, then eleven days behind the Gregorian calendar. He also vigorously promoted certain social reforms, such as the adoption of Western dress, and in educational matters, he himself corrected and simplified the Russian alphabet besides undertaking the editing of the first public newspaper in Russia.

Such reforms obviously meant changes in the traditional Russian way of life, especially in the religious sphere, that provoked discontent and resistance. By 1710 most of the opposition to Peter had found a champion in the Tsar's disgruntled son Alexis. As the years passed, Peter's suspicions of his son's activities increased. The final break between the two came in 1718 when Peter, suspecting Alexis of involvement in a plot to repeal the reforms, forced him to renounce his succession to the throne. Not satisfied with this, the Tsar cast him into prison where in June, 1718, he died from repeated tortures.

Peter's methods notwithstanding, his reforms had historic impact upon Russia. Russia emerged from its Byzantine-Asiatic medieval past; the Petrine framework of modern Russia, particularly its governmental and social structure, remained intact until the Revolution of 1917. Though the country, like its geography, was half European and half Asian, the domestic transformation of Russia strengthened it to the point where it could henceforth play a vital role in the international affairs of Europe.

Such was the legacy of Peter the Great. One of the major controversies in the field of Russian historiography has been the true significance of the Petrine Reforms. To some writers the importance of these reforms cannot be overemphasized; to others their significance has been greatly overstated.

FURTHER READINGS

Sumner, B. H. Peter the Great and the Emergence of Russia. Collier Books, 1962.

Florinsky, Michael T. Russia: A History and Interpretation. 1. The Macmillan Company, 1955.

Wren, Melvin C. The Course of Russian History. 3rd. The Macmillan Company, 1968.

Pares, SirBernard. A History of Russia. 6th. Alfred A. Knopf, Inc, 1960.
Both works offer solid studies of the contributions made to Russia by Peter the Great; both authors believe that these contributions profoundly influenced the development of Russian history until the Russian Revolution of 1917


Kluchevsky, Vasily O. A History of Russia. Trans. by C. J. Hogarth. 4. Russell & Russell Publishers, 1960.
Ten chapters are devoted to Peter the Great and his reforms, together with an evaluation


Vernadsky, George. A History of Russia. 4th. Yale University Press, 1954.
Includes a brief synopsis of the Petrine reforms


Wolf, John B. The Emergence of the Great Powers, 1685-1715. The Rise of Modern Europe series, vol. 7. Harper & Row Publishers, 1951; in paperback, Harper Torchbooks.
A well-written account of the reforms of Peter the Great


Raeff, Marc, ed. Peter the Great: Reformer or Revolutionary? Problems in European Civilization series. D. D. Heath and Company, 1963.
Selections from the writings of leading historians which reflect the historiographical controversy over the reforms of Peter the Great

Опубликовано на Порталусе 04 сентября 2007 года

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