Peter the Great. Peter I., Alexandrievich, emperor of Russia, was the son of the Czar Alexei by his second wife, Natalia Narishkina, and was born at Moscow, 11th June 1672. His father died in 1676, leaving the throne to his eldest son, Feodor, Peter's half-brother. This prince, however, died in 1682 without issue, after naming Peter as his successor, to the exclusion of his own full brother, Ivan, who was weak-minded. This step immediately provoked an insurrection of the 'streltzi' or militia, fomented by Ivan's sister, the grand-duchess Sophia, who, after a carnage of three days, succeeded in obtaining the coronation (July 1682) of Ivan and Peter as joint rulers, and her own appointment as regent. Up to Peter's coronation his education had been greatly neglected, but after this time he had the good fortune to fall under the guidance of Lefort (q.v.), a Genevese, who initiated him into the sciences and the arts of civilisation, and by showing him how much Muscovy was in these respects behind the rest of Europe, influenced the whole of his future career. Lefort also formed a small military company out of the young men of noble family who attended Peter, and he rendered the czar himself all the while amenable to strict discipline. This course of training in all probability saved Peter from becoming the mere savage despot which his brutal and passionate disposition and indomitable energy inclined him to be; it also protected him from the jealousy of his half-sister, the regent Sophia, who thought him absorbed in military exercises, studies, and amusements. She, however, soon discovered her error, for Peter, contrary to her wishes, married (1689), by his mother's advice, Endoxia Feodorovna
Lopukhin; and in October of the same year called upon his sister to resign the government. In the ensuing contest Peter was at first worsted, and compelled to flee for his life; but he was joined by the foreigners in the Russian service, with Patrick Gordon (q.v.) and Lefort at their head; and the streltzi flocking to his standard, Sophia resigned the contest, and was shut up in a convent, whence, till her death in 1704, she did not cease to annoy him by her intrigues. On October 11, 1689, Peter made his public entry into Moscow, where he was met by Ivan, to whom he gave the nominal supremacy and precedence, reserving the sole exercise of power for himself. Ivan only enjoyed his puppet sovereignty till 1696.
Peter's first care on assuming the government was to form an army disciplined according to European tactics, in which labour he was greatly aided by Gordon and Lefort, both of whom were military men. He also laboured to create a navy, both armed and mercantile; but at this period Russia presented few facilities for such an attempt, for she was shut out from the Baltic by Sweden and Poland (the former of whom possessed Finland, Ingria, and the Baltic provinces), and from the Black Sea by Turkey, leaving only the White Sea and the Arctic Ocean, with the solitary port of Archangel, available for the Russian navy. Peter, thinking the possession of a portion of the Black Sea would best supply the required facilities of accessible seaboard and port, declared war against Turkey, and took (1696) the city of Azov at the mouth of the Don, after a long siege. Skilled engineers, architects, and artillerymen were now invited from Austria, Venice, Prussia, and Holland; ships were constructed, and the army further improved both in arms and discipline. Many of the young nobility were ordered to travel in foreign countries, chiefly in Holland and Italy, and to take special notice of all matters in connection with shipbuilding and naval equipments; others were sent to Germany to study the military art. Peter was eager to see for himself the countries for which civilisation had done so much; and, after repressing a revolt of the streltzi and dispersing them among the various provinces, he left Russia in April 1697, in the train of an embassy of which Lefort was the head. In the guise of an inferior official of the embassy he visited the three Baltic provinces, Prussia, and Hanover, reaching Amsterdam, where, and subsequently at Zaandam, he worked for some time as a common shipwright; and to his practice of shipbuilding and kindred trades he added the study of astronomy, natural philosophy, geography, and even anatomy and surgery. On receipt of an invitation from William III. he visited England, and for three months, spent partly in London and partly at Deptford, laboured to amass all sorts of useful information. While in England he received the honorary degree of D.C.L. from the university of Oxford. He left England in April 1698, carrying with him English engineers, artificers, surgeons, artisans, artillerymen, &c., to the number of 500, and next visited Vienna, for the purpose of inspecting the emperor of Austria's army, then the best in Europe. He was about to visit Venice also, when the news of a formidable rebellion of the streltzi recalled him to Russia. General Gordon had already crushed the revolt, and Peter finally broke up the institution that had given him so much trouble. The Empress Eudoxia, who was suspected of complicity in the conspiracy, which had been the work of the old Russian or anti-reform party, was divorced and shut up in a convent, and the great reforms were begun. Peter put the press on a proper footing, caused translations of the most celebrated works of foreign authors to be made and published, and established naval and other schools. Ordinary arithmetic was first introduced, accounts having been previously kept by means of the Abacus (q.v.). Trade with foreign countries, which was formerly punished as a capital crime, was now permitted, or rather, in the case of the principal merchants, insisted upon. Many changes in dress, manners, and etiquette were introduced and enforced on the people at large. Even the organisation of the national church could not escape Peter's reforming zeal.
In 1700 Peter, desirous of gaining possession of Carelia and Ingria, provinces of Sweden which had formerly belonged to Russia, entered into an alliance with the kings of Poland and Denmark to make a combined attack on Sweden; but he was shamefully defeated at Narva, his raw troops being wholly unable to cope with the Swedish veterans. Peter was by no means disheartened, but quietly appropriated a portion of Ingria, in which he laid the foundation of the new capital, St Petersburg, 27th May 1703. Great inducements were held out to those who would reside in it, and in a few years it became the Russian commercial depot for the Baltic. In the long contest with Sweden the Russians were almost always defeated; but Peter saw that these reverses were administering to his troops a more lasting and effective discipline than he could have hoped to give them in any other way. He had his revenge at last, in totally routing the Swedish king, Charles XII., at Pultowa (q.v.), 8th July 1709, and in seizing the whole of the Baltic provinces and a portion of Finland in the following year. His success against Sweden helped much to consolidate his empire and to render his subjects more favourably disposed towards the new order of things. After reorganising his army he prepared for strife with the Turks, who, at the instigation of Charles XII. (then residing at Bender), had declared war against him (see TURKEY). In this contest Peter was reduced to such straits that he despaired of escape. But, according to a somewhat doubtful tradition, the finesse and ability of his mistress, Catharine, extricated him from his difficulties; and a treaty was concluded (1711) by which Peter lost only his previous conquest—the port of Azov and the territory belonging to it. He was thus shut out from the Black Sea, so the possession of a good seaboard on the Baltic became the more necessary to him, and the war against Sweden in Pomerania was accordingly pushed on with the utmost vigour. In 1712 his marriage with his mistress, Catharine (see CATHARINE I.), was celebrated at St Petersburg, and the offices of the central government were transferred to the new capital. His arms in Pomerania and Finland were victorious, and in 1713 the latter province was completely subdued. In 1716–17, in company with the czarina, he made another tour of Europe, this time visiting Paris, and returned to Russia in October 1717, carrying with him quantities of books, paintings, statues, &c. It was soon after this time that his son Alexei (q.v.), who had opposed some of his father's reforms, was condemned to death, and died in prison—apparently through having been repeatedly tortured. Many of the nobles who had been implicated in his treasonable plans were punished with savage barbarity. In 1721 peace was made with Sweden, which definitely ceded the Baltic provinces, Ingria (now government of St Petersburg), and a portion of Finland, with the islands off the coasts. In 1722 Peter commenced a war with Persia, in order to open up the Caspian Sea to Russian commerce, and secured three Caspian provinces along with the towns of Derbend and Baku. For the last years of his life he was chiefly engaged in beautifying and improving his new capital and carrying out plans for the more general diffusion of knowledge and education among his subjects. In the autumn of 1724 he was seized with a serious illness, and he died 8th February (28th January o.s.) 1725. Catharine succeeded him. The 'Testament of Peter the Great,' inciting the Russians to aim at domination in Europe, is a forgery, based probably on Lesur's Progrès de la Puissance Russe (1807), and, it may be, inspired by Napoleon.
See Russian Lives by Golikov (30 vols. 1797) and Ustraljov (1863); English Lives by Barrow (new ed. 1883) and Schuyler (2 vols. 1884); and for a vindication of the authenticity of the 'Testament,' W. J. Thoms in the Nineteenth Century (1878).