The Emperors and Empresses of Russia

Reconsidering the Romanovs

Donald J. Raleigh, A.A. Iskenderov

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9781317457183
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Human Rights
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Since glasnost began, Russia's most eminent historians have taken advantage of new archival access and the end of censorship and conformity to reassess and reinterpret their history. Through this process they are linking up with Russia's great historiographic tradition while producing work that is fresh and modern. In "The Emperors and Empresses of Russia", renowned Russian historians tell the story of the Romanovs as complex individual personalities and as key institutional actors in Russian history, from the empire builder Peter I to the last tsar, Nicholas II. These portraits are contributions to the writing of history, partaking neither of wooden ideologisation nor of naive romanticisation.

Emperor Peter I, 1682–1725

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It is fitting that this volume opens with a portrait of that giant of Russian history, Peter the Great, whose reign marks the beginning of the history of Imperial (rather than Muscovite) Russia, a period characterized by expansion westward and the moving of the nation’s capital from Moscow to St. Petersburg near the Baltic Sea. Peter’s daunting image has played a central role in the evolution of Russian historical writing and in how Russians have understood their country’s place in the world. As historian Marc Raeff observed years ago, “the historiography of Peter the Great provides an almost perfect mirror for the Russian intelligentsia’s views on the past and future of Russia, their relationship to the West, and the nature of the social and political problems confronting their country.”¹ Raeff’s remark remains valid today as historians search for ways to explain how Russia’s political culture and historical traditions contributed to the rise of Bolshevism and shaped Marxism’s peculiar development in Russia after the Revolution of 1917.

Emphasizing that Peter the Great “cannot be evaluated unidimensionally,” Iaroslav Evgenievich Vodarskii accents Peter’s formative years and experiences, and closes with a probing assessment of the long-term consequences of Peter’s reforms on the course of Russian history. Vodarskii draws on the evaluations of Peter made by prerevolutionary Russia’s premier historian, V.O. Kliuchevskii, as well as on a serious study from the Soviet period by N.I. Pavlenko, and a powerfully argued post-Soviet account by E.V. Anisimov. In his striving to present a multifaceted portrait of Peter, Vodarskii weighs the emperor’s accomplishments and failures. The author believes that neither Peter’s upbringing nor his education “sufficed to separate him from the class of serfowners to which he had been born.” Viewed through this lens, Peter’s policies fall into focus. But Vodarskii’s explanation of Peter’s shortcomings is not a justification of his statecraft. Indeed, while casting Peter as a “great statesman,” the author nonetheless concludes that Peter’s actions “obstructed Russia’s progressive evolution to the greatest extent possible, creating conditions that continued to hinder it for 150 years!” Vodarskii’s negative assessment complements other contemporary Russian studies of Peter I as well, and this, as Raeff suggests, undoubtedly reflects current concerns over the cost of Peter’s extending a military model of organization to society at large.

D.J.R.

Note

1. Marc Raeff, ed., Peter the Great Changes Russia, 2d ed. (Lexington, Mass., 1972), p. 195.

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Peter I

Iaroslav Evgenievich Vodarskii

One cannot evaluate Peter I, either as a political figure or as a person, unidimensionally. Indeed, how would it be possible to do so? Among both contemporaries and heirs his reforms evoked altogether contradictory opinions. These were formulated most distinctly during the Westernizer-Slavophile debates in the middle of the nineteenth century. The Westernizers connected Peter to the best in Russian history; in the Slavophiles’ opinion, he betrayed the national principle of Russian history, distorted Russian culture by borrowing from the West, and damaged the country’s natural path of development. As one modern scholar correctly noted, many legends and stereotypes surround his name: “the tsar carpenter, the worker on the throne,” “a stern man, but fair and democratic,” “the voice of the ruling class’s interests,” “the one who fleeced” the peasants, and so on.¹ By themselves, these assessments are, on the whole, accurate, but each presents only part of his character.

Overall, Russian historians have evaluated Peter’s activities positively: his reforms “placed Russia on a path of accelerated economic, political, and cultural development”; “Peter sharply intensified the processes already under way in the country and forced it to take a giant leap, carrying Russia through several stages at once”; “even so odious an instrument of the absolutist state as despotic, autocratic power was transformed into a force for progress thanks to Peter the Great’s activities, which were historically justified and served Russia’s developmental interests to the highest degree.”² In considering their analyses against the facts cited, however, one is struck by how poorly the conclusions fit the assessments, which also are stereotypes.

Peter was born on 30 May 1672, the product of Aleksei Mikhailovich’s (Alexei’s) second marriage, to Natalia Kirillovna Naryshkina. In health and vitality he diverged sharply from his elder brothers, Fedor and Ivan, born during Alexei’s first marriage to [Maria] Miloslavskaia (Fedor, who assumed the throne in 1676 upon his father’s death, expired one month before his twenty-second birthday; Ivan was sickly from birth and incapable of ruling), and rumors circulated that Tsar Alexei was not Peter’s father. Nothing definite may be said about this, but the argument made about Peter’s great energy is unconvincing, since Tsarevna Sophia, also born of Miloslavskaia, was a very energetic woman.

Fedor Alekseevich died on 27 April 1682, and Peter was proclaimed tsar, but on 15 May a long-expected uprising among the musketeers broke out in Moscow. The musketeers, an infantry unit in the Russian army, occupied a unique position. The major part of them (twenty regiments) lived in Moscow in their own households, and in peacetime, when the entire army (except for two regiments) was released to their homes, they occupied themselves with trade and crafts. The uprising resulted from the bad treatment they received from their commanding officers, who oppressed the musketeers, exacted money from them, forced them to work for the officers themselves, and so on.

On 23 April, four days before Fedor’s death, the musketeers sent him a petition. On 29 April they sent a second petition, and on 15 May, armed, they burst into the Kremlin. Opponents of the Naryshkins, who were now in power, had circulated rumors that Tsarevich Ivan had been murdered, and Tsaritsa Natalia was forced to bring Tsar Peter and Tsarevich Ivan out on the balcony. But this did not quiet the musketeers, who burst into the palace, killing two of the tsaritsa’s brothers and many dignitaries whom they hated. This happened in front of Peter, and probably the shock it caused was why he was subject to fits during moments of stress: his mouth twisted; his cheeks, neck, and legs twitched; he suffered convulsions and lost self-control.

The Naryshkins’ supporters were ousted from power, which was taken over by Tsarevna Sophia. Ivan and Peter were declared co-tsars, and Sophia became their regent. Peter and Tsaritsa Natalia were sent to the Moscow suburb of Preobrazhenskoe. Sophia formed an alliance with Prince V.V. Golitsyn, who became head of the government. The musketeers were pacified by a series of concessions and by mustering the gentry as a warning; Sophia did not win their favor with these measures. Her position was still further eroded by Golitsyn’s two unsuccessful campaigns against the Crimean Tatars. Russia had to undertake these after entering into a coalition with Poland, Austria (more accurately, the Holy Roman Empire, the emperor of which was Leopold of Austria), and Venice against Turkey. But Poland refused to help Russia because of its claims to Kiev.

Peter’s mother requested a gentle and pious tutor; Nikita Zotov, an under-secretary, was chosen. Peter’s studies began on 12 March 1677, when he was less than five years old. As was customary, he learned by heart the alphabet, the Book of Hours, the Psalter, the Gospels, and the Acts of the Apostles. In later years, he “freely joined the choir, and read and sang, in his thin baritone, no worse than any deacon.”³ When it came to book-learning, however, Peter made horrific spelling mistakes throughout his life. Zotov’s indisputable service was his teaching Peter Russian history. This undertaking was evidently not limited to his teacher’s narrations; Peter said that he himself even read the Russian chronicles. One might argue that precisely then, the foundation was laid for the love of his native land that characterized Peter I.

Once ensconced in Preobrazhenskoe, Peter was left to his own devices. Like all boys, he loved to play war games, and his opportunities were great: he had not tin, but live soldiers assigned to him, usually of his own age. As the years passed, the games became more complicated. The Russian army at that time included gentry cavalry, musketeers, regiments of “foreign composition” (ashamedly dubbed by Soviet historians regiments of “new composition”), as well as artillery units in which many foreigners served. Gradually Peter formed two battalions of “boy soldiers,” which later became the Preobrazhenskii and Semenovskii Regiments, and a corps of bombardiers. Under the command of foreign officers (who lived in the German Quarter near Preobrazhenskoe), he started serious military study, beginning his “service” as a drummer boy.

The foreign officers taught him arithmetic, geometry, the art of fortification, and the handling of artillery shells. He learned to set off “fires for amusement”—fireworks—which became one of his favorite pastimes. His studies were defined broadly: in 1686 large boats were even constructed in the ponds surrounding Preobrazhenskoe. In 1688, in the village of Izmailovo, Peter found an old boat and recognized with astonishment that ships existed that could go against the wind. This little boat and the tales of great seagoing vessels so captured his imagination that he decided that he himself should learn how to build large ships. A master shipbuilder was immediately found in the German Quarter. When Peter later visited Arkhangelsk and saw the sea with his own eyes, his love at first sight was transformed into a genuine passion; so it remained until the end of his life.

Peter’s third great source of enthusiasm (after the sea and military affairs) was the study of crafts; he loved to work with his hands and to do everything himself. By his own count, as a youth he knew fourteen crafts; most of all, he loved to work with a lathe, as a carpenter, building ships. How can one explain Peter’s tendency to experience such things for himself, not shrinking even from manual labor? As one scholar aptly remarked, “One cannot imagine his pious father, the ‘Quietest One’ Aleksei Mikhailovich, doffing his magnificent royal robes and picking up a mason’s trowel or a blacksmith’s hammer.”⁴ Here Peter’s having been surrounded not by haughty boyars but by master craftsmen played an important, if not crucial, role. The playmates of his childhood games were those who worked in the tsar’s enormous household and their children: stablehands, falconers and gyrfalconers, herders, artisans, and so on.

Usually between a tsar’s son and such people there was a screen of tutors and personal servitors—gentlemen of the bedchamber, gentlemen of the table, and other courtiers of equally lofty rank and from the most exalted families—who observed court etiquette and prevented the tsarevich from contact with mere servants. Between them and Peter no such screen existed, and the curious boy found himself face to face with people who knew and handled horses and could repair objects of all sorts. Naturally, he wished to learn all that his playmates knew how to do. This meant, first of all, the art of war: once he began to play soldiers, he needed to know all that a soldier should know. Shooting off cannon was more interesting than marching, so Peter became a bombardier. Is it not really fascinating to build a boat oneself? In 1691 Peter sailed on the Iauza [River, near Moscow] in a yacht he himself had built.

In 1689–90 a company of Peter’s closest friends was formed. Soon, the most important among them were the son of the court stablemaster, Alexander Menshikov, the foreign captain Franz Lefort, and the gentleman of the table Prince F.Iu. Romodanovskii. With a quick understanding and much initiative, Menshikov, a year younger than Peter, was boundlessly devoted and industrious. When Peter gave him an order, he could be sure that it would be fulfilled, and if unforeseen circumstances arose, then Menshikov would handle them as Peter himself would have done. When such circumstances did arise, Peter’s confidence was validated. The Swiss-born Lefort was a mercenary, twice Peter’s age. This intelligent man loved gaiety more than anything; one of his contemporaries, Prince B.I. Kurakin, dubbed him “the French debauchee.” Lefort understood Peter’s character and quickly won his trust, becoming completely essential to him. The third person whom Peter trusted absolutely, entrusting political investigations to him and leaving him in power when he himself went abroad in 1697, was Romodanovskii, whom the same Prince Kurakin described as “a monster in appearance, an evil tyrant in his habits, a person who wished no good toward anyone and was drunk every day.”

Members of the old noble families (F.M. Apraksin and others) also entered the tsarevich’s company, as did half- or completely Russified foreigners (such as General Patrick Gordon, who had lived in Russia for three decades, or Jacob Bruce, who was born there) and the Russians who had belonged to Peter’s make-believe army. The company operated according to comradely principles, which even included the tsar, “bombardier Peter Mikhailov.” The tsar insisted on this and sternly rebuked any failure to observe it. The comical head of the company was Prince Romodanovskii, who held the title “prince-caesar”; Peter received his “orders” like any ordinary soldier in the ranks.

While serving in his pretend army, working in the shipyards, and enjoying himself with his company, Peter continued to study the construction of fortifications and shipbuilding. The same year that he built his yacht on the Iauza, he began constructing a warship on Lake Pleshcheevo. When he visited Arkhangelsk in 1693, he ordered that a large ship be built in Holland and began a vessel in the Arkhangelsk shipyard. In 1694 he returned to Arkhangelsk, where the ship he had begun was finished and where the ship from Holland had been taken. That fall Peter participated in large-scale war games in Kozhukhovo, near Moscow. For three weeks the storming of the fortress continued, involving thirty thousand soldiers and musketeers, of whom twenty-four were killed and fifty wounded. Some scholars have a...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• About the Editors and Contributors
• Preface
• Introduction
• Genealogical Table
• Emperor Peter 1,1682–1725
• Empress Anna Ivanovna, 1730–1740
• Empress Elizabeth 1,1741–1762
• Emperor Peter III, 1762
• Empress Catherine II, 1762–1796
• Emperor Paul 1,1796–1801
• Emperor Alexander 1,1801–1825
• Emperor Nicholas I, 1825–1855
• Emperor Alexander II, 1855–1881
• Emperor Alexander III, 1881–1894
• Emperor Nicholas II, 1894–1917
• Suggestions for Further Reading
• Index