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Peter the Great: A True Revolutionary
Words you think of when you think of Russia throughout history: unmodernized, backward, retrogressive, archaic, medieval, dank and slovenly etc. I could go on, but I digress, the picture has been set. Russia hasn’t exactly been the picturesque empire, if that, that so many believe it could have or should have been. Being one of the physically largest country in the world during almost all of its 1500 + year existence(Liversidge 2), Russia is also denoted as being one of histories most notoriously hapless underachiever, with a few moments of illumination followed inevitably by years of “two steps back”. This can only be attributed to the, well nothing short of ‘colorful’ Tsars mother Russia has seen.
One of the most vivacious leaders ever to grace the throne was Peter the Great. Long before he proclaimed himself “The Great”, baby Peter was born to Tsar Alexis Mikhailovich and his second wife Nataliya Naryshkina on June 9 1672 in Moscow (Liversidge 2). Being the fourteenth child of Alexis, Peter wasn’t destined for much to start. He was ascended to the throne at age ten, however, due to his sick and invalid siblings; eventually his brother and Feodor died childless in 1682, leaving ten year old Peter and his imbecile brother Ivan to compete for the throne. Peter won out, and was sent from his childhood home at the country estate of Kolomenskoe to the Kremlin (the Russian White House).
No sooner was he established, however, than Ivan’s family struck back. Gaining the support of the Kremlin Guard, they launched a coup d'etat, and Peter was forced to endure the horrible sight of his supporters and family members being thrown from the top of the grand Red Stair of the Faceted Palace onto the raised pikes of the Guard. The outcome of the coup was a joint Tsar-ship, with both Peter and Ivan placed under the regency of Ivan's elder and not exactly impartial sister Sophia. Never the less, Peter regained his title at age 17 after Sophia’s failed plot to murder the opposing heir, and sentenced her to life to a convent cell. He kept his brother Ivan as a figure head on the thrown though to deal with frivolous court traditions, while he kept sole power of Russia and learned many skills soon to be utilized in his sovereignty .
Standing at over 6 foot 8 inches tall(World History, 136), Peter was a big strong man and such was reflected in his legacy.
Historically, Russia has always been a country of perplexing dualities. The reality of Dual Russia, the separation of the official culture from that of the common people, persisted after the Revolution of 1917 and the Civil War. The Czarist Russia was at once modernized and backward: St. Petersburg and Moscow stood as the highly developed industrial centers of the country and two of the capitals of Europe, yet the overwhelming majority of the population were subsistent farms who lived on mir; French was the official language and the elites were highly literate, yet 82% of the populati...
First, both Louis and Peter had noble uprisings early in their reigns, but they handled them and got somewhat on the good side with their nobles. Peter the Great created a Service Nobility, and demanded all nobles, or boyars as they are called in Russia, serve in the civil service
Peter the Great was mainly described as a man who was powerful and violent. In some of the accounts he was described very differently. Bishop Burnet wrote from his experience with Peter, because he had been in the company of him. He experienced Peter’s violent and non–violent side. He also stated that Peter was a very smart man even though he did not show it much. In the writing from Von Korb he tells of the time of the Streltsi revolt. He did not have much of a personal experience with Peter the Great. Based on the writing from Korb he was basically des...
Prepubescence is an essential period in a child’s development. A person’s environment can alter their personality and affect them in ways that will remain throughout their lives. With Ivan and Charles, it is evident that the conditions they aged in factored into their frame of mind. Ivan, specifically, experienced multiple challenging incidents in his childhood. For example, when Ivan was three years old his father, Vasilly III, fell ill and passed away on February 4, 1533. His father recognized the futility of having an infant king rule a country, so he left a small council of nobles to rule. Similar to Ivan, Charles also had the inconvenience of inheriting the throne too early. Charles was only twelve years old when he was appointed king in September 1380, but he was not allowed to rule at first. In the early years of his reign his father arranged for his four uncles to rule until he was of age. To be entrusted with so much power at such a young age can be very stressful and the lose of a father figure proved to be traumatic in their later years. After Charles’ coronation, documents ceased to mention him until he finally took the throne around age 20. Ivan, on the other hand, devoted his life to education in his early years allowing him to document his experiences. Five years after his father passed away, Ivan’s mother was poisoned and killed. This left him, and his brother Iuri, in the care of the
Peter preferred to live comfortably, and didn’t have a need for extravagance as much as Louis XIV did. But that didn’t mean he didn’t think big. Peter’s main goals were to modernize Russia, and to make it a major European power—a force to be reckoned with—and also to gain control of the church. He tried to achieve these in many different ways. One way he attempted to make Russia more powerful was by westernizing the country. He traveled all over Western Europe, learning about the culture, more modern practices and way of ...
When recognised as being an ageing superpower by Alexander II it was inevitable that some sort of change would take place in Russia in the hope of modernisation. We can see that the changes were mostly political and economical. During Alexander III’s reign we can see that the changes were suppressive although it ultimately led to further change in the form of revolution in the future.
Nicholas II ruled Russia from 1894-1917 and was to be its final tsar. He ascended the throne under the impression that he would rule his whole life as it's undisputed leader. Accompanied by his wife, Alexandra, they lived a comfortable life of luxury while the country suffered around them. Nicholas was determined to rule as harshly as his father; however, he was a very weak and incompetent character who did not posses the qualities capable of guiding Russia through its time of turmoil.
On the other hand there were other problems that effected the Romanov dynasty. After Russia’s removal from Poland the Tsar took it upon himself to become the new commander-in-chief, even th...
While most of Europe had develop strong central governments and weakened the power of the nobles, Russia had lagged behind the times and still had serfs as late as 1861. The economic development that followed the emancipation of peasants in the rest of Europe created strong industrial and tax bases in those nations. Russian monarchs had attempted some level of reforms to address this inequality for almost a century before, and were indeed on their way to “economic maturity” (32) on par with the rest of Europe. But they overextended themselves and the crushing defeats of the Russo-Japanese War in 1905 and the First World War in 1917 lost them the necessary support from their subjects and created “high prices and scarcity” which were by far “the most obvious factors in the general tension”
This blurred distinction between his family and his duties as a ruler caused many to attribute the fall of the dynasty on Nicholas.” He could not stand listening long or seriously to ministers reports or reading them”-Kerensky. Many suggested that Nicholas was ill-prepared to run a country and that he did not have imperative qualities needed in order to maintain power. His ineptitude to rule effectively was an amalgamation of difficult events and poor judgment often caused by people around him conferring their own biases and opinions into his decisions. Despite the influence by Alexandra and others in his inner circle it all came back to the Tsar’s inability to rule effectively.
Ivan grew up living in poverty and he saw many things including murders, beatings, and verbal and physical abuse regularly. He was also neglected, beaten, and molested by the boyars often, leaving him and his brother with almost nothing. However, Ivan could not take out his terrible frustrations on his tormentors, so instead he would take them out on defenseless animals. For example, when he got angry he tore off the feathers on birds, pierced their eyes, and slit open their bodies. Ivan waited many years until he was crowned the first tsar of Russia on January 16, 1547 at age 16. During the beginning of his reign, he gave some powers of the government to his two uncles, however they misused this power and Ivan took it way....
The Romanov family story is one that ends in tragedy and mystery. The Romanov dynasty ruled Russia for over 300 years coming to an end with Nicholas II. The book The Family Romanov: Murder, Rebellion, & The Fall of Imperial Russia, written by Candace Fleming, tells the story of Tsar Nicholas II of how he came to become the Tsar and fell trying to protect his family. Fleming tells the story of young Nicholas coming to power when his father, Alexander III, died and how ill-prepared Nicholas was to rule due to his father’s inferior teaching skills. The story goes on to Nicholas meeting his future wife, Alexandra, and how they had four daughters, Olga, Tatiana, Marie and Anastasia. With each daughter came a disappointment of not having an heir
Through these decrees we see how Russian social class is very stratified and there are more high official roles but more people in poverty. Russia still had to serfs until 1861. Also the state of the Russian economy was probably very limited to do the fact that there was no manufacturing company to provide for the empire. The Russian economy was very isolated and they go to areas where they can trade. With Russia’s subsistence economy, they were not able to specialize in other areas.
Observing that European technological superiority allowed it to enjoy extraordinary benefits, he adopted many European practices to assert his own dominance and increase Russia’s protection against its adversaries. In doing this, Peter the Great formed himself a lasting legacy. Although Peter the Great originally mimicked Louis XIV in his staunch practice of absolutism, he ultimately surpassed Louis XIV in his goal of supremacy. Peter replaced the previous head of the Orthodox Church, and had both religious and earthly supremacy. Thus, Peter achieved something that Louis could never manage: a control of both church and state. Outside of Russia’s borders, Peter succeeded in his endeavors to a much greater extent than Louis XIV. The Great Northern War against Sweden effectively gave Russia access to a warm water port: Saint Petersburg, where Peter created his own Versailles, the Winter Palace, that fulfilled goals similar to those of Louis. Thus, where Louis fell, Peter
Peter the Great, the Russian Czar, inherited his absolutist power from his brother, Ivan V. Born in aristocracy, Peter’s dad was the Czar, and later his brother, and after his brother’s death, him. He was a firm believer in the possible benefits from the control of a single leader to make decisions for the people, and he exercised this divine right to create many renouned institutions. At the beginning of Peter’s reign, Russia was in a poor condition: many rejected modernization from the Renaissance, and large spending from his brother’s reign caused economic droughts. He took advantage of his absolutist power to help ameliorate Russia’s situation and first decided to minimalize power from the other aristocrats. The subduction of the rich allowed