IMPERIAL RUSSIA, 1689–1917 - Russia: A Reference Guide from the Renaissance to the Present - page 23

I MPERIAL R USSIA

1689-1917

In August 1689, Peter won acknowledgment as the effective ruler of Russia, but
Ivan retained his position as co-czar. Only 17, Peter left most of the government
in the hands of his mother, Natalia and her associates, who preferred Muscovite
traditions to the Western styles. Natalia had Peter marry a Russian woman who,
she hoped, would lead him away from his fascination with Europe, but her ploy
failed. Natalia died in 1694, and Peter took over the direction of the govern-
ment at the age of 22. Thus began a reign that, like that of Ivan the Terrible,
would leave a deep imprint on Russian history.
Almost seven feet tall, strong, and restless, Peter wanted to be personally
involved in all kinds of state affairs—diplomacy, administration, justice, com-
merce, education, and finance. He valued expert advice but wanted to decide
matters for himself. He was a successful military and naval commander, start-
ing his training from the bottom up—serving in the ranks and learning the use
of each weapon before promoting himself. He prided himself on his ability to
make almost anything by hand, from a ship to a pair of shoes. More than any
czar before him, Peter traveled around Russia to learn about his country. He
also frequently visited Moscow's foreign quarter, established under his father's
reign, to learn trades and obtain information about a Western European world
that fascinated him. In 1697-98, true to form, he traveled to Western Europe in
his celebrated Grand Embassy, where he spent time in the Netherlands work-
ing, not quite incognito, as the laborer Peter Mikhailovich.
Peter also had a violent temper and a habit of holding drunken parties that
were wild even by the standards of the times. He admired Ivan the Terrible and
was capable of similar cruelty (including a willingness to assist in the death of his
own son), but he never descended to the paranoid depths of the 16th-century
czar. The war games he started as a child in Preobrazhenskoe ended up becom-
ing the first two guard regiments: the Preobrazhensky and the Semenovsky
(another nearby village), which would later provide the backbone in his own
struggle to modernize the Russian army against the power of the streltsy.
As ruler Peter brought rapid and intensive change to Russia. The Great North-
ern War (1700-1721) with Sweden over supremacy in the eastern Baltic region
dominated most of his reign, and the victorious conclusion of this war marked