Peter the Great

Peter the Great
1717 portrait
Emperor of Russia
Reign2 November 1721 – 8 February 1725
PredecessorHimself as Tsar of Russia
SuccessorCatherine I
Tsar of all Russia
Reign7 May 1682 – 2 November 1721
Coronation25 June 1682
PredecessorFeodor III
SuccessorHimself as Emperor of Russia
Co-monarchIvan V (1682–1696)
RegentSophia Alekseyevna (1682–1689)
Born(1672-06-09)9 June 1672
Moscow, Russia
Died8 February 1725(1725-02-08) (aged 52)
Saint Petersburg, Russia
Burial
Peter and Paul Cathedral
Spouses
Eudoxia Lopukhina
(m. 1689; ann. 1698)
    Marta Skowrońska (later Catherine I)
    (m. 1707)
    Issue
    Detail
    • Alexei Petrovich, Tsarevich of Russia
    • Anna, Duchess of Holstein-Gottorp
    • Elizabeth, Empress of Russia
    • Peter Petrovich, Tsarevich of Russia
    • Grand Duchess Natalia Petrovna
    Names
    Peter Alekseyevich Romanov
    HouseRomanov
    FatherAlexis of Russia
    MotherNatalya Naryshkina
    ReligionRussian Orthodoxy
    Signature
    Military career
    Allegiance
    Branch
    • Army of Peter the Great
    • Imperial Russian Army
    Battles / wars
    Treelike list
    • Russo-Turkish War
      • Azov campaigns
    • Great Northern War
      • Ingrian campaign
      • Siege of Nöteborg
      • Siege of Nyenschantz
      • Siege of Dorpat
      • Siege of Narva
      • Siege of Mitau
      • Siege of Viborg (1706)
      • Battle of Grodno
      • Battle of Lesnaya
      • Battle of Poltava
      • Siege of Viborg (1710)
      • Capitulation of Estonia and Livonia
      • Pruth River Campaign
      • Battle of Helsinki
      • Battle of Gangut
    • Persian campaign
      • Battle of the Inchkhe River
      • Battle of Derbent
      • Capture of Rasht
      • Siege of Baku

    Peter I (Russian: Пётр I Алексеевич, romanizedPyotr I Alekseyevich, IPA: [ˈpʲɵtr ɐlʲɪkˈsʲejɪvʲɪtɕ]; 9 June [O.S. 30 May] 1672 – 8 February [O.S. 28 January] 1725), better known as Peter the Great,[note 1] was the Tsar of all Russia from 1682 and the first Emperor of all Russia from 1721 until his death in 1725. He reigned jointly with his half-brother Ivan V until 1696. From this year, Peter was an absolute monarch, an autocrat who remained the ultimate authority and organized a well-ordered police state.[2][3]

    Much of Peter's reign was consumed by lengthy wars against the Ottoman and Swedish empires. His Azov campaigns were followed by the foundation of the Russian Navy; after his victory in the Great Northern War, Russia annexed a significant portion of the eastern Baltic coastline and was officially renamed from a tsardom to an empire. Peter led a cultural revolution that replaced some of the traditionalist and medieval social and political systems with ones that were modern, scientific, Westernized, and based on the radical Enlightenment.[4][5]

    In December 1699, he introduced the Julian calendar,[6] and in 1703, he introduced the first Russian newspaper, Sankt-Peterburgskie Vedomosti, and ordered the civil script, a reform of Russian orthography largely designed by himself. On the shores of the Neva River, he founded Saint Petersburg, a city famously dubbed by Francesco Algarotti as the "window to the West".[7][8] In 1712, Peter relocated the capital from Moscow to St. Petersburg, a status it retained until 1918. Peter had a great interest in plants, animals and minerals, in malformed creatures or exceptions to the law of nature for his cabinet of curiosities. He encouraged research of deformities, all along trying to debunk the superstitious fear of monsters.[9] He promoted industrialization in the Russian Empire and higher education. The Russian Academy of Sciences and the Saint Petersburg State University were founded in 1724, and invited Christian Wolff and Willem 's Gravesande.

    Peter is primarily credited with the modernization of the country, quickly transforming it into a major European power. His administrative reforms, creating a Governing Senate in 1711, the Collegium in 1717 and the Table of Ranks in 1722 had a lasting impact on Russia, and many institutions of the Russian government trace their origins to his reign.

    1. ^ Cite error: The named reference A was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
    2. ^ Kollmann, Nancy Shields (2012). "Peter the Great and spectacles of suffering". Crime and Punishment in Early Modern Russia, 1500–1725. New Studies in European History. Cambridge University Press. pp. 403–415. ISBN 978-1-1070-2513-4. OCLC 780398248. OL 25252905M.
    3. ^ Костецкая, Е. В.; Суслова, Л. Н.; Аксенова, В. А. (7 October 2023). "Следствие по делу князя М. П. Гагарина в контексте развития системы государственного контроля в первой четверти XVIII века". Научный диалог (in Russian). 12 (7): 346–373. doi:10.24224/2227-1295-2023-12-7-346-373. ISSN 2227-1295.
    4. ^ Cracraft 2003.
    5. ^ Driessen-Van het Reve 2006, p. 264.
    6. ^ "Peter the Great ordered to establish January 1st as the New Year's Day countrywide". Presidential Library. Retrieved 7 May 2024.
    7. ^ Cracraft, James (1988). The Petrine Revolution in Russian Architecture By James Cracraft. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-2261-1664-8.
    8. ^ Ryan, Judith; Thomas, Alfred (2013). Cultures of Forgery: Making Nations, Making Selves. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-1354-5827-0.
    9. ^ Driessen-Van het Reve, Jozien J. (2006). De Kunstkamera van Peter de Grote. De Hollandse inbreng, gereconstrueerd uit brieven van Albert Seba en Johann Daniel Schumacher uit de jaren 1711–1752 (in Dutch). Hilversum: Verloren. p. 336. ISBN 978-9-0655-0927-7.


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