Peter I
Peter I the Great by Paul Delaroche
emperor of Russia
Russian in full Pyotr Alekseyevich, byname Peter the Great,
Russian Pyotr Veliky
born June 9 [May 30, Old Style], 1672, Moscow, Russia
died Feb. 8 [Jan. 28, O.S.], 1725, St. Petersburg
Main
tsar of Russia, who reigned jointly with his half-brother Ivan V
(1682–96) and alone thereafter (1696–1725) and who in 1721 was
proclaimed emperor (imperator). He was one of his country’s greatest
statesmen, organizers, and reformers.
Peter was the son of Tsar Alexis by his second wife, Natalya
Kirillovna Naryshkina. Unlike his half-brothers, sons of his father’s
first wife, Mariya Ilinichna Miloslavskaya, Peter proved a healthy
child, lively and inquisitive. It is probably significant to his
development that his mother’s former guardian, Artamon Sergeyevich
Matveyev, had raised her in an atmosphere open to progressive influences
from the West.
Youth and accession
When Alexis died in 1676 Peter was only four years old. His elder
half-brother, a sickly youth, then succeeded to the throne as Fyodor
III; but, in fact, power fell into the hands of the Miloslavskys,
relatives of Fyodor’s mother, who deliberately pushed Peter and the
Naryshkin circle aside. When Fyodor died childless in 1682, a fierce
struggle for power ensued between the Miloslavskys and the Naryshkins:
the former wanted to put Fyodor’s brother, the delicate and feebleminded
Ivan V, on the throne; the Naryshkins stood for the healthy and
intelligent Peter. Representatives of the various orders of society,
assembled in the Kremlin, declared themselves for Peter, who was then
proclaimed tsar; but the Miloslavsky faction exploited a revolt of the
Moscow streltsy, or musketeers of the sovereign’s bodyguard, who killed
some of Peter’s adherents, including Matveyev. Ivan and Peter were then
proclaimed joint tsars; and eventually, because of Ivan’s precarious
health and Peter’s youth, Ivan’s 25-year-old sister Sophia was made
regent. Clever and influential, Sophia took control of the government;
excluded from public affairs, Peter lived with his mother in the village
of Preobrazhenskoye, near Moscow, often fearing for his safety. All this
left an ineradicable impression on the young tsar and determined his
negative attitude toward the streltsy.
One result of Sophia’s overt exclusion of Peter from the government
was that he did not receive the usual education of a Russian tsar; he
grew up in a free atmosphere instead of being confined within the narrow
bounds of a palace. While his first tutor, the former church clerk
Nikita Zotov, could give little to satisfy Peter’s curiosity, the boy
enjoyed noisy outdoor games and took especial interest in military
matters, his favourite toys being arms of one sort or another. He also
occupied himself with carpentry, joinery, blacksmith’s work, and
printing.
Near Preobrazhenskoye there was a nemetskaya sloboda (“German
colony”) where foreigners were allowed to reside. Acquaintance with its
inhabitants aroused Peter’s interest in the life of other nations, and
an English sailboat, found derelict in a shed, whetted his passion for
seafaring. Mathematics, fortification, and navigation were the sciences
that appealed most strongly to Peter. A model fortress was built for his
amusement, and he organized his first “play” troops, from which, in
1687, the Preobrazhensky and Semyonovsky Guards regiments were formed—to
become the nucleus of a new Russian Army.
Early in 1689 Natalya Naryshkina arranged Peter’s marriage to the
beautiful Eudoxia (Yevdokiya Fyodorovna Lopukhina). This was obviously a
political act, intended to demonstrate the fact that the 17-year-old
Peter was now a grown man, with a right to rule in his own name. The
marriage did not last long: Peter soon began to ignore his wife, and in
1698 he relegated her to a convent.
In August 1689 a new revolt of the streltsy took place. Sophia and
her faction tried to use it to their own advantage for another coup
d’état, but events this time turned decisively in Peter’s favour. He
removed Sophia from power and banished her to the Novodevichy convent;
she was forced to become a nun after a streltsy rebellion in 1698.
Though Ivan V remained nominally joint tsar with Peter, the
administration was now largely given over to Peter’s kinsmen, the
Naryshkins, until Ivan’s death in 1696. Peter, meanwhile continuing his
military and nautical amusements, sailed the first seaworthy ships to be
built in Russia. His games proved to be good training for the tasks
ahead.
External events
At the beginning of Peter’s reign, Russia was territorially a huge
power, but with no access to the Black Sea, the Caspian, or to the
Baltic, and to win such an outlet became the main goal of Peter’s
foreign policy.
Capture of Azov 1696 by Robert Kerr Porter
External events » The Azov campaigns (1695–96)
The first steps taken in this direction were the campaigns of 1695 and
1696, with the object of capturing Azov from the Crimean Tatar vassals
of Turkey. On the one hand, these Azov campaigns could be seen as
fulfilling Russia’s commitments, undertaken during Sophia’s regency, to
the anti-Turkish “Holy League” of 1684 (Austria, Poland, and Venice); on
the other they were intended to secure the southern frontier against
Tatar raids, as well as to approach the Black Sea. The first campaign
ended in failure (1695), but this did not discourage Peter: he promptly
built a fleet at Voronezh to sail down the Don River and in 1696 Azov
was captured. To consolidate this success Taganrog was founded on the
northern shore of the Don Estuary, and the building of a large navy was
started.
External events » The Grand Embassy (1697–98)
Having already sent some young nobles abroad to study nautical matters,
Peter, in 1697, went with the so-called Grand Embassy to western Europe.
The embassy comprised about 250 people, with the “grand ambassadors”
Franz Lefort, F.A. Golovin, and P.B. Voznitsyn at its head. Its chief
purposes were to examine the international situation and to strengthen
the anti-Turkish coalition, but it was also intended to gather
information on the economic and cultural life of Europe. Travelling
incognito under the name of Sgt. Pyotr Mikhaylov, Peter familiarized
himself with conditions in the advanced countries of the West. For four
months he studied shipbuilding, working as a ship’s carpenter in the
yard of the Dutch East India Company at Saardam; after that he went to
Great Britain, where he continued his study of shipbuilding, working in
the Royal Navy’s dockyard at Deptford, and he also visited factories,
arsenals, schools, and museums and even attended a session of
Parliament. Meanwhile, the services of foreign experts were engaged for
work in Russia.
On the diplomatic side of the Grand Embassy, Peter conducted
negotiations with the Dutch and British governments for alliances
against Turkey; but the Maritime Powers did not wish to involve
themselves with him because they were preoccupied with the problems that
were soon to come to a crisis, for them, in the War of the Spanish
Succession.
External events » The destruction of the streltsy (1698)
From England, Peter went on to Austria; but while he was negotiating in
Vienna for a continuance of the anti-Turkish alliance, he received news
of a fresh revolt of the streltsy in Moscow. In the summer of 1698 he
was back in Moscow, where he suppressed the revolt. Hundreds of the
streltsy were executed, the rest of the rebels were exiled to distant
towns, and the corps of the streltsy was disbanded.
Peter I of Russia stops maraudering soldiers after taking Narva in 1704
by Nikolay Sauerweid
External events » The Northern War (1700–21)
When it became clear that Austria, no less than the Maritime Powers, was
preparing to fight for the Spanish Succession and to make peace with
Turkey, Peter saw that Russia could not contemplate a war without allies
against the Turks, and he abandoned his plans for pushing forward from
the Sea of Azov to the Black Sea. By the Russo-Turkish Peace of
Constantinople (Istanbul, 1700) he retained possession of Azov. He was
now turning his attention to the Baltic instead, following the tradition
of his predecessors.
The Swedes occupied Karelia, Ingria, Estonia, and Livonia and blocked
Russia’s way to the Baltic coast. To dislodge them, Peter took an active
part in forming the great alliance, comprising Russia, Saxony, and
Denmark–Norway, which started the Northern War in 1700. This war lasted
for 21 years and was Peter’s main military enterprise. In planning it
and in sustaining it he displayed iron willpower, extraordinary energy,
and outstanding gifts of statesmanship, generalship, and diplomacy.
Mobilizing all the resources of Russia for the triumph of his cause,
constantly keeping himself abreast of events, and actively concerning
himself with all important undertakings, often at his personal risk, he
could be seen sometimes in a sailor’s jacket on a warship, sometimes in
an officer’s uniform on the battlefield, and sometimes in a labourer’s
apron and gloves with an axe in a shipyard.
Battle of Poltava as painted by Denis Martens the Younger
The defeat of the Russians at Narva (1700), very early in the war,
did not deter Peter and, in fact, he later described it as a blessing:
“Necessity drove away sloth and forced me to work night and day.” He
subsequently took part in the siege that led to the Russian capture of
Narva (1704) and in the battles of Lesnaya (1708) and of Poltava (1709).
At Poltava, where Charles XII of Sweden suffered a catastrophic defeat,
the plan of operations was Peter’s own: it was his idea to transform the
battlefield by works of his military engineers—the redoubts erected in
the path of the Swedish troops to break their combat order, to split
them into little groups, and to halt their onslaught. Peter also took
part in the naval battle of Gangut (Hanko, or Hangö) in 1714, the first
major Russian victory at sea.
The treaties concluded by Russia in the course of the war were made
under Peter’s personal direction. He also travelled abroad again for
diplomatic reasons—e.g., to Pomerania in 1712 and to Denmark, northern
Germany, Holland, and France in 1716–17.
In 1703, on the banks of the Neva River, where it flows into the Gulf
of Finland, Peter began construction of the city of St. Petersburg and
established it as the new capital of Russia in 1712. By the Treaty of
Nystad (September 10 [August 30, O.S.], 1721) the eastern shores of the
Baltic were at last ceded to Russia, Sweden was reduced to a secondary
power, and the way was opened for Russian domination over Poland.
In celebration of his triumph, the Senate on November 2 (October 22,
O.S.), 1721, changed Peter’s title from tsar to that of emperor
(imperator) of all the Russias.
External events » The popular revolts (1705–08)
The peasant serfs and the poorer urban workers had to bear the greatest
hardships in wartime and moreover were intensively exploited in the
course of Peter’s great work for the modernization and development of
Russia. Their sufferings, combined with onerous taxation, provoked a
number of revolts, the most important of which were that of Astrakhan
(1705–06) and that led by Kondraty Afanasyevich Bulavin in the Don Basin
(1707–08). These revolts were cruelly put down.
Poltava battle, fragment of mosaic, by Mikhail Lomonosov, 1717
External events » The Turkish War (1710–13)
In the middle of the Northern War, when Peter might have pressed further
the advantage won at Poltava, Turkey declared war on Russia. In the
summer of 1711 Peter marched against the Turks through Bessarabia into
Moldavia, but he was surrounded, with all his forces, on the Prut River.
Obliged to sue for peace, he was fortunate to obtain very light terms
from the inept Turkish negotiators, who allowed him to retire with no
greater sacrifice than the retrocession of Azov. The Turkish government
soon decided to renew hostilities; but the Peace of Adrianople (Edirne)
was concluded in 1713, leaving Azov to the Turks. From that time on
Peter’s military effort was concentrated on winning his war against
Sweden.
External events » The Tsarevich Alexis and Catherine (to 1718)
Peter had a son, the tsarevich Alexis, by his discarded wife Eudoxia.
Alexis was his natural heir, but he grew up antipathetic to Peter and
receptive to reactionary influences working against Peter’s reforms.
Peter, meanwhile, had formed a lasting liaison with a low-born woman,
the future empress Catherine I, who bore him other children and whom he
married in 1712. Pressed finally to mend his ways or to become a monk in
renunciation of his hereditary rights (1716), Alexis took refuge in the
dominions of the Holy Roman emperor Charles VI, but he was induced to
return to Russia in 1718. Thereupon proceedings were brought against him
on charges of high treason, and after torture he was condemned to death.
He died in prison, presumably by violence, before the formal execution
of the sentence.
External events » The Persian campaign (1722–23)
Even during the second half of the Northern War, Peter had sent
exploratory missions to the East—to the Central Asian steppes in 1714,
to the Caspian region in 1715, and to Khiva in 1717. The end of the war
left him free to resume a more active policy on his southeastern
frontier. In 1722, hearing that the Ottoman Turks would take advantage
of Persia’s weakness and invade the Caspian region, Peter himself
invaded Persian territory. In 1723 Persia ceded the western and southern
shores of the Caspian to Russia in return for military aid.
Peter I on his deathbed, 1725
External events » Death
The campaign along the parched shores of the Caspian obviously put a
great strain on Peter’s health, already undermined by enormous exertions
and also by the excesses in which he occasionally indulged himself. In
the autumn of 1724, seeing some soldiers in danger of drowning from a
ship aground on a sandbank in the Gulf of Finland, he characteristically
plunged himself into the icy water to help them. Catching a chill, he
became seriously ill in the winter but even so continued to work;
indeed, it was at this time that he drew up the instructions for the
expedition of Vitus Bering to Kamchatka.
When Peter died early in the following year, he left an empire that
stretched from Arkhangelsk (Archangel) on the White Sea to Mazanderan on
the Caspian and from the Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean. Though he had
in 1722 issued a decree reserving to himself the right to nominate his
successor, he did not in fact nominate anyone. His widow Catherine, whom
he had crowned as empress in 1724, succeeded him to the temporary
exclusion of his grandson, the future Peter II.
Internal reforms
At the beginning of Peter’s reign, Russia was backward by comparison
with the countries of western Europe. This backwardness inhibited
foreign policy and even put Russia’s national independence in danger.
Peter’s aim, therefore, was to overtake the developed countries of
western Europe as soon as possible, in order both to promote the
national economy and to ensure victory in his wars for access to the
seas. Breaking the resistance of the boyars, or members of the ancient
landed aristocracy, and of the clergy and severely punishing all other
opposition to his projects, he initiated a series of reforms that
affected, in the course of 25 years, every field of the national
life—administration, industry, commerce, technology, and culture.
Internal reforms » The towns
At the beginning of Peter’s reign there was already some degree of
economic differentiation between the various regions of Russia; and in
the towns artisans were establishing small businesses, small-scale
production was expanding, and industrial plants and factories were
growing up, with both hired workers and serfs employed. There was thus a
nascent bourgeoisie, which benefitted considerably from Peter’s plans
for the development of the national industry and trade. The reform of
the urban administration was particularly significant.
By a decree of 1699, townspeople (artisans and tradesmen) were
released from subjection to the military governors of the provinces and
were authorized to elect municipalities of their own, which would be
subordinated to the Moscow municipality, or ratusha—the council of the
great merchant community of the capital. This reform was carried further
in 1720, with the establishment of a chief magistracy in St. Petersburg,
to which the local town magistracies and the elected municipal officers
of the towns (mayors, or burmistry; and councillors, or ratmany) were
subordinated.
All townspeople, meanwhile, were divided between “regulars” and
“commons” (inferiors). The regulars were subdivided between two
guilds—the first comprising rich merchants and members of the liberal
professions (doctors, actors, and artists); the second, artisans
(classified according to their vocations) and small tradesmen. A
merchant belonged to the first or to the second guild according to the
amount of his capital; and those who were also manufacturers had special
privileges, coming under the jurisdiction of the College of Manufactures
and being exempt from the billeting of troops, from elective rotas of
duty, and from military service. The commons were hired labourers,
without the privileges of regulars.
Thanks to the reforms, the economic activity and the population of
the towns increased. Anyone engaged in trade was legally permitted to
settle in a town and to register himself in the appropriate category,
and there was a right of “free commerce for people of every rank.”
Peter the Great in Holland by
Mstislav Dobuzhinsky
Internal reforms » The provinces and the districts
In order to create a more flexible system of control by the central
power, Russia was territorially divided in 1708 into eight guberny, or
governments, each under a governor appointed by the tsar and vested with
administrative, military, and judicial authority. In 1719 these guberny
were dissolved into 50 provintsy, or provinces, which in turn were
subdivided into districts. The census of 1722, however, was followed by
the substitution of a poll tax for the previous hearth tax; and this
provoked a wave of popular discontent, against which Peter decided to
distribute the army regiments (released from active service by the Peace
of Nystad) in garrisons throughout the country and to make their
maintenance obligatory on the local populations. Thus came into being
the “regimental districts,” which did not coincide with the
administrative. The regimental commanders, with their own sphere of
jurisdiction and their own requirements, added another layer to the
already complex system of local authority.
The
Summer Garden in the Time of Peter the Great by
Alexandre Benois
Internal reforms » The central government
In the course of Peter’s reign, medieval and obsolescent forms of
government gave place to effective autocracy. In 1711 he abolished the
boyarskaya duma, or boyar council, and established by decree the Senate
as the supreme organ of state—to coordinate the action of the various
central and local organs, to supervise the collection and expenditure of
revenue, and to draft legislation in accordance with his edicts. Martial
discipline was extended to civil institutions, and an officer of the
guards was always on duty in the Senate. From 1722, moreover, there was
a procurator general keeping watch over the daily work of the Senate and
its chancellery and acting as “the eye of the sovereign.”
When Peter came to power the central departments of state were the
prikazy, or offices, of which there were about 80, functioning in a
confused and fragmented way. To replace most of this outmoded system,
Peter in 1718 instituted 9 “colleges” (kollegy), or boards, the number
of which was by 1722 expanded to 13. Their activities were controlled,
on the one hand, by the General Regulation and, on the other, by
particular regulations for individual colleges, and indeed there were
strict regulations for every branch of the state administration. Crimes
against the state came under the jurisdiction of the Preobrazhensky
Office, responsible immediately to the tsar.
Peter
l Taking a Walk in the Summer Garden by
Alexandre Benois
Internal reforms » Industry
A secondary purpose of Peter’s Grand Embassy to western Europe in 1697
(see above The Grand Embassy) had been to obtain firsthand acquaintance
with advanced industrial techniques, and the exigencies of his great war
against Sweden, from 1700, made industrial development an urgent matter.
In order to provide armaments and to build his navy (Russia had
virtually no warships at all), metallurgical and manufacturing
industries on a grand scale had to be created; and Peter devoted himself
tirelessly to meeting these needs. Large capital investments were made,
and numerous privileges were accorded to businessmen and industrialists.
These privileges included the right to buy peasant serfs for labour in
workshops, with the result that a class of “enlisted” serfs came into
existence, living in specified areas and bound to the factories. The
methods of other countries were further studied, and foreign experts
were invited to Russia. The overall result was satisfactory: the army
and the navy were supplied with their material needs; a great number of
manufacturing establishments were founded (mainly with serf labour); the
metallurgical industry was so far advanced that by the middle of the
18th century Russia led Europe in this field; and the foreign-trade
turnover was increased sevenfold in the course of the reign.
Internal reforms » The armed forces
Peter established a regular army on completely modern lines for Russia
in the place of the unreliable streltsy and the militia of the gentry.
While he drew his officers from the nobility, he conscripted peasants
and townspeople into the other ranks. Service was for life. The troops
were equipped with flintlock firearms and bayonets of Russian make;
uniforms were provided; and regular drilling was introduced. For the
artillery, obsolete cannons were replaced with new mortars and guns
designed by Russian specialists or even by Peter himself (he drew up
projects of his own for multicannon warships, fortresses, and ordnance).
The Army Regulations of 1716 were particularly important; they required
officers to teach their men “how to act in battle,” “to know the
soldier’s business from first principles and not to cling blindly to
rules,” and to show initiative in the face of the enemy. For the navy,
Peter’s reign saw the construction, within a few years, of 52
battleships and hundreds of galleys and other craft; thus a powerful
Baltic fleet was brought into being. Several special schools prepared
their pupils for military or naval service and finally enabled Peter to
dispense with foreign experts.
Peter I
Riding
with Hounds
by
Valentin
Serov
Internal reforms » Cultural and educational measures
From January 1, 1700, Peter introduced a new chronology, making the
Russian calendar conform to European usage with regard to the year,
which in Russia had hitherto been numbered “from the Creation of the
World” and had begun on September 1 (he adhered however to the Julian
Old Style as opposed to the Gregorian New Style for the days of the
month). In 1710 the Old Church Slavonic alphabet was modernized into a
secular script.
Peter was the first ruler of Russia to sponsor education on secular
lines and to bring an element of state control into that field. Various
secular schools were opened; and since too few pupils came from the
nobility, the children of soldiers, officials, and churchmen were
admitted to them. In many cases, compulsory service to the state was
preceded by compulsory education for it. Russians were also permitted to
go abroad for their education and indeed were often compelled to do so
(at the state’s expense). The translation of books from western European
languages was actively promoted. The first Russian newspaper, Vedomosti
(“Records”), appeared in 1703. The Russian Academy of Sciences was
instituted in 1724.
Beside his useful measures, Peter often enforced superficial
Europeanization rather brutally; for example, when he decreed that
beards should be shorn off and Western dress worn. He personally cut the
beards of his boyars and the skirts of their long coats (kaftany). The
Raskolniki (Old Believers) and merchants who insisted on keeping their
beards had to pay a special tax, but peasants and the Orthodox clergy
were allowed to remain bearded.
Peter
I in "Mon Plaisir" by
Valentin
Serov
Internal reforms » The church
In 1721, in order to subject the Orthodox Church of Russia to the state,
Peter abolished the Patriarchate of Moscow. Thenceforward the
patriarch’s place as head of the church was taken by a spiritual
college, namely the Holy Synod, consisting of representatives of the
hierarchy obedient to the tsar’s will. A secular official—the
ober-prokuror, or chief procurator—was appointed by the tsar to
supervise the Holy Synod’s activities. The Holy Synod ferociously
persecuted all dissenters and conducted a censorship of all
publications.
Priests officiating in churches were obliged by Peter to deliver
sermons and exhortations that were intended to make the peasantry
“listen to reason” and to teach such prayers to children that everyone
would grow up “in fear of God” and in awe of the tsar. The regular
clergy were forbidden to allow men under 30 years old or serfs to take
vows as monks.
The church was thus transformed into a pillar of the absolutist
regime. Partly in the interests of the nobility, the extent of land
owned by the church was restricted; Peter disposed of ecclesiastical and
monastic property and revenues at his own discretion, for state
purposes.
Peter the Great by
Valentin
Serov
Internal reforms » The nobility
Peter’s internal policy served to protect the interest of Russia’s
ruling class—the landowners and the nascent bourgeoisie. The material
position of the landed nobility was strengthened considerably under
Peter. Almost 100,000 acres of land and 175,000 serfs were allotted to
it in the first half of the reign alone. Moreover, a decree of 1714 that
instituted succession by primogeniture and so prevented the breaking up
of large properties also removed the old distinction between pomestya
(lands granted by the tsar to the nobility in return for service) and
votchiny (patrimonial or allodial lands) so that all such property
became hereditary.
Moreover, the status of the nobility was modified by Peter’s Table of
Ranks (1722). This replaced the old system of promotion in the state
services, which had been according to ancestry, by one of promotion
according to services actually rendered. It classified all
functionaries—military, naval, and civilian alike—in 14 categories, the
14th being the lowest and the 1st the highest; and admission to the 8th
category conferred hereditary nobility. Factory owners and others who
had risen to officer’s rank could accede to the nobility, which thus
received new blood. The predominance of the boyars ended.
The Grand Eagle Cup
(Peter I) by
Valentin
Serov
Personality and achievement
Peter was of enormous height, more than six and one-half feet (two
metres) tall; he was handsome and of unusual physical strength. Unlike
all earlier Russian tsars, whose Byzantine splendours he repudiated, he
was very simple in his manners; for example, he enjoyed conversation
over a mug of beer with shipwrights and sailors from the foreign ships
visiting St. Petersburg. Restless, energetic, and impulsive, he did not
like splendid clothes that hindered his movements; often he appeared in
worn-out shoes and an old hat, still more often in military or naval
uniform. He was fond of merrymaking and knew how to conduct it, though
his jokes were frequently crude; and he sometimes drank heavily and
forced his guests to do so too. A just man who did not tolerate
dishonesty, he was terrible in his anger and could be cruel when he
encountered opposition: in such moments only his intimates could soothe
him—best of all his beloved second wife, Catherine, whom people
frequently asked to intercede with him for them. Sometimes Peter would
beat his high officials with his stick, from which even Prince A.D.
Menshikov, his closest friend, received many a stroke. One of Peter’s
great gifts of statesmanship was the ability to pick talented
collaborators for the highest appointments, whether from the foremost
families of the nobility or from far lower levels of society.
As a ruler, Peter often used the methods of a despotic landlord—the
whip and arbitrary rule. He always acted as an autocrat, convinced of
the wonder-working power of compulsion by the state. Yet with his
insatiable capacity for work he saw himself as the state’s servant, and
whenever he put himself in a subordinate position he would perform his
duties with the same conscientiousness that he demanded of others. He
began his own army service in the lowest rank and required others
likewise to master their profession from its elements upward and to
expect promotion only for services of real value.
Peter’s personality left its imprint on the whole history of Russia.
A man of original and shrewd intellect, exuberant, courageous,
industrious, and iron-willed, he could soberly appraise complex and
changeable situations so as to uphold consistently the general interests
of Russia and his own particular designs. He did not completely bridge
the gulf between Russia and the Western countries, but he achieved
considerable progress in development of the national economy and trade,
education, science and culture, and foreign policy. Russia became a
great power, without whose concurrence no important European problem
could thenceforth be settled. His internal reforms achieved progress to
an extent that no earlier innovator could have envisaged.
Leonid Alekseyevich Nikiforov
Encyclopaedia Britannica
