Peter I | emperor of Russia | Britannica.com emperor of Russia Alternative Titles: Peter the Great, Pyotr Alekseyevich, Pyotr Veliky Peter I Joseph Stalin Peter I, Russian in full Pyotr Alekseyevich, byname Peter the Great, Russian Pyotr Veliky (born June 9 [May 30, Old Style], 1672, Moscow , Russia —died February 8 [January 28], 1725, St. Petersburg), 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 I. A. Dagli Orti/DeA Picture Library 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. Britannica Stories Scientists Ponder Menopause in Killer Whales 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. Exploring Russia: Fact or Fiction? 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 . The Azov campaigns (1695–96) Britannica Lists & Quizzes Open Door policy 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. 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 (see below Internal reforms). 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.

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. 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. 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. 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 . 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.” 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 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. 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. 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.

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. 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. 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. 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. Peter I. © Photos.com/Thinkstock 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 . Russian Absolutism – Peter the Great and Catherine the Great : Western Civilization II Guides Russian Absolutism – Peter the Great and Catherine the Great Rise of Peter the Great Peter 1 or Peter “The Great” Peter 1 or Peter “the Great” was an energetic and ruthless leader. After Peter visited Western Europe early in power, he began to model the Russian Empire similarly to the Western technology, military organization, and political practice. He invited Western advisors and technicians to Russia to help institute a government protection for industries and commercial enterprises. Because of this he imposed taxes on the peasants, which paid for the military. During the reform the Russian Orthodox Church began to object to the changes so Peter attacked the church’s wealth and power. The military though was Peter’s main concern.

By imposing taxes on the peasants he was allowed to amass a professional army of 200000 men that were equipped with modern muskets and artillery. He fought against the Ottoman Empire, but was unsuccessful. Despite being unsuccessful Peter defeated Sweden to take control over Estonia and Latvia, which are located on the shores of the Baltic Sea. After the Treaty of Nystad in 1721, Peter was able to establish his new capital of St. Petersburg near the Baltic Sea. Despite Peter the Greats success as Russian czar, during his rule many people were killed and taxes increased by five times. He died in 1725. Catherine the Great When Peter 1 died in 1725, Russia was left without a leader, because Peter’s son died before he could take rule. During the time without any ruler Russia was subject to political instability that dealt with many coups and assassinations. In 1741 Elizabeth ascended the throne and named her nephew Peter heir to the Russian throne. Elizabeth then chose Peter’s wife. She was a German princess, her name was Catherine.

After they married, in 1762 Peter took control of the throne and Catherine began her plot to take over the Russian Empire. With the support of the Aristocracy she successfully took over the thrown. During the first decade of her rule she reformed the culture, the education system and the legal system in Russia. In 1773 a large peasant revolt put her in a position where she had to slaughter many significant landholders. After the revolt the rest of Catherine’s reign was plagued with a constant struggle against the serfs. Although she faced much opposition at home, she was successful on the battlefield. She launched a war against the Ottomans in 1768 and after six years of fighting the Ottomans ceded to the Russian territories along the northern coast of the Black Sea and the Balkans. Catherine tried to extend Russia’s power west. In doing so she launched attacks against Poland, Russia joined with Prussia and Austria, these countries destroyed Poland. Catherine died in 1796, but during her reign made Russia a world power.

Russian Monarchy Tsarskoye Selo State Museum-Preserve > Museums > History of Tsarskoye Selo > Russian Monarchy Russian Monarchy The history of the Imperial Romanov Family is part of Russian history, with its several pages devoted to Tsarskoye Selo. After Peter the Great became the first Russian emperor in 1721, Russia was the empire and absolute monarchy until the last Russian emperor Nicholas II’s abdication in 1917. For nearly two centuries, nine emperors and four empresses succeeded one another on the Russian throne. Biographies of many of them were closely related to Tsarskoye Selo, where the Russian imperial court lived in summer. Catherine I gave the imperial summer residence its birth, Catherine II gave it its prime. Tsarskoye Selo was a family home with plenty of happy days to many Russian emperors. Emperor Peter I Peter I the Great (1672–1725), Russia’s first emperor and the most celebrated one of the Romanov dynasty. The world history knew not many brilliant reformers like Peter.

His sweeping reform modernized all sides of Russia including legislation, courts, finances, cities, church, army and social life. The Great Northern War of 1700–1721, during which Russia with its allies Denmark and Saxony opposed Sweden to seize the Baltic coast, became the engine of Peter’s reform. In order to win, Peter needed a strong, trained army well provided with ammunition, uniform, money, etc. That was the period when Russian industry was born and administration and financial systems were changed. In 1703, after Russia re-captured the Neva River mouth during the Northern War, the new capital Saint Petersburg was founded. From its first day, Peter had the idea of surrounding it with a number of luxurious suburban estates and palaces. One of the remote estates was Saarskaya Myza, which was to become the famous Tsarskoye Selo. After the Northern War, Peter was proclaimed Emperor of All the Russias. Russia became an empire. Peter the Great died on 28 January 1725 (Old Style) without naming a successor. The site that would become Tsarskoye Selo had since ancient times been Russian territory.

These old Novgorodian lands were occupied by the Swedes in the seventeenth century and then re-taken by Russia during the Great Northern War of 1700–1721. A small Finnish estate “Saarismoisio” (“the manor on an elevated spot”) was subsequently Russianized as “Sarskoye Selo”. It became “Tsarskoye Selo” (i.e. “the royal village”) when Peter the Great presented the estate to his future wife Catherine in 1710 and the construction of a wooden summer cottage with service buildings was started on the hill. In 1717, while St Petersburg was being created on the banks of the Neva, the architect Johann Friedrich Braunstein started supervising the construction of the first masonry royal residence at Tsarskoye Selo - “the stone chambers” of Catherine I. In August 1724, to mark the completion of building work, a celebration was held at the palace that included “three salutes fired from thirteen cannon”. The event was attended by the Tsar and major figures in the state, who found “lots of taste and exquisiteness in Catherine’s house”.

According to legend, the housewifely empress spent hours working in her vegetable garden. About that time, the regular garden was laid out, with terraces upon the slopes before the palace, and with canals, alleys and parterres. The Menagerie in the nearby woods contained game animals for hunting. Thus was the foundation of the Tsarskoye Selo architectural ensemble laid during Peter the Great’s epoch. Empress Catherine I The life of Empress Catherine I (1684–1727) was like a Cinderella story. A commoner doing laundry and kitchen work, she took her lucky chance to ascend the Russian throne. An orphan early, Martha Skavronska was a servant at the Lutheran pastor Ernst Glück’s house in Marienburg (now Alūksne, Latvia). At the age of seventeen, she was married off to a Swedish dragoon, but only for eight days until the town was captured by Russian forces during the Northern War. In 1705, while visiting his favourite Menshikov’s house, Peter the Great met Martha, and shortly after, he took her as his own mistress.

She converted to Orthodoxy, changed her name to Yekaterina Alexeyevna, and soon became Peter’s closest partner. They officially married in 1712. Catherine became Peter’s second wife, while his first one, Eudoxia Lopukhina, who did not understand his reforms and rejected them, had been forced by Peter to become a nun back in 1698. After Peter’s death in 1725, Catherine was the first woman to rule Imperial Russia. The real power, however, lay with His Serene Highness Prince Menshikov, who dominated the Supreme Privy Council, an executive innovation. Catherine I’s reign did not last long. She died in 1727, just two years after Peter. Catherine I owned Tsarskoye Selo for 16 years and turned this small farmstead into a comfortable estate.

Emperor Peter II Peter II Alexeyevich (1715-1730), the only son of Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich (1690-1718) and Princess Charlotte of Brunswick-Lüneburg (1694-1715) and the only male-line grandson of Peter I (1672-1725) and his first wife Eudoxia Lopukhina (1669-1731). He succeeded the throne after Catherine I, Peter I’s second wife, in 1727 and was Emperor of Russia until his death of smallpox. After Catherine I’s death, her daughter Elizabeth Petrovna, the future Empress of Russia, inherited Tsarskoye Selo and expanded the palace and park. Empress Anna Ivanovna (Ioannovna) Anna Ivanovna (1693-1740), daughter of Peter the Great’s half-brother and co-ruler, Ivan V (1666-1696), and his wife, Praskovia Saltykova (1664-1723).

She became Empress of Russia in 1730 after the death of her first cousin once removed, Emperor Peter II (1715-1730). During Empress Anna’s reign, Tsarskoye Selo belonged to Peter I’s daughter, Elizabeth Petrovna, the future Empress of Russia. She used it as her suburban residence and hunting castle. Emperor Ivan VI Ivan VI Antonovich (1740-1764) was born in St Petersburg to Prince Antony Ulrich of Brunswick-Lüneburg and Duchess Anna Leopoldovna of Mecklenburg, niece of Empress Anna of Russia and grand-daughter of Tsar Ivan V. He was proclaimed Emperor as an infant in October 1740, according to the last will of his great-aunt, Empress Anna. On 9 November 1940, his mother declared herself Empress of Russia. Within less than a year, she and Ivan were overthrown by Peter the Great’s daughter, Elizabeth. Ivan spent his life as a prisoner since 1741 to 1764 and was killed by his guards during an attempt made to free him.

During the short reign of Ivan VI, Tsarskoye (then Sarskoye) Selo underwent no significant changes. Empress Elizabeth Petrovna Elizabeth (1709–1761), the second-oldest daughter of Peter the Great and Catherine I of Russia, was born during the period of Peter’s military victories. In autumn 1741, she overthrew Tsar Ivan VI of Russia, arrested and exiled the Brunswick-Lüneburg family, and usurped the throne. Her reign was one of the calmest, with no natural disasters or social riots. Even the European Seven Years’ War, which started in 1756, lasted only four years for Russia, and was victorious for the Russian army. Not one person was executed on Elizabeth’s orders during her reign. She continued Peter the Great's policies in modernizing Russia, repealed all acts enabled after her father’s death, enhanced the importance of the Senate, established first Russian loan banks for the merchant class, etc. However, she did not trouble about affairs too often. Extraordinarily beautiful and fashion-conscious, Elizabeth adored fineries, balls, masquerades, concerts and other entertainments.

Her life of endless enjoyment required luxurious scenery. The brilliant Italian architect Bartolomeo Francesco Rastrelli built for the Empress about twenty grandiose baroque palaces. At one of them, the Winter Palace, she died. After her mother’s death, Elizabeth inherited Tsarskoye Selo where she had spent her carefree childhood and youth. The estate was her place of hiding from Empress Anna whose main concern was to exclude descendants of Peter the Great and Catherine I from inheriting the throne. After she seized power, Elizabeth was set on revamping her way-too-simple-and-modest rural patrimony. In memory of the Empress’s mother, the old building was preserved as the central part of a spacious new edifice in the Baroque style resembling a resplendent fairyland setting, constructed by the Italian architect Bartolomeo Francesco Rastrelli in 1748-1756. Rastrelli finished the work started by Mikhail Zemtsov , Andrei Kvasov and Savva Chevakinsky . The palace’s rich, festive appearance and just as luxuriously decorated apartments became a dazzling and awe-inspiring setting for formal receptions, dinners, balls and masquerades.

Elizabeth brought new practices to Russian court life, types of entertainment and ways of doing things that were borrowed from Western Europe, but interacted with traditional Russian customs. The Catherine Park was expanded and embellished with marble sculptures and various architectural fancies. Elizabeth turned her mother’s country house at Tsarskoye Selo into a splendid imperial residence . Emperor Peter III Peter III Fiodorovich (1728- 1762), or Karl Peter Ulrich before his conversion to Russian Orthodoxy, was Emperor of Russia for six months within 1761-62. His parents were Duke Karl Friedrich of Holstein-Gottorp (nephew of Charles XII of Sweden) and Anna Petrovna (1708-1728), a daughter of Emperor Peter the Great of Russia and his second wife, Catherine I of Russia. He was the first of the Romanov-Holstein-Gottorp line which ruled Russia until 1917.

In 1745, Empress Elizabeth Petrovna arranged Peter’s marriage with Sophia Augusta Frederica of Anhalt-Zerbst (later Catherine the Great), by whom he had two children: Paul (1754-1801), later Emperor Paul I of Russia, and Anna (1757-59). As a result of the 1726 palace coup led by his wife, Peter III was dethroned and assassinated. During the short reign of Peter III, Tsarskoye Selo underwent no significant changes. Empress Catherine II Catherine II (1729–1796) went down in Russian history as the Great: her reign became Russia’s Golden Age, the time of great reforms and glorious victories. Born Princess Sophie Friederike Auguste von Anhalt-Zerbst, she was settled on by the Empress Elizabeth of Russia as a bride for her nephew. The young Princess was brought to Russia in 1744, given the name Cathrine Alexeyevna on her conversion to the Russian Orthodox Church, and married off to the future Emperor Peter III of Russia in 1745.

In 1762, Catherine’s loyal Leib Guard (Imperial Russian Guard) revolted, deposed Peter, and proclaimed her the ruler of Russia. Catherine II had a remarkable way with people and knew how to be liked and surrounded with outstanding and loyal companions. During her 34 years reign, Russia gained several glorious victories in the Russo-Turkish Wars (1768–1774 and 1787–1791), defeated the Ottoman Empire forces, annexed the Crimea and obtained access to the Black Sea shores, where the Russians founded many new cities, including Sevastopol. Russia expanded south and west and become a multinational empire. In spite of Catherine’s image as an “enlightened despot”, in the last years the degree of her growing intolerance and conservatism became evident in her harsh treatment of such social writers as Alexander Radischev, Nikolai Novikov, and others. Baneful was also the influence of Catherine’s last favourites, especially Prince Platon Zubov. The Empress suffered a sudden stroke in 1796 and died intestate.

Called by her contemporaries Minerva of Tsarskoye Selo, Catherine II preferred this place to all the other imperial suburban residences. From here, on 28 July 1763, she made her ceremonial entry into St Petersburg after the coronation in Moscow. Catherine’s imperial court arrived here each spring, spent the whole summer and left when the weather turned cold in autumn. Herewasherhideawayattimesofillness. As Catherine’s rule began, a capriciously intricate Baroque was replaced by a lucidly harmonious Classicism, congenial to the Empress. She spent enormous amounts of money on her favourite residence. At her wish, in the 1770s the architect Yury Velten added a wing , named after Catherine’s last lover Platon Zubov, on the southern side of the palace. The Empress’s private apartments in the new wing, just as her son Paul’s (afterwards Emperor Paul I) in the northern side of the palace, were designed by her favourite architect Charles Cameron . In the park, the talented Scotsman built a gallery named after him and an adjacent complex.

The highest point of Classicism at Tsarskoye Selo is represented by Giacomo Quarenghi ’s Alexander Palace . During Catherine II’s epoch, Tsarskoye Selo became a “Pantheon of the Glory of Russia”, with many triumphal monuments to victories of the Russian army and navy. The 34 years of her reign became the prime of the Tsarskoe Selo palaces and parks. Emperor Paul I Paul I (1754–1801), the only legitimate son of Catherine II, should have become emperor right after his father Peter III’s death, but he ascended the throne only after the death of his mother. While she ruled, he resided in Gatchina at an estate which Catherine had granted to her favourite Grigory Orlov first, and then, after Orlov’s death in 1781, to Paul. There, far from the always intriguing court, he tried to build his own “regular kingdom” based on strict discipline – a prototype of his future empire. When he became emperor, Paul attempted to extend his estate’s order to the whole country.

His reforms were meant to “heal” Russia: he fought embezzlement of state funds, tried to restrain serfdom, and established the strict principle of primogeniture in the House of Romanov. Paul I’s reign lasted only for 4 years, 4 months and 6 days. Most of his policies were viewed as a great annoyance to the losing their privileges nobility and army brass, and induced a conspiracy against him. On the night of 23 March 1801, a band of conspirators headed by St.Petersburg Military Governor Count Peter Pahlen charged into Paul’s bedroom in the newly built St Michael's Castle and strangled him. According to another version of the story, Paul’s death resulted from a stroke at his temple with a golden snuffbox. Paul I spent 42 of his 47 years of life in the Tsarskoye Selo palace, first with his great-aunt, Empress Elizabeth , and then with his mother, Catherine II. In the summer the boy was moved to Tsarskoye Selo in a special carriage. His clothing, toys, tableware and schoolbooks were delivered separately.

When Paul was 19, his first bride Wilhelmina Louisa came to Tsarskoye Selo on 15 June 1773. The German princess took the name Natalia Alexeievna before their marriage. After the wedding, the young couple stayed at Tsarskoye until late in the autumn. Three years later Paul’s wife died at childbirth. On 31 August 1776 another bride, the beautiful Sophia Dorothea of Württemberg, the future Empress Maria Fiodorovna, appeared at Tsarskoye Selo. The light and exquisite apartments for the newlyweds – the Green Dining-Room , the Bedchamber , the State Blue Drawing-Room and personal rooms – were decorated by the architect Charles Cameron . Soon after his second marriage, Paul began to be involved in intrigues. He believed he was the target of assassination and suspected his mother of intending to kill him like she, as he was sure, had done to his father, Emperor Peter III. After Catherine’s death, Paul I visited Tsarskoye Selo only once in July 1880.

He wrought genuine havoc with the furnishings of his mother’s palaces and parks. On his orders, the furniture, porcelain services, sculptures and architectural details were transferred from Tsarskoye Selo to St Michael’s Castle, Paul I’s main residence in St Petersburg. Emperor Alexander I Alexander I was Catherine II’s eldest grandson whom she greatly favoured and intended to leave the crown to, instead of her son Paul. Alexander succeeded to the throne after his father Emperor Paul I’s assassination by noble conspirators. Russian liberals had high hopes for the young Emperor Alexander I. One of the first acts of his reign was to appoint the Private Committee, comprising young and enthusiastic friends of his own, to draw up a scheme of internal reform, which was supposed to result in an establishing of constitutional monarchy. But he did not venture to restrict autocracy, and in time lost interest in reform. His reign was also marked by the French invasion of Russia in 1812, when the Russian army routed Napoleon’s considered invincible Grande Armée. After the war, Alexander incredibly raised his meticulous will-follower Count Alexey Arakcheyev, who managed army supplies and organized military-agricultural colonies.

In his last years, the Emperor became very devout and dreamed of solitude. He died in 1825 on the way to Taganrog in the south of Russia, where the Emperor undertook a voyage due to the increasing illness of his wife. However, legend has it that Alexander I’s death was staged, while the Emperor allegedly hid his identity as a mysterious hermit Feodor Kuzmich and spent the rest of his life in pilgrimages. Alexander I loved Tsarskoye Selo ever since childhood and came here every summer. He occupied Catherine II’s former rooms when she moved to her new ones designed by Ch. Cameron. In September 1793, when he was 15, Alexander was betrothed to a bride chosen by his grandmother –14 year old Louise of Baden, a German princess who was given the name Yelizaveta (Elizabeth) at her Orthodox baptism. The newlyweds moved into the new, Alexander Palace , a wedding present from Catherine II that was built to the design of the architect Giacomo Quarenghi in 1792-96. The palace was surrounded by the new (Alexander) park .

After he became Emperor in 1801, Alexander I spent much time in his study at the Catherine Palace where he and Mikhail Speransky (1772-1839) worked together on plans to restructure the state. Particular attention was devoted to the cause of education: on the Emperor’s orders, the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum, then one of the best educational institutions in Russia, was opened in the Grand Ducal wing of the Catherine Palace. After Russia’s victory over Napoleon, the Emperor spent every summer since 1914 at home, in Tsarskoye Selo. His State Study , together with adjacent rooms , was decorated by the architect Vasily Stasov who filled it with magnificent works of art commemorating remarkable victories in the Patriotic War of 1812. The Catherine Park was embellished with the Granite Terrace , the Girl-with-a-Pitcher Fountain and other structures; the Alexander Park was beautified as well. In his last years, Alexander showed signs of exhaustion and depression and took to withdrawing to Tsarskoye Selo even in winter.

It was back here, in early spring 1826, that his mortal remains were brought from Taganrog, where he died from typhus a few months earlier, and then a quiet funeral service was held in the Palace Church. Emperor Nicholas I Nicholas I (1796–1855) was not brought up to be the Emperor of Russia as he had two elder brothers before him, Emperor Alexander I and Grand Duke Constantine, both childless. He had to accept the throne after his first-eldest brother’s sudden death and his second-eldest brother’s refusal. His reign started with the bloody suppressing of the Decembrist Revolt in December 14, 1825. Nicholas sincerely whished to do a lot of good for Russia but didn’t know how. Nicholas was called “Don Quixote of autocracy” because he saw his main role in keeping the existing social system firm. The guiding principle of his regime was the program of “autocracy, Orthodoxy, and nationality” devised by the minister of education, Sergey Uvarov. Nicholas I’s 30 years reign left his contemporaries with a feeling of regret for neglected opportunities.

However, those were the years when the expanding Russian Empire included Georgia and almost all Transcaucasia, and Russian culture rose extraordinarily and saw the success of poets Alexander Pushkin and Mikhail Lermontov, writers Nikolai Gogol and Aleksey Khomyakov, artists Karl Briullov and Orest Kiprensky, composers Mikhail Glinka and Alexander Dargomyzhsky, and many others. A grandson of Catherine II, the future Emperor Nicholas I was born on 25 June 1796, in the Bedchamber of Maria Fiodorovna. At age 21, his wedding with Princess Charlotte (later Empress Alexandra Fiodorovna), the eldest daughter of King Frederick William III of Prussia, was celebrated at the Hermitage pavilion of Tsarskoye Selo. The young couple settled in the new, Alexander Palace , while the Catherine Palace was the place for official ceremonies.

After the alarming summer of 1831, when the imperial family took refuge from St Petersburg’s cholera epidemic at their Tsarskoye Selo residence, hardly leaving the place at all, in 1834 Nicholas I emphasized the importance of this residence by giving it the status of the reigning monarch’s property: it could be neither bequeathed nor sold nor presented; the residence passed to the new monarch on his ascent to the throne. Life was changing swiftly in the 1800s. On 31 October 1837, Russia’s first railway was opened, linking St Petersburg to Tsarskoye Selo. In 1843 the first electric telegraph apparatus in the Empire was installed in Nicholas I’s study at the Alexander Palace. Besides many happy events in the life of the imperial family, the residence was also associated with a great sorrow – the loss in 1844 of Grand Duchess Alexandra, the Emperor’s eldest daughter, who did not live to see her twentieth birthday. After that death, Nicholas I abandoned Tsarskoye Selo for ever, while his wife and other daughters traveled here only on the anniversary of their bereavement.

Emperor Alexander II Alexander II became known as Tsar the Liberator able to implement the most challenging reforms undertaken in Russia since the reign of Peter the Great. During his reign, Russia continued its expansion into Central Asia. Alexander II’s most important reform was the abolition of serfdom with the Tsar's Emancipation Manifesto of February 19, 1861. Then other reforms followed: jury trial; local self-government for rural districts and larger towns possessing restricted rights; more or less independent printed media; higher education available to the lower classes, etc. In the 1860s, a Russian revolutionary organization of Narodniki (“close to the people”, populists) appeared, lead by a party called Land and Liberty. Its supporters of the political struggle against autocracysplit off as a party called Narodnaya Volya (People’s Will) and were keen to kill the Emperor. They made seven thwarted attempts on his life, but the eighths one of March 1, 1881 resulted in Alexander’s fatal wounding. His consequent death was taken by many as a national catastrophe.

In his childhood, Grand Duke Alexander Nikolayevich, the future Emperor Alexander II, lived in the Alexander Palace from early spring till late autumn. His rooms were on the ground floor with windows facing the park: from them he could see the pond and the Children’s Island within it – a place for Alexander and his brothers and sister to play. To complete his education he traveled in Europe where he met and fell in love with the 15-year-old Princess Marie of Hesse, thereafter known as Empress Maria Alexandrovna, to whom he became engaged in 1840. The wedding was celebrated in 1841; then the young couple moved to Tsarskoye Selo, which became their favourite place. They were installed in the Zubov Wing of the Catherine Palace , where they continued to live after becoming Emperor and Empress. Maria occupied the rooms of Catherine II, Alexander the rooms below on the lower floor, with access directly to the garden. Their children’s rooms were located next to the Empress’s. Like his predecessors, Alexander II took good care of the imperial summer residence, being the first who tried to make it comfortable rather than luxurious.

Thanks to technical progress, the palace halls were electrified for the first time, a barometer was mounted at the Main Staircase (designed by Alexander’s court architect Ippolito Monighetti ), a telegraph station and plumbed water supply with taps were installed; a photographic study was created in the Llama Pavilion . Because of several attempts made on the Emperor since 1866, unprecedented security measures were taken, including armour-plated iron doors in the basement and attics of the Catherine Palace. Tsarskoye Selo preserved Alexander II’s life that was cut short in St Petersburg in 1881 as a result of another terrorist act. Emperor Alexander III Alexander III (1845–1894) was a born conservator; his father’s assassination by terrorists only assured him that Russia was not ready for a more liberal society. He turned Russia back to the old ideals of patriotism and populism protected by autocracy. Under the reign of Alexander III, Russia’s prestige was enormously high, and the country lived peacefully and orderly.

Keeping Russia from war conflicts, he went down in Russian history as Tsar the Peacemaker whose reign gave the country a powerful upsurge in economic and cultural activity at the turn of the twentieth century. An enthusiastic art lover and one of the major patrons of Peredvizhniki (The Wanderers or The Itinerants, a group of Russian realist artists), Alexander III gathered a remarkable collection of Russian paintings which formed the nucleus of fine art holdings of Alexander III’s visual arts museum at the Mikhailovsky Palace (now the State Russian Museum). Noted for his immense height and physical strength, the nearly 50-year-old Emperor died of nephritis at his favourite Livadia Palace in the Crimea, amongst his loving wife and children. Emperor Alexander III spent his childhood and youth at Tsarskoye Selo. He and his brothers liked to play on the Children’s Island or in the Private Garden: they planted flowers and vegetables, exercised upon the net with ladders and ropes, stormed and defended by turns a toy fortress. In 1848 the whole imperial family spent the summer interruptedly at Tsarskoye Selo to avoid the cholera epidemic that was raging in St Petersburg.

While the Grand Duke, he always celebrated his name-day – 30 August, St Alexander’s Day – in the Catherine Palace . On the year he turned sixteen the celebration was held in the Chinese Hall. It was Alexander’s first grown-up reception. In 1866 he had to marry Princess Dagmar of Denmark (later Empress Maria Fiodorovna), the fiancée of his elder brother Nicholas who suddenly died young. After the wedding the couple moved into the Anichkov Palace in St Petersburg, but in the summer they always followed the tradition of living at Tsarskoye Selo where they were given personal apartments in the Alexander Palace . It is to Alexander III that we owe the appearance of brass bands in Russia; he himself played helicon. In 1872 a professional band was formed and the famous Thursday musical soirees began in the palace. The Emperor took great interest in Russian art: he bough only Russian artists’ works and hung them on the walls in his rooms. Maria Fiodorovna made cigarette-cases, then a novelty, a fashionable accessory.

Alexander III, Maria Fiodorovna and their elder son, later Emperor Nicholas II, were keen collectors of cigarette-cases, lighters and cigarette-holders, which were a permanent feature of their studies in the palaces. Deeply saddened by the death of his mother and the secret marriage of his father and Catherine Dolgorukova (Princess Yurievskaya) in June-July 1880, Alexander III and his family immediately left Tsarskoye Selo, moving to Peterhof for the remainder of the summer. They never returned to the Alexander Palace. Emperor Nicholas II Nicholas II (1868–1918) saw his monarchic duty in protecting autocracy. The early years of his reign were distinguished by Russian industrial unprecedented growth rate, exceeding that of all other countries in the world. The House of Romanov’s tercentennial anniversary in 1913 saw Russia on the rise. The outbreak of World War I in summer 1914 revealed Russia’s lack of modern military technology. By 1916, Russia was on the verge of collapse. Acute food shortages made life in cities unbearable. Revolutionaries agitated the troops against the Tsar.

In February 1917, the Petrograd garrison mutinied. The Provisional Government, formed by members of the Parliament (Duma), failed to stop the revolution and save the monarchy. Nicholas II was forced to abdicate. The Russian monarchy fell. The last Russian emperor was arrested on March 8, 1917 and in July moved together with his family to Tobolsk in the Urals, and then to Yekaterinburg in May 1918, where they were shot on the order of the Bolsheviks. The last Russian emperor, Nicholas II, was born at Tsarskoye Selo, in the Alexander Palace . The great building with its refined interiors and collections had a distinct effect on him: the history of the palace was a part of the history of his family. On 14 November 1894 Nicholas married Princess Alix of Hesse (later Empress Alexandra Fiodorovna) and moved to the Alexander Palace – the favourite residence of the imperial family. “Words cannot express how delightful it is to live as a couple in such a fine place as Tsarskoye”, Nicholas wrote in his diary.

He decided to have the left wing of the palace refurbished as private apartments. The Palisander Drawing-Room, Lilac Study, Dressing Room, Emperor’s Study and other rooms were designed by the court architect Robert (Roman) Melzer . The latest technical innovations were used, such as electric heaters, telephones, a hydraulic lift, movie and slide projectors, etc. The first garage for the Emperor’s automobiles was built nearby. During Nicholas II’s reign, all the notable anniversaries of the new century were celebrated at Tsarskoye Selo: the bicentenary of St Petersburg (1903); the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Poltava (1909); 200 years of the Tsarskoye Selo imperial residence (1910); the tercentenary of the House of Romanov (1913). The last architectural complex constructed in Nicholas II’s time was the Sovereign’s Cathedral of St Theodore and associated Fiodorov (Fiodorovsky) Gorodok not far from the Alexander Palace.

Early in the morning on August 1, 1917 Nicholas II’s family left Tsarskoye Selo to meet their death from the Bolsheviks in July 1918.

Question: What relation to Peter the Great of Russia was Catherine I of Russia?
Answer: Wife