231 Peter The Great Facts: Rule, Accomplishments And More

Peter the Great was a renowned ruler of Russia during the 17th and 18th centuries, who turned the Tsardom of Russia into the Russian Empire.

There are many Peter the Great facts one should know because he was a leader in the true sense of the word. Born Pyotr Alekseyevich on June 9, 1672, in Moscow, Russia, he was the 14th child of Tsar Alexis by his second wife, Natalya Kirillovna Naryshkina.

About four years after his birth, his father passed away and the throne was passed to his sickly older half-brother, Feodor III of Russia.

Before his death, Tsar Alexis had made arrangements for Peter’s education with some of the most learned tutors of the time. While Feodor was at the throne, all of the governing was done by Artamon Sergeyevich Matveyev, who was a Russian diplomat and statesman.

He was also one of the biggest benefactors of Peter by virtue of being a close friend of Tsar Alexis.

Artamon was the head (political) of the Russian Naryshkin family, one of several noble families of Moscow and Russia. Safe to say, Peter was under exemplary guidance even though his father was no longer around.

Read on to know more about Peter the Great and his exploits as the Tsar of Russia.

Facts About Peter The Great

Peter the Great is regarded as one of the most powerful tsars of Russia. This makes him an important figure in the history of the country. Let’s look at some Tsar Peter facts to know more about the important historical figure:

Peter the Great was thought to have absence epilepsy, which was enough to be the disease of genius leaders, as many famous people were supposed to have had it, including Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great.

Peter the Great took the throne in 1682 and ruled till his death in 1725.

Peter turned the Tsardom of Russia into the Russian Empire in 1721.

Peter belonged to the Romanov house of Russian nobility.

Peter was assigned to the throne as tsar at the young age of 10 because his brother Ivan, who was supposed to take the throne after Feodor, was seriously ill. However, they ruled together.

When Peter was assigned to the throne, his mother was made acting regent in order to govern the throne temporarily while Peter and Ivan remained minors.

However, Sophia, one of Alexis' daughters from his first marriage, led a rebellion of the Streltsy (Russia's elite military corps) in 1682. The Streltsy made it possible for Sophia to act as regent during the minority of the sovereigns and exercise all power. For seven years, she ruled as an autocrat. 

During this time, a special double throne seat was designed on which Peter and Ivan used to sit together when taking care of their duties.

What is interesting about this throne is that there was a hole cut out at the back of this seat where Sophia would sit, listening in on conversations between the nobles, and giving Peter and Ivan responses and information for questions asked.

This throne still exists and is kept in the Kremlin Armoury.

In 1696, when Ivan died, Peter became the sole ruler, as he was now an adult. Peter was determined to completely reform the domestic scene of imperial Russia. A lot of his policies and ideas were heavily influenced by western, modern, and even enlightenment ideologies.

He developed the city of Saint Petersburg, which remained the capital of Russia till 1917.

He also established the first Russian university, the University of St. Petersburg.

Some of his ideas were very arbitrary, like the infamous beard tax, which was a tax imposed by him to prevent men from keeping beards. This law was unpopular even among religious leaders, as they considered it blasphemous.

Peter is revered as a great leader, military man, and modest statesman and ruler of Russia.

Peter had a dutch mistress, Anna Mons, who wanted to marry him.

Peter was the first ruler to take the title of 'emperor', replacing the title of 'tsar'.

When Peter died, he was also the first emperor to be buried in the Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg.

During his last years, 1723 - 1725; Peter suffered from severe urinary tract and bladder issues, leading to surgery in 1724, in which the surgeons removed roughly 4 lb (1.8 kg) of blocked urine from his bladder.

After being bedridden for a while, he felt better and started to work again, conducting some investigations into ongoing projects.

However, he never fully recovered from his illness and surgery, and Peter’s death was the result of uremia caused by gangrene in his bladder.

Peter The Great's Timeline

Do you want to know more about important events in the life of Peter the Great? Then it is extremely important for you to track his timeline closely. Here are some Peter the Great facts pertaining to the timeline starting from his birth to his death:

Peter was born in 1672 on June 9, in Moscow, Tsardom of Russia, to Tsar Alexis and his second wife, Natalya Naryshkina.

In 1676, Alexis died, making Feodor III his successor.

In 1682, after the passing of Feodor, Peter (age 10) was assigned to be the next Tsar alongside his brother, Ivan, with his mother as acting regent while they were in their minority.

After the elite Russian military corps (the Streltsy) rebelled, Peter and Ivan (Peter’s half brother) became joint tsars with Sophia (Peter’s half-sister) as regent.

Between 1686 and 1700, the Russo-Turkish War was taking place. This war, against the Ottoman Empire on one side and a European coalition on the other, ended with the Ottoman Empire losing.

Turkish military forces and the Ottoman Empire ceded several territories to the Russian military and promised that they would not attack Russia. Russia, in turn, promised not to attack the Ottoman Empire.

Peter married Eudoxia Lopukhina, the daughter of a minor nobleman, in 1689. She was chosen as his bride by his mother. The couple had three sons together, only one of whom survived.

In 1690, Peter’s first son and only surviving son from his first marriage, Alexei Petrovich, was born.

In 1696, Ivan passed away; giving Peter more power over Russia.

In 1697, he made his first trip to Europe disguised as one of the members of the Grand Embassy. With this trip, he hoped to meet and get help from European monarchs on how he could reform Russia.

In 1698, Peter divorced Eudoxia and made her join a convent.

In 1700, the Russians battled against the Swedish in the Baltic Sea and on the Baltic Coast, which came to be known as the Great Northern War, in which the Russians were victorious.

Between 1702 and 1703, Peter had a peasant mistress named Marta Helena Skowronska, who later converted to his religion of Russian Orthodoxy and adopted the name Catherine. The couple had 11 children together, only two of whom survived past childhood.

Peter is said to have married Catherine secretly in 1707 (no records exist of this).

In 1712, they married again, this time in an official ceremony at Saint Isaac’s Cathedral in St. Petersburg.

In 1718, Peter conducted an investigation into his firstborn son, Alexei, who was believed to be involved in a conspiracy to overthrow his father. Alexei was tried by a secular court as well as tortured to find out the truth.

When the suspicions were found true, he was executed. However, stories of him dying as a result of the injuries born from torture were also told. Peter the Great had most of his close family killed out of paranoia.

In 1724, Peter crowned his second wife, Catherine, Empress of Russia.

In 1703, he started the development of the city of St. Petersburg, on the Gulf of Finland, which he occupied after gaining the land from Sweden, and built on the site of a former fortress. He made this the new capital, instead of Moscow.

Peter The Great's Influence

What made Peter the Great capable of exerting such great influence over a huge empire? Well, to understand the reasons behind his dominance, it is essential that you check the facts detailed below:

Tsar Peter the Great’s influence was considered a mix of two styles, modern as well as tyrannical.

While he did modernise Russia, he also believed in ruling with an iron fist, maintaining his strict rule which was evident from some very arbitrary laws he passed. Whatever the case, his contribution to making Russia a strong and modern state is incontestable.

Peter believed Russia needed to come out of its orthodox and ancient traditions and systems in order to become a powerful force in the developing world, and he developed Russian culture. As such, he took inspiration from western Europe and inculcated new reforms, policies, and more secular systems, to change the way Russian society functioned.

Peter The Great's Accomplishments

Peter the Great achieved a lot during his lifetime as the emperor of Russia. Peter wanted to transform Russia into a more globally homogenous society and was greatly influenced by European nations.

As such, he made two major journeys, each lasting one year, across Europe to learn the ways of the modern world.

He took his first trip, which he conducted between the ages of 25 and 26, to Deptford, London. He took this trip incognito and stayed at writer John Evelyn's house, which still stands.

During his trip, he worked as a ship’s carpenter under the alias of Peter Mikhailov.

His disguise fooled no-one, as Peter the Great was a huge man; in an age where 5.3 ft (1.6 m) was the average height, Peter the Great was 6.6 ft (2 m), and was a giant in stature as well as reputation.

He also had an entourage and was staying in a grand house, with a famous writer as his landlord.

From this trip, he brought back several changes to make his country more civilized, which he incorporated into the Russian lifestyle like:

Peter created the Russian Navy, after he learned ship-building skills in London.

A shift to the Julian Calendar (before this, Russians were still using the old-style calendar, popularly known as the Gregorian Calendar).

Peter ended the church hierarchy. After the death of Patriarch Adrian, who was head of the church in 1700, the church head was not replaced; instead, it was made a part of the government, meaning that it could now be controlled by Peter.

When this happened, the hierarchy system of the churches was abolished and the church was now subordinate to the emperor, as opposed to before, when the church was a separate royal entity.

Beard Tax: This was somewhat of a vague rule, but Peter imposed it because he wanted his people to have a cleaner and more European look. He considered beards to be more uncivilized.

He established the first Russian newspaper.

He modernized the alphabet as well in order to modernize education, and made it compulsory for all children of nobility to receive education from the ages of 10 to 15 in science and maths. As part of the educational reforms, he also established several secular schools where children of various different ranks people could study together.

He even created a 'medal for drunkness' in 1714, that weighed about 15.4 lb (7 kg) which was tied around the neck of a drunk person.

Made of cast-iron it was the heaviest 'medal' in history and a person who had been caught drinking too much was made to carry it around their neck for a week, to discourage them from getting drunk and acting in a disorderly manner.

However, he also created a law where a woman could be flogged if she made her husband leave a tavern before he had finished drinking!

Apart from the several social, cultural, economic as well as educational reforms (and often rather weird laws), introduced by him, Peter the Great also won several wars, making Russia one of the most powerful forces, as well as expanding the Russians borders and creating a Russian empire, of which he was the first Russian emperor.

Peter the Great won against the Turkish military forces of the Ottoman Empire in the southern region of Azov.

Thereafter, he rebelled against the powerful Swedish Army, enabling Russia to become the most-powerful nation in the Baltic Sea area.

This was an important accomplishment for Peter the Great as this led to the construction of the now-famous Peter and Paul Fortress. He ordered the construction for the benefit of the Russian Navy.

In 1693, Peter the Great introduced the first official flag of Russia.

Peter designed the entire city of St. Petersburg, which he named after the apostle Saint Peter; inspired by his European trips. He took inspiration from Italian architecture, from the canals in Amsterdam and Venice, to the beautiful, elaborate European-style gardens.

The city of St. Petersburg came to be known as the 'Window to Europe'. With the development of this city, Peter the Great further hoped to open the country to the world.

He developed a summer garden, which consisted of beds of tulips, and was inspired by his visit to Amsterdam.

Peter the Great introduced the revolutionary table of ranks, which destroyed the Russian hierarchy and hereditary system, allowing common people a chance to rise to power in the Russian government and bureaucracy by working their way up through the ranks.

Peter the Great also started to develop Russian industry, starting with the major development of metallurgical industries and factories. He provided several incentives to the owners and workers of such establishments. All of these reforms resulted in a massive expansion of foreign trade in Russia, surpassing other European giants in metallurgical trade.

The Russian Academy of Sciences was established by Peter the Great in 1724 as another step in reforming Russia’s education system and quality. The academy still stands and has expanded to include 500 institutions now. Students were also actively encouraged to study abroad.

Peter the Great established the post of the head magistrate as part of his judicial reforms, who were responsible not only for ensuring fair law enforcement towards commoners but also had tax implications which ensured fairer financial distribution, and more.

This post was initially introduced in 1720 in St. Petersburg and was an expansion of an already existing policy from 1699 wherein the common people were made free from the subjection of military personnel.

Peter the Great also developed the Russian Army and Navy. The older Russian Army and Streltsy (which was a group of elite Russian Military Corps) were found to be working against the emperor, as a result of which, Peter decided to finish them and start afresh army formation.

This new army consisted of rank-holding officers as well as common people assigned to fill various lower ranks and positions. The workings and organization of this new army were also inspired by those of western European countries.

In modernising the Russian Army and creating the Russian Navy, Peter the Great also provided the armed forces with decent weaponry and ensured proper training was given.

As Peter the Great (Peter I) had no male children alive at the time of his death, there was no apparent successor to his throne. He was succeeded by his wife, Catherine I, who ruled Russia for two years, but died in 1727 and was then succeeded by Peter II.