Muscovite Russia: Religion and Culture Chapter 19 and 20 PDF

**XIX** **MUSCOVITE RUSSIA: RELIGION AND CULTURE** The Emperor was seated upon an Imperiall Throne, with Pillars of silver and gold, which stood 3 or 4 stepps high, an Imperiall Crowne upon his Head, his Scepter in his right hand and his Globe in his left. And so he sate without any motion that I...

**XIX** **MUSCOVITE RUSSIA: RELIGION AND CULTURE** The Emperor was seated upon an Imperiall Throne, with Pillars of silver and gold, which stood 3 or 4 stepps high, an Imperiall Crowne upon his Head, his Scepter in his right hand and his Globe in his left. And so he sate without any motion that I could perceave, till such time as I had repeated all the King my Masters titles and his owne, and given him greeting in his Majesties name. And then he stood up, and with a very gratious aspect, asked me how his Loving Brother the King of England did, to which when I had made him Answer, he sate downe agayne. Then the Lord Chancellor who stood upon a strada close by me with a high furred Capp upon his head: told me that the great Lord and Emperor of all Russia did very Lovingly re-ceave that Present which stood all this while before the Emperor, and likewise his Majesties Letters which I had presented;then he looke upon a Paper which he had in his hand and said with a loud voyce: \"Simon Digby, The great Lord and Emperor of all Russia askes you how you do, and desires you to come neere unto him to kiss his Hand.\" The first stepp I made towards him upon the state: there stood foure Noble men in Cloth of silver Roabes, with Polates in their hands advanced over me as if they would have knocked me on the head; under which I went, and having stepped up one stepp upon the Emperors throne, it was as much as I could do to reache his Hand, which when I had kissed, I retired unto the Place when I had my first Posture. \... As I was to goe out of the roome, I observed betwixt 20ty and 30ty great Princes and Councellors of State, sitting upon the left hand of the Emperor, who were all in long Roabes of Cloth of gold, imbrodered with Pearles and Precious Stones, and high Capps either of Sables or Black Foxe about three quarters of a yard high upon their heads. To them, at my going out of the Doore, I bowed myself and they all rose up and putt of their Capps unto me. **SIMON DIGBY TO SIR JOHN COKE** ? you Teachers of Christendom! Rome fell away long ago and lies prostrate, and the Poles fell in the likeruin with her, being to the end the enemies of the Christian. And among you orthodoxy is of mongrel breed; and no wonder --- if by the violence of the Turkish Mahound you have become impotent, and henceforth it is you who should come to us to learn. By the gift of God among us there is autocracy; till the time of Nikon, the apostate, in our Russia under our pious princes and tsars the orthodox faith was pure and undefiled, and in the Church was no sedition. **AVVAKUM (J. HARRISON\'S AND H. MIRRLEES\'s TRANSLATION)** Muscovy appeared strange to foreigners. Visitors from the West, such as Guy de Miege, secretary to the embassy sent to Alexis by Charles II of England, as well as many others, described it as something of a magic world : weird, sumptuous, colorful, unlike anything they had ever seen, and utterly barbarian. The church of St. Basil the Blessed, one might add, continues to produce a similar impression on many European and American visitors. Foreign emissaries noticed the rich costumes, especially the furs, the striking grey beards, the elaborate court ceremonial, the lavish banquets and the tremendous drinking. They added, however, that the state dinners, with their endless courses, proved deficient in plates and silver and that the wise grey beards as a rule said nothing. Of more importance were the fundamental characteristics of Muscovy that the visitors quickly discovered: the enormous power and authority of the tsar and the extreme centralization which required that even insignificant matters be referred for decision to high officials. Other interesting facts were reported; however, to sum up, what they saw was an intricate, cohesive, and well-organized society, but one which they found uncongenial and very odd. Indeed, we find references to the effect that Turkey stood closer to the West than Muscovy and sincere doubts as to whether the Muscovites were really Christians. The view of Muscovy as a strange world apart, a view shared by foreign travelers with such diverse later groups as the Slavophiles and certain Polish historians, contains some truth. Muscovite Russia existed in relative isolation by contrast, for example, with Kievan Russia. Moreover, it developed a distinctive culture based on religion and ritualism and assumed a tone of self-righteousness and suspicion toward any outside influence. This peculiar and parochial culture, it must be added, apparently had a great hold on the people. But the case should not be overstated. In reality the main elements of Muscovite culture --- religion, language, law, and others --- served as links to the outside world. In terms of time, too, Muscovy represented not simply a self-contained culture, but the transition from appanage Russia to the Russian Empire. And, after all, it was the Muscovites themselves, led by Peter the Great, who transformed their country and culture --- the fairy land and at times the nightmare of Western travelers --- into one of the great states of modern Europe. ***Religion and Church. The Schism*** Religion occupied a central position in Muscovite Russia and reflected the principal aspects and problems of Muscovite development: the growth and consolidation of the state; ritualism and conservatism; parochialism and the belonging to a larger world; ignorant, self-satisfied pride and the recognition of the need for reform. As already mentioned, the expansion and strengthening of the Muscovite state found a parallel in the evolution of the Church in Muscovy. The Church councils of 1547, 1549, 1551, and 1554 strove to improve ecclesiastical organization and practices and eliminate various abuses. In 1547 twenty-two Russians were canonized, and in 1549 seventeen more. The resulting consolidated national pantheon of saints represented a religious counterpart to the political unification. The Hundred-Chapter Council of 1551 dealt, as its name indicates, with many matters in the life of the Church. The council of 1554 condemned certain Russian heretics and heresies which had roots either in Protestantism or in the teachings of the non-possessors. None of them, it might be noted, gained popular support. The rising stature of the Russian Church at a time when many other Orthodox Churches, including the patriarchate of Constantinople itself, fell under the sway of the Moslem Turks increased Muscovite confidence and pride. References to the holy Russian land, to Holy Russia, date from the second half of the sixteenth century. In 1589, as we know, Muscovy obtained its own patriarch. Some later incumbents of this position, such as Hermogen, Philaret, and Nikon, were to play different but major roles in Russian history. The upgrading of numerous Muscovite sees after the establishment of the patriarchate was followed by a further expansion of the Church when Ukraine, which included the ancient metropolitanate of Kiev and several other dioceses, joined Moscow in 1654. It should be added that the Church, especially the monasteries, enjoyed enormous wealth in land and other possessions in spite of the repeated efforts of the government to curb its holdings and particularly to prevent its encroachments on the gentry. The great split or schism in the seventeenth century --- *raskol* in Russian --- revealed serious weaknesses in the apparently mighty and monolithic Muscovite Church. Over a long period of time, errors in translation from the Greek and other mistakes had crept into some Muscovite religious texts and rituals. Tsar Michael had already established a commission to study the matter and make the necessary corrections. Some visiting Orthodox dignitaries also urged reform. But in the face of general ignorance, inertia, and opposition little was done until Nikon became patriarch in 1652. The new head of the Church proceeded to act in his usual determined manner which before long became a drastic manner. The reign of Tsar Alexis was witnessing a religious and moral revival in the Church, an effort to improve the performance of the clergy and to attach a higher spiritual tone and greater decorum to various ecclesiastical functions. Yet, once Nikon introduced the issue of corrections, many leaders of this revival, such as Stephen Vonifatiev, Ivan Neronov, and the celebrated Archpriest Avvakum, or Habakkuk, turned against him. In 1653 they accused him of heresy. To defeat theopposition, the patriarch proceeded to obtain the highest possible authority and support for his reforms: in 1654 a Russian Church council endorsed the verification of all religious texts; next, in response to inquiries from the Russian Church, the patriarch of Constantinople called a council that added its sanction to Nikon\'s reforms; a monk was sent to bring five hundred religious texts from Mount Athos and the Orthodox East, while many others arrived from the patriarchs of Antioch and Alex-andria; a committee of learned Kievan monks and Greeks was set up to do the collating and correcting; another Russian Church council in 1656 also supported Nikon\'s undertaking. Nikon widened the scope of the reform to include the ritual in addition to texts, introducing in particular the sign of the cross in the Greek manner with three rather than two fingers. But the patriarch\'s opponents refused to accept all the high authorities brought to bear against them and stood simply on the Muscovite precedent --- to keep everything as their fathers and grandfathers had it. They found encouragement in Nikon\'s break with the tsar in 1658 and in the ineffectiveness of the cleric who replaced him at the head of the Church. To settle matters once and for all, a Russian Church council was held in 1666 and another Church council, attended by the patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch, who also represented those of Constantinople and Jerusalem, convened later that year and continued in 1667, in Moscow. This great council, which deposed Nikon for his bid for supreme political power, considered the issue of his reforms, listened to the dissenters, and in the end completely endorsed the changes. The opponents had to submit or defy the Church openly. It is remarkable that, although no dogmatic or doctrinal differences were involved, priests and laymen in considerable numbers refused to obey ecclesiastical authorities, even though the latter received the full support of the state. The raskol began in earnest. The Old Believers or Old Ritualists --- *starovery* or *staroobriadtsy* --- rejected the new sign of the cross, the corrected spelling of the name of Jesus, the tripling instead of the doubling of the \"Hallelujah,\" and other similar emendations, and hence rejected the Church. Persecution of the Old Believers was soon widespread. Awakum himself --- whose stunning autobiography represents the greatest document of Old Belief and one of the great documents of human faith --- perished at the stake in 1682. The Solovetskii Monastery in the far north had to be captured by a siege that lasted from 1668 to 1676. Apocalyptic views prevailed among the early Old Believers, who saw in the Church reform the end of the world, and in Nikon the Antichrist. It has been estimated that between 1672 and 1691 over twenty thousand of them burned themselves alive in thirty-seven known communal conflagrations. Yet, surprisingly, the Old Belief survived. Reorganized in the eighteenth century by a number of able leaders, especially by the Denisov brothers, Andrew and Simeon, it claimed the allegiance of millions of Russians up to the Revolution of 1917 and after. It exists today. With no canonical foundation and no independent theology to speak of, the Old Belief divided again and again, but it never disappeared. The main cleavage came to be between the *popovtsy* and the *bespopovtsy,* those who had priests and those who had none. For, although the Old Believers refused to change a tittle in the texts or the least detail in the ritual, they soon found themselves without priests and thus without the liturgy, without most of the sacraments, and in general without the very core of traditional religious life: bishops were required for elevation to the priesthood, and no bishops joined the Old Belief. Some dissenters, the popovtsy, bent all their efforts to obtain priests by every possible means, for instance, by enticing them away from the established Church. The priestless, on the other hand, accepted the catastrophic logic of their situation and tried to organize their religious life along different lines. It is from the priestless Old Believers that most Russian sects derive. But all this takes us well beyond the Muscovite period of Russian history.The raskol constituted the only major schism in the history of the Orthodox Church in Russia. It was in an important sense the opposite of the Reformation: in the West, Christians turned against their ecclesiastical authorities because they wanted changes; in Russia believers revolted because they refused to accept even minor modifications of the traditional religious usage. Many scholars have tried to explain the strange phenomenon of the raskol. Thus Shchapov and numerous others have stressed the social composition of the Old Believers and the social and economic reasons for their rebellion. The dissenters were originally and continued to be mostly well-established peasants and traders. Their action could, therefore, be interpreted as a protest against gentry domination and the entire oppressive Muscovite system. More immediately, they reacted against the increased ecclesiastical centralization under Nikon which led to the appointment of priests --- formerly they had been elected in northern parishes --- and to the loss of parish autonomy and democracy. In addition to being democrats --- so certain historians have claimed --- the Old Believers expressed the entrepreneurial and business acumen of the Russian people. Over a period of time they made a remarkable record for themselves in commerce. Some parallels have even been drawn with the Calvinists in the West. As to the other side, the drive for reform has been ascribed, in addition to the obvious reason, to the influence of the more learned Ukrainian clergy, and to the desire of the Muscovite Church and state to adapt their practices to include the Ukrainians and the White Russians, with a further view, according to S. Zenkovsky, to a possible expansion to the Balkans and Constantinople. Even more rewarding as an explanation of the raskol has been the emphasis on the ritualism and formalism of Muscovite culture. The Old Believers were, characteristically, Great Russians, that is,. Muscovite Russians and not, for example, Ukrainians. To them the perfectly correct form and the untainted tradition in religion could not be compromised. This, and their arrogant but sincere belief in the superiority of the Muscovite Church and its practices, go far to explain the rebellion. The reformers exhibited a similar formalism. In spite of the advice of such high authorities as the patriarch of Constantinople, Nikon and his followers refused to allow any local practice or insignificant variation to remain, thus on their part, too, confusing the letter with the spirit. As we have noted, the Russian Church had developed especially in the direction of religious ceremony, ritualism, and formalism, which for the believers served as a great unifying bond and a tangible basis for their daily life. It has been estimated, for instance, that the tsar often spent five hours or more a day in church. Even visiting Orthodox hierarchs complained of the length of Russian services. The appearance of the Old Belief, as well as the excessively narrow and violent reaction to it, indicated that in Muscovy religious content in certain respects lagged behind religious form. The raskol can thus be considered a tribute to the hold that Muscovite culture had on the people, and, as time made apparent, to its staying power. It also marked the dead end of that culture. Miliukov and others have argued that, because of the split, the Russian Church lost its most devoted and active members and, in effect, its vitality: those who had the courage of their convictions joined the Old Belief; the cowardly and the listless remained in the establishment. Even if we allow for the exaggeration implicit in this view and note further that many of the most ignorant and fanatical must also have joined the dissenters, the loss remains great. It certainly made it easier for Peter the Great to treat the Church in a high-handed manner. ***Muscovite Thought and Literature*** In addition to the issue of the true faith, the issue of the proper form of government preoccupied certain Muscovite minds. It concerned essentially the nature and the new role of autocracy, and discussion of it continued the intellectual trend clearly observable in the reigns of Ivan III and Basil III. Such publicists as Ivan Peresvetov, who wrote in the middle of the sixteenth century, upheld the new power and authority of the tsar, while the events of the Time of Troubles provided variations on this theme of proper government and seemed to offer to the Russians unwanted political experience. The most famous debate on the subject took place between Ivan the Terrible and Prince Andrew Kurbsky in two letters from the tsar and five from the fugitive nobleman, written between 1564 and 1579. The sovereign\'s brilliant letters strike the reader by the sweep of their assertions and their grandiose tone. Ivan the Terrible believed in the divine foundation of autocracy, and he declared that, even if he were a tyrant, Kurbsky\'s only alternative, as a Christian and a faithful subject, remained patient suffering. The prince, on his part, proved to be stronger in his criticism of the tsar\'s conduct and in personal invective than in political theory. Yet his views, too, represented a system of belief: they harkened back to an earlier order of things, when no great gulf separated the ruler from his chief lieutenants, and when an aristocrat enjoyed more freedom and more respect than Ivan IV wanted to allow. In foreign relations, as in domestic matters, Ivan the Terrible and other tsars reiterated the glory of autocracy and demanded full respect for it. They considered the Polish kings degraded because the latter had been put on their throne by others, and thus could not be regarded as hereditary or rooted rulers. They asked why Swedish monarchs treated their advisers as companions. Or, to quote the frequently mentioned bitter letter of Ivan the Terrible to Elizabeth of England, written in 1570: \"We had thought that you were sovereign in your state and ruled yourself, and that you saw to your sovereign honor and to the interests of the country. But it turns out that in your land people rule besides you, and not only people, but trading peasants....\" Passing on to the subject of Muscovite literature as a whole, one should note the development of the \"chancellery language,\" based on the Muscovite spoken idiom, in which official documents were written, and also the gradual penetration of popular language into literature in place of the bookish Slavonic-Russian. Avvakum\'s autobiography, written in the racy spoken idiom, was a milestone in Russian literature. Religious writings continued and indeed flourished, especially in the seventeenth century. They included hagiography and, in particular, menologia, that is, calendars with the lives of saints arranged under the dates of their respective feasts, the most important of which was compiled by Metropolitan Macarius. They also included theological and polemical works, sermons, and other items. After Ukraine joined Muscovy, the more learned and less isolated Ukrainian clerics began to play a leading role in aRussian literary revival. The *Domostroi,* or \"house manager,\" constituted one of the most noteworthy works of Muscovite Russia. Attributed to Sylvester and dating in its original version from about 1556, it intends in sixty-three didactic chapters to instruct the head of a Muscovite family and its other members how properly to run their households and lead their lives. The *Domostroi* teachings reflect the ritualism, piety, severity, and patriarchal nature of Muscovite society. Some commentators have noted in horror that the author, or more likely authors, write in the same peremptory manner about the veneration of the Holy Trinity and about the preservation of mushrooms. Possibly the most often cited directive reads: Punish your son in his youth, and he will give you a quiet old age, and restfulness to your soul. Weaken not beating the boy, for he will not die from your striking him with the rod, but will be in better health: for while you strike his body, you save his soul from death. If you love your son, punish him frequently, that you may rejoice later. If the *Domostroi,* with its remarkable ritualism, formalism, and emphasis on the preservation of appearances, is considered by some to be a kind of Muscovite *summa,* other events in literature, especially in the seventeenth century, pointed in new directions. Gradually the lay literature of the West spread in Russia. Coming through Poland, Ukraine, the Balkans, and sometimes more directly, the stories assumed a romantic, didactic, or satirical character and were usually full of adventure, which the religious writings of ancient Russia as a rule lacked. Often, through the vehicle of such recurrent themes as the tales of the seven wise men or of Tristan and Isolde, the stories acquainted Muscovites with the world of knighthood, courtly love, and other concepts and practices unknown in the realm of the tsars. Soon, Russian tales following Western models made their appearance: for instance, stories about Savva Grudtsin, who sold his soul to the devil, and about the rogue Frol Skobeev. Numbers of these tales enjoyed great popularity. Syllabic versification also came from the West, from the Latin and Polish languages, largely through the efforts of Simeon of Polotsk, who died in 1680. It remained the dominant form in Russian poetry until the middle of the eighteenth century. After some productions of plays arranged by private individuals, Tsar Alexis established a court theater in 1672 under the direction of a German pastor, Johann Gregory. Before long, a few Russian plays enriched the repertoire, which was devoted primarily to biblical subjects. The traditional oral literature of the people continued to thrive throughout the Muscovite period. Tales and songs commemorated such significant events as the capture of Kazan, the penetration into Siberia, or Stenka Razin\'s rebellion. The byliny retained their popularity. Pilgrims and beggars composed religious poems at venerated shrines. The skomorokhi went on entertaining the people, in spite of all prohibitions. All in all it seems quite unfair to characterize Muscovite culture as silent, as has sometimes been done, all the more so because it is probable that many writings of the period have been lost. On the other hand, Muscovite literary life does appear meager by comparison with the riches of its contemporary West. Nor did it measure up, in the opinion of specialists, to Muscovite architecture and other arts. ***The Arts*** In architecture, as well as in literature and in culture as a whole, no divide rises between the appanage and the Muscovite periods of Russian history. Building in both wood and stone nourished in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. As described earlier, wooden houses of the boyars and mansions of the rulers --- the so-called *khoromy* --- were remarkable conglomerations of independent units which usually lacked symmetry but compensated for it by the abundance and variety of parts. Outstanding examples of this type of building included the khoromy of the Stroganovs in Solvychegodsk and the summer palace of the tsars in the village of Kolomenskoe near Moscow. Furthermore, it was especially during the Muscovite age that the principles of Russian wooden architecture, with its reliance on small independent structural units and its favorite geometric forms, found a rich expression also in the stone medium, notably in churches. The church of St. Basil the Blessed at one end of Red Square, outside the Kremlin wall,provides the most striking illustration of this wooden type of construction in stone. Built in 1555-60 by two architects from Pskov, Barma and Posnik, it has never ceased to dazzle visitors and to excite the imagination. This church, known originally as the Cathedral of the Intercession of the Virgin, consists in fact of nine separate churches on a common foundation. All nine have the form of tall octagons --- a narrower octagon on top of a broader one in each case --- and the central church, around which the other eight are situated, is covered by a tent roof. Striking and different cupolas further emphasize the variety and independence of the parts of the church. Bright colors and abundant decorations contribute their share to the powerful, if somewhat bizarre, impression. While the church of St. Basil the Blessed and its predecessor, the church in the village of Diakovo that consisted of five churches, seem strange and unsymmetric to Western eyes, they succeed, in the opinion of many specialists, in combining their separate units into one magnificent whole. In the Moscow Kremlin itself the construction went on, although the most important work had already been done in the reigns of Ivan III and Basil III. The Golden Gate arose in the first half of the seventeenth century, and as late as 1670-90 towers in the Kremlin wall were topped with roofs, usually in the Russian tent style, while within the walls palaces and churches continued to grow. In addition to the kremlin in Moscow, the beautiful kremlin of ancient Rostov, built mainly in the seventeenth century, and parts of kremlins in a score of other Russian cities have come down to our time. In the second half of the seventeenth century the baroque style reached Moscovy through Ukraine and quickly gained popularity, developing into the so-called Muscovite, or Naryshkin, baroque --- the last name referring to the boyar family which sponsored it. It has been said that the Russians found baroque especially congenial because of their love of decoration. The church built in 1693 in the village of Fili, now part of Moscow, provides an interesting example of Russian baroque.The great Russian tradition of icon painting continued during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries but then was effectively terminated. Two prominent new schools emerged : the Stroganov school and the school of the tsar\'s icon-painters. The first, supported by the great merchant family of the northeast, was active approximately from 1580 to 1630. Its characteristics included bright backgrounds, rich colors, elaborate and minute design, and a penchant for decorative elements and gold, for instance gold contours. In fact, the Stroganov icons tended to become miniatures, \"lovely and highly precious objects, if no longer great works of art\" in the words of one critic. Procopius Chirin, who later joined the tsar\'s icon-painters and even became Tsar Michael\'s favorite artist, was an outstanding member of the Stroganov group. The tsar\'s icon-painters dominated the scene in the second half of the seventeenth century. They found patronage in the so-called *Oruzheinaia Palata* headed by an able and enlightened boyar, Bogdan Khitrovo. The Oruzheinaia Palata began early in the sixteenth century as an arsenal, but, to quote Voyce : \"It became successively a technical, scientific, pedagogical, and art institute, and contained shops and studiosof icon and portrait painting, gold and silversmith work, keeping at the same time its original purpose --- the manufacture of arms.\" The tsar\'s icon-painters developed a monumental style and reflected the influence of the West with its knowledge of perspective and anatomy. Simon Ushakov, who lived approximately from 1626 to 1686, was the school\'s celebrated master. We can still admire his skillful composition and precise execution in such icons as that of Christ the Ruler of the World painted for the cathedral of the Novodevichii Convent in Moscow. Although Russian icon painting in the Muscovite period produced notable works and although its prestige and influence in the entire Orthodox world then reached its height, the school of the tsar\'s icon-painters marked the end of a long road. Ushakov himself has been praised for his remarkable ability to combine Byzantine and Western elements in his art, and the same can be said more modestly of his companions. Before long, the West swept over the East. Secular painting, including portrait painting, had already become popular in Muscovite Russia. After Peter the Great\'s reforms, art in Russia, as well as all of Russian culture, joined the Western world. Icon painting, of course, continued to exist, and on a very large scale, but as a craft rather than a highly creative and leading art. Fresco painting and illumination also prospered in Muscovy. In fact, the second half of the seventeenth century saw a great flowering of fresco painting, which centered in Iaroslavl and spread to other towns in the Volga area. The gigantic scope and the fine quality of the work can best be studied in two churches in Iaroslavl: the church of the Prophet Elijah painted by Gurii Nikitin, Sila Savin, and their thirteen associates, and that of St. John the Baptist, where Dmitrii Grigoriev and fifteen other men painted the frescoes. The frescoes in the last-named church, which were created in 1694-95 and contain approximately 4,200 figures, represent the greatest effort of its kind in the world. Illumination also flourished, as evidenced, for instance, by the 1,269 miniatures ---another 710 spaces remained blank --- of the huge first volume of a sixteenth-century Russian chronicle of the world. In Muscovite frescoes and miniatures, as in icons, Western influences became increasingly apparent. By the end of the seventeenth century all ancient Russian graphic art was being rapidly replaced by the modern art of the West. It might be added in passing that in many other highly-skilled arts and crafts, such as carving, enamel, ceramics, and work with jewelry and precious metals, Muscovite Russia also left a rich legacy. ***Education*** Education in pre-Petrine Russia remains a controversial subject. Estimates of Muscovite enlightenment have ranged from an emphasis on well-nigh total illiteracy and ignorance to assertions that there existed in the realm of the tsars a widespread ability to read, write, and understand Church teachings and practices. The highly skeptical views of Miliukov and other critics appear on the whole rather convincing. Still, in this case, as in so many others, one has to strive for a balanced judgment. The Muscovite culture that we have discussed in this chapter could not have existed without some enlightenment. The enormous Muscovite state, and in particular its numerous bureaucracy, required, as a minimum, some education of officials. More speculative, although not necessarily fantastic, is Vladimirsky-Budanov\'s suggestion that Muscovites, like later Old Believers, generally could read and had thorough knowledge of their religious books. Finally, we do possess considerable direct evidence of education in Muscovite Russia. Some education remained and developed in towns, in the many monasteries, and among the clergy generally. While much of it must have been of an extremely elementary character, more advanced schools appeared in the seventeenth century, especially after the acquisition of Ukraine by Muscovy. In Kiev in Ukraine, which was more open to the West, and where Orthodoxy had to defend itself against Catholicism, Metropolitan Peter Mogila, or Mohila, founded an Academy modeled on Jesuit colleges in 1631. In Moscow in 1648-49, a boyar Theodore Rtishchev built a monastery and invited some thirty Kievan monks to teach Slavonic, Latin, Greek, rhetoric, philosophy, and other disciplines. In 1666 Simeon of Polotsk established a school where he taught Latin and the humanities. After his death the school was re-established by his student, Sylvester Medvedev. In 1683 a school that offered Greek was opened in conjunction with a printing office and eventually contained up to two hundred and thirty students. Later in the 1680\'s the Medvedev and the printing press schools combined to form the Slavonic-Greek-Latin Academy, headed by learned Greek monks, the Lichud brothers, Ioannicius and Sofronius. As planned, the Academy was to protect the faith and to control knowledge as well as disseminate it. While Kiev and Moscow clearly stood out as centers of Russian enlightenment, some relatively advanced teaching also went on in such places as the Holy Trinity-St. Sergius Monastery and the cities of Novgorod and Kharkov. The Muscovite school curriculum resembled closely, at corresponding levels, that of medieval Europe. In particular, it included almost no study of science and technology. Of the humanities, history fared best. In the sixteenth and, especially, the seventeenthcenturies Russian textbooks in such fields as arithmetic, history, and grammar, dictionaries, and even elementary encyclopedias made their appearance, and toward the end of the period Sylvester Medvedev compiled the first Russian bibliography. ***Western Influences. The Beginnings of Selj-Criticism*** Even if we make full allowance for Muscovite enlightenment, the fact remains that in a great many ways Muscovy lagged behind the West. Russia experienced no Renaissance and no Reformation, and it took no part in the maritime discoveries and the scientific and technological advances of the early modern period. Deficienciesbecame most apparent in war and in such practical matters as medicine and mining. They extended, however, intovirtually every field. It should be noted that the Muscovite government showed a continuous and increasing interest in the West and in the many things that it had to offer. Muscovite society too, in spite of all the parochialism and prejudice, began gradually to learn from \"the heretics.\" Diplomacy constituted one obvious contact between the Muscovite state and other European countries. Although we traced the highlights of Russian foreign relations in preceding chapters, we should note here that these relations repeatedly included distant lands, such as England and Holland, as well as neighbors like Poland and Sweden, and that they dealt with many matters. For instance, an English merchant, Sir John Merrick, helped to negotiate the Treaty of Stolbovo between Sweden and Russia. Or, less happily, after the execution of Charles I, Tsar Alexis restricted English traders to Archangel, and he helped the king\'s son, later Charles II, with money and grain. Diplomatic correspondence published by Konova-lov in the *Oxford Slavonic Papers* illustrates well the variety of issues encompassed in Anglo-Russian relations. Many foreigners came to Muscovy and stayed. The number continued to increase after the first large influx in the reign of Ivan III. At the end of the sixteenth century foreigners in Muscovite service could be counted in hundreds, and even thousands if we include Poles, Lithuanians, and Ukrainians, while the foreign section of the tsar\'s army consisted of 2,500 men. The Time of Troubles reduced these numbers, but with the reign of Michael the influx of foreigners resumed. In 1652 Tsar Alexis assigned them a northeastern suburb of Moscow, the so-called *Nemetskaia Sloboda,* or German Suburb. Incidentally, the Russian word for *German, nemets,* derived from the Russian for *dumb, nemoi,* came to mean all Europeans except Slavs and Latins. A visitor in the sixteen-seventies estimated that about eighteen thousand foreigners lived in Muscovy, mostly in the capital, but also in Archangel and other commercial centers, and in mining areas. The importance of the foreign community, in particular for the economic development of the country, far exceeded its numbers. In addition to handling Russia\'s foreign trade, the newcomers began to establish a variety of manufactures and industries. Sir John Merrick, already mentioned as a diplomat, concentrated on producing hemp and tow. Andrew Vinius, a Dutchman, organized the industrial processing of iron ore and built the first modern ironworks in Muscovy. A Swede established a glass factory near Moscow. Others manufactured such items as gunpowder and paper. Second-generation foreigners often proved particularly adept at both the economy of Russia and their own fortunes. Foreigners also acted as military experts, physicians, and other specialists. Slowly the Russians turned to Western ways. In addition to reading and even writing secular stories, constructing baroque buildings, and painting portraits, as indicated above, they began to eat salad and asparagus, to snuff and smoke tobacco in spite of all the prohibitions, and to cultivate roses. Western clothing gained in popularity; some audacious persons also trimmed their hair and beards. In 1664 the postal service appeared, based on a Western model. And in the reign of Tsar Theodore a proposal was advanced to deal with the poor \"according to the new European manner.\" The stage was set for Peter the Great. In conclusion, however, it might be added that the reformer\'s wholesale condemnation of the existing order, although highly unusual, also had certain precedents in the Muscovite past. Not to mention the religious jeremiads, the secular writers often complained that there was no justice in the land even when praising the Muscovite form of government, as in the case of Peresvetov. More radical critics included Prince Ivan Khvorostinin, who died in 1625 and has been described as the first Russian free-thinker, George Krizanic, and Gregory Kotoshikhin. Krizanic, a Croatian and a Catholic priest, spent eighteen years in the realm of the tsars, from 1659 to 1677, and wrote there some nine books on religious, philosophical, linguistic, and political subjects. He combined an extremely high regard for Russia as the natural leader and savior of Slavdom with a sweeping condemnation of its glaring defects and, above all, its abysmal ignorance. Krizanic\'s writings were apparently known to the Russian ruling circles. Kotoshikhin, an official in the foreign office, escaped to Sweden in 1664 after some personal trouble. There --- before being executed in 1667 for the murder of his landlord --- he wrote a sweeping denunciation of his native land. Kotoshikhin emphasized Muscovite pride, deceit, and, again, the isolation and ignorance of the people. As it turned out, the system that he condemned did not long outlast him. **Part V: IMPERIAL RUSSIA** **XX** **THE REIGN OF PETER THE GREAT, 1682-1725** Now an academician, now a hero, Now a seafarer, now a carpenter, He, with an all-encompassing soul, Was on the throne an eternal worker. **PUSHKIN** If we consider the matter thoroughly, then, in justice, we must be called not *Russians,* but *Petrovians....* Russia should be called *Petrovia,* and we *Petrovians...*. **KANKRIN** Peter the Great\'s reign began a new epoch in Russian history, known variously as the Imperial Age because of the new designation of ruler and land, the St. Petersburg Era because of the new capital, or the All-Russian Period because the state came to include more and more peoples other than the Great Russians, that is, the old Muscovites. The epoch lasted for approximately two centuries and ended abruptly in 1917. Although the chronological boundaries of Imperial Russia are clearly marked --- by contrast, for instance, with those of appanage Russia --- the beginning of Peter the Great\'s reign itself can be variously dated. The reformer, who died on February 8,1725, attained supreme power in several stages, and with reversals of fortune: in 1682 as a boy of ten he was proclaimed at first tsar and later that same year co-tsar with his elder half-brother Ivan; in 1689 he, or rather his family and party, regained effective control of the government; in 1694 Peter\'s mother died and he started to rule in fact as well as in name; finally in 1696 Ivan died, leaving Peter the only and absolute sovereign of Muscovy. Therefore, before turning to the celebrated reformer and his activities, we must consider a number of years during which Peter\'s authority remained at best nominal. ***Russian History from 1682 to 1694*** Tsar Alexis had been married twice, to Mary Miloslavskaia from 1648 to 1669, and to Nathalie Naryshkina from 1671 until his death in 1676. He had thirteen children by his first wife, but of the sons only two, Theodore and Ivan, both of them sickly, survived their father. Peter, strong and healthy, was born on June 9, 1672, about a year after the tsar\'s second marriage. Theodore, as we know, succeeded Alexis and died without an heir in 1682. In the absence of a law of succession, the two boyar families, the Miloslavskys and Naryshkins, competed for the throne. The Naryshkins gained an early victory: supported by the patriarch, a majority in the boyar duma, and a gathering of the gentry, Peter was proclaimed tsar in April 1682. Because of his youth, his mother became regent, while her relatives and friends secured leading positions in the state. However, as early as May, the Miloslavsky party, led by Alexis\'s able and strong-willed daughter Sophia, Peter\'s half-sister, inspired a rebellion of the regiments of the streltsy, or musketeers, concentrated in Moscow. Leading members of the Naryshkin clique were murdered --- Peter witnessed some of these murders --- and the Miloslavskys seized power. At the request of the streltsy, the boyar duma declared Ivan senior tsar, allowed Peter to be junior tsar, and, a little later, made Sophia regent. It might be added that the streltsy, strongly influenced by the Old Belief, proceeded to put more pressure on the government and cause further trouble, but in vain: the new regent managed to punish the leaders and control the regiments. From 1682 to 1689 Sophia and her associates governed Muscovy, with Ivan V incapable of ruling and Peter I, together with the entire Naryshkin party, kept away from state affairs. Prince Basil Golitsyn, the regent\'s favorite, played a particularly important role. An enlightened and humane person who spoke several foreign languages and arranged his own home and life in the Western manner, Golitsyn cherished vast projects of improvement and reform including the abolition of serfdom and education on a large scale. He did liberalize the Muscovite penal code, even if he failed to implement his more ambitious schemes. Golitsyn\'s greatest success came in 1686 when Russia and Poland signed a treaty of \"eternal peace\" that confirmed the Russian gains of the preceding decades, including the acquisition of Kiev. Yet the same treaty set the stage for the war against the Crimean Tartars, who were backed by Turkey. This war proved disastrous to Muscovite arms. In 1687 and again in 1689 Golitsyn led a Muscovite army into the steppe only to suffer heavy losses and defeat as the lack of water and the huge distances exhausted his troops, while the Tartars set the grass on fire. Golitsyn\'s military fiasco, together with other accumulating tensions, led to Sophia\'s downfall. As Peter grew older, his position as a tsar without authority became increasingly invidious. Sophia, on her part, realized the insecurity of her office and desired to become ruler in her own right. In 1689 Theodore Shaklovity, appointed by Sophia to command the streltsy, apparently tried to incite his troops to stage another coup, put the regent on the throne, and destroy her opponents. Although the streltsy failed to act, a denouement resulted. Frightened by the report of a plot, Peter escaped in the dead of night from the village of Preobrazhenskoe, near Moscow, where he hadbeen living, to the Holy Trinity-St. Sergius Monastery. In the critical days that followed, the patriarch, many boyars and gentry, the military units trained in the Western manner andcommanded by General Patrick Gordon, and even several regiments of the streltsy, rallied behind Peter. Many others wavered, but did not back Sophia. In the end the sister capitulated to the brother without a fight and was sent to live in a convent. Shaklovity and two of his aides were executed; several other officers and boyars, including Basil Golitsyn, suffered exile. Thus, in August 1689, Peter won acknowledgment as the effective ruler of Russia, although Ivan retained his position as co-tsar. Still, at seventeen, Peter showed no desire to take personal charge of affairs. Instead the government fell into the hands of his mother Nathalie and her associates, notably her brother, the boyar Leo Naryshkin, Patriarch Joachim, and, after his death in 1690, Patriarch Hadrian. The years 1689-94 witnessed the last flowering of Muscovite religiosity, ritualism, parochialism, and suspicion of everything foreign --- it was even forbidden to train troops in the Western manner. But in 1694 Nathalie died, and Peter I finally assumed the direction of the state at the age of twenty-two. ***Peter the Great: His Character, Childhood, and Youth*** The impression that Peter I commonly made on his contemporaries was one of enormous strength and energy. Almost seven feet tall and powerfully built, the tsar possessed astonishing physical strength and vigor. Moreover, he appeared to be in a constant state of restless activity, taking on himself tasks normally done by several men. Few Russians could keep up with their monarch in his many occupations. Indeed, as he walked with rapid giant strides, they had to run even to continue conversation. In addition to his extraordinary physical attributes, Peter I exhibited some remarkable qualities of mind and character. The tsar had an insatiable intellectual curiosity coupled with an amazing ability to learn. He proceeded to participate personally in all kinds of state affairs, technical and special as well as general, becoming deeply involved in diplomacy, administration, justice, finance, commerce, industry, education, and practically everything else besides. In his reforms the tsar invariably valued expert advice, but he was also generally independent in thought and did not hesitate to adapt projects to circumstances. Peter I also developed into an accomplished military and naval commander. He studied the professions of soldier and sailor from the bottom up, serving first in the ranks and learning the use of each weapon before promoting himself to his first post as an officer. The monarch attained the rank of full general after the victory of Poltava and of full admiral after the successful conclusion of the Great Northern War. In addition, the sovereign found time to learn some twenty different trades and prided himself on his ability to make almost anything, from a ship to a pair of shoes. With his own hands he pulled the teeth of his courtiers and cut off their beards. Characteristically, he wanted to be everywhere and see everything for himself, traveling indefatigably around his vast state as no Muscovite monarch had ever done. In a still more unprecedented manner he went twice to the West to learn, in 1697-98 and in 1717. Peter I\'s mind can best be described as active and practical, able quickly to grasp problems and devise solutions, if not to construct theories. As to character, the tsar impressed those around him by his energy, unbending will, determination, and dedication. He recovered quickly from even the worst defeats and considered every obstacle as an invitation to further exertion and achievement. Less attractive, but at times equally imposing, traits included a violent temper, crudeness, and frequent cruelty.The sovereign could be an executioner, as well as a dentist, and his drunken, amorous, and blasphemous pastimes exceeded the measure of the rough times in which he lived. Yet Peter the Great must not be confused with Ivan the Terrible, whom he, incidentally, admired. The reformer never lost himself in the paranoid world of megalomania and delusions of persecution, and he even refused to identify himself with the state. To mention one significant detail, when reforming the army, Peter I crossed out \"the interests of His Tsarist Majesty\" as the object of military devotion and substituted \"the interests of the state.\" Consistently he made every effort to serve his country, to bring to it change and enlightenment. As the sovereign wrote in the last month of his life, in connection with dispatching Vitus Bering\'s first expedition: \"Having ensured the security of the state against the enemy, it is requisite to endeavor to win glory for it by means of the arts and sciences.\" Or, to support Peter the Great\'s emphasis on education with another quotation --- and one especially appropriate in a textbook--- \"For learning is good and fundamental, and as it were the root, the seed, and first principle of all that is good and useful in church and state.\" Although a precocious child, Peter received no systematic education, barely being taught to read and write. Instead, from a very early age he began to pick things up on his own and pursue a variety of interests. He devoted himself in particular to war games with a mixed assortment of playmates. These games, surprisingly enough, developed over a period of years into a serious military undertaking and resulted in the formation of the first two regiments of the guards, the *Preobrazhenskii* --- for Peter lived in the village of Preobrazhenskoe --- and the *Semenovskii,* named after a nearby village. Similarly, the young tsar showed an early interest in the navy. At first he built small vessels, but as early as 1694 he established a dockyard in Archangel and constructed a large ship there all by himself. For information and instruction Peter went to the foreign quarter in Moscow. There he learned from a variety of specialists what he wanted to know most about military and naval matters, geometry and the erection of fortifications. There too, in a busy, informal, and unrestrained atmosphere, the tsar apparently felt much more at ease than in the conservative, tradition-bound palace environment, which he never accepted as his own. The smoking, drinking, love-making, rough good humor, and conglomeration of tongues, first discovered in the foreign quarter in Moscow, became an enduring part of Peter the Great\'s life. The determined attempt of Peter\'s Mother to make him mend his ways by marrying him to Eudoxia Lopukhina in 1689 failed completely to accomplish the desired purpose. ***Peter\'s Assistants*** After Peter took over the conduct of state affairs and began to reform Muscovy, he found few collaborators. His own family, the court circles, and the boyar duma overwhelmingly opposed change. Because he discovered little support at the top of the state structure, and also because he never attached much importance to origin or rank, the sovereign proceeded to obtain assistants wherever possible. Before long an extremely mixed but on the whole able group emerged. To quote Kliuchevsky\'s colorful summary: Peter gathered the necessary men everywhere, without worrying about rank and origin, and they came to him from different directions and all possible conditions: one arrived as a cabin-boy on a Portuguese ship, as was the case of the chief of police of the new capital, de Vière; another had shepherded swine in Lithuania, as it was rumored about the first Procurator-General of the Senate, Iaguzhinsky; a third had worked as a clerk in a small store, as in the instance of Vice-Chancellor Shafirov; a fourth had been a Russian house serf, as in the case of the Vice-Governor of Archangel, the inventor of stamped paper, Kurbatov; a fifth, i.e., Oster-mann, was a son of a Westphalian pastor. And all these men, together with Prince Menshikov, who, the story went, had once sold pies in the streets of Moscow, met in Peter\'s society with the remnants of the Russian boyar nobility. Among foreigners, the tsar had the valuable aid of some of his old friends, such as Patrick Gordon and the Swiss, Francis Lefort, who played a prominent role until his early death in 1699. Later such able newcomers from Germany as the diplomat, Andrew Ostermann, and the military expert, Burkhard Munnich, joined the sovereign\'s entourage. Some of his numerous foreign assistants, for example, the Scot James Bruce who helped with the artillery, mining, the navy and other matters, had been born in Russia and belonged to the second generation of foreign settlers in Muscovy. Russian assistants to Peter ranged over the entire social gamut. Alexander Menshikov, Paul Iaguzhinsky, Peter Shafirov, and Alexis Kurbatov, among others, came from the lower classes. A large group belonged to the service gentry, of whom only two examples are the chief admiral of the reign, Theodore Apraksin, and Chancellor Gabriel Golovkin. Even old aristocratic families contributed a number of important figures, such as Field Marshal Count Boris Sheremetev and Senator Prince Jacob Dolgoruky. The Church too, although generally opposed to reform, supplied some able clerics who furthered the work of Peter the Great. The place of honor among them belongs to Archbishop Theophanes, or Feofan, Prokopovich, who, like many other promoters of change in Russia, came from Ukraine. Of all the \"fledglings of Peter\'s nest\"---to use Pushkin\'s expression --- Menshikov acquired the greatest prominence and power. This son of a corporal or groom, who reportedly was once a pie vendor, came closest to being the sovereign\'s alter ego and participating in the entire range of his activity. Beginning as the boy tsar\'s orderly in the Preobrazhenskii regiment, Menshikov rose to be Generalissimo, Prince in Russia, and Prince of the Holy Roman Empire, to mention only his most outstanding titles. Vain and thoroughly corrupt, as well as able and energetic, he constituted a permanent target for investigations and court proceedings and repeatedly suffered summary punishment from Peter the Great\'s cudgel, but somehow managed to maintain his position. ***The First Years of Peter\'s Rule*** War against Turkey was the first major action of Peter I after he took the government of Russia into his own hands in 1694, following the death of his mother. In fighting Turkey, the protector of the Crimean Tartars and the power controlling the Black Sea and its southern Russian shore, the new monarch followed in the steps of his predecessors. However, before long it became apparent that he managed his affairs differently. The war began in 1695, and the first Russian campaign against Azov failed: supplied by sea, the fortress remained impregnable to the Muscovite army. Then, in one winter, the tsar built a fleet in Voronezh on the Don river. He worked indefatigably himself, as well as ordering and urging others, and utilized to the best advantage the knowledge of all available foreign specialists along with his own previously acquired knowledge. By displaying his tremendous energy everywhere, Peter the Great brought thirty sea-going vessels and about a thousand transport barges to Azov in May 1696. Some of the Russian fleet, it might be noted, had been built as far away as Moscow and assembled in Voronezh. This time besieged by sea as well as by land, the Turks surrendered Azov in July. With a view toward a further struggle against Turkey and a continuing augmentation and modernization of the Russian armed forces, the tsar next sent fifty young men to study, above all shipbuilding and navigation, in Holland, Italy, and England. Peter dispatched groups of Russians to study abroad several more times in his reign. After the students returned, the sovereign often examined them personally. In addition to experts, the tsar needed allies to prosecute war against Turkey. The desire to form a mighty coalition against the Ottoman Empire, and an intense interest in the West, prompted Peter to organize a large embassy to visit a number of European countries and --- a most unusual act for a Muscovite ruler --- to travel with the embassy. Headed by Lefort, the party of about 250 men set out in March 1697. The sovereign journeyed incognito under the name of Peter Mikhailov. His identity, however, remained no secret to the rulers and officials of the countries he visited or to the crowds which frequently gathered around him. The tsar engaged in a number of important talks on diplomatic and other state matters. But, above all, he tried to learn as much as possible from the West. He seemed most concerned with navigation, but he also tried to absorb other technical skills and crafts, together with the ways and manners and, in fact, the entire life of Europe as he saw it. As the so-called Grand Embassy progressed across the continent and as Peter Mikhailov also took trips of his own, most notably to the British Isles, he obtained some first-hand knowledge of the Baltic provinces of Sweden, Prussia, and certain other German states, and of Holland, England, and the Hapsburg Empire. From Vienna the tsar intended to go to Italy, but instead he rushed back to Moscow at news of a rebellion of the streltsy. Altogether Peter the Great spent eighteen months abroad in 1697-98. At that time over 750 foreigners, especially Dutchmen, were recruited to serve in Russia. Again in 1702 and at other times, the tsar invited Europeans of every nationality --- except Jews, whom he considered parasitic --- to come to his realm, promising to subsidize passage, provide advantageous employment, and assure religious tolerance and separate law courts. The streltsy had already caused trouble to Peter and suffered punishment on the eve of the tsar\'s journey to the West --- in fact delaying the journey. Although the new conspiracy that was aimed at deposing Peter and putting Sophia in power had been effectively dealt with before the sovereign\'s return, the tsar acted with exceptional violence and severity. After investigation and torture more than a thousand streltsy were executed, and their mangled bodies were exposed to the public as a salutary lesson. Sophiawas forced to become a nun, and the same fate befell Peter\'s wife, Eudoxia, who had sympathized with the rebels. If the gruesome death of the streltsy symbolized the destruction of the old order, many signs indicated the coming of the new. After he returned from the West, the tsar began to demand that beards be cut and foreign dress be worn by courtiers, officials, and the military. With the beginning of the new century, the sovereign changed the Russian calendar: henceforth years were to be counted from the birth of Christ, not the creation of the world, and they were to commence on the first of January, not the first of September. More important, Peter the Great rapidly proceeded to reorganize his army according to the Western pattern. ***The Great Northern War*** The Grand Embassy failed to further Peter the Great\'s designs against Turkey. But, although European powers proved unresponsive to the proposal of a major war with the Ottomans, other political opportunities emerged. Before long Peter joined the military alliance against Sweden organized by Augustus II, ruler of Saxony and Poland. Augustus II, in turn, had been influenced by Johann Reinhold Patkul, an émigré Livonian nobleman who bore a personal grudge against the Swedish crown. The interests of the allies, Denmark, Russia, and Poland-Saxony --- although, to be exact, Saxony began the war without Poland --- clashed with those of Sweden, which after its extremely successful participation in the Thirty Years\' War had acquired a dominant position on the Baltic and in the Baltic area. The time to strike appeared ripe, for Charles XII, a mere youth of fifteen, had ascended the Swedish throne in 1697. While Peter I concentrated on concluding the long-drawn-out peace negotiations with Turkey, Augustus II declared war on Sweden in January 1700, and several months later Denmark followed his example. On July 14 the Russo-Turkish treaty was finally signed in Constantinople: the Russians obtained Azov and Taganrog as well as the right to maintain a resident minister in Turkey. On August 19, ten days after Peter the Great learned of the conclusion of the treaty with the Porte and the day after he officially announced it, he declared war on Sweden. Thus Russia entered what came to be known as the Great Northern War. Immediately the Russians found themselves in a much more difficult situation than they had expected. Charles XII turned out to be something of a military genius. With utmost daring he crossed the straits and carried the fight to the heart of Denmark, quickly forcing the Danes to surrender. Unknown to Peter, the peace treaty of Travendal marking the Danish defeat and abandonment of the struggle was concluded on the very day on which Russia entered the war. Having disposed of Denmark, the Swedish king promptly attacked the new enemy. Transporting his troops across the Baltic to Livonia, on November 30, 1700, he suddenly assaulted the main Russianarmy that was besieging the fortress of Narva. In spite of the very heavy numerical odds against them the Swedes routed the Russian forces, killing or capturing some ten thousand troops and forcing the remaining thirty thousand to abandon their artillery and retreat in haste. The prisoners included ten generals and dozens of officers. In the words of a recent historian summarizing the Russian performance at Narva: \"The old-fashioned cavalry and irregulars took to flight without fighting. The new infantry levies proved \'nothing more than undisciplined militia,\' the foreign officers incompetent and unreliable. Only the two guards and one other foot regiment showed up well.\" It was believed by some at the time and has been argued by others since that after Narva Charles XII should have concentrated on knocking Russia out of the war and that by acting in a prompt and determined manner he could have accomplished this purpose. Instead, the Swedish king for years underestimated and neglected his Muscovite opponent. Afterlifting the Saxon siege of Riga in the summer of 1701, he transferred the main hostilities to Poland, considering Augustus II his most dangerous enemy. Again Swedish arms achieved notable successes, but for about six years they could not force a decision. In the meantime, Peter made utmost use of the respite he received. Acting with his characteristic energy, the tsar had a new army and artillery ready within a year after the debacle of Narva. Conscription, administration, finance, and everything else had to be strained to the limit and adapted to the demands of war, but the sovereign did not swerve from his set purpose. The melting of church bells to make cannons has remained an abiding symbol of that enormous war effort. Peter I used his reconstructed military forces in two ways: he sent help to Augustus II, and he began a systematic advance in Livonia and Estonia, which Charles XII had left with little protection. Already in 1701 and 1702 Sheremetev at the head of a large army devastated these provinces, twice defeating weak Swedish forces, and the Russians began to establish themselves firmly on the Gulf of Finland. The year 1703 marked the founding of St. Petersburg near the mouth of the Neva. The following year Peter the Great built the island fortress of Kronstadt to protect his future capital, while the Russian troops captured the ancient city of Dorpat, or Iuriev, in Estonia and the stronghold of Narva itself. The tsar rapidly constructed a navy on the Baltic, his southern fleet being useless in the northern war, and the new ships participated effectively in amphibious and naval operations. But time finally ran out for Augustus II. Brought to bay in his own Saxony, he had to sign the Treaty of Altranstadt with Charles XII in late September, 1706: by its terms Augustus II abdicated the Polish crown in favor of pro-Swedish Stanislaw Leszczynski and, of course, withdrew from the war. Peter the Great was thus left alone to face one of the most feared armies and one of the most successful generals of Europe. Patkul, incidentally, was handed over to the Swedes by Augustus II and executed. The Swedish king began his decisive campaign against Russia in January 1708, crossing the Vistula with a force of almost fifty thousand men and advancing in the direction of Moscow. Peter I\'s position was further endangered by the need to suppress rebellions provoked both by the exactions of the Russian government and by opposition to the tsar\'s reforms. In the summer of 1705 a monk and one of the streltsy started a successful uprising in Astrakhan aimed against the upper classes and the foreign influence. It was even rumored in Astrakhan that all Russian girls would be forced to wed Germans, a threat which led to the hasty conclusion of many marriages. The town was recaptured by Sheremetev only in March 1706, after bitter fighting. In 1707 Conrad Bulavin, a leader of the Don cossacks, led a major rebellion in the Don area. Provoked by the government\'s determination to hunt down fugitives and also influenced by the Old Belief, Bulavin\'s movement followed the pattern of the great social uprisings of the past. At its height, the rebellion spread over a large area of southern Russia, including dozens of towns, and the rebel army numbered perhaps as many as one hundred thousand men. As usual in such uprisings, however, this huge force lacked organization and discipline. Government troops managed to defeat the rebels decisively a year or so before the war with Sweden reached its climax in the summer of 1709. Still another rebellion, that of the Turkic Bashkirs who opposed the Russian disruption of their way of life as well as the heavy exactions of the state, erupted in the middle Volga area in 1705 and was not finally put down until 1711. Some historians believe that Charles XII would have won the war had he pressed his offensive in 1708 against Moscow. Instead he swerved south and entered Ukraine. The Swedish king wanted to rest and strengthen his army in a rich land untouched by the fighting before resuming the offensive, and he counted heavily on Hetman Ivan Mazepa, who had secretly turned against his sovereign. His calculations failed: Mazepa could bring only some two thousand cossacks to the Swedish side --- with a few thousand more joining later --- while a general lack of sympathy for the Swedes together with Menshikov\'s energetic and rapid countermeasures assured the loyalty of Ukraine to Peter the Great. Also, Charles XII\'s move south made it easier for a Russian force led by the tsar to intercept and smash Swedish reinforce-ments of fifteen thousand men on October 9, 1708, at Lesnaia. What is more, at Lesnaia the Russians captured the huge supply train which was being brought to Charles. Largely isolated from the people, far from home bases, short of supplies, and unable to advance their cause militarily or diplomatically, the Swedish army spent a dismal, cold winter in 1708-09 in Ukraine. Yet Charles XII would not retreat. The hour of decision struck in the middle of the following summer when the main Russian army finally came to the rescue of the small fortress of Poltava besieged by the Swedes, and the enemies met in the open field. The Swedish army was destroyed on July 8, 1709, in the battle of Poltava. The Swedes, numbering only from 22,000 to 28,000 as against over 40,000 Russians, and vastly inferior in artillery, put up a tremendous fight before their lines broke. Most of them, including the generals, eventually surrendered either on the field or several days later near the Dnieper which they could not cross. Charles XII and Mazepa did escape to Turkish territory. Whereas in retrospect the outcome of Poltava occasions no surprise, it bears remembering that a few years earlier the Swedes had won at Narva against much greater odds and that Charles XII had acquired a reputation as an invincible commander. But, in contrast to the debacle at Narva, Russian generalship, discipline, fighting spirit, and efficiency all splendidly passed the test of Poltava. Peter the Great, who had himself led his men in the thick of battle and been lucky to survive the day, appreciated to the full the importance of the outcome. And indeed he had excellent reasons to celebrate the victory and to thank his captive Swedish \"teachers\" for their most useful \"lessons.\" Yet not long after Poltava the fortunes of Peter I and his state reached perhaps their lowest point. Instigated by France, as well as by Charles XII, Turkey, which had so far abstained from participation in the hostilities, declared war on Russia in 1710. Peter acted rashly, underestimating the enemy and relying heavily on the problematical support of the vassal Ottoman principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia and of Christian subjects of the sultan elsewhere, notably in Serbia and Montenegro. In July 1711, the tsar found himself at the head of an inadequate army in need of ammunition and supplies and surrounded by vastly superior Turkish forces near the Pruth river. Argument persists to this day as to why the Turks did not make more of their overwhelming advantage. Suggested answers have ranged from the weariness and losses of the Turkish troops to skillful Russian diplomacy and even bribery. In any case Peter the Great signed a peace treaty, according to which he abandoned his southern fleet, returned Azov and other gains of 1700 to the Turks, promised not to intervene in Poland, and guaranteed to Charles XII safe passage to Sweden. But, at the price of renouncing acquisitions to the south, he was enabled to extricate himself from a catastrophic situation and retain a dominant hand in the Great Northern War. That war, decided in effect in 1709, dragged on for many more years. After Poltava, the tsar transferred his main effort to the Baltic, seizing Viborg --- or Viipuri --- Riga, and Reval in 1710. St. Petersburg could be considered secure at last. The debacle of Charles XII in Ukraine led to a revival of the coalition against him. Saxony, Poland, Denmark, Prussia, and Hanover joined Russia against Sweden. In new circumstances, Peter the Great developed his military operations along two chief lines: Russian troops helped the allies in their campaigns on the southern shore of the Baltic, while other forces continued the advance in the eastern Baltic area. Thus in 1713-14 the tsar occupied most of Finland. The new Russian navy became ever more active, scoring a victory under Peter\'s direct command over the Swedish fleet off Hango in 1714. It may be worth noting that the sudden rise of Russia came as something of a shock to other European countries, straining relations, for example, between Great Britain and Russia. It also led to considerable fear and worried speculations about the intentions and future steps of the northern giant; this was reflected later in such forgeries as the purported testament of Peter the Great which expressed his, and Russia\'s, aim to conquer the world. In 1717 the tsar traveled to Paris, and, although he failed to obtain any diplomatic results beyond the French promise not to help Sweden, once more he saw and learned much. In December 1718, Charles XII was killed in a minor military engagement in Norway. His sister Ulrika Eleonora and later her husband Frederick I succeeded to the Swedish throne. Unable to reverse the course of the war and, indeed, increasingly threatened, for Peter the Great proceeded to send expeditions into Sweden proper in 1719-21, the Swedes finally admitted defeat and made peace. In 1720-21, by the Treaties of Stockholm, Frederick I reached settlements with Saxony, Poland, Denmark, Prussia, and Hanover, abandoning some islands and territory south of the Baltic, mostly in favor of Prussia. And on August 30, 1721, Sweden concluded the Treaty of Nystadt with Russia. By the provisions of the Treaty of Nystadt Russia acquired Livonia, Estonia, Ingermanland, part of Karelia, and certain islands, although it returned the bulk of Finland and paid two million rix-dollars. In effect it obtained the so-called Baltic provinces which were to become, after the Treaty of Versailles, the independent states of Estonia and Latvia and later the corresponding Soviet republics, only to recover their independence when the Soviet Union collapsed, and also obtained southeastern Finnish borderlands located strategically next to St. Petersburg and the Gulf of Finland. The capture and retention of the fortress of Viborg in particular gave Russia virtual control of the Gulf. At a solemn celebration of the peace settlement the Senate prevailed upon Peter I to accept the titles of \"Great,\" \"Father of the Fatherland,\" and \"Emperor.\" In this manner Russia formally became an empire, and one can say that the imperial period of Russian history was officially inaugurated, even though some European powers took their time in recognizing the new title of the Russian ruler: only Prussia and the Netherlands did so immediately, Sweden in 1723, Austria and Great Britain in 1742, France and Spain as late as 1745. In modern European history the Great Northern War was one of the important wars and Poltava one of the decisive battles. The Russian victory over Sweden and the resulting Treaty of Nystadt meant that Russia became firmly established on the Baltic, acquiring its essential \"window into Europe,\" and that in fact it replaced Sweden as the dominant power in the north of the continent. Moreover, Russia not only humiliated Sweden but also won a preponderant position vis-à-vis its ancient rival Poland, became directly involved in German affairs --- a relationship which included marital alliances arranged by the tsar for his and his half-brother Ivan V\'s daughters --- and generally stepped forth as a major European power. The Great Northern War, and the War of the Spanish Succession fought at the same time, can be regarded as successful efforts to change the results of the Thirty Years\' War and to curb the two chief victors of that conflict, Sweden and France. The settlement in the north, it might be added, turned out to be more durable than that in the west. Indeed, because of the relative sizes, resources, and numbers of inhabitants of Russia and Sweden, Peter the Great\'s defeat of Charles XII proved to be irreversible. ***Foreign Relations: Some Other Matters*** Although the Great Northern War lasted for most of Peter\'s reign and although it had first claim on Russian efforts and resources, the tsar never forgot Turkey or the rest of Asia either. We have noted the two wars that he fought against the Ottomans, the first successful and the second unsuccessful in the midst of the hostilities with Sweden. After Nystadt, the emperor turned south once more, or rather southeast. In 1722-23 he fought Persia successfully, in spite of great difficulties of climate and communication, to obtain a foothold on the western and southern shores of the Caspian sea. This foothold was relinquished by Russia in 1732, shortly after Peter\'s death. Earlier the tsar had shown a considerable interest in Central Asia, its geography, peoples --- particularly the Kazakhs --- and routes, and especially in the possibility of large-scale trade with India. Whereas most of the Russian contacts with Central Asia were peaceful, a tragic exception occurred in 1717 when a considerable force commanded by Prince Alexander Bekovich-Cherkassky was tricked and massacred by the supposedly friendly khan of Khiva.Peter the Great ordered young men to learn Turkish, Tartar, and Persian, assigning them for this purpose to appropriate diplomatic missions. He even established classes in Japanese, utilizing the services of a castaway from that hermit island empire. The tsar sent a mission to Mongolia and maintained diplomatic and commercial relations with China, which resulted in the negotiation of the Treaty of Kiakhta shortly after his death, and in the permanent establishment of an important mission of the Russian Orthodox Church in Peking. He initiated the scholarly study of Siberia; and, indeed, the emperor\'s interest extended even to the island of Madagascar! ***The Reforming of Russia: Introductory Remarks*** In regard to internal affairs during the reign of Peter the Great, we find that scholars have taken two extreme and opposite approaches. On the one hand, the tsar\'s reforming of Russia has been presented as a series, or rather a jumble, of disconnected *ad hoc* measures necessitated by the exigencies of the moment, especially by the pressure of the Great Northern War. Contrariwise, the same activity has been depicted as the execution of a comprehensive, radically new, and well-integrated program. In a number of ways, the first view seems closer to the facts. As Kliuchevsky pointed out, only a single year in Peter the Great\'s whole reign, 1724, passed entirely without war, while no more than another thirteen peaceful months could be added for the entire period. Connected to the enormous strain of war was the inadequacy of the Muscovite financial system, which was overburdened and in a state of virtual collapse even before Peter the Great made vastly increased demands upon it. The problem for the state became simply to survive, and survival exacted a heavy price. Under Peter the Great the population of Russia might have declined. Miliukov, who made a brilliant analysis of Petrine fiscal structure and economy, and other scholars of his persuasion have shown how military considerations repeatedly led to financial measures, and in turn to edicts aiming to stimulate Russian commerce and industry, to changes in the administrative system without whose improvement these and other edicts proved ineffective, to attempts to foster education in whose absence a modern administration could not function, and on and on. It has further been argued, on the whole convincingly, that in any case Peter the Great was not a theoretician or planner, but an intensely energetic and practical man of affairs. Yet a balanced judgment has to allow something to the opposite point of view as well. Although Peter the Great was preoccupied during most of his reign with the Great Northern War and although he had to sacrifice much else to its successful prosecution, his reforming of Russia was by no means limited to hectic measures to bolster the war effort. In fact, he wanted to Westernize and modernize all of the Russian government, society, life, and culture,and even if his efforts fell far short of this stupendous goal, failed to dovetail, and left huge gaps, the basic pattern emerges, nevertheless, with sufficient clarity. Countries of the West served as the emperor\'s model. We shall see, however, when we turn to specific legislation, that Peter did not merely copy from the West, but tried to adapt Western institutions to Russian needs and possibilities. The very number variety of European states and societies offered the Russian ruler a rich initial choice. It should be added that with time Peter the Great became more interested in general issues and broader patterns. Also, while the reformer was no theoretician, he had the makings of a visionary. With characteristic grandeur and optimism he saw ahead the image of a modern, powerful, prosperous, and educated country, and it was to the realization of that image that he dedicated his life. Both the needs of the moment and longer-range aims must therefore be considered in evaluating Peter the Great\'s reforms. Other fundamental questions to be asked about them include their relationship to the Russian past, their borrowing from the West --- and, concurrently, their modification of Western models --- their impact on Russia, and their durability. ***The Army and the Navy*** Military reforms stemmed most directly from the war. In that field Peter the Great\'s measures must be regarded as radical, successful, and lasting, as well as imitative of the West; and he has rightly been considered the founder of the modern Russian army. The emperor\'s predecessors had large armies, but these were poorly organized, technically deficient, and generally of low quality. They assembled for campaigns and disbanded when the campaign ended. Only gradually did \"regular\" regiments, with Western officers and technicians, begin to appear. Even the streltsy, founded by Ivan the Terrible and expanded to contain twenty-two regiments of about a thousand men each, represented a doubtful asset. Stationed mainly in Moscow, they engaged in various trades and crafts and constituted at best a semi-professional force. Moreover, as mentioned earlier, the streltsy became a factor in Muscovite politics, staged uprisings, and were severely punished and then disbanded by Peter the Great. The reformer instituted general conscription and reorganized and modernized the army. The gentry, of course, had been subject to personal military service ever since the formation of the Muscovite state. Under Peter the Great this obligation came to be much more effectively and, above all, continuously enforced. Except for the unfit and those given civil assignments, the members of the gentry were to remain with their regiments for life. Other classes, with the exception of the clergy and members of the merchant guilds, who were needed elsewhere, fell under the draft. Large numbers were conscripted, especially in the early years of the Great Northern War. In 1715 the Senate established the norm of one draftee from every seventy-five serf households. Probably the same norm operated in the case of the state peasants, while additional recruits were obtained from the townspeople. All were to be separated from their families and occupations and to serve for life, a term which was reduced to twenty-five years only in the last decade of the eighteenth century. Having obtained a large body of men, Peter I went on to transform them into a modern army. He personally introduced a new and up-to-date military manual, became proficient with every weapon, and learned to command units from the smallest to the largest. He insisted that each draftee, aristocrat and serf alike, similarly work his way from the bottom up, advancing exactly as fast and as far as his merit would warrant. Important changes in the military establishment included the creation of the elite regiments of the guards, and of numerous other regular regiments, the adoption of the flintlock and the bayonet, and an enormous improvement inartillery. By the time of Poltava, Russia was producing most of its own flintlocks. The Russian army was the first to use the bayonet in attack --- a weapon originally designed for defense against the charging enemy. As to artillery, Peter the Great developed both the heavy siege artillery, which proved very effective in 1704 in the Russian capture of Narva, and, by about 1707, light artillery, which participated in battles alongside the infantry and the cavalry. The Russian victory over Sweden demonstrated the brilliant success of the tsar\'s military reforms. At the time of Peter the Great\'s death the Russian army numbered 210,000 regular troops and 100,000 cossacks who retained their own organization. The select regiments of guards, however, were not only the elite of Peter\'s army; they had, so to speak, grown up with the emperor, and contained many of his most devoted and enthusiastic supporters. Especially in the second half of his reign, Peter the Great frequently used officers and non-commissioned officers of the guards for special assignments, bypassing the usual administrative channels. Often endowed with summary powers, which might include the right to bring a transgressing governor or other high official back in chains, they were sent to speed up the collection of taxes or the gathering of recruits, to improve the functioning of the judiciary or to investigate alleged administrative corruption and abuses. Operating outside the regular bureaucratic structure, these emissaries could be considered as extensions of the ruler\'s own person. Later emperors, such as Alexander I and Nicholas I, continued Peter the Great\'s novel practice on a large scale, relying on special, and usually military, agents to obtain immediate results in various matters and in general to supervise the workings of the government apparatus. To an even greater extent than the army, the modern Russian navy was the creation of Peter the Great. One can fairly say it was one of his passions. He began from scratch --- with one vessel of an obsolete type, to be exact --- and left to his successor 48 major warships and 787 minor and auxiliary craft, serviced by 28,000 men. He also bequeathed to those who followed him the first Russian shipbuilding industry and, of course, the Baltic ports and coastline. Moreover, the navy, built on the British model, had already won high regard by defeating the Swedish fleet. The British considered the Russian vessels comparable to the best British ships in the same class, and the British government became so worried by the sudden rise of the Russian navy that in 1719 it recalled its men from the Russian service. Incidentally, in connection with shipbuilding the emperor introduced forestry regulations in Russia; however, they proved virtually unenforceable. ***Administrative Reforms: Central Government, Local Government, the Church*** Although mainly occupied with military matters, Peter reformed the central and local government in Russia as well as Church administration and finance, and he also effected important changes in Russian society, economy, and culture. Peter I ascended the throne as Muscovite tsar and autocrat --- although, to be sure, until Ivan V\'s death in 1696 the country had two tsars and autocrats --- and he proved to be one of the most powerful and impressive absolute rulers of his age, or any age. Yet comparisons with Ivan the Terrible or otherMuscovite predecessors can be misleading. Whatever the views of earlier tsars concerning the nature and extent of their authority --- and that is a complicated matter --- Peter the Great believed in enlightened despotism as preached and to an extent practiced in Europe during the so-called Age of Reason. He borrowed his definition of autocracy and of the relationship between the ruler and his subjects from Sweden, not from the Muscovite tradition. The very title of *emperor* carried different connotations and associations than that of *tsar.* In contrast to Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great had the highest regard for law, and he considered himself the first servant of the state. Yet, again in accord with his general outlook, he had no use for the boyar duma, or the zemskii sobor, and treated the Church in a much more high-handed manner than his predecessors had. Thus the reformer largely escaped the vague, but nevertheless real, traditional hindrances to absolute power in Muscovy. It was the discarding of the old and the creation of the new governing institutions that made the change in the nature of the Russian state explicit and obvious. In 1711, before leaving on his campaign against Turkey, Peter the Great published two orders which created the Governing Senate. The Senate was founded as the highest state institution to supervise all judicial, financial, and administrative affairs. Originally established only for the time of the monarch\'s absence, it became a permanent body after his return. The number of senators was first set at nine and in 1712 increased to ten. A special high official, the Ober-Procurator, served as the link between the sovereign and the Senate and acted, in the emperor\'s own words, as \"the sovereign\'s eye.\" Without his signature no Senate decision could go into effect; any disagreements between the Ober-Procurator and the Senate were to be settled by the monarch. Certain other officials and a chancellery were also attached to the Senate. While it underwent many subsequent changes, the Senate became one of the most important institutions of imperial Russia, especially in administration and law. In 1717 and the years immediately following, Peter the Great established *collegia,* or colleges, in place of the old, numerous, overlapping, and unwieldy prikazy. The new agencies, comparable to the later ministries, were originally nine in number: the colleges of foreign affairs, war, navy, state expenses, state income, justice, financial inspection and control, commerce, and manufacturing. Later three colleges were added to deal with mining, estates, and town organization. Each college consisted of a president, a vice-president, four councilors, four assessors, a procurator, a secretary, and a chancellery. At first a qualified foreigner was included in every college, but as a rule not as president. At that time collegiate administration had found considerable favor and application in Europe. Peter the Great was especially influenced by the example of Sweden and also, possibly, by Leibniz\'s advice. It was argued that government by boards assured a greater variety and interplay of opinion, since decisions depended on the majority vote, not on the will of an individual, and that it contributed to a strictly legal and proper handling of state affairs. More bluntly, the emperor remarked that he did not have enough trustworthy assistants to put in full charge of the different branches of the executive and had, therefore, to rely on groups of men, who would keep check on one another. The colleges lasted for almost a century before they were replaced by ministries in the reign of Alexander I. Some prikazy, however, lingered on, and the old system went out of existence only gradually.Local government also underwent reform. In 1699 towns were reorganized to facilitate taxation and obtain more revenue for the state. This system, run for the government by merchants, took little into account except finance and stemmed from Muscovite practices rather than Western influences. In 1720-21, on the other hand, Peter the Great introduced a thorough municipal reform along advanced European lines. Based on the elective principle and intended to stimulate the initiative and activity of the townspeople, the ambitious scheme failed to be translated into practice because of local inertia and ignorance. Provincial reform provided probably the outstanding example of a major reforming effort of Peter\'s come to naught. Again, changes began in a somewhat haphazard manner, largely under the pressure of war and a desperate search for money. After the reform of 1708 the country was divided into huge *gubernii,* or governments, eight, ten, and finally eleven in number. But with the legislation of 1719 a fully-developed and extremely Far-reaching scheme appeared. Fifty provinces, each headed by a *voevoda,* became the main administrative units. They were subdivided into *uezdy* administered by commissars. The commissars, as well as a council of from two to four members attached to the voevoda, were to be elected by the local gentry from their midst. All officials received salaries and the old Muscovite practice of *kormleniia* --- \"feedings\" --- went out of existence. Peter the Great went beyond his Swedish model in charging provincial bodies with responsibility for local health, education, and economic development. And it deserves special notice that the reform of 1719 introduced into Russia a separation of administrative and judicial power. But all this proved to be premature and unrealistic. Local initiative could not be aroused, nor suitable officials found. The separation of administration and justice disappeared by about 1727, while some other ambitious aspects of the reform never came into more than paper existence. In the case of local government, Peter the Great\'s sweeping thought could find little or no application in Russian life. The reign witnessed a strengthening of government control in certain borderlands. After the suppression of Bulavin\'s great revolt, the emperor tightened his grip on the Don area, and that territory came to be more closely linked to the rest of Russia. The cossacks, however, did retain a distinct administration, military organization, and way of life until the very end of the Russian empire and even into the Soviet period --- as readers of the novels of Sholokhov realize. Similarly, after Mazepa\'s defection to Charles XII in Ukraine, the government proceeded to tie that land, too, more closely to the rest of the empire. For example, an interesting order in 1714 emphasized the desirability of mixing the Ukrainians and the Russians and of bringing Russian officials into Ukraine, buttressing its argument with references to successful English policies vis-à-vis Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. The change in the organization of the Church paralleled Peter the Great\'s reform of the government. When the reactionary patriarch Hadrian died in 1700, the tsar kept his seat vacant, and the Church was administered for over two decades by a mere *locum tenens,* the very able moderate supporter of reform Metropolitan Stephen Iavorsky. Finally in 1721, the so-called Spiritual Reglament, apparently written mainly by Archbishop Theophanes Prokopovich, established a new organization of the Church. The Holy Synod, consisting of ten, later twelve, clerics, replaced the patriarch. A lay official, the Ober-Procurator of the Holy Synod, was appointed to see that that body carried on its work in a perfectly legal and correct manner. Although the new arrangement fell under the conciliar principle widespread in the Orthodox Church and although it received approval from the Eastern patriarchs, the reform belonged --- as much as did Peter the Great\'s other reforms --- to Western, not Muscovite or Byzantine, tradition. In particular, it tried to reproduce the relationship between Church and state in the Lutheran countries of northern Europe. Although it did not make Russia Byzantine as some writers assert, nor even caesaropapist --- for the emperor did not acquire any authority in questions of faith --- it did enable the government to exercise effective control over Church organization, possessions, and policies. If Muscovy had two supreme leaders, the tsar and the patriarch, only the tsar remained in the St. Petersburg era. The Holy Synod and the domination of the Church by the government lasted until 1917. Peter the Great\'s other measures in the religious domain were similarly conditioned by his general outlook. He considered monks to be shirkers and wastrels and undertook steps to limit ecclesiastical possessions and eventually to control ecclesiastical wealth. On the other hand, he tried to strengthen and broaden Church schools and improve the lot of the impoverished secular clergy. As one might expect, the reformer exhibited more tolerance toward those of other denominations than had his Muscovite predecessors, on the whole preferring Protestants to Catholics. In 1721 the Holy Synod permitted intermarriage between the Orthodox and Western Christians. The emperor apparently felt no religious animosity toward the Old Believers and favored tolerance toward them. They, however, proved to be bitter opponents of his program of reform. Therefore, the relaxation in the treatment of the Old Believers early in the reign gave way to new restrictions and penalties, such as special taxation. An evaluation of the total impact of Peter the Great\'s administrative reforms presents certain difficulties. These reforms copied and adapted Western models, trying to import into Russia the best institutions and practices to be found anywhere in Europe. Efforts to delimit clearly the authority of every agency, to separate powers and functions, to standardize procedure, and to spell out each detail could well be considered revolutionary from the old Muscovite point of view. On the surface at least the new system seemed to bear a greater resemblance to Sweden or the German states than to the realm of the good Tsar Alexis. The very names of the new institutions and the offices and technical terms associated with them testified to a flood of Western influences and a break with the Muscovite past. Yet reality differed significantly from this appearance. Even where reforms survived --- and sometimes, as in the case of the local government, they did not --- the change turned out to be not nearly as profound as the emperor had intended. Statutes, prescriptions, and precise rules looked good on paper; in actuality in the main cities and especially in the enormous expanses of provincial Russia, everything depended as of old on the initiative, ability, and behavior of officials. The kormleniia could be abolished, but not the all-pervasive bribery and corruption. Personal and largely arbitrary rule remained, in sum, the foundation of Russian administration; all the more so because despite the reformer\'s frantic efforts the new system, which was much too complicated to be discussed here with anything approaching completeness, lacked integration, co-ordination, and cohesion. In fact a few scholars, such as Platonov, have argued that the administrative order established by Peter the Great proved to be more disjointed and disorganized than that of Muscovite Russia. ***Financial and Social Measures*** The difficulty of transforming Russian reality into something new and Western becomes even more evident when we consider Peter the Great\'s social legslation and his overall influence on Russian society. Before turning to this topic, however, we must mention briefly the emperor\'s financial policies, for they played an important and continuous part in his plans and actions. Peter the Great found himself constantly in dire need of money, and at times the need was utterly desperate. The only recourse was to squeeze still more out of the Russian masses, who were already overburdened and strained almost to the breaking point. According to one calculation, the revenue the government managed to exact in 1702 was twice, and in 1724 five and a half times, the revenue obtained in 1680. In the process it taxed almost everything, including beehives, mills, fisheries, beards, and bath houses; and it also extended the state monopoly to new items. For example, stamped paper, necessary for legal transactions, became an additional source of revenue for the state, and so did oak coffins. In fact, finding or concocting new ways to augment government funds developed into a peculiar kind of occupation in the course of the reign. Another and perhaps more significant change was in the main form of direct taxation; in 1718 Peter the Great introduced the head, or poll, tax in place of the household tax and the tax on cultivated land. One purpose of the head tax was to catch shirkers who combined households or failed to till their land. It was levied on the entire lower class of population and it represented a heavy assessment --- considerably heavier than the taxes that it replaced. Set at seventy or eighty kopecks per serf and at one ruble twenty kopecks for each state peasant and non-exempt townsman, the new tax had to be paid in money. From 1718 to 1722 a census, a so-called revision, of the population subject to the head tax took place. On private estates, serfs and those slaves who tilled the soil were registered first. Next came orders to add t