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Personal Observations and
Recollections of Peter the
Great
Sources: George Vernadsky,
ed., A Source Book for Russian History From Early Times to 1917, v. 1
(New Haven, 1972); and James Harvey Robinson, ed., Readings in European History, 2 Vols. (Boston: Ginn and Co., 1904-1906), Vol. II: From the opening of the Protestant
Revolt to the Present Day, pp. 303-312, scanned by Jerome S. Arkenberg, California State Fullerton (the text has been
modernized by Prof. Arkenberg) as part of the Internet
Modern History Sourcebook.
The following is a sample of brief descriptions of the Tsar by six
foreign observers:
1)
Bishop Burnet, Peter the Great 1698 (from Robinson/Arkenberg)
Bishop Gilbert Burnet (1643-1715), a Scottish philosopher and historian and Bishop
of Salisbury; Burnet was highly respected as a cleric, preacher, and an academic,
as well as a writer and historian. This account of Peter the Great’s stay in
England in 1698 comes from Burnet’s “History
of My Own Time,” which he began writing
in 1683 and was published posthumously in two parts in 1724 and 1734.
I mentioned in the relation of the
former year [1698] the Tsar's coming out of his own country; on which I will
now enlarge. He came this winter over to England and stayed some months among
us. I waited often on him, and was ordered by both the king and the archbishops
and bishops to attend upon him and to offer him such information of our
religion and constitution as he was willing to receive. I had good
interpreters, so I had much free discourse with him. He is a man of very hot
temper, soon inflamed and very brutal in his passion. He raises his natural
heat by drinking much brandy, which he rectifies himself with great
application. He is subject to convulsive motions all over his body, and his
head seems to be affected with these. He wants not capacity, and has a larger
measure of knowledge than might be expected from his education, which was very
indifferent. A want of judgment, with an instability of temper, appear in him
too often and too evidently.
He is mechanically turned, and seems
designed by nature rather to be a ship carpenter than a great prince. This was
his chief study and exercise while he stayed here. He wrought much with his own
hands and made all about him work at the models of his ships. He told me he
designed a great fleet at Azov to attack the Turkish [Ottoman] Empire. But he
did not seem capable of conducting so great a design, though his conduct in his
wars since this has discovered a greater genius in him than appeared at this
time.
He was desirous to understand our
doctrine, but he did not seem disposed to mend matters in Muscovy. He was,
indeed, resolved to encourage learning and to polish his people by sending some
of them to travel in other countries and to draw strangers to come and live
among them. He seemed apprehensive still of his sister's intrigues. There was a
mixture both of passion and severity in his temper. He is resolute, but
understands little of war, and seemed not at all inquisitive that way.
After I had seen him often, and had
conversed much with him, I could not but adore the depth of the providence of
God that had raised up such a furious man to so absolute an authority over so
great a part of the world. David, considering the great things God had made for
the use of man, broke out into the meditation, "What is man, that you are
so mindful of him?" But here there is an occasion for reversing these
words, since man seems a very contemptible thing in the sight of God, while
such a person as the tsar has such multitudes put, as it were, under his feet,
exposed to his restless jealousy and savage temper.
He went from hence to the court of
Vienna, where he purposed to have stayed some time, but he was called home
sooner than he had intended upon a discovery, or a suspicion, of intrigues
managed by his sister. The strangers, to whom he trusted most, were so true to
him that those designs were crushed before he came back. But on this occasion
he let loose his fury on all whom he suspected. Some hundreds of them were
hanged all around Moscow, and it was said that he cut off many heads with his
own hand; and so far was he from relenting or showing any sort of tenderness
that he seemed delighted with it. How long he is to be the scourge of that
nation God only knows.
2)
Von Korb, Diary 1698-99
(from Robinson/Arkenberg)
Johan
Georg Von Korb (dates of birth and death unknown), a
secretary to the Austrian ambassador to Russia who lived in Moscow 1698-1699
and wrote of his impressions in “Diary
of a Journey to Muscovy” soon thereafter.
How sharp was the pain, how great the indignation,
to which the tsar's Majesty was mightily moved, when he knew of the rebellion
of the Streltsi [the Muscovite Guard],
betraying openly a mind panting for vengeance! He [Peter] was still tarrying at
Vienna, quite full of the desire of setting out for Italy; but, fervid as was
his curiosity of rambling abroad, it was, nevertheless, speedily extinguished
on the announcement of the troubles that had broken out in the bowels of his
realm. Going immediately to Lefort[1]
(almost the only person that he condescended to treat with intimate
familiarity), he thus indignantly broke out: “Tell me, Francis, son of James,
how I can reach Moscow by the shortest way, in a brief space, so that I may
wreak vengeance on this great perfidy of my people, with punishments worthy of
their abominable crime. Not one of them shall escape with impunity. Around my
royal city, which, with their impious efforts, they planned to destroy, I will
have gibbets[2]
and gallows set upon the walls and ramparts, and each and every one of them
will I put to a direful death." Nor did he long delay the plan for his
justly excited wrath; he took the quick post, as his ambassador suggested, and in
four weeks' time he had got over about three hundred miles without accident,
and arrived the 4th of September, 1698—a monarch for the
well-disposed, but an avenger for the wicked.
His first anxiety after his arrival was about the
rebellion—in what it consisted, what the insurgents meant, who dared to
instigate such a crime. And as nobody could answer accurately upon all points,
and some pleaded their own ignorance, others the obstinacy of the Streltsi, he began to have suspicions of everybody's
loyalty. . . No day, holy or profane, were the inquisitors idle; every day was
deemed fit and lawful for torturing. There were as many scourges as there were
accused, and every inquisitor was a butcher. . .The
whole month of October was spent in lacerating the backs of culprits with the
knout and with flames; no day were those that were left alive exempt from
scourging or scorching; or else they were broken upon the wheel,[3]
or driven to the gibbet, or slain with the axe. . .
To prove to all people how holy and inviolable are
those walls of the city which the Streltsi
rashly meditated scaling in a sudden assault, beams were run out from all the
embrasures in the walls near the gates, in each of which two rebels were
hanged. This day beheld about two hundred and fifty die that death. There are
few cities fortified with as many palisades as Moscow has given gibbets to her
guardian Streltsi. In front of the nunnery
where Sophia [Peter's sister] was confined there were thirty gibbets erected in
a quadrangle shape, from which there hung two hundred and thirty Streltsi; the three principal ringleaders, who
tendered a petition to Sophia touching the administration of the realm, were
hanged close to the windows of that princess, presenting, as it were, the
petitions that were placed in their hands, so near that Sophia might with ease
touch them.
3)
Whitworth on Peter the Great (from Vernadsky)
Charles Whitworth (1675-1725), served as a
British envoy in Russia from 1704-1710 and remained there at least until 1712.
His recollection of Peter comes from his “Account of Russia as it was in the Year 1710,” which was
not published until 1758 but nonetheless influenced British views of Russia for
much of the century.
The present tsar is in his thirty-eighth year [i.e. 1710], a
handsome prince of a strong constitution, but of late much broke by irregular
living, and other fatigues. . . . He is good-natured, but very passionate,
though by degrees he has learnt to contain himself, except [when] the heat of
wine is added to his natural temper; he is certainly ambitious, though very
modest in appearance; suspicious of other people; not overly scrupulous in his
engagements, or gratitude; violent in the first heat, irresolute on longer
deliberation, not rapacious, but near in his temper and expense to extremity;
he loves his soldiers, understands navigation, ship-building, fortification,
and fire-working. He speaks High-Dutch pretty readily, which is now
growing as the Court language. He is very particular in his way of
living; when at Moscow, he never lodges in the palace, but in a little wooden
house built for him in the suburbs as Colonel of his guards. He had
neither court, equipage or other distinction from a private officer except when
he appears on public solemnities.
4)
Peter Henry Bruce on Peter the Great's
rejoicing after the birth of his son Peter in 1715 (from Vernadsky)
Peter Henry
Bruce (1692-1757), a Scottish soldier who served as an advisor to
the Russian Army from 1711-24; these excerpts are taken from his Memoirs written in 1755 and first printed in London
in 1782.
These rejoicings were followed by a kind of carnival; the
tsar having united the great church and the great revenues belonging to it to
the crown, and to render the character of the Patriarch ridiculous in the eyes
of the people, appointed Zotov, his court jester, now
in the eighty-fourth year of his age, mock-patriarch, who, on this occasion,
was married to a buxom widow of thirty-four, and the nuptials of the
extraordinary couple were celebrated in masquerade by about four hundred
persons of both sexes, every four persons having their proper dress and
peculiar musical instruments; the persons appointed to invite the company were
four of the greatest stammerers in the kingdom; the
four running footmen were the most unwieldy, gouty, fat men, that could be
found; the bride-men, stewards, and waiters were very old men; and the priest
that joined them in marriage was upwards of one hundred years old. The
procession was in the following order: . . . then followed Knez
Romadanoffski, the farcical tsar, who represented
King David in his dress, but instead of a harp, had a lyre, covered with a
bear-skin, to play upon; and he being the chief character in the show, his
sledge was made in imitation of a throne, and he had King David's crown upon
his head, and four bears, one at each corner, tied to his sledge, by way of
footmen, and one behind, standing and holding the sledge with his two paws; the
bears being all the while pricked with goads, which made them roar in a
frightful manner; then the bridegroom and bride, on an elevated sledge made on
purpose, surrounded with Cupids holding each a large horn in his hand; on the
fore-part of the sledge was placed by way of coachman, a ram with very large
horns; and behind was a he-goat . . .; behind them
followed a number of other sledges, drawn by different kinds of animals, four
to each, as rams, goats, deer, bulls, bears, dogs, wolves, swine, and asses. .
. . The procession no sooner began to move, than all the bells of the city
began to ring, and all the drums of the fort, toward which they were advancing,
began to beat upon the ramparts; the different animals were forced to make a
noise; all the company playing upon, or rattling their different instruments,
and altogether made such a terrible confused noise, that it is past
description. The tsar, with his three companions, prince Menzikov, and the counts Apraxin
and Bruce, were clad like Friesland boors, each with a drum. . . . The carnival
lasted ten days, the company going every day from one house to another, at each
of which tables were spread with all sorts of cold meat, and with such
abundance of strong liquors everywhere, that there scarce was a sober person to
found during that time in St. Petersburg. . . .
It was an invariable maxim with
the tsar to reward merit wherever he found it: after a victory by sea or land,
every officer was presented with a gold chain and medal, of a value
proportioned to his rank, and every soldier a silver one, or a month's pay in
lieu of it; and the officer who had distinguished himself out of the common way
had the first promotion: on the other hand, the soldier or officer who had
misbehaved was punished with great severity. The tsar took no notice of people
on account of their high birth and family, but promoted merit in every station,
even in the meanest plebian, saying that high birth was only by chance, and if
not accompanied by merit ought not to be regarded. History scarce affords
an example where so many people of low birth have been raised to such high
dignities as in tsar Peter's reign, or where so many of the highest birth and
fortune have been levelled to the lowest ranks in life.
5)
J. G. Vockerodt
on Peter the Great's desire to build a powerful Navy for Russia (from Vernadsky)
J.
G. Vockerodt (dates of birth and death
unknown), spent many years in Russia as secretary of the Prussian delegation
and wrote a history in German, “Russia
Under Peter the Great,” from which this brief excerpt is taken; although not
published until much later (19th century) the work was probably
written in the early 1720s.
There was no undertaking on which Peter I himself worked with
greater zeal and personal care and effort than the establishment of the
fleet. In all other affairs he contented himself with examining the
general plan and left the details to those whom he charged with its execution;
but in anything that concerned the navy he entered into the minutest detail,
and nothing ever happened in his admiralties—not a nail would be driven
in—without it being referred to him for approval. Not a day went by
without his spending several hours at the Admiralty or at the dockyards, and if
something had to be attended to there, all other affairs were put aside.
No victory on land could give him greater pleasure than the smallest advantage
gained by his warships or galleys. He celebrated the capture of one poor
frigate and six worthless galleys with a solemn triumph and with many other
expressions of joy quite out of proportion with the event. When his
galleys captured four Swedish frigates at Grenham
[this occurred July 27, 1720], he ordered a big victory monument to be erected
in the shape of a pyramid in front of the Senate at St. Petersburg. At
the same time, nothing would cause him more acute distress than the slightest
misfortune to his ships, and God have mercy on him to whom it could in any way
be imputed!
6) Jean Rousset de Missy from Life of Peter
the Great, c. 1730 (from Robinson/Arkenberg)
Jean Rousset de Missy (1686-1762), was a French writer, renowned historian, and author
on international law as well as a prolific journalist. This account
comes from his “Memoirs on the Reign of
Peter the Great, Emperor of Russia,”
published in Amsterdam in 1730.
The
tsar labored at the reform of fashions, or, more properly speaking, of dress.
Until that time the Russians had always worn long beards, which they cherished
and preserved with much care, allowing them to hang down on their bosoms,
without even cutting the moustache. With these long beards they wore the hair
very short, except the ecclesiastics, who, to distinguish themselves, wore it
very long. The tsar, in order to reform that custom, ordered that gentlemen,
merchants, and other subjects, except priests and peasants, should each pay a
tax of one hundred rubles a year if they wished to keep their beards; the
commoners had to pay one kopek each. Officials were stationed at the gates of
the towns to collect that tax, which the Russians regarded as an enormous sin
on the part of the tsar and as a thing which tended to the abolition of their
religion.
These
insinuations, which came from the priests, occasioned the publication of many
pamphlets in Moscow, where for that reason alone the tsar was regarded as a
tyrant and a pagan; and there were many old Russians who, after having their
beards shaved off, saved them preciously, in order to have them placed in their
coffins, fearing that they would not be allowed to enter heaven without their
beards. As for the young men, they followed the new custom with more readiness
as it made them appear more agreeable to the fair sex.
From
the reform in beards we may pass to that of clothes. Their garments, like those
of the Orientals, were very long, reaching to the heel. The tsar issued an
ordinance abolishing that costume, commanding all the boyars [nobles]
and all those who had positions at court to dress after the French fashion, and
likewise to adorn their clothes with gold or silver according to their means.
As for the rest of the people, the following method was employed. A suit of
clothes cut according to the new fashion was hung at the gate of the city, with
a decree enjoining upon all except peasants to have their clothes made on this
model, upon penalty of being forced to kneel and have all that part of their
garments which fell below the knee cut off, or pay two grives every
time they entered the town with clothes in the old style. Since the guards at
the gates executed their duty in curtailing the garments in a sportive spirit,
the people were amused and readily abandoned their old dress, especially in
Moscow and its environs, and in the towns which the tsar often visited.
The
dress of the women was changed, too. English hairdressing was substituted for
the caps and bonnets hitherto worn; bodices, stays, and skirts, for the former
undergarments. . . The same ordinance also provided that in the future women,
as well as men, should be invited to entertainments, such as weddings,
banquets, and the like, where both sexes should mingle in the same hall, as in
Holland and England. It was likewise added that these entertainments should
conclude with concerts and dances, but that only those should be admitted who
were dressed in English costumes. His Majesty set the example in all these
changes. . .
[1] Franz Lefort (1655-1699), a Russian military leader (General Admiral as of 1695) of Swiss origin and a close associate of Peter the Great.
[2] A “gibbet” could be any instrument of public execution (executioner's block, impalement stake, hanging gallows or related scaffold, etc.), but here Peter is probably referring to the use of a gallows-type structure from which the dead or dying bodies of executed persons were hanged on public display to deter others from following their actions.
[3] The breaking wheel, also known as simply the wheel, was a torture device used for capital punishment from antiquity into early modern times for public execution by breaking the criminal's bones/bludgeoning him to death.