Peter the Great, Tsar of Russia (Renaissance & Reformation)

Introduction

The reign of Peter I of Russia (between the years 1682 and 1689 and continuing until 1725) and its impact on Russian development are among the most studied and most controversial topics in early modern Russian history. His reign is often portrayed as instrumental in dragging a “backward” Russia into the modern European world through profound cultural and military reform. Those years have also been castigated as the apotheosis of statism, years of progress through coercion that retained the fundamental principles of the traditional regime and strengthened the grip of serfdom (Anisimov 1993 and Kamenskii 1997, both cited under Question of Reform). After the seven-year regency of his half-sister, Peter claimed power in 1689 with his joint-tsar and brother. The reform of the Russian army and the creation of a navy were Peter’s dominant concerns. The army conquered the Ottoman Black Sea fort of Azov on a second try in 1696, with the help of a newly formed navy. Peter’s 1698 trip to Europe did not support continued war against the Porte, but led to the creation of an anti-Swedish coalition among Russia, Denmark, and Poland-Lithuania/Saxony. The lengthy Great Northern War against Sweden, 1700–1721, began disastrously in 1700 but concluded with military victory (most notably at Poltava in 1709) and with growing European acknowledgement of Russia’s importance. Even in the midst of war, Peter and his inner coterie launched reforms intended to systematize Russian national administrative and military life. Until after the 1711 Russian loss to the Ottomans, the rapidity of change, the turnover of personnel, and the overlap of new and old institutions often undermined the implementation and effectiveness of reform. Thereafter, reforms restructured the central and local government, often adapting Swedish models, introduced the infamous soul tax, developed state-sponsored manufacturing, and reformed the Orthodox Church. Cultural norms for the elite also changed as Peter insisted on the Europeanization of education, cultural forms, and gender roles. The onslaught of reform from above met resistance and rebellion. There was armed rebellion among the Bashkirs, led by Bulavin. At court, blatant disregard for established conceptions of elite collaboration with the Crown led many to support Peter’s son, Aleksei, as an alternative to his father. Political police and fiscal enforcers became entrenched, even as the maturing of a generation raised in service to a reformed state helped to balance the political system. From outside the machinery of state, such efforts entrenched serfdom and solidified a developing absolutism. They also transformed Russia culturally, socially, and politically, not always following in Europe’s footsteps, but fully “glorious” in the 18th century sense; Peter became and remained a symbol of national achievement and power.

Biographies

Peter himself, his administration, and his contemporaries left extensive records; interest in Peter’s activities as man and reformer was immediate and lasting. One of Peter’s earlier biographers was Voltaire; since then historical analyses and popular accounts of both the man and his reign have abounded. There are earlier Russian-language works that remain valuable, but this entry concentrates on recent biographies. Wittram 1964 presents Peter as a successful reformer, rationalizing and systematizing, and as an Enlightenment figure. N. I. Pavlenko’s earlier work conforms to the Soviet pattern of praising Peter’s military and modernizing exploits, while condemning the heavy burdens, both financial and military, imposed on the population as a result. His most recent biography takes a somewhat different tack (Pavlenko 1994). In the post-Soviet era, biographies and overviews of Peter’s reign have mustered a diverse challenge to the statist approach. Anisimov 1993 and Hughes 1998 (cited under the Question of Reform), discuss Peter’s reforms in the light of his complicated and contradictory personality and family life. Bushkovitch 2001 frames the author’s discussion of Peter himself and of Petrine reforms with an understanding of the clan-based functioning of the Russian courts before and during the Petrine era. Popular biographies of Peter, however, tend to rely on the anecdotal, following the lead of much earlier accounts of Peter’s reign.

Bushkovitch, Paul. Peter the Great: The Struggle for Power, 1671–1725. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511496691Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Bushkovitch offers a careful examination of the Petrine era, primarily through the lens of Petrine court politics. Peter’s careful and not always successful efforts at reform had ultimately to be negotiated with the Empire’s political elite as he (and they) struggled to realize their ambitions and expectations within a developing new structure.
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Pavlenko, Nikolaj I. Petr Velikii. Moscow: Mysl, 1994.
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Pavlenko is perhaps the dean of Soviet scholars of Peter. This volume is Pavlenko’s post-Soviet contribution. The author sees inevitability in the Petrine reforms. Elsewhere in Pavlenko’s work, the various activities of Peter’s associates and Peter’s own vision of political power are of particular interest.
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Wittram, Reinhard. Peter I: Czar und Kaiser; Zur Geschichte Peters des grossen in seiner Zeit. 2 vols. Göttingen, Germany: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1964.
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Wittram’s judgment of Peter and his impact is largely positive, emphasizing as he does the rationalizing and systematizing elements of the reforms.
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Primary Sources

The non-archival primary sources dealing with the Petrine era are extensive, by comparison with previous eras of Russian history. In the sections here, the more important of the emperor’s Personal and State Papers that are in print have been indicated. Another valuable source of contemporary commentary on the period comes from foreigners serving in Russia and Russians serving their government outside of the country (see Memoir Literature by Non-Russians and Memoir Literature by Russians).

Personal and State Papers

The tsar-emperor left personal notes and letters, as well as extensive official legal and administrative documents. Many are reproduced in Russian in Pis’ma i bumagi imperatora Petra Velikogo (The letters and papers of Peter the Great), thirteen volumes to date covering the years 1688–1713. Some legislative and other documents are in Voskresenskii 1970; while other writings, such as Prokopovich’s commentary on Peter’s Law on Imperial Succession (see particularly Lentin 1996, Shafirov 1973, and Pososhkov 2000) have appeared in English translation. The Petrine Military Statute of 1716 (in Russian) appears as part of the Electronic Library provided by Moscow State University’s history faculty. A broad selection of personal and state materials important for the writing of Peter’s life was compiled by M. M. Bogoslovskii and reprinted in a five-volume Russian edition (see Bogoslovskii 2007).

Bogoslovskii, Mikhail M. Petr I: Materialy dlia biografiii. Moscow: Tsentropoligraf, 2007.
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The five volumes cover only the beginning of Peter’s career, through 1700. The volumes have a strongly, but not exclusively, military and diplomatic focus—the Azov campaigns, the strelets rebellion, the Treaty of Karlowitz, preparations for the Great Northern War, the Constantinople Embassy. The original was printed in 1920. Also available as five volumes from The Hague: Slavistic Printings and Reprintings, 1969.
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History Faculty. Electronic Library. Moscow State University.
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The history faculty of Moscow State University’s library includes fourteen Petrine regulations under the category “On the History of Russia from the 18th through the Early 20th Centuries.” These include the Military Statute of 1716, which drew significantly on foreign sources. The document offers an ethos for the early 18th-century military.
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Lentin, Anthony, ed. Peter the Great: His Law on the Imperial Succession in Russia, 1722; The Official Commentary. Translated by Anthony Lentin. Oxford: Headstart History, 1996.
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The translation of Archbishop Feofan Prokopovich’s response to Peter’s Law on Imperial Succession (The Justice of the Monarch’s Right to Appoint an Heir to the Throne) is supported by a helpful introductory essay. Also listed in Political Ideology and Monarchical Power.
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Peter the Great. Pis’ma i bumagi imperatora Petra Velikogo. 13 vols. Moscow and Saint Petersburg: Gos. tip., 1887–2003.
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Published in parts by multiple imprints, this series began with the consent of Emperor Alexander I; the voluminous transcription of documents on which it is based continued throughout the Imperial period, and the remaining volumes, except Volume 13, Part 2 were published in the USSR. Volume 13 surveys 1713. The collection covers many topics, especially diplomatic and military ones, including much more than just Peter’s own writing. Much of the recent material appears in print for the first time.
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Pososhkov, Ivan T. The Book of Poverty and Wealth. Edited by A. P. Vlasto and L. R. Lewitter. London: Althone, 2000.
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Writing in the midst of the Petrine reforms, Pososhkov is usually given credit for the first systematic economic treatise in Russian/by a Russian. His rational economic discourse is colored and framed by his religious worldview; he was himself associated with the Old Belief. A recent reprint of the 1948 Russian edition is: Pososhkov, Ivan T., Kniga o skudosti i bogatstve i drugie sochinennia. Edited by B. B. Kafengauz. Moscow: Nauka, 2004. The English translation cited here is accompanied by an excellent bibliography.
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Shafirov, Baron Peter P. A Discourse Concerning the Just Causes of the War between Sweden and Russia, 1700–1721. Dobbs Ferry: Oceana, 1973.
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Peter’s able vice chancellor describes and justifies, with Peter’s help, recent Russian exploits, and particularly the character of Russia’s acceptance by European powers.
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Voskresenskii, N. A. Zakonodatel’nye akty Petra I. Edited by B. I. Syromiatnikov. Ann Arbor, MI: University Microfilms, 1970.
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This 600-page volume does not just reprint Petrine laws, many of which have appeared elsewhere, but it traces the origins of Petrine legislative projects. First published in 1945.
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Memoir Literature by Non-Russians

The memoir literature for the Petrine era is rich and valuable. Foreigners acted as advisors to the Russian army and government, especially in the early years of the reign (see Bruce 1970, Gordon 2009–2013, and Perry 1968). Others wrote as observers at court and elsewhere (among them, see Korb 1968 and Weber 1968).

Bruce, Peter Henry. Memoirs of Peter Henry Bruce, Esq.: A Military Officer in the Services of Prussia, Russia and Great Britain; Containing an Account of His Travels. Boston: DaCapo, 1970.
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The account of a prominent foreign military officer whose memoirs largely deal with his service to the Russian crown, with considerable detail about the Great Northern War. The original 1783 edition is reproduced online.
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Gordon, Patrick. The Memoirs of General Patrick Gordon of Auchleuchries. Edited by DM. Fedosov. 4 vols. Aberdeen, Scotland: AHRC Centre for Irish and Scottish Studies, 2009–2013.
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This is the most accurate and complete edition in English, the original language. The fourth volume covers the author’s earliest encounters with Peter and offers a lively and detailed account of the author’s military activities, which set the stage for the Petrine reforms. The Memoirs are also available in Russian and German translations.
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Korb, Johann Georg. Diary of an Austrian Secretary of Legation at the Court of Czar Peter the Great. Translated and edited by Count MacDonnell. Boston: DaCapo, 1968.
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The writer lived in Moscow in 1699; his account includes material on the execution of the musketeers who rebelled in 1698.
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Perry, Captain John. The State of Russia under the Present Tsar. Boston: DaCapo, 1968.
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John Perry worked in Russia as a naval adviser for fourteen years, beginning with building the fleet to attack Azov; the account is enlivened by his (often negative) observations about Russia and often positive remarks about the Tsar.
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Weber, Friedrich Christian. The Present State of Russia. Boston: DaCapo, 1968.
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Weber was the English representative at Peter’s court from 1714–1719; he himself was from Hanover. His description of Russia is very broad, not only about Peter and his reforms, but also about life in the Russia of the day. The memoir was originally printed as Veränderte Russland. A copy of the first English-language publication is digitized online.
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Memoir Literature by Russians

The practice of writing memoirs was new to Russia in the early 18th century. Some prominent Russians recorded their experiences over periods when they were outside of Russia, either when they were sent to study or later on diplomatic assignments (see Tolstoi 1987, Kurakin 1890–1901, and Nepliuev 1893). Further works in this category appear in Diplomats in Action.

Kurakin, Boris Ivanovich. “Zhizn kniazia Borisa Ivanovicha Kurakina im samim opsiannaia.” Arkhiv kniazia F. A. Kurakina. 10 vols. Compiled by the Kurakin family, I: 241–287. Saint Petersburg: Tip. V. S. Balasheva, 1890–1901.
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Prince B. I. Kurakin (1676–1727), the first 18th-century Russian memoirist, here offers a highly self-conscious account of his early life and travels. The prince spent much of his professional life as a diplomat in foreign courts, a fact reflected in his “modern” vocabulary and approach. An English translation is anticipated. See also his “Dnevnik i putevye zametki kniazia Borisa Ivanovicha Kurakina, 1705‒1710,” pp. 101‒240.
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Nepliuev, Ivan Ivanovich. Zapiski Ivana Ivanovicha Nepliueva, 1693–1773. Saint Petersburg: Izd. A. S. Suvorina, 1893.
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Nepliuev was not sent abroad to study until 1715, much later than Kurakin and Tolstoi, who were among the first to go.
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Tolstoi, Petr Andreevich. Travel Diary of Peter Tolstoi: A Muscovite in Modern Europe. Translated by Max Okenfuss. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1987.
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Count Tolstoi was sent to Europe to study naval affairs in 1697 and ordered home in 1699. Memoirs of his later life when he was a Russian representative to the Ottoman court are published elsewhere and cited under Diplomats in Action.
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The Question of Reform

The nature and impact of Peter’s many reforms are a primary focus in the history of his reign. A number of excellent recent works discuss the various reforms, analyze the Petrine changes in the light of the previous and following reigns, and challenge interpretations dating from the Cold War era. Hughes 1998 offers a chapter-by-chapter discussion of the individual elements of the Petrine reforms, analyzing them through the lens of the Russian past; this perspective considerably moderates some claims of radical change in the Petrine era. Cracraft 2003 also offers an overview of Peter’s reforms in many fields, but argues that they represented a dramatic break with the 17th century. Anisimov 1993 focuses primarily on reforms to the army and governance, arguing that the (coercive) implementation of these changes deserves to be considered, not just their intentions and outcomes. The brief discussion in Kamenskii 1997 of Peter’s reforms understands them as an effort at the modernization, or Europeanization, of Russia; Peter undertook the task from the top down with lasting results for Russia. Dixon 1999 is less convinced that modernization can be equated with Europeanization; at the least, Dixon argues that there were many “Europes” available as examples. Dixon sees Petrine and post-Petrine Russian practice as reliant on serfdom and misadministration as much as on a new-founded “modern” rule. Familiarity with all five overviews offers a reader an excellent orientation to the current approaches to the Petrine era. Further discussion of individual reforms appears under the appropriate headings.

Anisimov, Evgenii V. The Reforms of Peter the Great: Progress through Coercion. Translated by John T. Alexander. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1993.
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Anisimov dramatically challenges the popular contemporary image of Peter I in Russia, calling his reign “the foundation of the totalitarian state” (296). The challenge to the historiographical tradition here is nearly as dramatic, as he focuses his discussion of reform on the implementation process. Originally published as Vremia Petrovskikh reform (The era of Petrine reforms). Leningrad: Lenizdat, 1989.
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Cracraft, James. The Revolution of Peter the Great. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003.
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Cracraft’s examination of Peter’s reforms emphasizes that they collectively produced a major and lasting change to Russian culture, modernizing and Europeanizing it at a moment when those two terms were, for many, synonymous.
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Dixon, Simon. The Modernization of Russia, 1676–1825. Cambridge, UK, and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511818585Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Russia’s modernization over the long 18th century left older paradigms and customs intertwined and interacting with newer European ones, Dixon argues. He thus positions himself against the view that the transformations of the Petrine separated Russia into distinct social and governmental spheres.
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Hughes, Lindsey. Russia in the Age of Peter the Great. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998.
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Hughes offers an excellent introduction to many of Peter’s reforms; she argues that they were not as innovative as sometimes portrayed. Her discussion relies to a significant degree upon her understanding of developments during the 17th century.
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Kamenskii, Alexander B. The Russian Empire in the Eighteenth Century: Searching for a Place in the World. Translated and edited by David Griffiths. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1997.
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Kamenskii believes that Peter’s efforts to modernize Russia by bringing into it the European sphere were appropriate and timely, but that the results relied heavily on a tradition of autocratic power and affected only a narrow stratum of Russians.
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Social Strata

While some have argued that the Petrine era did not see major changes in the fundamental social structure of the empire, there were unquestionably recategorizations of the social strata. In part, this was connected to the introduction of the soul tax, which helped to redefine and consolidate the peasantry (Anisimov 1982). Further, because soldiers had a new, permanent term of service, they and their families became a new category of the population (Wirtschafter 1995). The nobility, newly reengaged in service to the state, advanced through the military and civilian bureaucracy according to the Table of Ranks. Boris Mironov’s The History of Imperial Russia (Mironov 2000) offers a statistical approach examination of these different social strata; it is comprehensive—a lifetime’s study of the subject. The examination in Hartley 1999 is briefer, limited to the long 18th century, and more discursive. Others have evaluated the changes taking place within particular social strata (Freeze 1977, Kamenskii 2006). Raeff 1966 probes Petrine ideals of state service for the origins of the intelligentsia.

Anisimov, Evgenii V. Podatnaia reforma Petra I: Vvednie podushnoi podati v Rossii, 1719–28. Leningrad: Nauka, 1982.
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This monograph examines the reasons for the introduction of the soul tax, its inception, and its use, especially by the military. Particularly important is the chapter that examines the relation of the new tax to Russia’s social estates.
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Freeze, Gregory. The Russian Levites: Parish Clergy in the Eighteenth Century. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977.
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A history of the Russian clergy arguing that the impact of the Petrine reforms was to create an ecclesiastical social category for the first time.
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Hartley, Janet. A Social History of the Russian Empire, 1650–1825. London and New York: Longman, 1999.
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Hartley’s text offers a narrative of social change over the long 18th century, with a dominant focus on the Russian population of the empire. It offers a valuable summary of existing scholarship. The discussions of law and order, education, and religious diversity are especially helpful.
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Kamenskii, Aleksandr B. Povsednevnost’ Russkikh Gorodskikh Obyvatelei: Istoricheskie Anekdoty iz provintsial’noi zhizni XVIII veka. Moscow: Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi Gumanitarnyi Universitet, 2006.
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Kamenskii’s “Daily life for Russia’s urban dwellers: Historical anecdotes from eighteenth-century provincial life” examines the complex impact of Petrine reforms on provincial urban inhabitants. He focuses on the provincial city of Bezhetsk in Tver province using local administrative documents to examine demographics, criminality, fiscal issues, and self-identification.
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Mironov, Boris N. A Social History of Imperial Russia, 1700–1917. 2 vols. Boulder, CO: Westview, 2000.
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Mironov with Ben Eklof discuss each of Russia’s principal social groups—nobility, clergy, townspeople, and peasants—exhaustively and quantitatively, with some qualitative details. The book argues that Russia fit on a spectrum of European social patterns, but also reveals ways in which it may not have—especially prior to 1800. The English-language version is a considerably modified translation of the Russian original, which was published in 1999. A 2003 Russian edition includes critical essays.
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Raeff, Marc. Origins of the Russian Intelligentsia. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1966.
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Raeff finds that adherence to state service norms after Peter led to a feeling of rootlessness and alienation among the male nobility; linked with a sense of cultural mission, this helped to create the Russian intelligentsia. V. A. Kivelson’s Autocracy in the Provinces (1997) provides an interesting 17th-century counterpoint.
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Wirtschafter, Elise Kimerling. “Social Misfits: Veterans and Soldiers’ Families in Servile Russia.” Journal of Military History 59.2 (April 1995): 215–235.
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The article describes the ways in which veterans and military family fit uncomfortably into Russian social structure, beginning with Peter. That social structure, as the author has also explained elsewhere, was a porous and surprisingly fluid one.
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Women

A transformation in the lives of Russian women is often ascribed to the Petrine era as women of the Russian elite were expected to adopt new modes of dress, living, and participation in public life—a dramatic and not always pleasant change from the ideals of modesty and seclusion that had characterized their lives in the preceding century; many treatments of the subject examine the impact of these changes and of Europeanization over the long term (Engel 2004, Pushkareva 1997). Although women continued to be bound by the social condition of husbands and fathers, the economic position of women seemed to be significantly more independent than that of European and North American women of the era, with respect to property rights and expectations for widows and daughters (Marrese 2002). Efforts to extend the spectrum of discussion are to be found in several edited volumes (Rosslyn 2003, Rosslyn and Tosi 2007) and a new two-volume bibliography (Zirin and Worobec 2007).

Engel, Barbara Alpern. Women in Russia, 1700–2000. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
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Engel’s broad overview begins with a brief discussion of “Gender and the pre-Petrine order,” pp. 6–11, before changes under Peter are detailed in chapters 1 and 2.
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Marrese, Michele Lamarche. A Woman’s Kingdom: Noblewomen and the Control of Property in Russia, 1700–1861. Ithaca, NY, and London: Cornell University Press, 2002.
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Marrese understands the expansion of women’s property rights in the 18th and 19th centuries to be the result of efforts on the part of the nobility to achieve the preservation of patrimonial property.
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Pushkareva, Natalia. Women in Russian History. Translated and edited by Eve Levin. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1997.
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This monograph offers a broad overview of the history of women in Russian history to the 20th century, including a relatively brief entry on the Petrine period. It therefore serves primarily as a framework for further study. A parallel work in Russian is Pushkareva’s Chastnaia Zhizn Russkoi Zhenshchiny: Nevesta, Zhena, Liubovnitsa; X-nachalo XIX (The private life of Russian women: Bride, wife, lover; 10th-early 19th centuries). Moscow: Ladomir, 1997.
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Rosslyn, Wendy, ed. Women and Gender in Eighteenth-Century Russia. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2003.
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This collection of essays addresses women’s position in society and culture; a variety of Petrine topics are addressed. Of particular interest are Hughes’s essay on the continuation of pre-Petrine cultural assumptions, Goscilo’s on costume and makeup; Kosheleva’s on the Petrine period; and Bisha’s on religious community.
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Rosslyn, Wendy, and Alessandra Tosi, eds. Women in Russian Culture and Society. Basingstoke, UK, and New York: Palgrave McMillan, 2007.
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Although the collection includes a number of essays focused on the latter part of the long 18th century, essays by Kuleshov, Keenan, and Ulianova offer interesting discussions of “divorce letters,” the morality of consumerism, and merchant women respectively that include the Petrine era.
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Zirin, Mary, and Christine Worobec, eds. Women and Gender in Central and Eastern Europe, Russia and Eurasia: A Comprehensive Bibliography. Vol. 2. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2007.
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The second volume of this lengthy bibliography provides a comprehensive and multilingual guide, among other things, to publications on Petrine Russia.
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The Women of Peter’s Family and of the Nobility

The women of Peter’s family were political figures of considerable (although differing and differently defined) importance. While Peter’s half-sister, Sofia, was regent for the joint tsars, young Peter and his half-brother, Ivan, took on new roles in Muscovy, notably in foreign policy, until Sofia was displaced in 1689 (Hughes 1990). Peter’s first marriage to Evdokiia Lopukhina was a rather traditional one; it produced a son, Aleksei, before Evkokiia was persuaded to enter a nunnery (Hughes 1996b, Efimov 1995). His sister, Natal’ia, shared many of his interests. Peter’s mistresses and second consort, the future Catherine I, were of a quite different world (Anisimov 2004, Hughes 2004, Hughes 1996a). Analyses of other women’s experience, living through the Europeanization that characterized the years before and during the Petrine era are hard to find and restricted to a few privileged individuals (Schlafley 1997).

Anisimov, Evgenii V. Five Empresses: Court Life in Eighteenth-Century Russia. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2004.
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Although the majority of this book is devoted to later empresses, Anisimov includes a relatively detailed and accessible narrative of Peter I’s second wife (Chapter 1). N. I. Pavlenko’s recent Ekaterina I (Catherine I; Moscow: Molodaia gvardiia, 2004) is another recent Russian language discussion.
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Efimov, S. V. “Evdokiia Lopukhina—poslednaia russkaia tsaritsa XVII veka.” In Srednevekovaia Rus’: Sbornik nauchnykh stat’ei k 65-letiu so dnia rozhdeniia professora R. G. Skrynnikova. Edited by Sergei V. Lobachev and A. S. Lavrov, 136–165. Saint Petersburg: Saint Peterburgskii Universitet, 1995.
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Efimov examines the claim that Peter’s first marriage to Evdokiia Lopukhina, arranged by Peter’s mother, was a political one in the 17th-century tradition. Evdokiia is conventionally assigned the role of entrenched political and social conservatism.
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Hughes, Lindsey. Sofia Regent of Russia. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1990.
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Sofiia argues for the importance of the regency of Peter’s sister as a transitional and indeed innovative period “between” the 17th- and 18th-centuries.
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Hughes, Lindsey. “Between Two Worlds: Tsarevna Natal’ia Alekseevna and the ‘Emancipation’ of Petrine Women.” In Window on Russia: Papers from the Fifth International Conference of the Study Group on Eighteenth-Century Russia. Edited by Maria di Salvo and Lindsey Hughes, 29–36. Rome: La Fenice, 1996a.
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Peter’s younger sister, who was sympathetic to his reforms and embraced them with apparent enthusiasm, is used as an example of the contradictions experienced by a transitional generation.
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Hughes, Lindsey. “Peter the Great’s Two Weddings: Changing Images on Women in a Transitional Age.” In Women in Russia and Ukraine. Edited by Rosalind J. Marsh, 31–44. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996b.
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Hughes compares Peter’s wedding to Evdokiia Lopukhina, his first wife who was brought up in seclusion, with that of his second, to the Livonian peasant woman who would become Catherine I on Peter’s death. The comparison illuminates not only changes to elite women’s lives, but also in such diverse areas as architecture, music, and elite behavior more broadly.
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Hughes, Lindsey. “Catherine I of Russia, Consort to Peter the Great.” In Queenship in Europe, 1660–1815: The Role of the Consort. Edited by Clarissa C. Orr, 131–154. Cambridge, UK, and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
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The article offers a brief history of Catherine, which is rather more detailed than sources of equivalent length on her early years and relationship with Peter.
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Schlafley, Daniel L. “A Muscovite Boyarina Faces Peter the Great’s Reforms: Dar’ia Golitsyna between Two Worlds.” CASS 31 (1997): 249–268.
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Schlafley uses the journal of an Italian musician living in the household as a basis to discuss Golitsyna’s daily routines, adaptations to the Petrine reforms, and trip to Vienna.
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Foreign Policy

For a great number of historians, one of Peter’s greatest accomplishments was to move Russia from a state with peripheral influence in Europe to European power status. There is only limited agreement about the point at which Russia actually achieved some degree of broad European acceptance and about the foundations of that acceptance (Vozgrin 1986, Bagger 1974, Barany 1986, Feigina 1959). At the same time, the 18th century saw new Europe-wide relationships developing between fiscal stability, on the one hand, and diplomatic and military power on the other (Scott 2009). Broad overviews of Russian foreign policy that take advantage of new archival access have been relatively slow to appear (leDonne 2004). Meanwhile, however, Russia’s relationship to Poland evolved only slowly (Artamonov and Nekrasov 1990), while it continued to test itself against the Porte (Sumner 1950). The first publications of the Institute of Peter the Great in Saint Petersburg offer annotated and exhaustive bibliographies of Peter’s “Great Embassy” (Guzevich and Guzevich 2008).

Artamonov, V., and G. A. Nekrasov. Rossiia i Rech’ Pospolitaia posle Poltavskoi pobedy: 1709–14. Moscow: Nauka, 1990.
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Despite the weaknesses of the commonwealth, and its inability to act upon some aspects of the Russo-Commonwealth agreement of 1704, the author argues that the agreement continued to play an important role in Russian diplomatic calculations even after Poltava.
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Bagger, Hans. Ruslands alliancepolitik efter freden i Nystad. Copenhagen: Copenhagen University, 1974.
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Bagger studies the Schleswig restitution issue, at the same time examining how Russia was incorporated into the existing European system of international relationships. Initially unencumbered by any preexisting expectations, Russia was able to approach the reorganization of eastern Europe after 1721 with limited fixed demands. Peter’s death changed the situation. At and after the Congress of Soissons, 1728, as Austria and Russia joined to resolve the Schleswig question, Bagger argues, Russia joined the European power system.
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Barany, George. The Anglo-Russian Entente Cordiale of 1697–98: Peter I and William III at Utrecht. Boulder, CO: East European Monographs, 1986.
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Barany argues that this early encounter was Peter’s debut on the European scene and the beginning of Russian participation in European affairs. The Entente Cordial was also the basis of a longer-term relationship with England. Vladimir Matveev’s more recent article in Diplomacy and Statecraft (11.3 [2000]: 29–48) builds upon this idea.
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Feigina, Sof’ya A. Alandskii kongress vneshniaia politika Rossii v kontse Severnoi voiny. Moscow: Nauka, 1959.
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(Translated in English as “The Aaland conference: Russia’s foreign policy at the end of the Northern War.”) Feigina argues that Peter’s effort to justify his behavior during the Northern War was part of “becoming European”; Peter and Shafirov sought to justify the war within the existing system of European relationships.
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Guzevich, Dmitrii, and Irina Guzevich. Velikoe posol’stvo: Rubezh epokh ili nachalo puti, 1697–98. Edited by Emmanuel Waegemans. Saint Petersburg: Dmitrii Bulanin, 2008.
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This annotated bibliography is among the first publications of the Institute of Peter the Great in Saint Petersburg. The Guzevichs’s Pervoe evropeiskoe puteshestvie tsaria Petra: analiticheskaia bibliographiia za tri stoletiia, 1697–2006 (Tsar Peter’s first European trip: An analytical bibliography covering three centuries, 1697–2006) is a more exhaustive and multi-lingual listing.
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leDonne, John. The Grand Strategy of the Russian Empire, 1650–1831. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
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The first part of leDonne’s book, “the formation of Russia’s grand Strategy, 1650–1743” discusses geopolitics, armies, and the development of a network of client states, pp. 15–84. It offers an excellent portrayal of Russian strategic geography.
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Scott, Hamish. “The Fiscal–Military State and International Rivalry during the Long Eighteenth Century.” In Fiscal–Military State in Eighteenth-Century Europe. Edited by Christopher Storrs, 23–54. Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2009.
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Scott demonstrates the growing roles played by finances and financial awareness not only in the military, but consequently in the diplomatic relationships among European states over the long 18th century. An excellent orientation to major change, although it deals only peripherally with Russia and Peter.
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Sumner, Benedict H. Peter the Great and the Ottoman Empire. London: English Universities Press, 1950.
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Sumner still offers one of the few treatments of the relationship between Peter and the Russian empire’s southern neighbor. The book is marred by the author’s inability to consult Turkish sources.
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Vozgrin, Valerii E. Rossiia i evropeiskie strany v gody Severnoi voiny. Leningrad: Nauka, 1986.
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Vozgrin’s Russia and the European countries in the years of the Northern War argues that Russia achieved a new status in Europe as of the battle of Poltava; the book is remarkable for the breadth of its sources and complexity of argument. Among other things, Vozgrin argues that the Great Embassy was not anti-Turkish so much as anti-Swedish from the beginning.
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Diplomats in Action

For Russia, part of the process of “joining Europe” in the early 18th century was connected to the building of a professional and permanent diplomatic corps. During the Petrine era, there was an increasingly professional staff at home, twenty-three foreign residents (Beneveni 1986, Matveev 1972, Tolstoy 1985), and a growing number of representatives of other states (Hartley 2002).

Altbauer, Dan. “Diplomats of Peter the Great.” Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas 28.1 (1980): 1–16.
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Altbauer discusses the changes in approach and training between Russia’s first resident diplomatic representatives in the late 17th century and those of the Petrine period.
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Beneveni, Florio. Poslannik Petra I na Vostoke: Posol’stvo Florio Beneveni v Persiiu i Bukharu v 1718–1725. Edited by M. L. Vais and N. A. Khalfin. Moscow: Nauka, 1986.
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Florio Beneveni was sent by Peter I to Bukhara and Persia to gather military intelligence and to conclude an alliance against Khiva, among other matters. The fact that Beneveni kept a diary as well as his diplomatic records would have been unusual before Peter’s time.
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Hartley, Janet M. Charles Whitworth: Diplomat in the Age of Peter the Great. Burlington, VT: Aldershot, 2002.
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A traditional and careful biography of a career British diplomat, who served without benefit of personal fortune or powerful patron. Whitworth held posts in a variety of places—in Russia from 1705 to 1712; this posting gained in significance with the Russian victory at Poltava. Whitworth left Russia with profound concerns about the ways in which Russia’s growing powers threatened Britain.
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Matveev, Andrei. Russkii diplomat vo Frantsii: Zapiski A. Matveeva. Leningrad: Nauka, 1972.
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Matveev’s own westernized background led to his service as an ambassador in the Netherlands and Great Britain as well as envoy to France. The volume offers his comments on France in 1705, but does not reproduce his diplomatic reports (1700–1715) or his description of the 1682 musketeer uprising that took his father’s life.
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Tolstoy, Petr Andreevich. Russkii posol v Stambule. Edited by M. S. Lazarev, N. A. Khalfin, M.R. Arunova and F. S. Oreshkova. Moscow: Nauka, 1985.
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One of the innovations of the Petrine era was the beginning of permanent representation for Russia in foreign capitals. This is the memoir of the first Russian resident ambassador in Istanbul. The memoir of his early visit to Europe is in Memoir Literature by Russians.
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Military Change

The military changes of the early 18th century, which helped propel Russia to victory in the Great Northern War as well as a change of status in Europe, is interpreted in a variety of ways. Some historians focus heavily on the impact of Peter’s military reforms, beginning with the famous “play regiments” and thereafter concluding that the Russian victory over Sweden represented the successful “westernization” of Russia’s military (Duffy 1981, Beskrovnyi 1958). Others suggest that the Russian army was primarily redesigned to take on the rather unconventional Swedish army, although it gained some more generally “European” characteristics—such as permanence—at the same time (Stevens 2007). Recent scholarship has also emphasized the unique characteristics of warfare in Eastern Europe and on the steppes: Frost 2000 puts the Northern War into perspective not only of previous wars over the Baltic, but also draws heavily on a multitude of sources in different languages. Davies 2011 focuses on the neglected topic of military activity and colonization on the southern front with the Ottoman Empire. Keep 1985 and Kozlov 2011 offer a very different perspective, focusing on the soldiers, their officers, and how the Northern War transformed their lives. The navy, as a separate institution, is understudied, Beskrovnyi 1958 being the classic exception. Phillips 1995 examines the emergence of the Black Sea fleet.

Beskrovnyi, Liubomir G. Russkaia armiia i flot v XVIII veke: Ocherki. Moscow: Voennoe izdatelstvo, 1958.
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A classic from the doyen of Russian military historians, Beskrovnyi offers a tradition history of the 18th-century development of the Russian army and navy. It is detailed, based on intensive archival research, and has continued importance despite its patriotic and fairly descriptive approach.
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Davies, Brian L. Empire and Military Revolution in Eastern Europe: Russia’s Turkish Wars in the Eighteenth Century. London: Continuum, 2011.
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Davies argues that “military revolutions” are dependent not only on strictly military factors, such as tactics, weaponry, and finance, but also on larger socioeconomic changes. A number of Russian governmental, financial, and imperial practices offered the Russian empire a considerable advantage over the Ottomans and over border peoples by the mid-to-late 18th century.
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Duffy, Christopher. Russia’s Military Way to the West, 1700–1800. New York and London: Routledge & Keegan Paul, 1981.
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Duffy provides an excellent if brief survey of the campaigns as well as the institutional underpinnings of the Russian military of the 18th century, with the underlying assumption that Westernization was an integral part of Russian success.
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Frost, Robert I. The Northern Wars: War State and Society in Northeastern Europe, 1558–1721. Harlow: Longman, 2000.
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This monograph provides a remarkably multinational view of the wars for the Baltic that ended with the Great Northern War. The introduction outlines the argument for an East European military revolution.
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Keep, John L. H. Soldiers of the Tsar: The Army and Russian Society, 1452–1874. Oxford: Clarendon, 1985.
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Keep’s particular interest is the long 18th century, and he provides a clear picture or what army service was like—indeed of how the nobility and the service state interacted.
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Kozlov, S. A. Russkie plennye Velikoi Severnoi voiny, 1700–1721. Saint Petersburg: Istoricheskaia illiustratsiia, 2011.
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Kozlov examines the changes in the legal situation of both Swedish and Russian prisoners of war, and details Russian efforts to repatriate its own in the Petrine period.
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Phillips, Edward J. Founding of Russia’s Navy. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1995.
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The author argues that Peter’s naval activities, begun on the Black Sea, were transformative in their scale and use of technology. The ships themselves, however, were built by adapting existing military structures.
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Stevens, Carol B. Russia’s Wars of Emergence, 1460–1730. Harlow, UK: Pearson Education, 2007.
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The last third of Stevens’s overview focuses on the Petrine army, with particular emphases on the interplay of military reform dating from the late 17th century and Petrine efforts to rationalize and institutionalize its military, based upon a Swedish-style model.
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Battles

Individual battles, such as Russia’s first major naval victory over Sweden at the battle know as Gangut in Russian and in Scandinavia as Rilax or Hangö (Krotov 1996), have come in for recent reexamination. The celebration of the 300th anniversary of Russia’s dramatic victory at Poltava in 2009 has generated a variety of new approaches to the study of that confrontation (Plokhy 2013, Englund 2002).

Englund, Peter. The Battle That Shook Europe: Poltava and the Birth of the Russian Empire. London: Taurus, 2002.
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A stirring account of the campaign ending with the battle of Poltava is written from the Swedish perspective relying on Swedish soldiers’ journal accounts. This is a translation from the Swedish of Poltava (1988).
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Krotov, P. A. Gangutskaia bataliia, 1714 goda. Saint Petersburg: Liki Rossii, 1996.
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A convincing reexamination of the Russian naval victory at Hangö, where Peter himself commanded the Russian fleet, over the Swedes. The battle represented a first major Russian naval victory and led to the Swedish withdrawal to Stockholm, but Russia did not have the means to pursue its naval advantage.
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Plokhy, Serhii, ed. Poltava, 1709: The Battle and the Myth. Harvard Papers in Ukrainian Studies 10. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Ukrainian Institute, 2013.
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This collection of recent studies about Poltava offers contradictory interpretations of the battle of Poltava, refreshing new research on the implications and associated mythology of the battle, on Mazepa’s actions and their place in Ukrainian politics and culture, and the current interpretations of Poltava in Russia and Ukraine.
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Culture and Education

High culture and education are areas in which historians discover the most clear and uncompromising evidence of dramatic and permanent transformation during the reign of Peter I —an easily identifiable shift in those arts most closely linked to the court, such as dress, literature, art, and architecture (Cracraft 2006). Some of these efforts, such as lithography, later dwindled—for a lack of patronage—while others became lasting building blocks of the Russian scene, among which not least was the newly built capital of Saint Petersburg (Cross 2003). Education was a particularly important area. Zhivov 2009 argues that the Petrine language reform became the means for propagating Saint Petersburg culture. Marker 1985 challenges earlier studies of the development of printing in Russia, demonstrating that among the new printed materials there are, unexpectedly, numerous “low-brow” publications while others are heavily charged with ecclesiastical material. Thus, government involvement in publishing was not as pervasive as might have been expected. Rogger 1960 marks the Petrine period as launching the Russian encounter with Europe that helped to create a sense of national consciousness.

Cracraft, James. The Revolution in Russian Culture. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006.
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This volume culminates Cracraft’s many works on Russian cultural history under Peter the Great (The Petrine Revolution in Russian Architecture/Culture/Imagery). Here the focus is on verbal culture: the creation of what was virtually a new language, with a greatly expanded vocabulary, written in a civil script suited for print publication. The conclusion offers a succinct summation of Petrine Russia’s cultural great leap forward in both verbal and visual culture.
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Cross, Anthony, ed. St. Petersburg, 1703–1825. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.
DOI: 10.1057/9781403937469Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The essays offer a wide variety of approaches to the culture and understanding of Peter’s iconic western capital, including Petrine buildings, the orderly layout of the city, and Saint Petersburg as the site of Russian “modernity.”
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Marker, Gary. Publishing, Printing and the Origins of Intellectual Life in Russia, 1700–1800. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985.
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Marker demonstrates that Russian government and church authorities did not retain control over Russian printing, and that publishing was a remarkably private enterprise; Russians were not quick to purchase Enlightenment literature, often preferring adventures, church materials, even primers.
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Rogger, Hans. Russian National Consciousness in the Eighteenth Century. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960.
DOI: 10.4159/harvard.9780674423275Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Rogger discusses the growing interest in identifying a national culture, language, common history, and national character over the course of the 18th century. Such ideas came into focus with the Petrine reforms and self-conscious adaptation of European ways, and ended the century with attempts to meld Europeanized attitudes with the best of what was understood to be innately Russian.
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Zhivov, Victor M. Language and Culture in Eighteenth-Century Russia. Boston: Academic Studies, 2009.
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Originally published as Iazyk i kul’tura v Rossii xviii veka (Language and culture in eighteenth-century Russia. Moscow: Shkola, 1996), the book discusses the creation of a new, initially mixed, literary language in Russia whose beginning lay in the Petrine language reforms and that served as a means of propagating Saint Petersburg culture.
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Politics and Government

This section begins chronologically with two excellent studies of the politics of the Muscovite court in the immediately pre-Petrine era (Sedov 2006) and the Regency/dual-tsar era (Bushkovitch 1995), which clarify later events. Recent studies of Petrine-era politics and government discuss elements of the Russian state that go far beyond structural changes (Pisarkova 2007). These include examinations of the role of patronage networks in bringing about political cohesion (leDonne 1991; Bushkovitch 2001, cited under Biographies), the role of ceremony and the carnavalesque used by Peter to attach political support (Hughes 1998, cited under the Question of Reform; Zitser 2004, cited under Political Ideology and Monarchical Power), the ways in which legislative initiatives differed from the lived experience in the provinces (Anisimov 1997), and a renewed emphasis on the roles of Peter’s internal coterie (Serov 2009, cited under Legal Practice). The sources of governmental reform are a related element. Peterson 1979 famously demonstrated the degree to which Peter’s later reforms were based upon Swedish practice.

Anisimov, Evgenii V. Gosudarstvennoe preobrazovaniia i samoderzhavie Petra velikogo v pervoi chetverti XVIII veka. Saint Petersburg: Bulanin, 1997.
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Anisimov’s State transformation and autocracy under Peter the Great in the first quarter of the 18th century emphasizes the discrepancy between the intentions and expectations of the Petrine reforms, on the one hand, and the performance of reformed institutions, on the other.
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Bushkovitch, Paul. “Aristocratic Faction and the Opposition to Peter the Great: The 1690s.” Forschungen zur osteuropäischen Geschichte 50 (1995): 80–120.
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Bushkovitch analyses the intense rivalry among boiar families at court during Peter’s first decade on the throne, with telling discussion of the role of the Naryshikins (the family of Peter’s mother). Bushkovitch 2001 resumes this discussion in Chapter 5 (cited under Biographies).
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leDonne, John. Absolutism and the Ruling Class: The Foundation of the Russian Political Order, 1700–1825. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991.
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LeDonne’s monograph summarizes the ways in which Russian governing institutions developed over the 18th century, and then provides revealing details about the police, the courts, and finance. He particularly emphasizes the role of the nobility operating in conjunction with the sovereign.
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Peterson, Claes. Peter the Great’s Administrative and Judicial Reforms: Swedish Antecedents and the Process of Reception. Stockholm: Nordiska Bokhandeln, 1979.
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Peterson indicates, contrary to the received opinion at the time of its publication, how closely some Petrine administrative reform followed a Swedish model—in one respect, hardly surprising since Sweden was widely seen as a model state. The author goes on to indicate which elements of Russian administrative life made this transfer difficult.
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Pisarkova, Liubov F. Gosudarstvennoe upravlenie Rossii s kontsa XVII do kontsa XVIII veka. Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2007.
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Pisarkova has written a reference work on the organization and staffing of the early imperial Russian administrative apparatus. The book includes more than 150 pages of tables with quantitative data about salaries, expenditures, and staff sizes, making it possible to follow variations in recruitment and remuneration policy over time and across various parts of the empire. Helpfully, it also offers details about variations and exceptions in institutional restructuring and examines personnel policy and actual administrative performance.
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Sedov, Pavel V. Zakat Moskovskogo tsarstva: Tsarskii dvor kontsa XVIIv. Saint Petersburg: Dmitrii Bulanin, 2006.
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Sedov sees the Muscovite court under Tsar Fedor Alekseevtch (1676–1682) as a political institution dominated by great boiar clans. Sedov argues that Russia’s 17th-century government had a larger role for the aristocracy than was typically “European”; this difference sets the scene for some of the political struggles of Peter’s early reign (compare Bushkovitch 1995).
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Legal Practice

Legal practice is a particularly striking example within the broader topic of political and governmental structure. Schmidt 1996 broadly establishes reasons for the failure of both formal and informal social controls over the long 18th century. Serov 2009 establishes the problems encountered as the Petrine government attempted to decentralize and then recentralize a reformed legal apparatus, and Kollmann 2012 discusses the continuities of the pre-Petrine and Petrine legal systems, while arguing that an increasingly bureaucratic and regulated system was developing.

Kollmann, Nancy Shields. Crime and Punishment in Early Modern Russia. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9781139177535Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Kollmann indicates that the move toward inquisitorial justice was mitigated by the central state’s willingness to acknowledge local practice; symbolic justice became more sophisticated, at least with respect to crimes of treason and heresy.
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Schmidt, Christoph. Sozialkontrolle in Moskau: Justiz, Kriminalität und Leibeigenschaft 1649–1785. Stuttgart: Steiner, 1996.
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The Russian government lacked the means and the support to control criminal behavior effectively. Schmidt offers a clear and helpful summary of the Petrine period, although the most original parts of the book focus on the later part of the 18th century.
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Serov, Dmitrij O. Sudebnaia reforma Peter I: Istoriko-pravovoie issledovanie. Moscow: Zertsalo, 2009.
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Serov offers a systematic investigation of the changes involved in the Petrine judicial reforms, 1717–1723. The organization, status, powers, and regulatory activities of the College of Justice receive attention, as do the development of provincial and urban courts. Finally, the 1723–1726 law code project is examined for the ways in which it was intended to create a normative basis for the new system.
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The Case of Tsarevich Aleksei Petrovich

Peter’s son Aleksei Petrovich in adulthood garnered significant support from disgruntled members of Peter’s court, and certainly more support than Peter’s new son (the future Peter II). The events of 1716–1718, which revealed the extent of that support, are featured in any full-length biography of Peter; they eventually led to the Tsarevich’s death. Bushkovitch 1997 argues that several things about the Tsarevich’s case were falsified by 19th-century historian Nikolai Ustrialov. Bekkin, et al. 1996 especially considers literary interpretations of Aleksei’s case.

Bekkin, R. I., Anisimov, E. V., and Polezhaev, P. Nepotrebnyi syn: Delo tsarevicha Alekseia Petrovicha. Saint Petersburg: Lenizdat, 1996.
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Bekkin considers the varying and often mutually contradictory accounts of the case of Tsarevich Aleksei, commenting on documents, literary materials, and historians’ conclusions.
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Bushkovitch, Paul. “Power and the Historian: The Case of Tsarevich Aleksei, 1716–1718 and N. G. Ustrialov, 1845–1859.” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 141.2 (June 1997): 177–212.
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Bushkovitch challenges the conventional tale of Aleksei Petrovich’s rebellion, arguing that 19th-century historian Nikolai Ustrialov deliberately falsified the role of the Habsburg monarchy and the number of powerful Russians involved. Bushkovitch 2001 offers a much more detailed discussion of the entire series events in Chapters 9–10 (cited under Biographies).
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Political Ideology and Monarchical Power

Whittaker 2003 recasts conceptions of Russian absolutism, successfully arguing that Russian elites were in largely supportive dialogues with their ruler about the nature of good governance. Russia emerges as an active participant in the Enlightenment. The translation in Lentin 1996 of Prokopovich’s document justifying Peter’s right to choose a successor also offers a comprehensive survey of the context in which it appeared. Baehr 1991, Wortman 1994, and Zitser 2004 examine the ideas, representations, and practices that contributed to Peter and his successors’ “scenarios of power.”

Baehr, Stephen Lessing. The Paradise Myth in Eighteenth-Century Russia: Utopian Patterns in Early Secular Russian Literature and Culture. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1991.
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The book examines in great depth the forms of 18th-century Russian culture, discussing in particular the utopian forms of Russian political thinking and the Baroque forms in which Russian absolutism was portrayed.
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Lentin, Anthony, ed. Peter the Great: His Law on the Imperial Succession, 1722; The Official Commentary. Translated by Anthony Lentin. Oxford: Headstart History, 1996.
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A new and much improved translation of The Justice of the Monarch’s Right to Appoint the Heir to His Throne (Pravda voli monarshei) is accompanied by a lengthy introduction that discusses the authorship of the document and comprehensively its intellectual, very frequently ecclesiastical, context.
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Whittaker, Cynthia H. Russian Monarchy: Eighteenth-Century Rulers and Writers in Political Dialogue. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2003.
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Peter justified his rulership through his acts and his successes. His and other monarchical ideas were the subject of supportive exchanges of opinion about the nature of monarchical rule.
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Wortman, Richard. From Peter the Great to the Death of Nicholas I. Vol. 1 of Scenarios of Power: Myth and Ceremony in Russian Monarchy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press: 1994.
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Richard Wortman demonstrates the principal myths, symbols, and rituals of Russian monarchy. Focusing on the period from the reign of Peter the Great, Wortman shows how the presentations and representations of the Russian ruler played a central role in the exercise of monarchical power.
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Zitser, Ernest. The Transfigured Kingdom: Sacred Parody and Charismatic Authority at the Court of Peter the Great. Ithaca, NY, and London: Cornell University Press, 2004.
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The Transfigured Kingdom describes aspects of Petrine political theology and practice that allowed the monarch to create a rhetoric of authority. Zitser shows how supposedly secular Petrine reforms rested on fundamentally religious ideas of the tsar’s personal leadership and role.
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Religion

The Soviet-era perspective that Peter himself was not a religious person and that he deliberately secularized the Russian state has been challenged in a variety of ways. Zitser 2004 (cited under Political Ideology and Monarchical Power) and Collis 2012 demonstrate the ways in which Peter used religious tropes in his personal, political (and play-pretend) world. The state made use of religion, as illustrated by Feofan Prokopovich and argued in Marker 2007. Most significantly, Peter failed to appoint a patriarch after 1721, changing the control of the church to an administrative unit, the Holy Synod, which altered church-state relations—its head was a layperson, and it was a branch of government (Verkhovskii 1972, Cracraft 1971, Zhivov 2004). Freeze argues that this did not represent secularization of the Church but led to a more educated clergy and new forms of spirituality in the 18th century. A powerful group of nontraditional practitioners of Orthodox Christianity (Old Believers) is the subject of Crummey 2011.

Collis, Robert. Petrine Instauration Religion, Esotericism and Science at the Court of Peter the Great, 1689–1725. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2012.
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Robert Collis attempts to overturn what he perceives to be the persistently misleading image of Peter the Great as a ruler devoted to secular and enlightenment ideals. Instead, he suggests, Peter was a near-Biblical figure, “creating a new Jerusalem.” Particularly interesting are Collis’s discussions of the contributions of Jacob Bruce and Robert Erskine.
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Cracraft, James. The Church Reforms of Peter the Great. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1971.
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Although Cracraft agrees that there was precedent for the Ecclesiastical Regulation in the previous relationship of church and state, his focus is on the character of the change introduced by Peter. His emphasis disagrees with some more recent work.
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Crummey, Robert O. Old Believers in a Changing World. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2011.
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A collection of essays about the Old Believers, which covers the broad period from their late-17th-century origins through the 18th century. This collection is a reexamination of Crummey’s understanding of the Old Believers since his well-regarded Old Believers and the World of Antichrist: Vyg Community and the Russian State, 1694–1855 (Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 1970).
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Freeze, Gregory. The Russian Levites: Parish Clergy in the Eighteenth Century. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977.
DOI: 10.4159/harvard.9780674332416Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Freeze argues that clerics and their families became a closed social category, of which the state demanded increased duties and education. This work is also cited under Social Strata.
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Marker, Gary. Imperial Saint: The Cult of St. Catherine and the Dawn of Female Rule in Russia. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2007.
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Marker, too, does not view Peter as an unabashed “secularizing westernizer.” Here, he analyzes Peter’s use of religion, in particular the cult of Saint Catherine, as an element of westernizing reforms.
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Verkhovskii, Pavel Vladimirovich. Uchrezhdenie Dukhovnoi Kollegii i Dukhovnyi Reglament: K voprosu ob otnoshenii tserkvi i gosudarstva v Rossii. Vol. 1. Farnborough, UK: Gregg International, 1972.
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A classic study of the foundation of the Holy Synod as well as the reforms to the Orthodox Church that were intended to accompany it. The first edition dates from 1916.
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Zhivov, Viktor M. Iz tserkovnoi istorii vremen Petra Velikogo: Issledovaiia i materialy. Moscow: Novoe Literaturnoe Obozrenie, 2004.
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The centerpiece of the book includes an analysis of Metropolitan Stefan Iavorskii’s objection to the creation of the Holy Synod, and commentary on the changing role of the bishopric in the Eastern Orthodox Church, especially in connection with royal power. Analytical research is accompanied by copies of Iavorskii’s unpublished sermons.
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Economy

Two magisterial works offer overviews of Russian living standards in the early 18th century. Hellie 1999 uses an immense compendium of price, wage, and tax data to discuss changes in prices and purchasing power during the Petrine period as part of an overview of the long 17th century. Mironov 2012 uses the typical height of military recruits, among other things, to trace the standard of living beginning with Peter I and continuing through the Russian Revolution, implicitly positioning the Petrine era within a longer imperial timeframe. Recent studies that focus on particular merchant families, European industrialists, or new manufacturing endeavors have been less common (Agren 1998, Aksenov 1988, Boterbloem 2013).

Agren, Maria, ed. Iron-Making Societies: Early Industrial Development in Sweden and Russia. New York and Oxford: Berghann, 1998.
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A collection of articles comparing the early stages of iron making in Sweden and Russia; the two countries shared an initially small scale of manufacturing and the key role of government in encouraging production.
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Aksenov, A. I. Genealogiia Moskovskogo kupechestvo XVIII v: Iz istorii formirovaniia russkoi burzhuazii. Moscow: Nauka, 1988.
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Aksenov demonstrates that there was considerable mobility among Russian commercial classes, and many of the merchant families of the early 18th century had moved beyond the kupechestvo by the end of the century.
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Boterbloem, Kees. Moderniser of Russia: Andrei Vinius, 1641–1716. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave McMillan, 2013.
DOI: 10.1057/9781137323675Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A more recent look at the life of Andrei Vinius, Russian-born of Dutch parents, who filled several roles in Petrine Russia, including that of iron and weapons manufacturer.
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Hellie, Richard. Economy and Material Culture of Russia, 1600–1725. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999.
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Based on voluminous data about market sales, wages, taxation, and other economic indicators, Hellie concludes that Russia experienced a mild rise in prices as a result of the Great Northern War. He argues that the involvement of the state in the economy was uneven but, on the whole, negative. Hellie includes Petrine Russia in his treatment of the long 17th century.
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Mironov, Boris. The Standard of Living and Revolutions in Russia, 1700–1917. Edited by Gregory Freeze. New York: Routledge, 2012.
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Mironov’s 2012 volume principally argues that there was no systemic crisis of the agrarian economy in late 19th century. Along the way, however, he provides a variety of useful data on much earlier taxation and demography. This volume was published first in Russian as Blagostoianie naseleniia i revoliutsii v imperskoi Rossii (Moscow: Novyi Khronograf, 2010).
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Empire Building and Resistance

The ideological view and practical actions of Russia as Empire is a much-discussed topic. While conceptually, the empire has been seen as a relatively tolerant agglomeration of coexisting peoples (Kivelson 2006, Kappeler 2001), in practice the Russian encroachment on its non-Russian subjects’ space was undeniable (Khodarkovsky 1992). Although there are many other possibilities, recent historiography has dealt with this topic particularly strikingly through the lens of Cossack communities. Boeck 2009 discusses the Don Cossacks as the Russian conquest of Azov and the defeat of the Bulavin uprising transformed them from a border people to a people within the empire. Witzenrath 2007 illuminates expansion into Siberia as a negotiation between Cossack communities and Moscow. Barrett 1999 sees the Terek Cossacks as subordinate, yet operating within a middle ground between Empire and Muslim mountaineers. The Plokhy 2013 edited collection on Poltava (cited under Battles) contains a variety of new perspectives on the Cossack communities under hetman Mazepa. Of particular interest are the long-term impacts on Ukrainian culture and the politics of Mazepa’s and his followers’ reaction against Russian treatment by joining the Swedish forces just prior to Poltava.

Barrett, Thomas M. At the Edge of Empire: The Terek Cossacks and the North Caucasus Frontier, 1700–1860. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1999.
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Barrett’s book portrays the Terek Cossacks as a group who did not relinquish their independence to participate in the institutions of the Russian empire easily, even if they had been hired to defend the Caucasian frontier. In order to benefit from their effective service, the Russian government accommodated their interests until 1800.
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Boeck, Brian. Imperial Boundaries: Cossack Communities and Empire Building in the Age of Peter the Great. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511642104Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Boeck suggests that the Russian imperial government had no “grand plan” for its frontiers, but rather reacted practically to events as they took place. As a result, both the Cossacks and the government responded consistently over time, even if there were moments when imperial expansion seems to have over-ridden other central concerns. An important case study of early-18th-century policy on the frontiers.
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Kappeler, Andreas. The Russian Empire: A Multi-Ethnic History. Harlow, UK: Pearson Education, 2001.
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In this broad overview, Kappeler argues that social order rather than ethnic identity held the Russian empire together until the early 19th century. Thus, the Russian imperial administration was quite tolerant of different ethnicities, languages, religions, and practices in the conquered regions of the empire. Originally published as Russland als Vielvokerreich, or “Russia as a multi-ethnic empire” (Munich: Beck, 1992).
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Khodarkovsky, Michael. Where Two Worlds Met: The Russian State and the Kalmyk Nomads, 1600–1771. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992.
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This monograph offers an overview of the diplomatic and military encounters as the Russian empire expanded east and southward; it is one of relatively few that deals broadly with the intersection of nomadic (Kalmyk) and sedentary (Russian) cultures in this context. The focus of the book is the rule of Ayuki Khan, a powerful leader of the Kalmyks and the contemporary of Peter I.
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Kivelson, Valerie. Cartographies of Tsardom: The Land and Its Meanings in 17th Century Russia. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006.
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The second half of Kivelson’s book uses the maps of Remezov from the late 17th century to deduce an imperial view quite distinctive from that of Western Europe; it sets the scene for 18th-century expansion and reexaminations.
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Plokhy, Serhii, ed. Poltava 1709: The Battle and the Myth. Harvard Papers in Ukrainian Studies 10. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013.
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See Military Change; included here for its section offering new interpretations of Mazepa and his role.
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Witzenrath, Christoph. Cossacks and the Russian Empire, 1598–1725: Manipulation, Rebellion and Expansion into Siberia. London: Routledge, 2007.
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Witzenrath, in examining the role of Cossack military servitors in Siberia over the long 18th century, emphasizes the limits of authority emanating from Moscow and Saint Petersburg. Although questions remain about the coherence of Cossack groups and Cossackdom, the Cossacks in eastern Siberia nonetheless proved an effective frontier force.
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Image

Interpretations of Peter have undergone considerable change over the centuries since his dramatic reign. He has figured both as an unambiguous hero and as a more complex figure in popular and historical treatments. Riasanovsky 1992 and Platt 2011 analyze the treatment of Peter largely within Russia.

Platt, Kevin. Terror and Greatness: Ivan and Peter as Russian Myths. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2011.
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Platt analyses Peter as associated with greatness. This is compared with Ivan IV’s myth over the 19th and 20th century, which is associated with terror.
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Riasanovsky, Nicholas. The Image of Peter the Great in Russian History and Thought. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992.
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Riasanovsky focuses on Russian writers’ analyses of Peter the Great, into the Soviet era.