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1698-9]

The extirpation of the Strieltzy

525

him sole Tsar; but Sophia in her monastery had been a possible source of danger. He determined that she should be such no longer. An intention on Peter's part to implicate her in the conspiracy is transparent from the first; but the utmost that the most excruciating torments could wring from the wretched Strieltzy was the admission that Sophia had sympathised with the movement and would have helped it if she could. The letter supposed to have been sent by her turned out to have been written by her elder sister Martha. Both the Tsarevnas were shorn as nuns, and imprisoned for life under military surveillance. But Peter's most cruel act of tyranny was his treatment of his unhappy wife. Eudoxia was guilty of no offence. She had nothing to do with the rebellion. But Peter, profiting by the general consternation and imbecility of the reactionaries, gladly shook off an encumbrance whose very presence was a nuisance and a reproach. While still in London, he had attempted to persuade Eudoxia voluntarily to embrace the religious life; but, the gentle creature proving unexpectedly obstinate, she was, on his return, shut up in the Pokrovsky monastery at Suzdal (September 23, 1698). So convinced were the ecclesiastical authorities of the uncanonicity of the whole proceeding that, for nine months, they hesitated to shear the Tsaritsa. Then the Patriarch bowed before the first gust of Peter's fury, and in June, 1699, the Tsaritsa Eudoxia disappeared from the world beneath the hood of "Sister Elena."

He

The terrible deeds of September and October, 1698, were not without an injurious effect on Peter himself, and, more than once, his nervous irritation exploded in tempests of frantic passion. Thus, at a banquet at Lefort's, on September 14, a dispute with General Shein over some trivial matter caused the Tsar to lose all control over himself. rose from the table, drew his sword, fell furiously upon the company, and would have murdered them all on the spot, but for the soothing influence of his new friend, Alexander Danilovich Menshikoff. This extraordinary man was of so obscure an origin that it is doubtful whether his father was an ostler or a bargee. He first emerges into history as a vendor of meat-pies in the streets of Moscow. Lefort took him up and introduced him to Peter; and, on the death of Lefort, in 1699, Menshikoff succeeded him as prime favourite. Ignorant, brutal, grasping and corrupt, Menshikoff, nevertheless, well deserved the confidence of his master. After Peter, there was not a more alert, lucid, unprejudiced and versatile intellect than Menshikoff's in all Muscovy, while his energy was boundless and inexhaustible. He could drill a régiment, build a frigate, administer a province, and decapitate a rebel, with equal facility. During the Tsar's first foreign tour, Menshikoff worked by his side in the dockyards of Amsterdam, visited all the Dutch workshops, and at the same time acquired a thorough knowledge of colloquial Dutch and German.

Two days after the punishment of the Strieltzy Peter wrote to his friend Andrei Vinius: "The shadow of a doubt crosses my mind. What

526

The first administrative reforms

[1699

if the fruit of my labours be delayed, like the fruit of the date-palm, the sower whereof sees it not?" Evidently the disquieting suspicion that the work of regeneration would remain undone, unless he did it himself, spurred him on to fresh efforts. To save the people from the gross and notorious exactions of the voivodui, or provincial governors, and, at the same time to accustom them to self-government, burgomasters and town-councils, on the Western model, were now introduced. But the inherent corruption of Muscovite officialdom at once asserted itself. The starostui, or elders, whose duty it was to see that "good and worthy men" were chosen, systematically excluded from voting those of the electors who refused to pay for the privilege. In order to extirpate these corrupt practices by flogging and banishment, and to prevent their recurrence, Peter appointed a new order of officials, the Pribuilschchiki (Inspectors), who were to provide for the purity of public life, and look after the interests of the Government. The first of them was Alexis Kurbatoff, who had studied commercial and financial questions abroad, and was an intelligent man of many expedients. Shortly after his appointment he suggested to Peter as a new source of revenue, the introduction of stamped paper into Muscovy. Peter was so pleased with the idea that he straightway appointed Kurbatoff his confidential financial adviser. At the same time Peter established trading companies in Muscovy, for the better protection of the native merchants against foreign competition. The last year of the seventeenth century saw another notable reform, which drew a sharp line of demarcation between old and new. By the ukase of December 20, 1699, it was commanded that henceforth the new year should not be reckoned from September 1, supposed to be the date of the Creation, as heretofore, but from the first of January, Anno Domini.

Peter had brought home with him in 1698 the conviction that he must conclude peace with the Porte. This conviction was accompanied by the melancholy reflexion that such a peace would mean the relinquishment of the Black Sea, and the hope of a Russian navy along with it. But, if the Black Sea were abandoned, why should he not compensate himself on the shores of the Baltic? The Baltic was nearer both to Russia and to Western Europe than the Euxine, and, consequently, a much more desirable possession. On the other hand, if it were impossible to continue the Turkish War without allies, they were still more indispensable in a war with Sweden, the great Power from which the Baltic littoral was to be wrested. With these ideas already germinating in his mind, Peter, on his homeward journey in 1698, encountered the lately elected King of Poland, Augustus II, at Rawa. The inexperienced young Tsar was enchanted by the worldly wisdom and the exuberant jollity of this facile and self-indulgent potentate. The Baltic question seems to have been discussed over their wine-cups, and Peter was delighted to find that Augustus was willing enough to

1699-1700]

Conclusion of peace with Turkey

527

meet his ambitions half-way. Charles XI of Sweden, whose genius had enabled Sweden to recover the rank of a great Power, had died the year before; and the Swedish Government was now in the hands of his son, an untried youth of sixteen. If the Baltic Provinces were to be stolen at all, now was the time. But no definite agreement was reached on this occasion. Augustus had not yet matured his plans, and Peter could not embark on a new war till he had terminated the / old one.

On returning to Moscow, Peter at once set about concluding peace with the Porte. It was his good fortune, at this period, to possess a Minister of foreign affairs of the highest ability in Theodore Golovin, who, like so many others of his countrymen in later times, had learnt the business of a ruler in the Far East. On Lefort's death he succeeded him as Admiral-General. The same year he was created the first Russian Count, and from 1699 to his death in 1706 he was the premier Minister of the Tsar. Golovin's first diplomatic achievement was the conclusion of peace with the Porte. The Turks, worsted by the Imperial troops in Hungary and on the Danube, were themselves anxious to come to terms with Muscovy. A preliminary truce for two years had been concluded in 1698, and in 1699 two Muscovite plenipotentiaries were sent to Stambul to convert the truce into a definitive peace. Everything was done both to mollify and to impress the Turk. The ambassadors were provided with 5000 roubles' worth of precious furs and 10 poods (400 lbs.) of walrus ivory, for bribing purposes; and they were not to go by land as heretofore, but by sea. A man-of-war awaited them at the new arsenal of Taganrog, and they were escorted out of the Sea of Azoff by a fleet of nine warships and two galleys. On August 28 a Russian line-of-battle ship sailed for the first time into the Golden Horn, fired a salute, and cast anchor at the very gates of the Seraglio. The Russian plenipotentiaries demanded peace on a uti possidetis basis, and the Turks were. willing at first to accept the terms offered; but unfortunately Russia now found all the Western Powers arrayed against her. Britain and Holland feared the commercial competition of Russia in the Euxine and the Levant, while France dreaded her political rivalry. Thus it came about that the Divan, secretly encouraged by the foreign Ministers, grew more and more exacting and peremptory. Not till July, 1700, was a truce for thirty years concluded between Russia and the Porte. By the terms of the truce the Azoff district and all the land extending from thence to the Kuban district were ceded to Muscovy, who undertook on her part to demolish all the extra-Azovian forts. On August 8, 1700, Peter heard from his chief plenipotentiary, Emelyan Ukraintseff, that peace had been concluded with the Porte. On the following day his army received orders to invade Livonia. The great Northern War had begun.

Great

528 Civilising effect of the great Northern War [1700-3

Hitherto historians have regarded the great Northern War, of which an account is given in a later chapter, too exclusively from a military point of view; yet, from the Russian standpoint, it was not so much an arena for the strife of heroes as, in the first place, a training-school for a backward young nation, and, in the second place, a means of multiplying the material resources of a nation as poor as she was backward. Peter the Great entered into the war with Sweden, in order that Russia might gain her proper place on the northern Mediterranean. The possession of an ice-free sea-board was essential to her national development; the creation of a fleet followed, inevitably, upon the acquisition of such a sea-board; and she could not hope to obtain her due share of the trade and commerce of the world till she possessed both.

But, in the meantime, Russia had to be educated so far as possible up to the European level, in order that she might be able to appreciate and utilise the hardly-won fruits of Western civilisation. And thus it was that, during the whole course of the great Northern War, the process of internal reformation proceeded slowly but unceasingly. The whole fabric of the State was gradually changing. Brand-new institutions, formed on Western models, were gradually growing up amidst the cumbrous, antiquated, worn-out machinery of old Muscovy, and new men, capable and audacious, brimful of new ideas, were being trained, under the eye of the great regenerator, to help him in his task, and to carry it on when he himself should have vanished from the scene. At first, indeed, the external forms of the administration remained much the same as before. The old dignities disappeared of their own accord; for the new men, those nearest to Peter, did not require them. Between 1701 and 1703, the naval, artillery, mining, and coining Directories sprang into existence. The great drag on the wheels of the Government a drag which grew more and more acute as the war proceeded-was its penury. The expense of the fixed embassies at foreign Courts (one of the earliest of the Petrine innovations) was a particularly severe strain upon the depleted treasury. Every expedient to increase the revenue was eagerly snatched at. Taxation was made universal. The sale of spirits became a government monopoly. A great impediment to commerce was the deplorable state of the currency. The only coins in circulation were the well-worn silver kopeks and half-kopeks, most of which were further deteriorated by bisection and trisection. In many places, goods were paid for by leather and other tokens. The currency was reformed by the coinage ukase of March, 1700, which established mints for the stamping and testing of gold, silver, and copper coins by qualified masters. Before 1700, only from 200,000 to 500,000 coins had been annually struck in Russia. In 1700 the number rose to 1,992,000, in 1701 to 2,559,000, and in 1702 to 4,534,000.

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Peter's two great objects at this period of his reign were external security and internal prosperity. The former he had obtained by the

1698-1704]

Peter's toleration of the Dissenters

529

creation of a new army on the European model; the latter he hoped to promote by a whole series of administrative measures. In April, 1702, he issued the celebrated uskase for facilitating the immigration of foreign specialists into Russia, on a scale never before contemplated. The invitation was made as tempting as possible, all such visitors being allowed free ingress and egress, full liberty of worship, and permission to be. tried by their own tribunals. To the better sort of Russian Dissenters, also, Peter was very tolerant. Religious persecution, indeed, he abominated; thus, when he could not prevent the Church from persecuting heretics, he always endeavoured to give to the proceedings a political motive. His attitude towards the Bezpopovshchina, or " priestless community," is characteristic of his general policy. The enterprise and organising genius of this wealthy body enabled it practically to monopolise the rich fisheries and hunting-grounds of the White Sea, while the abundant harvests, which filled its granaries to overflowing, ultimately gave it the command of the corn-market of St Petersburg, which, in the course of 1703, began to spring up among the thickly-wooded marshes of the Neva. All danger from without was avoided by a composition with Peter, the community agreeing to pay double taxes and work, at set times, for nothing, in the state mines and foundries at Povyenets. In return for such services, the practical Tsar, in a ukase of 1703, permitted these lucrative nonconformists full liberty of worship with the use of the ancient rites and the old service-books. The only people to whom he denied toleration were the Jews, whom he regarded with the liveliest hatred.

From the first, Peter did much to promote education, especially education of a practical sort. Schools of mathematics and navigation were established, about 1702, at Moscow, and in 1703 another school was founded there, at which geography, ethics, politics, Latin rhetoric, the Cartesian philosophy, dancing, and the elements of French and German were taught. Great efforts were made to provide cheap books for the new schools. The chief worker in this field was the Protestant Pole, Ilia Kopienski, who set up a press at Amsterdam and, having the privilege of printing all Russian books, issued a considerable number. In 1698, by Peter's special command, he printed an abridgment of Leo the Philosopher's Art of War, and in 1700 a version of Æsop, remarkable as being the first Russian translation from an ancient classical author. In 1703 the first Russian Gazette appeared, entitled News of military and other events worthy of knowledge and remembrance.

Undeterred by repeated failures and the most discouraging relapses, Peter, though himself a semi-barbarian, laboured hard to civilise those who were even more barbarous than himself. In 1702, in order to reduce the number of conflagrations, a ukase directed that all houses were to be built of brick instead of wood, and fire-hose were introduced. In 1704, ukases were issued forbidding midwives to kill misshapen children, and

C. M. H. V.

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