March 26, 2007
The Dark Side of Peter the Great
Peter the Great (1672-1725) is most often remembered as the Russian czar who brought Russia out of backwardness and isolation. Peter was an internationalist from his early years. While still in his teens, he made friends with foreigners living in Moscow’s “German village”---a West European enclave in the heart of Russia. As a young czar in his twenties, he traveled to the Netherlands, Great Britain and other countries in Western Europe.
When he returned from his first glimpse of the West, Peter was determined to rid his country of “Russian” ways that he considered to be backward. He took steps to break the grip that the Russian Orthodox Church had on society. He also outlawed some forms of traditional Russian dress, mandating that Russians above a certain class level would henceforth wear Western-style attire. Curiously, he also banned beards for men. (He later relented, allowing men to keep their beards if they paid an annual “beard tax.”)
Not everyone supported Peter’s reforms, though. He had many enemies in Russia, among the common citizenry, as well as among the noble boyar class. But Peter’s most dangerous enemies were the Streltzy, an elite, ultra-conservative branch of the Russian army. The Streltzy were based in Moscow. In Peter’s youth they had supported a coup to prevent Peter from becoming the sole czar of Russia. In the process, the Streltzy killed several members of Peter’s family.
When he finally became czar, Peter tried to limit the Streltzys’ influence. He ordered most of them to the battlefront against the Ottoman Turks (one of Russia’s traditional enemies), far from the center of Russian political power in Moscow.
But the Streltzy were not about to be pushed aside so easily. They deserted their posts on the Turkish frontier and attempted to return to Moscow. Once there, they would presumably attempt to overthrow Peter and replace him with his half-sister, Sophia, whose views were more acceptable to the reactionary Streltzy.
Factions of the army that were loyal to Peter stopped the Streltzy before they could reach Moscow. The prisoners were taken to Moscow in chains, where a horrible fate awaited them.
Peter spent weeks systematically torturing the Streltzy. His objective was to learn if any of the Russian nobility had encouraged the coup attempt. Many were tortured with the knout, a heavy leather whip that can tear away large sections of flesh with each strike. Others were beaten with sticks.
After the torture of the Streltzy was finished, most of them were executed in public. Some were beheaded, others were hung in Red Square. Peter never learned if any of the boyars had been involved in planning the revolt.
Nor was Peter was able to determine whether or not his half-sister Sophia had actively encouraged the Streltzy uprising. But since she was the rebels’ inspiration, he banished her to a convent. He took an additional step to make sure that she got the message: he ordered three Streltzy to be hung directly outside the window of her room. The bodies were left there for the better part of a year.
Prior to the Streltzy uprising, many Russians failed to take Peter seriously. Up until that time, he had not been a very assertive ruler. Peter had seemed more interested in absorbing Western culture and tinkering with the latest gadgets from the West. His brutal crackdown on the Streltzy dispelled all doubts about Peter’s resolve to control Russia in the tradition of the czars.