Peter the Great Biography - The life of Peter the Great Documentary

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] the man known to history as Peter the Great or petr alekseevich romanov was born on the 9th of June 16 72 in the Russian capital of Moscow his father Alexis the first have been Tsar of Russia since 1645 and his mother natalia narshe Skeena was a lowborn tartar woman who had met Alexis while under the tutelage of his close friend and chief minister Artem on man 3 EV czar Alexis had also fathered two children prior to Peter's birth Theodore and Ivan both of whom were weak and sickly and were not expected to live for long meaning the Peter who was in contrast a large healthy child soon became the apple of his father's eye young Peters life would soon be transformed however as four years after his birth his father passed away of a chill leaving the throne to his eldest son Theodore meaning Peter's extended family on his mother's side were exiled from Moscow including his protector man drove as the new Tsar and his family saw them as a potential threat due to the exile of his mother's family Peter spent much of his early years under the watchful eye of Zartha adores relatives namely his half-sister Sofia and he then began his formal education in which he was taught Greek and polish largely under the tutelage of the statesman and his lifelong friend Nikita zu tov tsar Theodore will Theodore the third is perhaps best remembered for his liberal reforms within the Russian state in which she rejected the influence of the country's Orthodox Church and embraced science as well as relaxing the country's penal laws this intern drew the suspicion of the Russian nobility and clergy who thought that Theodore was seeking to take away their ancient privileges and they increasingly viewed both he and his family as a threat to the old order the young czars rain was then cut short however shortly after his second wedding Theodore died just age 20 leaving the throne vacant and the country in turmoil the rightful heir to the throne was his brother Ivan who was Peters older half-brother from his father's first marriage but as he was weakened handicapped the nobility and Church feared his ascension would bring about the downfall of the Sodom especially if he continued his brother's liberal reforms on the other hand there was Peter a young intelligent and healthy boy with a nobility viewed as a possible Savior against the growing tide of liberalism and who the church viewed as a strong and stable successor the choice of a successor was then given to the Council of Nobles who overwhelmingly chose Peter to be the new Tsar and so at the age of 10 he was crowned Peter the first of Russia on the 7th of May 1682 alongside his mother who was named as regent the coronation was however met with outrage by Ivan's family who viewed his ascension to the throne to be illegal and one of the most vocal of these detractors was Peters half-sister Sophia who would over the coming months use her considerable influence to try and claim what she saw as her brother's and family's birthright shortly after Peter's ascension to the throne a conspiracy began to circulate in the capital that the Tsar's half-brother Prince Ivan and his family had been executed by the order of Peter's mother Natalya and her relatives this room and then reached the ears of the corrupt and Royalists standing army of Russia the Streltsy who then took up arms and marched on the Kremlin to exact revenge on those they viewed as responsible however upon arrival the Streltsy were met by syrettes and natalya alongside peter and to their surprise prince ivan whom they had been told was dead the army then backed down but in a cruel twist of fate the son of the Streltsy scamander prince michael scolded and insulted the gathered soldiers for their mutiny and as they were armed and aggravated young colonel was dragged into the street and hacked to death after this peter was effectively held as a prisoner in the kremlin as four days afterwards the Streltsy engaged in an orgy of slaughter against the russian nobles military commanders and members of his mother's family indeed one of the most notable casualties was peter's old protector man viev who was executed in front of his eyes when the bloodshed had died down prince ivan was installed as the first czar and peter was relegated as seconds are under him however neither of them had any power or influence in the country as sofia who along with her family have been behind the revolt was installed as regent of russia and would remain so for another seven years indeed the Moscow uprising as it is now known would come to have a massive effect on Peter as he had been humiliated and was now little more than a puppet of his controlling half-sister Sophia this led to him to come to hate the city of Moscow as he was surrounded by plotting subjects and guarded by an inner discipline and barbaric mob who had increasingly become drunken corrupted by power and who were responsible for the miserable situation he now found himself in this then led to Peter permanently settling outside of the Kremlin with his mother and this desire to escape Moscow and the tight maze-like hallways of the Kremlin would one day manifest itself in him building his new capital while assure of the Baltic Sea st. Petersburg away from the capital young Peter spent the majority of his spare time playing military games with the local boys in which he formed regiments lived in makeshift barracks camped in the wild and even delegated himself regular Night Watch duties he also enforced a strict merit-based system in which any young soldier be they noble or peasant could win promotion within his ranks and he even gave himself the lowly position of drummer boy and took orders from his own subjects indeed Peters collection of young soldiers would eventually become the embryo for his first prayer brands n ski regiment which would in time become the elite Imperial Guard and protect the royal family until the fall of the Russian monarchy in 1917 one fateful day young Peter whilst exploring the storerooms or barns of his father's country estate near Moscow stumbled across an old miniature western-style ship most likely of English origin that had evidently been given as a gift many years earlier intrigued by the design Peter had the boat repaired and put to sail on one of the surrounding lakes and was soon captivated in the crafts ability to sail with and against the wind this discovery then started his lifelong fixation with the sea and navy which was a field that had largely been neglected by the Sodom as the country lagged behind its Western neighbors in naval technology and this infatuation with the sea would later lead Peter to seek out naval poets from the black and Baltic seas who would regale him with tales of maritime adventures by the time Peter reached adulthood his half-sister Sophia had held the Russian Regency for seven years and her rule had seen the continuation of his are feared or slow westernization of the country which in turn threatened the power of the aristocracy as well as the Orthodox Church as a result of this much of the Russian nobility through their support behind Peter in the hope that he would be easier to control than the capable Saphir but unbeknownst to them Peter in his later life would be the greatest reformer in Russian history Sophia's reputation had also been damaged by to disastrous campaigns against the Crimean Tartars around this time which had begun to erode her power base as both the Russian nobility and people's confidence in her leadership was starting to evaporate soon after this rumors started to circulate within the capital that Sophia was planning to seize the crown from Peter for herself through treachery whilst on the other hand there were other whispers that young Peter was intent on marching on the Kremlin that his army of boy soldiers but the young Tsar's small regiment posed no threat to the elite streltsy who were keeping guard in the capital however while Sophia helped control of the Russian government she was no more than a region for the two czars Peter and Ivan who held divine rule over Russia and whom the people would ultimately be loyal to this meant that any action against the czars would be viewed as an act against God and as the Streltsy regiments were sworn defenders of the Tsar should Peter enter the capital the Royal Guard would be more likely to join him against Sofia than vice versa Sofia then succumbing to her ever-growing sense of paranoia acted first and summoned a large force of Streltsy to the capital in anticipation of an attack on the Kremlin however Peter had no plans to retake Moscow but when use reached him that Sofia was building up her forces in the capital he feared the worst and quickly took refuge in the impenetrable troitskiy monastery from the safety of the monasteries thick walls Peter then sent out a series of letters to officers of the Streltsy guard the patriarch of the Orthodox Church and elite members of Sophia's own court who being unable or unwilling to refuse a direct command from the Czar pledge their allegiance to him leading to Sofia soon afterwards being sent into exile in a convent even though Peter had secured the throne his mother now replaced her fear as regent resulting in him then spending much of his time away from the affairs of the government in the German suburb of Moscow which was populated by a large Protestant minority that had fled persecution during the Wars of Religion in Western Europe the reason for this was that Peter sought the company of like-minded people who he hoped would teach him about Western politics culture and history therefore over the coming months he mixed with merchants diplomats and military figures in the German suburb such as Patrick Gordon a Russian general of Scottish descent and friends LeFort a naval Admiral of Swiss birth Peter then began to hold lavish balls and events within the suburb attracting not only Westerners but Russian Nobles who sought his favour resulting in him assembling a large following of close friends who became known as the jolly Company but Peters time in the German suburb greatly damaged his relationship with his religious mother the church and is more conservative subjects and when he attempted to install a more liberal on Western friendly Church patriarch he was met with such strong opposition that he was forced to back down as a result of this Peter formed his own mock bishopric named the College of Cardinals which was comprised of members of his jolly company and he also continued to make fun of his own position by delegating himself to ranks below that or his play soldier companions indeed he even appointed his close friend Prince Theodor Romo dan V ski as Generalissimo of his regiment and his close friend would also become an important figure in the Czar's future reformation of Russia and the first head of his secret police the downside to this was that Peters time away from the capital took a heavy toll on his Orthodox education meaning that his learning of Greek and polish were cut short and his handwriting never matured beyond that of a child instead Peter took on a more western-style education from his new camaraderie and learned Dutch and German as well as carpentry and also began wearing a western style of clothing and signing his name in the Latin style Petrus Peters mother then in 1689 arranged for her son to marry a Russian Orthodox noblewoman named doc Xie who to any other Russian Tsar would be considered a perfect match however Peter much preferred the company of Western ladies to the austere women of his homeland and soon afterwards took a Dutch Beauty named Anna Mons to be his mistress Peter would eventually have a doxy ascent into exile to a convent in an effort to be rid of her even though she bore him several children and after her and Peter's grandson Peter ii ascended to the throne in 1727 she was brought back to Moscow from her exile with great pomp and ceremony Peter had made regular trips to the Lakes surrounding Moscow since his half-sister Sofia had ruled as regent and had along with sailing developed his talent on every aspect of shipbuilding which soon resulted in him developing rough calloused hands from years of craftsmanship but merely building boats and sailing them on calm Lakes was no longer enough for Peter and he then sought to exchange his country's inland waterways for the high seas and his boats for full-size ships however massive his empire was the country had but one seaport that being Archangel on the shores of the White Sea to the north therefore Peter alongside his jory company began the construction of a shipyard in several vessels including his new flagship the Saint Peter Archangel served as Russia's only shipyard at this time and it was here that Peter met a great number of Dutch and English sailors and merchants but because of the port position in the far north the flow of shipping was restricted to only a few months per year as the surrounding waters would freeze in the Russian winter it was because of this geographical restriction the Peter turned his eyes towards the south and the Black Sea where during her Regency his half-sister Sophia had ordered two failed walls against the Tartars of the Crimea and their powerful Ottoman overlords it was around this time that Peters mother and de facto Regent Italia died in 1694 meaning that he now finally had a free hand in the government of the country even though his ineffectual half-brother Ivan was still alive the Russians are then set his sights on capturing the strategic fortress town of Azov at the mouth of the Don River in the south which if taken would give him access to the Sea of Azov and potentially the Black Sea beyond it his half-sister Sophia's military failures in the region were credited to the old Russian Coast of living large armies of untrained peasants and while the Streltsy served as the czars elite fighting force their numbers were meager in comparison to the massed ranks of the professional Turkish armies however Peter had confidence in his newly trained Preobrazhensky guards who were now led by Western officers which he considered superior to the old aristocratic Russian tactician z' and he then continued his war plans at breakneck speed then in the summer of 1695 the Czar launched a short and ultimately unsuccessful siege of the turkish fortress of Azov the failure of which was put down to the treachery of one of his most trusted Dutch advisors along with the poor discipline of his now foreign led Streltsy however he then received some good news from Moscow that his half-brother and Kosar Ivan had died leaving Peter as absolute ruler of the Sodom of Russia and after this he renewed his assault on Azov in late 1695 resulting in the surrender of the fortress in July the following year Peter then sought to dominate the Black Sea by amassing and large fleet to act as a bastion against the Ottoman Empire to the south but this new Navy required experienced sailors and a vast naval infrastructure to operate effectively which Russia did not possess and as Peter also wanted a disciplined Regular Army he turned to his Western neighbors for the expertise skills and resources he's so badly needed the Saarland sent out a mass delegation to every corner of Europe in order to garner aid against the powerful Ottoman threat and even visited Russia's old enemy Sweden in person as well as the Netherlands and far-off England who were the dominant naval powers of the age and also send requests to Venice to send experts in the construction of the famous Venetian galleys these journeys across Europe became known as the Grand Embassy of Peter the Great and a virtually without parallel in European history as it was unheard of for one of the most powerful men in the world to talk country after country in search of techniques personnel and technologies conventionally when a head of state traveled to a foreign nation a large ceremony was held that could last up to a week but Peter wanted to avoid wasting time with extravagant ceremonies and so chose to travel incognito as a diplomat under the false name Peter mikhaylov in Sweden Peter spent much of his time inspecting the country's fortresses to their great suspicion and he then travelled to Kooning's burg where he met the elector of Brandenburg and future king in Prussia Frederick Wilhelm the Europe that Peter experienced on his travels was a continent dominated by the prestige and splendor of a single man louis xiv the son King of France who Peter attempted to distance himself from as at the time France was at war with a great number of Russia's allies Lazar then travelled to the Dutch capital of Amsterdam which had over the past century become the jewel of Europe and envy of her French and English neighbors largely due to the country's maritime supremacy and wealth Peter was given the opportunity to work in two of the largest shipyards in the world at Amsterdam and rather than attending the formal functions that were expected of him the Czar preferred to work in the dockyards where he proudly went by the name carpenter Peter and it is clear that he enjoyed the simple life of a craftsman and sailor far more than the extravagance and comforts that were his birthright at this point the United Provinces were under the control of the Prince of Orange King William the third of England who the young Tsar had learned about in Moscow's German suburb we'd heard stories of Williams victories against the Sun King both in the Netherlands and on the high seas Peters first encounter with William took place in the city of Utrecht while the great Embassy was still in Holland although whilst both men were equally famous in their own right the two were unlikely pairing as William was a cold disciplined middle-aged man and Peter was six foot seven inches tall and had an impulsive energetic nature Peter then met William again on his visit to London in 1698 which came at a pivotal moment in the country's history as it was transitioning into a major European power and would soon dominate the world's maritime trade after four months in England the great embassy then crossed the channel and headed to Vienna the capital of the Habsburg Empire to meet with the Emperor of Austria Leopold the first this was an important meeting for both men as Peter's hold over his latest acquisition in the Black Sea was not yet secured and as Leopold had been at war with the Ottomans for some years Peter hoped to prolong the war against the Turks and force them into granting his growing Navy access to the Black Sea Peters negotiations were soon cut short however when he received news that his Streltsy regiments were marching on Moscow in a plot to place his half-sister Sophia back on the throne which prompted him to immediately set out for Russia or whilst traveling through Poland he was given the welcome news that his trusted General Patrick Gordon had already crushed the revolt in Peters unexpected stay in Poland he became acquainted with the elector of Saxony and the king of Poland Augustus the strong who was so named as he was said to be able to bend horseshoes with his bare hands the two men then quickly became close friends and spent several days dining drinking and reviewing the Saxon troops together until August has revealed his true intentions that being a possible joint attack against the Swedish Empire this idea entry's Peter as the Swedish had pushed the Russians out of the Baltic during the Thirty Years War and it used the sea as a means to fill their treasury through control of maritime trade ever since August is's own ambitions were to reclaim lost territories along the Baltic Sea that had once been held by Poland and after doing so he would ground Peter access to the Baltic which had time was dominated by Sweden's Navy the two men were further encouraged by the fact that the swedish king charles xi had died in 1697 and had left the throne to his brash and inexperienced fifteen-year-old son charles the 12th peter then returned to moscow in early september 1698 and was greeted by streets filled with peasants and Nobles alike each wanting to get a glimpse of the returning Tsar who for the first time in Russian history had left the country during peacetime the Tsar then immediately started his program of westernization and instituted a decree forcing all Russians of high status to shave their beards despite it having long been customary for men to grow long facial hair and shaving to the Orthodox clergy at least was viewed as being near heretical those who refused this decree were then forced to pay a beard tax but upon payment had to also enjoy the further humiliation or wearing a medallion around their necks with the words tax paid written on it Peter then continued to implement his reforms and decreed that his subjects were to shed their traditional long oriental robes and take on a more western style of clothing such as waistcoats and he then having been influenced by his visit to the Royal Mint in England began distributing official Russian currency as well as transitioning the Russian calendar to the Western Julian calendar by this time Peters war against the Ottomans in the Black Sea had come to a standstill which resulted in him turning his attention towards the Baltic where Russia's polish and now Danish allies prepared for war against Charles the 12th of Sweden Peter had joined this alliance in order to press his claims on the historic Russian territories along the baltic coast which had been lost to the swedish kingdom during the preceding decades but as his allies were almost ready to attack the tsar resorted to the time old Russian custom of levying a 200 thousand strong army which was primarily made up of peasants the war then began when Peters Danish ally Frederick the fourth invaded the land of Sweden's ally the Duke of Holstein got robbed and after finally signing an armistice with the Ottoman Empire Peter launched his own attack by besieging the estonian fortress town of Nava in november of 1700 but the experienced Swedish forces soon counter-attack the Russians in response who outnumbered them by four to one during a blizzard in which they charged the Czar's inexperienced regiments and dealt a crushing defeat on both Peters army and his reputation news of the disaster at novice stunned the Tsar and he feared the Charles would march unopposed on Moscow however Peter remain vigilant and then sought to ensure his army was better prepared for future engagements by ordering complete overhaul of its training with new standards of discipline and new tactics based on the European model with the bulk of the Swedish army in Poland the opportunistic czar with his newly trained troops and navy marched along the baltic coast in 1702 and captured the strategically vital swedish fortress of ngayon at the mouth of the river neva a year after this peter demolished the old swedish fort and founded his own much strengthened fortress and town which he would eventually make the new capital of his empire st. Petersburg named after the Apostle who was Peter's namesake from the beginning to the end of the great northern war as the conflict is now known Peter did not remain under the same roof for more than a week and his army moved unopposed from town to town seizing Baltic fortresses devastating farmland and capturing skilled carpenters and other workers to send back to Russia among these prisoners was a young Polish woman named Martha scarran skya who would become peter's mistress wife and later the woman known to history as Catherine the first of Russia shortly after the founding of st. Petersburg Peter restored Russian prestige by finally capturing the fortress at Narva which helped him to secure his new capital as he knew that when Charles of Sweden was finished in Poland he would return east to reclaim his lost Baltic territories the Tsar's fears then became a reality when in 1703 Augustus the strong finally succumbed to the Swedes and abdicated the Polish throne meaning with King Charles then prepared to march eastward in order to claim revenge on Peter Peter had previously attempted to make peace with the Swedish king and even requested mediation from Vienna and London but with Europe embroiled with its own conflict over the succession of the Spanish throne no help was forthcoming Charles then began his invasion two years later winning a string of victories against the more numerous Russian forces and soon Peter feared that the quick progress of the swedish army would lead to the capture of moscow a possibly result in the swedish king reinstating his half-sister Sofia however Russia was then as it is now a colossal country and as the later invasions of Napoleon Bonaparte and Adolphe Hitler would prove conquering such a large expanse of territory was beyond the capabilities of the majority if not all of the Western European nations despite being outmatched in terms of the quality of its soldiers the Russian state could replenish the losses suffered in its defeats far more quickly than the Swedes who's fighting population was a mere fraction of Russia's and whose supply lines were increasingly becoming stretched to the limit to fight the superior quality of Charles's military Peter then employed a scorched earth policy from when the Swedes crossed the Polish border and the Russians soon created a belt of devastation in front of their foes further compounding their supply problems Peter also sent his Cossacks to harass the Swedish supply lines which combined with what was described as the worst winter with in memory devastated the Swedish army culminating in Peters first major victory against the Swedes at the fortress of Poltava and after this defeat the Swedish king fled to the ottoman empire with a handful of his remaining soldiers now confident with his victory at Poltava Peter demanded the eviction of Charles the 12th from the Turkish Empire which the Sultan our home at the third refused prompting Peter to declare war on the Ottomans and he then undertook a campaign against the Muslims in conjunction with his allies in the Balkans our modern-day Romania this campaign took place from 1710 to 1711 and proved to be a fruitless venture that ended in Peter agreeing to hand over the fortress of Azov to the Ottomans and along with it access to the Black Sea on the condition that Charles of Sweden was sent back to his homeland leaving the Balkans behind him Peter returned to his pet building project of st. Petersburg the building of which had begun in earnest in the years after the victory of Poltava and continued at breakneck speed until in 1712 the city became Peters de-facto capital as well as his obsession although the Tsar was absent from his new capital for months at a time construction of the city never slowed down and Peter's letters around this time are filled with questions and orders relating to the building of embankments and palaces the digging of canals and the planting of gardens indeed st. Petersburg was considered at the time to be the Venice of the north much to the Czar's delight and the city remains one of the jewels of Europe to this very day Peter now at the age of 44 was beginning to suffer from the effects of the stresses he had undertaken therefore in the hope Travel would improve his health he decided to journey into the West once again on this second journey Peter traveled to Germany where he brought Prussia and Hannover over to his anti Swedish alliance and also regained the support of Augustus the strong of Poland and King Frederick William of Denmark his travels also brought him back to the Netherlands and following the death of the Sun King Peter travelled to Paris and afterwards commented that the city was the highlight of his trip upon his return to st. Petersburg the Tsar was greeted by his two young daughters Anna and Elizabeth who were both he and Catherine's last surviving children the latter of which would eventually become Empress of Russia in 1741 from his first marriage Peter had only one surviving child that being his son and heir Alexei with whom he had a complicated relationship as for much of the boy's life Peter was traveling building his fleet and expanding his empire which left the raising of his heir to his first wife who doc Xia as well as the nobility who sought to reverse the reforms and innovations of the Tsar indeed his sons conservative education and distance from his father caused a schism between the Tsar and his heir as Peter preferred the Western culture and style of st. Petersburg while Alexei favoured the old customs and cathedrals of Moscow Peter then attempted to mend his relations with his heir by switching his education to a Western one and having alexei accompany him on his campaigns and travels as well as arranging his marriage to a German princess but the prince was different to his father in virtually every aspect and was weak and physically lazy much preferring a quiet contemplative life and had little interest in governance or exploration much to his father's disappointment and displeasure this schism then burst into outright animosity when Peter gave his son an ultimatum to either take on his aristocratic responsibilities or renounce the throne and to Peter surprise Alexei who announced his inheritance without so much as a challenge Peter clearly annoyed then responded by giving his son another ultimatum to either take his rightful place as heir or be sent to live out his life as a monk which prompted Alexei to then flee the overlordship of his father to the Austrian Court in Vienna humiliated by this Peter then demanded that his son return will be branded a traitor but upon doing so Alexei and his accomplices were imprisoned and tortured during which he confessed conspiring to kill his father and was executed as a result which passed the succession to his son the future Peter the second this was perhaps one of the darkest chapters in Peters reign and although we like to think of him as an enlightened Tsar it is clear that he still commanded the total obedience from those under him and was capable of exacting brutal punishments of those that displeased him Peter's war with Sweden now began to heat up once again as in 1716 when Charles the 12th who had recently returned from negotiations with the Ottoman Sultan began his final offensive on Norway by this point Peter had made major gains into Finland the Baltic and parts of Sweden but his occupation of these territories was harsh in the extreme as entire towns and farmland were set ablaze in the wake of the Swedish counter-offensives and atrocities and plundering against the Finnish peasantry in particular were commonplace the enter hostilities then presented itself in 1718 when King Charles was killed was campaigning in Norway the three years later both Sweden and Russia finally signed the Treaty of nice dad which granted Peter the territories of ingria Estonia and Livonia a year later Peter then officially proclaimed himself emperor of all Russia which replaced the old Russian czar 'dom with the more Western Russian Empire and now that his great northern war was over Peter turned his attentions elsewhere there's Arvin looked to the south in the hope of dominating commerce along the Caspian Sea and led a brief expedition into the region in 1722 against the declining Persian Empire and then expanded into the caucuses for the first time in Russian history however these gains were short-lived as within a decade the Persians would reclaim the majority of their lost territories meaning that Peters endeavors have been pointless the aging Tsar then after returning to his new capital sought to abolish the aristocratic power of the Russian nobility by introducing a meritocratic system known as the table of ranks would recognize good military and civil service and allowed lowborn persons to rise to positions of power and influence within the Russian state but Peters life of travel labor and excessive drinking had taken a toll on his health and he had started to suffer from serious infections of the urinary tract and bladder resulting at one point in over four pounds of trapped urine having to be drained from him by surgeons against his doctor's recommendations not to exert himself Peter then continued to travel between Moscow and st. Petersburg where he one day according to legend swam into a river or lake to save some drowning sailors which resulted in his ailments returning with a vengeance his condition rapidly worsened after this until on the 8th of February 1725 Peter the first emperor of Russia passed away at the age of 52 and his remains were then interred in st. petersburg's Peter and Paul Cathedral Peter the great as he is now known is widely considered today to be one of the most important rulers in Russian history his reign marked a transformation of Russia from an inward-looking isolationist state into a modern European power and there is little doubt that without Peter the country would have formed further behind it's neighbors very possibly with disastrous consequences it could be said that many of Russia's greatest leaders have been those who have sought to bring the country into the modern world and Peter the Great certainly set an example for his successors to follow he remains today as the benchmark against whom all Russian leaders are judged and is certainly comparable with other European rulers such as Frederick the Great who like Peter transformed his country into a modern enlightened state perhaps his greatest achievement was having the courage and foresight to break the conventions of his homeland which had been dominated in the past by inward-looking isolationist czars but unlike his forebears Peter the Great instead sought to bring his nation into the modern world and in doing so said the Russian ship of state firmly on a course to European and world greatness what do you think of Peter the Great was he a great reformer or a tyrant let us know in the comments section and until next time thank you very much for watching you

Channel: The People Profiles

Views: 139,724

Rating: 4.8400788 out of 5

Keywords: Biography, History, Historical, Educational, The People Profiles, Biography channel, the biography channel

Id: e85CTYDQY4I

Length: 41min 18sec (2478 seconds)

Published: Sat May 04 2019