By: Berenice Morfin Uriel “-yooReeO!” Guadarrama And Esmeralda Chavez =)

 The reign of Ivan IV got him known as Ivan the terrible.  Midway to his reign he underwent through a personality change that led him to move from a program of sensible reform of law.  In 1613 an assembly of nobles elected as tsar a seventeen-year-old boy named Michael Romanov.  The Romanov dynasty ruled Russia until  Michael had 2 successors, Aleksei and Theodore II, they brought stability and bureaucratic centralization to Russia.  The Boyars, the old nobility, still controlled the bureaucracy after years of turmoil. Peter the Great

Peter ascended the throne as co-ruler with his sickly half brother Ivan V. Sophia, the sister of the two brothers, was named regent. But Peter’s followers overthrew her in Peter self-consciously resembled Louis XIV of France. Peter understood that his goal to copy what he had seen abroad a trip to western Europe would require him to confront the long- standing and traditions of the Russian nobles. While peter was abroad, the streltsy had rebelled. This made peter brutally suppress the revolt with private tortures and public executions where his own ministers took part.

His military establishment was put out to serve the tsar and not itself. He drafted 130,00 soldiers during the first decade of the eighteenth century and about 300,00 troops by the end of his reign. Peter made a sustained attack towards the boyars and their attachment to traditional Russian culture. Peter's claim to greatness rests mainly on the fact that from first to last he clearly recognized the requirements of the Russian nation and his own obligations as its ruler. It would have materially lightened his task if he had placed intelligent foreigners at the head of each department of state, allowing them gradually move up a native bureaucracy.

Peter oversaw the construction of ships to protect his interests in the Black Sea against the Ottoman Empire. Part of the reason for Peter’s trip to western Europe in 1697 was to learn how to build better warships, this time for combat on the Baltic. The construction of a Baltic fleet was helpful in Peter’s struggles with Sweden that over the years accounted for many of his major steps toward westernizing his realm.

At the end of the thirty years war Sweden took control of the Baltic and prevented Russian possession of a port on that sea, also permitting Polish and German access to the sea only on Swedish terms. Charles XII took the Swedish throne in 1697, he was headstrong, to say very little and maybe somewhat insane. In the Great Northern War Charles led a vigorous and often brilliant campaign defeating the Russians at the battle of Narva. Peter the Great began a drive to the west against Swedish territory to gain a foothold on the Baltic. He was able to finally defeat the Swedes at the Battle of Poltava in Ukraine. This caused the Swedes to only being able to maintain a holding action against their enemies. When the Great Northern War came to an end in 1721, the Peace of Nystad confirmed the Russian conquest of Estonia, Liovonia, and Part of Findland.

Peter the Great founded his new capital city of St. Petersburg in The founding of St. Petersburg went beyond establishing a central imperial court, it symbolized a new Western orientation of Russia and Peter’s determination to hold his position on the Baltic Coast. The consequences of this city were that it looked different from the old capital Moscow and other Russian cities.

Peter had a son His son was named Aleksei His son had been born to his first wife whom he divorced in 1698 As Aleksei grew up he never showed any great intelligence or any ambition. In 1716, Peter became paranoid, thinking that his enemies would attempt a coup using his son. The next year, Aleksei went to Vienna and entered into a conspiracy. His trip was compromised, however, and he returned to Russia surrounded by suspicions. Peter realized that Aleksei had succeeded in his conspiracy with Hapsburg emperor Charles VI in early Aleksei died under mysterious circumstances some months later. Coincidence?

All of the interrogations related to Aleksei revealed that court opposition was worse than what Peter had expected. Peter undertook radical administrative reforms designed to bring Nobility and Russian Orthodox Church more closely under the authority of those loyal to the tsar “Interrogation”

But before he had killed his son in June of 1718, Peter was reorganizing his domestic administration to fight corruption and sustain his own authority in December of But Peter was smart and copied his Swedish enemies. He created institutions called colleges. They were bureaus of several people following written instructions. They functioned better than the prior departments which were headed by a single minister. He created eight such institutions to oversee matters such as the collection of taxes, foreign relations, war, and economic affairs. Peter divided the members of these colleges between Nobles and people he knew that were loyal to him.

Peter intended to draw the Nobility into state service in his newly published Table of Ranks. The Table equated a person’s social position and privileges with his rank in the bureaucracy or military, rather than his lineage among the traditional Nobles. Many, if not all, continued to resent the changes Peter had introduced into Russia. Peter thus made the social standing of individual boyars a function of their willingness to serve the central state

Peter suppressed the independence of the Russian Orthodox Church where some bishops and clergy had displayed sympathy for the tsar’s son. Peter abolished the position of patriarch, the bishop who had been head of the church. He also established a government department called the Holy Synod, which consisted of several bishops headed by a layman, called the procurator general. This reorganization was the most radical transformation of a traditional institution of Peter’s reign. For all the numerous actions Peter had taken since 1718, he still hadn’t settled on a successor. Which meant that when he died there was no clear line of succession to the throne. For more than 30 years, soldiers and nobles again determined who ruled Russia. Peter had laid the foundations of a modern Russia, but not the foundations of a stable state.

Hope you enjoyed our presentation! =D Credits: There are none They were given at the beginning