What do Peter the Great and Vladimir Putin have in common? Saint Petersburg, of course! The first created the city where the second was born in 1952, where he spent his quarrelsome childhood and where he started out in politics in the shadow of mayor Anatoly Sobchak. “It was inevitable that the Russian president would be marked by this imposing figure so closely linked to his hometown, Leningrad”, points out Thierry Sarmant, author of a recent and clear biography of the tsar: Peter the Great, Russia and the World (Perrin, 2020).
The person concerned makes no secret of his admiration for this imperial predecessor. On June 9, on the banks of the Neva, Putin visited an exhibition organized on the occasion of the 350th anniversary of the birth of Peter I (another, similar, is also presented in Moscow). Then the president compares himself to his model. “Peter the Great led the Great Northern War for twenty-one years (1700-1721)”, explains that day “the historian Putin” in front of an audience of Petersburg students. “You would think he was at war with Sweden, that he was taking something from them. He didn’t take anything from them, he just took back what belonged to Russia.” And the master of the Kremlin, hometown, concludes: “Apparently, it is also our lot to return what belongs to Russia and to strengthen the country. If we start from the fact that these fundamental values constitute the basis of our existence, we we will be able to accomplish the tasks before us.”
The parallel between Peter and Vladimir is relevant. For example, both came to power after a period of destabilization of the Russian state. In the case of the Tsar, after the Time of Troubles (1598-1613), when Orthodox Russia almost fell under the domination of Catholic Poland. In that of the ex-KGB agent, after the dislocation of the Soviet Union and the chaotic end of the Yeltsin era. Another similarity: Pierre and Vladimir share the same will to power, the same expansionist aims, the same obsession with access to the Black and Baltic seas.
“Abroad, he is the equal of Louis XIV”
“Pierre war throughout his long reign in the four corners of the empire with the idea that we must attack and expand to better protect the heart of Russia, continues the biographer. Putin follows the same logic.” The tsar was successively in conflict with the Ottoman Empire (1687-1699 and 1711-1713), Sweden (1700-1721) and Persia (1722-1723). He fights in Ukraine, Moldova and Azov; he conquered Estonia, Livonia (now Lithuania), Ingermania, half of Karelia and Vyborg. For his part, Putin has totaled five wars in twenty-three years of presidency: Chechnya (1999), Georgia (2008), Crimea and Donbass (2014), Syria (2015) and Ukraine (2022).
The comparison stops there because, from the point of view of character and way of life, the differences are glaring. Cold and calculating, Putin is distinguished by his sobriety and his taste for sport. Exuberant, hyperactive and indomitable, Peter I is excessive in everything, especially drunkenness. “He prided himself on drinking a lot, rather than tasting delicate wines, reports Voltaire in his Anecdotes about the Czarpublished in 1731. His real poison was wine and eau-de-vie, which he often abused, relying too much on his robust temperament”, adds the philosopher. Not enough, however, to diminish the aura of this giant (he measures 2 meters, some say even more), at the same time conqueror, builder and reformer. Because, as Thierry Sarmant writes, “in Russia, his only competitor is Ivan the Terrible, Catherine II, Lenin and Stalin”. “Abroad, he adds, he is the equal of an Alexander of Macedonia, a Louis XIV or a Kemal Atatürk.”
Born in the Kremlin in the spring of 1672, Pierre Romanov had an eventful childhood. His father Alexis died at 47 when the toddler was only 3 years old. The Tsar leaves behind four children from two marriages (eight others are already dead). The eldest, Fedor III, ascends the throne but dies six years later. Pierre, aged 10, and his half-brother Alexis, 16, were then crowned joint tsars – in order to satisfy different clans – under the regency of their sister Sophie. The same year 1682, a revolt broke out in Moscow. The child witnesses scenes of extreme violence (beheadings, quarterings) which, it seems, traumatize him and would explain his implacable temperament, which he manifests for example in the winter of 1707-1708 when he subdues a revolt by having 73 rebels executed in Red Square. Finally, in 1696, Pierre became sole monarch at the age of 24, when his brother, in fragile and incapable health, also died.
From czar to carpenter in Amsterdam
The qualities of Peter I come to light. From that same year 1696, he took the city of Azov, hitherto in the hands of the Ottomans, which opened the way to the Black Sea. “Peter’s maritime conquests were limited to the Sea of Azov and did not go beyond the Kerch Strait, but a few years later the Turks were amazed to see a Russian ship named Fortress in front of Constantinople”, underlines Sarmant. The creation of an imperial navy is part, with the foundation of Saint-Petersburg in 1703, of the great work of his reign.
On the strength of this initial success, the Tsar turned to the West, which he burned to discover. His first study trip lasted two years: Riga, Königsberg [actuel Kaliningrad], Hanover, Amsterdam, London, Vienna, Dresden… Wherever he goes, Pierre wants to learn. Amsterdam’s canals fascinate him. They will serve as a model for Saint Petersburg. The traveling tsar worked for a time incognito as a carpenter in the shipyard of the Dutch capital: he wielded the ax under the pseudonym of Pierre Michaëloff. Back in Russia, inspired by European customs, he modernized his empire, reformed institutions, created factories and a conscription army, and revolutionized mores: he forced the nobility to dress in Western style and… to shave your beard!
Scene from the Battle of Poltava, Ukraine, which took place on July 8, 1709, between the army of Peter the Great and the troops of Charles XII of Sweden. Painting by Alexander von Kotzebue. (Photo by leemage / Leemage via AFP)
State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow/FineArtImages/Leemage/AFP
His greatest accomplishment is played out in the military field, with his crushing victory over the Swedish sovereign Charles XII, alias “the Lion of the North”. Since the previous century, the great Scandinavian power has dominated the Baltic. At the time, it controlled the territories of present-day Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, half of the coast of Germany and the region of Saint Petersburg. Russia no longer even has access to the sea. Having signed a peace treaty with the Ottoman Porte for thirty years, the Tsar declared hostilities in 1700. The Great Northern War began. After victories on both sides, the conflict shifts to Ukraine. In September 1709, the Swedish sovereign, allied with the Ukrainian Cossacks, found himself in front of the small town of Poltava, not far from Donbass.
The Swede underestimates the Russians. He came under exceptionally heavy fire, lost 10,000 men, while 19,000 others were taken prisoner. The invincible Charles XII is routed. “Poltava marks the great turning point which changes the Western gaze on Russia, explains Thierry Sarmant. Until then, Pierre is considered as an original and Russia as a semi-barbaric country.” From now on, it is regarded as a great power. In 1721, the peace of Nystad consecrates this new status. Peter I, who died four years later, is now called Peter the Great for eternity. Lesson to ponder: after Poltava, in Ukraine, the tsar returns his attention to the Baltic, in particular Riga, which becomes his main objective. Any resemblance to contemporary events…
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Peter the Great in 7 dates:
1672 Birth in Moscow of Peter, son of Tsar Alexis Mikhailovich and his second wife, Nathalie Narychkine.
1682 Pierre and his half-brother Ivan are crowned joint tsars, under the regency of their sister Sophie. Ivan dies in 1696, Pierre becomes only tsar of Russia.
1697 Russian victory over the Turks at Azov, thanks to the imperial navy created by Peter.
1700-1721 The Great Northern War opposes Peter I and Charles XII of Sweden, who loses the decisive battle of Poltava, in Ukraine, in 1709.
1703 Foundation of Saint Petersburg. The new capital had 8,000 inhabitants around 1710, 40,000 fifteen years later and nearly 100,000 in 1750.
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