How Did Peter The Great Control His State

Learning Objective

Explain Peter's domestic reforms and what he hoped to accomplish with each of them

Key Points

Peter the Not bad recognized the weaknesses of the Russian state and aspired to reform it following Western European models. Seeing the class of boyars as obstacles standing in the style of Europeanization and reform, he introduced comprehensive changes into a relatively antiquated organization of Russian administration.
All the authoritative reforms, and particularly the introduction of the Tabular array of Ranks, aimed to weaken the position of the quondam boyar class, only they as well moved Russian federation towards the authoritarian dominion, where power was largely full-bodied in the hand of the caput of the land.
The Orthodox church did not accept Peter'southward reforms, and Peter refused to accept the power of the patriarch. While the tsar did not carelessness Orthodoxy as the master ideological cadre of the land, he started a process of westernization of the clergy and secular command of the church.
Peter established Petrograd in 1703. The city was congenital on the presumption that it would be the most westernized urban center of Russia. He moved the capital letter from Moscow to Petrograd in 1712, and the city became the political and cultural eye of Russia.
While Peter died without naming a successor, his manipulations led to the death of his just male person heir and the crowning of his second wife, Catherine, the Empress. Catherine was the first woman to rule Imperial Russia, opening the legal path for a century well-nigh entirely dominated by women.

Terms

boyars

Members of the highest rank of the feudal Bulgarian, Moscovian, Ruthenian (Ukraine and Republic of belarus), Wallachian, and Moldavian aristocracies, second only to the ruling princes (or tsars), from the tenth century to the 17th century.

Tabular array of Ranks

A formal list of positions and ranks in the military, government, and court of Imperial Russia. Peter the Great introduced the system in 1722 while engaged in a struggle with the existing hereditary dignity, or boyars. It was formally abolished in 1917 by the newly established Bolshevik government.

Collegia

Government departments in Royal Russia established in 1717 past Peter the Nifty. The departments were housed in Petrograd.

Saint petersburg

Russia's second-largest urban center after Moscow and an of import Russian port on the Baltic Ocean. Established by Peter the Neat, betwixt 1713–1728 and 1732–1918 it was the imperial capital letter of Russia. It remains the most westernized city of Russia besides as its cultural capital.

Holy Synod

A congregation of Orthodox church building leaders in Russia. It was established by Peter the Great, Stefan Yavorsky, and Feofan Prokopovich in Jan 1721 to replace the Patriarchate of Moscow. It was abolished post-obit the Feb Revolution of 1917 and replaced with a restored patriarchate under Tikhon of Moscow.

Peter's Reforms of the Russia State

Unlike well-nigh of his predecessors, not only did Peter the Cracking recognize the weaknesses of the Russian state, which at the time was profoundly influenced by the course of boyars (feudal elites), only also aspired to reform it following Western European models. Seeing boyars as obstacles continuing in the way of Europeanization and reform, Peter introduced changes into a relatively blowsy organization of Russian administration. In 1708, he established eight governorates and in 1711 the Governing Senate. All its members, originally ten individuals, were appointed past the tsar. The senate did non interrupt the action and was the permanent operating state torso. In 1713, Landrats (from the German give-and-take for "national quango") were created in each of the governorates. They were staffed by professional civil servants, who assisted a royally-appointed governor. In 1719, after the establishment of government departments known every bit the Collegia, Peter remade Russia's administrative divisions one time more than. The new provinces were modeled on the Swedish arrangement, in which larger, more politically important areas received more political autonomy, while smaller, more rural areas were controlled more than directly by the country.

Peter's distrust of the elitist and anti-reformist boyars culminated in 1722 with the creation of the Table of Ranks, a formal list of ranks in the Russian military, regime, and regal court. The Table of Ranks established a complex organization of titles and honorifics, each classed with a number denoting a specific level of service or loyalty to the tsar. Previously, high-ranking land positions were hereditary, just with the institution of the Table of Ranks, anyone, including a commoner, could work their fashion upwardly the bureaucratic hierarchy with sufficient hard work and skill. While all these administrative reforms aimed to weaken the position of the old boyar class, they also moved Russia towards disciplinarian dominion, where power was largely concentrated in the hand of the head of the state.

Church Reforms

The Russian tsars traditionally exerted some influence on church operations. Still, until Peter'south reforms, the church had been relatively free in its internal governance. Peter lost the back up of the Russian clergy over his modernizing reforms as local hierarchs became very suspicious of his friendship with foreigners and his declared Protestant propensities. The tsar did not abandon Orthodoxy every bit the main ideological core of the state, just attempted to start a process of westernization of the clergy, relying on those with a Western theological education. Simultaneously, Peter remained faithful to the canons of the Eastern Orthodox church. Inviting Ukrainian and Belorussian clergymen, mostly graduates of the highly acclaimed westernized Kiev-Mohyla University, unintentionally led to the "Ukrainization" of the Russian church, and past the middle of the 18th century the majority of the Russian Orthodox church was headed past people from Ukraine.

The traditional leader of the church was the Patriarch of Moscow. In 1700, when the part fell vacant, Peter refused to name a replacement and created the position of the custodian of the patriarchal throne, which he controlled past appointing his own candidates. He could non tolerate the thought that a patriarch could have ability superior to the tsar, as indeed had happened in the example of Philaret (1619–1633) and Nikon (1652–1666). In 1721, he established the Holy Synod (originally the Ecclesiastical College), which replaced patriarchy birthday. It was administered by a lay managing director, or Ober-Procurator. The Synod changed in composition over fourth dimension, but basically it remained a committee of churchmen headed by a lay appointee of the emperor. Furthermore, a new ecclesiastic educational system was begun under Peter. Information technology aimed to improve the usually very poor education of local priests and monks. Notwithstanding, the curriculum was so westernized (accent on Latin language and subjects for the price of limited exposure to Greek, the Eastern Church building Fathers, and Russian and Slavonic church languages) that monks and priests, while being formally educated, received poor training in preparation for a ministry to a Russian-speaking population steeped in the traditions of Eastern Orthodoxy.

Saint Petersburg

In 1703, during the Dandy Northern State of war, Peter the Corking established the Peter and Paul fortress on small Hare Island, past the northward bank of the Neva River. The fortress was the first brick and stone building of the new projected capital city of Russia and the original citadel of what would somewhen be St. petersburg. The city was congenital by conscripted peasants from all over Russia, and tens of thousands of serfs died building it. Peter moved the uppercase from Moscow to Saint petersburg in 1712, only referred to Leningrad as the uppercase (or seat of regime) as early as 1704. Western European architects, most notably Swiss Italian Domenico Trezzini and French Jean-Baptiste Alexandre Le Blond, shaped the city in the initial stages of its structure. Such buildings equally the Menshikov Palace, Kunstkamera, Peter and Paul Cathedral, and Twelve Collegia became prominent architectural landmarks. In 1724, Peter too established the Academy of Sciences, the Academy, and the Academic Gymnasium. St. petersburg is yet the most Westernized urban center in and the cultural capital of Russia.

Collage of pictures from Saint petersburg. Clockwise from pinnacle left: Peter and Paul Fortress on Zayachy Island, Smolny Cathedral, Bronze Horseman on Senate Square, the Winter Palace, Trinity Cathedral, and the Moyka river with the General Staff Edifice.

Succession

Peter had 2 wives, with whom he had fourteen children, but only three survived to machismo. Upon his return from his European tour in 1698, he sought to terminate his unhappy bundled marriage to Eudoxia Lopukhina. He divorced the tsaritsa and forced her into joining a convent. Only i child from the union, Tsarevich Alexei, survived past his childhood. In 1712, Peter formally married his long-time mistress, Martha Skavronskaya, who upon her conversion to the Russian Orthodox church took the name Catherine.

Peter suspected his eldest kid and heir, Alexei, of being involved in a plot to overthrow the emperor. Alexei was tried and confessed under torture during questioning conducted by a secular court. He was bedevilled and sentenced to be executed. The judgement could be carried out only with Peter's signed authorization, but Alexei died in prison house, as Peter hesitated before making the decision. In 1724, Peter had his 2nd wife, Catherine, crowned equally empress, although he remained Russia'southward bodily ruler. He died a year afterward without naming a successor. As Catherine represented the interests of the "new men," commoners who had been brought to positions of swell ability by Peter based on competence, a successful coup was arranged by her supporters in social club to prevent the onetime elites from controlling the laws of succession.
Catherine was the outset adult female to rule Imperial Russia (equally empress), opening the legal path for a century about entirely dominated by women, including her girl Elizabeth and granddaughter-in-law Catherine the Great, all of whom continued Peter the Great'southward policies in modernizing Russia.