Who was Peter the Great?

Peter the Great, who lived from 1672 to 1725 was responsible for the transformation of Russia from an impoverished agricultural nation to a strong commercial nation. Peter had a lot to do in Russia. Russia was still a feudal nation at the time he came to power.

It was still a relatively weak and disjointed nation and wasn’t moving forward into the same economic prosperity that other nations in Europe are moving into. Russia had been ruled by a series of czars that were very brutal. They didn’t allow for a lot of development.

Peter was like a breath of fresh air for them. Peter was impressed with the ways of the Western European nations. Instead of just shunning that kind of change, he embraced it. He made several trips to other capitals of these European nations to learn the intricacies of enlightenment, politics, and trade.

For many years, other Western European nations had been under the rule of absolute monarchs that had brought them into a period of prosperity and had really improved those nations. Russia hadn’t had that same advantage. Now, the other nations are moving into a period of enlightenment, where there was a lot of political and social change.

When Peter was impressed with all of this and he went to learn more about the enlightenment, politics, and trade, he wanted to know about it so he could bring it back to Russia and help to better Russia and to bring it into the economic age, so it could trade and have some kind of commerce with these other nations.

St. Petersburg was developed with the intention of it being a Russian city in the style of Paris or Berlin. Peter had hoped that this city would be developed with the same mindset that it would have the same kind of political atmosphere and that trade could develop from there as well, and that these kind of enlightenment ideas, the political change and social change, would build up and actually develop more in this city that was open to that kind of change.

Peter’s innovations did revitalize the economy. Where the economy was kind of struggling, it was only mainly an agricultural nation and a lot of that food had to feed the Russian people. It became a strong commercial nation.

There were natural resources in Russia that people would want to trade, but because it was so hard to trade with the previous Russian czars, there hadn’t been a lot of commerce.

Now, Peter’s innovations, his openness to the Western European nations is building up the Enlightenment policies, his development of St. Petersburg, all of this revitalized the economy and made it a more commercial nation that was also a stronger nation.

His policies also set a standard for decadence that would be carried on by future czars. He did develop this city and he added a lot to that. He went on all these trips. He wanted to make Russia better and better. Those were all good things, but it also meant that he was spending a lot of money and he was building up a lot of decadence around himself as well.

That tradition would also be carried on by future czars. Catherine II was another Russian czar that helped Russia. She was also known as Catherine the Great. She ruled from 1762 to 1796. There was a gap between Peter and Catherine, but she was the next ruler that was known as a ruler to implement many enlightenment policies.

She was still following in Peter’s footsteps. She implemented these policies primarily in education and the arts. Where Peter had pushed more toward world political change and economical change, Catherine was pushing more toward educational change and developing the arts.

Nevertheless, in the remote provinces of Russia, the feudal system endured. There were still very disjointed feudal states and the economy remained stunted. As a whole, Russia did become a stronger commercial nation.

People recognized it as such, but there were still remote areas of Russia that the economy- that this revitalization of the economy hadn’t trickled down to. These places were still remote.

They were still functioning basically as a feudal system and hadn’t been joined as one united nation in Russia. Peter the Great was the one who spurred this political and economic transformation during the Enlightenment period for Russia.