Peter the Great
Peter the Great
Jacob Abbott's vivid 19th-century biography captures the electric story of a ruler who remade himself and an empire. When Peter Alexeivich ascended to the Russian throne at age ten, he inherited a vast, backward kingdom trapped in medieval darkness. What follows is the account of how this curious, restless boy transformed into Peter the Great, the autocrat who dragged Russia into the modern age. Abbott chronicles Peter's titanic struggle against his half-sister Sophia, who ruled as regent while the young tsar grew in the shadows, waiting to seize power. Once he did, Peter razed the old order: he built St. Petersburg on marshland, created a navy from nothing, cut the beards of reluctant nobles, and imposed Western customs on a resistant empire. Written with the moral seriousness of 19th-century historiography, this is a portrait of revolutionary will, visionary and brutal in equal measure. For readers who want to understand how one man's ambition redrew the map of Europe and shaped the Russia that would follow.
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“THE PRINCESS SOPHIA. 1676-1684””
— Jacob Abbott
“PETER THE GREAT.””
— Jacob Abbott
“III. As to my having desired to obtain the crown otherwise than by obedience to my father, and following him in regular order of succession, all the world may easily understand the reason; for, when I was once out of the right way, and resolved to imitate my father in nothing, I naturally sought to obtain the succession by any, even the most wrongful method. I confess that I was even willing to come into possession of it by foreign assistance, if it had been necessary. If the emperor had been ready to fulfill the promise that he made me of procuring for me the crown of Russia, even with an armed force, I should have spared nothing to have obtained it. "For instance, if the emperor had demanded that I should afterward furnish him with Russian troops against any of his enemies, in exchange for his service in aiding me, or large sums of money, I should have done whatever he pleased. I would have given great presents to his ministers and generals over and above. In a word, I would have thought nothing too much to have obtained my desire." This confession, after it was brought to the Czar by Tolstoi, to whom Alexis gave it, was sent by him to the great council of state, to aid them in forming their opinion. The council were occupied for the space of a week in hearing the case, and then they drew up and signed their decision. The statement which they made began by acknowledging””
— Jacob Abbott
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