WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.680 OK, so I want you to imagine, if you can, a man 00:00:02.680 --> 00:00:05.980 standing in a crowded room. We're talking the 00:00:05.980 --> 00:00:09.199 late 17th century. So already a different world. 00:00:09.300 --> 00:00:10.900 A completely different world. And this isn't 00:00:10.900 --> 00:00:15.919 just any man. This guy is a literal physical 00:00:15.919 --> 00:00:19.780 anomaly. He is six feet, eight inches tall. Six 00:00:19.780 --> 00:00:22.789 foot eight. Which, let's be honest, is huge even 00:00:22.789 --> 00:00:24.789 by modern standards. Oh, absolutely. But in the 00:00:24.789 --> 00:00:26.969 1600s. Right, when the average height was maybe, 00:00:27.030 --> 00:00:29.850 what, 5 '5". He's basically an NBA center walking 00:00:29.850 --> 00:00:32.710 among, I don't know, toddlers. He's a giant, 00:00:32.850 --> 00:00:35.549 a second Goliath. Exactly. And he's not just 00:00:35.549 --> 00:00:38.090 standing there calmly. He's twitching. He has 00:00:38.090 --> 00:00:40.789 these uncontrollable facial tics, maybe a neck 00:00:40.789 --> 00:00:42.670 spasm that jerks his head to the side when he 00:00:42.670 --> 00:00:45.070 gets excited or angry. So he's not just imposing, 00:00:45.189 --> 00:00:48.359 he's... Unsettling. He is terrifying, he is brilliant, 00:00:48.500 --> 00:00:50.979 and he is just vibrating with his energy that 00:00:50.979 --> 00:00:53.320 is about to tear his country apart and then put 00:00:53.320 --> 00:00:55.619 it all back together again. It is such a striking 00:00:55.619 --> 00:00:57.740 image, and it's not a fictional character. We 00:00:57.740 --> 00:00:59.880 are talking about Peter I, Peter the Great. The 00:00:59.880 --> 00:01:02.899 man himself. And that physical description, the 00:01:02.899 --> 00:01:05.500 sheer scale of the man, the nervous energy, the 00:01:05.500 --> 00:01:08.719 kind of the violence of his movement, it's almost 00:01:08.719 --> 00:01:11.019 a perfect metaphor for his entire reign. It really 00:01:11.019 --> 00:01:13.620 is. He was a force of nature that physically 00:01:13.620 --> 00:01:16.359 and, you know, figuratively dragged Russia kicking 00:01:16.359 --> 00:01:18.879 and screaming out of the medieval era and into 00:01:18.879 --> 00:01:21.969 the modern world. Exactly. And that is what we 00:01:21.969 --> 00:01:24.310 are digging into today. We are looking at a stack 00:01:24.310 --> 00:01:27.609 of historical records, biographical details and 00:01:27.609 --> 00:01:31.489 various accounts of his reign to unpack the absolute 00:01:31.489 --> 00:01:34.230 paradox of this man. Because he really is a man 00:01:34.230 --> 00:01:36.890 of two halves. Completely. On one hand, you have 00:01:36.890 --> 00:01:38.969 the enlightened creator, right? The visionary 00:01:38.969 --> 00:01:41.250 who built St. Petersburg out of a swamp, who 00:01:41.250 --> 00:01:43.549 gave Russia a navy, who brought in science and 00:01:43.549 --> 00:01:46.010 museums. All the things that made Russia a European 00:01:46.010 --> 00:01:48.730 power. But on the other hand. To get those things, 00:01:48.849 --> 00:01:51.250 you have a brutal, and I mean brutal, autocrat. 00:01:51.349 --> 00:01:54.310 A man who personally oversaw the torture of his 00:01:54.310 --> 00:01:57.090 enemies, who mocked the church in the most grotesque 00:01:57.090 --> 00:01:59.430 ways imaginable. And who, and this is the darkest 00:01:59.430 --> 00:02:01.549 part, presided over the torture and death of 00:02:01.549 --> 00:02:04.569 his own son. Yeah, that part is, it's heavy. 00:02:04.670 --> 00:02:06.569 We're definitely going to get there. The mission 00:02:06.569 --> 00:02:08.370 for this deep dive is to try and figure out, 00:02:08.430 --> 00:02:12.389 was he the savior of Russia? Or was he, as some 00:02:12.389 --> 00:02:14.949 of his subjects literally called him, the Antichrist? 00:02:15.069 --> 00:02:17.069 It's a question they were asking then and we're 00:02:17.069 --> 00:02:19.629 still asking now. So let's go back to the beginning. 00:02:20.169 --> 00:02:23.349 Because Peter wasn't born expecting to be the 00:02:23.349 --> 00:02:27.129 sole emperor. Not by a long shot. No, far from 00:02:27.129 --> 00:02:29.310 it. And to understand Peter, you really have 00:02:29.310 --> 00:02:32.689 to understand the chaos he was born into. He 00:02:32.689 --> 00:02:36.650 enters the world in 1672. When his father, Tsar 00:02:36.650 --> 00:02:39.469 Alexis, dies, the throne doesn't go to Peter. 00:02:39.900 --> 00:02:41.479 Right. He had an older brother. He had older 00:02:41.479 --> 00:02:43.759 half -brothers. The throne goes to the eldest, 00:02:44.060 --> 00:02:47.340 Fyodor III. But Fyodor is sickly, which is a 00:02:47.340 --> 00:02:49.300 very common theme in the Romanov line at this 00:02:49.300 --> 00:02:52.180 time. And he dies young without an heir. And 00:02:52.180 --> 00:02:53.860 that's when things get messy. That's when you 00:02:53.860 --> 00:02:55.580 get a Game of Thrones situation breaking out 00:02:55.580 --> 00:02:58.259 in Moscow. Suddenly, it's a power vacuum. Right. 00:02:58.319 --> 00:03:00.620 You've got these two rival families here. You 00:03:00.620 --> 00:03:02.219 have the Moleslavskys, who are the family of 00:03:02.219 --> 00:03:05.379 the first wife. And the Norishkins, who are Peter's 00:03:05.379 --> 00:03:07.919 mother's family. And this isn't just some polite 00:03:07.919 --> 00:03:10.360 disagreement over who should rule. This is blood 00:03:10.360 --> 00:03:12.780 in the streets. You're not kidding. No, this 00:03:12.780 --> 00:03:15.159 conflict turns violent and it turns violent fast. 00:03:15.539 --> 00:03:17.400 We're talking about the Streltsy uprising in 00:03:17.400 --> 00:03:20.819 1682. The Streltsy were the elite military corps. 00:03:20.919 --> 00:03:22.879 You can think of them as musketeers with a very 00:03:22.879 --> 00:03:24.979 strong union and a lot of political leverage. 00:03:25.770 --> 00:03:27.810 So not people you want to upset. The last people 00:03:27.810 --> 00:03:30.669 you want to upset. And they revolt, fueled by 00:03:30.669 --> 00:03:33.210 rumors that the Norishkins had poisoned the previous 00:03:33.210 --> 00:03:37.830 Tsar. They storm the Kremlin. And Peter, Peter's 00:03:37.830 --> 00:03:39.789 just 10 years old. 10. I'm going to pause there 00:03:39.789 --> 00:03:42.569 for a second. A 10 -year -old boy. He is standing 00:03:42.569 --> 00:03:45.189 on the red staircase of the Kremlin, and he watches 00:03:45.189 --> 00:03:47.930 as his own family members, his uncles, his mother's 00:03:47.930 --> 00:03:50.310 friends, are dragged out and murdered on the 00:03:50.310 --> 00:03:53.069 pikes of these soldiers. Just impaled in front 00:03:53.069 --> 00:03:54.990 of him. Some accounts say he saw his protector. 00:03:55.610 --> 00:03:58.750 A man named Artemon Matveyev literally torn apart 00:03:58.750 --> 00:04:01.909 right in front of him. That kind of trauma doesn't 00:04:01.909 --> 00:04:04.030 just go away. It shapes your entire worldview. 00:04:04.330 --> 00:04:06.069 It's probably where those dicks came from. It's 00:04:06.069 --> 00:04:08.710 very likely where those facial tics and convulsions 00:04:08.710 --> 00:04:10.969 came from later in life. He learned a lesson 00:04:10.969 --> 00:04:14.189 that day, a brutal one. Safety is an illusion. 00:04:14.590 --> 00:04:19.509 And power, raw, physical, undeniable force is 00:04:19.509 --> 00:04:21.410 the only thing that actually matters. And the 00:04:21.410 --> 00:04:23.589 result of all this bloodshed is one of the weirdest 00:04:23.589 --> 00:04:26.350 political arrangements in history. because neither 00:04:26.350 --> 00:04:28.910 side could fully wipe the other out, they have 00:04:28.910 --> 00:04:30.810 to compromise. So they decide, okay, we'll have 00:04:30.810 --> 00:04:34.050 two czars. Which is just wild. It's the dual 00:04:34.050 --> 00:04:36.250 throne. It's a fascinating artifact. You can 00:04:36.250 --> 00:04:37.970 actually see it in the Kremlin armory today. 00:04:38.009 --> 00:04:41.170 It's this massive, double -seated, velvet throne. 00:04:41.490 --> 00:04:45.209 So who sat where? On one side sat Ivan V, Peter's 00:04:45.209 --> 00:04:47.129 half -brother from the rival Miloslavsky family. 00:04:47.509 --> 00:04:49.829 Ivan was technically the senior czar, but he 00:04:49.829 --> 00:04:52.310 was described as... weak -minded, he was nearly 00:04:52.310 --> 00:04:55.350 blind, and he could barely walk. Okay, so a figurehead. 00:04:55.550 --> 00:04:57.850 Essentially. And on the other side sat the 10 00:04:57.850 --> 00:05:00.790 -year -old Peter. But the best part, or the creepiest 00:05:00.790 --> 00:05:02.610 part, is the hole, right? You have to tell them 00:05:02.610 --> 00:05:05.720 about the hole. The hole is the key detail. Cut 00:05:05.720 --> 00:05:08.040 into the back of the throne, behind the boys 00:05:08.040 --> 00:05:10.980 was a concealed opening masked by the velvet. 00:05:11.259 --> 00:05:14.279 And their older sister, the Regent Sophia. The 00:05:14.279 --> 00:05:16.540 real power broker. The real power broker at this 00:05:16.540 --> 00:05:18.959 time. An incredibly sharp and ambitious woman. 00:05:19.120 --> 00:05:21.860 She would sit behind them, completely hidden, 00:05:22.060 --> 00:05:24.319 and she would listen to the ambassadors and the 00:05:24.319 --> 00:05:26.639 nobles and then whisper instructions to the boys. 00:05:26.779 --> 00:05:29.300 Say this. Do that. Don't agree to that. Exactly. 00:05:29.360 --> 00:05:31.779 She was literally the power behind the throne. 00:05:31.959 --> 00:05:35.180 But eventually. Sophia's influence pushes Peter 00:05:35.180 --> 00:05:39.019 out. He and his mother get, well, basically banished 00:05:39.019 --> 00:05:41.319 from the Kremlin. They're sent to an estate called 00:05:41.319 --> 00:05:44.410 Prioburzansoke. Honestly, looking back at the 00:05:44.410 --> 00:05:45.970 sources, this seems like the best thing that 00:05:45.970 --> 00:05:47.689 could have possibly happened to him. How so? 00:05:48.189 --> 00:05:50.069 Well, if Peter had stayed in the Kremlin, he 00:05:50.069 --> 00:05:52.370 would have been suffocated by court ritual, by 00:05:52.370 --> 00:05:55.089 religious ceremony, by the heavy brocade robes 00:05:55.089 --> 00:05:57.209 of the boyars. He might have just turned out 00:05:57.209 --> 00:05:59.569 to be another figurehead. Just another Ivansvi. 00:05:59.750 --> 00:06:02.930 Exactly. But in Priobras and Skoya, he was wild. 00:06:03.110 --> 00:06:06.069 He was free. And crucially, he was right next 00:06:06.069 --> 00:06:08.610 to the German quarter. The German quarter. This 00:06:08.610 --> 00:06:10.370 is where all the foreign expats lived, right? 00:06:10.430 --> 00:06:13.129 The engineers, the merchants. Yes. It was a suburb 00:06:13.129 --> 00:06:17.149 of Moscow called Nemetskaya Sloboda. Nemets in 00:06:17.149 --> 00:06:20.269 Russian basically meant mute, as in someone who 00:06:20.269 --> 00:06:22.110 couldn't speak Russian. So it just applied to 00:06:22.110 --> 00:06:25.569 all foreigners. Dutch, English, Germans, Scots. 00:06:26.069 --> 00:06:28.649 And Peter became obsessed with this place. Completely. 00:06:29.230 --> 00:06:31.550 He realized that these foreigners knew things 00:06:31.550 --> 00:06:33.850 that Russians just didn't. Practical things. 00:06:34.129 --> 00:06:37.250 Tangible things. Like what? Well, they knew how 00:06:37.250 --> 00:06:39.189 to build ships that could sail against the wind. 00:06:39.389 --> 00:06:42.290 They knew mathematics. They understood fortification. 00:06:42.470 --> 00:06:44.910 They had astrolabes and compasses. And for a 00:06:44.910 --> 00:06:48.449 teenage Peter, the Kremlin was full of incense 00:06:48.449 --> 00:06:50.470 and chanting, which didn't really do anything. 00:06:50.709 --> 00:06:52.430 Right. The German quarter, on the other hand, 00:06:52.449 --> 00:06:54.670 was full of machines and maps that worked. It 00:06:54.670 --> 00:06:57.209 was a world of applied knowledge. And he didn't 00:06:57.209 --> 00:06:59.519 just read about it. starts building what the 00:06:59.519 --> 00:07:02.699 history books call his toy army. But I feel like 00:07:02.699 --> 00:07:05.639 the word toy is really misleading here. Very 00:07:05.639 --> 00:07:08.100 misleading. Play regiments might be a better 00:07:08.100 --> 00:07:11.740 translation, but even that is too soft. He recruited 00:07:11.740 --> 00:07:14.879 hundreds of boys, sons of nobles, but also stable 00:07:14.879 --> 00:07:18.139 boys, servants, anyone he could find, and organized 00:07:18.139 --> 00:07:20.620 them into actual regiments. With uniforms and 00:07:20.620 --> 00:07:23.579 everything. Uniforms, real gunpowder, real muskets, 00:07:23.579 --> 00:07:26.259 and real cannons. And didn't they do like live 00:07:26.259 --> 00:07:28.439 fire drills? Weren't people getting hurt? Oh, 00:07:28.439 --> 00:07:31.060 absolutely. They conducted mock battles and sieges 00:07:31.060 --> 00:07:34.000 that were so realistic people actually got hurt 00:07:34.000 --> 00:07:36.680 and sometimes died. A grenade would go off too 00:07:36.680 --> 00:07:39.519 close or a cannon would misfire. That's insane. 00:07:40.170 --> 00:07:41.870 didn't care about the safety. He cared about 00:07:41.870 --> 00:07:44.509 the realism of the simulation. And here's the 00:07:44.509 --> 00:07:47.930 crucial insight. Inside these regiments, birth 00:07:47.930 --> 00:07:50.550 rank didn't matter one bit. Oh, that's interesting. 00:07:50.790 --> 00:07:52.410 You could be a prince, but if you couldn't load 00:07:52.410 --> 00:07:55.389 a musket properly, you were a private. If a stable 00:07:55.389 --> 00:07:57.790 boy turned out to be a natural tactician, he 00:07:57.790 --> 00:07:59.970 became an officer. So that's the seed of his 00:07:59.970 --> 00:08:02.110 entire meritocracy right there in this teenage 00:08:02.110 --> 00:08:04.550 war game. Exactly. He was building a prototype 00:08:04.550 --> 00:08:07.449 of the Russia he wanted to create. Efficient. 00:08:08.480 --> 00:08:11.139 militarized and based entirely on competence, 00:08:11.439 --> 00:08:13.759 not on your bloodline. It's all about what you 00:08:13.759 --> 00:08:16.680 can do, not who your father was. He preferred 00:08:16.680 --> 00:08:19.480 drumming to music. He wanted to know how a cannon 00:08:19.480 --> 00:08:22.100 worked, not how to wear a silk robe correctly. 00:08:22.680 --> 00:08:24.879 There's this great detail in the notes that he 00:08:24.879 --> 00:08:27.620 found an old English boat in his storage shed 00:08:27.620 --> 00:08:30.360 somewhere, had it restored, and taught himself 00:08:30.360 --> 00:08:32.759 to sail. He fell in love with it. He was a natural 00:08:32.759 --> 00:08:34.860 sailor. But he also wanted to learn everything 00:08:34.860 --> 00:08:37.879 else. He learned Dutch. He learned carpentry. 00:08:37.879 --> 00:08:39.840 It's like he was trying to manually download 00:08:39.840 --> 00:08:42.879 the entire skill set of Western Europe into his 00:08:42.879 --> 00:08:45.799 own brain. And that outsider upbringing is so 00:08:45.799 --> 00:08:48.379 vital. He didn't care for the long beards and 00:08:48.379 --> 00:08:51.419 the heavy caftans of the Russian boyars, the 00:08:51.419 --> 00:08:55.019 nobility. He saw all of that as symbols of backwardness, 00:08:55.039 --> 00:08:57.440 of stagnation. If you could build a ship, he 00:08:57.440 --> 00:08:59.279 was your friend. If you could build a ship or 00:08:59.279 --> 00:09:02.059 fire a cannon, Peter liked you. It didn't matter 00:09:02.059 --> 00:09:04.539 who your father was or how long your beard was. 00:09:04.740 --> 00:09:07.659 So let's fast forward a bit. He eventually wrests 00:09:07.659 --> 00:09:10.919 power from his sister Sophia in 1689. She gets 00:09:10.919 --> 00:09:12.980 sent to a convent, naturally. That's what you 00:09:12.980 --> 00:09:15.120 did with inconvenient women in rural families 00:09:15.120 --> 00:09:17.879 back then. Of course. And then his mother dies, 00:09:18.039 --> 00:09:21.820 his code czar Ivan dies, and by 1696, Peter is 00:09:21.820 --> 00:09:25.019 finally the sole ruler of Russia. And he looks 00:09:25.019 --> 00:09:28.279 around at his country and realizes, we are... 00:09:28.519 --> 00:09:30.860 behind like centuries behind it wasn't just a 00:09:30.860 --> 00:09:33.940 feeling it was a geopolitical reality russia 00:09:33.940 --> 00:09:36.320 was isolated it was landlocked for all intents 00:09:36.320 --> 00:09:39.200 and purposes its only real port was way up north 00:09:39.200 --> 00:09:41.879 in arkhangelsk on the white sea which is frozen 00:09:41.879 --> 00:09:44.379 solid for what six months of the year or more 00:09:44.960 --> 00:09:47.740 You can't run a modern empire if your main trade 00:09:47.740 --> 00:09:50.279 route is an ice sheet half the time. He wants 00:09:50.279 --> 00:09:52.360 access to the Black Sea to the south, which means 00:09:52.360 --> 00:09:54.519 fighting the Ottoman Empire. A huge undertaking. 00:09:55.059 --> 00:09:57.879 Massive. He has some mixed success taking the 00:09:57.879 --> 00:10:00.559 fortress of Azov using river ships that he built 00:10:00.559 --> 00:10:03.360 himself, basically. But he realizes very quickly 00:10:03.360 --> 00:10:05.779 that Russia can't do this alone. The Ottoman 00:10:05.779 --> 00:10:08.379 Empire is a superpower. He needs allies. And 00:10:08.379 --> 00:10:10.519 more importantly, he needs better technology. 00:10:10.899 --> 00:10:13.179 So he decides to go on a road trip. The Grand 00:10:13.179 --> 00:10:15.210 Embassy. This is honestly one of my favorite 00:10:15.210 --> 00:10:16.710 parts of history because it just sounds like 00:10:16.710 --> 00:10:19.129 a sitcom premise. It really does. The Tsar of 00:10:19.129 --> 00:10:22.190 Russia leaves the country for 18 months to tour 00:10:22.190 --> 00:10:25.509 Europe. But he doesn't go as the Tsar. He goes 00:10:25.509 --> 00:10:29.830 incognito. Under the name Peter Mikhailov, his 00:10:29.830 --> 00:10:32.590 official rank was sergeant. Which is hilarious 00:10:32.590 --> 00:10:35.029 because, again, the guy is six foot eight. He's 00:10:35.029 --> 00:10:36.909 traveling with a massive entourage. He's twice 00:10:36.909 --> 00:10:38.730 the size of everyone else. He's twitching and 00:10:38.730 --> 00:10:41.009 he's probably shouting orders. How do you think 00:10:41.009 --> 00:10:43.029 he was fooling anyone? Well, he wasn't really. 00:10:43.149 --> 00:10:46.029 Not for a second. Most of the monarchs and officials 00:10:46.029 --> 00:10:49.529 knew exactly who he was. But the incognito status 00:10:49.529 --> 00:10:53.230 was a brilliant diplomatic hack. How so? It allowed 00:10:53.230 --> 00:10:56.529 him to bypass all the boring, time -wasting protocols. 00:10:57.580 --> 00:10:59.899 If he visits as the Tsar, he has to sit through 00:10:59.899 --> 00:11:02.460 endless state banquets, listen to three -hour 00:11:02.460 --> 00:11:05.600 speeches, wear the heavy robes. As Sergeant Peter 00:11:05.600 --> 00:11:07.519 Mikhailov, he can just sneak out the back door 00:11:07.519 --> 00:11:09.500 and go visit a shipyard. Which is exactly what 00:11:09.500 --> 00:11:11.559 he wanted to do. It's all he wanted to do, and 00:11:11.559 --> 00:11:13.120 that's exactly what he did. He ends up in the 00:11:13.120 --> 00:11:15.480 Netherlands, in places like Zondum and Amsterdam, 00:11:15.820 --> 00:11:19.120 and he gets a job. The ruler of the Russian Empire 00:11:19.120 --> 00:11:22.360 is working as a carpenter's apprentice on a Dutch 00:11:22.360 --> 00:11:25.059 wharf. Living in a little log cabin. Lived in 00:11:25.059 --> 00:11:28.059 a log cabin, bought his own tools. He insisted 00:11:28.059 --> 00:11:30.080 on being treated like a regular worker by the 00:11:30.080 --> 00:11:32.419 Dutch shipwrights. If they addressed him as Your 00:11:32.419 --> 00:11:35.379 Majesty, he'd get angry. He wanted to learn the 00:11:35.379 --> 00:11:38.100 hands -on physics of bending wood and caulking 00:11:38.100 --> 00:11:40.659 holes. But his curiosity was boundless. It wasn't 00:11:40.659 --> 00:11:43.460 just ships. No, it was everything. He was a true 00:11:43.460 --> 00:11:46.759 polymath. He visited Frederick Reich, the famous 00:11:46.759 --> 00:11:49.039 anatomist. I read about this. He was fascinated 00:11:49.039 --> 00:11:51.720 by the dissections. He learned how to preserve 00:11:51.720 --> 00:11:55.220 specimens in jars. He learned how to catch and 00:11:55.220 --> 00:11:58.399 pin butterflies. He was just captivated by the 00:11:58.399 --> 00:12:00.940 idea that the world could be categorized and 00:12:00.940 --> 00:12:02.840 understood through science, not just through 00:12:02.840 --> 00:12:04.720 superstition and prayer. And we have to talk 00:12:04.720 --> 00:12:07.220 about the dentistry. Oh, yes. The dentistry. 00:12:07.580 --> 00:12:10.320 Unfortunately for his court, he became obsessed 00:12:10.320 --> 00:12:12.990 with the mechanics of pulling teeth. He bought 00:12:12.990 --> 00:12:15.610 a set of dental pliers, and the sources say he 00:12:15.610 --> 00:12:17.889 would carry around a bag of teeth that he'd pulled 00:12:17.889 --> 00:12:21.330 from his, let's say, willing subject. So if you're 00:12:21.330 --> 00:12:23.350 a courtier and you have a toothache. You learn 00:12:23.350 --> 00:12:25.909 to keep your mouth shut around Peter, or he'd 00:12:25.909 --> 00:12:28.230 come at you with the pliers. And he wasn't exactly 00:12:28.230 --> 00:12:31.070 a trained professional. That is genuinely terrifying. 00:12:31.409 --> 00:12:33.690 But then he moves on to England, right? He does. 00:12:33.850 --> 00:12:36.269 He spends several months in London. He visits 00:12:36.269 --> 00:12:39.230 the Royal Mint and is amazed by the recoinage 00:12:39.230 --> 00:12:42.370 process. He may have even met Isaac Newton. who 00:12:42.370 --> 00:12:45.029 was warden of the Mint. Wow. He meets King William 00:12:45.029 --> 00:12:48.330 III. He inspects the dockyards at Deptford. But 00:12:48.330 --> 00:12:50.529 we also have to touch on the sheer destructive 00:12:50.529 --> 00:12:53.509 energy of Peter and his entourage. Oh, this is 00:12:53.509 --> 00:12:56.470 the story about John Evelyn's house. Yes. They 00:12:56.470 --> 00:12:58.710 rented a beautiful estate from John Evelyn, who 00:12:58.710 --> 00:13:01.529 was a famous writer and gardener. And they basically 00:13:01.529 --> 00:13:04.610 trashed the place like a rock band in a hotel 00:13:04.610 --> 00:13:07.450 room. What did they do? It was carnage. They 00:13:07.450 --> 00:13:09.450 used the family portraits for target practice 00:13:09.450 --> 00:13:11.929 with their muskets. They dragged grease and ink 00:13:11.929 --> 00:13:14.529 all over the floors. They reportedly used expensive 00:13:14.529 --> 00:13:18.129 silk curtains for, let's just say, hygiene purposes. 00:13:18.610 --> 00:13:21.529 And Peter's favorite pastime was to have his 00:13:21.529 --> 00:13:23.710 friends push him in a wheelbarrow at full speed 00:13:23.710 --> 00:13:26.110 through Evelyn's prized holly hedges. He had 00:13:26.110 --> 00:13:27.970 people push him in a wheelbarrow through hedges? 00:13:28.169 --> 00:13:31.080 Just for fun? Just smashing through them. It's 00:13:31.080 --> 00:13:34.019 this bizarre, almost unbelievable mix of high 00:13:34.019 --> 00:13:37.659 intellect and almost animalistic chaos. But beneath 00:13:37.659 --> 00:13:40.580 all the partying and destruction, he was recruiting. 00:13:40.700 --> 00:13:42.539 Right. This was a business trip. Absolutely. 00:13:42.679 --> 00:13:46.179 He hired hundreds of specialists, shipwrights, 00:13:46.179 --> 00:13:49.299 engineers, naval officers, surgeons, promising 00:13:49.299 --> 00:13:51.519 them huge salaries to come back to Russia with 00:13:51.519 --> 00:13:53.980 him. As you said before, he was essentially stealing 00:13:53.980 --> 00:13:56.399 the source code of Western civilization to install 00:13:56.399 --> 00:13:59.139 it back home. But the vacation had to end. He 00:13:59.139 --> 00:14:01.379 gets word of another stealthy rebellion back 00:14:01.379 --> 00:14:05.669 in Moscow. So he has to rush back in 1698. And 00:14:05.669 --> 00:14:07.750 if the Grand Embassy was the fun, educational 00:14:07.750 --> 00:14:10.690 part of the story, what happens next is the horror 00:14:10.690 --> 00:14:12.950 movie part. It gets dark. It was a bloodbath. 00:14:13.070 --> 00:14:15.029 The rebellion had actually already been crushed 00:14:15.029 --> 00:14:17.429 by his generals before he even arrived, but Peter 00:14:17.429 --> 00:14:19.889 wasn't satisfied with that. He felt the old Russia 00:14:19.889 --> 00:14:22.590 trying to pull him back to undo his work. He 00:14:22.590 --> 00:14:24.470 wanted to send a message. A message that would 00:14:24.470 --> 00:14:27.450 echo for centuries. He initiated a massive new 00:14:27.450 --> 00:14:30.190 investigation. Over a thousand Streltsy were 00:14:30.190 --> 00:14:32.940 rounded up. tortured, and executed. You're not 00:14:32.940 --> 00:14:35.740 talking about a quick -firing squad. No. This 00:14:35.740 --> 00:14:39.440 was medieval stuff. Breaking on the wheel, beheading, 00:14:39.460 --> 00:14:42.399 mass hangings. The bodies were left on display 00:14:42.399 --> 00:14:45.200 for months as a warning. And Peter personally 00:14:45.200 --> 00:14:47.740 participated in the executions. He took up an 00:14:47.740 --> 00:14:50.340 axe himself. He took an axe and chopped off heads. 00:14:50.700 --> 00:14:54.539 And he forced his courtiers, these soft, robed 00:14:54.539 --> 00:14:56.700 nobles who had probably never held an axe in 00:14:56.700 --> 00:14:59.740 their lives, to do the same. Imagine the psychological 00:14:59.740 --> 00:15:02.460 terror of that. He was making them complicit. 00:15:02.500 --> 00:15:05.360 He was baptizing them in blood into his new order. 00:15:05.600 --> 00:15:07.679 And then, the very morning... after he returns, 00:15:07.879 --> 00:15:10.879 still covered in the dust of Europe, he starts 00:15:10.879 --> 00:15:13.399 the cultural revolution. He starts cutting off 00:15:13.399 --> 00:15:16.320 beards. Quite literally, he gathers his nobles 00:15:16.320 --> 00:15:18.059 and while they're all kneeling to welcome him 00:15:18.059 --> 00:15:20.320 home, he pulls out a pair of shears and starts 00:15:20.320 --> 00:15:22.679 hacking off their long flowing beards. You have 00:15:22.679 --> 00:15:24.679 to understand, in Russian Orthodoxy at the time, 00:15:25.000 --> 00:15:27.340 The beard was sacred. It was everything. It was 00:15:27.340 --> 00:15:29.620 a sign of being made in God's image. To shave 00:15:29.620 --> 00:15:31.759 it was considered a grave sin. It was a massive 00:15:31.759 --> 00:15:34.200 loss of identity and piety. But Peter didn't 00:15:34.200 --> 00:15:37.320 care one bit. He said, shave it or pay up. The 00:15:37.320 --> 00:15:40.279 beard tax. It's one of the most famous and frankly 00:15:40.279 --> 00:15:43.480 bizarre taxes in history. If you wanted to keep 00:15:43.480 --> 00:15:45.779 your beard, you had to pay a tax. And it was 00:15:45.779 --> 00:15:48.340 quite expensive for the nobility. And you got 00:15:48.340 --> 00:15:51.000 a little token. You did. A special copper token 00:15:51.000 --> 00:15:53.500 that you had to carry to prove you'd paid. And 00:15:53.500 --> 00:15:56.460 it said on it, the beard is a superfluous burden. 00:15:57.100 --> 00:16:00.059 It was a violent, symbolic break from the past. 00:16:00.299 --> 00:16:02.820 And it wasn't just the beards. He also banned 00:16:02.820 --> 00:16:05.000 the traditional long robes and forced everyone 00:16:05.000 --> 00:16:07.659 at court to wear German or Hungarian style jackets. 00:16:07.759 --> 00:16:09.940 He was forcing them to look like the foreigners 00:16:09.940 --> 00:16:12.340 they had always been taught to despise. So he's 00:16:12.340 --> 00:16:14.340 reshaped the look of his people. He's crushed 00:16:14.340 --> 00:16:17.159 his enemies. Now he wants to reshape the map 00:16:17.159 --> 00:16:20.080 itself. We talked about the Black Sea, but that 00:16:20.080 --> 00:16:22.500 didn't work out perfectly. So his focus shifts 00:16:22.500 --> 00:16:25.539 north. His focus shifts to the Baltic Sea. He 00:16:25.539 --> 00:16:28.039 needs a reliable port. He needs a window to the 00:16:28.039 --> 00:16:30.399 west. Which brings us to the Great Northern War. 00:16:30.639 --> 00:16:32.879 This was the defining conflict of his reign. 00:16:33.039 --> 00:16:36.299 It lasted for 21 years. It was a massive gamble. 00:16:36.399 --> 00:16:38.639 He went to war against Sweden. Which, people 00:16:38.639 --> 00:16:41.220 forget, was the absolute superpower of the north 00:16:41.220 --> 00:16:43.730 at the time. Totally. They had the best, most 00:16:43.730 --> 00:16:47.129 professional army in Europe. They were led by 00:16:47.129 --> 00:16:49.549 King Charles XII, who was this teenage military 00:16:49.549 --> 00:16:52.870 genius. Peter, on the other hand, thought it 00:16:52.870 --> 00:16:54.370 would be a cakewalk. It was definitely not a 00:16:54.370 --> 00:16:57.909 cakewalk. No. The Battle of Narva in 1700 was 00:16:57.909 --> 00:17:00.470 an absolute catastrophe for Russia, a complete 00:17:00.470 --> 00:17:03.929 humiliation. The Russian army was destroyed by 00:17:03.929 --> 00:17:07.250 a much smaller Swedish force in a blinding snowstorm. 00:17:07.390 --> 00:17:09.490 They lost all their artillery. Almost all of 00:17:09.490 --> 00:17:11.829 it was captured by the Swedes. It was an unmitigated 00:17:11.829 --> 00:17:13.970 disaster. But this is where Peter's personality 00:17:13.970 --> 00:17:16.950 kicks in. Most leaders would sue for peace, maybe 00:17:16.950 --> 00:17:19.460 quit. Peter just says, OK, we need better cannons. 00:17:19.480 --> 00:17:22.039 Go melt down the church bells. Exactly. He didn't 00:17:22.039 --> 00:17:24.640 wallow in defeat for a second. He stripped the 00:17:24.640 --> 00:17:26.799 bells from the churches, which, again, horrified 00:17:26.799 --> 00:17:28.859 the faithful and had them cast into new guns. 00:17:29.000 --> 00:17:31.980 He used the defeat as a lesson. He radically 00:17:31.980 --> 00:17:34.400 overhauled the army, adopting Swedish tactics, 00:17:34.740 --> 00:17:37.000 improving training. And while the Swedes were 00:17:37.000 --> 00:17:39.759 busy fighting in Poland. Peter creeps back to 00:17:39.759 --> 00:17:43.279 the Baltic coast. And in 1703, on a swampy, miserable 00:17:43.279 --> 00:17:46.059 island in the Neva River Delta, he decides to 00:17:46.059 --> 00:17:49.220 build a city. St. Petersburg, the city famously 00:17:49.220 --> 00:17:52.400 built on bones. It was an insane place to build 00:17:52.400 --> 00:17:55.099 a capital city. It was a mosquito infested marsh. 00:17:55.299 --> 00:17:57.859 It flooded constantly. There were no stones. 00:17:58.039 --> 00:18:00.259 There was no timber nearby. Everything had to 00:18:00.259 --> 00:18:03.680 be imported. So how did he build it? With forced 00:18:03.680 --> 00:18:07.109 labor. He conscripted tens of thousands of peasants 00:18:07.109 --> 00:18:08.910 and prisoners of war and forced them to work 00:18:08.910 --> 00:18:11.829 in appalling conditions. They were digging canals 00:18:11.829 --> 00:18:13.869 and laying foundations with their bare hands 00:18:13.869 --> 00:18:17.289 sometimes. Thousands died of dysentery, malaria, 00:18:17.750 --> 00:18:20.710 exhaustion. And the detail about how he got the 00:18:20.710 --> 00:18:23.990 building materials is just wild. He forbade stone 00:18:23.990 --> 00:18:26.289 buildings anywhere else in Russia. Is that right? 00:18:26.410 --> 00:18:28.990 Yes. It's an incredible display of autocratic 00:18:28.990 --> 00:18:32.369 power. He issued a decree. No new stone buildings 00:18:32.369 --> 00:18:34.569 in Moscow or anywhere else in the entire empire. 00:18:34.869 --> 00:18:37.410 If you were a stonemason, you were out of a job 00:18:37.410 --> 00:18:39.589 unless you moved to St. Petersburg. He cornered 00:18:39.589 --> 00:18:42.190 the market on stonemasons. He did. And he established 00:18:42.190 --> 00:18:45.150 a stone tax. Every cart or ship entering the 00:18:45.150 --> 00:18:46.869 city had to bring a certain number of stones 00:18:46.869 --> 00:18:49.470 with them as a toll. He forced the nobility to 00:18:49.470 --> 00:18:51.990 move there against their will and build lavish 00:18:51.990 --> 00:18:54.809 palaces in a style they didn't understand. And 00:18:54.809 --> 00:18:57.470 all the while, he himself lived in a tiny log 00:18:57.470 --> 00:19:00.710 cabin. A modest three -room log cabin while demanding 00:19:00.710 --> 00:19:02.930 they build a European metropolis around him. 00:19:03.250 --> 00:19:05.490 It's like if the U .S. president decided to build 00:19:05.490 --> 00:19:07.690 a new capital in the middle of the Florida Everglades 00:19:07.690 --> 00:19:10.349 and banned concrete everywhere else in the country 00:19:10.349 --> 00:19:12.990 just to make it happen. That is a perfect analogy. 00:19:13.250 --> 00:19:16.089 And the nobles hated it. It was cold. It was 00:19:16.089 --> 00:19:19.029 damp. It was expensive. But Peter loved it because 00:19:19.029 --> 00:19:22.390 it was his paradise. It was a blank slate. Moscow 00:19:22.390 --> 00:19:25.430 was old, traditional Russia. St. Petersburg was 00:19:25.430 --> 00:19:27.869 the future. And eventually, the war turns in 00:19:27.869 --> 00:19:31.549 his favor. 1709, the Battle of Poltava. The great 00:19:31.549 --> 00:19:34.509 turning point. Charles XII of Sweden invades 00:19:34.509 --> 00:19:36.670 Russia, a mistake that Napoleon and Hitler would 00:19:36.670 --> 00:19:39.529 later repeat. His army is weakened by the brutal 00:19:39.529 --> 00:19:42.890 Russian winter. And at Poltava, Peter's new modernized 00:19:42.890 --> 00:19:45.710 army absolutely crushes the Swedes. A decisive 00:19:45.710 --> 00:19:48.470 victory. Decisive is an understatement. Charles 00:19:48.470 --> 00:19:51.630 XII flees to the Ottoman Empire. Russia effectively 00:19:51.630 --> 00:19:53.930 replaces Sweden as the great power of the north. 00:19:54.130 --> 00:19:56.470 The window to the west is now permanently secured. 00:19:56.789 --> 00:19:59.210 So he has a city. He has his great military victory. 00:19:59.309 --> 00:20:02.750 Now he's the emperor. In 1721, he officially 00:20:02.750 --> 00:20:06.069 takes the title emperor of all Russia. But he's 00:20:06.069 --> 00:20:08.170 not just conquering land. He's conquering time 00:20:08.170 --> 00:20:11.309 and language itself. Let's talk about the reforms. 00:20:11.589 --> 00:20:14.009 It is hard to overstate how deep these reforms 00:20:14.009 --> 00:20:16.829 went. He literally changed time. Explain that. 00:20:17.109 --> 00:20:19.809 Russia used to date its years from the supposed 00:20:19.809 --> 00:20:23.720 creation of the world. So for them, it was the 00:20:23.720 --> 00:20:27.539 year 7208. Peter decided to switch to the Julian 00:20:27.539 --> 00:20:29.859 calendar, like Europe. He just proclaimed that 00:20:29.859 --> 00:20:32.380 it was now the year 1700, dating from the birth 00:20:32.380 --> 00:20:34.319 of Christ. And he moved New Year's. He moved 00:20:34.319 --> 00:20:36.099 New Year's Day from September 1st to January 00:20:36.099 --> 00:20:39.160 1st. He forced the entire country to sync its 00:20:39.160 --> 00:20:41.740 watch with Europe. And the alphabet. Imagine 00:20:41.740 --> 00:20:43.980 a leader today saying, hey, everyone, we're changing 00:20:43.980 --> 00:20:45.940 the font of the language. It sounds absurd, but 00:20:45.940 --> 00:20:48.660 that's what he did. He simplified the old, complex, 00:20:48.740 --> 00:20:50.960 Cyrillic alphabet, creating what's called the 00:20:50.960 --> 00:20:53.700 civil script. He wanted books to be more readable, 00:20:53.859 --> 00:20:56.160 more accessible, not just ornate religious texts. 00:20:56.480 --> 00:20:59.140 He introduced Arabic numerals to replace the 00:20:59.140 --> 00:21:01.400 clunky letter -based numbers they used. He's 00:21:01.400 --> 00:21:04.180 building the infrastructure for a literate scientific 00:21:04.180 --> 00:21:07.400 society. Step by step. But the biggest social 00:21:07.400 --> 00:21:10.359 change had to be the table of ranks. This was 00:21:10.359 --> 00:21:13.759 revolutionary. For centuries, your status in 00:21:13.759 --> 00:21:16.980 Russia depended entirely on your lineage. The 00:21:16.980 --> 00:21:21.250 boyars were the old landed aristocracy. Peter 00:21:21.250 --> 00:21:23.549 hated that stagnation. He thought it was inefficient. 00:21:23.849 --> 00:21:25.910 So he blew it up? He blew it up. He introduced 00:21:25.910 --> 00:21:29.490 the table of ranks in 1722. It created a hierarchy 00:21:29.490 --> 00:21:32.609 of 14 grades for the military, the civil service, 00:21:32.609 --> 00:21:35.210 and the court. Everybody started at the bottom. 00:21:35.470 --> 00:21:38.089 If you served the state well, you moved up. If 00:21:38.089 --> 00:21:40.190 you reached the eighth rank, you became a hereditary 00:21:40.190 --> 00:21:42.849 noble, regardless of who your parents were. So 00:21:42.849 --> 00:21:44.509 he's basically trying to create a meritocracy. 00:21:44.710 --> 00:21:47.170 He wants a startup culture and a feudal empire. 00:21:47.630 --> 00:21:50.009 An excellent way to put it. But at the same time, 00:21:50.130 --> 00:21:52.890 he's dismantling the church's power. And this 00:21:52.890 --> 00:21:55.210 is where that Antichrist label really starts 00:21:55.210 --> 00:21:57.049 to stick for a lot of people. Right, because 00:21:57.049 --> 00:21:59.089 the church was the other great power center in 00:21:59.089 --> 00:22:02.329 Russia. The only other one, really. And Peter, 00:22:02.509 --> 00:22:05.289 well, he was religious in his own way. He sang 00:22:05.289 --> 00:22:08.329 in the choir. He knew the liturgy. But he despised 00:22:08.329 --> 00:22:10.049 the political power of the church hierarchy. 00:22:10.720 --> 00:22:13.380 So when the patriarch, the head of the Russian 00:22:13.380 --> 00:22:17.019 church, died, Peter simply refused to appoint 00:22:17.019 --> 00:22:19.799 a new one. He just let the seat sit empty. For 00:22:19.799 --> 00:22:22.859 years. Eventually, he abolished the patriarchate 00:22:22.859 --> 00:22:24.660 entirely and replaced it with something called 00:22:24.660 --> 00:22:26.799 the Holy Synod, which was a council of bishops 00:22:26.799 --> 00:22:28.940 effectively controlled by a government official 00:22:28.940 --> 00:22:31.880 he appointed. He turned the church into just 00:22:31.880 --> 00:22:34.190 another department of the state. And we can't 00:22:34.190 --> 00:22:37.170 skip the all -joking, all -drunken synod of fools 00:22:37.170 --> 00:22:39.970 and jesters. What on earth was that? It was. 00:22:40.009 --> 00:22:42.630 Well, it was bizarre. It was essentially a club 00:22:42.630 --> 00:22:45.150 Peter formed with his closest drinking buddies. 00:22:45.369 --> 00:22:48.769 They gave themselves mock religious titles. Peter's 00:22:48.769 --> 00:22:51.630 was proto -deacon. One of his friends was the 00:22:51.630 --> 00:22:54.170 prince pope. And they held mock ceremonies. Mock 00:22:54.170 --> 00:22:56.410 ceremonies that were really just elaborate drinking 00:22:56.410 --> 00:22:59.329 parties. They parodied church rituals, often 00:22:59.329 --> 00:23:01.630 involving massive amounts of alcohol and crude 00:23:01.630 --> 00:23:04.289 jokes. Was he just blowing? off steam or was 00:23:04.289 --> 00:23:06.390 he trying to make a point i think it was both 00:23:06.390 --> 00:23:09.450 he was definitely mocking the stiffness and self 00:23:09.450 --> 00:23:11.309 -importance of the church trying to drag it down 00:23:11.309 --> 00:23:14.750 to earth but to the average russian peasant seeing 00:23:14.750 --> 00:23:18.069 the czar mock the holy liturgy it looked demonic 00:23:18.069 --> 00:23:20.390 it would have been deeply shocking it reinforced 00:23:20.390 --> 00:23:23.130 the idea that this man wasn't a true pious czar 00:23:23.130 --> 00:23:26.410 but maybe a german changeling or the devil himself 00:23:26.410 --> 00:23:29.710 it's such a contradiction he's building churches 00:23:29.710 --> 00:23:32.710 in st petersburg but he's mocking bishops in 00:23:32.710 --> 00:23:36.789 moscow He's advancing science, creating the Kunstkammer, 00:23:36.890 --> 00:23:39.710 his cabinet of curiosities with all those preserved 00:23:39.710 --> 00:23:43.369 monsters and deformities to debunk superstition. 00:23:43.450 --> 00:23:45.970 But he's also ruling through absolute terrifying 00:23:45.970 --> 00:23:49.609 fear. And nowhere is that fear more palpable 00:23:49.609 --> 00:23:52.410 or more tragic than within his own family. No, 00:23:52.470 --> 00:23:55.170 his personal life is just as tumultuous as his 00:23:55.170 --> 00:23:57.440 public one. Yeah, let's get into that. He didn't 00:23:57.440 --> 00:23:59.380 have great luck with wives initially. His first 00:23:59.380 --> 00:24:01.779 marriage to Eudoxia Lopakina was arranged by 00:24:01.779 --> 00:24:04.180 his mother when he was very young. He hated it. 00:24:04.259 --> 00:24:07.079 She was traditional, conservative, pious, everything 00:24:07.079 --> 00:24:09.660 he was trying to destroy in Russia, he saw in 00:24:09.660 --> 00:24:11.920 her. So what did he do? He eventually just forced 00:24:11.920 --> 00:24:14.519 her into a convent, shipped her off to a nunnery 00:24:14.519 --> 00:24:16.339 to get her out of the way. But then he meets 00:24:16.339 --> 00:24:19.079 Catherine. And this is like a Cinderella story, 00:24:19.319 --> 00:24:21.599 but with a lot more war and vodka. Catherine 00:24:21.599 --> 00:24:24.539 I. She's an incredible story in her own right. 00:24:24.859 --> 00:24:27.720 She was a peasant, born Marta Skavronskaya, in 00:24:27.720 --> 00:24:30.660 what is now Latvia or Estonia. So not a noble 00:24:30.660 --> 00:24:33.779 at all. Not even close. She was a servant, maybe 00:24:33.779 --> 00:24:36.640 a laundry washer, who was captured by Russian 00:24:36.640 --> 00:24:38.859 troops during the war. She passed through the 00:24:38.859 --> 00:24:41.160 hands of a few officers and eventually caught 00:24:41.160 --> 00:24:44.160 Peter's eye. And what was it about her? She was 00:24:44.160 --> 00:24:46.980 illiterate. She was common. But she understood 00:24:46.980 --> 00:24:49.279 him in a way no one else did. She was the only 00:24:49.279 --> 00:24:51.480 person who could calm him down during his rages 00:24:51.480 --> 00:24:54.019 or when he had his seizures. She would just hold 00:24:54.019 --> 00:24:56.579 his head in her lap and speak to him softly until 00:24:56.579 --> 00:24:58.880 he fell asleep. She was his partner. His true 00:24:58.880 --> 00:25:01.500 partner. They married secretly at first, then 00:25:01.500 --> 00:25:04.380 officially. He even crowned her empress. But 00:25:04.380 --> 00:25:08.180 then there's Alexei, his son from that first 00:25:08.180 --> 00:25:10.809 marriage. The heir to the throne. The tragedy 00:25:10.809 --> 00:25:13.970 of Alexa is the tragedy of Peter's reign in microcosm. 00:25:14.190 --> 00:25:17.289 Alexa was everything Peter wasn't. How so? He 00:25:17.289 --> 00:25:20.670 was quiet, intellectual, deeply religious, and 00:25:20.670 --> 00:25:23.150 he preferred the old ways of Moscow. He didn't 00:25:23.150 --> 00:25:24.430 want to be a soldier. He didn't want to build 00:25:24.430 --> 00:25:26.970 ships. And more than anything, he was terrified 00:25:26.970 --> 00:25:29.329 of his father. And Peter just bullied him, right? 00:25:30.659 --> 00:25:33.559 Relentlessly. Relentlessly. Peter saw his son 00:25:33.559 --> 00:25:37.299 as a failure, as a threat to his legacy. He kept 00:25:37.299 --> 00:25:39.799 threatening to disinherit him, to send him to 00:25:39.799 --> 00:25:41.960 a monastery if he didn't shape up. So what did 00:25:41.960 --> 00:25:44.819 Alexei do? Terrified for his life, he did the 00:25:44.819 --> 00:25:47.839 unthinkable. In 1716, the heir to the Russian 00:25:47.839 --> 00:25:51.220 throne fled the country. He ran away. He went 00:25:51.220 --> 00:25:53.359 to Vienna to his brother -in -law, the Holy Roman 00:25:53.359 --> 00:25:55.359 Emperor, trying to hide from his own father. 00:25:55.599 --> 00:25:58.519 That's how scary Peter was. His own son, the 00:25:58.519 --> 00:26:01.069 Tsarevich. fled across a continent to get away 00:26:01.069 --> 00:26:03.930 from him. Peter was incandescent with rage. This 00:26:03.930 --> 00:26:06.430 wasn't just a rebellious teen. This was a major 00:26:06.430 --> 00:26:09.730 political threat. Foreign powers could use Alexei 00:26:09.730 --> 00:26:12.049 as a figurehead, as a rallying point for all 00:26:12.049 --> 00:26:14.670 the anti -Peter sentiment to overthrow him. So 00:26:14.670 --> 00:26:17.150 he had to get him back. He sent his most cunning 00:26:17.150 --> 00:26:20.410 agents to track Alexei down. And they tricked 00:26:20.410 --> 00:26:22.730 him into coming back, promising him a full pardon. 00:26:22.890 --> 00:26:25.609 Come home, they said. Your father forgives you. 00:26:25.730 --> 00:26:29.410 All is forgiven. And Alexei believed them. He 00:26:29.410 --> 00:26:32.049 came back, but there was no forgiveness. No. 00:26:32.269 --> 00:26:35.250 As soon as Alexei was back on Russian soil, Peter 00:26:35.250 --> 00:26:37.890 had him arrested. He stripped him of his title 00:26:37.890 --> 00:26:40.470 as heir and set up an investigation, convinced 00:26:40.470 --> 00:26:43.130 there was a massive plot against him. And then 00:26:43.130 --> 00:26:46.210 the unthinkable happened. The Tsar's son was 00:26:46.210 --> 00:26:49.619 tortured. Peter allowed his own son to be whipped 00:26:49.619 --> 00:26:51.779 with the knout, to be interrogated under torture, 00:26:51.900 --> 00:26:54.700 to extract a confession of treason. Did he confess? 00:26:54.920 --> 00:26:56.819 He confessed to anything they wanted him to. 00:26:56.960 --> 00:26:59.640 He implicated his friends, his supporters, and 00:26:59.640 --> 00:27:02.059 eventually a court of officials sentenced him 00:27:02.059 --> 00:27:04.829 to death. And Alexei dies in prison. He died 00:27:04.829 --> 00:27:06.869 from the injuries he sustained during the torture 00:27:06.869 --> 00:27:08.990 just days before he was scheduled to be formally 00:27:08.990 --> 00:27:11.670 executed. Peter was fully prepared to execute 00:27:11.670 --> 00:27:13.869 his own son for the sake of the state. That is, 00:27:13.869 --> 00:27:16.250 it's just so cool. It really answers the question 00:27:16.250 --> 00:27:17.990 of his priorities, doesn't it? It does. The state 00:27:17.990 --> 00:27:20.769 comes first above everything, even before family. 00:27:21.210 --> 00:27:24.329 Absolutely. To Peter, Alexei wasn't just a son. 00:27:24.490 --> 00:27:27.390 He was a living symbol of the backward, traditional 00:27:27.390 --> 00:27:30.390 Russia that Peter was trying to kill. He believed 00:27:30.390 --> 00:27:32.859 that if Alexei took the throne, the navy would 00:27:32.859 --> 00:27:35.559 rot, St. Petersburg would be abandoned, and the 00:27:35.559 --> 00:27:38.160 beards would grow back. Peter couldn't let that 00:27:38.160 --> 00:27:41.740 happen. Not ever. So after Alexei dies, Peter 00:27:41.740 --> 00:27:45.039 changes the succession law. He decrees that the 00:27:45.039 --> 00:27:47.359 reigning emperor can choose anyone he wants as 00:27:47.359 --> 00:27:49.660 successor. It doesn't have to be the eldest son. 00:27:49.900 --> 00:27:52.420 Which is a move that backfires spectacularly, 00:27:52.420 --> 00:27:54.920 because in the end, he never names anyone. Right. 00:27:55.000 --> 00:27:57.940 Let's go to the end. It's 1725. Peter's only 00:27:57.940 --> 00:28:00.789 52 years old. But he's lived a hard life. He's 00:28:00.789 --> 00:28:03.809 been running at 110 % capacity for decades. His 00:28:03.809 --> 00:28:05.750 health is failing. What was wrong with him? He 00:28:05.750 --> 00:28:07.890 had serious bladder and urinary tract issues, 00:28:07.990 --> 00:28:10.390 probably uremia. It was a painful, slow decline. 00:28:10.690 --> 00:28:12.369 But there's a legend about his death, isn't there? 00:28:12.470 --> 00:28:14.589 A story that fits the hero narrative a little 00:28:14.589 --> 00:28:16.509 better. Yes, the legend says that in November 00:28:16.509 --> 00:28:20.109 of 1724, he saw a boat of soldiers that had overturned 00:28:20.109 --> 00:28:22.549 in the icy Gulf of Finland. And he supposedly 00:28:22.549 --> 00:28:25.069 waded into the freezing water himself to help 00:28:25.069 --> 00:28:27.630 rescue them. Chest deep in the ice. So the story 00:28:27.630 --> 00:28:31.130 goes, he got hypothermia, which worsened his 00:28:31.130 --> 00:28:33.390 existing infections, and that's what ultimately 00:28:33.390 --> 00:28:36.029 killed him. Is it true? Most historians are pretty 00:28:36.029 --> 00:28:38.490 skeptical. The timeline doesn't quite match up 00:28:38.490 --> 00:28:40.109 with the progression of his illness, and the 00:28:40.109 --> 00:28:42.890 only source for it is a much later, somewhat 00:28:42.890 --> 00:28:45.930 romanticized account. It's far more likely he 00:28:45.930 --> 00:28:47.890 just died from the natural progression of his 00:28:47.890 --> 00:28:49.990 infection. But it's a good story. It's a great 00:28:49.990 --> 00:28:52.690 story. And the legend exists because people wanted 00:28:52.690 --> 00:28:56.210 to believe he died as he lived, sacrificing his 00:28:56.210 --> 00:28:59.170 own body for his subjects, for his state. And 00:28:59.170 --> 00:29:02.029 the final scene. He's on his deathbed. He knows 00:29:02.029 --> 00:29:04.349 the end is near. He asks for a pen and paper. 00:29:04.799 --> 00:29:07.099 He manages to scrawl two words, leave all two, 00:29:07.200 --> 00:29:09.519 and then he loses consciousness. The pen falls 00:29:09.519 --> 00:29:11.900 from his hand. He dies without finishing the 00:29:11.900 --> 00:29:14.559 sentence. Leave all two. Talk about a cliffhanger 00:29:14.559 --> 00:29:17.589 for an entire empire. It threw Russia into decades 00:29:17.589 --> 00:29:20.470 of palace coups and instability, what historians 00:29:20.470 --> 00:29:23.470 call the era of palace revolutions, because nobody 00:29:23.470 --> 00:29:25.910 knew who was supposed to be in charge. His wife, 00:29:25.950 --> 00:29:27.609 Catherine, took over, but the line was unclear. 00:29:27.890 --> 00:29:29.750 So let's try and wrap this all up. What is the 00:29:29.750 --> 00:29:32.549 final verdict? We have the bronze horseman statue 00:29:32.549 --> 00:29:35.630 in St. Petersburg depicting him as this Roman 00:29:35.630 --> 00:29:38.549 -style hero rearing his horse over the snake 00:29:38.549 --> 00:29:40.589 of treason. We have someone like Stalin, who 00:29:40.589 --> 00:29:43.529 centuries later deeply admired Peter's methods. 00:29:43.750 --> 00:29:45.089 And then we have the westernizers throughout 00:29:45.089 --> 00:29:51.829 Russia. And on the other side, we have the critics, 00:29:52.049 --> 00:29:54.809 the Slavophiles, the old believers who say he 00:29:54.809 --> 00:29:58.430 fractured the Russian soul. He created this unbridgeable 00:29:58.430 --> 00:30:01.750 gap between the westernized elite who spoke French 00:30:01.750 --> 00:30:03.890 and German, dressed like Parisians and looked 00:30:03.890 --> 00:30:06.650 down on their own culture, and the vast peasantry 00:30:06.650 --> 00:30:09.109 who remained in the Middle Ages. He modernized 00:30:09.109 --> 00:30:11.299 the state. but he strengthened serfdom to do 00:30:11.299 --> 00:30:13.519 it. He built a great fleet, but he ruled by the 00:30:13.519 --> 00:30:16.299 knout and the executioner's axe. It's the ultimate 00:30:16.299 --> 00:30:19.299 ends justify the means debate. Why did Stalin 00:30:19.299 --> 00:30:22.160 admire him so much? Stalin admired him precisely 00:30:22.160 --> 00:30:24.660 because Peter proved that a single, ruthless, 00:30:24.960 --> 00:30:28.220 unbending will could force a backward country 00:30:28.220 --> 00:30:30.599 to become a superpower in a single generation. 00:30:31.319 --> 00:30:33.940 Stalin saw the state as a machine, and people 00:30:33.940 --> 00:30:37.259 were just cogs. If a cog didn't fit, like his 00:30:37.259 --> 00:30:40.210 own son or the Streltsy, You didn't fix it. You 00:30:40.210 --> 00:30:42.589 just crushed it and replaced it. It's a terrifying 00:30:42.589 --> 00:30:45.769 precedent to set. It is. Peter proved that you 00:30:45.769 --> 00:30:47.970 can change a culture by force. You can force 00:30:47.970 --> 00:30:50.450 a leap of centuries. But the cost is that the 00:30:50.450 --> 00:30:52.730 state becomes a kind of deity, an entity that 00:30:52.730 --> 00:30:55.710 is more important than any individual life. So 00:30:55.710 --> 00:30:57.190 here's the question I want to leave you with 00:30:57.190 --> 00:30:59.849 today. If Peter hadn't done it, if he hadn't 00:30:59.849 --> 00:31:03.230 dragged Russia into the West by its beard, kicking 00:31:03.230 --> 00:31:05.670 and screaming, what would have happened? It's 00:31:05.670 --> 00:31:07.910 the great unknown. Would Russia have been colonized 00:31:07.910 --> 00:31:10.589 and carved up by Sweden or the Ottomans? Or would 00:31:10.589 --> 00:31:12.890 it have found its own more organic, maybe less 00:31:12.890 --> 00:31:15.609 bloody path to modernity on its own terms? That 00:31:15.609 --> 00:31:18.049 is the great what if of all of Russian history. 00:31:18.309 --> 00:31:20.970 And we will never, ever know the answer. But 00:31:20.970 --> 00:31:22.750 if you ever find yourself in St. Petersburg, 00:31:22.910 --> 00:31:25.490 standing by the Neva River, looking up at that 00:31:25.490 --> 00:31:28.480 bronze horseman, just remember. You are looking 00:31:28.480 --> 00:31:32.359 at a monument to sheer, terrifying, world -changing 00:31:32.359 --> 00:31:34.980 will. And that's our deep dive on Peter the Great. 00:31:35.099 --> 00:31:36.519 Thanks for joining us. Thank you.