Russia. A History

Russia’s first periodical, Vedomosti, began appearing in late 1702 and offered an official selection of ‘news’, celebrating governmental authority and military victories more than general information or commercial reports. The number of issues per year varied wildly, dropping from fourteen annually in 1708–12 to seven in 1713–17 and only one in 1718. Print runs also oscillated oddly—from a high of 875 in 1709 (the year of Poltava) to only 205 in 1712. Readership was obviously small, perhaps declining, and minuscule compared to England or Holland.

Peter personally collected a library of 1,663 titles in manuscript and printed books in Russian and foreign languages. He also purchased the private collections of Dr Robert Erskine and others, which laid the basis for the Library of the Academy of Sciences and, by 1725, comprised some 11,000 volumes. Assisted by Erskine, Jacob Bruce, and other scholars, Peter founded the first public museum, the Kunst-Kamera in St Petersburg, and collected European paintings, chiefly of the Dutch and Flemish schools. Indeed, his picture gallery at Mon Plaisir in Peterhof was the first of its kind in Russia, with about 200 paintings by 1725. To encourage visitation, the Kunst-Kamera charged no entry fee and had a budget of 400 roubles for free refreshments (coffee, wine, vodka, and the like). Renaissance notions likewise stimulated Petrine interest in secular history and the idea of Russia ‘entering a new era’. Peter himself led the way, with a concern to document military affairs and travels, an interest that eventually supported the compilation of an official history of the Swedish War, not complete before his death and published only in 1770–2.

In another exhibition of Renaissance spirit Peter encouraged the liberation of élite women, his own female relatives in the first instance, and their attendance at public receptions called ‘assemblies’. He authorized the first secular public theatre on Red Square in 1701. Opened in 1702 with elaborate sets and stage machinery, this ‘comedy chamber’ presented plays in German staged by a German company from Danzig. An abject failure crippled by a lack of Russian plays, a suitable literary language, and an audience, the theatre disbanded in 1706. Its sets, costumes, and scripts were handed over to Peter’s sister Natalia, who established a court theatre at Preobrazhenskoe in 1707 that was soon transferred to St Petersburg and lasted until her death in 1716. It pioneered the presentation of European plays of chivalry and romance. In Kiev meanwhile Feofan Prokopovich, Ukrainian born and partly educated in Rome, composed the tragicomedy Vladimir

while teaching at the Mohyla Academy. A historical drama focusing on Russia’s conversion to Christianity and with many topical politico-cultural overtones, Vladimir was dedicated to Mazepa, who attended the first performance. This dedication had to be dropped after Mazepa’s defection in 1708. Other plays were staged at Dr Bidloo’s surgical school in Moscow including two by Fedor Zhurovskii,

Slava Rossiiskaia (Russia’s Glory) and Slava pechal′naia

(Grieving Glory), which respectively commemorated Catherine I’s coronation in 1724 and Peter’s death in 1725.

The Reformation informed Petrine efforts to transform the Orthodox Church. In 1694 Peter discontinued the Palm Sunday practice of the tsar on foot leading the patriarch on horseback across Moscow’s Red Square. In 1698 he criticized monks and monasticism, in 1700 reproved Patriarch Adrian for the Church’s failure to educate the young, and in 1701 re-established the Monastery Bureau to manage church lands. Most striking was his radical decision to replace the Patriarchate with a council of hierarchs, the Holy Synod. He personally favoured Bible-reading; his library contained several copies of the New Testament but only one of the Old. Although Peter believed in justification by faith alone, he scorned superstition and discouraged the veneration of icons.

Peter’s penchant for travel celebrated the Age of Discovery as did his absorption in naval and maritime affairs. The Persian Campaign of 1722–3 exemplified an urge for Oriental expansion, also revealed in an abortive secret mission to Madagascar in 1723–4. Themes of exploration and expansion stayed with Peter until the end of his life, when he commissioned the first Bering Expedition to investigate north-east Asia and North America for possible colonization.