Peter the Great

"He was a very tall man," wrote Saint-Simon, "well proportioned, rather thin with a roundish face, a broad forehead and handsome, sharply defined eyebrows, a short, but not-too-short nose, large at the end. His lips were rather thick, his complexion a ruddy brown, fine black eyes, large, lively and piercing, and well apart. When he wished, his look was majestic and gracious, at other times it was fierce and severe. He had a nervous, twitching smile which did not come often, but which contorted his face and his whole expression and inspired fear. That lasted but a moment, accompanied by a wild and terrible look, and passed away as quickly. His whole air showed his intellect, his reflection and his greatness, and did not lack a certain grace. He wore only a linen collar, a round brown wig without powder which did not touch his shoulders, a brown tight-fitting coat, plain with gold buttons, a waistcoat, breeches, stockings, and no gloves or cuffs. He wore the star of his order on his coat and the ribbon underneath; his coat was often quite unbuttoned, his hat was always on a table and never on his head even out of doors. With all this simplicity, and in whatever bad carriage or company he might be, one could not fail to perceive the air of greatness that was natural to him."

In choosing to follow the Julian calendar then in use in England, Peter brought Russia into line with the West just before the West itself changed. In 1752, England adopted the Gregorian calendar, but Russia refused to change a second time, with the result that until the Revolution the Russian calendar was behind the West, eleven days in the eighteenth century, twelve in the nineteenth and thirteen in the twentieth. In 1918, the Soviet government finally accepted the Gregorian calendar, which now is standard throughout the world.

If Peter’s purpose seems narrow, the impact of this eighteen-month journey was to be immense. Peter returned to Russia determined to remold his country along Western lines. The old Muscovite state, isolated and introverted for centuries, would reach out to Europe and open itself to Europe. In a sense, the flow of effect was circular: the West affected Peter, the Tsar had a powerful impact upon Russia, and Russia, modernized and emergent, had a new and greater influence on Europe. For all three, therefore—Peter, Russia and Europe—the Great Embassy was a turning point.

Russian umbrage over this diplomatic fracas was a partial factor in the subsequent poor relations between Russia and France. Along with French support of Turkey, with which Russia was at least nominally at war until 1712, it influenced Peter’s decision not to travel to Paris until after the Sun King’s death. And thus it was that as the Great Embassy prepared to leave Russia, it did not contemplate a visit to the greatest monarch of the West, and, sadly for both history and legend, the two royal colossi of the age, Peter and Louis, never stood in the same room.

Nevertheless, for all his effort, there was one Russian whose habits the Patriarch could not change. Joachim’s despair was Peter himself, who passed so much of his time in the German Suburb among those very foreigners whom the Patriarch feared. <...> He left a testament urging the Tsar to avoid contact with all heretics, Protestant or Catholic, to drive them out of Russia and to eschew personally all foreign clothes and customs. Above all, he demanded that Peter appoint no foreigners to official positions in the state or army where they would be in a position to give orders to the Orthodox faithful. Peter’s response, once Joachim was buried, was to order himself a new set of German clothes and, a week later, go for the first time to dine as Gordon’s guest in the German Suburb.