Latest / The Romanov Dynasty: Rise, Power, and Bloody End — Fexingo History / Peter the Great's Grand Embassy: Learning from the West
Transcript
- Lucas: So we've covered Catherine, Alexander, Nicholas — but one Romanov we haven't really talked about is Peter the Great. And there's a specific episode in his life that's almost like a spy novel: the Grand Embassy of 1697 to 1698. Luna: The Grand Embassy — I've heard the name, but wasn't that a diplomatic mission? Lucas: It was — officially. But Peter had a secret agenda: he wanted to learn everything Europe knew about building a modern state. He went incognito, as a carpenter named Pyotr Mikhailov, and he spent eighteen months traveling through the Dutch Republic, England, and Austria, working in shipyards, visiting factories, even attending anatomy lectures. Luna: A tsar working as a carpenter — that must have been strange for everyone involved. Lucas: It was unprecedented. Most European rulers sent ambassadors. Peter went himself. He was twenty-five, six-foot-seven, and utterly driven. And the reason I want to dive into this is because the Grand Embassy wasn't just a study trip — it transformed Peter's vision for Russia. It also set off a chain of events that ended with him executing his own sister. Lucas: But before we go deep into that — and I say this because we've been doing this for over a hundred episodes now — we deliberately don't run ads on these conversations. If you want to support that choice, the link is buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Luna: Yeah, it's a small way to keep this ad-free. We appreciate it. Lucas: So Peter started his journey in the Dutch Republic. He arrived in Amsterdam in August 1697, and he immediately got to work at the Dutch East India Company shipyard — the VOC. He lived in a small house, wore common clothes, and swung an axe alongside regular shipwrights. Luna: Did anyone believe he was actually a commoner? Lucas: No, not really. He was enormous, and his delegation was huge — about 250 people. But the Dutch played along. They called him 'Mijnheer Peter' and let him learn. He spent four months there, learning to build ships from the keel up. He also visited paper mills, printing presses, and anatomical theaters. He even attended a dissection. Lucas: From there, he went to England in January 1698. He met with King William III, and he was given access to the Royal Navy docks at Deptford. He studied British ship design, hired naval engineers, and even bought a yacht. He also visited the Royal Observatory, the Tower of London, and the Royal Mint. Luna: So he was basically speed-running a European education. Lucas: Exactly. And he wasn't just collecting knowledge — he was recruiting. Over the course of the embassy, he hired hundreds of Dutch and British shipbuilders, engineers, and military officers to come back to Russia with him. He wanted to import expertise wholesale. Lucas: But then, in July 1698, he got word from Moscow that the Streltsy — the elite musketeer regiments — had rebelled again. This was the second major uprising during his reign, and this time it was tied to his sister Sophia, who had been regent when he was a child. Peter had to cut his trip short. He never made it to Venice, which was his next planned stop. Luna: So the Grand Embassy ended not with a treaty, but with a rebellion. Lucas: Yes. Peter returned to Moscow in August 1698, and he was furious. He personally interrogated the Streltsy, and he ordered mass executions. Hundreds were hanged or beheaded. And then he forced his sister Sophia to take monastic vows — she was confined to the Novodevichy Convent for the rest of her life. The Streltsy were disbanded as a military force. Lucas: But here's the key: the Grand Embassy had changed Peter's thinking. He no longer saw Russia as a backward kingdom that could just copy Europe. He saw it as a country that needed a complete overhaul — starting with its army, its navy, and its culture. Luna: What kind of changes did he make first? Lucas: Immediately after the Streltsy execution, he started mandating Western dress for the nobility. He famously cut off the beards of his boyars with his own hands. He introduced a new calendar — starting the year on January 1 instead of September 1. And he began building a navy from scratch, using the shipwrights he'd hired in Holland and England. Lucas: The Grand Embassy also gave him a clear geopolitical goal: Russia needed warm-water ports. That's why he later fought the Great Northern War against Sweden for twenty-one years, eventually founding St. Petersburg on the Baltic coast in 1703. Luna: So the embassy wasn't just a learning trip — it was the blueprint for his entire reign. Lucas: Exactly. And historians often point to it as the moment when Russia began its forced march toward modernization. Peter didn't want gradual change — he wanted to drag Russia into the early modern world by the scruff of its neck. And the Grand Embassy was his first real taste of what that world could be. Lucas: One detail I love: when Peter was in England, he visited the Royal Mint and met Isaac Newton, who was Master of the Mint at the time. We don't know if they had a real conversation, but think about that — the tsar of Russia and the greatest scientist of the age, in the same room. Luna: That's incredible. Did Newton even know who he was? Lucas: He must have. Peter's identity was an open secret. The English diarist John Evelyn recorded meeting 'the Czar of Muscovy' at a dinner. It's one of those moments where you realize how interconnected Europe was, even in the 1690s. Lucas: So the Grand Embassy is a great lens for understanding Peter's reign. It shows his curiosity, his ruthlessness, and his willingness to get his hands dirty. And it set the stage for everything that followed — the building of St. Petersburg, the defeat of Sweden, the rise of Russia as a European power. Luna: I never realized how much one trip could change a country's entire trajectory. Lucas: That's the thing about Peter. He wasn't just a reformer — he was a revolutionary on the throne. And the Grand Embassy was his crucible.