Latest / The Romanov Dynasty: Rise, Power, and Bloody End — Fexingo History / Peter the Great's Grand Embassy: Russia Looks West
Transcript
- Lucas: So, we've talked a lot about the later Romanovs — the tragedy of Nicholas and Alexandra, the reforms of Alexander II, the terror of Ivan the Terrible even before they took the throne. But there's one figure who really reshaped what it meant to be a Romanov tsar, and that's Peter the Great. We haven't done an episode on him yet, and I think his Grand Embassy is the perfect entry point. Luna: The Grand Embassy — that's when Peter traveled to Western Europe, right? Undercover? Lucas: Exactly. In 1697, Peter embarked on an 18-month tour of the major powers: the Dutch Republic, England, the Holy Roman Empire, Brandenburg. He traveled incognito — under the name 'Peter Mikhailov' — so he could avoid the formalities of a state visit. He wanted to learn, not to negotiate, though he did plenty of that too. Luna: What was he hoping to learn? Lucas: Everything, but especially shipbuilding and military technology. Russia didn't have a real navy at that point. Peter had already captured Azov from the Ottomans in 1696, but he knew he couldn't hold it without a fleet. So he put together an embassy of about 250 people — diplomats, translators, volunteers, and a group of young nobles sent to study. He himself signed up as a shipwright in the Dutch East India Company's yards at Zaandam. Lucas: He worked with his hands, lived in a small wooden house, and studied the construction of ships from the keel up. The Dutch were the best in the world at that time. He even went to England and worked at the Royal Dockyard in Deptford, where he impressed the shipwrights with his skill and — well, his partying. The house he stayed in got pretty wrecked. Luna: Wait, the tsar of Russia trashed a house in London? Lucas: He and his entourage. They broke furniture, tore curtains, and left the garden in ruins. The English government had to pay damages. But in between the chaos, Peter was absorbing everything: he visited the Royal Society, watched a Parliament session, toured factories, and studied anatomy. He was genuinely curious. He even brought back a stuffed crocodile for his collection. Luna: So the Grand Embassy was partly a study trip, but it also had diplomatic goals? Lucas: Absolutely. The official purpose was to renew the Holy League against the Ottoman Empire — an alliance that included Austria, Poland, and Venice. Peter wanted them to join him in a new war against the Turks. But it didn't go as planned. The European powers were more interested in the looming War of the Spanish Succession than in fighting Ottomans. And just as the embassy was wrapping up, news came from Moscow that changed everything. Lucas: In 1698, while Peter was in Vienna, he got word that the Streltsy — the musketeer regiments that served as the Kremlin guard — had mutinied again. They were traditionally loyal but also conservative, and they hated Peter's reforms and his absence. They wanted to put his half-sister Sophia back on the throne. Luna: So he had to cut the trip short and go home. Lucas: He rushed back. By the time he reached Moscow, the rebellion had already been crushed by his generals, with hundreds executed. But Peter wasn't satisfied. He personally interrogated the Streltsy, and he ordered mass executions in Red Square. He even beheaded some himself. It was a brutal reminder that Peter would not tolerate opposition — and that his Westernization would be forced, not negotiated. Luna: That's the paradox, isn't it? He wanted to learn from Europe, but he enforced that learning through absolute autocracy. Lucas: Exactly. And the Grand Embassy gave him the tools and the vision. He came back with hundreds of foreign specialists — engineers, navigators, architects, artisans. He ordered the boyars to shave their beards and wear Western clothes. He introduced the Julian calendar. He started building a navy on the Baltic and laid the foundations for St. Petersburg. The embassy was the spark that ignited Peter's Great Reforms. Lucas: One thing I love is how Peter used the embassy to literally bring Europe to Russia. He established the first Russian-language newspaper, the first museum — the Kunstkamera — and he reformed the alphabet. The Table of Ranks, which he introduced later, was directly inspired by what he saw in European civil services: you could rise based on merit, not just birth. Luna: And all that came from 18 months of travel. Lucas: He never stopped learning. Even after the embassy, Peter kept traveling, kept inviting foreigners, kept forcing change. But the Grand Embassy was the turning point. Before it, Russia looked inward. After, it looked westward — whether its people liked it or not. Luna: Speaking of learning and travel — I love that we can do these deep dives without any ads interrupting. It really lets the story breathe. Lucas: That's the whole idea. We deliberately don't run ads on these episodes. If you want to support that choice and keep us ad-free, the link is buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. No pressure, just if you value the ad-free format. Luna: Yeah, listener support makes this possible. And now back to Peter — what was the immediate aftermath of the embassy? Did he go straight to war with Sweden? Lucas: Not straight away, but within two years he had formed an alliance with Saxony, Poland, and Denmark against Sweden. That launched the Great Northern War, which lasted from 1700 to 1721. The war began with a crushing defeat at Narva in 1700, but Peter rebuilt his army, and eventually won at Poltava in 1709. The Grand Embassy had given him the knowledge to modernize his military, even if the first test was a disaster. Luna: So the embassy was really the foundation of everything Peter did for the next 25 years. Lucas: It was. It changed how Peter saw the world — and how the world saw Russia. Before the embassy, Russia was a distant, exotic, semi-Asiatic kingdom. After, it became a European power, albeit one that spoke with a distinctly autocratic accent. Peter even moved the capital from Moscow to St. Petersburg, a city he built literally on a swamp, with its windows open to the West. Lucas: And it's worth noting that the embassy itself was a massive undertaking. It cost a fortune — the equivalent of millions of rubles — and it disrupted Russian diplomacy for years. But Peter didn't care. He was willing to spend any amount, take any risk, to bring Russia into the modern age. Luna: Were there any lasting cultural impacts from the embassy, beyond the obvious technological ones? Lucas: Huge ones. Peter introduced the first secular schools, required nobles to learn mathematics and navigation, and even decreed that the alphabet be simplified — the Civil Script, as it's called. He also brought back Western art and sculpture. The Hermitage Museum began with collections Peter started. And he changed social norms — women were expected to appear at public gatherings, and marriages could not be arranged without the couple's consent. Luna: That's a huge shift from traditional Muscovy. Lucas: It was revolutionary. But it also created a deep cultural split. The nobility adopted French, wore wigs, and read Voltaire. The peasants remained largely unchanged, resentful of the new taxes and forced labor. Peter's reforms were top-down, imposed by decree, and they often alienated the very people they were supposed to benefit. Lucas: One of the most telling episodes: during the embassy, Peter visited the Dutch anatomist Frederik Ruysch and bought his entire collection of preserved specimens. He was fascinated by science, but he had no problem torturing and executing his own subjects. That contradiction is Peter in a nutshell. Luna: So the Grand Embassy is this remarkable story of openness and brutality intertwined. Lucas: Exactly. It's the moment Russia really began to engage with Europe — but on Peter's terms, not Europe's. And that tension would define Russian history for centuries after.