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Admin moved page In what ways did Peter the Great change Russia? to In what ways did Peter the Great change Russia
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[[File: Peter der-Grosse 1838.jpg |200px250px|thumbnail|left|Portrait of Peter the Great]]
Peter the Great is one of the most important figures in Russian History. He was a larger-than-life figure, and he became a legend in his own lifetime. More than any other person, this Tsar changed the direction of Russian history, and many believe that he transformed the country and opened it up to the west.
==Who was Peter the Great?==
[[File: 640px-Lomonosov Poltava 1762 1764.jpg |400px250px|thumb|left|Mosaic of Peter the Great at Poltava]]
Peter was born in Moscow, Russia in, 1672. He was the 14th child of Tsar Alexis by his second wife. After the death of his father, he jointly ruled with his brother Ivan V from 1682. Ivan died in 1696, and then Peter ruled alone. The Tsar was a giant of a man and was unpredictable and prone to violent outbursts. Peter was a curious man by nature, and he wanted to make his kingdoms strong and protect them from their many enemies. To do this, he wanted to modernize his realm. He also wanted to strengthen his own position regarding the local aristocracy.
As a youth, he and his brother were dominated by the Boyars, and for the rest of his life, he distrusted them. Early in his reign, Peter solidified his rule crushed a rebellion by Moscow's soldiers who supported his half-sister. He had her later sent to a nunnery. Peter, in the first years of his reign, had to suppress many rebellions. He remained a ruthless leader.<ref> Anisimov, Evgenii V. The Reforms of Peter the Great: Progress Through Violence in Russia (London, Routledge, 2015), p. 187</ref>
This did not stop him from modernizing his country. The Tsar appointed many western advisors to his court and made western dress compulsory. Peter later toured Europe, this which was known as the Great Embassy, and he learned much about the west and especially its new technologies. When he returned, he was ever more determined to modernize his country. Perhaps the main motive that drove the Tsar to transform his realm was to secure a military advantage. Tsar Peter was an expansionist, and he wanted to secure warm water ports that would improve Russia’s access to the sea. He fought wars with Sweden and Turkey to secure these ports. Peter seized territory in Estonia, Latvia, and Finland and land from the Ottoman Empire.
By 1710 Russia had access to the Baltic and the Black Sea. In the Great Northern War, the Swedish King, Charles XII, inflicted a humiliating defeat on Peter at the Battle of Narva. The Swedish monarch, who was a military genius, defeated Poland and Denmark. A Swedish attempt to march on Moscow was defeated, but this did not deter the Swedes.
Peter's reign saw even great controls imposed on the serfs. Peter gave the Boyers and the landowning class more powers over the serfs. Peter passed laws that formalized the landowners' rights about the serfs, and as a result, the unfree class became ever more dependent on their masters. Peter gave estate-owners new powers, including requiring no serf to leave his master’s lands without their written permission. He also placed new financial burdens on the serfs.
The tax system that Peter established was very oppressive to the poor and the serfs. The Tsar who owned extensive estates created a class of state-serfs or state-peasants. They had more freedoms than the average serf, and they paid their rent and dues directly to the state. Despite his reputation as a modernizer, the Tsar helped to strengthen the feudal order in his country and reinforced the institution of serfdom that had a fall into abeyance in western Europe in the Middle Ages.<ref>Anisimov, p 115</ref>
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The Tsar was persuaded that he needed to engage in major taxation reform. The solution was a new poll tax that replaced all other taxes. The tax burden on the poorer orders increased dramatically. Peter introduced many new technologies into his country from the west, which helped boost the economy.
However, the country remained agrarian and private enterprise was stymied by the vast state monopolies and heavy taxation. Peter began industrialization in his country when he set up state-workshops in the cities and towns. To boost, Russian manufacturers also pursued proto-protectionist trade policies, placing heavy tariffs on imports and trade to maintain a favorable environment for Russian-made goods. As a result, Peter did not really modernize the Russian economy as he tightly controlled it, and the country’s economy did not fundamentally change.<ref> Robert K. Massie, Peter the Great: His Life and World (London, Random House Publishing Group, 2012), p. 22</ref>
==Which Administrative Reforms did Peter the Great Institute?==
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