Bright individuals who made up a single team.

Control work on the topic "Russia in the 18th century" with answers

Part 1.

1. The creation of the Holy Synod led to

1) church schism 2) subordination of the church to the state

3) strengthening the independence of the church; 4) secularization of church lands.

2. Assemblies were called:

1) meetings-balls atPeter I 2) government meetings in the 17th century

3) congresses of representatives of estates in the 16th century

4) joint meetings of the Zemsky Sobor and the Boyar Duma.

3. Read an excerpt from the works of V.O. Klyuchevsky and determine who we are talking about

“A man of dark origin,“ the lowest breed, below the nobility, ”in the words of Prince B. Kurakin, who barely knew how to sign for a salary and draw his first and last name, almost the same age as Peter I, a companion of his military fun in Preobrazhensky and ship training in the Dutch shipyards, he, on the recall of the same B. Kurakin, in the mercy of the king, "reached such a degree that he ruled the entire state, honor, and was such a favorite that they are found only in Roman histories." 1) Menshikov 2) Biron 3) Shuvalov 4) Potemkin

4. The gap in the "Conditions", the dominance of the Germans at the court refers to the board

1) Catherine I 2) Anna Ioannovna 3) Elizabeth Petrovna 4) Catherine II

5. The era of palace coups is called the period:

1) 1725-1801 2) 1725-1762 3) 1727-1761 4) 1730-1801

6. In the partitions of Poland, Russia participated along with:

1) with England 2) with Prussia 3) with France 4) with Sweden

7. The decree of 1714 on uniform inheritance determined:

1) new order of succession to the royal throne

2) the procedure for filling the highest government posts

3) a new order of inheritance of real estate by nobles 4) the abolition of localism.

8. The person who led the state in the event of a minor or illness of the monarch was called in the 18th century:1) favorite 2) Caesar 3) regent 4) oprichnik.
9. Which of the following refers to the prerequisites for palace coups?
1) Termination of the activities of Zemsky Sobors
2) Creation of the prosecutor's office3) Liquidation of the patriarchate in Russia
4) Changing the traditional system of succession to the throne
10. What measure was provided by the conditions proposed by the Supreme Privy Council to Anna Ioannovna?1) Reform of the Senate2) Creation of the State Council
3) Creation of the Holy Synod4) Limiting the power of the empress
11. What was the name of the policy of Peter I, aimed at encouraging the development of domestic manufactory production, protecting the interests of Russian merchants from foreign competitors? 1) Protectionism 2) Charity
3) Secularization 4) Enlightened absolutism
12. Read the passage and indicate the authorities whose name is missing:
“.. Our most merciful sovereign, following the examples of other Christian regions, has deigned the most merciful intention of perception, for the sake of decent management of his state affairs ... to establish the following necessary and proper _______. Namely: foreign affairs, chamberlains, justices, revision, military, admiralty, chamberlains, state offices, Berg and manufactories ... " 1) Orders 2) Ministries 3) Colleges 4) Commissions
13. Which of these events happened before all the others?
1) Signing of the Peace of Nystad2) Foundation of St. Petersburg
3) The Great Embassy of Peter4) "Narva confusion"

14. As a result of the military reform in the first quarter of the 18th century, the recruitment of troops began to be carried out on the basis of
1) Creation of foreign regiments 2) Recruitment
3) A set of archers4) Creation of a noble militia
15. What was the main principle that formed the basis of the "Table of Ranks"?
1) Birth 2) Age qualification 3) Personal length of service 4) Property qualification
16. When was the peasant war led by E. Pugachev?a) 1) 1770-1775 2) 1773-1775 3) 1773-1774

Part 2.

1. Read an extract from a historian's work and name the scientist in question.
   “The scientist’s brilliant performance at a public meeting of the Academy in 1749 with the “Eulogy” to Elizaveta Petrovna impressed the empress, who in August 1750 received him in Tsarskoye Selo, and six months later granted him the rank of collegiate adviser with a salary of 1200 rubles a year. He had an influential patron in the person of the favorite of Elizabeth Petrovna, Ivan Ivanovich Shuvalov. It was to him that the scientist managed to inspire the idea of ​​the need to create a university in Moscow. He drew up a detailed plan for the organization of the university.”
2. Read the passage and give the name of the person (with a "serial number") to which this characteristic refers.

“This man inside out, whose concepts of good and evil are confused, ascended the Russian throne. Here, too, he retained all the narrowness and pettiness of the thoughts and interests in which he was brought up and raised. His mind, Holstein-like, could not expand in any way to the geographical measure of the boundless empire that he accidentally inherited.

1. Read an extract from a historical source and briefly answer the questions.

“The empress came out into the hall; standing under the canopy, let the petitioners in and ordered them to read their petition ... Then she made a short speech in such force: that although the treaties of the reign were very difficult, however, believing, as she was reported, that these were required from all ranks and from the entire Russian people , for the love of her fatherland signed. But now it is known that she was deceived by lies and flattery, for the sake of these agreements ... destroys. And having said that, she immediately tore the aforementioned letter, delivered to her hand, and threw it on the ground.

A) Determine the time and place of events, indicate the main character.

B) Indicate the generally accepted name of the document mentioned in the text, describe its content.

4. Establish a correspondence between the figure of Russian history and the relationship he was with Peter When writing down the answer, keep the sequence of the first column.

Doer	kinship
1. Catherine I	A. Niece
2. Catherine II	B. First wife
3. Anna Ioannovna	B. Second wife
4. Elizabeth	D. Grandson's wife
	D. Daughter

Part 3

1. Outstanding architects of the XVIII century. were

1) Dmitry Fonvizin, Gavriil Derzhavin 2) Matvey Kazakov, Vasily Bazhenov
3) Vladimir Borovikovsky, Fedor Rokotov 4) Ivan Kulibin, Ivan Polzunov

2. Which of the cultural figures is considered the founder of the Russian professional theater?

1) D. I. Fonvizin 2) V. K. Trediakovsky 3) F. G. Volkov 4) M. V. Lomonosov

3. Which of the named persons is associated with the creation of Moscow University?

1) M. V. Lomonosov and I. I. Shuvalov 2) N. I. Novikov and Catherine II
3) F. Prokopovich and Peter I 4) A. T. Bolotov and E. R. Dashkova

4. Read an extract from a book and indicate its author.

Three martial arts. The first is an eye: how to stand in the camp, how to go, where to attack, drive and beat. Second - speed ... Third - onslaught ... Bogatyrs! The enemy is trembling from you!”

1) Peter I 2) A. D. Menshikov 3) A. V. Suvorov 4) P. A. Rumyantsev

5. Read the extract from the historian's work and name the monarch in question.

“The range of activity was wide and varied; from composing children's fairy tales for grandchildren to compiling the "Instruction" of the Legislative Commission, from the provincial reform to the construction of luxurious palaces in Tsarskoye Selo and the capital of the Empire, from rescripts to generals and field marshals with instructions on how to conduct military operations, to writing comedies and historical essays, from collecting a library and collections of paintings and rarities to government decrees ... "

1) Peter I 2) Catherine II 3) Alexander I 4) Elizaveta Petrovna

6. Read an excerpt from the notes of L.F. Sepor and indicate the ruler to whose reign the foreign policy events described in it relate.

“Surprised Europe saw how the Russian fleet passed through the ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, ... announced freedom to the Greeks and blew up the Muslim fleet in the Chesme Bay; finally, the grand vizier was besieged by Rumyantsev in Shumla, and the shadow of Peter the Great was avenged. The Sultan, defeated and forced to agree to a shameful peace, succumbed to the Russians<...>Azov, Taganrog, allowed them free navigation on the Black Sea and recognized the independence of the Crimea. 1) Elizaveta Petrovna 2) Catherine II 3) Paul I 4) Alexander I

7. Which of the above was a consequence of the ongoing in Russia in the 18th century. secularization?

1) carrying out a reform of church worship
2) the conversion of church property into state property
3) the separation of the school from the church 4) the creation of the Holy Synod

8. Adopted in 1785, the “Letter of Letters to the Cities” was aimed at

1) the introduction of a system of urban self-government
2) the creation of magistrates in cities 3) the elimination of "white settlements" 4) the establishment of colleges

9. Which three of the listed concepts and terms are associated with the transformational activity of Peter I? Write down the numbers under which they are indicated in the answer.1) "Table of Ranks" 2) Cathedral Code 3) recruitment 4) provinces 5) Bironovshchina 6) Zemshchina

1. Choose from the list three events related to the history of the 18th century, and write down the numbers under which they are indicated in the table.1) Battle of Kunersdorf 2) Adoption of the Council Code 3) Battle of Sinop 4) Establishment of the State Council

5) convocation of the Legislative Commission 6) annexation of Crimea to Russia

11. Which three of the listed battles belong to the Russian-Turkish wars of the second half of the 18th century? Write down the numbers under which they are indicated in the table.

1) assault on the Izmail fortress 2) battle near the village of Lesnaya

3) naval battle at Grengam Island 4) naval battle at Cape Gangut

5) Chesme naval battle 6) battle on the Rymnik river

1. Establish a correspondence between historical figures and events.

13. Below are a number of names of prominent statesmen. All of them, with the exception of one, belong to the 18th century. Find and write down the name of a statesman who does not belong to this period.A. D. Menshikov, G. A. Potemkin, P. I. Shuvalov, P. Ya. Rumyantsev, N. N. Novosiltsev

14. Below is a list of terms. All of them, with the exception of one, belong to the events of the 18th century. Find and write down a term that refers to a different historical period.Boards, fiscal, Bironovshchina, Zemstvo council, assembly.

Part 4

BUT) Name the monarch during whose reign the war took place, the events of which are indicated in this diagram.B) Write the name of the state that was the main enemy of Russia in the war, the events of which are depicted in this diagram.

1. Look at the diagram and complete the tasks

BUT) Write the name of the commander who led the Russian troops in the battles indicated on the diagram.

B) Indicate the name of the fortress indicated on the diagram by the number "2", the capture of which by the Russian troops was an important event of this war

AT) Which judgments related to the war to which the diagram is dedicated are correct? Choose three sentences from the six offered. Write down the numbers under which they are indicated.

1) the war was fought with the Turkish Empire

2) the ruler of Russia during the war years was Elizaveta Petrovna

3) the peace that ended the war was concluded in the city indicated on the map under the number "4"

4) during the war, Russian troops became famous for storming the Turkish fortress, which was considered impregnable in Europe

5) as a result of this war, the Northern Black Sea region finally became part of the Russian Empire

6) during this war, the last major battle of the sailing fleet took place - the Battle of Sinop

1. Look at the diagram and complete the tasks

A) Write the name of the war, the events of which are indicated in this diagram.

B) Write the name of the Russian monarch, during whose reign there was a war, the events of which are indicated in this diagram.

Answers:

Part 1.

Returning from the Senate, probably after a major explanation with the senators, and stroking his beloved dog Lisette, who was hovering around him, he said: “If the stubborn ones obeyed me in a good deed, as Lisette is obedient to me, I would not stroke them with a club; the dog is smarter than them, obeys without a beating, and in those there is a seasoned stubbornness. This stubbornness, like a needle in the eye, haunted Peter. Being engaged in turning and satisfied with his work, he asked his turner Nartov: “What is it like when I turn?” - "Good, your majesty!" - “So, Andrey, I sharpen the bones with a chisel pretty well, but I can’t grind the stubborn with a club.” His Serene Highness Prince Menshikov was intimately familiar with the tsar's baton, even, perhaps, closer than other associates of Peter. This gifted businessman occupied a completely exceptional position among the employees of the converter. A man of dark origin, “of the lowest breed, below the nobility,” in the words of Prince B. Kurakin, who could hardly sign for a salary and draw his first and last name, almost the same age as Peter, a companion of his military fun in Preobrazhenskoye and shipboard studies at Dutch shipyards, Menshikov, according to the recall of the same Kurakin, in the mercy of the tsar, "ascended to such a degree that he ruled the entire state, read it, and was such a strong favorite that they can only be found in Roman histories." He knew the tsar very well, quickly grasped his thoughts, carried out his most diverse assignments, even in the engineering part, which he did not understand at all, was something like his chief of staff, successfully, sometimes with brilliance, commanded in battles. Bold, dexterous and self-confident, he enjoyed the full confidence of the king and unparalleled powers, canceled the orders of his field marshals, was not afraid to contradict himself and rendered Peter services that he never forgot. But none of the employees upset him more than this “mein lipste frint” (my beloved friend) or “mein herzbruder” (my heart brother), as Peter called him in letters to him. Danilych loved money, and he needed a lot of money. Accounts have been preserved, according to which from the end of 1709 to 1711 he personally spent 45 thousand rubles on himself, i.e. about 400 thousand with our money. And he was not shy about the means to raise money, as the news of his numerous abuses shows: the poor Preobrazhensky sergeant subsequently had a fortune that contemporaries determined at 150 thousand rubles. land income (about 1,300 thousand with our money), not counting precious stones worth 1½ million rubles. (about 13 million) and multi-million deposits in foreign banks. Peter was not stingy for a well-deserved favourite; but such wealth could hardly have been made up of royal generosity alone and from the profits of the White Sea walrus fishing company, in which the prince was a shareholder. “I beg you,” Peter wrote to him in 1711 about his petty theft in Poland, “I strongly ask you not to lose your fame and credit with such small profits.” Menshikov tried to fulfill this request of the tsar, only too literally: he avoided "small profits", preferring large ones to them. A few years later, the commission of inquiry in the case of the abuses of the prince made more than 1 million rubles on him. (about 10 million for our money). Peter folded a significant part of this account. But such impurity at hand drove him out of patience. The king warned the prince: "Do not forget who you were and from what I made you what you are now." At the end of his life, forgiving him new revealed thefts, he said to his ever-present intercessor, the empress: “Menshikov was conceived in iniquity, his mother gave birth in sins, and in knavery he will die his stomach; if he does not improve, he will be without a head. In addition to merits, sincere repentance and the intercession of Catherine, in such cases Menshikov was rescued from trouble by the royal club, which covered the sin of the punished with oblivion.

Let's summarize. Let us immediately make a reservation that they reflect the most striking features of Peter's associates, because based on the study of the biography of not all the associates of the reformer tsar, but only the most prominent personalities. The well-known historian of the first quarter of the first century, whom I already mentioned in the introduction to the work, Karamzin wrote about people who fought for power after the death of Peter: "... the pygmies argued about the giant's heritage." Thus, he expressed a negative attitude towards the associates of the king. It is hardly possible to agree with such an assessment of those who collaborated with Peter during the difficult years of the Northern War and won victories in it, participated in administrative reforms and raised the cultural level of the country, laid the foundations of a regular army and created a navy, asserted the greatness of Russia in the international arena.

Just as Peter does not look like Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich in terms of his nature, so Peter's associates do not look like the boyars who surrounded the throne of his parent. But the associates of Peter are not similar to the people who were at the foot of the throne, say, Catherine II or Alexander I. The main thing that distinguished Menshikov Shafirov, Yaguzhinsky, Sheremetevs and Kurakins, on the one hand, and from the Potemkins and Novosiltsevs, Vorontsov Stroganovs, on the other , consisted in the absence of tradition.

The countdown of the time when the formation of personality began in Russia should be kept from the famous Table of Ranks of 1722, although the ideas contained in it began to be introduced by Peter long before it was published. Peter, breaking traditions and overcoming class isolation, completed the ranks of his associates, as we know, not only from people of "pedigree", but also from former serfs, townspeople and foreigners.

When you look closely at the deeds of Petrai and his associates, you pay attention to how thoroughly the tsar was ahead of his time with the idea of ​​the common good, which he served. From this abstract concept, the tsar's associates were closer and dearer to the good - personal. The harsh measures of Peter were powerless to overcome embezzlement, especially those who came from the bottom. Sheremetiev, Golitsin and other aristocrats were not convicted of this vice. Prince Matvei Petrovich Gagarin, who was hanged for embezzlement, was an exception.

Four essays included in the abstract are devoted to the biographies of four dissimilar people. The most striking figure among them was, no doubt, Alexander Danilovich Menshikov. He was probably the most prominent associate of Peter. Unusual was the path of his ascent to power, glory and wealth; the pie-maker became the second person in the state. Uncommon were the talents of this man, fully revealed in the military and administrative fields. The fall of the prince does not leave indifferent, the last years of his life, spent in complete obscurity in distant Berezov. Menshikov is interesting, first of all, as a personality - a personality of the new time, awakened to life by the reforms of the tsar-transformer.

This businesslike businessman occupied a completely exceptional position in the circle of Peter's associates. A man of dark origin, "of the lowest breed, below the nobility," in the words of Prince B. Kurakin, who could hardly sign for a Salary and draw his first and last name, almost the same age as Peter, a companion of his military fun in Preobrazhenskoye and ship training in the Dutch shipyards, Menshikov, according to the recall of the same Kurakin, in the mercy of the tsar, "ascended to such a degree that he ruled the entire state, honor it, and was such a strong favorite that they can only be found in Roman histories." He knew the tsar very well, quickly grasped his thoughts, carried out his most diverse assignments, even in the engineering part, which he did not understand at all, was something like his chief of staff, successfully, sometimes with brilliance, commanded in battles. Bold, dexterous and self-confident, he enjoyed the full confidence of the king and unparalleled powers, canceled the orders of his field marshals, was not afraid to contradict himself and rendered Peter services that he never forgot.

That the prince belonged to the figures of a large scale is clear from the significance of his actions - it was not in the manner of the most illustrious to be small and be content with little. The scope, as a property of the prince's broad nature, is visible in everything: in the theater of military operations, where he never limited himself to half measures, and in relations with his enemies, where he was inexorable, and in the palaces built on his instructions, in all their splendor and size surpassing everything that was built at that time in the new capital and its suburbs, and in its longest and most magnificent, second only to the royal title, and in breathtaking luxury, and in embezzlement, and in boundless ambition. The merits of Menshikov in the transformational undertakings of Peter the Great can hardly be overestimated. Even if these merits were limited only to the military exploits of the prince, then simply listing them is enough to perpetuate his name: Kalisz, Lesnaya, Baturin, Poltava, Perevolochna, Stettin - these are the main victories of the prince in the northern war. If in two of them he shared the joy of triumph with Peter, then in the rest he led the operations on his own, while demonstrating the remarkable abilities of a military leader. But he showed himself, as we learned from the essay about him, not only on the battlefield, but also as a major statesman. As for Menshikov in the government mechanism, the nature of the surviving sources is such that, using them, it is impossible to isolate his role as a senator or even head of the Military Collegium. If the course of affairs gurgled along the usual bureaucratic channel and did not cause complications, then, as they say, trees are not visible behind the forest, the participation of each senator or member of the board is hidden by a common decision. The exception is the significant quarrel in the Senate in 1722, when, behind the stingy registration of the squabble, it is possible to restore the course of the ensuing scandal and the role of individual senators in it. That is why the essay notes the role of the prince in the construction of St. Petersburg and says nothing about Menshikov the senator, as well as about Menshikov the president of the Military Collegium. Menshikov's weakness is in plain sight, as in plain sight and his contribution to the victories of the Northern War, in the creation of a regular army and navy, in the construction and improvement of the new capital. The greed of the most illustrious, his passion for acquisitiveness, which at times overshadowed his mind, is capable of "dampening" the prince's reputation to a certain extent. But in the life of an outstanding personality, first of all, he is attracted by his real contribution to the glory of Russia, of course, Russia of that time, with its social order. His contribution is great, and therefore the descendants remember the name of Menshikov.

No less striking personality is Pyotr Andreevich Tolstoy. He evoked a feeling of deep hostility in Andrei Artamonovich Matveev, the son of the boyar Artamon Sergeevich, who was killed by archers during the riot of May 15-17, 1682. One of the perpetrators of the death of his father was Tolstoy, who acted in the interests of the Miloslavskys. Nevertheless, Matveev Jr. characterized Pyotr Andreevich as a man of a sharp mind. Tolstoy retained his reputation as an intelligent, dexterous and insightful figure to the end of his life. The French ambassador Campredon did not spare laudatory epithets addressed to him: "He is a gifted, modest and experienced man"; "This is the best head of Russia"; "Tolstoy is the most trusted and undoubtedly the most skillful of the tsarina's ministers"; "He is a man of fine mind, strong character and able to give a deft turn to the cases for which he wishes success."

Campredon could be suspected of bias, because he, like other foreign ambassadors in St. Petersburg, did not skimp on the praise of those Russian statesmen who willingly made concessions to him. But from the essay on Tolstoy, we know that the deeds of Pyotr Andreevich confirm, and do not refute, the characterization of Campredon. Tolstoy served the cause of Peter faithfully and devotedly, and without hesitation gave all his remarkable talents to this service.

The field of activity of Peter Andreevich is diplomacy. Occupation in this craft did not always imply the presence of clean hands. Everything that ensured success was used: deceit, blackmail, bribery, treachery, hypocrisy, and even murder. After learning about how he used all the levers of pressure on Tsarevich Alexei to get him to agree to return to Russia, or about how he bought wholesale and retail Ottoman ministers, one might get the impression that Tolstoy was a villain or , in any case, a person deprived of elementary morality. However, one cannot ignore the circumstance that Tolstoy the diplomat, like Russian diplomacy as a whole, only learned the basics of the European diplomatic service, which was very indiscriminate in the means to achieve the goal. Pyotr Andreevich was guided not by selfish, but by state interests, and his actions were rewarded to the extent that they contributed to strengthening either the power of the state or the position of the monarchs.

In a different perspective, Tolstoy looks in communication with Peter and his ministers, as well as in the family circle. Here he was both a devoted servant and a kind, decent family man, caring husband and father.

Other features were inherent in Boris Petrovich Sheremetyev. According to his attitude, habits, he was a man of the 17th century, abandoned by the will of fate in the turbulent time of Peter's transformations. He did not break with the past, and did not fully accept the present, or rather, he could not overcome himself in order to organically merge with this present. From the 17th century, he took the features of a patriarchal governor and ideas about the art of war, the defining feature of which was not skill, but number. In Peter's time, he acquired skills in creating and managing a regular army, more mobile and combat-ready than the local cavalry of the past century. In the alloy of these two qualities, the commander Sheremetyev was formed. His main field of activity is the battlefield, and Russia was indebted for the first victories.

The combination of the above qualities inherent in Sheremetyev determined the tsar's attitude towards his field marshal. It has never been warm, and at the same time it cannot be called hostile. Boris Petrovich with enviable patience endured the constant prodding of the tsar, most often the result of his slowness, sometimes grumbled, but never shied away from any orders of the tsar and carried them out with a sense of duty. The last circumstance must be emphasized in connection with the fact that in the literature there is a rumor spread by Prince Shcherbatov about the words allegedly spoken by Boris Petrovich when he refused to participate in the trial of Tsarevich Alexei: "... serve your sovereigns, and not judge his blood, my have a position."

Letters from Sheremetyev to Cabinet Secretary Makarov, Prince Menshikov, General Apraksin, and the Tsar himself give reason to reject Shcherbatov's version: the field marshal was incapable of such a demonstration, not only at the end of his strength, but also during their heyday.

Unlike Menshikov, Tolstoy and Sheremetyev, who enjoyed greater or lesser independence and the force of circumstances sometimes forced to make their own decisions, Alexei Vasilyevich Makarov did not experience such difficulties: he was always with Peter, strictly followed him wherever he went, at least to the resort.

Of course, the powerful figure of Peter overshadowed Makarov, but, looking closely at the activities of his office secretary, one can safely say that Alexei Vasilyevich was one of the tsar's most trusted persons and was his indispensable assistant in all his undertakings. If Peter can be compared with a flywheel that drives the entire government mechanism, then Makarov served as a drive belt.

All the reports to Peter passed through the hands of Makarov, as well as the decrees emanating from the king, no matter what issues they touched: military, diplomatic, or related to the internal life of the country. And yet the main field, where Makarov showed extraordinary diligence, phenomenal efficiency and the highest degree of organization, greatly facilitated the titanic work of Peter, was the "routine".

Peter, teaching somehow his son, said that the government of the country consists of two concerns: "routine and defense." Sheremetiev, Menshikov and Tolstoy labored in the field of "defense", Makarov's field of activity was "routine". Bright and dissimilar personalities, they complemented each other, creating, in sports terms, a single team. Ultimately, the activities of each of them, guided by the firm hand of Peter, were subordinated to his will.

But Peter was gone. There came a time of stagnation, when the state cart, due to inertia, continued to move in a once given direction. The country, like a traveler, having used up resources during a long and exhausting campaign, as if made a halt, decided to take a break in order to gather new strength and arm itself with new ideas.

Under Peter, his associates shone, after his death the brilliance faded, and it seems that instead of outstanding personalities at the throne, ordinary people, deprived of statesmanship, began to swarm. They continued the work of Peter, most likely due to inertia, as noted above, rather than due to the creative perception of the received heritage and clear ideas of how to dispose of it. Moreover, contemporaries witnessed a sharp rivalry for power, which began at the still warm body of Peter and lasted for over a decade and a half.

This metamorphosis was due to the absolutist regime, which recognized humility and blind obedience and limited the manifestation of initiative, will and independence among Peter's associates, not only in actions, but also in thinking. The regime brought up figures of a special kind, whose main advantage was diligence. Peter knew how to suppress the rivalry and contradictions between his associates in the bud. Svars were taken out only occasionally, as, for example, happened in the Senate in 1722, when the tsar, leading the troops, went on the Caspian campaign. After Peter's death, rivalry for power became the norm.

The absolutist regime prepared for the companions of Peter another commonality related to their destinies: almost all of them ended badly. Let us recall the tragic fate of Menshikov, or Tolstoy, who died as an exile on Solovki, the disgrace of Makarov and the end of his life on the scaffold by Golitsin and Dolgorukov. Only the clever Osterman confidently and slowly moved to the heights of power over the corpses of his rivals. The system of government was most directly related to these falls, because the autocratic system put both the rise and disgrace of statesmen in direct dependence on the personal qualities of monarchs: their abilities, tastes, ideas about their role in the state. It is quite obvious that the mediocre heirs of Peter were out of favor with his outstanding associates.

Under Peter, none of them dared to impose their will on him and rule the country in his name. With the insignificant successors of Peter the Great, such opportunities appeared. In short, with Peter's associates, many of whom can be called gifted people, the same thing happened as with Napoleon's marshals, who were reduced to the position of ordinary people after their brilliant master left the stage of history.

"... The whole history is made up precisely of the actions of individuals who are undoubtedly figures," wrote V.I. Lenin. In this essay, we have traced the life path of four "undoubtedly figures." Their biography is instructive in several respects. On the one hand, each of them - Menshikov, who became a grand duke from a pie-maker, the aristocrat Sheremetyev, a representative of the township Makarov and a descendant of middle-class landowners Tolstoy - served one class - the nobility, whose leader was Peter the Great. It goes without saying that their service in the conditions of that time strengthened the position of this class in the feudal society of Russia.

On the other hand, it is necessary to emphasize the social environment from which the king recruited followers. It was very heterogeneous, it was attended by people even from the "vile" estates, as I already answered at the beginning of the essay. In this regard, let us recall the prophetic words of K. Marx: "The more capable the ruling class is to accept into its midst the most prominent people from the oppressed classes, the stronger and more dangerous its domination."

An important result of the activities of the "chicks of Petrov's nest" is that each of them contributed to strengthening the power of Russia and turning it into a great European power.

Lev LIVSHITS

Crowned with useless glory,
Brave Karl glides over the abyss.
A.S. Pushkin. "Poltava"

“Which of you, my brothers, even dreamed about 30 years ago, - as Tsar Peter I began, - that we are here, by the Ostsee Sea, we will be carpenters, in the country conquered from them by our labors and courage , the city in which we now live, that we will see such brave and victorious soldiers and sailors ... For now, I advise you to remember the Latin proverb - “Pray and work!”.

"We are pushing the Swedes army after army"

The victorious Battle of Poltava near the banks of the Vorskla River near the village of Malye Budishchi, where on June 27, 1709, the Swedish army led by King Charles XII met with the Russian troops under the command of Peter I, occupies a special place in the history of the Northern War with his labors and courage. The Swedish king, who had previously known defeats on the fields of European countries (including nine years before the defeat of the Russian army near Narva), after a fierce battle, won a decisive victory. Of the 30,000th army, the Swedes lost over 9,000 killed and 18,000 captured, all the guns and the convoy were captured. Russian losses - 1345 people killed and 390 wounded. As a result of the Battle of Poltava, the military power of Sweden was finally undermined and the war turned in favor of Russia.

A particularly striking moment of the Poltava battle was the swift attack of the Russian cavalry under the command of Menshikov in the Budishchi forest, when the cavalry of generals Schlippenbach and Ross was defeated.

Who was he, Alexander Danilovich Menshikov, a favorite of Peter the Great, possessing outstanding military and administrative abilities, who ruled a vast country in the absence of the tsar, organized the construction of St. Petersburg and Kronstadt, governor of Ingermanland, Karelia and Estonia?

In one of the lectures, the historian V.O. Klyuchevsky cites the opinion of his contemporary Prince Boris Kurakin about Menshikov: “A man of dark origin, the lowest breed, below the nobility, who could not even sign.” The TSB says that he is the son of a court groom, in the old Russian encyclopedia of the late nineteenth century it is written: “It is difficult to establish his origin, but most likely he was from commoners, in any case he did not receive any education. Around 1686 he entered Lefort as a boy, where he was noticed by the tsar.” The main thing is clear - Menshikov was one of the talented people who were recruited by Tsar Peter, without analyzing the title and origin, he knew how to recognize people and rarely made mistakes in his choice, correctly guessing who was good for what! Perhaps the brother-in-law of Peter I, Prince Kurakin, was right about the origin of Menshikov, but this “illiterate” generalissimo won victories over the best generals in Europe (including General Schlippenbach) and successfully supervised the work of the builder of Kronstadt and the Ladoga Canal B. Minich, the architect Trezzini under Petersburg and managed all the lands conquered from the Swedes.

However, Danilych did not forget his very selfish interests, which is also impossible without knowledge and skill.

"The glory of their banners darkens"

The house on the north side of Lossi Platz with a second-floor balcony on Doric columns belonged to Wolmar Anton von Schlippenbach in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. And it is unlikely that the brave Swedish general could even think on June 27, 1709, when the Russian cavalry led by him near the Budishchi forest near Poltava, that two and a half years later the Russian Tsar Peter I himself would be a guest in his Reval house, to whom he then surrendered at the mercy of the winner.

A memorial plaque on the wall of house number 4 on Lossi Platz reported that Peter I stopped here in 1711, having first arrived in Revel with Catherine for Christmas. The tsar was greeted with unusual solemnity: a deputation of noble citizens of the Estonian nobles of Toompea and burghers of the Lower City left to meet them. Triumphal arches were erected at the Swedish Market (as the Town Hall Square was then called) at the entrance to Lossi Square. Along the way the motorcade was stuck in the snow, the city was brightly illuminated, decorated with carpets and garlands. Then there were Christmas balls, receptions, fireworks.

The knighthood of Toompea and the burghers of the Lower City hoped that the tsar would keep his promises - the conditions of Reval's surrender in September 1710. They tried not in vain. Peter did not like flattery and hardly believed the “loyal” outpourings of the Revelians, but he needed a reliable rear in the war with Sweden. Having stayed in Revel for two weeks, on December 27 he left the city and already in February of the following, 1712, Peter I signed a letter:

“We, Peter the Great, by the grace of God the tsar and autocrat of all Russia, and so on and so forth ... We declare to this, since Revel, the capital of Estonia, has succumbed to us and has come under our power, for the sake of their ancient privileges, blessed rights, liberties, justice and habits , as they have since ancient times and from government to government until now acquired and had, confirmed and will be supported ... for this reason, we from the Caesar's mercy in that of their constant all-submissive loyalty and position to us and our Caesar's heirs are very much in hope, we confirm this here, and by the power of this, all of them from ancient times and from government to government have been blessed with privileges, liberties, justice and custom, as they have acquired names until now. We also promise them eight-graciously that they and their offspring, for all that, will always be supported and protected ....

For the sake of your testimony and firm content, we signed this with our own hand, and ordered us to strengthen it with our Caesar's seal.

It was also committed in St. Petersburg on February 13, 1712. PETER"

About ideals and principles

No wonder the hospitable owner of the Vyshgorod house tried hard. Having transferred to the Russian service in 1715, Wolmar Anton von Schlippenbach received the title of baron, was promoted to lieutenant general and became a member of the Military Collegium under Peter I.

Not one Swedish general was converted by the Russian tsar to his “faith”. It was not by chance that the local nobility and burghers, on his next visit in 1721, presented the emperor with a welcome address with vulgar and high-flown verses:

And the hail that has become impoverished
He sees two radiances at once.
God stretched over them brother
The bounty of your benefactions.
You are the sun, you are the Father of the Fatherland
And the keeper of the local shores,
And our small city, finally,
Found a peaceful home.

This is what it means to change your ideals and principles in time!

The Estonian peasants assessed this time in a completely different way, through whose fields and farms the devastating wave of the Swedish-Russian war swept. Today, it is possible to assess the events of three hundred years ago in different ways. War is a terrible and merciless phenomenon, wherever, whenever and with whomever it may be.

Today, everything connected with Tsar Peter is presented in a black light by local historians. Looking through the twelfth volume of letters and documents of the tsar, I came across his letter dated March 5, 1712 to the commander of the Olonets regiment, Prince A. Volkonsky: With a great loss, what do you need to look at. And upon receipt of this decree, find out firmly about that and punish the guilty without mercy.

There is no doubt that the perpetrators were found and punished. So not everything was unequivocal in the distant past. Peter I, in a conversation with the mechanic Nartov, said: “I command my subjects by my decrees; these decrees contain benefits, not harm to the state ... Access to me is free, so long as they do not take away my time with idleness. Ignorance and stubbornness have taken up arms against me ever since I decided to introduce beneficial changes ... In establishing order in citizenship, justice must condemn the villain. Let anger slander: my conscience is clear. God is my judge! Wrong rumors are carried by the wind.”

V. O. Klyuchevskoy

Peter the Great among his employees

V. O. Klyuchevskoy. Works in eight volumes. Volume VIII. Research, reviews, speeches (1890-1905) M., Publishing house of socio-economic literature, 1959 We are accustomed to imagine Peter the Great as more of a businessman than a thinker. This is how his contemporaries usually saw him. Peter's life turned out in such a way that it gave him little leisure in advance and leisurely think over a plan of action, and his temperament inspired little desire for it. The haste of affairs, the inability, sometimes even the impossibility, to wait, the mobility of the mind, unusually quick observation - all this taught Peter to think without hesitation, to decide without hesitation, to think over a matter in the midst of the matter itself and, sensitively guessing the requirements of the minute, to figure out the means of execution on the go. In Peter's activity, all these moments, so clearly distinguished by idle reflection and as if crumbling during reflection, went together, as if growing one from the other, with organic life inseparability and consistency. Peter appears before the observer in an eternal stream of various affairs, in constant business communication with many people, in the midst of a continuous change of impressions and enterprises; it is most difficult to imagine him alone with himself, in a secluded study, and not in a crowded and noisy workshop. This does not mean that Peter did not have those general guiding concepts that make up a person's way of thinking; Only in Peter this way of thinking was expressed somewhat in its own way, not as a detailed plan of action or a stock of ready-made answers to all sorts of life's demands, but was an accidental improvisation, an instant flash of a constantly excited thought, every minute ready to respond to every request of life at the first meeting with him. . His thought was developed on small details, current issues of practical activity, artisan, military, government. He had neither leisure nor the habit of systematic reflection on abstract subjects, and his upbringing did not develop in him an inclination for this. But when, in the midst of current affairs, he came across such an object, with his direct and healthy thought he made a judgment about it as easily and simply as his keen eye grasped the structure and purpose of a machine that was first encountered. But he always had two foundations ready for his way of thinking and acting, firmly laid down in his early years under influences that are elusive to us: this is an unrelenting sense of duty and an eternally intense thought about the common good of the fatherland, in the service of which this duty consists. On these foundations, his view of his royal power was also based, which was completely unusual for ancient Russian society, but which was the initial, starting point of its activity and, at the same time, its main regulator. In this regard, the ancient Russian political consciousness experienced a sharp turning point, a decisive crisis in the person of Peter the Great. The closest predecessors of Peter, the Muscovite tsars of the new dynasty, whose ancestor sat on the Moscow throne not by his father's will, but by popular election, of course, could not see only their patrimony in the state they ruled, as the sovereigns of the former dynasty looked at him. That dynasty built the state out of its private inheritance and could think that the state exists for it, and not it for the state, just as the house exists for the owner, and not vice versa. The selective origin of the new dynasty did not allow such a specific view of the state, which formed the basis of the political consciousness of the sovereigns of the Kalitina tribe. The conciliar election gave the kings of the new house a new foundation and a new character of their power. The Zemsky Sobor asked Mikhail for the kingdom, and not Mikhail asked the kingdom from the Zemsky Sobor. Therefore, the king is necessary for the state, and although the state does not exist for the sovereign, but without him it cannot exist. The idea of ​​power as the basis of the state order, the sum of the powers arising from this source, exhausted the entire political content of the concept of the sovereign. Power fulfills its purpose, unless it is inactive, regardless of the quality of the action. The appointment of power to rule, and to rule means to order and exact. How to execute the decree is the business of the executors, who are responsible to the authorities for execution. The tsar can ask for advice from the closest executors, his advisers, even from the advisers of the whole earth, from the Zemsky Sobor. It is his good will and much, much the requirement of governmental custom or political propriety. To give advice, to submit an opinion on a matter, when asked, is not the political right of the Boyar Duma or the Zemsky Sobor, but their loyal duty. This is how the first kings of the new dynasty understood and practiced their power; at least this is how the second of them, Tsar Alexei, understood and practiced it, who did not even repeat those vague, never made public and politically unsecured obligations, on which he kissed the cross of the boyars - only the boyars, and not the Zemsky Sobor - his father. And from 1613 to 1682, neither in the Boyar Duma nor at the Zemsky Sobor did the question of the limits of supreme power arise, because all political relations were established on the basis laid down by the electoral council of 1613. They themselves asked for the kingdom, give yourself the means to reign - such is the main note in the letters of the newly elected Tsar Michael to the cathedral. Of course, both in terms of the origin of the new royal house, and in terms of the general significance of power in Christian society, Christian thought and in the composition of the Moscow autocracy of the 17th century. could find the idea of ​​the tsar's duty as guardian of the public good and the idea of, if not legal, then his moral responsibility not only before God, but also before the earth; and common sense pointed out that power could be neither an end nor an excuse for itself, and it became incomprehensible how soon it ceased to fulfill its purpose - to serve the people's welfare. All this was probably felt by the Moscow tsars of the 17th century, especially such a benevolent and pious bearer of power as Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. But they weakly let their subjects feel all this, surrounded in their palace with heavy ceremonial splendor, with the then, to put it mildly, harsh customs and methods of administration, appearing to the people as earthly gods in the unearthly grandeur of some Assyrian kings. The same benevolent Tsar Alexei, perhaps, was aware of the one-sided setting of his power; but he did not have the strength to break through the thickness of conventional concepts and rituals that had accumulated over the centuries and tightly enveloped him in order to intelligibly show the people the other, reverse side of power. This deprived the Moscow sovereigns of the 17th century. that moral and educational influence on a controlled society, which constitutes the best purpose and the highest quality of power. By their way of government, by the feelings they instilled in those who were ruled, they significantly disciplined their behavior, imparted to them some outward restraint, but weakly softened their morals and even weaker clarified their political and social concepts. In the activities of Peter the Great for the first time, precisely these popular educational properties of power were clearly manifested, which flickered barely noticeably and often completely extinguished in his predecessors. It is difficult to say under what outside influences or what inner process of thought Peter succeeded in turning the political consciousness of the Moscow sovereign inside out; only he, in the composition of the supreme power, understood most clearly and especially vividly felt the "duties", the duties of the king, which, in his words, boil down to "two necessary matters of government": to routine, interior landscaping, and defense, external security of the state. This is what it consists the good of the fatherland the common good of the native land, the Russian people or the state - concepts that Peter was almost the first to assimilate among us and expressed with all clarity the primary, simplest foundations of social order. Autocracy is a means to achieve these goals. Nowhere and never did the thought of the fatherland leave Peter; in joyful and mournful moments, she encouraged him and directed his actions, and about his duty to serve the fatherland in every possible way, he spoke simply, without pathos, as about a serious matter, but natural and necessary. In 1704, Russian troops took Narva, washing away the shame of the first defeat. To celebrate, Peter told his son Alexei, who was on the campaign, how it was necessary for him, the heir, to follow the example of his father in order to ensure triumph over the enemy, not to be afraid of either labor or danger. "You must love everything that serves for the good and honor of the fatherland, spare no effort for the common good; and if my advice is carried by the wind, I will not recognize you as my son." Subsequently, when there was a danger of fulfilling this threat, Peter wrote to the prince: “For my fatherland and my people, I did not spare my life and do not regret; how can I feel sorry for you indecent? You hate my deeds, which I do for the people of my people, not sparing health mine, I do." One day, a noble gentleman smiled, seeing with what zeal Peter, loving oak like a ship tree, planted acorns along the Peterhof road: “Stupid man,” Peter said to him, noticing his smile and guessing its meaning: “you Do you think I won't live to see mature oaks? But I'm not working for myself, but for the future benefit of the state. At the end of his life, when he went sick in bad weather to inspect the work on the Ladoga Canal and aggravated the illness with this trip, he said to the medical doctor Blumentrost: "The disease is stubborn, nature knows its business; but we also need to take care of the benefits of the state, as long as we have strength." In accordance with the nature of the government, its situation also changed: instead of the Kremlin chambers, magnificent court ceremonies and outfits, there was a bad house in Preobrazhensky and small palaces in the new capital; a simple carriage in which, according to an eyewitness, not every merchant would dare to show himself on a capital street; in fact - a simple caftan made of Russian cloth, often worn-out shoes with darned stockings - the whole dress, in the words of Prince Shcherbatov, the writer of Catherine's century, "was so simple that even the poorest person would not wear it now." To live for the benefit and glory of the state and fatherland, not to spare health and life itself for the common good - such a combination of concepts was not entirely clear to the ordinary consciousness of an ancient Russian person and little familiar to his everyday everyday practice. He understood service to the state and society as a service by appointment of the government or by worldly choice, looked at it as a duty or as a means for arranging personal and family well-being. He knew that the word of God commanded to love your neighbor as yourself, to lay down your life for others own. But by neighbor he meant, first of all, his family and relatives, as the closest of his neighbors; a your friends considered, perhaps, all people, but only as separate people, and not as societies in which they are united. In moments of national disaster, when everyone and everyone was in danger, he understood the obligation and could feel in himself a readiness to die for the fatherland, because, protecting everyone, he defended himself, as each of all, defending himself, defended him. He understood the common good as the private interest of everyone, and not as the general interest to which the private interest of everyone must be sacrificed. And it was precisely Peter who did not understand the private interest that did not coincide with the general one, did not understand the possibility of locking himself in the circle of private, domestic affairs. “What are you doing at home?” he sometimes asked those around him in bewilderment: “I don’t know how to be at home without business,” that is, without public, state business. "Bitter to us! He does not know our needs," people complained of him in response to this, tired of his official demands, constantly tearing them away from household chores: "as if he looked after his house well and saw that either there is not enough firewood, or something else, so you would know what we are doing at home. It was this concept of the common good, difficult for the old Russian mind, that Peter the Great tried to clarify with his example, his view of power and its relationship to the people and the state. This view served as the general basis for Peter's legislation and was expressed publicly in decrees and statutes as the guiding rule of his activity. But Peter was especially fond of expressing his views and guiding ideas in frank conversations with those closest to him, in the company of his "friends," as he called them. The closest executors had to know before and better than others what kind of manager they were dealing with and what he expected and required from them. It was a company of employees so memorable in our history, whom the converter picked up for himself - a rather motley society, which included both Russians and foreigners, noble and noble people, even rootless, very smart and gifted and the most ordinary, but devoted and executive. Many of them, even the majority and, moreover, the most prominent and well-deserved businessmen, were long-term and closest employees of Peter: Prince F. Yu. Romodanovsky, Prince M. M. Golitsyn, T. Streshnev, Prince Ia-F. Golovin, Sheremetev, P. Tolstoy, Bruce, Apraksin. With them he started his business; they followed him until the last years of the Swedish war, others survived the Peace of Nyschtadt and the reformer himself. Others, like Count Yaguzhinsky, Baron Shafirov, Baron Osterman, Volynsky, Tatishchev, Neplyuev, Minikh, gradually entered the thinning ranks in place of Prince B. Golitsyn, Count F. A. Golovin, Shein, Lefort, Gordon. Peter recruited the people he needed from everywhere, without analyzing their rank and origin, and they came to him from different sides and from all sorts of conditions: who came as a cabin boy on a Portuguese ship, as the police chief of the new capital Devier, who herded pigs in Lithuania, as they told about the first Prosecutor General of the Senate, Yaguzhinsky, who was a clerk in a shop, like Vice-Chancellor Shafirov, who from the Russian household people, like the Arkhangelsk vice-governor, the inventor of stamped paper, Kurbatov, who, like Osterman, was the son of a Westphalian pastor; and all these people, together with Prince Menshikov, once, as the rumor went, selling pies along the Moscow streets, met in the company of Peter with the remnants of the Russian boyar nobility. Foreigners and new Russians, understanding Peter's work or not, did it without entering into his assessment, to the best of their ability and zeal, out of personal devotion to the reformer or by calculation. Of the well-born people, most did not sympathize with either himself or his cause. They were also people of a transformative direction, only not of the kind that Peter gave to the reform. They wanted the reform to proceed as its tsars Alexei, Fedor and Tsarevna Sofya had led, when, in the words of Prince B. Kurakin, Petrov's brother-in-law, "polites was restored in the great gentry and other courtiers with the manner of the Polish and in carriages, and in house building, and in dressings, and in tables", with the sciences of the Greek and Latin languages, with rhetoric and sacred philosophy, with learned Kyiv elders. Instead, they saw courtesy in the manner of the Dutch, sailor, with non-gentry sciences - artillery, nautics, fortification, with foreign engineers, mechanics, and with the illiterate and rootless Menshikov, who commands all of them, the boyars’ pedigrees, to whom even Field Marshal B.P. Sheremetev is compelled to write searchingly: "Just as before I received all mercy through you, so now I ask you for mercy." It was not easy to put together such a diverse set of people in a friendly company for common activities. Peter got the difficult task of not only looking for suitable people to carry out his enterprises, but also educating the performers themselves. Neplyuev later told Catherine II: "We, Peter the Great's disciples, were led by him through fire and water." But in this harsh school, not only harsh educational methods were used. Through early and direct communication, Peter acquired a great ability to recognize people even by one appearance, rarely made mistakes in choosing, correctly guessed who was good for what. But, with the exception of foreigners, and even then not all, the people he selected for his business did not become ready-made businessmen in the places indicated by him. It was solid, but raw material that needed careful processing. Like their leader, they learned on the go, in the middle of the action itself. They had to show everything, explain everything by visual experience, by their own example, look after everyone, check each one, encourage another, give another a good wit, so that he would not doze off, but look at both. Moreover, Peter needed to tame them to himself, to become simple and direct relations with them, in order to draw their moral sense into these relations by personal proximity to them, at least a sense of some modesty, even if only in front of him alone, and thus get the opportunity act not only on the feeling of official fear of an official slave, but also on conscience as not an extra support for civic duty, or at least public decency. In this regard, with regard to duty and decency, most of Peter's Russian employees came out of the old Russian way of life with great shortcomings, and in Western European culture, when they first met her, they most of all liked her last applied part, which caressed the senses and aroused appetites. Out of this meeting of old vices with new temptations came such a moral disorder that made many unscrupulous people think that the reform brought only the ruin of good old customs and could bring nothing better. This disorder was especially clearly manifested in abuses in the service. Peter's brother-in-law, Prince B. Kurakin, in notes about the first years of his reign, says that after the seven-year reign of Princess Sophia, conducted "in every order and justice", when "people's contentment triumphed", the "dishonest" reign of Tsarina Natalya Kirillovna began, and then began "great bribery and state theft, which to this day (written in 1727) continues with multiplication, and it is difficult to remove this ulcer." Peter fiercely and unsuccessfully struggled with this ulcer. Many of the prominent businessmen with Menshikov in front were put on trial for this and punished with monetary penalties. The Siberian governor Prince Gagarin was hanged, the St. Petersburg vice-governor Korsakov was tortured and publicly flogged with a whip, two senators were also subjected to public punishment, the vice-chancellor Baron Shafirov was removed from the chopping block and sent into exile, one investigator for embezzlement cases was shot. About Prince Y. Dolgorukov himself, a senator who was considered an example of incorruptibility, Peter said that Prince Yakov Fedorovich "not without reason." Peter became hardened, seeing how the law was played around him, as he put it, like cards, and from all sides they were undermining "under the fortification of truth." There is news that one day in the Senate, driven out of patience by this general dishonesty, he wanted to issue a decree to hang any official who stole at least enough to buy rope. Then the guardian of the law, "the sovereign's eye", Prosecutor General Yaguzhinsky stood up and said: "Do your Majesty want to reign alone, without servants and without subjects? We all steal, only one is bigger and more noticeable than the other." A condescending, benevolent and trusting man, Peter in such an environment began to be imbued with distrust of people and acquired a tendency to think that they could only be curbed by "cruelty." He repeated the word of David more than once; what every man is a lie, saying: "There is little truth in people, but there is a lot of deceit." This view was reflected in his legislation, so generous with cruel threats. However, you can't convert bad people. Once in the Cabinet of Curiosities, he said to his life doctor Areskin: “I ordered the governors to collect monsters (freaks) and send them to you; order them to prepare cabinets. there wouldn't be enough space for them; let them wander around in the national cabinet of curiosities: among people they are more noticeable. Peter himself was aware of how difficult it was to clean up such a corrupted atmosphere with one storm of the law, no matter how severe it was, and he was often forced to resort to more direct and short methods of action. In a letter to his invincible stubborn son, he wrote: "How many times have I scolded you, and not only scolded you, but also beat you!" The same "fatherly punishment", as called in the manifesto on the abdication of the prince from the throne, this method of correction, in contrast to "affection and reproachful reprimand", Peter applied to his associates. To sluggish governors who, in the conduct of their affairs, "follow to the bone," he appointed a deadline with a threat that later he would "act with them not with a word, but with his hands." In this manual political pedagogy, his famous club often appeared in the hands of Peter, which was remembered for so long and told so much but personal experience or from the words of the fathers who experienced it on themselves by the Russian people of the 18th century. Peter recognized her great pedagogical abilities and considered her his constant assistant in the political education of his employees, although he knew how difficult her task was with the obstinacy of the available educational material. Returning from the Senate, probably after a major explanation with the senators, and stroking his beloved little dog Lisette, who was hovering around him, he said: smarter than them, he obeys without a beating, and in those there is a seasoned stubbornness. This stubbornness, like a needle in the eye, haunted Peter. Being engaged in turning and satisfied with his work, he asked his turner Nartov: "What is it like when I turn?" - All right, your majesty! - "That's right, Andrey, I sharpen the bones with a chisel pretty much, but I can't grind the stubborn with a club." His Serene Highness Prince Menshikov was intimately familiar with the tsar's baton, even, perhaps, closer than other associates of Peter. This gifted businessman occupied a completely exceptional position among the employees of the converter. A man of dark origin, "of the lowest breed, below the nobility," in the words of Prince B. Kurakin, who could hardly sign for a salary and draw his first and last name, almost the same age as Peter, a companion of his military fun in Preobrazhenskoye and ship training in the Dutch shipyards, Menshikov, according to the recall of the same Kurakin, in the favor of the tsar, "ascended to such a degree that he ruled the entire state, read it, and was such a strong favorite that they can only be found in Roman histories." He knew the tsar very well, quickly grasped his thoughts, carried out his most diverse assignments, even in the engineering part, which he did not understand at all, was something like his chief of staff, successfully, sometimes with brilliance, commanded in battles. Bold, dexterous and self-confident, he enjoyed the full confidence of the king and unparalleled powers, canceled the orders of his field marshals, was not afraid to contradict himself and rendered Peter services that he never forgot. But none of the co-workers upset him more than this "mein lipste frint" (my beloved friend) or "mein herzbruder" (my heart brother), as Peter called him in letters to him. Danilych loved money, and he needed a lot of money. Accounts have been preserved, according to which from the end of 1709 to 1711 he personally spent 45 thousand rubles on himself, that is, about 400 thousand with our money. And he was not shy about the means to raise money, as the news of his numerous abuses shows: the poor Preobrazhensky sergeant subsequently had a fortune that contemporaries determined at 150 thousand rubles. land income (about 1,300 thousand with our money), not counting precious stones worth 17g million rubles. (about 13 million) and multi-million deposits in foreign banks. Peter was not stingy for a well-deserved favourite; but such wealth could hardly have been made up of royal generosity alone and from the profits of the White Sea walrus fishing company, in which the prince was a shareholder. “I beg you,” Peter wrote to him in 1711 about his petty theft in Poland, “I strongly ask that you not lose your fame and credit with such small profits.” Menshikov tried to fulfill this request of the tsar, only too literally: he avoided "small profits", preferring large ones to them. A few years later, the commission of inquiry in the case of the abuses of the prince made more than 1 million rubles on him. (about 10 million for our money). Peter folded a significant part of this account. But such impurity at hand drove him out of patience. The king warned the prince: "Do not forget who you were and from what I made you what you are now." At the end of his life, forgiving him new revealed thefts, he said to his ever-present intercessor, the empress: "Menshikov was conceived in iniquity, his mother gave birth in sins, and in roguery he will die his stomach; if he does not correct himself, he will be without a head." In addition to merits, sincere repentance and the intercession of Catherine, in such cases Menshikov was rescued from trouble by the royal club, which covered the sin of the punished with oblivion. But the royal club has two ends: correcting the sinner with one end, she dropped him with the other in the opinion of society. Peter needed businessmen with authority, who would be respected and obeyed by subordinates; and what kind of respect could the boss beaten by the king inspire? Peter hoped to eliminate this demoralizing effect of his penal truncheon by making it strictly private use in his lathe. Nartov says that he often saw how here the sovereign of noble ranks treated people with a club for guilt, how after that they went out into other rooms with a cheerful look and on the same day were invited to the sovereign's table so that outsiders would not notice anything. Not every guilty person was honored with a club: it was a sign of a certain closeness, trust in the punished. Therefore, those who experienced such punishment remembered him without bitterness, as a mercy, even when they considered themselves punished undeservedly. A.P. Volynsky later told how, during the Persian campaign, on the Caspian Sea, Peter, at the slander of enemies, nailed him, who was then the governor of Astrakhan, with a cane that replaced the club in her absence, and only the empress "graciously did not deign to bring to a big beating." “But,” the narrator added, “the sovereign deigned to punish me, as the gracious father of his son, with his pen, and the next day he himself mercifully deigned to think that it was not my fault, mercifully, repented and still deigned to accept me in his former high favor." Peter punished in this way only those whom he valued and whom he hoped to correct by this means. To the report on one mercenary act of the same Menshikov, Peter answered: “The guilt is not small, but the former merits are greater than it,” subjected the prince to a monetary penalty, and nailed him to the lathe. with a club at one Nartov and escorted him out with the words: "For the last time, a club; henceforth, look, Alexander, beware!" But when a conscientious businessman made a mistake, made an involuntary mistake and waited for a thunderstorm, Peter was in a hurry to console him, as one consoles in misfortune, belittling the failure. In 1705, B. Sheremetev spoiled the strategic operation entrusted to him in Courland against Lewenhaupt and was in despair. Peter looked at the matter simply as "some kind of unfortunate incident", and wrote to the field marshal: "Do not be sad about the former misfortune, because the constant luck has led many people to ruin, but forget and encourage people more." Peter did not have time to shake off the ancient Russian man with his morals and concepts even when he was at war with them. This was reflected not only in paternal reprisals against people of noble ranks, but also in other cases, for example, in the hope of eradicating delusions among the people, driving demons out of those who were falsely possessed with a whip - “the tail of the whip is longer than the tail of a demon” or in the method of treating the teeth of one’s wife valet Poluboyarov. The valet complained to Peter that his wife was unkind to him, referring to a toothache. "All right, I'll fly her." Considering himself quite experienced in operative surgery, Peter took a dental instrument and went to the valet in the absence of her husband. "Do you have a toothache, I heard?" “No, sir, I am healthy. "That's not true, you're a coward." She, timid, admitted her illness, and Peter pulled out a healthy tooth from her, saying: “Remember that let the wife be afraid of her husband, otherwise it will be without teeth. "-" He cured! "- he remarked to his husband with a grin, returning to the palace. With Peter's ability to deal with people when necessary, authoritatively or easily, in a royal or paternal way, private teachings, along with lengthy communication in labors, sorrows and joys established a certain closeness of relations between him and his colleagues, and the sympathetic simplicity with which he entered into the private affairs of close people gave this closeness an imprint of sincere brevity. As usual, he either went on a visit or received guests at his place, he was cheerful, courteous, talkative, he also liked to see cheerful interlocutors around him, to hear easy, intelligent conversation and could not stand anything that upset such a conversation, no malice, antics, barbs, and even more so quarrels and abuse; the offender was immediately punished, forced drink fine -- empty glasses of three wines or one eagle (big bucket), so that "you don’t lie and bully too much." P. Tolstoy remembered for a long time how he was once forced to drink a fine for having begun too carelessly to praise Italy. He also had to drink a fine another time, only for being too careful. Once, in 1682, as an agent of Princess Sophia and Ivan Miloslavsky, he became very involved in the Streltsy rebellion and barely kept his head on his shoulders, but repented in time, received forgiveness, entered mercy with his mind and merits and became a prominent businessman, whom Peter cherished very much. . Once, at a banquet at the shipyard, the guests, after having a spree and becoming elated, began to easily tell the tsar what lay at the bottom of their souls. Tolstoy, imperceptibly avoiding the glasses, sat down by the fire, dozed off as if drunk, lowered his head and even took off his wig, and meanwhile, swaying, listened attentively to the frank chatter of the Tsar's interlocutors. Peter, who, out of habit, walked up and down the room, noticed the ruse of the sly one and, pointing to him to those present, said: "Look, the head hung - as if it had not fallen off the shoulders." “Don’t be afraid, your Majesty,” Tolstoy, who suddenly came to his senses, answered: “she is faithful to you and is firm on me. “Ah! so he only pretended to be drunk,” continued Peter: “bring him three glasses of good flin (warmed beer with cognac and lemon juice), so he will catch up with us and will also crackle in the same way. magpies". And, striking his bald head with his palm, he continued: "Head, head! If you weren't so smart, I would have ordered you to be cut off a long time ago." Ticklish subjects, of course, were avoided, although the ease that prevailed in Peter's society disposed careless or overly straightforward people to express everything that came to mind. Peter loved and appreciated the naval lieutenant Mishukov very much for his knowledge of maritime affairs, and he was the first of the Russians to entrust a whole frigate. Once - this was even before the case of Tsarevich Alexei - at a feast in Kronstadt, sitting at a table near the sovereign, Mishukov, already quite drunk, huffed and suddenly burst into tears. The surprised sovereign asked with participation what was happening to him. Mishukov frankly and in publicly explained the reason for his tears: the place where they sit, the new capital built near it, the Baltic fleet, many Russian sailors, finally, he himself, Lieutenant Mishukov, the commander of the frigate, feeling, deeply feeling the favors of the sovereign - all this the creation of his sovereign hands, as he remembered all this, but he thought that his health, the sovereign, was getting weaker, he could not help crying. "- he added. - As for whom? - objected Peter: - I have an heir - a prince. -" Oh, but he's stupid, he will upset everything. "Peter liked the sailor's frankness that sounded bitter truth; but rudeness of expression and the inappropriateness of a careless confession were to be punished. "Fool! - Peter remarked to him with a grin, hitting him on the head: - they don’t say this in front of everyone. "The participants in these idle comradely conversations assure that the autocratic sovereign then seemed to disappear into a cheerful guest or hospitable host, although we, knowing stories about irascibility Peter, rather disposed to think that his complacent interlocutors must have felt like travelers admiring the views from the top of Vesuvius, waiting every minute for ash and lava. did not stab General Shein with a sword, flaring up at him for trading in officer positions in his regiment. Lefort, who kept the irritated tsar, paid for this with a wound. However, despite such cases, it is clear that the guests at these meetings still felt cheerful and at ease ; ship masters and naval officers, encouraged by the hearty regale from the hands of the merry Peter, easily hugged him, swore to him their love and zealously and for which they received corresponding expressions of appreciation. Private, non-official dealings with Peter were facilitated by one piece of news, brought up during the fun in Preobrazhensky and, together with all the fun, imperceptibly turned into a direct affair. True to the early learned rule that a leader must know the business in which he leads them before and better than those led, and at the same time wanting to show by his own example how to serve, Peter, regularly starting an army and navy, himself went through land and sea service from the lower ranks: he was a drummer in the Lefort company, scorer and captain, rose to the rank of lieutenant general and even a full general. At the same time, he allowed himself to be promoted to the highest ranks only for real merit, for participation in business. Production in these ranks was the right of the amusing king, Prince-Caesar F. Yu. Romodanovsky. Contemporaries describe the solemn award of Peter to the vice-admiral for the naval victory at Gangut in 1714, where he, in the rank of rear admiral, commanded the vanguard and captured the commander of the Swedish squadron Ehrenschild with his frigate and several galleys. Among the full assembly of the Senate, the prince-Caesar sat on the throne. The rear admiral was called, from whom the prince-Caesar received a written report on the victory. The report was read to the entire Senate. There were oral questions to the winner and other participants of the victory. The senators then held council. In conclusion, the rear admiral, "in his reasoning faithfully rendered and brave service to the fatherland," was unanimously proclaimed vice admiral. Once, at the request of several military men to increase their ranks, Peter did not jokingly answer: “I will try, only as the prince-caesar pleases. anger; but whatever happens, I intercede for you, even if I get angry; let us pray to God first, perhaps things will work out. To an outside observer, all this might seem like a parody, a joke, if not buffoonery. Peter liked to mix a joke with a serious one, business with idleness; only with him it usually turned out in such a way that idleness turned into business, and not vice versa. After all, his regular army imperceptibly grew out of the comic regiments in which he played in Preobrazhensky and Semenovsky. Wearing army and navy ranks, he really served, accurately performed his official duties and used official rights, received and signed for the salary assigned to the rank, and he used to say: “This money is my own; I deserve it and can use it as I want; but with state revenues must be handled with care: in them I must give an account to God. The service of Peter in the army and navy with its Caesarian clerical work created a form of address that simplified and facilitated the relationship of the king to those around him. In a drinking company, in private, off-duty matters, they turned to a colleague, comrade in the regiment or frigate, "bass" (ship master) or captain Pyotr Mikhailov, as the tsar was called in the naval service. Trusting intimacy without familiarity became possible. Discipline did not waver, on the contrary, it received support in an impressive example: it was dangerous to joke with the service when Pyotr Mikhailov himself did not joke with it. In his military instructions, Peter ordered the captain with the soldiers "not to have brotherhood", not to fraternize: this would lead to indulgence, licentiousness. The treatment of Peter himself with those around him could not lead to such a danger: he had too much of a king for that. Proximity to him made it easier to deal with him, could teach a conscientious and understanding person a lot; but she did not indulge, but obligated, increased the responsibility of those close to her. He highly valued talent and merit and forgave many sins to gifted and meritorious employees. But not for any talents and merits did he weaken the demands of duty; on the contrary, the higher he valued the businessman, the more exacting he was to him and the more trusting he relied on him, demanding not only the exact execution of his orders, but, where necessary, actions at his own peril, according to his own consideration and initiative, strictly prescribing that in reports he was by no means accustomed to as you please. He did not respect any of his employees more than the Erestfer and Gumelshof winner of the Swedes, B. Sheremetev, met and saw him off, according to an eyewitness, not as a subject, but as a guest-hero; but he also bore the brunt of his official duty. Having prescribed an accelerated march in 1704 to the cautious and slow, besides not quite healthy field marshal, Peter haunts him with his letters, insistently demanding: “Go day and night, and if you don’t do this, don’t blame me in the future.” Peter's co-workers understood well the meaning of such a warning. Then, when Sheremetev, not knowing what to do for lack of instructions, answered the tsar’s request that, according to the decree, he did not dare to go anywhere, Peter wrote to him with reproachful irony that he looked like a servant who, seeing that his master was drowning, did not decides to save him until he can figure out whether it is written in his hired contract to pull the drowning owner out of the water. Peter addressed other generals in the event of their failure without any irony, with severe frankness. In 1705, having conceived an attack on Riga, he forbade the entry of Dvina's goods there. Prince Repnin, by misunderstanding, missed the forest and received a letter from Peter with the following words: “Herr, today I received a statement about your only bad deed, for which you can pay with your neck; henceforth, if a single chip passes, by God, I swear, you will be without a head ". But Peter knew how to appreciate his associates. He respected in them as much talent and merit as moral qualities, especially devotion, and this respect he considered one of the first duties of the sovereign. At his dinner table, he drank a toast "to the health of those who love God, me and the fatherland," and charged his son with an indispensable obligation to love faithful advisers and servants, whether they be his own or someone else's. Prince F.Yu. Romodanovsky, the terrible head of the secret police, the "Prince-Caesar" in a comic sociable hierarchy, "looking like a monster, an evil tyrant in disposition", according to his contemporaries, or simply "the beast", as Peter himself called him in minutes dissatisfaction with him, did not differ in particularly outstanding abilities, only "he loved to drink incessantly and to water others and swear"; but. he was devoted to Peter like no one else, and for that he enjoyed his immense confidence and, along with Field Marshal B.P. Sheremetev, had the right to enter Peter's office without a report - an advantage that even the "semi-powerful ruler" Menshikov himself did not always have. Respect for the merits of their employees sometimes received a sincerely warm expression from Peter. Once, in a conversation with his best generals, Sheremetev, M. Golitsyn and Repnin, he said with animation about the glorious commanders of France: "Thank God, I lived to see my Turennes, but I still don’t see Sully in my place." The generals bowed and kissed the king's hand, and he kissed them on the forehead. Peter did not forget his associates in a foreign land. In 1717, while examining the fortifications of Namur in the company of officers who distinguished themselves in the War of the Spanish Succession, Peter was extremely pleased with their conversation, he himself told them about the sieges and battles in which he participated, and with a face beaming with joy, he said to the commandant: I am now in the fatherland among my friends and officers. Remembering once about the late Sheremetev (he died in 1719), Peter, with a sigh, said to those around him with a sad foreboding: “Boris Petrovich is no longer there, we will soon be gone; but his courage and faithful service will not die and will always be remembered in Russia” . Shortly before his death, he dreamed of erecting monuments to his late military associates - Lefort, Shein, Gordon, Sheremetev, saying about them: "These men are eternal monuments in Russia by loyalty and merit." He wanted to place these monuments in the Alexander Nevsky Monastery under the shadow of the ancient holy prince, the hero of the Neva. The drawings of the monuments had already been sent to Rome to the best sculptors, but after the death of the emperor, the matter did not take place. While educating businessmen for himself by the very treatment of them, by the requirements of official discipline, by his own example, and finally by respect for talent and merit, Peter wanted his employees to clearly see why he required such efforts from them, and well understood both himself and and the work that was carried out according to his instructions - at least they understood, if they could not sympathize in their souls either with him or with his cause. Yes, and this case itself was so serious in itself and touched everyone so sensitively that it involuntarily forced them to think about it. The “three-time cruel school,” as Peter called the Swedish war that lasted three school seven years, taught all the students who went through it, like the teacher himself, not for a moment to lose sight of the difficult tasks that she put on the queue, to be aware of the course of affairs, count the successes achieved, memorize and reflect on the lessons learned and the mistakes made. During leisure hours, sometimes at the banquet table, in an excited and elated mood on the occasion of some joyful event, in the company of Peter, conversations began about such subjects that busy people rarely turn to during moments of rest. Contemporaries recorded almost only the monologues of the tsar himself, who usually started these conversations. But there is hardly anywhere else to find a clearer expression of what Peter wanted to make think about and how to set up his society. The content of the conversations was quite varied: they talked about the Bible, about relics, about atheists, about popular superstitions, about Charles XII, about foreign orders. Sometimes, among the interlocutors, they also talked about subjects that were closer to them, practical, about the beginning and significance of the work that they were doing, about plans for the future, about what they still had to do. It was here that the hidden spiritual force that supported his activity and the charm of which, willy-nilly, his employees obeyed, was felt in Peter. We see how the war and the reform it stimulated lifted them up, strained their thought, educated their political consciousness. Peter, especially towards the end of his reign, was very interested in the past of his fatherland, took care of collecting and preserving historical monuments, said to the scientist Feofan Prokopovich: "When will we see the full history of Russia?", repeatedly ordered to write a public guide to Russian history. Occasionally, in passing, he recalled in conversations how his work began, and once in these memories an ancient Russian chronicle flashed. It would seem, what part could this chronicle take in his activities? But in Peter's business mind, every acquired knowledge, every passing impression received practical processing. He began this activity under the yoke of two observations made by him from his acquaintance with the situation in Russia, as soon as he began to understand it. He saw that Russia was deprived of those means of external strength and internal well-being, which knowledge and art give enlightened Europe; I also saw that the Swedes and the Turks with the Tatars were depriving her of the opportunity to borrow these funds, cutting her off from the European seas: “To reasonable eyes,” as he wrote to his son, “to our indiscretion, the kind curtains were drawn and communication with the whole world was cut off.” To lead Russia out of this double difficulty, to break through to the European sea and establish direct communication with the educated world, to pull off the Russian eyes the veil thrown over them by the enemy, which prevents them from seeing what they want to see - this was the first, well clarified and firmly set Peter's goal. Once, in the presence of Mr. Sheremetev and Admiral General Apraksin, Peter said that in his early youth he read the chronicle of Nestor and from there he learned how Oleg sent an army on ships near Tsargrad. Since then, a desire has sunk into him to do the same against the enemies of Christianity, the perfidious Turks, and to avenge them for the insults that they, together with the Tatars, inflicted on Russia. This idea strengthened in him when, during a trip to Voronezh in 1694, a year before the first Azov campaign, surveying the course of the Don, he saw that this river, having taken Azov, could go to the Black Sea, and decided to start in a suitable place shipbuilding. In the same way, the first visit to the city of Arkhangelsk gave rise to a desire in him to start building ships there for trade and sea crafts. “And now,” he continued, “when, with the help of God, we have Kronstadt and Petersburg, and Riga, Revel and other coastal cities have been conquered by your courage, we can defend ourselves against the Swedes and other maritime powers with the ships we are building. why, my friends, is it useful for a sovereign to travel around his land and notice what can serve the benefit and glory of the state. At the end of his life, inspecting the work on the Ladoga Canal and pleased with their progress, he told the builders: “We see how the Neva ships from Europe go to us; and when we finish this canal, we will see how our Volga will come to trade in St. Petersburg and Asians. The plan for the sewerage of Russia was one of Peter's early and brilliant ideas, when this business was still news in the West. He dreamed, using the river network of Russia, to connect all the seas adjacent to the Russian plain, and thus make Russia a trade and cultural mediator between the two worlds, West and East, Europe and Asia. The Vyshnevolotsk system, remarkable for its ingenious selection of rivers and lakes included in it, remained the only experiment completed under Peter in the implementation of the grandiose plan conceived. He looked even further, beyond the limits of the Russian plain, beyond the Caspian Sea, where he sent an expedition of Prince Bekovich-Cherkassky, among other things, with the aim of reconnaissance and describing the dry and water, especially water, route to India; a few days before his death, he recalled his long-standing thought of finding a road to China and India by the Arctic Ocean. Already suffering from near-death attacks, he was in a hurry to write instructions for Bering's Kamchatka expedition, which was supposed to investigate whether Asia in the northeast was connected with America, a question that Peter Leibniz had long and persistently paid attention to. Handing over the document to Apraksin, he said: “Illness forced me to stay at home; the other day I remembered what I had been thinking about for a long time, but what other things interfered with - about the road to China and India. On my last trip abroad, learned people there told me that it is possible to find this path. But will we be happier than the English and the Dutch? Order for me, Fedor Matveyevich, to do everything according to the points, as written in this instruction. "In order to be a skilled mediator between Asia and Europe, Russia, of course, had to not only know the former, but also possess the knowledge and arts of the latter. In conversations, of course , there was also talk about the attitude towards Europe, towards foreigners who came from there to Russia. This question occupied Russian society for a long time, almost the entire 17th century. From the first years of his reign, after the overthrow of Sophia, Peter was strongly condemned for attachment to foreign customs and to the foreigners themselves In Moscow and the German Quarter there were many rumors about the honors with which Peter buried Gordon and Lefort in 1699. He visited the sick Gordon daily, who rendered him great services in the Azov campaigns and in the second Streltsy rebellion of 1697, he himself closed the eyes of the deceased and kissed him on the forehead; at the burial, throwing earth on the coffin lowered into the grave, Peter said to those present: "I give him only a handful of earth, and he gave me a whole space with Azov." Pyotr Lefort buried with greater sorrow: he himself walked behind his coffin, shed tears, listening to the funeral sermon of the reformed pastor, who praised the merits of the late admiral, and said goodbye to him for the last time with contrition, which caused extreme surprise of the foreigners present; and at the funeral dinner he made a whole scene for the Russian boyars. They did not particularly mourn the death of the tsar's favorite, and some of them, taking advantage of the tsar's momentary absence while they were laying the memorial table, hurried to get out of the house, but on the porch they stumbled upon the returning Peter. He got angry and, turning them back into the hall, greeted them with a speech in which he said that he understood their flight, that they were afraid to betray themselves, not hoping to endure feigned sadness at the table. "What haters! But I will teach you to honor worthy people. The loyalty of Franz Yakovlevich will remain in my heart as long as I live, and after death I will carry it with me to the grave!" But Gordon and Lefort were exceptional foreigners: Peter valued them for their loyalty and merit, just as he later valued Osterman for his talents and knowledge. With Lefort, he was still connected by personal friendship and exaggerated the dignity of the "French brawler," as Prince called him. B. Kurakin; was even ready to recognize him as the initiator of his military reform. “He started, and we finished,” Peter used to say about him later (on the other hand, a rumor spread among the people that Peter was the son of “Lafert and the lawless German woman”, thrown to Tsarina Natalya). But in general, Peter treated foreigners legibly and without enthusiasm. In the first years of his activity, starting new military and industrial affairs, he could not do without them as instructors, knowledgeable people, whom he did not find among his own, but at the first opportunity he tried to replace them with Russians. Already in the manifesto of 1705, he openly admits that the expensive hired officers "could not achieve what they wanted", and prescribes more stringent conditions for their admission to the Russian service. Patkul was imprisoned in the fortress for wasting money assigned to the Russian army; and with the hired Austrian Field Marshal Ogilvy, a businesslike man, but "daring and annoying," as Peter called him, he ended up ordering him to be arrested and then sent back "with hostility." Peter's attitude to foreign customs was just as prudent, as it was reflected in conversations. Once, during a playful clash with the prince-caesar because of the long beshmet in which Romodanovsky arrived at Preobrazhenskoye, Peter said, addressing the guardsmen and noblemen present: “The long dress interfered with the agility of the arms and legs of the archers; For this reason, I ordered Lefort to first cut off his zipunas and cuffs, and then make new uniforms according to European custom. Old clothes are more like Tatar than light Slavic akin to us; it’s not good to come to the service in a sleeping dress. Peter was also credited with words addressed to the boyars about barbering, corresponding to the usual tone of his speech and way of thinking: “Our old people, out of ignorance, think that without a beard they will not enter the kingdom of heaven, although it is open to all honest people, whether they have beards or without beards, with wigs or bald." Peter saw only a matter of decency, convenience or superstition in what the old Russian society attached importance to the religious-national issue, and took up arms not so much against the very customs of Russian antiquity, but against the superstitious ideas associated with them, and the stubbornness with which they defended. This old Russian society, which so bitterly accused Peter of replacing good old customs with bad new ones, considered him a selfless Westernizer who prefers everything Western European to Russian, not because it is better than Russian, but because it is not Russian, but Western European. Hobbies were attributed to him, so little akin to his judicious character. On the occasion of the establishment of assemblies in St. Petersburg, regular entertainment meetings in noble houses, someone under the sovereign began to praise Parisian customs and manners of secular treatment. Peter, who had seen Paris, objected: "It's good to learn science and art from the French, and I would like to see it in my own house; otherwise, Paris stinks." He knew what was good in Europe, but he was never seduced by it, and the good that he managed to adopt from there, he considered not her benevolent gift, but the mercy of providence. In one of his own programs for celebrating the anniversary of the Treaty of Nystadt, he ordered to express as strongly as possible the idea that the foreigners tried in every way to prevent us from reaching the light of reason, but they overlooked it, as if their eyes were blurred, and he recognized this as a miracle of God, done for the Russian people. “This must be spread out extensively,” the program said, “and so that the sense (meaning) is enough.” Tradition conveyed the echo of a conversation between Peter and those close to him about Russia's attitude to Western Europe, when he allegedly said: "We need Europe for several more decades, and then we can turn our backs on it." What is the essence of the reform, what has it done and what remains to be done? These questions occupied Peter more and more as the burden of the Swedish war eased. War dangers most accelerated the movement of reform. Therefore, her main business was military, “how we came out of darkness into the light and now, previously unknown in the light, have become revered,” as Peter wrote to his son in 1715. And what next? In one conversation, vividly depicting the relationship of Peter to employees and employees to each other, this question had to be answered by Prince. Ya. F. Dolgoruky, the most truthful lawyer of his time, who often boldly argued with Peter in the Senate. For these disputes, Peter was sometimes annoyed with Dolgoruky, but he always respected him. Once, returning from the Senate, he said about the prince: "Prince Yakov is a direct assistant to me in the Senate: he judges efficiently and does not indulge me, cuts the truth without rhetoric, despite his face." ; In 1717, hope finally flashed for a speedy end to the difficult war, which Peter wanted impatiently: preliminary peace negotiations with Sweden opened in Holland, and a congress was appointed on the Åland Islands. This year, once, sitting at the table, at a feast with many noble people, Peter talked about his father, about his affairs in Poland, about the difficulties that Patriarch Nikon had caused him. Musin-Pushkin began to praise his son and humiliate his father, saying that Tsar Alexei did little himself, but more Morozov with other great ministers; it's all about the ministers: what are the ministers of the sovereign, such are his affairs. The sovereign was annoyed by these speeches; he got up from the table and said to Musin-Pushkin: "In your censure of my father's deeds and in my praise, there is more abuse against me than I can bear." Then, going up to Prince Ya. F. Dolgoruky and standing behind his chair, he said to him: “Here you scold me more than anyone and annoy me so painfully with your disputes that I often almost lose my patience; but as I reason, I’ll see that you sincerely love me and the state and speak the truth, for which I am inwardly grateful to you. And now I will ask you how you think about the affairs of my father and mine, and I am sure that you will not hypocritically tell me the truth. Dolgoruky answered: "Please, sir, sit down, and I will think." Peter sat down beside him, and out of habit, he began to smooth his long mustache. Everyone looked at him and waited for what he would say. After a short pause, the prince began as follows: “Your question cannot be answered briefly, because you and your father have different affairs: in one you deserve praise and gratitude more, in the other your father. There are three main things for kings: the first is internal punishment and justice; this is your main business. For this your father had more leisure, and you also had no time to think about it, and therefore your father did more than you in this. But when you get busy with this, maybe and you will do more than your father. And it’s time for you to think about it. Another matter is military. By this deed your father earned much praise and brought great benefit to the state, by organizing regular troops he showed you the way; but after him unreasonable people upset all his undertakings so that you almost started everything again and brought it to a better state. However, although I have thought about it a lot, I still don’t know which of you to give preference to in this matter; the end of your war will directly show this to us. fleet, foreign alliances, relations with foreign strange states. In this you have brought much more benefit to the state and deserved honor for yourself than your father, with which, I hope, you yourself will agree. And what they say, allegedly what kind of ministers the sovereigns have, such are their deeds, so I think about it quite the opposite, that wise sovereigns are able to choose smart advisers and observe their fidelity. Therefore, a wise sovereign cannot have stupid ministers, for he can judge the dignity of everyone and distinguish right advice. " Peter listened to everything patiently and, kissing Dolgoruky, said: "Good faithful servant, in small things you were faithful to me, I will set you over many." “This was very regrettable for Menshikov and others,” Tatishchev ends his story, “and they tried by all means to embitter his sovereign, but did not manage to do anything.” An opportunity soon presented itself. In 1718, an investigative case about the prince revealed reprehensible relations with him by one of the princes Dolgoruky and his impudent words about the king. The misfortune of losing a good name threatened the family. But the vigorous acquittal letter of the eldest in the family, Prince Yakov, to Peter, respected by the tsar, helped the offender to get rid of the search, and the surnames from dishonor to bear the title of "villainous family." Peter was occupied not with rivalry with his father, not with the past, but with the results of the present, with an assessment of his activities. He approved everything that was said at the feast by Prince Yakov, agreed that the next step in the reform was the device of internal reprisal, the provision of justice. Giving preference to his father in this matter, Prince Dolgoruky had in mind his legislation, especially the Code. As a practical jurist, he understood better than many both the significance of this monument for his time, and its obsolescence in many respects for the present. But Peter, no worse than Dolgoruky, was aware of this and himself raised the question of this long before the conversation of 1717, back in 1700 he ordered to revise and supplement the Code with newly issued legalizations, and then in 1718, shortly after the conversation described, ordered to reduce the Russian Code with Swedish. But he did not succeed in this business, just as it did not succeed for a whole century after him. Prince Dolgoruky did not finish, did not say everything that, according to Peter, was necessary. Legislation is only part of the work ahead. The revision of the Code forced us to turn to Swedish legislation in the hope of finding there ready-made norms developed by science and the experience of the European people. So it was in everything: to meet domestic needs, they hurried to use the works of knowledge and experience of the European peoples, the ready-made fruits of someone else's work. But not everyone can take the ready-made fruits of someone else's knowledge and experience, theory and technology, what Peter called "sciences and arts." This would mean forever living in someone else's mind, "like looking into a young bird's mouth," in the words of Peter. It is necessary to transplant the very roots into one's own soil, so that they produce their fruits at home, to master the sources and means of the spiritual and material strength of the European peoples. This was the everlasting thought of Peter, the main and most fruitful idea of ​​his reform. She never left his mind anywhere. Looking around "stinking" Paris, he thought about how to see the same flourishing of sciences and arts; Considering the project of his Academy of Sciences, he, under Blumentrost, Bruce and Osterman, said to Nartov, who drafted the Academy of Arts: “There must be an arts department, and more so a mechanical one; my desire is to plant handicrafts, science and art in general in this capital.” The war prevented a decisive approach to the fulfillment of this idea. Yes, and this war itself was undertaken with the aim of opening direct and free paths to the same sources and means. This thought grew in Peter's mind as the desired end of the war began to glow before his eyes. Handing over to Apraksin at the beginning of January 1725 the instructions for the Kamchatka expedition, written by an already weakening hand, he admitted that this was his old thought that, "protecting the fatherland from the enemy, one should try to find glory for the state through art and science." Anxiously worrying about the future, often talking about his illnesses and the possibility of an imminent death, Peter hardly hoped to live two lives in order to fulfill this second great deed of his at the end of the war. But he believed that it would be done, if not by him, then by his successors, and he expressed this belief both in words - if only they were said - about several decades of Russian need in Western Europe, and on another occasion. In 1724, medical doctor Blumentrost asked Tatishchev, who was going to Sweden on behalf of Peter, to look for scientists there for the Academy of Sciences, the opening of which he prepared as its future president. "You look in vain for seeds," Tatishchev objected, "when the very soil for sowing has not yet been prepared." Having listened to this conversation, Peter, on the basis of whose idea the Academy was founded, answered Tatishchev with such a parable. A certain nobleman wanted to build a mill in his village, but he had no water. Then, seeing the lakes and swamps abundant in water near the neighbors, he began, with their consent, to dig a canal to his village and prepare material for the mill, and although he did not have time to bring this to an end during his lifetime, the children, regretting their father's expenses, involuntarily continued and finished the job. father. This strong faith was supported in Peter and by such glorious scientists as Leibniz, who had long proposed to him the establishment of a higher academic college in St. Petersburg with complex scientific and practical tasks, and the study of the borders between Asia and arts in Russia with a network of academies, universities, gymnasiums spread throughout the country and, most importantly, with the hope for the complete success of this business. In Leibniz's opinion, it does not matter that there was a lack of scientific traditions and skills, no teaching aids and auxiliary institutions, that Russia in this respect is a blank sheet of paper, in the words of the philosopher, or an unopened field where everything needs to be started again. This is even better, because, by starting all over again, one can avoid the shortcomings and mistakes that Europe has made, because in the erection of a new building one can achieve perfection faster than in correcting and rebuilding the old one. It is difficult to say by whom or how the idea of ​​the cycle of sciences, closely connected with his enlightening thoughts, arose in Peter's mind. This idea is expressed in a postscript to a draft letter that Leibniz wrote to Peter in 1712; but in the letter sent to the king, this postscript is omitted. “Providence,” the philosopher wrote in this postscript, “apparently wants science to go around the entire globe and now cross over to Scythia, and therefore chose Your Majesty as an instrument, since you can take from Europe and Asia the best and improve what is done in both parts of the world." Perhaps Leibniz expressed this idea to Peter in a personal conversation with him. Something similar to the same idea was, as it were, casually expressed in one essay by the Slavic patriot Yuri Krizhanich: after many peoples of the ancient and new world who worked in the field of science, the turn finally reached the Slavs. But this work, written in Siberia under Tsar Alexei, was hardly known to Peter. Be that as it may, in one excellent conversation with his coworkers, Peter expressed the same idea in his own way, incidentally using it to make some of the interlocutors feel that he heard a whisper going around him not about the usefulness, not even about the uselessness of the sciences, but about their direct harm. In 1714, celebrating the launching of a warship in St. Petersburg, the tsar was in the most cheerful mood and at the table on deck among the high society invited to the feast talked a lot about the successful progress of Russian shipbuilding. By the way, he addressed a whole speech directly to the old boyars sitting near him, who saw little use in the experience and knowledge acquired by Russian ministers and generals, sincerely devoted to reform. It must be borne in mind that the speech was delivered by the German, the Brunswick resident Weber, who was only two months old and was hardly able to catch and accurately convey its shades, although he calls it the most thoughtful and witty of all. speeches they heard from the king. Reading his exposition, it is easy to see that he gave his own coloring and interpretation to some of the king's thoughts. “Which of you, my brothers, even dreamed about 30 years ago,” the tsar began, “that you and I here, by the Ostsee Sea, will be carpentry in the clothes of the Germans, in the clothes of the Germans, won from them by our own labors. and with the courage of the country we will build the city in which you live, that we will live to see such brave and victorious soldiers and sailors of Russian blood, such sons who have been in foreign countries and returned home so smart that we will see. so many foreign artists and artisans, will we live to see you and me so respected by foreign sovereigns? Historians believe the cradle of all knowledge in Greece, from where, due to the vicissitudes of time, they were expelled, moved to Italy, and then spread to all the Austrian lands, but due to the ignorance of our ancestors they were suspended and did not penetrate further than Poland; and the Poles, like all Germans, were in the same impenetrable darkness of ignorance in which we are hitherto, and only through the exorbitant labors of their rulers did they open their eyes and assimilate the former Greek arts, sciences and way of life. Now the turn comes to us, if only you will support me in my important undertakings, you will obey without any excuses and get used to freely recognize and study good and evil. I equate this movement of the sciences with the circulation of blood in the human body, and it seems to me that in time they will leave their present residence in England, France and Germany, hold out for several centuries with us and then return again to their true fatherland - to Greece. For the time being, I advise you to remember the Latin proverb: Ora et labora (pray and work), and firmly hope that, perhaps in our lifetime, you will shame other educated countries and elevate the glory of the Russian name to the highest degree. "- Yes, yes, true!” the old boyars answered the tsar, listening to his words in deep silence, and, declaring to him that they were ready and would do whatever he commanded them, they again seized the glasses they liked with both hands, leaving the tsar to judge in the depths of his own. thoughts, how much he managed to convince them and how much he could hope to achieve the ultimate goal of his great undertakings. The narrator gave this conversation an ironic epilogue. Peter would have been upset, even, perhaps, would have told the boyars another, less lofty and affectionate speech, if he noticed that they reacted to his words as indifferently, in their own mind, as the foreigner imagined it. He knew how his reform was judged in Russia and abroad, and these judgments resounded painfully in his soul. He knew that there and here very many saw in his reform a forcible cause that he could carry on only by using his unlimited and cruel power and the people's habit of blindly obeying it. Therefore, he is not a European sovereign, but an Asiatic despot, commanding slaves, not citizens. Such a look offends him, like an undeserved insult. He did so much to give his power the character of duty, and not of arbitrariness; I thought that it was impossible to look at his activities otherwise, as serving the common good of the people, and not as tyranny. He so diligently eliminated everything degrading to human dignity in the relationship of a subject to the sovereign, even at the very beginning of the century he forbade writing in diminutive names, falling on his knees before the king, taking off his hats in front of the palace in winter, arguing about it like this: “Why humiliate the title, disgrace the dignity human? He arranged so many hospitals, almshouses and schools, "he taught his people in many military and civil sciences", in military articles forbade beating a soldier, wrote an instruction to all those belonging to the Russian army, "whatever their faith or people they are, to have Christian love among themselves", inspired "with the opponents of the church with meekness and reason to act according to the Apostle, and not as now, cruel words and alienation, "said that the Lord gave the kings power over the peoples, but Christ alone has power over the conscience of people, - and he was the first in Russia to write and say this, - and he was considered a cruel tyrant, an Asian despot. He spoke about this more than once with those close to him and spoke with fervor, with impulsive frankness: “I know that they consider me a tyrant. Foreigners say that I command slaves. This is not true: they do not know all the circumstances. I command subjects who obey my orders; these decrees are beneficial, not harmful to the state. One must know how to govern the people. English liberty is out of place here, like peas against a wall. An honest and reasonable person who sees something harmful or thinks up something useful can tell me directly without fear. You yourselves are witnesses to this. I am glad to hear useful things even from the last subject. Access to me is free, so long as they don’t take away my time with idleness. My unkindness and the fatherland, of course, are dissatisfied with me. Ignorance and stubbornness have always taken up arms against me with that pores, as I thought to bring in useful changes and correct coarse morals. That is who the real tyrants are, and not I. I do not aggravate slavery, curbing the mischief of the stubborn, softening oak hearts, do not hard of heart, dressing my subjects in new clothes, establishing order in the army and in citizenship, and accustoming them to humanity, I do not tyrannize when justice condemns the villain to death. Let anger slander: my conscience is clear. God is my judge! Wrong talk in the world is carried by the wind." Defending the tsar from the accusation of cruelty, his beloved turner Martov writes: "Ah, if many knew what we know, they would marvel at his condescension. If it ever happened to a philosopher to disassemble the archive of his secret deeds, he would tremble with horror at what was being done against this monarch. "This "archive" is already being sorted out and more and more clearly reveals what hot ground Peter was walking on, leading the reform with his colleagues. Everything around him grumbled at him, and this grumbling, beginning in the palace, in the family of the tsar, spread widely from there throughout Russia, to all classes of society, penetrating into the depths of the masses of the people.The son complained that his father was surrounded by evil people, he himself was very cruel, does not spare human blood, wished death to his father, and the confessor forgave him this sinful desire. Her sister, Princess Marya, wept for the endless war, for the great taxes, for the devastation of the people, and "her merciful heart was consumed by sadness from the sighs of the people." Bishop Dosifey of Rostov, who was defrocked in the case of the former Empress Evdokia, said to the bishops at the cathedral: "Look what is in everyone's hearts, if you please let your ears be heard by the people, what the people are saying." And the people said about the king that he was an enemy of the people, a worldly faintness, a foundling, the Antichrist, and God knows what they did not say about him. Those who murmured lived in hope that either the tsar would soon die, or the people would rise up against him; the prince himself admitted that he was ready to join a conspiracy against his father. Peter heard this murmur, knew the rumors and intrigues directed against him, and said: "I suffer, but all for the fatherland; I wish him good, but demonic enemies do me dirty tricks." He also knew what was and what to grumble about: the burdens of the people were increasing, tens of thousands of workers died of starvation and disease at work in St. Petersburg, Kronslot, on the Ladoga Canal, the troops suffered great need, everything became more expensive, trade fell. For whole weeks, Peter went gloomy, discovering more and more abuses and failures. He understood that he was utterly straining the people's strength to the point of pain, but reflection did not slow things down; sparing no one, least of all himself, he kept moving towards his goal, seeing in it the people's good: like a surgeon, reluctantly, undergoes a painful operation on his patient in order to save his life. But after the end of the Swedish war, the first thing Peter spoke about with the senators who asked him to accept the title of emperor was "to strive for the common good, from which the people will receive relief." Recognizing people and things as they are, accustomed to fractional, detailed work on major matters, watching everything himself and teaching everyone by his own example, he developed in himself, together with a quick eye, a subtle sense of the natural, real connection of things and relations, a living, practical an understanding of how things are done in the world, with what forces and with what efforts the heavy wheel of history turns, now raising, now lowering human destinies. That is why failure did not discourage him, and luck did not inspire arrogance. This, when necessary, encouraged, and sometimes sobered up the employees. It was said that after the defeat at Narva, he said: "I know that the Swedes will still beat us; let them beat; but they will also teach us to beat them themselves; when does the teaching do without losses and sorrows?" He was not deceived by successes or hopes. In the last years of his life, being treated with Olonets healing waters, he said to his life physician: "I heal my body with waters, and subjects with examples; I see slow healing in both; time will decide everything." He clearly saw all the difficulties of his position, in which 12 out of 13 rulers would have given up, and at the most difficult time of his life, during the investigation of the prince, he described the fate of Tolstoy with the compassionate pictorialness of an outside observer: "Hardly any of the sovereigns endured so many troubles and misfortunes, like me. From my sister (Sophia) I was persecuted to hell: she was cunning and evil. The nun (first wife) is unbearable: she is stupid. My son hates me: he is stubborn. But Peter acted in politics as at sea. All his turbulent activity, as in miniature, was depicted in one episode from his naval service. In July 1714, a few days before the victory at Gangut, cruising with his squadron between Helsingfors and the Aland Islands, he was caught on a dark night by a terrible storm. Everyone was in despair, not knowing where the shore was. Peter, with several sailors, rushed into the boat, not listening to the officers, who on their knees begged him not to expose themselves to such danger, he himself took the wheel, in the fight against the waves, shook the rowers who lowered their hands with a menacing cry: “What are you afraid of? You are carrying the Tsar! God is with us !", safely reached the shore, lit a fire to show the way to the squadron, warmed the half-dead oarsmen with a round, and he, all wet, lay down and, covered with canvas, fell asleep by the fire under a tree. An unrelenting sense of duty, the idea that this duty is to unswervingly serve the common good of the state and people, selfless courage with which this service is due - these are the basic rules of that school that led its students through fire and water, about which Neplyuev spoke to Catherine II. This school was able to cultivate not only the fear of formidable power, but also the charm of moral greatness. The stories of contemporaries give only a vague sense of how this was done; but it was done, it seems, quite simply, as if by itself, by the action of elusive impressions. Neplyuev tells how he and his comrades in 1720, after completing their foreign training, took an exam before the tsar himself, in the full assembly of the Admiralty Board. Neplyuev was waiting for the presentation to the tsar, like a doomsday. When it was his turn for the exam, Peter himself went up to him and asked: "Have you learned everything for which you were sent?" He replied that he had tried to the best of his ability, but he could not boast that he had learned everything, and, saying this, knelt down. “You have to work hard,” the tsar said to this, and turning his right hand to him with the palm of his hand, he added: “You see, brother, I am the tsar, but I have corns on my hands, and all in order to show you an example and at least in old age to see yourself as worthy helpers and servants of the fatherland. Get up, brother, and give an answer to what they ask you, just don't be shy; what you know, say, but what you don’t know, say so.” The tsar was pleased with Neplyuev’s answers and then, getting to know him better at the ship’s buildings, spoke of him: “There will be a way in this little way.” Peter noticed diplomatic abilities in the 27-year-old lieutenant of the galley fleet and the following year he directly appointed him to the difficult post of resident in Constantinople.When he was on vacation in Turkey, Peter raised Neplyuev, who had fallen at his feet with tears, and said: "Do not bow, brother! I am your God's steward, and look after my position, so as not to give to the unworthy, and not to take away from the worthy. If you serve well, not to me, but more to yourself and to the fatherland, you will do good, but if it is bad, then I am the plaintiff, for God will demand this from me for all of you, so as not to give place to the evil and stupid to do harm. Serve faithfully; first God, and after him I will have to not leave. Sorry brother! added the tsar, kissing Neplyuev on the forehead. “Will God bring us to see each other?” They no longer met. This smart and incorruptible, but stern and even tough servant, having received news of the death of Peter in Constantinople, noted in his notes: “Hey, I’m not lying, I was more than a day in unconsciousness; but otherwise it would have been a sin for me: this monarch brought our fatherland in comparison with others, taught us to recognize that we are people. veneration to the memory of Peter the Great and his name was pronounced only as sacred, and almost always with tears.The impression that Peter made on those around him with his appeal, his daily judgments about current affairs, a look at his power and his attitude towards subjects, plans and worries about the future of his people, the very difficulties and dangers with which he had to fight - with all his activities and all his way of thinking, it is difficult to convey more expressively than how Nartov conveyed it. "We, who were this great sovereign's servant, sigh and we shed tears, sometimes hearing reproaches for his hardness of heart, which was not in him. If many knew what he endured, what he endured, and how wounded he was by sorrows, they would be horrified at how much he condescended to human weaknesses and forgave crimes that did not deserve mercy; and although Peter the Great is no longer with us, his spirit lives in our souls, and we, who had the happiness of being with this monarch, will die faithful to him and bury our ardent love for the earthly god with us. We proclaim our father without fear in order that we learned noble fearlessness and truth from him. Nartov, like Neplyuev, as a close person, stood under the direct influence of Peter. so morally convincing that her impression, from a close circle of close associates, made its way into the depths of society, made even simple and sinful, but open-minded souls understand and feel what she taught, and fear the tsar, in the apt expression of Feofan Prokopovich, not only for his anger, but also for conscience. Peter hardly ever heard judgments about himself similar to those expressed by the Nartovs: he did not like this. But he should have been deeply comforted by the dying letter of a certain Ivan Kokoshkin, received by him in 1714 and preserved in his papers. Adre, this Kokoshkin is afraid to stand before the face of God, not having brought pure repentance to the brightest monarch, while the sinful soul with the body is not yet she got separated, and did not receive forgiveness for her sins in the service: he was with recruiting sets in Tver and took bribes from those recruiting sets, who brought what; Yes, he is Ivan Kokoshkin, he, the sovereign, is guilty: he gave a man stipulated for theft as recruits for his peasants. A great reward for the sovereign to become in absentia a dying judge, the conscience of his subject. Peter the Great fully deserved this award.