whole history of Russia. Condemned by nature to seclusion, she became in the course of time accustomed to this, and soon regarded it as a natural characteristic. The little country of Greece was formerly indebted to its position on the Mediterranean, the highroad of the world, for its high civilization, as also was ancient Italy. For this reason Ivan IV had already endeavoured to conquer Livonia and win a place on the Baltic. Peter grasped this idea still more clearly and applied himself to the naval question with all the fire of his soul. When he saw the sea for the first time at Archangel, he was as it were inspired. English and Dutch ships came thither by the long and seldom ice-free route past the North Cape. That was for the time being the only way to Western Europe, and there was the first opportunity of seeing foreign shipping; Peter was seized by a longing for the sea, like a man who, after long years in a foreign country, is smitten with homesickness. He learnt shipbuilding, studied naval subjects, associated with mariners, and formed the plan of journeying to Western Europe in order to gain a complete knowledge of the subject. But he first conquered the Turkish Azov, in 1696, and determined to build a fleet on the corner of the Sea of Azov. He had been primarily indebted to the technical skill of foreign officers for the capture of the fortress, and this could only confirm him in his intention of going to the West. His victory over the Turks produced an impression in Western Europe, and many sovereigns congratulated him. In the year 1697 he started on his first European journey, accompanied by two hundred and seventy followers. This was an epoch-making event for Russia and for the civilized world, since Russia thus broke with her past and went to sit at the feet of the West, only to assume later one of the first places in the circle of the European powers. It was not so much the magnificence of the Western courts that impressed the royal barbarian as the culture; before that he bowed humbly. Disguised as a simple member of his suite under the plebeian name of Peter Michailof, he went into foreign countries, not to enjoy himself, but to learn. He did not yet consider himself worthy to appear in all his state. He had for some time served in his own army as a private, then as a bombardier, later as a captain, and so through the grades, and had submitted to the orders of foreigners. It was only after great victories that he ventured to assume higher commands. He went via Riga to Holland first, and then visited England and Holland; not France this time, because Louis XIV, as Duke Louis de Saint-Simon tells us, dissuaded him. in a courteous manner. He wished to see everything everywhere. Holland, with its highly developed navy, especially attracted him. It was an important point for the education of the Russian people, particularly the nobles, who avoided all manual labour, that he worked there with an axe as a carpenter in order to learn thoroughly the art of shipbuilding. Peter, on his return home from abroad, tried to utilise what he had learnt in as many ways and places as he could. The knowledge that Russia emphatically required access to the sea for her development soon led him into war with Sweden, which, by the possession of Livonia, Esthonia, Ingria, and Finland, could call the Baltic its own (dominium maris Baltici). This, the second or true, "Northern War" with Charles IX of Sweden ranks among the most important in European history. Peter's badly armed and ill-trained army confronted the best troops in Europe. But every defeat which he sustained only served him as a lesson. The losses of his enemies grew larger and larger, until on the 8th of July, 1709, he crushed them at Poltava. At a banquet afterwards he drank the health of the captured Swedish officers for the lessons they had taught him. From that day forward he made continuous progress on the Baltic, until at the peace of Nystad (10th of September, 1721) he obtained Livonia, Esthonia, Ingria, and parts of Finland and Carelia (see the inserted map). Sweden thus sank to the position of a second-class or third-class power. The maritime problem was solved for Russia; a new era dawned. Peter and Russia were seized with a wild joy. Peter publicly danced upon the table and drank to the health of the cheering mob. He had resolved even before the close of the war to remove the centre of the empire to the Baltic. He therefore built after 1703 on the Neva, in the territory conquered from Sweden, a fortress and a new capital which was to bear his name, in order that Russia should not again be driven back from the sea, and that she should not forget the man who had led her to the sea. He remembered, as he did so, the ancient times when that coast had been Russian, and the men who had won the first victory over the Swedes (p. 467). He therefore founded the AlexanderNevskij Order. St. Petersburg, where he felt himself “in a sort of paradise," he modestly called his little window looking on Europe. = This same longing for the sea impelled him to win the shore of the Black Sea. The declaration of hostilities by the Sultan, whom Sweden, the Tartars, Stanislaus Leszczynski, and the French had instigated to make war on Russia, was therefore most welcome to him. Peter already dreamt of marching to Zarigrad (Slav Constantinople), as once the heroes of old Russia had done, in order to free the Christians of the East-Serbs, Montenegrins, Bulgarians, Greeks, and Wallachians - from the Turkish yoke. He calculated upon a universal rising of the Christians, but his undertaking failed simply because no such rising took place. Surrounded at Husch on the Pruth by two hundred thousand Turks and Tartars, he was compelled to surrender Azov on July 23, 1711, and destroy his fleet. He took this humiliation deeply to heart. It was reserved for his successors to conquer the northern shore of the Black Sea (see the map facing last page). He fought with better fortune against the Persians for the possession of the Caspian Sea, across which the commerce between Europe and Asia was intended to pass. The Russians captured in 1723 Daghestan, Gilan, Mazenderan, with Resht, Ashterabad, and Baku. The way was paved for their dominion on the Caspian Sea. With a thorough appreciation of the value of free intercourse, Peter provided for new highroads and waterways throughout his empire, and contemplated connecting the Twerza with the Msta, the Dwina and the Don with the Volga, the Caspian Sea with the Black Sea, and both by means of the Volga with the Baltic. He constructed the great Ladoga Canal, which connected the Wolchov with the Neva. Holland was his model in these operations, as Sweden was for roadmaking. The postal system was satisfactorily enlarged under Peter, although German officials were still employed and the postal accounts were for a long time kept in German. Peter also tried to improve the fairs, of which there were some sixteen hundred and thirty. He concluded commercial treaties with several European states, ordered his Boyars to send their children abroad, and undertook himself, in the year 1716, his second journey to the West, where he devoted his special attention this time to art and science, a proof of the progress he himself |