32.3 Europe: a.d. 1701 to 1800  (Page 28/28)

Peter, like other sovereigns of his day, had his many eccentricities, including the collection of giants and dwarf s. The Russian people of that time were crude, with continual drinking and fighting being their greatest entertainments, all under most unsanitary conditions. When they did bathe, they then ran out into the snow, like many Finns do yet today. Under Peter, Russia's past traditions disappeared; there were no more beards, caftans or female seclusions at the court; the Julian calendar was adopted and the alphabet simplified. Like Ivan the Terrible before him and Stalin afterwards, Peter's individual will effectually transformed Russian society and institutions within one quarter of a century. He transposed the serf system to new industries, with everyone working directly or indirectly for the state. (Ref. 139 ) Besides the westernization and naval development, men were elevated by merit and although old noble titles were not abolished, they no longer carried special privileges. He promoted mining and industry and an Academy of Science. One of his greatest accomplishments was a continuous waterway from the Caspian Sea via the Volga, Volga tributary, a small canal at Vyshny-Volochok

Even after the Great Northern War was settled Peter's drive for conquest was not stilled and he started for the Caspian Sea, Persia and India as well as north and east to the Pacific. In 1724 the Danish born sea captain Vitus Bering, in Russian employ, led an expedition to what was subsequently called the Bering Strait, then 53 miles wide and only 144' deep. East of the Caspian, Peter did not have much luck, as he was soon met by the army of the Khan of Khiva. The Russians won the initial engagement and were invited into the city where they were divided up for billeting and then were systematically slaughtered, group by group. West of the Caspian in the area of Christian Georgia, Peter had better fortune, eventually winning the city of Derbent from then decadent Persia, along with three seaboard provinces of the eastern Caucasus Persia continued to fight, however, and later in 1732 Empress Anna, losing 15,000 Russian soldiers a year to disease, gave those Caucasian provinces back to Persia, where they remained until the time of Czar Alexander I, in the next century. (Ref. 139 , 53 , 131 )

On the bad side of Peter's ledger was the creation of a bureau of official informers called "fiscals" and as today, when Russians sold goods to foreigners, they could receive only foreign money. He also started an internal passport system, still in use today, which binds a Russian to a f arm or a factory. Of Peter's 12 children by Catherine, only Anna and Elizabeth lived beyond the age of seven. Catherine was made officially Empress of all Russia in 1722 and when Peter died in January, 1725 she continued to rule. Peter's death had to do with a chronic urinary tract problem (he had passed numerous stones) and apparently he developed an obstruction in his bladder from stone or cancer of the prostate, along with infection. At autopsy he had gangrene of the bladder and adjacent tissues. There was no evidence of syphilis, as has been intimated by a few authors in the past. (Ref. 131 ) The real ruler during Catherine I's short reign was Peter's old, close friend Menshikov, also of very humble origins. Catherine died in 1727, succeeded by Peter II (Peter's son by Eudoxia, his first wife) and Menshikov was exiled. But Peter II died of small-pox in 1730 and Anna, daughter of Ivan V, and the widowed Duchess of Courland, became Empress for the next 10 years. On her death the infant Ivan VI, grandson of her elder sister, Catherine of Mecklenburg, inherited the throne, only to be shortly imprisoned for 22 years, while Elizabeth, Peter's daughter, helped by the guards regiment became Empress from 1741 to 1762. Although never married officially she may have secretly married her lover, Alexis Razhumovsky, whom she raised from commoner to count. Following Elizabeth came a short reign of Peter III (another of Peter the Great's grandsons) and then his grandson's German wife, Catherine II the Great

We have mentioned Catherine's participation in the partitions of Poland in section III, E, I, above. At the end of the century Catherine II had finally defeated the Tatar Khanate of the Crimea, getting control of the north shore of the Black Sea. That portion of the steppe, which included the Ukraine and the grasslands to the east, was far more valuable than the territories which ended up under the control of Austria and Turkey. (Ref. 279 ) It was Dutch money, loaned to Catherine 11 by Henry Hope and Company in the amount of 57,000,000 francs that made that conquering expedition to the Black Sea possible. (Ref. 292 ) Iron and copper ores, along with plenty of charcoal, all from the Urals, allowed great expansion of armament industries and general industrialization. (Ref. 8 ) In 1771 plague killed 56,672 people in Moscow alone, but an enlarged food supply through the use of the plow overcame those losses so that the population actually increased from about 12,500,000 in 1724 to 21,000,000 by 1796. Catherine introduced smallpox inoculation through an English physician in 1768. (Ref. 140 )

A little more about the Russian science at this period is of interest. M.V. Lomonosov was the father of Russian science, doing fine work in molecular physics, chemistry, optics, electricity and in the development of a law of the conservation of matter. He founded the Russian Academy of Science. It was I.I. Shuvalov who founded the University of Moscow in 1755. Leonard Euler, born in Switzerland, did most of his work at the Academy in St. Petersburg. He was the greatest mathematician of the century, developing calculus and some aspects of astronomy. He was the first to develop algorithmic devices and use the concepts of "e", "Pi", and "i" for various constants and an imaginary number, respectively. (Ref .135)

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