Peter the Great

by Robert K. Massie

  Some of the foreign ambassadors tended to make the same mistake that Peter's boyars occasionally made: having the Tsar among them as comrade and fellow carouser, they forgot who the tall man with whom they were heatedly arguing actually was. Then, suddenly, the argument would turn a corner and they would be brought up sharply with the perilous fact that they were challenging a man who was an absolute autocrat, the sole arbiter of life and death for an entire nation. Some of these arguments were relatively mild. At one dinner, Peter was telling the company that in Vienna he had been getting fat, but on his return the nature of the fare in Poland had made him quite slender again. The Polish ambassador, a man of great girth, disputed this, saying that he had been brought up in Poland and owed amplitude to the Polish diet. Peter shot back, "It was not in Poland, but here in Moscow that you crammed yourself"—the Pole, like all ambassadors, was provided with his food and expenses by the host government. The Pole, wisely, let the matter drop.

  On another occasion,

  during dinner, there was discussion about the differences between countries; the one that lay next to Muscovy [Korb does not say which one] was very ill-spoken of. The ambassador who came from there replied for his part that he had noticed a great many things in Muscovy that were deserving of censure. The Tsar retorted: "If thou were a subject of mine, 1 would add thee as a companion to those of mine that are now hanging from the gibbet—for I well know what thy speech alludes to."

  The Tsar later found an opportunity of setting the same personage to dance with his fool, a laughing-stock of the court, amidst a general titter. And yet the ambassador [danced away, thinking that Peter's jest was meant as a sign of affection], not understanding what a shameful trick was played on him until the Imperial ambassador had quietly given him warning not to forget the dignity of his office.

  Peter's moods were strange and unpredictable, given to violent swings between elation and sudden anger. One minute he was jovial, happy to be in the company of his friends, jesting over the surprising appearance of a newly shaven companion, yet a few minutes later he could sink into deep, irritable gloom or explode with sudden rage. At one banquet, Peter angrily accused Shein of selling offices in the army for cash. Shein denied it, and Peter stormed out of the room to question soldiers on sentry duty around Lefort's house

  to learn from them how many colonels and other regimental officers the General-in-Chief had made without reference to merit, merely for money.

  Continuing this account, Korb describes what happened next:

  In a short time when he came back, his wrath had grown to such a pitch that he drew his sword, and facing the General-in-Chief horrified the guests with this threat: "By striking thus, I will mar thy mal government." Boiling over with well-grounded anger, he appealed to Prince Romodanovsky and to Zotov. But finding them excuse the General-in-Chief, he grew so hot that he startled all the guests by striking right and left, he knew not where, with his drawn sword. Prince Romodanovsky had to complain of a cut finger and another of a slight wound on the head. Zotov was hurt in the hand as the sword was returning from a stroke. A blow far more deadly was aiming at the General-in-Chief [Shein], who beyond doubt would have been stretched in his gore by the Tsar's right hand, had not General Lefort (who was almost the only one that might have ventured it), catching the Tsar in his arms, drawn back his hand from the stroke. But the Tsar, taking it ill that any person should dare to hinder him from the sating of his most just wrath, wheeled around upon the spot, and struck his unwelcome impeder a hard blow on the back. He [Lefort] is the only one that knew what remedy to apply; none of the Muscovites is more beloved by the Tsar than he. . . . This man [Lefort] so mitigated his [Peter's] ire, that, threatening only, he abstained from murder. Merriment followed this dire tempest. The Tsar with a face full of smiles, was present at the dancing, and to show his mirth, commanded the musicians to play the tunes to which he had danced at his most beloved lord and brother's [King Augustus] when that most august 276 host was entertaining exalted guests. Two young ladies, departing by stealth, were, at the order of the Tsar, brought back by soldiers. Again, twenty-five great guns saluted the toasts, and the hilarity of the fete was protracted till half past five in the morning.

  The following day, the promotions made by Shein were canceled, and Patrick Gordon was thereafter placed in charge of deciding which officers should be advanced in rank.

  This was not the only occasion on which Lefort accepted Peter's blows or thrust himself forward between the Tsar and an intended victim of Peter's wrath. On October 18, Peter was dining again at Lefort's when, says Korb, "an inexplicable whirlwind troubled the gaieties. Seizing upon General Lefort and flinging him to the floor, His Tsarish Majesty kicked him." Lefort, however, was almost the only man who could stay Peter's wrath. At a banquet for 200 of the nobility at Lefort's house, an argument began between two of the former regents, Peter's uncle Lev Naryshkin and Prince Boris Golitsyn. Peter was so exasperated that "he loudly threatened he would cut short the dispute with the head of one or the other—whichever should be found most at fault. He commissioned Prince Romodanovsky to examine the affair and with a violent blow of his clenched fist, thrust back General Lefort who was coming up to mitigate his fury."

  Korb especially disliked Prince Fedor Romodanovsky, the tall, heavy-browed Governor of Moscow and Mock-Tsar, who was also Peter's Chief of Police. Romodanovsky was a grim figure with a leaden sense of humor. He enjoyed forcing his guests to drink a large cup of pepper brandy by having the cup presented in the paws of a large, upright, trained bear; if the cup was refused, the bear proceeded to pull off the hat, wig and other articles of clothing of the reluctant guest. He disdained foreigners. Once he kidnapped a young German interpreter who worked for one of the Tsar's physicians and returned him only when the doctor complained to Lefort. Another time, he arrested a foreign physician. When, on release, the doctor "inquired of Prince Romodanovsky why he was so long kept in confinement, [he] got no answer other than that it was done to vex him."

  On October 12, Korb reported, "The ground was covered with a dense fall of snow and everything was frozen up with the intense cold." Both the feasts and the executions went on, although Peter soon left Moscow to visit the shipyard at Voronezh. Before the holidays, however, the Tsar was back. "Today being Christmas eve," Korb's journal continued,

  which is preceded by a Russian fast of seven weeks, all the markets and public thoroughfares are seen to be filled to overflowing with meats. Here you have an incredible multitude of geese; in another place such a store of pigs already killed that you would think it enough to last the whole year. The number of oxen killed is in proportion. Fowl of every kind looked as if they had flown together from all of Muscovy to this one city. It was useless to attempt naming all the varieties. It is enough to say that everything one could wish for was to be had.

  On Christmas, Korb saw the celebration of the Nativity mingled with the horseplay of the Mock-Synod:

  The false Patriarch with his sham followers and the rest in eighty sledges make the round of the city and the German Suburb, carrying crosses, miters and other insignia of their assumed dignities. They all stop at the houses of the richer Muscovites and German officers and sing the praises of the newborn Deity in strains for which the inhabitants of those houses have to pay dearly. After they had sung the praises of the newborn Deity at his house. General Lefort received them all with pleasanter music, banqueting and dancing.

  These raucous Christmas carolers expected a handsome reward for their effort. When it was not sufficiently generous, the result was worse for the householder:

  The wealthiest merchant of Muscovy, whose name in Filadilov, gave such offense by having only presented twelve roubles to the Tsar and his boyars when they sang the praises of God newborn at his house, that the Tsar, with all possible speed, sent off a hundred of the populace to the house of the merchant with a mandate to pay forthwith to every one of them a rouble each.

  Feasting went on until Epiphany, when t
he traditional blessing of the river took place beneath the Kremlin walls. Contrary to custom, the Tsar did not seat himself with the Patriarch on his throne, but appeared in uniform at the head of his regiment, drawn up with other troops amounting to 12,000 men on the thick ice of the river. "The procession to the river, which was frozen solid, was led by General Gordon's regiment, the exquisite red of their new uniforms adding to their splendid appearance," wrote Korb.

  Then came the Preobrazhensky Regiment in handsome new green uniforms with the Tsar marching ahead as their colonel. There followed a third regiment, the Semyonovsky, in blue uniforms. Each regiment had a band of musicians. . . .

  A place was marked off by rails on the river ice, with the regiments drawn up around it. Five hundred ecclesiastics, sub-deacons, deacons, priests, abbots, bishops and archbishops, robed in gold and silver with gems and precious stones, lent an air of greater majesty. Before a splendid gold cross, twelve clerics bore a lantern with three burning wax lights. The Muscovites consider it unlawful and shameful for the cross to appear in public unattended by lights. An incredible multitude of people thronged every side. The streets were full, roofs of the houses were covered, the walls of the city were crowded with spectators.

  When the clergy filled up the large space of the enclosure, the sacred ceremony began. Multitudes of wax candles were lighted. After the Almighty was invoked, the Metropolitan went around swinging his censer filled with smoking incense through the whole enclosure. In the middle, the ice was broken, allowing the water to appear like a well. Here he passed the censer three times, and hallowed the well, three times dipping the burning wax light into it. Nearby, on a pillar stood the standard bearer, holding the standard of the realm, white with a double-headed eagle embroidered in gold. It is unfurled once the clergy have entered the enclosure. Thereafter the standard bearer has to watch the ceremonies—the incensing, the blessings—each of which he indicated by waving the standard. His motions are closely observed by the regimental standard bearers, in order to wave at the same time he does.

  When the benediction of the water is over, all the regimental standards approach and stand around to be duly sprinkled with the hallowed water. The Patriarch, or, in his absence, the Metropolitan, leaving the enclosure, then bestows this sprinkling on His Majesty the Tsar and all the soldiers. To complete, the artillery of all the regiments roared out, followed by a triple volley of musketry.

  The bacchanals of autumn and winter reached a peak in the carnival week before the beginning of Lent. A key role in the bacchanal was played by the Mock-Synod, whose members trooped in mock-solemn procession to Lefort's palace to worship Bacchus. Korb watched them pass:

  He that bore the assumed honors of the Patriarch was conspicuous with vestments proper to a bishop. Bacchus was decked with a miter and went stark naked to betoken lasciviousness to the lookers-on. Cupid and Venus were the insignia on his crozier lest there be any mistake about what flock he was pastor of. The remaining crowd of the Bacchanalians came after him, some carrying great bowls full of wine, others mead, others beer and brandy, that last joy of heated Bacchus. And as the wintry cold hindered their binding their laurel, they carried great dishes of dried tobacco leaves, with which, when ignited, they went to the remotest corners of the palace, exhaling those most delectable odors and most pleasant incense to Bacchus from their smutty jaws. Two of those pipes through which some people are pleased to puff smoke, being set crosswise, served the scenic bishop to confirm the rites of consecration!

  Many of the Western ambassadors were shocked by this parody, and Korb himself was amazed that "the cross, that most precious pledge of our redemption, was held up for mockery." But Peter saw no reason to conceal his games. During Lent, when the newly arrived ambassador of Brandenburg had presented his credentials,

  the Tsar commanded him to stay for dinner which was splendid with the principal ambassadors and principal boyars present. After dinner, the Mock-Patriarch began to give toasts. He that drank did so on bended knee to revere the sham ecclesiastical dignitary and beg the favor of his benediction which he gave with two tobacco pipes in the shape of a cross. Only the Austrian ambassador withdrew furtively, saying that the sacred sign of our Christian faith was too holy to be involved in such jests. Dancing was going on in the room next to the festivities. . . . The curtains with which the place was handsomely decorated being drawn a little, the Tsarevich Alexis and [Peter's sister Natalya] were seen by the guests. The natural beauty of the Tsarevich [then nine years old] was wonderfully shown off by his civilized German dress and powdered wig. . Natalya was escorted by the most distinguished of the Russian ladies. This day too beheld a great departure from Russian manners, which up to this forbade the female sex from appearing at public assemblies of men and at festive parties, for some were not only allowed to be at dinner, but also at the dancing afterward.

  Meanwhile, as a grim accompaniment to this Mardi Gras, the execution of the Streltsy continued relentlessly. On February 28, thirty-six died in Red Square and 150 at Preobrazhenskoe. That same night, there was a splendid feast at Lefort's, after which the guests watched a glorious display of fireworks.

  With the first week of March came Lent and, with it, an end to the twin carnivals of feasting and death. A calm descended on the city so serene that Korb noted,

  The silence and modesty of this week is as remarkable as last week's tumult and fury. Neither shops nor markets are open, the courts did not sit, the judges had nothing to do. . . . With the most strict fast they mortify the flesh on dry bread and fruits of the earth. It is such an unexpected metamorphosis that one can hardly believe one's eyes.

  In the quietness of Lent, the authorities finally began to unstring the bodies of the Streltsy from the gibbets where they had hung through the winter and take them out for burial. "It was a horrible spectacle," said Korb. "Corpses lay huddled together in carts, many half-naked, all higgledy-piggledy. Like slaughtered sheep to market they were led to their graves."

  Besides life at Peter's court, Korb observed many facets of ordinary life in Moscow. The Tsar decided to do something about the clamoring hordes of beggars who pursued citizens up and down the streets from the moment they left their doors until they entered another house. Frequently, the beggars managed to blend their pleas with a simultaneous deft picking of the victim's pockets. By decree, begging was forbidden and so was the encouragement of begging; anyone caught giving alms to beggars was fined five roubles. To deal with the beggars themselves, the Tsar attached a hospital to every church, personally endowed by himself, to provide for the poor. That the conditions in these hospitals may have been stark was suggested by another ambassadorial witness, who wrdfe "This soon cleared the streets of those poor vagrants, many of whom chose to work rather than to be locked up in the hospitals."

  Korb was astonished, even in those days of lawlessness in all countries, by the sheer number and audacity of the robbers of Moscow, who operated in packs and boldly took what they liked. Usually at night, but sometimes in broad daylight, they mugged and then frequently murdered their victims. There were mysterious, unsolved murders. A foreign sea captain dining with his wife at the house of a boyar was invited to go out for a night sleigh ride across the snow. When he and his host returned, they found that the wife's head had been cut off, and there were no clues as to the identity or motive of the assassin. Government officials were no safer than private citizens. On November 26, Korb wrote,

  A courier sent off to His Majesty last night at Voronezh with letters and some valuable utensils was violently seized on the stone bridge at Moscow and robbed. The letters, with the seals broken, were found scattered on the bridge at daybreak, but where the utensils and the courier himself have been carried, there is no trace.

  The courier, it was presumed, had been disposed of in the handiest way, by being "thrust beneath the ice into the waters of the river."

  Foreigners had to be especially careful, as they were considered fair game not only by robbers but also by ordinary
Muscovites. One of Korb's servants who knew Russian reported that he had just encountered a citizen who mouthed a stream of oaths and threats against all foreigners: "You German dogs, you have been robbing long enough at your ease, but the day is coming when you shall suffer and pay the penalty." To catch a foreigner alone, especially if he was reeling with drink, provided some Muscovies with the rare opportunity for vindictive pleasure. Nor was it always safe to defend oneself against violence. Trying to reduce the number of deaths in the streets, Peter had made it a crime to draw a sword, pistol or knife when drunk, even if the weapon was raised in self-idefense and even if it was not actually used. One night, an Austrian mining engineer named Urban was riding tipsily home from Moscow to the German Suburb when he was set upon by a Russian, first with words and then with fists. According to Korb: "Urban, losing patience, and indignant at being insulted by such a filthy rascal, and using the natural right of self-defense, drew a pistol. The ball which he wildly fired at his assailant merely grazed the fellow's head, but lest the complaints of the wounded man be fussed with a great noise to the Tsar's Majesty, Urban came to an amicable agreement with the fellow for four roubles to say nothing about it." But Peter did hear about it, and Urban was arrested and charged with a capital crime. When Urban's friends argued that the Austrian had been drunk, the Tsar replied that he would allow drunken scuffling to go unpunished, but not drunken shooting. Nevertheless, he reduced the punishment from death to knouting and, only on the continued pleas of the Austrian ambassador, finally canceled that.