Peter the Great

MR. SCHUYLER’S Peter the Great,¹ which has finally appeared, is equally creditable to American typographical art and to American historical scholarship. A strict criticism might indeed complain that the illustrations detract somewhat from the dignity of the work, while also unnecessarily increasing its cost. But this is a question of taste. The illustrations are generally good and, with some marked exceptions, pertinent; and the author makes, perhaps, a modest concession to the nature of his subject when he consents to encourage the interest of the reader by pictorial stimulants.

We can meet Mr. Schuyler’s frankness by conceding in return that, if the subject is obscure, he is probably the only writer outside of Russia who is competent to take it up successfully. We say this, too, in full knowledge of the great impetus which has been given in recent years to the study of Russian history, Russian institutions, and even Russian autiquities; in full recognition of the merits of Frenchmen like Rumbaud, Leroy-Beaulieu, and Molinari, of Englishmen like Ralston and Wallace. Some of these also show in special lines of investigation gifts which are perhaps wanting in Mr. Schuyler. M. Rambaud, whose two volumes cover the whole period of Russian history, has a dispassionate judgment, and great skill in condensation, combined with no little power of graphic narration. Mr. Wallace has unrivaled powers of observation and analysis. Mr. Ralston has thrown much light upon the early folk-lore of Russia, and M. Anatole Leroy-Beaulieu’s great work is the most complete account of Russian governmental forms and methods which the literature of any country has produced. But Mr. Schuyler needed for the accomplishment of his task not so much the attainments of the specialist as those of the general historian, — patience in investigation, knowledge of trustworthy sources, familiarity with languages, an exact eye for the springs of political and diplomatic action ; and the possession of these qualifications is abundantly revealed in his Peter the Great. It might even be said that in one respect no Russian is fully qualified to furnish just the life of Peter which the present age requires. The art, or at least the science, of history has doubtless made great advances in Russia; the Imperial Historical Society is a worthy sister of similar institutions in other countries. But when we find even in Prussia writers like Droysen, Treitschke, and Ranke studiously and systematically defending, or at least excusing, every act of Frederic the Great, it is folly to expect Russians to rise triumphantly above all national prejudices, all impulses of patriotism, in the treatment of their own historical hero. The least trustworthy of all of Peter’s biographers are still, however, foreigners, like Voltaire and Ségur.

There are few great characters as recent as Peter who have so long remained enshrouded in myths, and have so long resisted the process of modern historical criticism; there are few who have been painted in such different colors. He has been described as a Caliban and as a Bluebeard ; as an enlightened statesman, far ahead of his age; as a blunt, rough, honest man, somewhat narrow-minded and subject to outbursts of passion; as a gifted, poetical nature, though cast, like his people, in a rough mould. Mr. Schuyler knows that none of these portraits are true; some are overdrawn, some are inadequate. But he provokes no quarrel with rival artists, however gross their errors. “ I have told the story of Peter’s life and reign as I understand it,” he observes modestly in the preface.

Yet it must be said that while Mr. Schuyler tells this story fully, and as we believe accurately, his two elaborate volumes furnish not so much a portrait as the material for a portrait. The events in Peter’s life which are historically established are related with justifiable confidence. Familiar statements which are true are carefully distinguished from others which are unsupported by evidence, which are improbable, or which are false. Thus the story of Peter’s visit to Holland, to learn the art of shipbuilding, is reduced to its true proportions. The account given by the vivacious Princess Wilhelmina of Bayreuth of the Tsar’s visit to Berlin is pronounced, on the authority of the best German criticism, to be greatly overdrawn. The ancient fable that Catherine sold her jewels in the campaign of the Pruth, in order to bribe the grand vizier to accept a peace, is calmly dismissed. And where there is doubt, as in regard to the fate of Peter’s son Alexis, between the common story, which puts him to death by order of the Tsar, and the later more charitable version, which attributes his death to the hardships and cruelties of his prison life, Mr. Schuyler simply gives the authorities on one side and the other, without advancing any opinion of his own. The firm grasp of facts, wherever facts are accessible, is everywhere apparent. Something may be said, too, in defense of that school of historical writing which, deliberately discarding art and pathos, human sympathy and human indignation, aims only at the discovery and presentation of unimpassioned facts. The influence of Germany is apparent in Mr. Schuyler’s choice of a method. Yet we are not sure that the Germany of the last century would not have put him on his guard against a too great distrust of pictorial effect, of color and warmth, in historical writing. The so-called pragmatic histories, which were the terror of Carlyle’s life, were the highest triumphs of the purely documentary style of recording events. From the materials which these furnished could be worked up graphic narratives, full of feeling, of discrimination, when necessary even of passion, and yet without any sacrifice of truth or judgment. Mr. Schuyler has not fully adopted either of these methods. The systematic avoidance of interpretation, of anything like complete portraiture, suggests the pragmatic order of treatment; while, on the other hand, the orderly division of the topics and the continuous narrative indicate the writer, and not the mere compiler. In a work designed for popular readers, the picturesque, sympathetic, interpretative style would unmistakably have been the better; and we are the more free to express this opinion because there is internal evidence that Mr. Schuyler’s method was not forced upon him by any limitations of his own powers, but was deliberately adopted as an act of choice.

One of the results of a careful comparison of Mr. Schuyler’s hero with some of the contemporary rulers will probably be the discovery that the Russian was a less abnormal product than has commonly been supposed. He was emphatically the child of his time. It is chiefly when contrasted with his own people that Peter’s peculiarities become so conspicuous. He seemed eccentric to Russians because he was himself so little of a Russian, because he was almost a foreigner in his own country. For outside of Russia many of his characteristics can be found reproduced. His fondness for practical jokes was almost an universal passion at the Northern courts. If Peter had his court fool crowned king of Sweden, Frederic William I. of Prussia made a court fool rector of a university, and Charles XII. of Sweden found amusement as a youth in knocking down innocent pedestrians on the street. Augustus the Strong of Saxony had more illegitimate children and was a greater drinker than the Tsar. The wisest measure connected with Peter’s reign, although by no means the most popular, was the introduction of foreigners into the different branches of the Russian service; yet even for this policy he had the example of other rulers. It was the policy of the house of Prussia at a very early day, and was continued under several generations, to attract useful foreigners — artisans, capitalists, scholars, soldiers — to that country, and when necessary the most liberal inducements were offered them. Prussia welcomed the French Huguenots; Peter took the Germans, whom they displaced, together with Frenchmen, Dutchmen, Englishmen, and others, and thus gave a certain European varnish to the surface of Russian society.

Yet the Tsar was, on the other hand, enough of a barbarian to arouse the most piquant interest whenever he traveled in the west. His curiosity, his application, his simplicity, his tastes, his appetite, his arrogance, were as noticeable outside of Russia as were the liberality and the rationalism which in Russia cut off beards and long sleeves, adopted European dress, and smote the prejudices of his people with so firm and heavy a hand. Hence while the coffeehouses of Holland and England gossiped about the caprices of a Muscovite savage, the boyars and monks and priests of Moscow had only stories of a Tsar who had forsaken the path of his fathers, and fallen into the traps of the infidels. In his own land and in foreign countries Peter had, however, schools of admirers as well as schools of detractors. Both alike went to ridiculous lengths of exaggeration, and the material left by both needs to be sifted with great care. Peter’s activity was apparent in every sphere of public affairs, and nearly always as a constructive reformer. We may briefly call attention to some of his reforms.

The earliest manifestation of his individuality was his love of the sea and of ships. From the mere boyish pastime of building sail-boats on the Russian lakes he gradually rose to the conception of a great naval policy, and pursued it with singular ardor to the last moment. Even his wars had this end largely in view ; for the possession of the Crimea was essential to the maintenance of a fleet on the Black Sea, and the conquest of the Swedish provinces on the southern coast of the Baltic gave him the secure ports of Riga and Kronstadt, with the opportunity to found the present capital of the empire. But he did not succeed in making Russia a great maritime power; the natural and other obstacles were too formidable even for his strong will. In the work of stimulating commerce and domestic industry, — by bounties, by franchises, by monopolies, and by crude though improved fiscal regulations, — he was indeed more successful, though even this success had the insecure support of the false economical principles then universally adopted in Europe.

First in the order of importance and of success we should place Peter’s administrative reforms. Mr. Schuyler has some admirable chapters on this subject the one in which his style appears to the best advantage. Some of these measures were extremely hazardous, like the disbandment of the streltsi, or national guard, — the pretorians, — by a young prince who was hardly yet assured of his throne. Another class struck at the privileges of the boyars and the great nobles, and provoked opposition from them. Still a third group of reforms, those aimed at the monks and priests, created another class of enemies, who were indeed non-combatants, but had many means of annoyance, and were supported by all the ignorance and superstition of Russia. Peter committed, in the course of this policy, some errors of judgment, was often harsh and cruel, and needlessly shocked the national feelings. But he had on the whole a quick eye for the evils of old systems, and generally a just perception of the remedies which ought to be applied.

Peter’s wars, though not uniformly successful, yielded in the end good results, both in territory and in prestige. As a conqueror, his career reached its culmination in the final overthrow of Charles XII. at Stralsund; for although the capture of the city was actually effected without the aid of Russian troops, and although the diplomacy of Ilgen, the Prussian minister, was rather finer than that of Dolgoruky, the military preponderance of the Tsar was not the less indispensable to the allies. For a time Peter was nearly a dictator in Northern Europe. A few years later he openly interfered in behalf of the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg, whose assault upon the liberties of the estates had been condemned by the emperor and nearly all the princes of the empire; and on other occasions he spoke in tones of authority strangely prophetic of those of Nicholas, a century later.

Peter’s military triumphs, and the introduction of occidental culture among his people fairly ushered Russia into the family of European states. It is the opinion of Mr. Schuyler that this was an error. “ One blame may, we think, be rightly attached to Peter,” he says, in one of the few places where he pronounces a judgment on his hero : “ that he brought Russia prematurely into the circle of European politics. As to the effect upon Europe, contemporary national rivalries hinder a fair conclusion. As to that upon Russia, there can be but one opinion. The result has been to turn the rulers of Russia away from home affairs and the regular development of home institutions to foreign politics and the creation of a great military power. In this sense it cannot be deemed beneficial to Russia.”

This judgment is probably in the main correct. The evil was felt during Peter’s own life; his constant preoccupation in foreign wars and foreign diplomacy lamed the energy of home reforms. Even the reforms themselves were not rendered more popular by being introduced under foreign auspices, or, at least, under the influence of impressions which Peter had received abroad. Twenty years after his death his own daughter, Elisabeth, on her accession, swept away the hated foreign element, and won the hearts of her subjects by returning to the old national Russiap methods. Yet there is one obvious qualification to this view. If it be granted that reform was necessary, could it proceed otherwise than along the general course already traversed by more advanced nations? Or, again, would Peter have received the impulse to reform and the secret of its method, if he had not sought and utilized that very contact with western civilization which proved in so many ways to be an evil? The case is in effect one of those, so frequent in politics, where it is difficult to say what is cause and what effect. The aggressions of James II. of England were undoubtedly an evil. Yet without those aggressions England might not have had the Bill of Rights.

Our own estimate of Peter as a statesman is rather enhanced than lessened by Mr. Schuyler’s work. The man remains much as the world had regarded him before ; the change, if any, is only quantitative, not qualitative. He may drink and eat somewhat less, may have less numerous liaisons, may send fewer men to the block, than in earlier biographies ; but even in the book before us, where nothing is extenuated, nor aught set down in malice, the Tsar is still a glutton and a drunkard, a lover of low company, male and female, a cruel and bloody tyrant. It is only as a statesman that he rises enlarged and ennobled from Mr. Schuyler’s pages. And this is not so much by reason of what he actually achieved, though his achievements were striking and valuable, as by reason of the formidable obstacles that he had to surmount, and the almost heroic labors by which he surmounted them. It is not necessary to enumerate these. They are given by Mr. Schuyler with a fullness and clearness not to be found elsewhere except perhaps in Russian works, and which leave little to be desired by the inquiring reader.