Peter the Great

Reign: 1721 – 1725
Life: 1672–1725

He was known as Peter the Great. He reigned jointly with his half-brother Ivan V until 1696. Peter, as an autocrat, organized a well-ordered police state. His Azov campaigns were followed by the foundation of the Russian Navy; after his victory in the Great Northern War, Russia annexed a significant portion of the eastern Baltic coastline and was officially raised from a tsardom to an empire. Peter led a cultural revolution that replaced some of the traditionalist and medieval social and political systems with ones that were modern, scientific, Westernized, and based on the radical Enlightenment. In December 1699, he introduced the Julian calendar, and in 1703, he introduced the first Russian newspaper, Sankt-Peterburgskie Vedomosti, and ordered the civil script, a reform of Russian orthography largely designed by himself.

During Peter the Great's reign, Frederick William I of Prussia ruled Prussia, Louis XV of France ruled France, and John V of Portugal ruled Portugal.

Want to learn more? Further reading

Peter the Great: His Life and World by Robert K. Massie

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The World During Their Reign

The most notable rulers who held power elsewhere at the same time, from European courts to Ottoman, Mughal, and Chinese thrones.

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From the library

Go deeper on Peter the Great

Hand-picked histories and biographies for readers who want more than the timeline: the same era, told in full.

Peter the Great: His Life and World

Robert K. Massie

Massie's Pulitzer-winning epic, still the most readable life of Russia's modernising tsar.

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Russia in the Age of Peter the Great
Lindsey Hughes
Hughes's scholarly portrait of Peter's reforms, wars, and the court he dragged into Europe.
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