blog




  • Essay / Peter Alexeyevich: The Cruel “Great” Father

    The existence of Peter the Great was so overflowing with personal drama and bizarre aspects that it exuded a feeling of mystery and inexhaustible fascination. But who was Peter the Great? He was the son of Aleksej Michailovič and Natalia Kirillovna Naryškina, proclaimed tsar at the age of ten, in 1682, with his brother Ivan, and entrusted to the regent Sofia because of their young age. Peter became sole ruler only in 1696. He was one of the most important emperors in Russian history and the only one capable of creating a state equal to the West. When he ascended the throne he found a country in the grip of revolutions and revolts, witches invaded the Kremlin killing most of his family and forced him into forced exile. After a few years, under another identity, he traveled through different Western countries. Attracted by the political aspect of the army since childhood, Pietro, moving from one place to another, saw and became interested in the political system of foreign countries. His twenty-nine years of reign were focused on the country's territorial expansion and modernization. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”?Get the original essay Peter the Great is often credited with pulling Russia from its medieval streets into the modern world. As with all major reforms, Peter's reforms were met with significant resistance to the old order, but the tsar did his will mercilessly, taking care of all opposition. Tragically, among the liners was his son and heir, Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich. Alexei Petrovich was born from the marriage of Peter and Eudocia Theodora in 1689, when Peter was only seventeen years old. Alexej did not grow up in a loving environment surrounded by the affection of his parents, from the time his mother was in a convent and his father was completely disinterested and ineffective towards him, and Alexej only saw him as the persecutor from his mother, so he grew up feeling a feeling of hatred towards her. Peter's disinterest in his son is quite evident in the inappropriate choice his father made in selecting his son's teachers. Although Pierre worked fruitfully in the field of education, he did not take responsibility for raising and educating his son, who was left in the hands of reactionary boyars and priests who suggested to the teenager that Peter's reforms were harmful and encouraged him, as a teenager, to begin a conspiracy to dethrone him in order to restore the old order. Alexej, despite the absence of his father in education, was very educated, spoke and wrote in German, drew, knew the basics of mathematics and, in particular, he studied through religious books, the very ones that led to doubts about his father's work. Due to the conditions in which he had grown up and the education he had received, Alexej had formed a personality opposite to that of Pierre: he was very calm and introverted, completely foreign and opposed to his father's reforms and loved to pray . Pierre, on the other hand, was a very open person: he had an ardent temperament, always looking to the future, in fact, he saw in his son the reflection of the ancient world that was so odious. Propio, these two points of view and sides of character constituted the main contradiction in the relationship between father and son. It is therefore not surprising that Peter failed to involve his son in his reforms, and the collision between the two therefore became inevitable. Of their relationship we have as testimony a sequence of letters, the first is dated the day of Princess Charlotte's death and concludes as follows: "I will wait a little longer to seeif you wish to correct yourself; otherwise, know that I will deprive you of the inheritance, as you cut off a useless limb. Do not think that I intend to frighten you, do not be fooled by the title of only child, for if I do not save my own life for my country and the good of my people, how can I spare you? I would rather leave them to a stranger who deserves them than to my son who makes them unworthy.' Even in such a difficult moment as the death of his son's wife, Pietro is not capable of being a loving and close father to Alexej, but rather challenges his unwillingness to accept reforms and his inability to govern the country, even threatening to deprive him of his right to succession to the throne. Alexei was very offended by this letter and after learning of the birth of Catherine and Peter's second son, he decided to write to his father that he would renounce the crown and threatened to become a monk. “May God be my witness,” he observed, “and I swear on my soul that I will never claim the succession. Alexej decided to join his father in Copenhagen, but he went to his brother-in-law in Vienna, then retired to Naples with his recently known lover, Efrosinia Fiódorova. Peter carried out enormous investigative activity to find Alexei and bring him back to St. Petersburg, and he succeeded in this in 1718. He was found in Naples, deprived of the right to succession to the throne and transferred with his lover to St. Petersburg for the trial. Alexej is taken into the building and is also questioned by his father. In April 1718, new confessions were extracted from and against Alexei. Among these were the words of the lover Afrosina, who had to swear that Alexis had conspired with the conservatives with the specific aim of dethroning her father. During an interrogation, Tsarèvič Aleksej said: "When I read foreign newspapers and learned about the revolt of Russian troops in Mecklenburg, I was very happy and I said in public that God had not didn't do what my father wanted. Excitedly, I also met many rebels. Evidence later emerged that confirmed the tsarèvič's statements. Peter the Great thus had to face a conspiracy that started from his own house and ended with his son. During one of the trial's interrogations, Aleksej's lover, Efrosinija Fëdorovna, also testified and provided evidence that Vienna strongly supported Tsarevič Aleksej's accession to the Russian throne. The evidence provided at the trial by Efrosinija Fëdorovna even shows that Tsarèvič Aleksej asked for help just as much as the Swedes, bitter enemies of Russia during the years of the Northern Wars, but who were unable to agreement with them on support. The Tsarevich had his dream and declared: “When I am sovereign, I will live in Moscow and I will leave St. Petersburg, a simple city. I'm going to dismantle the navy. I will only keep the army for defense, but I do not want to make war on anyone, I will be content only with the former Russian possessions. His dream was utopian. The Tsarevich's statements at the trial were very serious. For the first time, the son dared to tell his father what he thought. Peter the Great did not have before him his son but a stubborn and dangerous political traitor. At noon on June 24, the temporal dignitaries – the 126 members of the extraordinary court of justice – declared Alexis guilty and sentenced him to death. However, the scrutiny of the torture convict continued, so as not to hide possible collusion on Pierre's part. On June 26, Alexis died in the St. Peter and Paul Fortress in St. Petersburg, two days after the murder. The Senate had condemned him as a conspirator against the reign of his father and for his alliance with the people and the Emperor of Germany against the whole of Russia. So far he has not.