Tsar Peter - the great commander

Grateful Russia will never forget the name of her great reformer, the tireless worker on the throne, the skilful helmsman who guided the state ship to greatness and glory with a strong, faithful hand. He turned Russia into a great world empire, proudly joining the family of great powers and taking an honorable place among them. How did the great royal sorcerer achieve this?

In a wide measure, brilliant all-round talents were released to him by divine providence, which he completely gave to his beloved homeland.

The personality of Peter surprisingly harmoniously combined the features of an outstanding statesman-organizer with a remarkable talent as a commander. As a king, he sought to raise the welfare of his state, sought and created the means necessary to achieve his goal; as a commander, he, using prepared means, strained his powerful efforts to achieve his plan.

State wisdom tells the king that in order to maintain close ties with enlightened Europe, his state must first break through to the open sea. But on the way to this is a powerful formidable neighbor with whom you have to fight. The king, preparing for the great struggle, begins to create the appropriate forces and means. His all-encompassing creativity unfolds to its full extent. The tsar creates an armed force organized on new principles. The creation of a regular army and the construction of a navy cause intense work in all branches of national and state life. The army needs to be armed, clothed, equipped, the fleet needs to be built, equipped. Creative work began to boil in the country, factories appeared, trade and industry rose. Everywhere and everywhere, Tsar Peter, like a hospitable owner, delved into affairs, established and directed them.

When the forces and means for the upcoming struggle have been prepared, the royal organizer gives way to the great commander.

Surprisingly skillfully, Peter begins to carry out a difficult combat mission. In his hands at the beginning of the Northern War was a newly formed, inexperienced army. This is a fragile, unreliable material, but you still need to test it, harden it. The first experience is unsuccessful: the army is defeated near Narva. But thanks to the organizational talent of the tsar, the country has already adapted to the new order, it is allocating new forces and means for the struggle. The energy of the commander is not undermined. "The Swedes can beat us once or twice, but we will learn from them how to defeat them." The king believes in himself, in his great people.

The enemy shows short-sightedness and for a long time leaves in peace the country that seems to him defeated and deprived of the means of resistance, and Peter takes advantage of this in order, first of all, to carry out the work because of which the struggle has begun. Having created a very skillful plan for the conquest of the Izhora land, the king quickly and skillfully puts this plan into execution and secures the conquered lands.

But the king is aware that sooner or later he will have to face the victorious army of the Swedish king in the field, and in those long years that Charles XII spent in Poland and Saxony, Peter tirelessly works to increase the power of his army and achieves in this matter amazing results. This is again an example of the creative work of the king-organizer.

But now the formidable enemy again goes into the borders of Russia, and the tsar-commander creates and carries out a wonderful war plan. Taking advantage of the boundless depth of his kingdom, he lures the enemy into the interior of the country, temporarily avoiding a decisive battle, wanting first to exhaust the enemy, weaken his impulse, strain his strength. To carry out this plan, the army retreats before the Swedes, destroys supplies in the country, disturbs the enemy with constant attacks by small parties. When the set goal is achieved, the skillful leader of the Russian army delivers the final blow to the weakened, half-melted, devoid of military supplies, deceived in expectations by the allies of the Swedish army.

The great military talent of Peter in the Poltava battle looms especially sharply and convexly. The skillful approach to the battlefield, the skillful concentration of forces, the brilliant preparation of the battlefield in engineering terms, the excellent moral preparation of the army, and, finally, the inspired leadership of the battle testify to the great art of Peter, making the Poltava battle in every respect a classic example of military art.

Does the unsuccessful Prut campaign detract from the greatness of Peter as a skilled commander? It is our deep conviction that this campaign, although unsuccessful in its final result, still does not detract from the military talent of Peter the Great. Fascinated by the struggle against mighty Sweden in the north, a struggle that required enormous strenuous activity, Peter, in the unfavorable political situation for him, was forced to stop the well-established business on the northern front and hastily organize a campaign to the south, move his young army in a new direction, to a distant unknown country. The conditions for the campaign were extremely unfavorable. The insidious and timid allies of the king did not justify the hopes placed on them. The Russian army, surrounded by six times superior enemy forces, was also deprived of food supplies.

The campaign was unsuccessful in terms of immediate results, but it was of great political importance for the future aggressive policy of Russia in the south. Tsar Peter showed the future generations the way to the Danube and the Balkans, pointed out the glorious path to victories and glory, but, having scored several tactical successes in the clash with the Turks, he could not achieve strategic success.

The Prut campaign does not obscure the halo of Peter's glory as a great commander. Failures at all times sometimes befell many great generals and were usually the result of the harmful influence of those elusive accidents that cannot be foreseen in advance. Napoleon, Frederick the Great, Hannibal, Julius Caesar, didn't these great military leaders, recognized by all, know the dark days of military hardships that befell them, despite the careful preparation of operations.

By bringing the Great Northern War to the desired, favorable end for Russia, Peter shows his unshakable will - a precious gift of great commanders.

Assessing the totality of Peter's talents as a great commander, one must recognize in him: the extraordinary development of the creative side of the mind and, as a direct consequence of this, versatility; rare brilliant insight and the ability to quickly make decisions that are appropriate to the situation; deep faith in oneself, the ability not to get lost in all sorts of surprises and failures; deep understanding of the basic laws of military art and inventiveness in the invention of means for their implementation; persistent striving to achieve the set goal, finally, a correct assessment of the battle as a means of decisive, necessary, but at the same time as a means of extreme - "very dangerous", and therefore requiring comprehensive training - this was the art of military leadership of Peter the Great.

Concerning the organizational talents of Peter the Great, one should note his deep knowledge of military affairs. Creating a regular army according to the Western European model, Peter did not limit himself to one imitation. His regiments are not regiments of the "foreign system", these are regiments that have preserved the individuality of the Russian people, which has affected its excellent fighting qualities: patience in trouble, boundless endurance, indestructible stamina, the ability to selfless self-sacrifice, courage without enthusiasm and courage without bragging.

All the beginnings of the organization, supply and general organization of the armed force adopted by Peter are deeply practical in all respects, and the combat techniques that were the result of direct combat experience are so correct that they served as a solid foundation for the further improvement of the Russian army and determined its further military success.

Since in subsequent eras the Russian army adhered to the military precepts of its great creator, its actions were so successful; when deviations from these great covenants came gloomy times of failures and battle hardships.

In the person of Peter, Russia had a great genius who, according to the apt definition of G. A. Leer, “knew how to do everything, could do everything and wanted to do everything.”

PETER I AS A COMMANDER

Peter I went down in history as an outstanding statesman and military leader of Russia, the founder of the regular army and navy, a talented commander and diplomat, who even in the West, when compared with Frederick II, was called "a truly great man."

The most important transformations of Peter I include military reforms. Carried out in conditions of a rapid economic and political upsurge, they turned Russia into one of the most powerful military powers in Europe, made it possible to return access to the Baltic Sea, to seize everything "that was absolutely necessary for the natural development of the country."

Creating a regular army, Peter I took a new, independent path, different from Western states, where by that time the mercenary-recruitment system for recruiting into the army had finally taken shape. Soldiers of any nationality were accepted into military service there, who served only for the sake of a salary. The exception was Sweden, whose army was staffed to a large extent by its own "settled soldiers". Peter I, well aware of all the advantages of an army homogeneous in terms of national composition, retained the old Russian experience of recruiting “subsistence people” from a certain number of peasant and township households. He gave this system a strict order and established for the soldiers lifelong (later 25 years) service on full state support. In 1705, "subsistence" began to be called recruits.

Recruitment duty, no doubt, laid a heavy burden on the shoulders of the common people. However, the new method of manning the regular army made it possible to quickly replenish it with people and was the most advanced for its time. Immediately after the Azov campaigns, the Russian tsar begins the gradual abolition of the archery army, and in return orders him to begin the formation of the first 30 regiments of the regular army.

The system of education and training of troops introduced by Peter I was also advanced. If drill and cane discipline were instilled in mercenary armies, and morale was “supported” by the fear of punishment, then in the Russian army the “moral training” of soldiers began to be based on such character traits of the Russian people as national pride and patriotism, hatred of foreign invaders, readiness for self-sacrifice in the name of the Motherland, etc. Of course, the same serfdom prevailed in the army then, as in all of Russia, but the soldier was inspired that he was the defender of the Motherland, and his title was honorable.

“... You should not think,” said Peter I before the battle of Poltava, “that you are fighting for Peter, but for the state.” All this found understanding among the soldiers, especially since the tsar demanded from officers a strict but respectful attitude towards subordinates, care for their needs: “praise their good deeds and reward them for them. For the bad ones, punish them firmly and with zeal.

Peter I was an opponent of drill and parade ground training, demanded to teach what was necessary for combat, introduced new forms and methods of training that were close to combat conditions, "as if in battle itself." To do this, he introduced two-sided field exercises of troops - maneuvers that were not yet practiced in the European armies of that time. They were considered "like a harbinger of the deed." In order to avoid a template in the application of the tactical provisions of the charter, as was the case in foreign armies, the reformer tsar sought to develop initiative in his subordinates. In additions to the military charter of 1716, developed by himself, it was indicated that the charters described the orders, but did not describe every possible case, “and therefore one should not adhere to the charter like a blind wall.” This was the beginning of the best traditions of the Russian army, which were carefully preserved and developed by the progressive generals of Russia over the centuries. Many of them have survived to this day.

Homogeneous National composition Russian army, the advanced system of education and training of troops, the progressive nature of the wars waged by Peter I, put at his disposal soldiers with significantly higher moral and combat qualities than in Western armies. The army of Peter I was equipped with improved, completely modern infantry weapons and the latest artillery, had a well-organized organization that ensured close cooperation between infantry, cavalry and artillery in battle. He skillfully used all this to apply new tactical combinations on the battlefield, new methods of warfare, inaccessible to mercenary armies. The Russian army became the ancestor of the most advanced trends in military art, which was born on the battlefields of the Northern War.

Due to the international situation that had developed by the beginning of the 18th century, Russia was unable to prepare in advance for the war with Charles XII's Sweden, so its army was created during the war. The first bitter lesson for the Peter's regiments, hastily recruited and almost untrained, was a heavy defeat near Narva (1700), where they faced the highly experienced Swedish regular army. Fortunately for Russia, her young tsar had the ability to soberly assess events and make correct conclusions from both successes and failures. After the Narva failure, Peter launched a stormy activity to create and train an army, which soon began to bear fruit.

For the military art of Peter I in the Northern War, the decisiveness of the strategy is typical, first of all. Against the background of the wars of the West, with their cordon strategy and long maneuvering, the strategy of the Russians has become a new word in the art of war. Its appearance was determined by the decisive and progressive nature of the political goals of Russia, which waged a war for the return of access to the Baltic Sea, which was so necessary for its development. Peter I's deep understanding of the connection between strategy and politics is the most important feature of his military leadership.

Peter realized that the “classical strategy” that prevailed in the West, in which the generals, in fear of losing the army, sought to avoid decisive battles, was not suitable for the Russian state. Such a strategy led to negligible results in the war. For him, a complete victory over Sweden was needed, and Peter I decided to achieve it by crushing the military power of Sweden on land and at sea, which, along with the army, required a strong fleet. The idea of ​​the need for a fleet for Russia was clearly expressed in the Peter the Great Naval Charter of 1720: “Every potentate (ruler) who has a single land army has one hand, and who also has a fleet has both hands.”

Peter I developed new active forms of war, in which maneuver was not an end in itself, but a means of achieving favorable conditions for holding a general battle and completely defeating enemy armies in it. Combining determination with caution, he consistently marched towards the general battle, mobilizing all the reserves of the state, skillfully combining various forms of struggle, defense and offensive. Both in defensive and offensive operations, it required high activity and initiative.

Possessing rare insight, Peter I skillfully extracted strategic benefits from the emerging military-political situation, correctly choosing the direction of the main attack and the form of military operations. It is known that in the first period of the Northern War (from 1700 to 1706), after the defeat near Narva, he adopted a defensive plan. But the defense of the Russian army was of an exceptionally active nature, not characteristic of the military art of the West. In addition, the Russian commander skillfully took advantage of the miscalculation of Charles XII, who overestimated the results of the Narva victory and decided to shift the main military efforts to Poland in order to defeat it and thereby, as the Swedish king assumed, complete the conquest of all of Eastern Europe.

Preparing the country for defense and directing all his indomitable energy to creating a large regular army and navy, Peter I simultaneously launched a “small war”, setting out to defeat the Swedish troops left in Estonia and Livonia. The Russian army did not sit out in cities and fortresses in anticipation of the enemy, but she herself was looking for him. Peter I did not miss any opportunity to strike at the enemy troops, exhausted the forces of the Swedes with unexpected attacks. So, in 1701 they were defeated at Erestfer, in 1702 - near Hummelshof, on the Izhora River, near Kexholm (Priozersk) and Noteburg (Petrokrepost). In 1703, the Swedish fortresses Nyenschanz, Yamburg, Koporye were taken, in 1704 - Derpt (Tartu) and Narva with Ivangorod.

As a result of active actions during 1701 -1704. all the Swedish troops located in the area of ​​the Gulf of Finland and on the Neva banks were defeated in parts. The Russian army reached the Baltic Sea. With the general defensive plan of the war, Peter I already at that time managed to achieve its first strategic goal. The young army of Peter acquired combat experience in the "small war", hardened, and believed in its own strength. “Finally, we have reached the point,” the commander wrote, “that we are already defeating the Swedes.”

Now Russia faces a new task - to firmly gain a foothold on the Baltic coast. Peter I saw its solution in the construction of new fortresses and in intensive work to create Baltic Fleet and his first bases.

In 1703, the construction of St. Petersburg began, and to protect the approaches to it from the sea, in the same year, the Kronshlot fortress was built on Kotlin Island. Forts were erected in front of the fortress, reinforced by coastal artillery. The Baltic Fleet was being created at a rapid pace, which by 1708 consisted of 46 large warships (frigates, galleys, firewalls, brigantines).

The most complete art of military leadership of Peter was revealed in the second, most important period of the Northern War (from 1707 to 1709), when Charles XII, encouraged by England and Holland, launched an invasion of Russia. Like other Western conquerors who encroached on Russian lands, the Swedish king aimed the main blow at Moscow. Peter I unraveled the plans of the enemy and countered them with his deeply thought-out plan of military operations. Having concentrated the main forces, including the newly created 50,000th reserve army, to cover the Moscow strategic direction, he fought them back into the depths.

country, exhausted enemy forces in defensive battles, destroyed them piece by piece with strikes from mobile detachments, disrupted communications, supplies, etc. The Swedes very quickly began to experience an acute shortage of food and fodder. On our land, the generally accepted rule of those years, according to which “war must feed war,” did not come true. That is why Charles XII already in September 1708 was forced to abandon the campaign against Moscow and turned his army to Ukraine, where he counted on the help of the traitor Mazepa and the sympathy of the population. This was the undoubted success of Peter I. With skillful actions, he achieved a change in the strategic situation, imposed his will on the Swedish king.

From the new conditions prevailing in the theater of operations, the Russian commander immediately benefited. With great skill, he carried out a maneuver of exceptional complexity - a parallel strategic pursuit of the enemy with his main forces. In the course of it, mobile units detached from the main forces struck at the stretched communications of the Swedes. The culminating moment of the parallel pursuit was the Battle of the village of Lesnoy (September 28 (October 9), 1708), in which a mobile detachment of cavalry and infantry under the personal control of Peter completely defeated the 16,000-strong Lewenhaupt corps, which was in a hurry to connect with the main army of Charles XII and carrying a huge convoy ammunition and food. Peter I himself assessed the victory at Lesnaya as "the mother of the Poltava victory."
The victory changed the balance of power. The “small war”, which Peter I had been waging with such skill and caution until that time, bore fruit. The strategic initiative was wrested from the hands of the enemy. Now Peter I began to look for a general battle. But considering it a dangerous business, he was still prudent, carefully preparing, choosing the most favorable moment for the decisive blow in order to act for sure. Such a moment presented itself in the summer of 1709, when the Swedish army, having not received the expected help from the Cossacks and the support of the population in Ukraine, deprived of reinforcements, ammunition, food as a result of the defeat near Lesnaya, found itself in a strategic impasse. Concentrated in the Poltava region, she got bogged down in an unsuccessful siege of this small city.

On June 8, Peter I decided to attack the Swedes. By the end of the month, he concentrated the main forces near Poltava, and blocked the Swedish army with separate detachments. To participate in the battle, 42 thousand people and 72 guns were allocated against 20 thousand people and 4 guns left by Charles XII (28 Swedish guns without ammunition were in the wagon train). On June 27, the Russian army under the command of Peter in the Battle of Poltava completely defeated the Swedish troops. Their remnants, overtaken as a result of organized persecution, quickly capitulated. Near Poltava, the military power of Sweden on land was crushed and the outcome of the Northern War was a foregone conclusion.

In subsequent years, the Russian army completed the defeat of the Swedish troops in the Baltic states, captured Finland. The young Russian fleet, created by Peter, with its victories at sea, deprived Sweden of its sea power. At this stage of the war, especially in the battles of Gangut and Grengam, Peter I also made himself known as a talented naval commander. He skillfully organized the strategic interaction of naval forces with ground forces.

Peter I enriched not only strategy, but made an equally important contribution to the development of tactics. Deeply understanding the essence of the battle, and using the high combat and moral qualities of the Russian soldier, he became the first in the conditions of linear tactics, which was based on fire combat, found the right combination of fire and bayonet strike. In contrast to Western European views, Peter I considered fire only a means of preparing a bayonet attack. Since that time, the Russian infantry has gained fame as an unsurpassed strike force "with hostility."

An innovation was also introduced in the construction of a linear battle order. Peter I abandoned the even distribution of forces along the front, began to concentrate them on the most important directions, to allocate private and general reserves to build up the force of impact from the depths. For example, in the battle near Lesnaya, the main lines are reinforced by grenadier companies placed between them. In the battle of Poltava, each regiment was built in a new way, in two lines. The second line battalions essentially performed the role of private reserves, supporting the first line of their regiments in battle. In addition, Peter left a general reserve of 9 battalions in the fortified camp. Thus, he gave the order of battle a certain depth. For the convenience of maneuver in battle, the linear battle formation was often divided along the front.

Contrary to the patterns of linear tactics, when the troops, built in solid lines and strictly tied to their place in the battle formation, were deprived of the opportunity to maneuver and interact along the front, the Russian commander demanded: one wing, then attack the other wing of the enemy from the rear or flank. "" His improvements in the battle formation were aimed at achieving this requirement, as well as at eliminating the main flaws in linear tactics. By creating the depth of the battle formation and dismembering it, Peter I predetermined the further development of tactics, took the first steps towards deep combat tactics.

The newly adopted battle order and the high fighting qualities of the soldiers allowed the Russian army to abandon the existing rule - to fight only on open flat terrain. Moreover, seeing this as the weakness of the Western European armies, the Russian commander demanded that rugged and wooded terrain be used for battle.

The experience of combat operations in the Lesnaya region and in Finland clearly showed the advantages of the Russian army in combat on rough terrain. A new step forward was also made in organizing interaction on the battlefield between infantry, cavalry and artillery. Peter I abandoned the traditional arrangement of cavalry in columns on the flanks of the battle order. To increase their activity in battle, he built the cavalry, as well as the infantry, most often in deployed lines for a joint attack.

For closer cooperation between artillery and other branches of the armed forces, regular regimental artillery is being introduced into infantry and cavalry regiments. Field artillery began to unite into large batteries, which occupied firing positions in the most important directions.

Unusual and new in the field of tactics was the engineering preparation by Peter I of the battlefield near Poltava. The advanced position built by him in the form of a system of redoubts made it possible at the beginning of the battle to upset the battle formations of the enemy army, dismember its columns and beat the enemy in parts, and then, by deliberate withdrawal of the cavalry, bring him under the flank fire attack of the entire Russian army from the fortified camp.

The Russian regular army created by Peter I and the principles of military art developed by him predetermined the development of military affairs in Russia for many decades. The provisions of the Petrine Military Charter of 1716 were the basis for all subsequent charters of the Russian army until the end of the 18th century. They were supplemented and developed in the instructions and instructions of such outstanding commanders as P.A. Rumyantsev, A.V. Suvorov, M.I. Kutuzov. These great commanders considered themselves disciples of Peter, successors of the Russian military traditions laid down by him. The military heritage of Peter I was the source from which they and other leading figures of Russia drew the principles of organizing, educating and training the army, the rules of warfare and combat, and learned to win. A.V. Suvorov called him a great man and the first commander of his century in every respect.

The role of Peter I in the development of military art goes far beyond national boundaries. Not only in Russia, but also abroad, his military activities were studied, his experience was used. The Russian commander was one of the greatest military authorities for Napoleon, who carefully studied the history of the Northern War before going to Russia. Peter I was highly regarded as a military figure and commander by many other European commanders. His military-theoretical legacy was duly appreciated by domestic military science.

Battles and victories

“Peter attracts our attention first of all as a diplomat, as a warrior, as an organizer of the victory,” Academician E. Tarle said about him. Peter the Great created a new regular Russian army and navy, defeated the Swedes and "cut a window" to Europe. From the reign of Peter begins a new - imperial - period of our history.

The entire course of the 21-year war with Sweden was determined by the will and instructions of Tsar Peter. All campaigns and battles took place with his detailed instructions and under his guiding hand. And often - with his direct participation.

Pyotr Alekseevich Romanov, who went down in world history as Emperor Peter I the Great (1682-1725), was born on May 30, 1672 in Moscow in the family of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich (1645-1676) and his second wife Natalya Kirillovna Naryshkina. The death of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich and the accession of his eldest son Fyodor (from Tsarina Maria Ilyinichna, nee Miloslavskaya) pushed Tsarina Natalya Kirillovna and her relatives, the Naryshkins, into the background. Tsarina Natalya was forced to go to the village of Preobrazhenskoye near Moscow.

Young Peter had to fight for his right to be the autocrat of Russia. On his way there was a hostile court group, and at first he had to share the kingdom with his half-brother Ivan. The imperious and vain princess Sophia, who took care of the young princes (also Peter's half-sister), herself dreamed of the royal crown. So the young and fragile Peter, before achieving his goal, had to learn early lies, deceit, betrayal and slander and go through a series of intrigues, conspiracies and riots that were most dangerous for his life.

Hence his suspiciousness, distrust and suspicion of others, hence his recurring epileptic seizures from time to time - the result of a fright experienced in childhood. Therefore, distrust of his subjects, who could fail, fail to obey orders, betray or deceive, was simply in Peter's blood. Therefore, he had to control everything, if possible, take everything upon himself and do everything himself.

He is extremely cautious, he calculates his steps forward and tries to foresee the dangers that threaten him from everywhere and take appropriate measures. Peter practically did not receive any education (Nikita Zotov taught him to read and write), and the tsar had to acquire all his knowledge after ascending the throne and in the process of leading the country.

The people gathered on the road and waited for the leader.

Characteristics of pre-Petrine Russia by the historian S.M. Solovyov

The hobbies of the lad Peter were of a constructive nature: his lively mind was interested in military, naval, cannon and weapons business, he tried to delve into various technical inventions, was interested in science, but the main difference between the Russian tsar and all his contemporaries was, in our opinion, in motivation his activities. The main goal of Peter I was to bring Russia out of centuries of backwardness and to introduce it to the achievements of European progress, science and culture and to introduce it on an equal footing into the so-called. European concert.

There is nothing surprising in the fact that the king made a bet on foreigners. To command regiments and study military science We needed knowledgeable and experienced people. But among the Russian courtiers there were none. The German settlement, which was so close to his palace in Preobrazhensky, was Europe in miniature for young Peter. Since 1683, the Swiss Franz Lefort, the Holsteiner Theodor von Sommer, the Scot Patrick Gordon, the Dutchmen Franz Timmerman and Karsten Brandt have been in his entourage. With their help, "amusing" regiments were created - Preobrazhensky and Semenovsky, which later became the imperial guard, bombardment company, the amusing fortress of Preshburg was built.

Then, in 1686, the first amusing ships appeared near Preshburg on the Yauza - a large shnyak and a plow with boats. During these years, Peter became interested in all the sciences that were associated with military affairs. Under the guidance of the Dutchman Timmerman, he studied arithmetic, geometry, and military sciences. Having discovered a boat in a barn shed in Izmailovo, the sovereign was carried away by the idea of ​​​​creating a regular fleet. Soon, on Lake Pleshcheyevo, near the city of Pereyaslavl-Zalessky, a shipyard was founded and a “funny fleet” began to be built.

Communicating with foreigners, the king became a great admirer of the laid-back foreign life. Peter lit a German pipe, began attending German parties with dancing and drinking, and began an affair with Anna Mons. Peter's mother strongly opposed this. In order to reason with her 17-year-old son, Natalya Kirillovna decided to marry him to Evdokia Lopukhina, the daughter of the okolnichi. Peter did not contradict his mother, but he did not love his wife. Their marriage ended with the tonsure of Empress Evdokia as a nun and her exile to a monastery in 1698.

In 1689, Peter, as a result of a confrontation with his sister Sophia, became an independent ruler, imprisoning her in a monastery.

The priority of Peter I in the first years of autocracy was the continuation of the war with the Ottoman Empire and the Crimea. He decided instead of campaigns against the Crimea, undertaken during the reign of Princess Sophia, to strike at the Turkish fortress of Azov, located at the confluence of the Don River into the Sea of ​​Azov.

The first Azov campaign, which began in the spring of 1695, ended unsuccessfully in September of the same year due to the lack of a fleet and the unwillingness of the Russian army to operate far from supply bases. However, already in the autumn of 1695, preparations began for a new campaign. In Voronezh, the construction of a rowing Russian flotilla began. In a short time, a flotilla was built from different ships, led by the 36-gun ship "Apostle Peter". In May 1696, the 40,000-strong Russian army under the command of Generalissimo Shein again besieged Azov, only this time the Russian flotilla blocked the fortress from the sea. Peter I took part in the siege with the rank of captain in a galley. Without waiting for the assault, on July 19, 1696, the fortress surrendered. So the first exit of Russia to the southern seas was opened.

The result of the Azov campaigns was the capture of the fortress of Azov, the beginning of the construction of the port of Taganrog, the possibility of an attack on the Crimean peninsula from the sea, which significantly secured the southern borders of Russia. However, to get access to the Black Sea through Kerch Strait Peter failed: he remained under the control of the Ottoman Empire. Forces for the war with Turkey, as well as a full-fledged navy, Russia has not yet had.

To finance the construction of the fleet, new types of taxes were introduced: landowners were united in the so-called kumpanships of 10 thousand households, each of which had to build a ship with their own money. At this time, the first signs of dissatisfaction with the activities of Peter appear. The conspiracy of Zikler, who was trying to organize a streltsy uprising, was uncovered. In the summer of 1699, the first large Russian ship "Fortress" (46-gun) took the Russian ambassador to Constantinople for peace negotiations. The very existence of such a ship persuaded the Sultan to conclude peace in July 1700, which left the fortress of Azov to Russia.

During the construction of the fleet and the reorganization of the army, Peter was forced to rely on foreign specialists. Having completed the Azov campaigns, he decides to send young nobles for training abroad, and soon he himself sets off on his first trip to Europe.

As part of the Great Embassy (1697-1698), which had the goal of finding allies to continue the war with the Ottoman Empire, the tsar traveled incognito under the name of Peter Mikhailov.

Peter I with the sign of the Order of St. Andrew the First-Called on a blue St. Andrew's ribbon and a star on his chest
Artist J.-M. Natya. 1717

Peter studied artillery in Brandenburg, built ships at Dutch and English shipyards, visited mines, factories, government agencies, met with the monarchs of European countries. For the first time, the Russian tsar undertook a journey outside the borders of his state. The embassy recruited several hundred shipbuilding specialists to Russia and purchased military and other equipment.

He was primarily interested in the technical achievements of Western countries, and not in the legal system. Having visited the English parliament incognito, where the speeches of the deputies before King William III were translated for him, the tsar said: “It’s fun to hear when the sons of the patronymic tell the king clearly the truth, this should be learned from the British.”

And yet, Peter was an adherent of absolutism, considered himself the anointed of God and vigilantly monitored the observance of his royal privileges. He was a man who early "saw through" life from its negative side, but also early matured from the consciousness of the state burden.

The English historian J. Macaulay Trevenyan (1876-1962), comparing Tsar Peter with King Charles, wrote that "Peter, for all his savagery, was a statesman, while Charles XII was just a warrior and, moreover, not wise."

Peter himself put it this way:

Which one great hero who fights for his own glory, and not for the defense of the fatherland, wanting to be the benefactor of the universe!

Julius Caesar, in his opinion, was a more reasonable leader, and the followers of Alexander the Great, who "wanted to be a giant of the whole world", were waiting for "unfortunate success." And his catchphrase: "Brother Charles always dreams of being Alexander, but I am not Darius."

The Great Embassy did not achieve its main goal: it was not possible to create a coalition against the Ottoman Empire due to the preparation of a number of European powers for the War of Spanish inheritance(1701-1714). However, thanks to this war, favorable conditions were created for Russia's struggle for the Baltic. Thus, there was a reorientation of Russia's foreign policy from the south to the north.

After returning from the Grand Embassy, ​​the tsar began to prepare for a war with Sweden for access to the Baltic Sea. In 1699, the Northern Alliance was created against the Swedish king Charles XII, which, in addition to Russia, included Denmark-Norway, Saxony and, since 1704, the Commonwealth, headed by the Saxon elector and the Polish king Augustus II. The driving force behind the union was the desire of August II to take away Livonia from Sweden, Frederick IV of Denmark - Schleswig and Skane. For help, they promised Russia the return of lands that previously belonged to the Russians (Ingermanland and Karelia). No one then suspected that the Great Northern War (1700-1721) would last for twenty-one years.

Two giant figures towered in the first quarter of the 18th century, obscuring all the acting characters of both the Northern War and Europe in general - the Russian reformer Tsar Peter I and the Swedish warrior king Charles XII. Each of them in their own country and in their field left an indelible mark in the minds of their descendants, although not always a grateful memory.

Fate brought them into a cruel and uncompromising confrontation, from which one came out victorious and lived to the unanimous and universal reverence and recognition of his subjects, and the second found his premature and dramatic death, either from an enemy bullet, or as a result of an insidious conspiracy, providing his subjects with a pretext for fierce and still ongoing disputes regarding their deeds and personality.

Peter I demonstrated in the confrontation with Charles XII the genuine art of a talented and cautious (but far from cowardly, as Charles XII mistakenly believed) strategist. It seems to us that the king already at an early stage unraveled the explosive and carried away character of the king, who was ready to put everything at stake for the sake of a fleeting victory and satisfaction of his vanity (a vivid example of this is the assault on the insignificant fortress of Veprik), and countered it with cautious maneuvering, far-sightedness and cold calculation. “The search for a general battle is extremely dangerous, because in one hour the whole thing can be refuted,” he instructs the diplomatic representatives of Baron J.R. who were in Poland. Patkul and Prince G.F. Dolgorukov.

Peter cherishes his army and constantly reminds his generals to be careful in contacts with the Swedish army. “From the enemy to be in fear and to have every caution and send for the sake of conducting frequent parties and having truly found out about the enemy’s condition and his strength and asking God for help, repair the enemy as far as possible,” he teaches the quite experienced General Rodion Bour in 1707 d. “Non-fear harms a person everywhere,” he never tires of repeating on the eve of Poltava.

At the same time, he correctly and boldly recommends to his generals not to sit behind the walls of fortresses, because sooner or later any fortress surrenders or is taken by storm, and therefore it is necessary to seek meetings with the enemy in open battle: “True, the fortress rebuffs the enemy, but the Europeans not for long. Victory will be decided by the art of war and the courage of the commanders and the fearlessness of the soldiers ... It is convenient to sit behind the wall against the Asians.

Peter is a talented diplomat, his policy towards all European powers was balanced and cautious. There is no hint of adventurism in his diplomacy. He knew, for example, that Augustus II was an unreliable ally who deceived him at every turn, but Peter understood that he had no other allies. And he needed August, on the one hand, to distract the Swedes from the invasion of Russia longer, and on the other, as a counterbalance to Stanislav Leshchinsky, the henchman of Charles XII, in order to have at least part of the Poles on his side. After Poltava, he worked hard and hard to recreate the destroyed anti-Swedish coalition and achieved success. He also skillfully played on the interest of Holland and England in trade relations with Russia and significantly neutralized the hostility of these countries to his plans.

And one more thing: Peter was constantly learning, especially from Karl and in general from the Swedish army and state. The Narva of 1700 served him as a great lesson. Peter looked at the war as a school for the people, in which teachers (Swedes) gave hard lessons to Russians, and they severely beat them for a poorly learned lesson, but then the students must study more diligently until they start beating their teachers.

The result of his far-reaching conclusions was the creation of a modern combat-ready army and navy. At the same time, suppressing pride, he was ready to admit his mistakes, as, for example, he did after the unsuccessful Prut campaign: “Now I am in the same condition as my brother Karl was at Poltava. I made the same mistake as he did: I entered the enemy's land without taking the necessary measures to maintain my army.

Peter was a very gifted military leader. Of course, his military abilities were discovered after Narva. Gaining experience, he became more and more convinced that it was dangerous to blindly rely on foreign generals - what a mercenary like Field Marshal de Croix cost him near Narva! In the future, he increasingly began to take on the most important decisions, relying on the advice and recommendations of his associates. After Narva, almost the entire course of the war was determined by the will and instructions of Tsar Peter, and all major campaigns and battles did not take place without his knowledge, detailed instructions and guiding hand.

As the clearest evidence of Peter's talent as a commander, one can cite his idea of ​​​​erecting 10 redoubts in the forefield of the Poltava battle, which played almost decisive role in the defeat of the Swedish army. And his idea of ​​​​artillery as a particularly important type of weapon? It was thanks to him that powerful artillery appeared in the Russian army, which was given exceptionally great importance both during the sieges of fortresses, and in field and naval battles. Recall what a big role artillery played in the battle of Poltava, in which the Swedish army was forced to oppose the Russians with only a few guns, and even those without charges.

Of course, the invited foreigners greatly contributed to Peter's victories, but all or almost all military tasks were solved by the tsar himself and only by him. Turenne, as he said, over time he had his own, Russians - only there was not a single Sully!

The enumeration of Peter's military merits could be continued. Peter understood very well: if he died in battle, his whole work would be lost. Nevertheless, we recall that the tsar, already during the capture of Shlisselburg and Noteburg, was nearby, in the same ranks, with the besiegers of these fortresses. Near Poltava, he was ahead of his regiments, repulsing the attack of Levenhaupt's infantrymen, and in the battle they shot his hat. What about Lesnaya, Nyuenschantz, Narva (1704), Gangut (1714)? Was he not there at the head or in front of the troops? Peter took a direct part in naval battles.

In 1710, Turkey intervened in the war. After the defeat in the Prut campaign in 1711, Russia returned Azov to Turkey and destroyed Taganrog, but due to this, it was possible to conclude another truce with the Turks.

On August 30 (September 10), 1721, the Peace of Nystadt was concluded between Russia and Sweden, which ended the 21-year war. Russia received access to the Baltic Sea, annexed the territory of Ingria, part of Karelia, Estonia and Livonia. Russia became a great European power, in commemoration of which, on October 22 (November 2), 1721, Peter, at the request of the senators, took the title of Father of the Fatherland, Emperor of All Russia.

Compared with Charles XII, with the legacy of Peter the Great in Russia, the situation is still more or less unambiguous. With only rare exceptions, he is criticized for carrying out his reforms too quickly and mercilessly, goading and spurring Russia like a driven horse, paying no attention to either human losses or material and moral costs. Now it is easy to say that the introduction of the country to European values ​​could have been carried out more deliberately, systematically and gradually, without the use of violence. But the question is: did Peter have such an opportunity? And would Russia not have slipped to the margins of world development and become an easy prey for its European neighbors, if it were not for Peter with his accelerated and costly reforms?

You are fighting not for Peter, but for the state handed over to Peter. And about Peter, know that life is not dear to him, if only Russia lived, her glory, honor and prosperity!

The famous appeal of Peter to the soldiers in front of Poltava

Peter I, who constantly pushed his ideas to his assistants and ministers, was not truly understood by any of his contemporaries. The king was doomed to loneliness - such is always the lot of people of genius. And he was outraged and unbalanced.

Peter reformed government controlled, reforms were carried out in the army, a navy was created, a reform of church administration was carried out, aimed at eliminating church jurisdiction autonomous from the state and subordinating the Russian church hierarchy to the Emperor. Financial reform was also carried out, measures were taken to develop industry and trade.

Secular educational institutions began to appear, translations of many books into Russian, and the first Russian newspaper was founded. Success in the service of Peter made the nobles dependent on education.

Peter was clearly aware of the need for enlightenment, and took a number of decisive measures to this end. On January 14, 1700, a school of mathematical and navigational sciences was opened in Moscow. In 1701-1721. artillery, engineering and medical schools were opened in Moscow, engineering school and the Maritime Academy in St. Petersburg, mining schools at the Olonets and Ural factories. In 1705, the first gymnasium in Russia was opened. The goals of mass education were to be served by the digital schools created by decree of 1714 in provincial cities, called upon "to teach children of all ranks to read and write, numbers and geometry." It was supposed to create two such schools in each province, where education was supposed to be free. For soldiers' children, garrison schools were opened, for the training of priests, starting from 1721, a network of theological schools was created. Peter's decrees introduced compulsory education for nobles and clergy, but a similar measure for the urban population met with fierce resistance and was canceled. Peter's attempt to create an all-estate elementary school failed (the creation of a network of schools ceased after his death, most of the digital schools under his successors were redesigned into class schools for the training of the clergy), but nevertheless, during his reign, the foundations were laid for the spread of education in Russia.

Peter created new printing houses, in which for 1700-1725. 1312 book titles were printed (twice as many as in the entire previous history of Russian book printing). Thanks to the rise of printing, paper consumption increased from 4,000 to 8,000 sheets at the end of the 17th century to 50,000 sheets in 1719.

There have been changes in the Russian language, which included 4.5 thousand new words borrowed from European languages.

In 1724, Peter approved the charter of the Academy of Sciences being organized (opened in 1725 after his death).

Of particular importance was the construction of stone St. Petersburg, in which foreign architects took part and which was carried out according to the plan developed by the tsar. He created a new urban environment with previously unfamiliar forms of life and pastime (theatre, masquerades).

The reforms carried out by Peter I affected not only politics, economics, but also art. Peter invited foreign artists to Russia and at the same time sent talented young people to study "arts" abroad. In the second quarter of the XVIII century. "Peter's pensioners" began to return to Russia, bringing with them new artistic experience and acquired skills.

Peter tried to change the position of women in Russian society. He by special decrees (1700, 1702 and 1724) forbade forced marriage and marriage. Legislative prescriptions 1696-1704 about public festivities introduced the obligation to participate in the celebrations and festivities of all Russians, including "female".

From the "old" in the structure of the nobility under Peter, the former serfdom of the service class remained unchanged through the personal service of each service person to the state. But in this enslavement, its form has somewhat changed. Now they were obliged to serve in the regular regiments and in the navy, as well as in the civil service in all those administrative and judicial institutions that were transformed from the old ones and arose again. The decree on uniform inheritance of 1714 regulated the legal status of the nobility and secured the legal merger of such forms of land ownership as an estate and an estate.

Portrait of Peter I
Artist P. Delaroche. 1838

Peasants from the reign of Peter I began to be divided into serfs (landlords), monastic and state peasants. All three categories were recorded in the revision tales and subjected to a poll tax. Since 1724, the owner's peasants could leave their villages to work and for other needs only with the written permission of the master, witnessed by the zemstvo commissar and the colonel of the regiment that was stationed in the area. Thus, the landowner's power over the personality of the peasants received even more opportunities to increase, taking both the personality and property of the privately owned peasant into their unaccountable disposal. From that time on, this new state of the rural worker received the name of the "serf" or "revisionist" soul.

In general, Peter's reforms were aimed at strengthening the state and familiarizing the elite with European culture while strengthening absolutism. In the course of the reforms, Russia's technical and economic backwardness from a number of other European states was overcome, access to the Baltic Sea was won, and transformations were carried out in many areas of Russian society. Gradually, among the nobility, a different system of values, worldview, aesthetic ideas took shape, which was fundamentally different from the values ​​and worldview of most representatives of other estates. At the same time, the people's forces were extremely exhausted, the preconditions were created (the Decree on the succession to the throne of 1722) for the crisis of the supreme power, which led to the "epoch palace coups". The decree of 1722 violated the usual way of succession to the throne, but Peter did not have time to appoint an heir before his death.

In the last years of his reign, Peter was very ill. In the summer of 1724, his illness intensified, in September he felt better, but after a while the attacks became more painful. (An autopsy after death showed the following: “a sharp narrowing in the region of the back of the urethra, hardening of the neck of the bladder and anton fire.” Death followed from inflammation of the bladder, which turned into gangrene due to urinary retention).

In October, Peter went to inspect the Ladoga Canal, against the advice of his life physician Blumentrost. From Olonets, Peter traveled to Staraya Russa and in November went to St. Petersburg by water. At Lakhta, he had to, standing waist-deep in water, rescue a boat with soldiers that had run aground. The attacks of the disease intensified, but Peter, not paying attention to them, continued to study state affairs. On January 17, 1725, he had such a bad time that he ordered a camp church to be built in the room next to his bedroom, and on January 22 he confessed. The strength began to leave the patient, he no longer screamed, as before, from severe pain, but only moaned.

At the beginning of the sixth hour in the morning on January 28 (February 8), 1725, Peter the Great died in his Winter Palace near the Winter Canal. He was buried in the Cathedral of the Peter and Paul Fortress in St. Petersburg. The palace, cathedral, fortress and city were built by him.

BESPALOV A.V., Doctor of History, Professor

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He was the Supreme Commander during the Great Patriotic War, in which our country won, and made all strategic decisions.

Kotlyarevsky Petr Stepanovich

General Kotlyarevsky, son of a priest in the village of Olkhovatka, Kharkov province. He went from private to general in the tsarist army. He can be called the great-grandfather of the Russian special forces. He carried out truly unique operations ... His name is worthy of being included in the list of the greatest commanders of Russia

Antonov Alexey Innokentievich

He became famous as a talented staff officer. Participated in the development of almost all significant operations of the Soviet troops in the Great Patriotic War since December 1942.
The only one of all the awarded Soviet military leaders with the Order of Victory in the rank of army general, and the only Soviet holder of the order who was not awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

Grachev Pavel Sergeevich

The hero of the USSR. May 5, 1988 "for the performance of combat missions with minimal casualties and for the professional command of a controlled formation and the successful actions of the 103rd Airborne Division, in particular, to occupy the strategically important pass Satukandav (Khost province) during the military operation" Highway " "Received the Gold Star medal No. 11573. Commander of the Airborne Forces of the USSR. In total, during his military service, he made 647 parachute jumps, some of them while testing new equipment.
He was shell-shocked 8 times, received several wounds. Suppressed the armed coup in Moscow and thereby saved the system of democracy. As Minister of Defense, he made great efforts to preserve the remnants of the army - a task that few people had in the history of Russia. Only because of the collapse of the army and a decrease in the number of military equipment in the Armed Forces, he could not end the Chechen war victoriously.

Barclay de Tolly Mikhail Bogdanovich

Participated in the Russian-Turkish war of 1787-91 and the Russian-Swedish war of 1788-90. He distinguished himself during the war with France in 1806-07 at Preussisch-Eylau, from 1807 he commanded a division. During the Russo-Swedish War of 1808-09 he commanded a corps; led a successful crossing through the Kvarken Strait in the winter of 1809. In 1809-10, the Governor-General of Finland. From January 1810 to September 1812, the Minister of War, did a lot of work to strengthen the Russian army, singled out the intelligence and counterintelligence service into a separate production. In the Patriotic War of 1812 he commanded the 1st Western Army, and he, as Minister of War, was subordinate to the 2nd Western Army. In the conditions of a significant superiority of the enemy, he showed the talent of a commander and successfully carried out the withdrawal and connection of the two armies, which earned such words from M.I. Kutuzov as THANK YOU FATHER !!! SAVE THE ARMY!!! SAVE RUSSIA!!!. However, the retreat caused discontent in the noble circles and the army, and on August 17, Barclay handed over the command of the armies to M.I. Kutuzov. In the Battle of Borodino, he commanded the right wing of the Russian army, showing stamina and skill in defense. He recognized the position near Moscow chosen by L. L. Bennigsen as unsuccessful and supported the proposal of M. I. Kutuzov to leave Moscow at the military council in Fili. In September 1812 he left the army due to illness. In February 1813 he was appointed commander of the 3rd, and then the Russian-Prussian army, which he successfully commanded during the foreign campaigns of the Russian army of 1813-14 (Kulm, Leipzig, Paris). He was buried in the Beklor estate in Livonia (now Jõgeveste Estonia)

Paskevich Ivan Fyodorovich

The armies under his command defeated Persia in the war of 1826-1828 and completely defeated the Turkish troops in Transcaucasia in the war of 1828-1829.

Awarded all 4 degrees of the Order of St. George and the Order of St. Apostle Andrew the First-Called with diamonds.

Peter I the Great

Emperor of All Russia (1721-1725), before that, Tsar of All Russia. He won the Great Northern War (1700-1721). This victory finally opened free access to the Baltic Sea. Under his rule, Russia (the Russian Empire) became a Great Power.

Barclay de Tolly Mikhail Bogdanovich

In front of the Kazan Cathedral there are two statues of the saviors of the fatherland. Saving the army, exhausting the enemy, the battle of Smolensk - this is more than enough.

Uvarov Fedor Petrovich

At the age of 27 he was promoted to general. Participated in the campaigns of 1805-1807 and in the battles on the Danube in 1810. In 1812 he commanded the 1st artillery corps in the army of Barclay de Tolly, and later - the entire cavalry of the combined armies.

Yuri Vsevolodovich

Suvorov Alexander Vasilievich

Outstanding Russian commander. He successfully defended the interests of Russia both from external aggression and outside the country.

Bennigsen Leonty Leontievich

Surprisingly, a Russian general who did not speak Russian, who made up the glory of Russian weapons at the beginning of the 19th century.

He made a significant contribution to the suppression of the Polish uprising.

Commander-in-Chief in the Battle of Tarutino.

He made a significant contribution to the campaign of 1813 (Dresden and Leipzig).

Osterman-Tolstoy Alexander Ivanovich

One of the brightest "field" generals of the early 19th century. Hero of the battles of Preussisch-Eylau, Ostrovno and Kulm.

Kotlyarevsky Petr Stepanovich

Hero of the Russo-Persian War of 1804-1813
"General Meteor" and "Caucasian Suvorov".
He fought not in numbers, but in skill - first, 450 Russian soldiers attacked 1,200 Persian sardars in the Migri fortress and took it, then 500 of our soldiers and Cossacks attacked 5,000 askers at the crossing over the Araks. More than 700 enemies were exterminated, only 2,500 Persian fighters managed to escape from ours.
In both cases, our losses are less than 50 killed and up to 100 wounded.
Further, in the war against the Turks, with a swift attack, 1000 Russian soldiers defeated the 2000th garrison of the Akhalkalaki fortress.
Then, again in the Persian direction, he cleared Karabakh of the enemy, and then, with 2,200 soldiers, defeated Abbas-Mirza with a 30,000-strong army near Aslanduz, a village near the Araks River. In two battles, he destroyed more than 10,000 enemies, including English advisers and artillerymen.
As usual, Russian losses were 30 killed and 100 wounded.
Kotlyarevsky won most of his victories in night assaults on fortresses and enemy camps, preventing the enemies from coming to their senses.
The last campaign - 2000 Russians against 7000 Persians to the fortress of Lankaran, where Kotlyarevsky almost died during the assault, lost consciousness at times from blood loss and pain from wounds, but still, until the final victory, he commanded the troops as soon as he regained consciousness, and after that he was forced to be treated for a long time and move away from military affairs.
His feats for the glory of Russia are much cooler than the "300 Spartans" - for our generals and warriors have repeatedly beaten a 10-fold superior enemy, and suffered minimal losses, saving Russian lives.

Rokhlin Lev Yakovlevich

He headed the 8th Guards Army Corps in Chechnya. Under his leadership, a number of districts of Grozny were taken, including the presidential palace. For participation in Chechen campaign was nominated for the title of Hero of the Russian Federation, but refused to accept it, saying that "he has no moral right to receive this award for military operations on the territory of his own country."

Chuikov Vasily Ivanovich

"There is a city in vast Russia to which my heart is given, it went down in history as STALINGRAD ..." V.I. Chuikov

Chapaev Vasily Ivanovich

01/28/1887 - 09/05/1919 life. Head of a division of the Red Army, participant in the First World War and the Civil War.
Cavalier of three St. George's crosses and the St. George medal. Cavalier of the Order of the Red Banner.
On his account:
- Organization of the county Red Guard of 14 detachments.
- Participation in the campaign against General Kaledin (near Tsaritsyn).
- Participation in the campaign of the Special Army against Uralsk.
- An initiative to reorganize the Red Guard detachments into two regiments of the Red Army: them. Stepan Razin and them. Pugachev, united in the Pugachev brigade under the command of Chapaev.
- Participation in battles with the Czechoslovaks and the People's Army, from whom Nikolaevsk was recaptured, renamed in honor of the brigade in Pugachevsk.
- Since September 19, 1918, the commander of the 2nd Nikolaev division.
- From February 1919 - Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Nikolaevsky district.
- From May 1919 - brigade commander of the Special Alexander-Gai Brigade.
- Since June - the head of the 25th Infantry Division, which participated in the Bugulma and Belebeev operations against Kolchak's army.
- The capture by the forces of his division on June 9, 1919 of Ufa.
- The capture of Uralsk.
- A deep raid by a Cossack detachment with an attack on the well-guarded (about 1000 bayonets) and located in the deep rear of the city of Lbischensk (now the village of Chapaev, West Kazakhstan region of Kazakhstan), where the headquarters of the 25th division was located.

Stalin (Dzhugashvili) Joseph Vissarionovich

He was the Supreme Commander of all the armed forces of the Soviet Union. Thanks to his talent as a Commander and an Outstanding Statesman, the USSR won the bloodiest WAR in the history of mankind. Most of the battles of the Second World War were won with his direct participation in the development of their plans.

Antonov Alexey Inokent'evich

Chief strategist of the USSR in 1943-45, practically unknown to society
"Kutuzov" World War II

Humble and dedicated. Victorious. The author of all operations since the spring of 1943 and the victory itself. Others gained fame - Stalin and the commanders of the fronts.

Miloradovich

Bagration, Miloradovich, Davydov - some very special breed of people. Now they don't do that. The heroes of 1812 were distinguished by complete recklessness, complete contempt for death. And after all, it was General Miloradovich, who went through all the wars for Russia without a single scratch, who became the first victim of individual terror. After Kakhovsky's shot on Senate Square This is the way the Russian revolution proceeded, all the way to the basement of the Ipatiev House. Removing the best.

Slashchev-Krymsky Yakov Alexandrovich

Defense of the Crimea in 1919-20 “The Reds are my enemies, but they did the main thing - my business: they revived great Russia!” (General Slashchev-Krymsky).

Dragomirov Mikhail Ivanovich

Brilliant crossing of the Danube in 1877
- Creation of a tactics textbook
- Creation of the original concept of military education
- Leadership of the NAGSH in 1878-1889
- Huge influence in military matters for the whole 25th anniversary

Kazarsky Alexander Ivanovich

Captain Lieutenant. Member of the Russian-Turkish war of 1828-29. He distinguished himself in the capture of Anapa, then Varna, commanding the Rival transport. After that, he was promoted to lieutenant commander and appointed captain of the Mercury brig. On May 14, 1829, the 18-gun brig "Mercury" was overtaken by two Turkish battleships"Selimiye" and "Real Bey" Having accepted an unequal battle, the brig was able to immobilize both Turkish flagships, one of which was the commander of the Ottoman fleet himself. Subsequently, an officer from the Real Bey wrote: “In the continuation of the battle, the commander of the Russian frigate (the infamous Raphael, which surrendered without a fight a few days earlier) told me that the captain of this brig would not give up, and if he lost hope, then he would blow up the brig If in the great deeds of ancient and our times there are feats of courage, then this act should overshadow all of them, and the name of this hero is worthy to be inscribed in gold letters on the temple of Glory: he is called Lieutenant Commander Kazarsky, and the brig is "Mercury"

Dzhugashvili Joseph Vissarionovich

Gathered and coordinated a team of talented military leaders

Shein Mikhail Borisovich

Governor Shein - the hero and leader of the unprecedented defense of Smolensk in 1609-16011. This fortress decided a lot in the fate of Russia!

Romanov Alexander I Pavlovich

The actual commander in chief of the allied armies that liberated Europe in 1813-1814. "He took Paris, he founded a lyceum." The Great Leader who crushed Napoleon himself. (The shame of Austerlitz is not comparable to the tragedy of 1941.)

Kondratenko Roman Isidorovich

Warrior of honor without fear and reproach, the soul of the defense of Port Arthur.

Platov Matvei Ivanovich

Troop chieftain Don Cossack army. He began active military service at the age of 13. A member of several military companies, he is best known as the commander of the Cossack troops during the Patriotic War of 1812 and during the subsequent Foreign Campaign of the Russian Army. Thanks to the successful actions of the Cossacks under his command, Napoleon's saying went down in history:
- Happy is the commander who has Cossacks. If I had an army of Cossacks alone, then I would conquer all of Europe.

Rurikovich Svyatoslav Igorevich

The great commander of the ancient Russian period. The first Kyiv prince known to us, having a Slavic name. The last pagan ruler of the Old Russian state. He glorified Russia as a great military power in the campaigns of 965-971. Karamzin called him "Alexander (Macedonian) of our ancient history." The prince freed the Slavic tribes from vassalage from the Khazars, defeating the Khazar Khaganate in 965. According to the Tale of Bygone Years in 970 during Russian-Byzantine war Svyatoslav managed to win the battle of Arcadiopol, having 10,000 soldiers under his command, against 100,000 Greeks. But at the same time, Svyatoslav led the life of a simple warrior: “On campaigns, he didn’t carry carts or cauldrons with him, he didn’t cook meat, but, thinly slicing horse meat, or beast, or beef and roasting it on coals, he ate like that; he didn’t have a tent , but slept, spreading a sweatshirt with a saddle in their heads - the same were all the rest of his warriors... And sent to other lands [envoys, as a rule, before declaring war] with the words: "I'm going to you!" (According to PVL)

Belov Pavel Alekseevich

He led the cavalry corps during the Second World War. It proved to be excellent during the Battle of Moscow, especially in defensive battles near Tula. He especially distinguished himself in the Rzhev-Vyazemsky operation, where he left the encirclement after 5 months of stubborn fighting.

Romanov Mikhail Timofeevich

The heroic defense of Mogilev, for the first time all-round anti-tank defense of the city.

Chernyakhovsky Ivan Danilovich

The only one of the commanders, who on 06/22/1941 carried out the order of the Stavka, counterattacked the Germans, threw them back in his sector and went on the offensive.

Stalin (Dzhugashvilli) Joseph

Benigsen Leonty

An unfairly forgotten commander. Having won several battles against Napoleon and his marshals, he drew two battles with Napoleon, losing one battle. Participated in the battle of Borodino. One of the contenders for the post of commander-in-chief of the Russian army during the Patriotic War of 1812!

Voronov Nikolai Nikolaevich

N.N. Voronov - commander of the artillery of the Armed Forces of the USSR. For outstanding services to the Motherland Voronov N.N. the first in the Soviet Union were awarded the military ranks of "Marshal of Artillery" (1943) and "Chief Marshal of Artillery" (1944).
... carried out the general leadership of the liquidation of the Nazi group surrounded near Stalingrad.

Bagration, Denis Davydov...

The war of 1812, the glorious names of Bagration, Barclay, Davydov, Platov. An example of honor and courage.

Vladimir Svyatoslavich

981 - the conquest of Cherven and Przemysl. 983 - the conquest of the Yatvags. 984 - the conquest of the natives. 985 - successful campaigns against the Bulgars, the taxation of the Khazar Khaganate. 988 - the conquest of the Taman Peninsula. 991 - the subjugation of the White Croats. 992 - successfully defended Cherven Rus in the war against Poland. in addition, the saint is equal to the apostles.

Prophetic Oleg

Your shield is on the gates of Tsaregrad.
A.S. Pushkin.

Shein Alexey Semyonovich

The first Russian generalissimo. Leader of the Azov campaigns of Peter I.

Baklanov Yakov Petrovich

The Cossack general, the "thunderstorm of the Caucasus", Yakov Petrovich Baklanov, one of the most colorful heroes of the endless Caucasian war of the century before last, fits perfectly into the image of Russia familiar to the West. A gloomy two-meter hero, a tireless persecutor of mountaineers and Poles, an enemy of political correctness and democracy in all their manifestations. But it was precisely such people who obtained the most difficult victory for the empire in a long-term confrontation with the inhabitants of the North Caucasus and the unkind local nature.

Kolchak Alexander Vasilievich

Alexander Vasilievich Kolchak (November 4 (November 16), 1874, St. Petersburg, - February 7, 1920, Irkutsk) - Russian oceanographer, one of the largest polar explorers of the late XIX - early XX centuries, military and political figure, naval commander, active member of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society (1906), admiral (1918), leader of the White movement, Supreme Ruler of Russia.

Member of the Russo-Japanese War, Defense of Port Arthur. During the First World War, he commanded the mine division of the Baltic Fleet (1915-1916), the Black Sea Fleet (1916-1917). Georgievsky Cavalier.
The leader of the White movement both on a national scale and directly in the East of Russia. As the Supreme Ruler of Russia (1918-1920), he was recognized by all the leaders of the White movement, "de jure" - by the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, "de facto" - by the Entente states.
Supreme Commander of the Russian Army.

Istomin Vladimir Ivanovich

Istomin, Lazarev, Nakhimov, Kornilov - Great people who served and fought in the city of Russian glory - Sevastopol!

Yudenich Nikolai Nikolaevich

October 3, 2013 marks the 80th anniversary of the death in the French city of Cannes of a Russian military figure, commander of the Caucasian Front, hero of Mukden, Sarykamysh, Van, Erzerum (due to the complete defeat of the 90,000th Turkish army of Russia, Constantinople and the Bosphorus with the Dardanelles retreated), the savior of the Armenian people from the complete Turkish genocide, holder of three orders of George and the highest order of France, the Grand Cross of the Order of the Legion of Honor, General Nikolai Nikolayevich Yudenich.

Budyonny Semyon Mikhailovich

Commander of the First Cavalry Army of the Red Army during the Civil War. The First Cavalry Army, which he led until October 1923, played an important role in a number of major operations of the Civil War to defeat the troops of Denikin and Wrangel in Northern Tavria and the Crimea.

Kolchak Alexander Vasilievich

A person who combines the totality of knowledge of a naturalist, scientist and great strategist.

Oktyabrsky Philip Sergeevich

Admiral, Hero of the Soviet Union. During the Great Patriotic War, the commander of the Black Sea Fleet. One of the leaders of the Defense of Sevastopol in 1941 - 1942, as well as the Crimean operation of 1944. During the Great Patriotic War, Vice Admiral F.S. Oktyabrsky was one of the leaders of the heroic defense of Odessa and Sevastopol. Being the commander of the Black Sea Fleet, at the same time in 1941-1942 he was the commander of the Sevastopol Defense Region.

Three orders of Lenin
three orders of the Red Banner
two orders of Ushakov 1st degree
Order of Nakhimov 1st class
Order of Suvorov 2nd class
Order of the Red Star
medals

Kolchak Alexander Vasilievich

Prominent military leader, scientist, traveler and discoverer. Admiral of the Russian Fleet, whose talent was highly appreciated by Sovereign Nicholas II. The Supreme Ruler of Russia during the Civil War, a real Patriot of his Fatherland, a man of tragic, interesting fate. One of those military men who tried to save Russia during the years of unrest, in the most difficult conditions, being in very difficult international diplomatic conditions.

Vasilevsky Alexander Mikhailovich

Alexander Mikhailovich Vasilevsky (September 18 (30), 1895 - December 5, 1977) - Soviet military leader, Marshal of the Soviet Union (1943), chief of the General Staff, member of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command. During the Great Patriotic War, as Chief of the General Staff (1942-1945), he took an active part in the development and implementation of almost all major operations on the Soviet-German front. From February 1945 he commanded the 3rd Belorussian Front, led the assault on Königsberg. In 1945, the commander-in-chief of the Soviet troops on Far East in the war with Japan. One of the greatest commanders of World War II.
In 1949-1953 - Minister of the Armed Forces and Minister of War of the USSR. Twice Hero of the Soviet Union (1944, 1945), holder of two Orders of Victory (1944, 1945).

Dolgorukov Yury Alekseevich

An outstanding statesman and military leader of the era of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, prince. Commanding the Russian army in Lithuania, in 1658 he defeated hetman V. Gonsevsky in the battle of Verki, taking him prisoner. This was the first time after 1500 when a Russian governor captured the hetman. In 1660, at the head of an army sent under Mogilev, besieged by the Polish-Lithuanian troops, he won a strategic victory over the enemy on the Basya River near the village of Gubarevo, forcing hetmans P. Sapieha and S. Czarnetsky to retreat from the city. Thanks to the actions of Dolgorukov, the "front line" in Belarus along the Dnieper was preserved until the end of the war of 1654-1667. In 1670, he led an army sent to fight against the Cossacks of Stenka Razin, in the shortest possible time suppressed the Cossack rebellion, which later led to the Don Cossacks swearing allegiance to the tsar and the transformation of the Cossacks from robbers into "sovereign servants".

Muravyov-Karssky Nikolai Nikolaevich

One of the most successful commanders of the middle of the 19th century in the Turkish direction.

Hero of the first capture of Kars (1828), leader of the second capture of Kars (the biggest success of the Crimean War, 1855, which made it possible to end the war without territorial losses for Russia).

Denikin Anton Ivanovich

Russian military leader, political and public figure, writer, memoirist, publicist and military documentary.
Member of the Russo-Japanese War. One of the most productive generals of the Russian Imperial Army during the First World War. Commander of the 4th Rifle "Iron" Brigade (1914-1916, since 1915 - deployed under his command into a division), 8th Army Corps (1916-1917). Lieutenant General of the General Staff (1916), commander of the Western and Southwestern Fronts (1917). An active participant in the military congresses of 1917, an opponent of the democratization of the army. He expressed support for the Kornilov speech, for which he was arrested by the Provisional Government, a member of the Berdichevsky and Bykhov sittings of generals (1917).
One of the main leaders of the White movement during the Civil War, its leader in the South of Russia (1918-1920). He achieved the greatest military and political results among all the leaders of the White movement. Pioneer, one of the main organizers, and then commander of the Volunteer Army (1918-1919). Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the South of Russia (1919-1920), Deputy Supreme Ruler and Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army, Admiral Kolchak (1919-1920).
Since April 1920 - an emigrant, one of the main political figures of the Russian emigration. The author of the memoirs "Essays on Russian Troubles" (1921-1926) - a fundamental historical and biographical work about the Civil War in Russia, the memoirs "The Old Army" (1929-1931), the autobiographical story "The Way of the Russian Officer" (published in 1953) and a number of other works.

Rumyantsev Petr Alexandrovich

Russian military and statesman, during the entire reign of Catherine II (1761-96) who ruled Little Russia. During the Seven Years' War he commanded the capture of Kolberg. For the victories over the Turks at Larga, Kagul and others, which led to the conclusion of the Kyuchuk-Kainarji peace, he was awarded the title of "Transdanubian". In 1770 he received the rank of Field Marshal. Cavalier of the orders of the Russian St. Andrew the Apostle, St. Alexander Nevsky, St. George 1st class and St. Vladimir I degree, the Prussian Black Eagle and St. Anna I degree

Suvorov Mikhail Vasilievich

The only one who can be called GENERALLISIMUS ... Bagration, Kutuzov are his students ...

Golenishchev-Kutuzov Mikhail Illarionovich

(1745-1813).
1. GREAT Russian commander, he was an example for his soldiers. Appreciated every soldier. "M. I. Golenishchev-Kutuzov is not only the liberator of the Fatherland, he is the only one who outplayed the hitherto invincible French emperor, turning the "great army" into a crowd of ragamuffins, saving, thanks to his military genius, the lives of many Russian soldiers."
2. Mikhail Illarionovich, being a highly educated person who knew several foreign languages, dexterous, refined, able to inspire society with the gift of words, an entertaining story, he served Russia as an excellent diplomat - ambassador to Turkey.
3. M. I. Kutuzov - the first who became full cavalier the highest military order of St. George the Victorious of four degrees.
The life of Mikhail Illarionovich is an example of service to the fatherland, attitude towards soldiers, spiritual strength for the Russian military leaders of our time and, of course, for the younger generation - the future military.

Romodanovsky Grigory Grigorievich

There are no outstanding military figures of the period from the Troubles to the Northern War on the project, although there were such. An example of this is G.G. Romodanovsky.
Descended from the family of Starodub princes.
Member of the sovereign's campaign against Smolensk in 1654. In September 1655, together with the Ukrainian Cossacks, he defeated the Poles near Gorodok (not far from Lvov), in November of the same year he fought in the battle of Ozernaya. In 1656 he received the rank of roundabout and headed the Belgorod category. In 1658 and 1659 participated in hostilities against the betrayed hetman Vyhovsky and the Crimean Tatars, besieged Varva and fought near Konotop (Romodanovsky's troops withstood a heavy battle at the crossing over the Kukolka River). In 1664, he played a decisive role in repelling the invasion of 70 thousand army of the Polish king on the Left-Bank Ukraine, inflicted a number of sensitive blows on it. In 1665 he was granted a boyar. In 1670, he acted against the Razintsy - he defeated the detachment of the ataman's brother, Frol. The crown of Romodanovsky's military activity is the war with the Ottoman Empire. In 1677 and 1678 troops under his leadership inflicted heavy defeats on the Ottomans. An interesting moment: both main defendants in the battle of Vienna in 1683 were defeated by G.G. Romodanovsky: Sobessky with his king in 1664 and Kara Mustafa in 1678
The prince died on May 15, 1682 during the Streltsy uprising in Moscow.

Skopin-Shuisky Mikhail Vasilievich

During his short military career, he practically did not know failures, both in battles with the troops of I. Boltnikov, and with the Polish-Liovo and "Tushino" troops. The ability to build a combat-ready army practically from scratch, train, use Swedish mercenaries on the spot and during the time, select successful Russian command personnel for the liberation and defense of the vast territory of the Russian northwestern region and the liberation of central Russia, persistent and systematic offensive, skillful tactics in fight against the magnificent Polish-Lithuanian cavalry, undoubted personal courage - these are the qualities that, despite the little-knownness of his deeds, give him the right to be called the Great Commander of Russia.

Shein Mikhail

Hero of the Smolensk Defense 1609-11
He led the Smolensk fortress in the siege for almost 2 years, it was one of the longest siege campaigns in Russian history, which predetermined the defeat of the Poles during the Time of Troubles

Rokossovsky Konstantin Konstantinovich

Because it inspires many by personal example.

Romanov Petr Alekseevich

Behind the endless discussions about Peter I as a politician and reformer, it is unfairly forgotten that he was the greatest commander of his time. He was not only an excellent rear organizer. In the two most important battles of the Northern War (the battles of Lesnaya and Poltava), he not only developed battle plans himself, but also personally led the troops, being in the most important, responsible areas.
The only commander I know of was equally talented in both land and sea battles.
The main thing is that Peter I created a national military school. If all the great commanders of Russia are the heirs of Suvorov, then Suvorov himself is the heir of Peter.
The Battle of Poltava was one of the greatest (if not the greatest) victory in Russian history. In all other great predatory invasions of Russia, the general battle did not have a decisive outcome, and the struggle dragged on, went to exhaustion. And only in the Northern War did the general battle radically change the state of affairs, and from the attacking side the Swedes became the defender, decisively losing the initiative.
I think that Peter I deserves to be in the top three in the list of the best commanders of Russia.

Kutuzov Mikhail Illarionovich

After Zhukov, who took Berlin, the brilliant strategist Kutuzov, who drove the French out of Russia, should be second.

In the battle of Kunersdorf, having defeated the Prussian king Frederick II the Great, Berlin was taken by the troops of Totleben and Chernyshev.

Dovmont, Prince of Pskov

On the famous Novgorod monument to the Millennium of Russia, he stands in the section "military people and heroes."
Dovmont, Prince of Pskov, lived in the 13th century (died in 1299).
Descended from the family of Lithuanian princes. After the assassination of the Lithuanian prince Mindovg, he fled to Pskov, where he was baptized under the name of Timothy, after which the Pskovites elected him their prince.
Soon Dovmont showed the qualities of a brilliant commander. In 1266 he utterly defeated the Lithuanians on the banks of the Dvina.
Dovmont participated in the famous Rakovor battle with the crusaders (1268), where he commanded the Pskov regiments as part of the united Russian army. When the Livonian knights besieged Pskov, Dovmont, with the help of the Novgorodians who came to the rescue, managed to defend the city, and the Grand Master, wounded in a duel by Dovmont himself, was forced to make peace.
To protect against attacks, Dovmont fortified Pskov with a new stone wall, which until the 16th century was called Dovmontova.
In 1299, the Livonian knights unexpectedly invaded the Pskov land and devastated it, but were again defeated by Dovmont, who soon fell ill and died.
None of the Pskov princes enjoyed such love among the Pskovites as Dovmont.
The Russian Orthodox Church canonized him as a saint in the 16th century after the Batory invasion on the occasion of some miraculous phenomenon. The local memory of Dovmont is celebrated on May 25. His body was buried in the Trinity Cathedral in Pskov, where his sword and clothes were kept at the beginning of the 20th century.

Introduction 2

Chapter 1. Childhood and youth of Peter I 5

Chapter 2. The appearance and personal qualities of the monarch 8

Chapter 3. Peter I as a commander and statesman 10

Chapter 4

Conclusion 17

List of used literature 18

Introduction

Changes in all sectors and spheres of the socio-economic and political life of the country, which gradually accumulated and matured in the 17th century, developed into a qualitative leap in the first quarter of the 18th century. Muscovite Rus turned into the Russian Empire. In its economy, the level and form of development of productive forces, the political system, the structure and functions of government, administration and courts, the organization of the army, the class and estate structure of the population, the culture of the country and the way of life of the people have undergone tremendous changes. The place and role of Russia in the international relations of that time changed radically.

All these changes took place on the basis of the feudal-serf system, which gradually became the main brake on the progressive development of the country, entered the stage of its decomposition. The symptoms of the birth and development of new capitalist relations were becoming more and more distinct in the country.

In this regard, already in the first quarter of the 18th century, the main contradiction characteristic of the period of late feudalism can be traced. The interests of the autocratic feudal state and the class of feudal lords as a whole, the national interests of the country required the development of productive forces, active assistance in the development of industry, trade, and the elimination of the technical and economic backwardness of the country. But to solve these problems, it was necessary to reduce the scope of serfdom, the formation of a free labor market, the restriction and elimination of class rights and privileges of the nobility. The exact opposite happened: the spread of serfdom in depth and breadth, the consolidation of the class of feudal lords, the consolidation, expansion and legislative registration of its rights and privileges. Therefore, the development of industry, commodity relations, the strengthening of the power of the state was accompanied by a sharp increase in feudal exploitation, landlord arbitrariness, the strengthening of the power of the nobles and the bureaucratic apparatus of the autocracy. This aggravated the main contradiction between the ruling class and the various categories of the serfs, who accounted for more than 90% of the country's population. The slow formation of the bourgeoisie and its transformation into a class opposed to the class of feudal feudal lords led to the fact that the merchants and factory owners were drawn into the sphere of feudal relations 2 .

The complexity and inconsistency of the historical development of the country at that time determined the extreme inconsistency of the activities of Peter I and the reforms he carried out. On the one hand, they were of great progressive importance, they met the general national interests and needs, contributed to a significant acceleration of the country's historical development and were aimed at eliminating its backwardness.

On the other hand, they were carried out by feudal lords, using feudal methods and were aimed at strengthening their dominance. Therefore, the progressive transformations of the time of Peter the Great from the very beginning carried conservative features, which, in the course of the further development of the country, came out more and more strongly and, instead of eliminating backwardness, conserved it. As a result of Peter the Great's reforms, Russia quickly caught up with those European countries where feudal-serf relations prevailed, but it could not eliminate its backwardness from countries that had embarked on the capitalist path of development.

This complexity and inconsistency manifested itself with all its force in the transformative activity of Peter I, which was distinguished by indomitable energy, unprecedented scope, courage in breaking obsolete institutions, laws, foundations and way of life and way of life. Perfectly understanding the importance of the development of trade and industry, Peter I carried out a number of measures that corresponded to the interests of the merchants. But he also strengthened the serfdom, substantiated the regime of autocratic despotism. The actions of Peter I were distinguished not only by the decisiveness, but also by the extreme cruelty of the "impatient autocratic landowner."

In preparing the test work, the works of such great historians as S.M. Solovyov, V.O. Klyuchevsky, S.F. Platonov. The modern point of view on the Petrine transformations was studied with the help of the work of M.T. Belyavsky.

Sergei Mikhailovich Solovyov. In his readings, Solovyov deeply analyzes the activities of Peter I, its results, the views of Westerners and Slavophiles on the affairs of Peter the Great. He emphasizes the enormity of the transformations and the duration of the influence of Peter's deeds on the historical development of Russia. The famous historian condemns the views of both the Westerners and the Slavophiles, believing that they were unable to deeply study all the processes that took place during the reign of Peter. He condemns the reverent respect for the deeds of Peter by some and the sharp censure of others. Solovyov's merit lies in the fact that he is one of the first to see that all of Peter's activity was due to the previous development of Russia, he turns to pre-Petrine history in order to understand where this coup came from, why it was needed. During this period, the historian believes, in the life of the Russian people there was a transition from one age to another - from the age in which feeling prevails, to the age in which thought dominates. Solovyov carefully treats the legacy of Peter, highly appreciates his personality as a reformer. four

The image of Peter I is formed by Klyuchevsky for a long time and in a complicated way. So in Historical Portraits, the famous historian develops Solovyov's idea about the historical conditionality of the activities of Peter I as a "leader" who felt the needs of the people and carried out his transformations together with the people. Klyuchevsky noted Peter's unrelenting sense of duty and thoughts about the public good and how they influenced those around him. However, he ambiguously considered the results of the transformations of Peter the Great, noticed a discrepancy between their intention and results.

Klyuchevsky wrote that bureaucratization led to massive embezzlement and other malfeasance. Later, at the beginning of the 20th century, Klyuchevsky's intimate position became more and more apparent. He reproaches Peter for tyranny, despotism, unwillingness to understand the people in order to achieve the goals set, etc. 5 .

The basis of all Platonov's life work is the desire to avoid tendentiousness, fitting facts to a preconceived scheme. It is from these positions that he approaches the assessment of Peter's reforms. Rejecting tendentious, commendable and dismissive interpretations of his personality and activities, praising the “wealth of Peter’s natural abilities” as a commander and civil administrator, Platonov does not strive for assessments, but draws a simple conclusion from the analysis of the facts that in Peter’s “state there was no neither privileged persons, nor privileged groups, and all of them were equalized in the same equality of lack of rights before the state” 6 .

CHAPTER 1. Childhood and youth of Peter I

Pyotr Alekseevich Romanov (Peter I, Peter the Great) - the first All-Russian Emperor, was born on May 30, 1672, from the second marriage of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich with Natalya Kirillovna Naryshkina, the tutor of the boyar A.S. Matveev. Peter was the fourteenth child of Tsar Alexei and the first from his second marriage. The first wife of the king, daughter of I.D. Miloslavsky Marya Ilyinichna, died, leaving him two sons, Fedor and Ivan, and many daughters. Thus, under Tsar Alexei, the royal family had two circles of relatives hostile to each other: the eldest children of the tsar with the Miloslavskys and Natalya Kirillovna with her son and relatives. The fact is that the princes Fedor and Ivan did not differ in physical strength and did not give hope for longevity, and the younger prince Peter flourished with health, therefore, despite the fact that he was the youngest of the brothers, it was he who was destined to become king. The Naryshkins hoped for this, but the Miloslavskys were very afraid of this, and only fear of Tsar Alexei restrained manifestations of family animosity. 7

With the death of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, the dull struggle of the Miloslavskys and the Naryshkins turns into an open clash. Quarrels and intrigues began. Boyarin A.S. Matveev, who was then at the head of all affairs, was exiled north to Pustozersk. The position of Peter's mother became very difficult.

Peter's education went rather slowly. According to the old Russian custom, they began to teach him from the age of five. Peter's teacher was the clerk Nikita Moiseev, the son of Zotov, a learned man, but fond of drinking. Subsequently, Peter appointed him the prince-pope of the jester's college of drunkenness.

Zotov went through the alphabet with Peter, the book of hours, the psalter, the gospel and the apostle. Tsar Alexei and his elder sons began their teaching in the same way. Zotov also touched upon Russian antiquity, telling the prince about the affairs of his father, about Tsar Ivan the Terrible, about Dmitry Donskoy and Alexander Nevsky. Subsequently, Peter did not lose interest in history, attaching importance to it for public education.

Until the death of his father, Tsar Alexei, Peter lived as a darling in the royal family. He was only three and a half years old when his father died. Tsar Fedor was the godfather of his little brother and loved him very much. He kept Peter with him in the great Moscow palace and took care of his education. eight

Whether Peter learned anything else from Zotov remains unknown; there is a legend that Zotov showed the prince a lot of “amusing sheets”, that is, pictures of historical and everyday content, brought to Moscow from abroad. Zotov's studies were to be followed by scholastic science, which was introduced to the elder brothers and even sisters of Peter under the guidance of the Kyiv monks. Peter had to study grammar, pietics, rhetoric, dialectics and philosophy, Latin and Greek literacy and, probably, the Polish language. But before the start of this training, Tsar Fedor died and the turmoil of 1682 began. Because of this, Peter was left without a systematic education. Until the end of his life he ignored grammar and spelling 9 .

Tsar Fyodor Alekseevich dies, leaving no heirs to the throne. According to the general opinion, his brother Ivan should have inherited the throne. But 15-year-old Ivan was very sickly and half-witted and, of course, could not accept power. Knowing this, Tsar Fyodor's favorites (Yazykov, Likhachev, and others) arranged things in such a way that immediately after Fyodor's death, Patriarch Joachim and the boyars proclaimed the younger Tsarevich Peter as Tsar. However, the rights of Tsarevich Ivan were violated and his relatives could not come to terms with what had happened. The most intelligent and decisive among them were Princess Sofya Alekseevna and the boyar Ivan Mikhailovich Miloslavsky. Against their enemies (Yazykov and the Naryshkins), they raised an army of archers.

The archers were given to know that Tsarevich Ivan had been strangled, and a list of “traitor-boyars” was given into the hands of the archers. The archers believed and began an open rebellion. On May 15, 1682, armed, they came to the Kremlin. Tsarina Natalya Kirillovna led Tsar Peter and Tsarevich Ivan to the Red Porch of the Palace and showed them to the archers. However, the archers did not calm down, broke into the royal palace and, in front of the members of the royal family, brutally killed the boyar Matveev and many relatives of Queen Natalya. Peter, who was an eyewitness to the bloody scenes of the streltsy rebellion, was surprised by the firmness that he retained at the same time: standing on the Red Porch, he did not change his face when the archers picked up Matveev and his supporters on spears. But the May horrors are indelibly engraved in the memory of Peter, probably from here both the well-known nervousness and his hatred of the archers originate. A year later, 11-year-old Peter, in terms of development, seemed to the foreign ambassador a 16-year-old youth 10 .

A week after the beginning of the rebellion (May 23), the victors demanded from the government that both brothers be appointed kings; a week later (on the 29th), at the new demand of the archers, for the youth of the kings, the reign was handed over to Princess Sophia. Peter's party was excluded from any participation in state affairs. This board, according to B. I. Kurakin, was “very dishonorable; great bribery and state theft” 11 .

During the entire time of Sophia's regency, Natalya Kirillovna came to Moscow only for a few winter months, spending the rest of the time in the village of Preobrazhensky near Moscow. A significant part of the noble families, who did not dare to link their fate with the provisional government of Sophia, were grouped around the young court. Left to himself, Peter forgot how to endure some kind of constraint, to deny himself the fulfillment of any desire. Tsaritsa Natalya, a woman of "mindless", in the words of her relative Prince Kurakin, apparently cared exclusively about the physical side of her son's upbringing. We see Peter surrounded by “young children of the common people” and “young people of the first houses”; the first eventually prevailed, and the "noble persons" were distant. It is very likely that both simple and noble friends of Peter's childhood games equally deserved the nickname "mischievous" given to them by Sophia.

A fiery, brilliant child cannot sit idle in a room; he rushes from the sad, disgraced house into the street, gathers around him a crowd of young people from court servants: he amuses himself, plays with them: like all living children, he loves to play war, soldiers. On the bank of the Yauza, near the village of Preobrazhensky, he built himself a “funny” fortress - Pressburg, and gathered a dozen “funny” warriors around it. At first it was a solid rabble of "Preobrazhensky grooms," as Sophia put it. Then Peter gave this company the form of two soldier regiments (Preobrazhensky - in the village of Preobrazhensky and Semyonovsky - in the neighboring village of Semenovsky), and little by little from the “amusing” regiments, real regiments formed at Peter, which later laid the foundation for the guard. Peter's field fun gained wide dimensions and serious significance. Peter understood the importance of military affairs and began to study engineering and artillery. According to V. O. Klyuchevsky, “being kind by nature as a person, Peter was rude as a king” 12 .

Peter's foreign policy, as noted in the "History of the Russian Army", except for the rejection of Turkish proposals in the Prut campaign, is impeccable. The advantage of Russia is the only criterion that guided the first Russian emperor in his relations with foreign powers.

Peter shows himself throughout the war as a loyal ally. He does not like to bind himself in advance with promises and agreements, but once he has given his word, he keeps it holy.

The allies were rescued by the Russians more than once during various periods of the war, however, as soon as the tsar saw that they did not reciprocate at all and really only wanted to exploit Russia, he immediately broke off all relations with them and subsequently waged war completely separately.

The genius of Peter was fully reflected in military affairs, in the organization of the armed forces and in their leadership. A brilliant organizer and a major commander, according to Kersnovsky, Peter was far ahead of his era in all respects.

In the reorganization of the army, Peter gave the main place to the element of quality, which he achieved by the greatest involvement in the guards of the estate that best preserved military traditions and was destined for military service from ancient times.

This applies to the Petrine decree, which introduces compulsory, personal and lifelong service for the nobles. Having established personal military service for the nobility, Peter I gave the recruitment service of other classes a communal character. Each community, rural or petty-bourgeois, was obliged to appoint one recruit from a certain number of households, deciding by their sentence who to go to the service.

The recruit had to be between 20 and 35 years old, nothing else was required of him: military receivers had to accept "whom the payers would announce and put in return."

The community collected money for the recruit, usually 50-200 rubles, which at that time was a large amount, five times more than the bonuses of Western European mercenaries.

The service delivered from slavery, and under Peter there were many hunters to serve from fugitive serfs. Under Queen Elizabeth, the fugitives were no longer accepted, and those who appeared were flogged and sent back to the landowners, which, according to the author of the History of the Russian Army, was a huge psychological mistake.

So, Peter retained the basic principle of the structure of the Russian armed force - the compulsory nature of compulsory military service, which sharply differed at all times from the mercenary-recruitment system of Western countries. Moreover, this principle was even more clearly shaded by Peter: the service was declared lifelong and permanent (whereas in Moscow Russia it was only temporary).

The recruitment system was definitely territorial in nature. In 1711, the regiments were assigned to the provinces and maintained at the expense of these provinces. Each regiment had its own recruiting district - a province that gave the regiment its name. The Pskovites served in the Pskov regiment, and the soldiers' children of the Butyrskaya Sloboda served in the Butyrsky regiment. In Ingermanlapdsky - residents of the northern Novgorod possessions.

Peter appreciated the importance of the sense of fellowship developed in the Russian people. Unfortunately, after the death of Peter, due attention was not paid to the preservation of the territorial system. The regiments constantly changed their quarters and their recruiting districts, going from one end of Russia to the other.

By the middle of the 18th century, this system had completely died out, and as a result, Russia, the only country that had a territorial system at the beginning of the 18th century, in the 20th century was the only country that did not have this system.

The advantages of Peter I, as the organizer of the Russian armed forces, Anton Kersnovsky refers to the fact that the ground forces in the Peter's army were divided into the active army and local troops - garrison troops, land militia and Cossacks.

Landmilitsia was formed from the remnants of the former military estates (gunners, soldiers, reiters) in 1709 and settled in Ukraine to protect the southern borders. After the rebellion of Bulavin, Peter did not particularly trust the Cossacks, but, realizing the great importance of the Cossacks in the life of the state, he settled the Cossacks on the outskirts.

The unsuccessful campaign of Buchholz in Central Asia resulted in the establishment of the Siberian Cossack army, and the result of the Persian campaign was the resettlement of a part of the Don Cossacks to the Terek, where the Terek army was subsequently formed.

General Leer claimed that Peter was "a great commander who knew how to do everything, could do everything and wanted to do everything." Peter's military talent was only one of the sides of his multifaceted genius.

Anton Kersnovsky does not question the presence of Peter's mind on a national scale. The tsar, in his opinion, combined in himself a politician, a strategist and a tactician - a great politician, a great strategist, a great tactician. This combination, rare in history, was found after him only by two great commanders - Frederick II and Napoleon.

Charles XII was in this respect the exact opposite of Peter. Karl was a brilliant tactician, a leader who dragged his subordinates with him, but he was neither a strategist nor a politician. The Swedish king waged war only out of love for war, and this "physical" love for war, due to the complete lack of a statesman's mind, eventually led his army to death, and his country to decline.

In 1706, Karl had every opportunity to end the war with an honorable peace for Sweden, but did not want to use it, and eight years later, after Poltava, when the situation in Sweden became desperate, its unbridled

stubbornness set against himself a new enemy - Prussia.

Analyzing the policy of the Swedish king, A. Kersnovsky finds that he lacks a strategic eye.

For four consecutive years, the Swedish king wandered in Poland, driving Augustus II from place to place (and giving a valuable rest to the Russian army, which in the meantime was learning to fight at the expense of the ill-fated Schlippenbach), instead of immediately disarming his enemy with a blow to Saxony.

The young king had no organizational skills, the concept of an organized base was absent. He did not know how to keep the conquered territory for himself, and therefore all his victories turned out to be fruitless.

As soon as he leaves any locality in Poland, the enemy immediately occupies it, or rather, it again plunges into anarchy, the elements of which immediately begin outside the Swedish camp.

Having received from his father a small but wonderfully organized and trained army of veterans, Charles XII brilliantly uses it, but does not spare it at all.

In the winter of 1707-1708. with a poorly dressed and poorly supplied army, Karl rushes into the dense Lithuanian forests and starts a completely senseless guerrilla war against the population, solely to satisfy his thirst for adventure and not sparing the army at all.

At the beginning of the war, Karl was 19 years old, he was an ardent young man, stubborn and unrestrained, possessing extraordinary abilities and not accepting advice from anyone. The role model for the young Swedish king was Alexander the Great.

However, Voltaire noted that Charles "was not Alexander, but was worthy to be the first soldier of Alexander."

If Charles wages war "for the sake of war", then with Peter the conduct of war is entirely subordinated to his policy. He does nothing for nothing, always guided only by the interests of "the state entrusted to Peter."

Charles XII received his army ready-made from his father, Peter I created his own. Knowing how to demand from the troops, when necessary, superhuman efforts (up to the transfer of ships on his hands for hundreds of miles), Peter never wastes their strength in vain. The aspirations of the commander, in his own words, should be directed towards winning a victory "with little bloodshed."

As a talented tactician, Peter is far ahead of his time. He starts horse artillery 100 years before Napoleon and half a century before Frederick. In all his instructions to the troops, the idea of ​​​​mutual assistance and support of units - “seconding the one to the other” - and the coordination of the actions of various types of weapons are a red thread.

During the first period of the war, Peter acted with the utmost discretion. The quality of the Swedish army was still too high, and Peter understood the main reason for the tactical superiority of the Swedes over the Russians - their "closeness". Peter, not without success, opposes the Swedes with his field fortification, which ensured the success of the Poltava battle.

Anton Kersnovsky also draws attention to the device of Peter's cavalry. Under Peter, all of it was exclusively of the dragoon type and superbly trained both on horseback and on foot. Dragoons were the favorite branch of Peter's troops. In general, the element of active defense prevailed in Peter's tactics, which corresponded to the circumstances of that era. A purely offensive principle was introduced into Russian tactics only in the Seven Years' War by Rumyantsev.