Vol 21, No 3 (2022): The Petrine Reforms and the Peoples of Russia: On the 350th Anniversary of the Birth of Peter I

The time of Peter the Great is notable not only for the reforms that transformed the country, but also for the emergence of new ideas of the place of Russia as a great power in the world. Peter the Great's imperial dreams went far beyond the establishment of Russia’s domination in the Baltic. He was mindful of the problem of the West-East relationship. It is important to take into account the tsar’s economic considerations. He was fascinated by the ideas of mercantilism and dreamed of turning Russia into a transit space between the West and the East. It would allow enriching the country. He wanted to create a unified transport system (mainly waterway) that would connect the Baltic and the East. In addition, the myths about the fabulous wealth of the East heated Peter the Great's imperial imagination. It manifested itself in sending expeditions to Central Asia and the Caspian Sea. Their purpose was not only to explore, but also to annex new territories. Peter the Great's imperial dreams were expressed most vividly during the Persian campaign, the aim of which was not only to conquer the northern part of Persia, but also to create a base there for an expansionist campaign to India. Peter the Great's plans were extensive. He intended to create a new city-port in the mouth of the Kura similar to St. Petersburg and a center of eastern trade. Thus, he planned to transfer the traditional trade routes between the East and the West to the territory of Russia. However, the tsar’s death prevented him from realizing these and other grandiose plans of conquest.

The article examines the issue of how the Baltic territory was included in the Russian Empire during the Great Northern War. This process turned out to be very difficult in several aspects - military, diplomatic and managerial. In the first years of the war, Peter I did not at all consider the Baltic as a territory that could become part of Russia; the Russian troops devastated the territory; and ahead of the Swedish offensive in 1708, the occupied cities were ruined. After the victory at Poltava, in 1710, the situation changed; the entire Baltic region was occupied, and the Russian leadership began to establish relations with the local population. On this territory, the elements of local self-government were preserved, freedom of religion was proclaimed; in Riga, Revel and Pernau there were small garrisons with artillery weapons, which were under the jurisdiction of the local authorities. At the same time, a diplomatic struggle was waged for the inclusion of the Baltic in Russia. On the one hand, Sweden did not want to leave these territories at all. On the other hand, before the beginning of the Great Northern War, Peter I and Saxon Elector August II (who was also the king of Poland) reached an agreement that the territory of the Baltic States would be given to him. But as the Russian troops succeeded, Peter I began to gradually strive for the Baltic lands’ transferring to Russia. For a decade, diplomats had to maneuver, and in the end, they were able to achieve success - following the results of the Treaty of Nystad of 1721, the territory of the Baltic States (as well as Ingria) was included in the Russian Empire not only de facto, but also de jure. After that, it took several more years to resolve the situation related to landed estates.

The relevance of the subject of the research is determined by the request for rethinking the personality and political activity of Peter the Great from the standpoint of new methodological approaches in the development of historical science. The purpose of the study is to reconstruct the discursive space around the figure of Peter I and to conduct the classification analysis of the scientific and historical-journalistic approaches put forward in relation to it. When conducting the research, the authors relied on the combination of the theory of discourse and traditional methods of historiography. Based on the study of modern scientific and journalistic literature, there were described 8 historiographical models of understanding the activities of Peter I in relation to various methodologies of history. On the basis of the results obtained, the authors conclude that there has begun a new historiographical stage in the study of Peter the Great's time manifested in the change in the key dichotomies of the public discussion on Peter I. The forecast is made about the shift in the approaches to perceiving Peter I established in society under the influence of historiographical discourse and current political transformations.

The article presents an analysis of the historical, political and philosophical work of outstanding German scientist, Professor Gottlieb Samuel Treuer “Apology of Ivan Vasilyevich II, Grand Duke of Moscow, usually falsely accused of tyranny,” published in Vienna in 1711. It was found that this work was one of the first papers, one way or another devoted to Russian history, published in the West in the Petrine era. During the Great Northern War the tendency to compare the reign of Ivan the Terrible and Peter I was quite clear, due to the fact that the “Baltic issue” remained valid for Russia more than a century after the failures in the Livonian War. The Russian propaganda in Europe needed to present Ivan the Terrible as a great ruler, without excessive cruelty and tyranny. The analysis conducted by the author showed that Treuer brilliantly coped with the task. In his work he proved that all the actions of Ivan the Terrible were justified by the public necessity and the morals of the Russian people. The “Apology of Ivan Vasilyevich” also contributed to the fact that some representatives of German scientific thought got carried away by Russian history. Among them were, in particular, G.F. Miller and A.L. Schlözer.

This article, for the first time in domestic and foreign historiography, examines the coverage by the domestic press of the visits of the Bulgarian prince Ferdinand of Coburg to Russia at the end of the 19th century. After the death of Alexander III, Bulgaria began to take steps in order to restore relations with Russia. Personal diplomacy was of great importance in such situations. After the baptism of Prince Boris into the Orthodox faith, the first visit to St. Petersburg of the Bulgarian prince Ferdinand I took place. The main feature of the coverage of this visit in the press was that many publications had to rebuild their attitude towards yesterday's "false prince" and cover the arrival of Ferdinand of Coburg in the pages of their publications, taking into account the changed political realities. The first visit was followed by an invitation to the coronation of Nicholas II in Moscow in May 1896. The arrival in Russia in July 1898 of the Bulgarian prince with his wife Maria Luisa and the heir to the Bulgarian throne, the godson of Nicholas II, Prince Boris, became the apotheosis of these visits. Therefore, by the end of the 19th century, it seemed that an idyll had begun in Russian-Bulgarian relations. The article examines the very course of the visits, the main participants, as well to the Bulgarian prince (in particular on the basis of the diary entries of Nicholas II).

The author examines the main features for the formation of the Belarusian economic emigration to Canada. The intensity of the emigration from 1921 to 1939 was analyzed, when the territory of Western Belarus was a part of Poland. The historical base of the research was the unpublished documents of the Belarusian, Ukrainian and Polish archives. The article presents the structure of state emigration bodies that were involved in organizing and controlling the recruitment of emigrants, their employment and the process of re-emigration. It describes the features of the Canadian legislation for the scale of the Belarusian emigration and the legal adaptation of emigrants. Particular attention is paid to the role of the Canadian railway companies “Canadian National Railways” and “Canadian Pacific Railways” in the selection of emigrants and their employment in agriculture and industry. The author argue that the Polish authorities stimulated the emigration of the Belarusian population for the polonization of Western Belarus. The problematic socio-psychological adaptation of the Belarusian emigrants, because Belarusians in Canada weakly expressed the national identity, is described. The author concludes that the international cooperation had an important role in forming the diaspora’s and national identity, especially the international contacts with the representatives of other peoples and the participation in common political organizations and projects.

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