102 The Warrior Tsar, 1689-1725
has co be seen in the context of the Russian state's continuous effort to subdue
and integrate the unsettled steppe frontier.
Even after the i11sur1 t:diu11 it au 01:1:11 pul down, some strei-tsy units remamed
in being. They are recorded at Kiev and Vyborg in 1710-11,^22 arid as late as
1722 a German diplomat speaks of musketeers (here called Spirssburger)
mounting guard in the Moscow Kremlin.^23 This may, howcvet, be a
misunderstanding; the term gorodovye slrertsy seems to have been applied
loosely to groups of armed men whose connection with the musketeers of
histo,ry was slight or non-existent. Most of the latter were absorbed into the
regular infantry, where they were subjected to discriminatory treatment. They
could not, for example, volunteer to join, and one who did so, presumably by
concealing his origins, was ordered to be 'mercilessly beaten' .24 ·oata from
1720-1 on 2,245 officers reveal that only one of them (V. R. Savinikhin) hailed
from the strel'lsy milieu-and he, characteristically, was detailed to the harsh
task of helping to build a canal.^25On the surface the privileged elements in Russian society, especially those who
had joined the new guards regiments, seemed to have scored a notable victory.
The real gainer, however, was the autocratic state, as the rest of Peter's reign
would make abundantly clear. For the tsar now proceeded to construct a
standing army in which men of all classes were obliged to serve, and the gentry
soon found themselves bearing a disagreeably large share of the burden. One
near-contemporary observer thought that Peter del.iberately manipulated the
two groups in order to consolidate his supremacy: 'he had already resolved to
wear out and weaken the strel~tsy and the nobility, one corps by means of the
other, and to place them on a footing where each would have to depend solely
upon his mercy and will. '^26 This interpretation is probably too ingenious, since
the tsar acted under pressure of events rather than according to any long-term
strategy; but it describes well what actually occurred. Pettine absolutism did
indeed rest on the enforced subordination of all the embryonic socio-political
interest groups. ,_.
The tsar probably entertained for some time the notion of a.adiG8l reform
and expansion of Russia's military effectives. During his journey to the West
he had been able to acquaint himself at first hand with the armies of other
powers. Nevertheless the first move did not come until November 1699. It was
prompted by the decision to launch an offensive war against Sweden.^27 Peter
22 Rabinovich, 'Strel'tsy', pp. 279. 286.
2J Berkhgorts (Bergholz), • Dnevnik, · RA ( 1902), 11, p. 5; the editor (I. Ammon) 1ugaests that
they may have been from the Sukharev(sky) regiment, 'the only one to survive', but th.is was actu-
ally disbanded around 1700: Rabinovich, 'Strertsy', p. 279.
24 Vostokov, 'O delakh Generarnogo dvora', pp. 17, 28.
2' Rabinovich, 'Sots. proiskhozhdeniye' pp. 144-5.
26 J. G. Vockerodt, in Herrmann, Russ/and, p. 26.
(^27) Bogoslovsky, Petr I, iv. 174-7. For purposes of deception the Turks were publicly identified
as the prospective enemy.