7 The 100 Most Influential World Leaders of All Time 7

Peter I

(b. June 9 [May 30, Old Style], 1672, Moscow, Russia—d. Feb. 8 [Jan.
28], 1725, St. Petersburg)

T

he founder of the Russian Empire was Peter I, also
known as Peter the Great. As tsar of Russia, he
reigned jointly with his half-brother Ivan V (1682– 96) and
alone thereafter (1696 –1725). In 1721 he was proclaimed
emperor. He was one of his country’s greatest statesmen,
organizers, and reformers.
Peter (in full, Pyotr Alekseyevich) was the son of Tsar
Alexis by his second wife, Natalya Kirillovna Naryshkina.
When Alexis died in 1676, Peter was only four years old.
Peter’s half-brother Fyodor, who then became tsar, died in

1682. Peter and another half-brother, Ivan, were to rule
      jointly, but because Ivan was sickly and feebleminded, his
      sister Sophia served as regent. Sophia, clever and influen-
      tial, excluded Peter from the government, and he grew up
      in a village outside Moscow.
      Early in 1689 his mother arranged Peter’s marriage to
      the beautiful Eudoxia (Yevdokiya Fyodorovna Lopukhina).
      The marriage did not last long. Peter soon began to ignore
      his wife and eventually relegated her to a convent. Later
      that year, Peter removed Sophia from power. Though Ivan
      V remained nominally joint tsar with Peter, the adminis-
      tration was now largely given over to Peter’s kinsmen, the
      Naryshkins, until Ivan’s death in 1696.
      At the beginning of Peter’s reign, Russia was territori-
      ally a huge power, but had no access to the Black Sea, the
      Caspian, or to the Baltic. To win such an outlet became
      the main goal of Peter’s foreign policy. He engaged in war
      with the Ottoman Empire (1695– 96) with the goal of cap-
      turing Azov, which he did.
      In 1697 Peter went with the so-called Grand Embassy
      to western Europe. Comprising about 250 people, its chief