Читать книгу The History of Peter the Great, Emperor of Russia - Voltaire, Вольтер - Страница 10

A conspiracy punished. – The corps of strelitzes abolished, alterations in customs, manners, church, and state.

Czar Peter, when he left his dominions to set out on his travels, had provided against every incident, even that of rebellion. But the great and serviceable things he had done for his country, proved the very cause of this rebellion.

Certain old boyards, to whom the ancient customs were still dear, and some priests, to whom the new ones appeared little better than sacrilege, began these disturbances, and the old faction of the princess Sophia took this opportunity to rouse itself anew. It is said, that one of her sisters, who was confined to the same monastery, contributed not a little to excite these seditions. Care was taken to spread abroad the danger to be feared from the introduction of foreigners to instruct the nation. In short, who would believe, that49 the permission which the czar had given to import tobacco into his empire, contrary to the inclination of the clergy, was one of the chief motives of the insurrection? Superstition, the scourge of every country, yet the darling of the multitude, spread itself from the common people to the strelitzes, who had been scattered on the frontiers of Lithuania: they assembled in a body, and marched towards Moscow, with the intent to place the princess Sophia on the throne, and for ever to prevent the return of a czar who had violated the established customs,50 by presuming to travel for instruction among foreigners. The forces commanded by Schein and Gordon, who were much better disciplined than the strelitzes, met them fifteen leagues from Moscow, gave them battle, and entirely defeated them: but this advantage, gained by a foreign general over the ancient militia, among whom were several of the burghers of Moscow, contributed still more to irritate the people.

To quell these tumults, the czar sets out privately from Vienna, passes through Poland, has a private interview with Augustus, concerts measures with that prince for extending the Russian dominions on the side of the Baltic, and at length arrived at Moscow, where he surprised every one with his presence: he then confers rewards on the troops who had defeated the strelitzes, (Sept. 1698,) of whom the prisons were now full. If the crimes of these unhappy wretches were great, their punishment was no less so. Their leaders, with several of their officers and priests, were condemned to death; some were broken upon the wheel,51 and two women were buried alive; upwards of two thousand of the strelitzes were executed, part of whom were hung round about the walls of the city, and others put to death in different manners, and their dead bodies remained exposed for two days in the high roads,52 particularly about the monastery where the princesses Sophia and Eudocia resided.53 Monuments of stone were erected, on which their crimes and punishments were set forth. A great number of them who had wives and children at Moscow, were dispersed with their families into Siberia, the kingdom of Astracan, and the country of Azoph. This punishment was at least of service to the state, as they helped to cultivate and people a large tract of waste land.

Perhaps, if the czar had not found it absolutely necessary to make such terrible examples, he might have employed part of those strelitzes whom he put to death, upon the public works; whereas they were now lost both to him and the state: the lives of men ought to be held in great estimation, especially in a country where the increase of inhabitants ought to have been the principal care of the legislature: but he thought it necessary to terrify and break the spirit of the nation by executions, and the parade attending them. The entire corps of the strelitzes, whose number not one of his predecessors had even dared to think of diminishing, was broke for ever, and their very name abolished. This change was effected without any resistance, because matters had been properly prepared beforehand. The Turkish sultan, Osman, as I have already remarked, was deposed and murdered in the same century, only for giving the janissaries room to suspect that he intended to lessen their number. Peter had better success, because he had taken better measures.

Of this powerful and numerous body of the strelitzes, he left only two feeble regiments, from whom there could no longer be any danger; and yet these still retaining their old spirit of mutiny, revolted again in Astracan, in the year 1705, but were quickly suppressed.

But while we are relating Peter's severity in this affair of state, let us not forget to commemorate the more than equal humanity he shewed some time afterwards, when he lost his favourite Le Fort, who was snatched away by an untimely fate, March 12, N. S. 1699, at the age of 46. He paid him the same funeral honours as are bestowed on the greatest sovereigns, and assisted himself in the procession, carrying a pike in his hand, and marching after the captains, in the rank of a lieutenant, which he held in the deceased general's regiment, hereby setting an example to his nobles, of the respect due to merit and the military rank.

After the death of Le Fort, it appeared plainly, that the changes in the state were not owing to that general, but to the czar himself. Peter had indeed been confirmed in his design by his several conversations with Le Fort; but he had formed and executed them all without his assistance.

As soon as he had suppressed the strelitzes, he established regular regiments on the German model, who were all clothed in a short and commodious uniform, in the room of those long and troublesome coats, which they used to wear before; and, at the same time, their exercise was likewise more regular.

The regiment of Preobrazinski guards was already formed; it had taken its name from the first company of fifty men, whom the czar had trained up in his younger days, in his retreat at Preobrazinski, at the time when his sister Sophia governed the state, and the other regiment of guards was also established.

As he had himself passed through the lowest degrees in the army, he was resolved that the sons of his boyards and great men, should serve as common soldiers before they were made officers. He sent some of the young nobility on board of his fleet at Woronitz and Azoph, where he obliged them to serve their apprenticeship as common seamen. No one dared to dispute the commands of a master who had himself set the example. The English and Dutch he had brought over with him were employed in equipping this fleet for sea, in constructing sluices, and building docks, for careening the ships, and to resume the great work of joining the Tanais, or Don, and the Wolga, which had been dropped by Brekel, the German. And now he began to set about his projected reformations in the council of state, in the revenue, in the church, and even in society itself.

The affairs of the revenue had been hitherto administered much in the same manner as in Turkey. Each boyard paid a stipulated sum for his lands, which he raised upon the peasants, his vassals; the czar appointed certain burghers and burgomasters to be his receivers, who were not powerful enough to claim the right of paying only such sums as they thought proper into the public treasury. This new administration of the finances, was what cost him the most trouble: he was obliged to try several methods before he could fix upon a proper one.

The reformation of the church, which in all other countries is looked upon as so dangerous and difficult an attempt, was not so to him. The patriarchs had at times opposed the authority of the crown, as well as the strelitzes; Nicon with insolence, Joachin, one of his successors, in an artful manner.

The bishops had arrogated the power of life and death, a prerogative directly contrary to the spirit of religion, and the subordination of government. This assumed power, which had been of long standing, was now taken from them. The patriarch Adrian, dying at the close of this century, Peter declared that there should for the future be no other.

This dignity then was entirely suppressed, and the great income belonging thereto was united to the public revenue, which stood in need of this addition. Although the czar did not set himself up as the head of the Russian church, as the kings of Great Britain have done in regard to the church of England; yet he was, in fact, absolute master over it, because the synods did not dare either to disobey the commands of a despotic sovereign, or to dispute with a prince who had more knowledge than themselves.

We need only to cast an eye on the preamble to the edict, concerning his ecclesiastical regulations, issued in 1721, to be convinced that he acted at once as master and legislator: 'We should deem ourselves guilty of ingratitude to the Most High, if, after having reformed the military and civil orders, we neglect the spiritual, &c. For this cause, following the example of the most ancient kings, who have been famed for piety, we have taken upon us to make certain wholesome regulations, touching the clergy.' It is true, he convened a synod for carrying into execution his ecclesiastical decrees, but the members of this synod, at entering upon their office, were to take an oath, the form of which had been drawn up and signed by himself. This was an oath of submission and obedience, and was conceived in the following terms: 'I swear to be a faithful and obedient servant and subject to my true and natural sovereign, and to the august successors whom it shall please him to nominate, in virtue of the incontestable right of which he is possessed: I acknowledge him to be the supreme judge of this spiritual college: I swear by the all-seeing God, that I understand and mean this oath in the full force and sense, which the words convey to those who read or hear it.' This oath is much stronger than that of the supremacy in England. The Russian monarch was not, indeed, one of the fathers of the synod, but he dictated their laws; and, though he did not touch the holy censer, he directed the hands that held it.