ABSTRACT
Peter the Great (r. 1682-1725) to this day is conventionally portrayed as Russia’s great modernizer, the forward-looking ruler who dragooned backward Muscovy into becoming a modern European empire. He built St. Petersburg, Russia’s European capital on the shores of the Baltic; he cut off the boyars’ beards and forced them into European dress. But most of all, he involved Russia in ceaseless wars, wars that many historians view as a chief cause of Peter’s Europeanizing efforts: a brief war against Persia, still briefer encounters with the Ottoman Empire, battles against internal rebellion and border peoples, an expedition in Central Asia, and, most significantly, the momentous struggle against Sweden in the Great Northern War (1700-21).
