Author Topic: Peter the Great  (Read 26656 times)

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Offline rasshiva

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Peter the Great
« on: December 19, 2007, 01:04:18 PM »
Please is anyone able to tell me where precisely Peter The Great died, I know it was in St Petersburg. Was it in his cabin, a particular palace or elsewhere? Many thanks - I need the information for a very specific piece of research.

Dominic_Albanese

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Re: Peter the Great
« Reply #1 on: December 19, 2007, 06:18:04 PM »
Hello-  I urge you to double check this - It is from my Romanov genealogy database and I don't have access to the source right handy.  The book, by Lindsay Hughes (Peter the Great, A Biography (Pages 200-209 New Haven, CT, USA: Yale University Press, 2002)) is readily available.  What follows is an entry I typed in related to Peter's death some time ago - Short answer - according to this source he died "...in his study, a room to one side of the Grand Hall on the first floor of the Winter Palace."

One other thing - remember that the Winter Palace at the time of Peter the Great is *not* the same Winter Palace that exists today in St. Petersburg.  The current Winter Palace is the 3rd or 4th version of the building - the others having burned down.

"...Preparations were in hand for the forthcoming carnival, when on 17 January, the keeper of the court journal recorded: 'His Imperial Majesty was ill and did not deign to go anywhere.'  A week later he wrote: 'Since the 17th his Imperial Majesty has been ill and lying in his Winter residence in the upper apartment'  Had Peter been superstitious he would have been wary of the last week of January.  His mother died on 25 January and both his father and his half-brother Tsar Ivan on the 29th.  This January was also to be Peter's last.  The old bladder problem recurred - no doubt exacerbated by the customary Yuletide binges and the chilly ceremony on the ice on 6 January - and he suffered days of agony as a result of inability to pass urine, and brief periods of remission.  Peter's foreign doctors, in the unenviable position of having a really sick emperor on their hands, had no idea what to do.  On 25 January they drew off about a liter of putrid, foul smelling urine, a procedure which precipitated another fever.  On the same day they dispatched a letter to the king of Prussia, written as if by Peter in the first person but signed by Chancellor Gavrila Golovkin, asking the king to send his personal physician: 'Following a slight chill, I have been suffering from a severe indisposition' A German translation accompanied it.  Infection set in.  Non-medical remedies - an order for the release of prisoners 'for the sovereigns's health' and round-the-clock prayers - proved as ineffective as medical ones.  After enduring several more days of pain so agonisising that it make him cry out and having received the last rights, Peter expired, according to Feofan Prokopovich's memorable account, in the sanctity of piety, between four and five in the morning of 28 January 1725 in his study, a room to one side of the Grand Hall on the first floor of the Winter Palace. He was, as official accounts meticulously recorded, fifty-two years, seven months and twenty-nine days old in the forty-second year, seventh month and third day of his reign.

Contemporary sources agree that Peter was killed by inflammation of the urinary tract which resulted in retention of urine, a condition sometimes known as gravel.  The terms 'retention of blockage of water/urine' (vodianoi zapor, uriny zapr) and 'difficulty in passing water' (trudnost' v nepriazhenii vody) recur.  The causes of his illness are unclear.  A modern diagnosis might point to prostate trouble and Peter, with his insistence on operating on his own body, may have exacerbated the condition by using silver catheters to probe the urethra.  Foreign observers tended to focus on the accumulated effects of half a century of tireless activity, both public and private.  Campredon, for example, attributed the tsar's condition to 'the recurrence of an old case of venereal disease'.  Bassewitz writes: 'His activity allowed him no rest and he held in contempt all types of bad weather, and the sacrifices to Venus and Bacchus exhausted his strength and led to the development of gravel.'  Inevitably there were rumors of poisoning (at one point Peter apparently complained of a 'burning sensation' in his stomach), with Catherine and/or Menshikov as the main suspects, but the gravel mentioned by Bassewitz, a disease easily cured with today's treatments, seems the most likely.  Even then, the famous Professor Boerhaave in Leiden, whom Peter's doctors consulted, is said to have exclaimed that Peter could have been cured with medicine costing five Kopecks if the treatment had started in time.  It is generally agreed that Peter hastened his own death by ignoring his symptoms and refusing to slow the pace of his activities."

Offline rasshiva

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Re: Peter the Great
« Reply #2 on: December 19, 2007, 06:27:15 PM »
Dominic
thank you so much for your help. I was moving towards buying a biography. I think that you have told me what I need to know. Once again I am very grateful.

DanlScott

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Re: Peter the Great
« Reply #3 on: April 18, 2008, 06:29:42 PM »
Actually, the Winter Palace did not exist during the time of Peter the Great.  In fact, at that time the site of the future Winter Palace was occupied by the palace of General-Admiral Apraxin.  Peter the Great's St. Petersburg residence was the modest Summer Palace, about a mile upstream from the admiralty.   

Offline Ally Kumari

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Re: Peter the Great
« Reply #4 on: February 15, 2009, 03:23:19 PM »

Tsar Petr I. as a child


Tsar Petr I. as a young man
« Last Edit: February 11, 2011, 06:17:47 AM by Svetabel »

Offline Ally Kumari

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Re: Peter the Great
« Reply #5 on: February 15, 2009, 03:29:19 PM »
Petr I.


Tsarina Eudokia Fyodorovna


Ekaterina I.


Natalia Petrovna, daughter of Petr I.

Offline Ally Kumari

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Re: Peter the Great
« Reply #6 on: February 15, 2009, 03:31:16 PM »
Alexei Petrovich, son of Petr I.


« Last Edit: February 11, 2011, 06:17:32 AM by Svetabel »

rus

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Re: Peter the Great
« Reply #7 on: December 04, 2009, 08:59:05 AM »
I thought Peter's summer palace was Peterhoff, the Palace of Fountains.

Offline Vive_HIH_Aleksey

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Re: Peter the Great
« Reply #8 on: December 11, 2009, 10:35:43 AM »
(I originally posted this in the wrong forum and caught it right away so)

So, I was playing out ideas for another storyline for my writing group, and I thought, wouldn't it be fascinating if my main protagonist would be descended from a clergyman of sorts in Peter the Great's court, and was commissioned by Peter himself for a series of ikons or religious statues or both, or something along those lines, and this ancestor made two sets of these, one for the Tzar, and one for his family, to be passed down and preserved through the generations.  So my question is this: Did Peter have, for example, a bishop or other clergyman specifically for his court or himself? Would icons be likely to be preserved through the centuries, and if not, then what kind of objects would be more realistic, more treasured? Would this clergyman be likely to make these objects? And how would they be suitable for royalty? And, lastly, how realistic is this plotline? I just thought it would be something special to show the protagonist how important religion was in his family's life, that through war, poverty, and persecution, they clung to their beliefs, and those icons and preserved them through the centuries, and the same blood flows in his veins. He is already a spiritual person, but is going through a rough time with some family problems. I thought knowing this information would be comforting to him.

Well, any advice would be welcome. Thanks, guys!
Hatred – this is a disgusting feeling. Yes, there is sport gambling, there is a striving to win. But to hate someone – this is awful! I think, that first of all you have to learn to respect your rival. -- Evgeni Plushenko

Robert_Hall

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Re: Peter the Great
« Reply #9 on: December 11, 2009, 11:53:54 AM »
Interesting scenario. However, Orthodox churches do not have  religious statues,  It would be foreign to them' Peter I hated the Church, he abolished the Patriarchate, for instance.  But he may indeed have had a reformist priest or bishop in his  court.  That would merit some research. As for icons of living or unsainted people,  that is tricky.  I know they were created for important events, like wars & coronations, but only for the Emperor himself.  He was, after all, an ordained Orthodox priest at his coronation, that was part of the sacrament.  I n that manner, his image could bless the people, or whatever. Good luck on your story.
« Last Edit: December 11, 2009, 11:56:18 AM by Robert_Hall »

Offline Vive_HIH_Aleksey

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Re: Peter the Great
« Reply #10 on: December 12, 2009, 05:45:27 AM »
Thanks for answering! That's really good information. I had a feeling that the Orthodox did not have statues, just wanted some confirmation. I was thinking the icons could be of the Trinity, perhaps St. Andrew or St. Michael the Archangel or St. George, given to the Emperor, perhaps. I've heard these are important saints in the Orthodox faith. It's interesting about Peter's opinion on the Church, very helpful. I'll be sure to research this.
Hatred – this is a disgusting feeling. Yes, there is sport gambling, there is a striving to win. But to hate someone – this is awful! I think, that first of all you have to learn to respect your rival. -- Evgeni Plushenko

Robert_Hall

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Re: Peter the Great
« Reply #11 on: December 12, 2009, 12:47:03 PM »
I am happy that you find my information useful. Peter's relationship with the Church sort of defines his   forceful  push for Russia to become a modern nation.  A lot of issues are involved, not the least the family feuds and  arch-conservatives  versus progressives [ sound  familiar?]. He replaced the Patriiachate with the Holy Synod,  which was a department of State, as opposed to an independent  ecclesiastcal entinty.

Offline violetta

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Re: Peter the Great
« Reply #12 on: December 12, 2010, 03:17:48 AM »
peter I on deathbed


Offline Ausmanov

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Re: Peter the Great
« Reply #13 on: March 16, 2012, 05:58:45 PM »
Fantsatic pics, i particulary like the ones of Eudokia, peter as a child and Alexie petrovich. Its the first one ive seen of his son.
God never closes a door without opening a window

Offline Ausmanov

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Re: Peter the Great
« Reply #14 on: January 14, 2013, 03:08:40 PM »
i find Peter I fascinating, to have pushed through the adversities and horrors of his youth and to achieve the goals he did. he is nothing short of inspirational
God never closes a door without opening a window