The Presidential Library illustrates Peter the Great’s childhood and youth

June 9 marks the 350th anniversary of the first Emperor of Russia, Peter, nicknamed the Great for his services to the Fatherland.

The Presidential Library’s collections to mark the anniversary of Peter the Great have been entered with valuable rare publications containing interesting facts about the life and deeds of the monarch, his victories, including over himself.

Peter was born from the second marriage of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich with Natalya Kirillovna Naryshkina. By that time, the tsar had children, including two sons who were considered heirs to the throne. But they were in poor health, and the sovereign saw them as heirs to the throne without joy. According to Sergei Rozhdestvensky, director of public schools in the St. Petersburg province, in his book About Peter the Great (1872), “Tsarevich Peter met life cheerfully...He was in good health, handsome in himself...From an early age, extraordinary liveliness and sharpness of mind". The parents could not get enough of their son.

According to Elizaveta Razina in her historical essay The First Worker of the Russian Land (1913), Peter grew up in freedom and liberty. Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich himself took part in children's amusements, appointed his son a colonel and ordered that special armor, a small saber and a helmet be made for him. Peter loved his sword so much that he didn’t even go to bed without it.

But happiness was short-lived. When the prince was four years old, his father died, and Peter's half-brother Fyodor Alekseevich ascended the throne. The position of Natalya Kirillovna worsened. They say that the prince saw his mother in tears more than once, heard her complaints about her enemies. When the relatives of Fyodor Alekseevich almost drove Natalya Kirillovna out of the palace, the seven-year-old Peter was not afraid and went to the sovereign to ask for protection and help. He, surprised by the determination of his younger half-brother, kissed him and hurried to comfort the queen-stepmother.

According to Yakov Grot’s article Peter the Great as the Educator of Russia (1872) with his insatiable curiosity, Peter Alekseevich often felt the paucity of his knowledge and complained about the insufficiency of his school education. Peter was taught in early childhood by the deacon Nikita Zotov. They read the alphabet or primer, then the book of hours, the psalter, they learned the Gospel by heart. When the prince was eight, he was taught to write. Peter also studied church singing and often, already being tsar, sang bass on the kliros. From the correspondence of Peter with his entourage, it is clear that Peter knew Greek and Roman mythology. However, many researchers note that Peter wrote with errors until the end of his life. You can learn in detail about the years of study of Peter the Great, about his life in country residences in Preobrazhenskoye and Izmailovo, in the Moscow German settlement thanks to the video film of the Presidential Library Teachers of Peter I, which is entirely based on the materials of the library's electronic collections.

By order of Natalya Kirillovna, many pictures were drawn on various topics and hung around the rooms. According to them, the teacher Zotov introduced the boy to the great feats of Russian commanders, talked about ships and cities. In his children's games "with the little ones" in the village of Preobrazhensky, the prince repeated and depicted in his faces everything he saw in the pictures: he built fortresses and led regiments. The historian Ivan Golikov in his book Anecdotes Concerning the Sovereign Emperor Peter the Great (1807) cites the story of Peter Krekshin, a collector of handwritten documents on Russian history, one of the first biographers of Peter I, explaining why Peter was afraid of water for many years.

When Tsarevich Peter was only five years old, he rode in a carriage in his mother's arms. From the long road (they were heading to the monastery, "on a pilgrimage"), both dozed off. While crossing the stream, which had become a river from the spring flood, the carriage tipped over heavily and filled with water. From the sound of water, the screams of people, little Peter woke up in horror. “...Seeing the pallor of a frightened mother, the water in the carriage and the noisy aspiration of water, he was so struck by fear that at the same time he got a fever”. This strong impression persisted for many years, and Peter, according to the author, "had an aversion to water" until the age of fourteen. He helped Peter get rid of fear, according to the author, his tutor, Prince Boris Golitsyn. On the hunt, he adjusted the route so that he had to bathe the "tired and dusty" horses in the Istra River, as, they say, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich often did. At the same moment, on a preliminary order, the hunters who were with Peter rushed to bathe, and Golitsyn himself went across the river on horseback. The prince was “ashamed to show himself afraid of the water” and, making an effort on himself, drove into the water. A similar story, according to the author, was soon repeated in the village of Izmailovo, "which had several ponds capable of swimming." Watching people frolic in the water, Peter finally got over his fear and joined them. Whether this is true or a legend, it is probably impossible to establish now. But the fact remains: it was here, in this village, that young Peter found the very English boat from which his passion for shipbuilding began and which would later be called the "grandfather of the Russian fleet".

At the age of ten, Tsarevich Peter was in for a severe shock. The elder brother Fyodor died, Peter was torn from his seclusion in Preobrazhensky and put on the throne. And soon a streltsy uprising, organized by his half-sister Sophia, broke out before his eyes. He witnessed bloody scenes, the murder of his uncle, the humiliation of his mother, he experienced fear for his life. After that, Peter had to share the reign with his half-brother John, but in fact, the control of the state passed into the hands of Princess Sophia. For juvenile sovereigns, a special double throne was even made, with a window and a place for a hinter-princess behind.

Peter continued to live in Preobrazhensky, Zotov's teachers were removed from him, they did not give him a new one. And here much depended on Peter himself. So, for example, having learned at the age of fourteen about the existence of a device that allows measuring distances “without reaching that place”, he ordered to get it from France. But none of his entourage knew how to work with the astrolabe. Through a doctor friend, they found the Dutchman Frans Timmerman, who, at the request of Peter, later began to teach the tsar arithmetic, geometry and fortification.

At the same time, the amusing battles between Peter Alekseevich and his peers became more and more serious. By 1687, he made up two regiments, named after two royal villages - Preobrazhensky and Semyonovsky. They built fortresses, carried out almost real battles. Historians say that in one of these battles, a bursting hand grenade even burned the face of the tsar and wounded many officers. It was here that the future great victories of the future Great Peter were born, such as the capture of Azov, the defeat of the Swedes near Poltava and many others. The “amusing troops” soon became the best Russian regiments of a new model, and many of those with whom Tsar Peter shared his fun in his youth became famous commanders later.