Teachers and mentors of Peter the Great

Emperor Peter the Great possessed extensive knowledge, skills and abilities in various fields – scientific, military and others. He was never tired of learning anything circumstances required and his astute mind anticipated. What explains this inexhaustible desire to acquire new knowledge? Is this a natural feature of an inquisitive mind, or is this a result of education and training with firmly mastered discipline skills?

Answers to these questions can be found on the pages of rare publications, available on the Presidential Library’s portal.

“Tsarevich Peter met life cheerfully. He was in good health, handsome in himself. From an early age, extraordinary liveliness and sharpness of mind”, – Sergei Rozhdestvensky wrote in his book About Peter the Great: How Peter the Great spent his youth, how and what he studied (1872).

When Peter I was born, the Moscow Kingdom actively began to enter into international relations, maintaining and developing of which required knowledge of foreign languages. Thus, the demand for highly educated teachers has increased. One of such teachers was Symeon Polotsky – an educated monk, who knew history, was “proficient in grammar, rhetoric, poetry”, for whom the Polish language was the second mother tongue, “he liked writing in it more than in any other language”. Standing guard over the interests of enlightenment, Symeon Polotsky has contributed to the founding of higher education institutions in Russia based on European universities. More information about the life and work of the Russian educator is available in the book Symeon Polotsky (1886) by Hierotheos Tatarsky.

Symeon Polotsky became the mentor of Peter’s older siblings – Fyodor, Ivan and Sofia. The monk has written “The Book of Short Catechetical Questions and Answers” and “The Life and Teaching of Christ our Lord and God”. Both books taught the basics of theology in an entertaining way. Thanks to Polotsky’s work, Fyodor mastered Polish and Latin, which have been useful in negotiations with foreigners. In addition to foreign languages, Sofia was interested in history.

Peter’s first teachers did not possess talents of Symeon Polotsky, but with the help of the latter a mentor has been found for the tsarevich – Nikita Zotov.

After bowing with trepidation and making the sign of the cross, Deacon Zotov began to teach. The most important thing for him was to teach the tsarevich to read and memorize chapters from the Horologion, the Book of Psalms, the Acts of the Apostles and the Gospel. “Thanks to constant memorization, the tsarevich's already naturally rich memory has surprisingly developed and strengthened”, – Boris Glinsky wrote in the book The Royal Children and their teachers: Historical essays for youth (1912). Zotov taught Peter I with “funny books” featuring “kunsts”, meaning drawings or pictures, and also compiled “teachings” for Peter – notebooks full of stories from the life of tsars.

However, Deacon Zotov was not versed in writing and in the exact sciences, and Peter I, as Sergei Rozhdestvensky stated in the book About Peter the Great: How Peter the Great spent his youth, how and what he studied, “burning with thirst for knowledge, started educating himself”.

Peter I compensated for the imperfection of writing skills with practical skills. In the twelfth year of his life, the tsarevich was delivered tools for stone work, painting and bindery, as well as a workbench and a lathe. At the age of fifteen, he has already mastered fourteen crafts.

Of great importance to Peter I was the training of the "toy army" in Preobrazhensky and Semenovsky villages, where Captain Fyodor Sommer taught him artillery skills, revealed the basics of fortification.

Peter I has acquired the most valuable knowledge in a German sloboda on the outskirts of Moscow, in the company of hired foreign officers. Speaking about the teachers of Peter I, it is impossible not to mention the Dutch engineer, merchant Franz Timmerman, who taught him how to use the astrolabe (one of the oldest astronomical instruments), studied geometry with him and explored fortification. “From the moment Peter I met Timmerman, he did not part with him anymore”, – Vasily Zolotov said in the book The History of Peter the Great (1872).

For Timmerman, similarly to other teachers, Peter I was not an “easy” student. Not having a good knowledge of the initial literacy, he had difficulties with “fixing the material in writing”. Plus, he was so hyperactive that “he could not walk, but only ran”. “Everything that Peter sees”, Vasily Zolotov wrote, “he asks to be explained, to say what it is, what it is for. And there was no corner where he would not run to see if there was anything new, curious?” Thus, one day, having been in Izmailovo, Peter I climbed into the barns with his mentor and saw an unfamiliar, “not Russian-built” ship. The teacher explained to him that this is an English boat that “sails in the wind and against the wind”. This episode turned out to be enough “to arouse Peter's passion for navigation and shipbuilding”.

Franz Lefort, a future general of the Russian army, became a friend and teacher of Peter I. Nikolai Ustryalov’s book Lefort and the fun of Peter the Great before 1689 (1851) tells about the influence he had on Peter: “Lefort impressed the young tsar with knowledge of the Russian language and later induced in him a love for everything great, beautiful, useful, he impacted the growth of his mental abilities”. Peter I became attached to Lefort and often visited his house.

“An important event in Peter's intellectual life was getting close with the brilliant scholar and writer Gottfried Leibniz. After conversations with Peter I, Leibniz was in awe of his whole personality, surprised not only by the humanity of such a powerful sovereign, but also by his extensive knowledge and quick thinking”, – Yakov Grot mentions in the book Peter the Great as the Enlightener of Russia (1872).

Despite the diversity of knowledge and skills, the lack of a systematic approach to learning had its consequences: Peter I often complained about the insufficiency of his school education. Therefore, one day, entering the study room of his daughters and finding them at their lessons, he said with a sigh: “Oh, if I had been taught properly in my youth!”

Considering the indifference of the time to the sciences and arts, the sleepy work of the “public mind” afraid of any new idea, Peter's mentors somewhat managed to introduce him to the “charm of studying”. “Whether his own power has awakened the genius in him, or it was ignited by a happy mortal sent down to be his mentor” – whether it was Deacon Zotov, the Dutchman Frank Timmerman, or an “accidentally” met workman, from whom the tsar was “equally” trained in a new skill, is a question no one’s been able to give an accurate answer to for four hundred years.

In addition, the Presidential Library’s portal features a large-scale collection Peter I that includes historical compositions, memories, letters, engravings, pages from workbooks of the young tsarevich. All these materials provide a broad and detailed idea about the emperor’s interests, the era of his apprenticeship, as well as about the structure of education in Rus in this critical period in history.

The Presidential Library has also prepared the video film Teachers of Peter I that tell about the first fifteen years of the future emperor’s education. The film is available on the Presidential Library’s portal.