Peter Alekseevich Romanov, more commonly known as “Peter the Great” was born in or near Moscow on Thursday May 30, 1672. While Peter is revered for opening up windows to the West, his father, Alexis, was not quite so open. According to Lindsey Hughes, the late Professor of Russian History at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University of London and author of Russia in the Age of Peter the Great (Yale University Press, 2000):
. . . foreigners were still in Russia on sufferance, tolerated as a necessary evil. The building of the new Foreign Quarter in 1652 was actually an attempt to concentrate foreigners and their churches in a restricted locality, away from the city centre, where they had lived previously.”
Alexis I of Russia, and father of Peter the Great
Furthermore:
Russians were still clearly differentiated from Western Europeans by their dress, although a number were tempted by Polish influence to don Western fashions in private.”
To keep distinctions clear, Tsar Alexis decreed on this day in history:
Courtiers are forbidden to adopt foreign, German, and other customs, to cut the hair on their heads and to wear robes, tunics and hats of foreign design, and they are to forbid their servants to do so.”
As Professor Hughes explains, the “courtiers” to whom this edict was directed formed the upper echelons of Russia’s service class. They were sometimes loosely referred to as “boyars” and were roughly the equivalent of the Western aristocracy. They enjoyed the “privilege” of attending to and advising the tsar, who wanted to see no foreign influences in his midst.
Alexis had reason to worry about foreign influence. With the First Northern War (1654-60), Russia entered the wider sphere of international relations. Moreover, historically, Russia felt keenly the desire for unimpeded access to the Black Sea, which meant continuing interactions with the West by both diplomatic and military initiatives.
Peter the Great
When Peter first became Tsar, he did not have much interest in ruling, and the forces of conservatism and anti-foreign initiatives continued to prevail. As Hughes reports however:
. . . . Despite the Church’s dire warnings about the dangers of contamination by heretics, Peter himself was spending more and more time in the company of foreigners. . . . “
During 1697 and 1698 Peter travelled around Europe in disguise to learn about Europe firsthand. Fascinated with the foreign customs he encountered, he returned to Russia bringing with him some aspects of European culture.
Peter the Great biographer Robert K. Massie wrote that at a reception thrown in Peter’s honor following his return from Europe, “Peter suddenly produced a long, sharp barber’s razor and with his own hands began shaving off [the boyar’s] beards. [They] “were forced, one by one, to submit until every boyar present was beardless and none could laugh and point a shocked finger at the others.” (p. 234)
Peter the great shaves a beard. Painting by Dimitry Belyukin, 1985
Massie continued: “The scene was remarkable: at a stroke the political, military and social leaders of Russia were bodily transformed.”
In addition, and further defying the early legacy of his father, Peter issued an edict in 1698 that decreed that all Russians except the clergy and the peasants must shave. Eventually Peter relented a bit, allowing those who wanted beards to keep them if they paid a tax, graduated by social class. They were given a small medallion to wear around their necks that declared TAX PAID.
As for Peter, he continued to bring his razor with him to any ceremony, and as Massie recounts “those who arrived with beards departed without them.” (p. 235)
More westernizing changes followed, including a decision to follow the Julian calendar then in use in England. Unfortunately, England soon adopted the Gregorian calendar, but Russia refused to make a second change until 1918.
Nevertheless, as Mario Sosa, writing for St. Mary’s University, observed of Peter:
He played a crucial role in westernizing Russia by changing its economy, government, culture, and religious affairs . . . By doing all of this, Russia was able to expand and become one of the most powerful countries in the eastern hemisphere.”
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