Posted at 12:00 p.m.
(Saint-Petersburg, Russia) My arrival in Saint-Petersburg coincided with the celebration of the 350e birthday of Peter the Great, the founder of this city who changed the course of Russian history, transforming the country into an empire of which he became the emperor. The city that again bears his name (it was called Leningrad between 1924 and 1991) was founded on territory conquered during a war with Sweden.
Vladimir Putin, originally from Leningrad, did not miss the opportunity to include this anniversary in his current agenda. “You would think that by fighting with Sweden he was seizing his lands,” Putin said, referring to the northern wars that Peter the Great launched in the early 1800s.e century to forge a new Russian empire. “But he didn’t grab them, he took them back!” Putin said, arguing that Slavs had lived in the area for centuries. “It seems that it is up to us, too, to recover…”, concluded the Russian president, referring to Ukraine.
It was under Peter the Great that Russia became a major European power by gaining access to the Baltic and Azov seas. He built a modern bureaucracy, a robust army and a formidable navy.
Even though Russia had participated in European trade before him, he made it an indispensable political and military player. The Russian army defeated Napoleon’s Grande Armée and entered Paris in 1814. The Russian army came to the aid of European empires throughout the XIXe century. Its participation in the First World War attracted German troops in order to alleviate the situation of the French and British armies in 1914-1916. A few decades later, it was the Soviet army that frustrated the onslaught of Nazi Germany and its European allies in 1941 and, at the cost of 27 million deaths, ensured its defeat.
The country was a signatory to the Helsinki Accords in 1975 which stabilized the European security architecture. However, the dismantling of the USSR deprived post-Soviet Russia of the status of a great power. Putin tried to track him down through diplomatic means, but those he used to call “our Western partners” repeatedly pushed him back, as recently as December 2021 and January 2022. it is true that post-Soviet Russia is less vast than the USSR, Saint-Petersburg remains closer to Montreal than to Vladivostok, on the eastern flank of the country.
Opening to Europe
Pierre was imposing modernization with ruthless force, introducing European manners and institutions to a reluctant country. He is credited with having opened Russia to Europe economically, scientifically, technologically and culturally. Denis Diderot and Johann Strauss are among the celebrities who have lived and worked in Saint Petersburg. Even Stalin, the apostle of autarky, brought in thousands of Western engineers to strengthen the backbone of the Soviet economy. Gorbachev and Yeltsin displayed a passionate enthusiasm for all things Western (the massive absorption of Americanisms into the Russian language during their tenures deserves separate treatment). This relationship with the West came to an abrupt end when Russian tanks entered Ukraine in February 2022. Russia is now shunned by Western governments, businesses, cultural institutions and citizens.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR
Musical concerts from the beginning of the 18th centurye century, with interpreters in period costumes, take place in Saint Petersburg on the occasion of the celebrations of the 350e birthday of Peter the Great.
Celebrations in honor of Peter the Great include hundreds of lectures, concerts, shows, films and television series. I happened to watch an old black and white biographical film made in the 1930s. What struck me was not only the superb acting, but also the continuity of foreign policy concerns.
In the film, Peter the Great remarks that Britain tries to involve Russia in the wars while remaining a spectator itself.
In another comment, the emperor warns against Western plans to break up Russia “into small principalities”. Today, the Western media regularly discusses a possible collapse of the Russian Federation.
Russian scholars and media question the legacy of Peter the Great. Russian opponents of Westernization, very articulate for three centuries, seem more influential today. They call for a reorientation towards Asia, dynamic and industrious, towards a new world in which the “collective West” which dominated the world would be put in its place.
The celebration of the first Russian emperor is far from uncritical adulation. While concerts of music from the beginning of the XVIIIe century, with interpreters in period costumes, take place all over the city, a serious debate continues in the pages of the Russian media and in prestigious research institutes as to the relevance of the Western orientation of Peter the Great .