69
A Self-Made Man
Whowas the Father of His Country?
I know what you will say:
“George Washington.”
But there was another man called “The Father of His Country” before Washington was born, and he was not an American.
In the east of Europe there is a great country as large as our own, and its name is Russia. Very little had been heard of Russia before the Year 1700, for although it was the largest country in Europe, its people were only about half civilized. The Russians were a branch of the great Aryan family called Slavs, but although they were white people, they were living so close to the yellow people in China that they had become much like them in many of their ways. Then, too, the terrible Genghis Khan and his yellow Mongols had conquered Russia in the thirteenth century and ruled over the land. So although the Russians were Christians, they were in every other way more like the people of the East than like Europeans. The men had longbeards and wore long coats. The women wore veils like those the Turkish women wore. The people counted with balls strung on wires as the Chinese did.
Well, just before 1700 there was born a Russian prince named Peter. When a small boy, Peter was very much afraid of the water. But he felt so ashamed that he, a prince, should fear anything that he forced himself to get used to the water. He would go to it and play in it and sail boats on it, although all the time he was almost scared to death. And so at last he not only got over this great fear but he came to like the water and boats more than any other playthings.
When Peter grew up the thing he wanted more than anything else in the world was to make his country important in Europe, for before this time it had not been. It was big but not great. And his people had to be civilized. But before he could teach his own people, who were most of them very poor and ignorant, he had to learn himself. As there was no one in Russia who could teach him what he wanted to know, he disguised himself as a common laborer and went to the little country of Holland. Here he got a job in a shipbuilding yard and worked for several months, cooking his own food and mending his own clothes. While he was doingthis, however, he learned all about building ships and studied many other things besides, such as blacksmithing, cobbling shoes, and even pulling teeth.
Then he went to England, and everywhere he went he learned all he could. At last he returned to his own country with the knowledge he had gained and set to work to make Russia over. First of all, Peter wanted Russia to have a fleet of ships as other nations had. But in order to have a fleet he had to have water for his ships, and Russia had almost no land bordering on the water. So Peter planned to take a sea-shore away from the neighboring country of Sweden.
Now the king of Sweden at this time was Charles. He was the twelfth king named Charles that Sweden had had. Charles XII was hardly more than a boy, and Peter thought it would be an easy matter to beat this boy and help himself to whatever land he wanted on the water. But Charles was not an ordinary boy. He was an extra-ordinary boy, extra-ordinarily bright and gifted, and he had been unusually well educated besides. He knew several languages; he had learned to ride a horse when he was four years old and how to hunt and to fight. Besides all this, he feared neither hardship nor danger. Indeed, he was such a daredevil thatpeople called him the Madman of the North. So at first Peter’s army was beaten by Charles.
But Peter took his beating calmly, simply remarking that Charles would soon teach the Russian army how to win. Indeed, so successful was Charles at first in fighting Peter and all others who threatened him that the countries of Europe began to think of him as Alexander the Great come to life again, and they feared he might conquer them all. But at last the Russians did win against Charles, and Peter got his sea-shore. Then Peter built the fleet for which he had been working and planning for so many years.
The capital of Russia was Moscow. It was a beautiful city but near the center of that country and far from the water. This didn’t suit Peter at all. Peter wanted a fine city for his capital, but he wanted it right on the water’s edge, so that he could have his beloved ships close to him. So he picked out a spot not only on the water but mostly water, for it was chiefly a marsh. Then he put a third of a million people to work filling in the marsh, and on this he built a beautiful city. This city he called St. Petersburg in honor of his patron saint, the apostle Peter, after whom he himself had been named. The name of St. Petersburg was later changed to Petrograd and recently to Leningrad. ThenPeter improved the laws, started schools, and built factories and hospitals and taught his people arithmetic, so that they could count without having to use balls strung on strings. He made his people dress like other Europeans. He made the men cut off their long beards, which he thought looked countrified. The men thought it indecent to have no beards so some saved them to be placed in their coffins in order that at the day of resurrection they could appear before God unashamed. He introduced all sorts of things that he found in Europe but which were unknown in his own country, and he really made Russia over into a great European nation, so that is why he is called Peter the Great, the Father of his Country.
Peter fell in love with a poor peasant girl, an orphan named Catherine, and married her. She had no education, but she was very sweet and lovely and bright and quick-witted, so the marriage turned out happily. The Russians were shocked at the idea of having a queen who was not a princess and was so low-born. But Peter had her crowned, and after he died she ruled over Russia.