Royalty · Politics · 1672–1725
Born: 9 June 1672 · Died: 8 February 1725 · Age at death: 52
Peter the Great died aged 52. He was born on 9 June 1672 and died on 8 February 1725.
Russian tsar who modernised his country on Western lines, built a navy and founded Saint Petersburg as his new capital
Did you know?Standing at nearly seven feet tall, he once travelled across Europe in disguise to learn about shipbuilding and navigation.
Peter the Great dragged Russia, sometimes literally, into the modern European world. After travelling across Europe to study shipbuilding and technology, he returned home determined to modernise his country. He built a navy, reformed the army and government, and even taxed men who refused to shave their traditional beards. In 1703 he founded Saint Petersburg on marshland by the Baltic Sea, making it his new capital and a 'window on the West'. His reforms made Russia a major European power, though they came at great human cost to the workers and serfs who carried them out.
Peter I (9 June 1672 – 8 February 1725), known by the epithet the Great, was the tsar of all Russia from 1682 to 1721, and the first emperor of Russia from 1721 until his death in 1725. He reigned jointly with his brother, Ivan V, from 1682 until Ivan's death in 1696.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
Profile
Russian tsar, born 1672
Peter the Great was born in Moscow on 9 June 1672.
He founded Saint Petersburg in 1703.
He travelled to Western Europe on the Grand Embassy.
He defeated Sweden at Poltava in 1709.
Career highlights
Did you know?He worked incognito in a Dutch shipyard.
Questions people ask
In the Great Northern War (1700–1721) a coalition led by Russia successfully contested the supremacy of Sweden in Northern, Central and Eastern Europe. The initial leaders of the anti-Swedish alliance were Peter I of Russia, Frederick IV of Denmark–Norway and Augustus II the Strong of Saxony-Poland-Lithuania.
Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0
The Battle of Poltava fought on 8 July 1709, was the decisive and largest battle of the Great Northern War. A Russian army under the command of Tsar Peter I defeated a Swedish army commanded by Carl Gustaf Rehnskiöld.
Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0
The Treaty of Nystad, or the Treaty of Uusikaupunki, was the last peace treaty of the Great Northern War of 1700–1721. It was concluded between the Tsardom of Russia and the Swedish Empire on 10 September 1721 in the then Swedish town of Nystad (Uusikaupunki, in the south-west of present-day Finland).
Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0
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Last reviewed: October 2026