The first Petersburg period 1727–1741

Abstract

At the beginning of the 18th century, events of the greatest importance took place in Russia. Allied with Denmark and Saxony-Poland against Swe- den,the Russia of Peter the Great during the Nordic War (1700–1721) against Carl XII fought to gain vital access to the Baltic Sea and secured hegemony in the Baltic area with the victory of Poltawa (1709) and then with the annexation of Livland, Ingria and Finland in the peace treaty of Nystad (1721). An essential preliminary step for this was the citadel built by Tsar Peter I (the Great) with an incredible expenditure of energy at the swampy mouth of the Neva river. From the very beginning, it carried Peter’s name as the Russian metropolis and was built according to his own plans — with the aid of many foreign architects, engineers, and tech- nicians — following a strict geometric pattern,starting in 1703 with the colossal bastion “Peter and Paul”, and engaging hundreds of thousands of “work slaves”.³⁵