Peter the Great the king of catching up development

Abstract

The scope of the personality of Peter the Great questions the logic of his large-scale reforms in practical terms. It began along with the war, coincided with the war, and in a number of key issues was determined by the need to wage the war, arm and supply the army, and restructure its management. Attention to his reforms is connected not so much with the anniversary of Peter I in 2022, but with the need to understand the historical path of Russia and to form the country's cultural code under the influence of his reforms. Starting with a humble goal of opening a “window to Europe”, after 1714 administrative reforms became more extensive and comprehensive. The logic of the reforms was determined not only by the aspiration to Europe and not by the teleology of creating an empire. It was more about the pragmatic need to use the window of opportunity to get out of the “ring track” of a vast forest power squeezed by three imperial (regardless of titles) neighbors of other faiths — Turkey, Poland and Sweden. The course and needs of the Northern War to a large extent determined the nature of the reforms, with the success in the war resulting in the formation of the empire. The paper formulates possible alternative ways of Russia's development at the turn of the 16th–17th centuries, uses the methodology inherent in the new institutional economic school to compare discrete structural alternatives that stand in the way of the country and the hero of the article at two critical time points. The reforms outcomes and the war gave the country a chance for development, though a large-scale transition to more mature European socio-economic institutions could not be implemented in this short period and under war conditions.