The Triumphs and Tribulations of Peter the Great: What Putin’s View of 18th-Century Warfare Can Tell Us About Ukraine

Burns notes that as is the case with most heads of state, Putin is fairly upbeat when discussing his country’s heroes in public. In his speeches, Putin primarily focuses on two eras: the portion of the reign of Peter the Great that lasted from 1700 to 1721 and Catherine the Great’s reign between 1768 and 1783. In the long arc of 18th-century Russian history, this would be a bit like talking about the American Revolutionary War by mentioning Lexington and Concord and then skipping to Yorktown. The progression may be correct, but a lot of the nuances and complexities are lost.

Burns writes that Putin usually frames his understanding of the Great Northern War as a great power competition in which the enemy was the West but the battlefield was Ukraine. But for all of his focus on Peter, Putin’s favorite topic is the fifteen years between 1768 and 1783 when Russia defeated the Ottoman Empire, stripped it of the Crimean Khanate, and annexed Crimea.

Here, as in the Great Northern War, Putin’s narrative holds that victories over other great powers allowed Russia to crush Ukraine. Victories over the Ottomans allowed Catherine a free reign in dealing with the Ukrainian Cossacks. In 1764, Catherine founded a new province called Novorossiya to consolidate her military frontier, which grew to encompass Kharkiv, the Donbass, old Crimean Khanate possessions, and the territories of the dissolved Zaporizhian Cossack host.

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In Putin’s heroic interpretation, Peter I beat the West during the Great Northern War, which blocked any effort at Ukrainian independence. Then Catherine II defeated the Ottoman Empire to seize Crimea and southern Ukraine. With the help of heroes like Pyotr Rumyanstev, Alexander Suvorov, and Fyodor Ushakov, Russian victory was always assured. In 1708, a Russian commander proudly reported back to the Kremlin, “the bandit’s den at Bakhmut is taken and destroyed, and the inhabitants have been slaughtered.” Putin is undoubtedly hoping to receive a similar report any day.

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Yet this whole narrative obscures the fact that Russia’s historical fight to conquer its southern frontier lasted for centuries, and even its decisive phase ran over one hundred years. In presenting his triumphant account, Putin often publicly glosses over the failures and costs associated with Russian imperialism. What Putin leaves unsaid is almost as telling as his boasting about 18th-century commanders. 

Urns concludes:

As Putin prepares the Russian people for a long war in Ukraine, they may begin to hear more about this part of their history. On Dec. 22, Putin’s government registered a general education plan for Russian students that featured topics such as “Overcoming initial failures in the Great Northern War.”

Russia didn’t conquer Crimea on the first attempt, or even the sixth. In the current war, the Russian military made many initial mistakes. But then, the same is true for many of its 18th-century conflicts. Today, Russia retains the ability to reconstitute its forces over a period of months or years. Indeed, the country’s nuclear deterrent makes it even easier for Putin to continue to reenact his fantasy of being a modern 18th-century czar. Only Ukrainian resolve and Western support can determine if his reenactment looks more like Peter’s failure on the River Prut, or Catherine’s conquests later in the century.