PETROGRAD.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume IV, Issue 240, 24 September 1914, Page 3

PETROGRAD.

ITS REMARKABLE STORY . A NATIONAL DREAM. The action of the Czar in changing the name of his capital front St. Petersburg to Petrograd is a significant fact of the present war. and suggests a historical story of stirring interest. The object of the change suggestive of deep-seated national hatred, is to abolish a German de rivative or association. Carlyle, in his “Frederick the Great,’’ mentions the origin of the affix ’ burg’’ in Germany. Henry the Fowler, first of the Brandenburghers. and first Sovereign* of Germany,, ■•marched across the frozen bogs ’ in the year 92S and took Brannibor—the “bor.” “burg.’’ or fortress of the Brenns. Brennus being the name for king or leader. Henry ordered "all towns to be walled and warded--to be ’burgs’ in fact, and the inhabitants ‘burghers.’ or men capable of defending ‘burghs.’ ” Such titles. Carlyle adds, have “now become chimerical and more or less mendacious, as most of our titles are—like so many ‘burgs,’ changed into ‘boroughs.’ and even into ‘rotten boroughs,’ with defensive ‘burghers’ of the known soTt, very mournful to discover. The founder of St. Petersburg, or Petrograd, was perhaps the most industrious, the most and the greatest personality known to history, not excepting Napoleon. In constructive genius he was im measurably the Corsican tyrant's superior. When Napoleon was exiled after stripping France of the flower of its manhood, and making it an Intellectual desert, the whole political strucure, of which he was the head and centre, collapsed like a house of cards. Peter the Great organised an empire, and set -it squarely on the road to civilisation. His work lived after him; it is a national and world influence to-day. Yet he died at the comparatively early age of 43, worn out by his per sonal vices and his all conquering energies—

A fiery soul, which, working out its way. Fretted his mortal body to decay. And o'er informed its tenement .of clay.

Taking no account of his almost super-human work for Russia and his race, Peter was a licentious ogre, pitiless even to his own kindred. By his orders his first wife, who was jealous of him with more than good reason, was cruelly scourged and banished to a convent. He ordered the arrest of his eldest son on a -charge of high treason, and caused him to be tortured to death in prison. His second wife, the notori ous Catherine 1., tore his heart strings through the number of her lovers, and, although her unfortunate dupes generally lost their heads, managed to outlive him.

BUILDING OF THE CATHEDRAL The building of St. Petersburg was one of his national dreams, and it supplied a terrible example of his cold-blooded cruelty. No obstacle, no cost, no suffering could stand in his way when he made up his mind. He was as relentless as death. In 1697, a vear after taking Azoff from the Turks—a conquest which inspired him with a passion for military glory—he set off on a Continental tour as a stalwart young fellow of 25, to master the secrets of national greatness. His vast kingdom at the time was held by a number of quarrelsome nobles, who owned the common people as semi civilised serfs. Under the name of Peter Michaelov he went to Amsterdam, and. disguised in the habit of a Dutch skipper, took employment as a carpenter in the great shipbuilding yards at Zaandam. There Peter set himself to master all the arts of shipbuilding, navigation, and fortification. and shared the life of the workmen. Later he went on to Eng land, and worked in the yards at Deptford on the Thames. The effi ciency of England at this time ana its growing industrial strength im pressed him greatly. He worked in the English machinery factories learned weaving at the looms, gamed all the knowledge Ee could about whale fishing, and spent months in wielding the sledge hammer, axe. <>r plane. He studied also the hospitals asylums, and social organisations and even attended the meetings of religious sects. He induced Perry, a great Englisli engineer, and many other skilled Englishmen, to go to Russia and spend some years there. Leaving England, he went to Vienna to study the military system, for the Austrian army was then one of the best organised and most efficient in Europe. One of his best discoveries was Lelort. a Swiss adventurer, whom he made commander of his forces and admiral of a fleet which as yet had no existence.

The blast of war called the royal reformer from his work of national organisation. In 1700 Peter joined Poland. then a separate kingdom, and Denmark against Sweden. whose victcriosu forces under the stern Charles XII.. had swept through Prussia, and were about to invade Russia. At the great battle of Narva, the Swedes, although vastly outnumbered by the undisciplined Russian hordes, won a signal victory. But Peter the Great knew that his army was only in the making, and must be victorious in the end. In 1709 he was able practically to destroy Charles’ valiant forces before Poitawa, and to drive Charles himself as a fugitive to Tur key.

PETER’S FORESIGHT. Meantime, Peter, as has been said, was “knouting Russia into civilisation.’’ The desire of his heart was to open a gate to the trade, the industry, the influence, the science, and the literature of the West. Russia had no satisfactory inlet from the sea or outlet for her products. The rivers winch ran southward to the Black Sea were either rapids like the Dnieper or shallow like the Don, and their inouths were in territory then commanded by Turkey. The Caspian was not on the side of Europe, but of Asia. The only place for a greatcommercial capital was on the Gulf of 1-inland, somewhere near the mouth of the Neva. The region was almost unconquered. Early in the seventeenth century Moscow had been compelled to cede the country south of the Neva to the Swedes, who erected a fortress there and were still a danger. The land was low, marshy, and subject to floods : for many miles from the vast morass there was not a particle of stone. The surroundings .were a desolate wilderness. On the north and east, beginning from the very gates of the present city, there are hundreds of miles of thinly populated, barren country ; for 400 miles in each of these directions there is not a city of any importance, and when the site was chosen there was not another spot more remote from the centres of Russian life. But Peters the Great had a foresight that penetrated through the centuries. He chose as the scene o) the first work a marshy island, covered with brushwood, and inhabi ted by a few fishermen. It was called Lust Island, or Pleasure Island. A horde of workmen —Russians, Tar cars, Kalmucks, Cossacks, Ingrians. and Finlanders—was got together, under the command of Dutch architects and masons. Out of coriipb mem to them and their country, a neighbouring island, which served as a depot for timber, was named “New Holland,’’ the name given by the Dutch navigators to Australia On June 29, 1703. Peter laid the foundations of the Cathedral of St Peter and St. Pau), and of a fort #hich received Ids own name in its Dutch transcription—“Piterburgh,” or Peter’s fort. The labourers had insufficient tools, and they were fcrced to carry earth for considerable distances in the skirts of their coats or in improvised bags. The stir rounding bogs were pestilential, and it is estimated that 100,000 men perished there the first year. Pro p.ietors of more than 500 serfs were ordered to build houses at St. Petersburg, and to stay through the bitter winter. The construction of stone houses throughout the rest of Russia was prohibited, all masons being compelled to work in the newcapital The Czar’s methods for peopling the unhealthy place were oarbarous beyond description. Many thousands of people were shifted there only to die Five months after the city’s foundation a Dutch ship arrived, and then several ships from England. By 1714 Lefort, through employing Dutch and Venetian carpenters, was in possession of a navy chat was able to meet Swedish ships in the Gulf of Finland and gain a signal victory. After the death of Peter's infamous Queen (Catherine 1.) it was expected that the city would be gradually abandoned, ft was too important a gateway to the Empire. Tnere is now a population of about 1.600.000. and it is the chief place of export for the raw products o' the country and a centre of its manufacturers. It has been one of the greatest civilising influences in Russia. jtnd has been described as “the head of the country.’’ Moscow is said to be the “heart.’’ Petrograd has magnificent buildings and monuments, and. being the capital of an absolute government, is the centre of all political and social power. It is a great meeting place for the traders of all nations. The ciry was embellished in the reigns of Alexander I. (1804-1825) and Nicholas I. (1825-1855). and in 1885 it was impioved as a seaport by the making of a canal. 12ft deep, at a cost ot £l.!’~t>.sOO. St. Petersburg. or Pei l ograd. is a monument to its iomider s amazing work in organising tiie industrial forces ol his country .-.nd awakening the last Rmsian Empire to the inarch of civilisation. “It is shocking to realise. >ays I oltaire in his “Life ot tiiaihs Nil..' “that the reformer. reo-r the (beat, lacked the laruinal virtue of humanity. With so many virtue.,, be was ye. brutal in bi-, pleasures, savage in his manner. and barbarous in seeking revenge. He civilised his people, but remained savage himself. ’