Episode Details

In 1697, a six-foot-eight ship's carpenter in a European shipyard was secretly the Tsar of Russia. This deep dive traces Peter the Great from witnessing the Streltsy uprising as a child to building a toy army in exile and undertaking the Grand Embassy to steal the blueprints of the modern world.

We explore his brutal reprisal against the Streltsy, the beard tax, the Table of Ranks and the subordination of the church, plus the Great Northern War from defeat at Narva to victory at Poltava. We also examine the building of St. Petersburg, the city built on bones, the torture and death of his son Alexei, and how dying without naming an heir exposed the flaw of autocracy.

• How childhood trauma shaped his distrust of tradition
• The Grand Embassy as a diplomatic failure but a technological success
• Beards, calendars, the alphabet and the Table of Ranks
• The Great Northern War and the human cost of St. Petersburg
• The tragedy of Alexei and an unfinished final note