The tsar [Peter I of Russia, AKA Peter the Great] had already done much to humble the unruly and arrogant streltsy in the years following their first revolt [Moscow Uprising of 1682, see below for further reading], essentially reducing them to common foot soldiers deprived of all the privileges and prestige they had once enjoyed. Thus sparked the second revolt, which erupted while Peter was away on his extended tour of Europe. The uprising had been quickly crushed and a number of participants already tortured and executed, but not nearly enough to satisfy Peter. He canceled the rest of his planned itinerary in the West and immediately sped home to deal with the treasonous streltsy himself.
After hacking off the beards of his subjects, the tsar started hacking off heads. But first he was determined to discover if there had been a larger conspiracy behind the streltsy revolt, and, if so, how high among his boyars it went. Two thousand or so rebels still languished in prison, and Peter wanted answers from them. To that end, what author Robert K. Massie termed as “an assembly line of torture” was set up outside the tsar’s country estate of Preobrazhenskoe. Bones were broken, flesh seared, and backs lashed and shredded – with Peter presiding over the interrogations, which lasted for weeks – but many of the streltsy remained stubbornly mum about any greater plot.
The Austrian envoy Johannes Korb left a vivid account of the revolt and its aftermath, including the tsar’s frustration when it became apparent that being racked and roasted was not enough to elicit the answers he was seeking from one poor soul. “The Tsar, tired at last of this exceedingly wicked stubbornness, furiously raised the stick which he happened to have in his hand, and thrust it so violently into his jaws – clenched in obstinate silence – to break them open, and make him give tongue to speak. And these words too that fell from the raging man, ‘Confess, beast, confess!’ loudly proclaimed how great was his wrath.”
As numerous historians have pointed out, cruel torture was hardly unusual in the seventeenth century, but rare was the monarch who personally conducted such bloody business like the Russian tsar did, week after week, without a trace of mercy. “Peter never hesitated to be a participant in the enterprises he commanded, whether on the battlefield, on ship-board or in the torture chamber,” Massie noted. “He had decreed the interrogation and destruction of the Streltsy; he would not sit back and wait for someone to bring him news that his command had been obeyed.”
Source:
Farquhar, Michael. “Chapter 2 – Peter I (1696-1725): The Eccentricities of an Emperor.” Secret Lives of the Tsars: Three Centuries of Autocracy, Debauchery, Betrayal, Murder, and Madness from Romanov Russia. Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2014. 42-4. Print.
Peter the Great (Russian: Пётр Вели́кий); Peter the Great
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