Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Tsar Peter’s letter written after the Battle of Poltava.



A unique letter written by Russian Tsar Peter I to his wife Catherine soon after the victorious Battle of Poltava was shown to the public on the historical exhibition in the Russian State Historical Museum. The exhibition is dedicated to the 300th anniversary of the Battle of Poltava. The letter written by Russian Tsar on June 27th in the Russian fortified camp near Poltava is preserving in the Russian State Archives of Old Document. In his letter to Catherine Peter I wrote:

My dear sweety,
I am happy to announce an unexpected victory over the enemy that was granted to me today by loving and gracious God. In one word all enemy’s force was defeated utterly. Come here if you want to hear this news from me and congratulate me on this occasion.
Give my regards to the Princess

Peter

Early in 1703 Peter I becomes the lover of a Lithuanian peasant, captured in the Northern War and now working as the domestic serf of a Russian prince. Later in the same year, when their first child is born, the mother is received into the Russian Orthodox Church under a new name, Catherine. She becomes the tsar's inseparable companion, bearing him seven children of whom two daughters survive infancy. Divorced from his first wife, Peter marries Catherine formally in 1712 (they may have married secretly in 1707) and has her crowned empress in 1724. Less than a year later she succeeds him on the throne, as the empress Catherine I.