Gender image of Peter I in the context of the era

Peter I is knownfor his deviant behaviour in his private life. Condemnation of the contemporaries and descendants was caused by his divorce with hisfirst wife Eudocia, by marrying a woman of a very low origin, the future Empress Catherine I, by his numerous extra-marital sexualrelations. Cross-cultural analysis allows us to better understand the extent of the typical or non-standard behaviour of Peter. Marriages ofEuropean monarchs were generally concluded for political reasons and did not anticipate the availability of emotional intimacy betweenspouses (although in some cases they may have occurred). Russian tsars chose their wives from a fairly large number of candidates, notalways aristocratic; that is the emotional factor here could play a greater role than in Europe. This difference is reflected, in particular, inthe private life of Peter I. Firstly, the lack of the principle of equal marriage facilitates the possibility of divorce for the Russian monarch(any European queen had support of her ruling clan), and, second, the second marriage of Peter is not so surprising, based on sincerelove and affection. Of course, the social status of the new queen - a captive and a laundress - in Russia was out of the ordinary, too. Itcan be explained on the basis of understanding of the specific identity of the tsar-reformer; being neurotic, Peter literally took Catherinefrom rags to riches, so to assert himself in his status as the demiurge of the new Russia (after all, for his family - nieces and son - hechose spouses of the European princely houses). The abundance of mistresses in Peter's life was not uncommon in the Russian tradition(of course, this does not apply to the tsar family) and in European courts (where the presence of a mistress was almost a mandatory attributeof the royal status, indicating, in understanding of the subjects, health and welfare of the ruler). There are suspicions about homosexualcontacts of the tsar-reformer, reflected in a variety of sources, though not conclusive. As the analysis of archival sources shows,people's condemnation of "obscene" behaviour of Peter I does not appear so often (much less frequently than the rejection of his politicaland cultural innovations). Attempts can be found even to justify the tsar with reference to the negative influence of foreigners, or, asin European countries, the need to maintain the function of prosperity and fertility. In general, we can say that the concept of "normal"and "abnormal" in the private sphere in Peter's epoch reflected the transitional nature of the period. Unlike Western countries, wherestandards of morality experienced the greatest period of loosening at the Renaissance and early modern times, while in the 18th centurythey gradually entered a more civilized (in the sense of N. Elias) framework, Russia at this time entered the space of liberation and experimentation,repeating the whole Western way with some delay. Hence are a few stronger reactions of subjects and descendants to thebehaviour of the first emperor.

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