Part 1, Old Muscovy, Chapters 1-6 Summary and Analysis

Chapter 1, "Old Muscovy," describes Moscow in the 1670s, its unassuming and pious Tsar Alexis, the foes surrounding Orthodox Russia—Sweden, Poland, the Ottoman Empire, and China—and how the 8 million peasants and serfs, scattered thinly across the countryside, live in harmony with harsh nature. Moscow is a bustling commercial city. The Kremlin is a city within, the center of government and church. Alexis is a demigod and his government, run by the hereditary nobility (boyars), is inefficient.

Chapter 2, "Peter's Childhood," shows the widowed Alexis in 1671, marrying Natalya Naryshkin, who bears a healthy son, Peter, on 30 May 1672. At age three Peter loses his doting father and is seen as a threat to the invalid 15-year-old Tsar Fedor by the Miloslavsky in-laws who return to power. Natalya and her children fade from public...