Longer-lived Peter the Great?

[Emperor Constantine]

Basically what the title says. I've seen lots of different questions around the Russian succession after Peter the Great died (such as his daughter Anna inheriting, one of his short-lived sons surviving to inherit or his grandson Peter II living longer), but I don't recall anyone asking how a longer-lived Peter the Great would have turned out. After all, Peter was only 52 when he died (still only middle-aged by a lot of European standards, though not by Romanov standards, sense his father and grandfather died in their mid-late 40s). At the very least, I think its believable for him to live to 1730 (putting him at 57-58), with anything afterward meaning he inherited the longevity of his paternal great-grandfather Patriarch Filaret (who was 79 or 80 when he died).

Now, in terms of major effects, I'm a bit unsure. Peter had finished off the Great Northern War in 1721, and had sized a significant amount of territory from Safavid Iran in 1723 (basically all the territories around the Caspian sea, which would fall back to Iran under Nader Shah within 12 years), so I'd guess there would be further focus on administrative and educational reform, possibly something on the nobility or the economic development of the country too. The only potential avenue of expansion I could see is another crack at the Black sea. At the very least, a longer lived Peter the Great would mean consistent policies for the rest of the 1720s (and no start-stop of the Petrine style of government under Peter II and Empress Anna).

Finally, this could mean Peter the Great actually decides on a successor, instead of saying "leave it all to...." and then falling unconscious. While I doubt very seriously it would be Catherine (assuming she doesn't die on schedule), I could potentially see him making Anna his heir (again assuming Anna too doesn't die young). The only other option would be his grandson, the OTL Peter II. Now, for a lot of understandable reasons (aka having his father beaten to death), the Tsar didn't want much to do with his grandson. But his maternal connections (nephew of the Holy Roman Emperor, among other relations) means Peter Alexeievich can't just be ignored. So IDK what the most realistic succession would be. Either way, it could be quite interesting.

 

[alexmilman]

Basically what the title says. I've seen lots of different questions around the Russian succession after Peter the Great died (such as his daughter Anna inheriting, one of his short-lived sons surviving to inherit or his grandson Peter II living longer), but I don't recall anyone asking how a longer-lived Peter the Great would have turned out. After all, Peter was only 52 when he died (still only middle-aged by a lot of European standards, though not by Romanov standards, sense his father and grandfather died in their mid-late 40s). At the very least, I think its believable for him to live to 1730 (putting him at 57-58), with anything afterward meaning he inherited the longevity of his paternal great-grandfather Patriarch Filaret (who was 79 or 80 when he died).

Now, in terms of major effects, I'm a bit unsure. Peter had finished off the Great Northern War in 1721, and had sized a significant amount of territory from Safavid Iran in 1723 (basically all the territories around the Caspian sea, which would fall back to Iran under Nader Shah within 12 years), so I'd guess there would be further focus on administrative and educational reform, possibly something on the nobility or the economic development of the country too. The only potential avenue of expansion I could see is another crack at the Crimean sea. At the very least, a longer lived Peter the Great would mean consistent policies for the rest of the 1720s (and no start-stop of the Petrine style of government under Peter II and Empress Anna).

Finally, this could mean Peter the Great actually decides on a successor, instead of saying "leave it all to...." and then falling unconscious. While I doubt very seriously it would be Catherine (assuming she doesn't die on schedule), I could potentially see him making Anna his heir (again assuming Anna too doesn't die young). The only other option would be his grandson, the OTL Peter II. Now, for a lot of understandable reasons (aka having his father beaten to death), the Tsar didn't want much to do with his grandson. But his maternal connections (nephew of the Holy Roman Emperor, among other relations) means Peter Alexeievich can't just be ignored. So IDK what the most realistic succession would be. Either way, it could be quite interesting.

At a risk of sounding boring, further expansion and even succession were the least of the problems left by Peter:

• Territories around the Caspian Sea, instead of producing expected economic miracles, turned to be a huge waste of money and human resources. I’m not sure what is “Crimean Sea” but if this is Sea of Azov, the ship-building exercises around it were pretty much waste of time and money even if just because the economic factor was absent: the only trade partner would be the OE. Further expansion on the Baltic was not possible even on diplomatic level: it was attempted and resulted in a diplomatic isolation.
• Succession? Really, why would anybody care? The following decades demonstrated that person on the top practically did not matter in the terms of results (neither did “underlying” level: military or aristocratic).

The fundamental problems were extreme exhaustion of the country and related fiscal crisis caused by Peter’s activities. So Peter living for an extra decade means what? That he keeps doing exactly the same things he was doing? It is extremely unlikely that at the age of 50 he suddenly changes his modus operandi so probably it is a decade more of the same and by the end of it economic and social situation of the empire is much worse than in OTL of 1730s and getting out of that deep stinking hole is much more difficult. In OTL a succession of the “incapable rulers” at least seriously scaled down the expensive military activities giving country some breathing space but Peter was quite good in inventing costly non-military activities, which less capable rulers were avoiding (not that too much good can be said about any of them but all of them had been acting within the system that built Peter).