Shaving Russia
HISTORY This Week
The HISTORY® Channel | Back Pocket Studios
4.5 • 4.2K Ratings
🗓️ 1 September 2025
⏱️ 26 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Sept 5, 1698. Tsar Peter the Great of Russia returns home from a year-long European tour. When noblemen, religious figures, and friends gather to welcome him home, Peter pulls out a straight razor, holds it to their throats, and…forcibly shaves their beards. This event will go down in history as a first step toward Russian geopolitical power. Before Peter’s reign, Russia was an isolated nation that was largely ignored by the rest of the world.
How did Peter the Great almost single-handedly drag Russia onto the world stage? And how did his great beard-shaving endeavor lead to the Russia we know today?
Special thanks to our guest, Lynne Hartnett, Ph.D., Professor of History, Villanova University, and author of Understanding Russia: A Cultural History.
Artwork: Russian political cartoon depicting Peter the Great as a barber, ca. 18th century
** This episode originally aired August 31, 2020.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The History Channel, original podcast. |
| 0:05.0 | History this week. |
| 0:07.4 | September 5th, 1698. |
| 0:10.5 | I'm Sally Helm. |
| 0:13.7 | The first man to lose his beard is the commander of the army. |
| 0:20.0 | Next up, a childhood friend of the Tsar. |
| 0:23.8 | And then? |
| 0:28.2 | All of the noblemen assembled, one after the other, |
| 0:32.0 | get their beards chopped off by none other than the Tsar himself. |
| 0:38.8 | The men had come out this morning just to welcome their leader home. |
| 0:43.5 | Peter the Great has returned to Moscow after a year-long tour of Europe. |
| 0:48.6 | He got in last night, and so his friends and supporters showed up today to pay their respects. |
| 0:54.3 | Many of them are boyers, the most important and wealthy members of the Russian elite. |
| 0:59.2 | Some are religious officials or royal advisors. |
| 1:03.0 | None of them are expecting Peter to pull out a barber's razor and hold it to their throats. |
| 1:13.2 | This is intimidating. |
| 1:17.4 | The Tsar is very tall, six foot seven. |
| 1:22.2 | He towers over the assembled bearded boyers. |
| 1:26.1 | Peter himself is clean-shaven, which is the fashion in Europe. |
| 1:29.3 | And in fact, that's why he's doing this. He thinks that the long beards all around him represent the old Russia. |
| 1:35.3 | He wants to ring in the new. |
| 1:38.3 | And so, this morning, thanks to Peter's razor, |
... |
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