By the grace of God, the most excellent and great sovereign Prince Piotr Alexievich, the ruler of all the

Russians, of Moscow, of Kiev, of Vladimir, of Novgorod, Saur of Kazan, Sar of Astrahan, and Sar of Siberia.

Sovereign of Piskov, great prince of Smolensk, Tversk, Ugorsks,

Permsky, Vyatsky, Bulgarsky and others.

Sovereign and great prince of Novogarod Nizovsky's lands.

Chernogovsky, of Ryazin, of Rostov, of Yaroslavl, Belozorski, Udorski, Kundiski, and the sovereign of all the northern lands

and the sovereign of the Ivarian lands of the Kartilian and Georgian kings of the Carbardin lands of the Circation and

mountain princes and many other states and lands Western and Eastern here and there and the successor and sovereign and ruler.

This was the official title of Peter the First.

Welcome to Russian History Retold, episode 190, Peter the Great, a reassessment.

Last time we reassessed the five rulers of Russia between the time of Peter I and Catherine the Great.

Today we look at the man many consider the greatest of all the Tsars of this vast country, Peter the Great.

In today's podcast, I'll be using quotes from historians and contemporaries to describe the

life and times of this truly extraordinary man

as well as listing his accomplishments and my critiques of his reign. I hope you enjoy it. The first series of quotes come from Robert Massey, who wrote one of the

most important biographies of the Tsar, Peter the Great, his life and world.

First is a quote that peaks into Peter's idea about how he would rule Russia.

Quote, but curiously, Peter did not grasp, perhaps he did not wish to grasp, the political implications

of this new view of man.

He had not gone to the West to study the art of government.

Although in Protestant Europe he was surrounded by evidence of the new civil and political rights of individual men,

embodied in constitutions, billows of rights, and

...