Peter the Great

“Napoleon is merely the greatest of the French—or, in the view of some historians, the Italians—but he is not Italy, not France. Peter is all of Russia: its flesh and spirit, its character and genius, the embodiment of all its virtues and vices. With the variety of his gifts, the vastness of his efforts, and the intensity of his passions, he seems like a composite being. And that is what makes him great, that’s what sets him apart from the ranks of pale, dead men whom our weak historical memories spare from oblivion. There’s no need to make an effort to summon his shadow—he is always here. He has outlived himself; he is eternal…

Here is an immeasurable force that, for three centuries, acted against all calculations and turned Ivan’s insignificant possession into an inheritance for Alexanders and Nicolauses, into an empire exceeding in extent and population all the states ever known to Europe, Africa, and Asia—an empire of Alexander and the Roman empire, the empire of the caliphs and the Britain of our own day with all its colonies. And this force was once called Peter the Great. It changed his name, but did not change his nature. It is the soul of a great nation, but also the soul of a great man—into whom, as it were, the thought and will of millions of beings were embodied. This soul is entirely in Peter, and he is entirely in it; and it is this that I wished to make tremble on these pages.”