Peter the Great — "I have left my subjects more enlightened, but poorer."
I have left my subjects more enlightened, but poorer.
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More from Peter the Great
"I have been planting trees for shade for those who come after me."
"He who fears to be a loser, cannot be a winner."
"I know I have the vices of a man, but I have the virtues of a tsar."
"It is better to have one lion at the head of an army of sheep, than one sheep at the head of an army of lions."
"Alas! I have civilized my own subjects; I have conquered other nations; yet I have not been able to civilize or to conquer myself."
About Peter the Great (1672-1725)
Russian tsar (1682-1725) who Westernized Russia, founded St. Petersburg, and built Russia into a European great power. Closely associated with Catherine the Great (later Westernizing Russian empress). For an intellectual contrast, see Old Believers, Russian Orthodox traditionalist movement that rejected Patriarch Nikon's reforms and Peter's modernization — Peter's beard-shaving decrees, Western dress laws, and calendar changes triggered a religious-cultural schism — the founding poles of Russia's eternal 'European modernity vs Slavic tradition' debate that runs through Slavophiles, Solzhenitsyn, and contemporary Putin-era ideology.