Peter the Great — "I will make them literate, and then they will understand me."
I will make them literate, and then they will understand me.
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More from Peter the Great
"I have reformed my people, and now I must reform myself."
"I have tamed the bear, but I cannot tame my own passions."
"The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know."
"I am a pupil and I need to be taught."
"I do not desire to be a master, but a servant of my country."
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.