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
"He who does not work, neither shall he eat."
"I have no intention of leaving Russia to my successors in the same state as I found it."
"I have never been afraid of hard work."
"I am a sovereign and I will answer to no one for my actions."
"To educate the people, one must first educate the nobility."
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.