Peter the Great

Cultural  

1. A Russian czar of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries who tried to transform Russia from a backward nation into a progressive one by introducing customs and ideas from western European countries. He moved the capital of Russia from Moscow to a new city he had built, St. Petersburg, which was renamed Leningrad after the Russian Revolution and has since had its old name restored due to the collapse of communism.

---

Example Sentences

An old Kremlin joke about Vladimir Putin is that the Russian president has only three trusted advisers: Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great and Catherine the Great.

From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 1, 2025

During a row over the Peter the Great monument's future in 2010, several Moscow residents told the BBC they hated the sculpture, which at 98m is slightly taller than the Statue of Liberty.

From BBC • Apr. 22, 2025

He has inhaled from somewhere — certainly not from studying history — an immensely dumbed-down version of the philosophy that he imagines drove Napoleon and Hitler, and perhaps Alexander the Great and Peter the Great.

From Salon • Feb. 23, 2025

TALLINN, Estonia — Vladimir Putin has compared himself to the czar Peter the Great.

From Seattle Times • Jul. 17, 2023

He had little interest, though, in such figures as Ivan the Terrible or Peter the Great or Joseph Stalin or Leo Tolstoy or Alexander Pushkin.

From "Endgame" by Frank Brady