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.

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Example Sentences

“Every year, one or two or three statues were erected. But they didn’t honor Lenin or Stalin. The statues were of Alexander I, of Peter the Great, of Catherine, of Nicholas I.”

From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 5, 2026

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

A statue of Peter the Great, the 18th-century czar who Mr. Putin compared himself to last summer, stood behind him.

From New York Times • Jun. 27, 2023

On the very day of her death, an agent of Tsar Peter the Great bought a collection of almost three hundred of her original watercolors to help found Russia’s first art museum.

From "The Girl Who Drew Butterflies: How Maria Merian's Art Changed Science" by Joyce Sidman