Russia: Marx, Lenin, and the Death of an Illusion - The Wise World Traveler: Becoming a Part of All that You Meet - page 132

Europe—in language, genetics, alphabet, religions—to establish a Eurasian identity, or if
not that, then a culture that is uniquely Russian.
Figure 9.3. Peter the Great
Peter the Great, who ruled from 1682 to 1725, was determined to overcome Russia's
Asian identity by dragging it into the West. He built St. Petersburg as his window on the
West. And on pain of death, the men of his court were required to shave beards and wear
trousers. In the nineteenth century, Russian aristocrats spoke French among themselves;
Russian was used only to give orders to serfs. Intellectuals worked, especially in literature,
to develop a culture that was Russia's own. And the search for identity continues. The re-
cent novelist Alexander Solzhenitsyn rejected much of western (especially technological)
culture. He was a tsarist who distanced himself from political activists such as the Pamyet
(the word means memory), who insisted that Russia's cultural uniqueness was best pre-
served by outright hostility to other cultures.
WHAT MAKES A TSAR MEMORABLE?
Peter the Great built a magnificent city, fought a successful war with Sweden to dominate
the eastern Baltic, and pulled his country toward the West. Catherine the Great (ruler
from 1762 to 1795) was a connoisseur of the arts, carried on a lively correspondence with