ABSTRACT
After the signing of the Treaty of Nystadt in 1721, Peter’s reputation was confirmed by an oration by Chancellor Golovkin. This concluded:
… we take it upon ourselves in the name of the Russian nation and of all ranks of the subjects of Your Majesty, humbly to pray you to be gracious to us and agree, as a small mark of our acknowledgement of the great blessings that you have brought to us and to the whole nation, to take the title: Father of the Fatherland, Peter the Great, Emperor of All Russia.
(Massie 1981: ch. 57)There were three other examples of near-contemporaries being offered similar titles. The Elector of Brandenburg became the Great Elector after the Battle of Fehrbellin in 1675, while Catherine II and Frederick II were similarly elevated during their reigns. It became fashionable for a while to award the title ‘the Great’ which had previously been applied to only a handful of historical figures, and then usually in retrospect. Yet even allowing for the consequent devaluation of the currency of ‘greatness’, there was an awareness throughout Europe that Peter possessed exceptional qualities. In 1724 a British newspaper, not normally given to praising foreign rulers, called him the greatest Monarch of our Age … whose Actions will draw after him a Blaze of Glory, and Astonishment, through the latest Depth of Time.
(Anderson 1978: ch. 8)