“A villain must be a powerful thing, handled with delicacy and grace. It must be evil enough to arouse our aversion, strong enough to arouse our fear, human enough to awaken some fleeting glimmer of sympathy. We must triumph over his fall, but not barbarously nor contemptuously, and the conclusion of his career must be in harmony with all his previous development” – Agnes Repplier. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Agnes summed it up quite well and what she says ties in strongly to what you would see in any successful ruler, not just an evil one. So, using this definition of a villain, one can safely assume that Tsar Peter 1 is a villain, but what gave him these characteristics, why should he be feared? Why should one feel sympathetic towards him? And why should its fall be celebrated and not mourned if all its previous development had been aimed at the greater good of its motherland, Russia? A historical figure's opinions may change over time. And the opinions that concern them and surround them can vary from personality to personality, what may please me may not please you. The influences exerted by new and transitional regimes, dynasties, or governments also all play a vital role in what we as a human race perceive and learn, for it is they who control what we see, hear, and learn. But by considering what time and place, with enough information and resources, one is able to safely assume whether one, in their opinion, is a hero or a villain. One of these people, who I consider sufficiently educated in the field of Russian history, is the professor of Russian and East European studies, Kevin M.F. Platt, who had this to say on the subject: “In my opinion, when one asks whether Peter the Whether a "hero" or a "villain", a question arises not only about the innate qualities or achievements of this figure, but also about how he has been represented in historiography, literature, theater and painting. In this regard, for all the violence of his reign, Peter was almost always seen more as a hero than a villain: as an extraordinary figure who accomplished seemingly socially beneficial and largely beneficial tasks of social modernization and politics globally. an enormous cost not only for his compatriots, but also for himself." The statement provided by Professor Platt links to the idea of ​​time and how it shapes and represents a historical figure through "historiography, literature, theater and painting", all of which granted may be of the time but are also mediums that tell stories through generations. Because it is these mediums who in turn have a kind of ascendancy after the character is long gone. Peter the Great was and to this day is considered one of the greatest monarchs in Russian history and, in some cases, in European history as well. There are statues of him all over Russia. Most of whom are survivors of socialism/communism. True, the city of Petersburg was renamed Petrograd at the beginning of World War I and was once again renamed Leningrad, but was then renamed St. Petersburg again after the collapse of communism in Russia following the end of the "Cold War" in 1991. Regardless of everything and the reforms that the country went through, Peter was never considered a "bad guy". Not even during Stalinism. Indeed, they even employed his tactics to some extent; the Soviet rehabilitation of Peter I began in earnest during the Stalinist period,”..