Tsar Peter I and King Charles XII

The book represents the view of the leading Swedish historians on two outstanding rulers, whose activities have greatly influenced the development of Europe. In the inevitable opposition of Peter I and Charles XII, the historian is difficult to free himself from a national point of view. Nevertheless, such an attempt is made here. Both Peter and Karl appear with all their advantages and disadvantages, and if much of what is said about the Russian tsar, the domestic reader is familiar, then the information about Carla can sound unexpectedly. Both rulers believed that they were performing a special mission. How successfully they did this, the time reasoned. Peter left behind the empire, which broke the “window to Europe”, the collapse of the Swedish Great Power is associated with the name of Karl. This asymmetry also gave rise to a rather rare ethnopsychological phenomenon: the Swedes have a stable prejudice for the Russians, and for centuries they retain respect, or even sympathy for the defeated, according to Peter, “mentors”. And this is also said in this book.