Peter the First

“Peter the Great” is not just a novel, it is a long, many times a rethought and an arrogant topic in Alexei Tolstoy’s own life (1882-1945) As Tsar Peter was covered by the construction of a new Russia, so A. N. Tolstoy saw himself with the beginning of the new state of the twentieth century. The country changed before the writer"s eyes: he returned from emigration even under Lenin and Trotsky and became a witness to a quick and cruel ideological broken. But it was not at all the desire to like the two rulers - the king and the general secretary. Tolstoy was fascinated by the distant era that he had discovered, seen by him through the true language of time. This language turned out to be so alive and clear that the past suddenly approached and became almost today. The fate of the fictional heroes of the novel, intertwined with the biographies of genuine historical figures, allowed Tolstoy to create an illusion of presence with dramatic events from the reader, and the writer himself helped to mix their own sorrows and joys in the thickness of history