Pyotr Alexeevich Romanov, Пётр I Алексеевич, also known as Peter the Great, Czar of all Russia, and them Emperor of All Russia, died at age 52.
He is recalled for having carried out a policy of aggressive Westernization, not all of which stuck (he attempted to introduce the Julian calendar) and expansion that transformed the Tsardom of Russia into the Russian Empire. He regarded the Russian people, his subjects, with some degree of contempt, finding them to be rude primitives. Born into a reign that was closely united with the Russian Orthodox Church, he had an unusual interest in Russian Quakers and Dissenters and held Orthodoxy in some degree of contempt, which showed the degree of his power in that he was able to get away with it.
He was married three times, once to Eudoxia Lopukhina, when he was only 16. She was a wife his mother had found, in the tradition of the Romanov monarchy, He later divorced her, something allowed in the Orthodox faith, and forced her to join a convent, although the couple did have three children before then. He later married Marta Helena Skowrońska, the daughter of a Polish-Lithuanian peasant, whom had been his mistress for some time prior in 1724. She converted from Catholicism in order to marry him. He later married Catherine, who was crowned crowned as Empress. He had a total of fifteen children.
Was he great? Well, probably. He engaged in constant warfare but was a success in expanding the Russian Empire.
Was he admirable, not in my book.
Funny thing about him is that the people for whom he was great, he didn't particularly admire, a trait he shared with Prussian Frederick the Great.
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