It is ironic that a man so advanced for the Russia of his day, one who might have been so useful to Peter in the Tsar’s effort to modernize the state, should have found himself in the party opposing Peter, should have lost everything in the shift of power and thus been condemned to sit out most of the Great Reformer’s reign in an Arctic hut. And it was equally ironic that the Muscovite boyars should have rallied to Peter in opposition to Golitsyn. By helping Peter overthrow Sophia and Golitsyn, they believed they were rejecting the dangerous intrusion of Western culture. In fact, they had
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