Mikhail Lomonsov (1711–1765), a leading scientist, grammarian, historian, and poet, has been called Russia’s “first university.” This son of a peasant eulogized Peter the Great as the founder of the modern Russian state.

I ask you, my Listeners, out of your knowledge to consider how much assiduous effort was required for the foundation and establishment of a judiciary, and for the institution of the Governing Senate, the Most Holy Synod, the state colleges, the chancelleries, and the other governmental offices with their laws, regulations, and statutes … and finally for foreign policy, missions, and alliances with foreign powers. You may contemplate all these things yourselves with minds enlightened by Peter …. Let us suppose that before the beginning of Peter's enterprises someone had happened to leave his native Russia for distant lands where His name had not thundered forth—if such a land there be on this earth. Returning later to Russia, he would see new knowledge and arts among the people, new dress and customs, new architecture and household furnishings, newly built fortresses, a new fleet, and a new army; he would see not only the different aspects of all these things but also a change in the courses of rivers and in the boundaries of the seas. What would he then think? He could come to no other conclusion than that he had been on his travels for many centuries, or that all this had been achieved in so short a time by the common efforts of the whole human race or by the creative hand of the Almighty, or, finally, that it was all a vision seen in a dream.

From these words of mine, which reveal scarcely more than the mere shadow of Peter's glorious deeds, it may be seen how great they are!

From: M. V. Lomonosov, “Panegyric to the Sovereign Emperor, Peter the Great.” Trans. Ronald Hingley, in Marc Raeff, ed. Russian Intellectual History: An Anthology. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1966.
Reprinted courtesy of Marc Raeff