How people can so blithely praise a work that maliciously misrepresents real people, I will never understand. Alexei, his mother, all those who surrounded him: their only crime was disagreeing with Peter, that oh so perfect saint who can do no wrong. IT IS NOT FAIR!!!!!! They didn’t deserve to be shut away in nunneries, tortured and killed. Peter is called great for dragging his country into the “modern” world, bringing enlightenment (to whom? the upper classes? Not much changed for the peasants). But do you know at what cost? Do you know how many blood-bathes there were in St. Petersburg, in Moscow? How many peasants died for Peter’s dream? He may have improved Russia’s military, put it on the map of European politics, but he also swore an oath to treat his son mercifully, then tortured and killed him. No one ever seems to talk about that Peter. No, all we ever hear about is how grand a ruler he was, how much he improved Russia. He once told Alexei that he had and would sacrifice everything for Russia, even his health, and then compared Alexei to a useless limb that he would have no qualms about hacking off if he didn’t prove himself worthy. But Alexei had tried! He had been the dutiful son for years, doing his best to be a cookie-cutter Peter. But it didn’t work: he wasn’t Peter, and in being forced to be Peter, he grew to loath the things Peter loved. And as much as he feared his father, I think he loved him, too. Or at least wished for his approval. But he had long ago realized he wasn’t going to get it by playing “little Peter”. It was too much. So he ran. Perhaps if he had spoken to Peter instead of fleeing, things would have been different. Likely not, considering Peter had flat out told him that he was willing to sacrifice him for Russia. Perhaps Alexei’s downfall was inevitable. I know he feared for his life when he left Russia. No wonder, though, after your father tells you you’re a useless limb. Peter failed to see his son clearly, failed to try to see. Alexei too did not see Peter quite as clearly as he might have, his vision clouded by years of hurt and bitterness. In the end, Peter did keep one promise: he cut off the “useless limb” of a son, who could not conform to his father’s ideal. Why cannot this tragic struggle between two flawed, broken people be the story told? The Peter and Alexei remembered? People, raw and real and fallible, like they really were?