Historian Robert Massie on Peter the Great of Russia
https://archives.nbclearn.com/portal/site/k-12/browse/?cuecard=6416
General Information
Source:
Creator:
NBC Today Show
Jane Pauley
Resource Type:
Copyright:
Event Date:
Air/Publish Date:
12/23/1980
12/23/1980
Copyright Date:
Clip Length
Video News Report
NBCUniversal Media,
LLC.
1980
00:03:53
Description
Author and historian Robert Massie discusses his book, "Peter the Great: His Life and World," which
provides details about the Russian Czar's rule and personal life.
Keywords
Peter the Great, Russia, Czar, Robert Massie, "Peter the Great: His Life and World, " Revolution,
Exploration, Hero, Leningrad
Citation
MLA
"Historian Robert Massie on Peter the Great of Russia." Jane Pauley, correspondent. NBC Today Show.
NBCUniversal Media. 23 Dec. 1980. NBC Learn. Web. 18 March 2015
© 2008-2015 NBCUniversal Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Page 1 of 3
APA
Pauley, J. (Reporter). 1980, December 23. Historian Robert Massie on Peter the Great of Russia.
[Television series episode]. NBC Today Show. Retrieved from https://archives.nbclearn.com/portal/site/k12/browse/?cuecard=6416
CHICAGO MANUAL OF STYLE
"Historian Robert Massie on Peter the Great of Russia" NBC Today Show, New York, NY: NBC
Universal, 12/23/1980. Accessed Wed Mar 18 2015 from NBC Learn:
https://archives.nbclearn.com/portal/site/k-12/browse/?cuecard=6416
Transcript
Historian Robert Massie on Peter the Great of Russia
JANE PAULEY (Anchor):
I'm with a man this morning that you know if any time in the last twelve or 13 years you read the book,
“Nicholas and Alexandra” or did you see the movie that was based on that bestseller. Robert Massie is the
scholar and the author who now brings us another major piece of history and excellent good reading
called, “Peter the Great.” It is obviously not a piece of fiction but, “Peter the Great” has not until you,
have, written about him, been written about in a major way in English. Why not?
ROBERT MASSIE (Historian):
I think because he's a daunting figure. He was an enormous man physically - 6 feet, 7 inches tall -but he
was equally gigantic in historic terms. It was a long time ago. People are a little afraid of spending as
much time as I found it necessary to spend on such a, such a person.
PAULEY: He was a man of personal and historical enormity.
MASSIE: Enormity.
PAULEY: What- what about him in a personal way -- other than the fact that he was six foot seven -- was
extraordinary for his time?
MASSIE: Well for his times, he really changed the course of Russian history. I think that we know today
something about the Russian revolution of the 20th Century. This was the -- that's the second Russian
revolution. Peter's was the first and without the life of Peter the Great, the achievements of Peter the
Great, the great sort of color of Peter the Great, Russian history would be very different and of course that
would mean that our history would be very different. Peter opened Russia to the west, brought the west to
Russia and brought Russia out to the west and made it the great power that it's remained ever since.
PAULEY: By being the first czar to leave Russia, why?
MASSIE: Peter was enormously curious and, as a young man, he glimpsed something of Russia - of, in
Russia, there was a little island of westerners. Sort of military officers and engineers. Peter saw them and
their culture and wanted to go out and find out want made the west superior in a technological sense. And
so, as czar, he left for eighteen months and went in cognito -- which is a little bit hard to do -- being so tall
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-- but he refused to be accepted as czar. He went to work in shipyards in England and Holland and learned
shipbuilding. He went and studied the intuitions like the mint, the artillery foundries and so forth. When
he went back to Russia, he took the first wave of western, sort of techno--people from technological
branches. Uhm, engineers, navel office, navigators and so forth.
PAULEY: And he was importing, in an effect, western high technology even in the 17th century.
MASSIE: He was doing what, he was doing exactly what they are doing now.
PAULEY: He -MASSIE: Interestingly Jane, if I can make my point,
PAULEY: Yes.
MASSIE: he also wanted to leave behind the political freedom which the west had created by the end of
the seventeenth, early eighteenth century which is exactly what the Soviets are still doing. They want our
technology but not our ideology and they want a wall. They want to bring in the, the computer technology
and so forth but leave behind the sort of free political and economical doctrines which made the
technology possible.
PAULEY: He is known as Peter the Great. The word “great” is a little ambiguous. He was sometimes as
bad a man as, as he was good a man. How is he now accepted in Russia? He is revered of reviled?
MASSIE: Revered. I think that's -- goes all across the-- the board. Even-- even the party has never been
able to do away with the sort of hero image of Peter the Great. Especially of course in St Petersburg, the
city which is now Leningrad, the city in which he founded. And which many of the citizens of Leningrad
still call, Peter, because the statues of Peter, the presence of Peter is-- are still very much there.
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