Peter I and his reforms in perception of an “unusual slavophil”

This article examines K. Leontiev’s judgments about the historical significance of the reforms of Peter the Great, expressed not only in his famous historiophical writings, but also in small articles and essays. The emerging panorama includes such unexpected - for a «Russian Byzantine» - «turns of thought» as gratitude to Peter for the fact that Russia has become not too similar to Byzantium or the «conspiracy» assumption that our Europeanization was just a disguise put on to come without hindrance to the point of cultural revival.