Peter the Great on God, disease and mineral water

The article analyzes Peter the Great’s ideas about God, human destiny, disease and death in the context of the doctrine of rationalism so popular during Peter the Great’s reign. The aim of the article is to show how his attitudes towards life and death issues, the fate of humans, faith in God, human mind and the power of experiential knowledge were shaped. The author analyzes the features of the Emperor’s lifestyle, marked by excessive consumption of alcohol. Peter’s passion for treating his diseases with mineral waters is directly related to his deep belief in the omnipotence of science and experiential knowledge. The novelty of the research lies in the effort to reconstruct Peter the Great’s mindset in order to understand his mentality. The use of a new approach to comprehending the motives behind the Emperor’s particular actions ensures the research relevance. The author makes a conclusion that Peter the Great’s worldviews were influenced by the ideas of rationalism, widely accepted by European scientists at the time, as well as by the mentality of European (in particular, Dutch) common people, who could hardly give him the best examples to follow.