Reforms of Peter the Great

From Slavic.info

The violent reforms of Peter the Great, who created a military European State out of the semi-Byzantine and semi-Tartar State which Russia had been under his predecessors, did not satisfy many thinking Russians.

Since Peter the Great the Russian Court has been more or less inspired by non-Slavic influences. The Russian Semiramis, Catherine the Second, was continuing the Westernization policy of Peter the Great, only that the latter had chosen Germany and the former France as a model. Peter the Great was accused of having turned his country out of its natural course; of having trampled upon the Slavic spirit in order to impose the foreign culture of Western Europe. The Slavophiles remember the teachings of the famous Bishop Berkeley, who says, "Westward the course of empire takes its way." Most prominent and learned Russians visited Europe, and Europeans came among them and described what they saw.