Category: Russian Empire

• The "Czar’s Will" (The Testament of Peter the Great)

  This theory centered on a forged document known as the Testament of Peter the Great, which purported to reveal a long-range Russian plan for world conquest. The text was used to “prove” that every Russian move, from diplomacy to war, followed a secret centuries-long blueprint supposedly laid down by Peter I. The documented record clearly shows that the Testament was a political forgery, that it circulated widely in the nineteenth century, and that it was used in anti-Russian propaganda, including in the Napoleonic era and later crises. What remained powerful was not its authenticity, but its utility: the document gave fear of Russian expansion a ready-made script.