In 1698, Peter the Great returned from his sweeping tour of Western Europe—the Grand Embassy—eager to modernize Russia. Instead, he found a nation on the brink of chaos, shaken by rebellion and resistance to his reforms. His response was swift and ruthless, crushing the uprising with a brutality that would define his rule.

But the crisis did not end there. Turning from matters of state to matters of the heart, Peter confronted a deeply personal betrayal. His estranged wife, Eudoxia Lopukhina—whom he had forced into a convent years earlier—had taken a lover.

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