Th e Battle of Poltava in Russian Historical Memory

Two weeks later Peter ordered a church to be erected on the site of the battle, as well as a pyramid bearing his portrait, and a painting depicting the battle, complete with explanatory plaques.3 Building a church was the traditional Russian way of marking important sites, while a pyramid with pictures and explanations was something more innovative and surely borrowed from the West, if not classical Rome.4 Still, it is very likely that a more comprehensive understanding of the significance of the victory, and particularly its political importance, came to Peter almost a month later and, as often happens with rulers, he found himself requiring the assistance of an intellectual, namely Feofan Prokopovych, a native of Ukraine. In his letter to Lopatyns'kyi the tsar commented that, inasmuch as the Swedes also had a blessed cross that they worshipped, it was not so much a war about religious beliefs as about "measure," as he put it.\n Russian newspapers reported, for example, that "the Moscow city council was invited to buy a silver scoop from which Peter the Great had drunk, a silver picture depicting the feast after the Battle of Poltava, and a silver tray on which the keys from the fortress at Orekhov were brought to Peter.