Scenes From The Court Of Peter The Great: Based On The Latin Diary Of John G. Korb, A Secretary Of The Austrian Legation At The Court Of Peter The Great

by Johann Georg Korb

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

202 pages, Hardcover

Published April 2, 2019

Reviews

[Samwise Chamberlain · Rating 4 out of 5]

This diary was deemed historically significant by several scholars, thereby warranting preservation, but is also in the public domain. As a result, this is available online, in full, for free, at a number of places; the particular site I used was "The Internet Archive," available at archive.org. This is a very useful research tool for finding texts that are rare or obscure.

After being published in the original Latin in 1720, Czar Peter (he wasn't that great) ordered a cease and desist, and on top of that, he tried to buy up literally all copies in existence. To this end, he nearly succeeded, leaving only about 10 known to exist. This would have been just another forgotten Latin tome gathering dust, but it was chanced upon by a Count McDonnell in the mid-1850s who, after realizing what he held in his hands, began the arduous task of translation. This version is based on that translation (What with it being the only English translation in existence). Anyway, Peter was an eccentric, mood-swinging, frenzied psychopath with unlimited power through terrorizing his subjects, unlimited money through monopolies, and seemingly boundless energy and enthusiasm. It goes about as well as you'd expect, a whole lot of unnecessary death, torture, and beatings besides.