I remember watching this series and trying to explain a critical short scene in it (regarding Charles XII of Sweden and his fencing teacher) to a friend of mine.
Charles is a young man (like his Russian opposite number Peter), but he has a small country of limited resources which by a fluke has become Europe's number three political power in 1699. Peter has a nation weakened by civil wars and foreign invaders, which he is striving to modernize. It has population and resources. If he can do it, he can make it the third greatest power in Europe (after France and Britain). Charles is aware of this so he will become Peter's greatest enemy.
But while Peter is involved in every facet of modernization, Charles rules a modern country. He just has to concentrate on military matters. Charles however has a flaw: he is not a realist but a romantic. He reads Plutarch's Lives of the Ancient Greeks and Romans, and believes he should mold his character to reflect their better characters. So while his political ancestors, Gustavus Adolphus, Queen Christiana, used the military on limited grounds, Charles would use it to avenge his personal honor.
This flaw is shown in the scene where he is in fencing training. He is a good fencer, and has cornered his teacher, but momentarily lets his guard down for some trivial reason not concerning his fighting ability. But the fencing master, because he has been trounced so thoroughly, sees he can end the game on a fencing technical error - he moves and prevents Charles from picking up the sword. Charles is award of the technical mistake, but between gentleman in a training session it should be lightly forgiven and definitely not taken advantage of. This does not happen. The fencing master smiles as he politely lifts his foot off Charles' foil blade but announces the King has lost. Charles waits a moment, and then slices the fencing master on his cheek as punishment. Sadistic - yes, but it was based on the fencing master not behaving as a gentleman and not showing respect to his employer.
That was Charles - and he certainly might be considered certifiable. His wars with Peter lasted a decade, and two of them, the Swedish victory at Nerva, and the final Russian victory at Poltava are shown. Charles is frequently said to be the forerunner of Napoleon and Hitler in mistakenly invading Russia. But he invaded Russia when Peter was trying to modernize and organize it. It was a better run country in both 1812 and 1941. And Charles did one thing the other two never grasped. He never fully had the supply problem of Napoleon (with his half a million men invasion force) and Hitler (with his multi-hundred thousand men armies), but when it was cut, Charles simply ordered his men to consider themselves a vast robber-band to plunder the Russians for supplies. It worked for a decade (longer than Napoleon's half year or Hitler's two and a half years) - which suggests that there was a possible solution to the supply mess that destroyed the other two leaders. It was a failure of Charles' army at Poltava that made the Swedish invasion a disaster. Had he returned with his forces intact, we would consider Charles a military genius today.
There are little scenes like that that made the series worth watching. But it did not go deeply enough into Peter's motivations and limitations (like Stalin he could panic too easily). His important reforms in government structure were not dealt with (possibly too boring for the audience - but it is part of his record). He is a really important figure. But on many points it struck the record properly. I also recommend the peculiar double tragedy of Peter and his son's religious differences, which led the Tsar to have the young man executed in 1718. When realizing that the Tsar had to pursue modernizing his country, while his son wanted to maintain his right to worship Russo Orthodoxy in the old (reactionary method) - so the boy was standing up for religious freedom of conscience. It was a very odd double tragedy.
Charles is a young man (like his Russian opposite number Peter), but he has a small country of limited resources which by a fluke has become Europe's number three political power in 1699. Peter has a nation weakened by civil wars and foreign invaders, which he is striving to modernize. It has population and resources. If he can do it, he can make it the third greatest power in Europe (after France and Britain). Charles is aware of this so he will become Peter's greatest enemy.
But while Peter is involved in every facet of modernization, Charles rules a modern country. He just has to concentrate on military matters. Charles however has a flaw: he is not a realist but a romantic. He reads Plutarch's Lives of the Ancient Greeks and Romans, and believes he should mold his character to reflect their better characters. So while his political ancestors, Gustavus Adolphus, Queen Christiana, used the military on limited grounds, Charles would use it to avenge his personal honor.
This flaw is shown in the scene where he is in fencing training. He is a good fencer, and has cornered his teacher, but momentarily lets his guard down for some trivial reason not concerning his fighting ability. But the fencing master, because he has been trounced so thoroughly, sees he can end the game on a fencing technical error - he moves and prevents Charles from picking up the sword. Charles is award of the technical mistake, but between gentleman in a training session it should be lightly forgiven and definitely not taken advantage of. This does not happen. The fencing master smiles as he politely lifts his foot off Charles' foil blade but announces the King has lost. Charles waits a moment, and then slices the fencing master on his cheek as punishment. Sadistic - yes, but it was based on the fencing master not behaving as a gentleman and not showing respect to his employer.
That was Charles - and he certainly might be considered certifiable. His wars with Peter lasted a decade, and two of them, the Swedish victory at Nerva, and the final Russian victory at Poltava are shown. Charles is frequently said to be the forerunner of Napoleon and Hitler in mistakenly invading Russia. But he invaded Russia when Peter was trying to modernize and organize it. It was a better run country in both 1812 and 1941. And Charles did one thing the other two never grasped. He never fully had the supply problem of Napoleon (with his half a million men invasion force) and Hitler (with his multi-hundred thousand men armies), but when it was cut, Charles simply ordered his men to consider themselves a vast robber-band to plunder the Russians for supplies. It worked for a decade (longer than Napoleon's half year or Hitler's two and a half years) - which suggests that there was a possible solution to the supply mess that destroyed the other two leaders. It was a failure of Charles' army at Poltava that made the Swedish invasion a disaster. Had he returned with his forces intact, we would consider Charles a military genius today.
There are little scenes like that that made the series worth watching. But it did not go deeply enough into Peter's motivations and limitations (like Stalin he could panic too easily). His important reforms in government structure were not dealt with (possibly too boring for the audience - but it is part of his record). He is a really important figure. But on many points it struck the record properly. I also recommend the peculiar double tragedy of Peter and his son's religious differences, which led the Tsar to have the young man executed in 1718. When realizing that the Tsar had to pursue modernizing his country, while his son wanted to maintain his right to worship Russo Orthodoxy in the old (reactionary method) - so the boy was standing up for religious freedom of conscience. It was a very odd double tragedy.