Lev Gumilev's theory of passionarity and a study on the theory in Russian literature: Peter I

Described as 'the last Eurasianist' in Soviet sources, Lev N. Gumilev is a famous scientist who has worked in many fields such as geography, history, ethnography, anthropology and archaeology. The main works that brought Gumilev this fame are the theories of ethnogenesis and passionarism. Thanks to these theories, scientist try to shed light on the dark pages of history. In our study, the mentioned theories of Gumilev were discussed and applied to Russian history and literature. In this context, it is aimed to reveal whether the image of Peter I (the Great) in Russian literature of 18th and 19th centuries shows parallelism with the signs of passionarity. For this purpose, first of all, Gumilev's life and works were mentioned, then the theories of ethnogenesis and passionarity were examined and an original analysis method, which we called 'the method for diagnosing the passionaries, was produced from these two theories. Later, Russian ethnogenesis was briefly mentioned, Peter's life and reforms were examined from the perspective of passionarity, and a connection was established between Russian ethnogenesis and culture. In the application chapter, in the main works dealing with the subject of Peter I in Russian literature of 18th and 19th centuries, it has been demonstrated with examples by using 'the method for diagnosing the passionaries whether tsar has the signs of passionarity or not. In the light of the findings, it was concluded that Peter the Great was a passionar that emerged under the favorable conditions provided by Russian ethnogenesis and gave direction to Russian history and literature.