Peter the Great and all that jazz...

For my first book project, I selected Peter the Great. Actually, it might be stretching it a little to say I "selected" it. That makes it sound like I carefully considered all the potential options - Jacob Abbott history books that have come into the public domain - then made my selection. In reality, Peter the Great was the first public domain work by Jacob Abbott that I came across, it struck my fancy, and I saw no reason to pick another book.

So far, it has proved to be a good choice. I have found the period of Russian history, late 1600s to early 1700s, to be fascinating. Both the book and the period of history have yielded a plethora of ideas for resource materials. My main difficulty will be deciding when to stop!

It has not been without its difficulties, however. Just the Russian names have provided a series of challenges. Even today Russian names are complicated as they tend to have patronymics instead of middle names as we think of them. Since this period of Russian history is when that practice developed, I have found it confusing at times. And there can be many different versions of the same name. You have to constantly make sure that you have the right person!

One of Peter's brothers, Theodore in Jacob Abbott's book, can be called Feodor or Fyodor , full name usually Feodor Aleksandrovich Romanov (Aleksandrovich being the patronymic as his father was Alexis I). Aleksandrovich may also be written Alexeiovich or Alexeevich. And since many names are repeated as in other ruling families, constructing a family tree can be an intimidating activity to say the least.