The dominant figure of Imperial Russia is Peter the Great. His imposition is at the origin of Russian cultural world that sees the split among the Westernizers, enchanted by Europe and technological progress, and the Slavophiles, hostile to foreign models of life, a fracture that survives to this day. The forced imitation of the West causes the total submission of the Church. During the 20th century starts the affirmation of the principle of religious tolerance (1905) and the re-birth of the Church, that will soon be arrested by the advent of the new Communist regime.