Abstract. The article presents an analysis of the symbolisation and mythologisation of the image of Peter I, which makes it possible not only and not so much to remove contradictions in the confrontation between Westerners and Slavophiles of the time of Karamzin, Soviet historiography and up to modern apologists and critics of Peter’s reforms, but to understand the socio-psychological meaning of the permanence of these contradictions. Separately, attention is drawn to the contribution of folklore to the formation of the image of Peter I: legends, household tales, epics, jokes about the personality of Peter I. It is noted that the exponential growth of the volume of information becomes directly proportional to the rate of decrease in its meaningfulness. It is in such conditions that the mythologised perception of reality is especially activated. A myth does not require reflection, it is dogmatic, authoritarian. Under these conditions, mythologems, not knowledge, begin to prevail and determine the mental state of society, and the image of Peter I in this context is no exception.

Keywords: psychology of symbolisation, cultural and historical myth, iconic nature of the

image of Peter I, national identity, worldview, image of the world