Peter Englund, The Battle That Shook Europe: Poltava and the Birth of the Russian Empire.
The sculpture was likely modeled upon Mikhail Kozlovsky's famous statue, a centerpiece of the Peterhof Palace Grand Cascade, with St. Samson symbolising the Russian victory over Sweden at Poltava: the lion is an element of Sweden's coat of arms and the battle was won on St. Samson Day.
Poor and homeless people of Stockholm emerged in great numbers following the fatal Battle of Poltava 1709, but were considerably decimated by the Black Death, which hit the city the following year.
A ruthless Swedification policy was reportedly so effective that when a Danish invasion army landed in 1709, in the wake of the Battle of Poltava, the local population was raised in a militia to fight against them.
Nothing is known of his last years, except that he wrote some compositions associated with the Battle of Poltava in 1709 and died soon after that.
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Among some of his notable works was a mosaic of the Battle of Poltava, produced at the Imperial Porcelain Factory.
Local sights include the neo-Gothic "round courtyard" (1749), the late Baroque church of the Annunciation (1744–50), 18th-century Galitzine palace, and a "grotto of nymphs", built in 1809 to mark the centenary of the Battle of Poltava.