Who started the Russian empire?
Russian Empire
Though the Empire was only officially proclaimed by Tsar Peter I following the Treaty of Nystad (1721), some historians would argue that it was truly born either when Ivan III of Russia conquered Veliky Novgorod in 1478, or when Ivan the Terrible conquered the Khanate of Kazan in 1552. According to another point of view, the term "Tsardom", which was used after the coronation of Ivan IV in 1547, was already a contemporary Russian word for empire.
Early modern period
In development of the Third Rome ideas, the Grand Duke Ivan IV (the "Awesome" or "the Terrible") was officially crowned the first Tsar ("Caesar") of Russia in 1547. The Tsar promulgated a new code of laws (Sudebnik of 1550), established the first Russian feudal representative body (Zemsky Sobor) and introduced local self-management into the rural regions. During his long reign, Ivan IV nearly doubled the already large Russian territory by annexing the three Tatar khanates (parts of disintegrated Golden Horde): Kazan and Astrakhan along the Volga River, and Sibirean Khanate in South Western Siberia. Thus by the end of the 16th century Russia was transformed into a multiethnic, multiconfessional and transcontinental state.
Russo-Persian War (1804–13)
The origins of the first full scale Russo-Persian War can be traced back to the decision of Tsar Paul to annex Georgia (December 1800) after Erekle II, who had been appointed as ruler of Kartli several years earlier by his ruler Nader Shah, made a plea to Christian Russia in the Treaty of Georgievsk of 1783 to be incorporated into the empire. After Paul's assassination (11 March 1801), the activist policy was continued by his successor, Tsar Alexander, aimed at establishing Russian control over the khanates of the eastern Caucasus. In 1803, the newly appointed commander of Russian forces in the Caucasus, Paul Tsitsianov, attacked Ganja and captured its citadel on 15 January 1804. Ganja's governor, Javad Khan Qajar, was killed, and a large number of the inhabitants slaughtered. The Qajar ruler, Fath Ali Shah, saw the Russian threat to Armenia, Karabagh, and Azerbaijan not only as a source of instability on his northwestern frontier but as a direct challenge to Qajar authority.
The Crown of the Russian Empire, or Once Again the Elusive Avengers
The Crown of the Russian Empire, or Once Again the Elusive Avengers (; translit. "Korona Rossiyskoy Imperii, ili Snova Neulovimye") is a 1971 Soviet action movie, a second sequel of "The Elusive Avengers", directed by Edmond Keosayan and made on Mosfilm.
Russia
The death of Ivan's sons marked the end of the ancient Rurik Dynasty in 1598, and in combination with the famine of 1601–03 led to civil war, the rule of pretenders, and foreign intervention during the Time of Troubles in the early 17th century. The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth occupied parts of Russia, including Moscow. In 1612, the Poles were forced to retreat by the Russian volunteer corps, led by two national heroes, merchant Kuzma Minin and Prince Dmitry Pozharsky. The Romanov Dynasty acceded to the throne in 1613 by the decision of Zemsky Sobor, and the country started its gradual recovery from the crisis.
Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic
Under the leadership of Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) and Leon Trotsky (1879–1940), the Bolshevik communists established the Soviet state on , immediately after the interim Russian Provisional Government, most recently led by opposing democratic socialist Alexander Kerensky (1881–1970), which governed the new Russian Republic after the overthrow of the Russian Empire government of the Romanov imperial dynasty of Czar Nicholas II the previous March, was now itself overthrown during the following October Revolution, the second of the two Russian Revolutions that turbulent year of 1917 during World War I. Initially, the state did not have an official name and wasn't recognized by neighboring countries for five months. Meanwhile, anti-Bolsheviks coined the mocking label Sovdepia for the nascent state of the Soviets of Workers' and Peasants' Deputies.
The Crown of the Russian Empire, or Once Again the Elusive Avengers
The Elusive Avengers, a posse of young Red Partisans, including Valerka, a former schoolboy, Yashka, a devil-may-care gypsy, and two orphan siblings, Danka and his sister Ksanka, become Cheka agents after successfully stealing the map in "The New Adventures of the Elusive Avengers". They wish to abandon their service and study in a university, but the young Soviet Republic needs them again. A group of White emigres, influenced by a scheming French politician, Monsieur Duc, wants to crown a new Tsar in Paris. Two obvious frauds compete for the Russian throne in exile, but they want to be crowned with the real Crown of the Russian emperors!
Military history of the Russian Empire
At the same time, Russia continued its expansion. The Congress of Vienna created the Kingdom of Poland (Russian Poland), to which Alexander granted a constitution. Thus, Alexander I became the constitutional monarch of Poland while remaining the autocratic tsar of Russia. He was also the limited monarch of Finland, which had been annexed in 1809 and awarded autonomous status. In 1813 Russia gained territory in the Baky area of the Caucasus at the expense of Persia. By the early nineteenth century, the empire also was firmly ensconced in Alaska.
Romanov Empire (micronation)
Proponents of the new Russian Empire purport it to be the successor of the historical Russian Empire founded by Peter the Great in 1721. As such, the nation stakes its claim to unpopulated territory that belonged to the historical Russian Empire through "right of discovery", but which was not claimed by the Soviet Union after the 1917 Russian Revolution. It does not claim land that was part of the historical Russian Empire that is now part of Finland, Poland, or the former Soviet republics.
Russian Empire
Peter's first military efforts were directed against the Ottoman Turks. His attention then turned to the North. Peter still lacked a secure northern seaport, except at Archangel on the White Sea, where the harbor was frozen for nine months a year. Access to the Baltic was blocked by Sweden, whose territory enclosed it on three sides. Peter's ambitions for a "window to the sea" led him to make a secret alliance in 1699 with Saxony, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and Denmark against Sweden, resulting in the Great Northern War. The war ended in 1721 when an exhausted Sweden asked for peace with Russia. Peter acquired four provinces situated south and east of the Gulf of Finland. The coveted access to the sea was now secured. There he built Russia's new capital, Saint Petersburg, to replace Moscow, which had long been Russia's cultural center. In 1722, he turned his aspirations as first Russian monarch toward increasing Russian influence in the Caucasus and the Caspian Sea at the expense of the weakened Safavid Persians. He made Astrakhan the centre of military efforts against Persia, and waged the first full-scale war against them in 1722–23.
Russia
In the 18th century, during the era of Russian Enlightenment, the development of Russian literature was boosted by the works of Mikhail Lomonosov and Denis Fonvizin. By the early 19th century a modern national tradition had emerged, producing some of the greatest writers in Russian history. This period, known also as the Golden Age of Russian Poetry, began with Alexander Pushkin, who is considered the founder of the modern Russian literary language and often described as the "Russian Shakespeare". It continued with the poetry of Mikhail Lermontov and Nikolay Nekrasov, dramas of Alexander Ostrovsky and Anton Chekhov, and the prose of Nikolai Gogol and Ivan Turgenev. Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoyevsky have been described by literary critics as the greatest novelists of all time.
Imperial Crown of Russia
In 1719, Tsar Peter I the Great founded the earliest version of what is now known as the Russian Federation's State Diamond Fund. Peter had visited other European nations, and introduced many innovations to Russia, one of which was the creation of a permanent fund (фонд) to house a collection of jewels which belonged not to the Romanov family, but to the Russian State. Peter placed all of the regalia in this fund and declared that the state holdings were inviolate, and could not be altered, sold, or given away—and he also decreed that each subsequent Emperor or Empress should leave a certain number of pieces acquired during their reign to the State, for the permanent glory of the Russian Empire.
Grand Duchy of Moscow
The reign of the Tsars started officially with Ivan the Terrible, the first monarch to be crowned Tsar of Russia, but in practice it started with Ivan III, who completed the centralization of the state (traditionally known as "the gathering of the Russian lands").
List of Russian explorers
From the 11th century on, a group of Russians which settled the shores of the White Sea and became known as Pomors ("seaside-dwellers") began navigating in the freezing seas of the Arctic Ocean, gradually developing the first icebreaking ships known as kochi. As early as the 11th century Russians from the Novgorod Republic had occasionally penetrated into Siberia. In the 14th century the Novgorodians started exploring the Kara Sea and the West-Siberian river Ob. Russians were among those rare medieval Europeans who traveled deep into Central Asia or visited South Asia. Prince Yaroslav II of Vladimir and his sons Alexander Yaroslavich Nevsky and Andrey Yaroslavich traveled to Karakorum, the capital of the Mongolian Empire in the 1240s, while Afanasy Nikitin, a merchant from the Principality of Tver, traveled to Persia and India in "A Journey Beyond the Three Seas" in 1466-1472.
Russian Empire
In 1881 Alexander II was assassinated by the Narodnaya Volya, a Nihilist terrorist organization. The throne passed to Alexander III (1881–1894), a reactionary who revived the maxim of "Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality" of Nicholas I. A committed Slavophile, Alexander III believed that Russia could be saved from turmoil only by shutting itself off from the subversive influences of Western Europe. During his reign Russia declared the Franco-Russian Alliance to contain the growing power of Germany, completed the conquest of Central Asia and demanded important territorial and commercial concessions from the Qing. The tsar's most influential adviser was Konstantin Pobedonostsev, tutor to Alexander III and his son Nicholas, and procurator of the Holy Synod from 1880 to 1895. He taught his royal pupils to fear freedom of speech and press, as well as disliking democracy, constitutions, and the parliamentary system. Under Pobedonostsev, revolutionaries were persecuted and a policy of Russification was carried out throughout the Empire.
History of Russia
Ivan III tripled the territory of his state, ended the dominance of the Golden Horde over the Rus', renovated the Moscow Kremlin, and laid the foundations of the Russian state. Biographer Fennell concludes that his reign was "militarily glorious and economically sound," and especially points to his territorial annexations and his centralized control over local rulers. However, Fennell, the leading British specialist on Ivan III, argues that his reign was also "a period of cultural depression and spiritual barrenness. Freedom was stamped out within the Russian lands. By his bigoted anti-Catholicism Ivan brought down the curtain between Russia and the west. For the sake of territorial aggrandizement he deprived his country of the fruits of Western learning and civilization."
The development of the Tsar's autocratic powers reached a peak during the reign of Ivan IV (1547–1584), known as "Ivan the Terrible". He strengthened the position of the monarch to an unprecedented degree, as he ruthlessly subordinated the nobles to his will, exiling or executing many on the slightest provocation. Nevertheless, Ivan is often seen as a farsighted statesman who reformed Russia as he promulgated a new code of laws (Sudebnik of 1550), established the first Russian feudal representative body (Zemsky Sobor), curbed the influence of the clergy, and introduced local self-management in rural regions.
Russia
Russia's territorial expansion was achieved largely in the late 16th century under the Cossack Yermak Timofeyevich during the reign of Ivan the Terrible, at a time when competing city-states in the western regions of Russia had banded together to form one country. Yermak mustered an army and pushed eastward where he conquered nearly all the lands once belonging to the Mongols, defeating their ruler, Khan Kuchum.
Imperial Russian Air Service
The Imperial Russian Air Service (Императорскiй военно-воздушный флотъ, literally "Emperor's Military Air Fleet") was an air force founded in 1912 for Imperial Russia. The Air Service operated for 5 years. It only saw combat in World War I before being reorganized and renamed in 1917 following the creation of Soviet Russia. It formed what would later become the Soviet Air Forces.
Visa history of Russia
The reign of Peter the Great (1682-1725) is characterised by the formation of state administration on a large scale, the transformation of the Tsardom of Russia into the Russian Empire.
Military history of the Russian Empire
The military history of the Russian Empire encompasses the history of armed conflict in which the Russian Empire participated. This history stretches from its creation in 1721 by Peter the Great, until the Russian Revolution (1917), which led to the establishment of the Soviet Union. Much of the related events involve the Imperial Russian Army, Imperial Russian Navy, and from the early twentieth century, the Imperial Russian Air Service.
Science and technology in Russia
At the start of the 18th century the reforms of Peter the Great (the founder of Russian Academy of Sciences and Saint Petersburg State University) and the work of such champions as polymath Mikhail Lomonosov (the founder of Moscow State University) gave a great boost for development of science and innovation in Russia.
Russian Empire
From its initial creation until the 1905 Revolution, the Russian Empire was controlled by its tsar/emperor as an absolute monarch, under the system of tsarist autocracy. After the Revolution of 1905, Russia developed a new type of government which became difficult to categorize. In the Almanach de Gotha for 1910, Russia was described as "a constitutional monarchy under an autocratic tsar". This contradiction in terms demonstrated the difficulty of precisely defining the system, essentially transitional and meanwhile "sui generis", established in the Russian Empire after October 1905. Before this date, the fundamental laws of Russia described the power of the Emperor as "autocratic and unlimited". After October 1905, while the imperial style was still "Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias", the fundamental laws were remodeled by removing the word "unlimited". While the emperor retained many of his old prerogatives, including an absolute veto over all legislation, he equally agreed to the establishment of an elected parliament, without whose consent no laws were to be enacted in Russia. Not that the regime in Russia had become in any true sense constitutional, far less parliamentary. But the "unlimited autocracy" had given place to a "self-limited autocracy". Whether this autocracy was to be permanently limited by the new changes, or only at the continuing discretion of the autocrat, became a subject of heated controversy between conflicting parties in the state. Provisionally, then, the Russian governmental system may perhaps be best defined as "a limited monarchy under an autocratic emperor".
Plekhanov Russian University of Economics
The Moscow Commercial Institute was founded in 1907 on private donations of merchants, bankers and manufacturers, gathered by initiative of the Moscow merchant Alexei Vishnyakov. It was essentially the first institute in Russia which prepared qualified businessmen for rapidly developing branches of industry. Prior to the revolution of 1917 about 2000 specialists were graduated from the institute. In 1924 it was renamed for Marxist thinker Georgy Plekhanov. In the 1960s the Institute was merged with the Moscow Governmental Economic Institute and became one of the major centers of scientific education in the country. After 1991 the institute obtained its current name. Recent years were marked with rising international cooperation, such as the foundation of the Africa Business House. Now the university deals with more than 80 partners in 52 countries. Among its graduates, there are many prominent politicians and businessmen, such as Soviet statesman Mikhail Suslov, liberal democrat Grigory Yavlinsky, and faculty member Ruslan Khasbulatov, former Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian SFSR and later Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Federation (1991–1993).
Rurik dynasty
The Rurik dynasty, or Rurikids (; ; , literally "sons of Rurik"), was a dynasty founded by the Varangian prince Rurik, who established himself in Novgorod around the year AD 862. The Rurikids were the ruling dynasty of Kievan Rus' (after 882), as well as the successor principalities of Galicia-Volhynia (after 1199), Chernigov, Vladimir-Suzdal, and the Grand Duchy of Moscow, and the founders of the Tsardom of Russia. They ruled until 1610 and the Time of Troubles, following which they were succeeded by the Romanovs. They are one of Europe's oldest royal houses, with numerous existing cadet branches.
Romanov Empire (micronation)
The Romanov Empire (), also known as the Imperial Throne (), formerly the Russian Empire (Российская Империя), is a state proposed by Russian businessman and politician Anton Bakov as a re-creation of the Russian monarchy. It would be led by Romanov pretender Prince Karl Emich of Leiningen as Emperor Nicholas III, with Bakov serving as Archchancellor.
Nicholas II of Russia
Russia was defeated in the 1904–1905 Russo-Japanese War, which saw the annihilation of the reinforcing Russian Baltic Fleet after being sent on its round-the-world cruise at the naval Battle of Tsushima, off the coasts of Korea and Japan, the loss of Russian influence over Manchuria and Korea, and the Japanese annexation to the north of South Sakhalin Island. The Anglo-Russian Entente was designed to counter the German Empire's attempts to gain influence in the Middle East, but it also ended the Great Game of confrontation between Russia and the United Kingdom. When all Russian diplomatic efforts to prevent the First World War (1914–1918) failed, Nicholas approved the Imperial Russian Army mobilization on 30 July 1914, which gave Imperial Germany formal grounds to declare war on Russia on 1 August 1914. An estimated 3.3 million Russians were killed in the First World War. The Imperial Russian Army's severe losses, the High Command's incompetent management of the war efforts, and lack of food and supplies on the home front were all leading causes of the fall of the House of Romanov.
Russia and the American Revolution
The Russian Empire's role in the American Revolutionary War was part of a global conflict of colonial supremacy between the Thirteen Colonies and the Kingdom of Great Britain. Prior to the onset of the war, the Russian Empire had already begun exploration along North America's west coast; and, the year following the combat's conclusion, the Eurasian empire established its first colony in Alaska. Although the Russian Empire did not directly send troops or supplies to the colonies or British Empire during the war, it responded to the Declaration of Independence, played a role in international diplomacy, and contributed to the lasting legacy of the American Revolution abroad.
Russian wine
The founder of modern commercial wine-making in Russia was Prince Leo Galitzine (1845-1915), who established the first Russian factory of champagne wines at his Crimean estate of Novyi Svet. In 1889 the production of this winery won the Gold Medal at the Paris exhibition in the nomination for sparkling wines, although several years previously the wine regions of Russia had been devastated by the Phylloxera epidemic. In 1891, Galitzine congratulated himself on becoming the surveyor of imperial vineyards at Abrau-Dyurso, where the sparkling wine was produced throughout the 20th century under the brand of Soviet Champagne, or "champagne for the people".
History of Russia
In February 1613, with the chaos ended and the Poles expelled from Moscow, a national assembly, composed of representatives from fifty cities and even some peasants, elected Michael Romanov, the young son of Patriarch Filaret, to the throne. The Romanov dynasty ruled Russia until 1917.
Deluge (history)
One of the most notable effects of the devastating Deluge was the subsequent weakening of Poland's power. (Russia also took part in the Deluge and was second only to Sweden in the level of destruction caused.) With the entire Polish nation destroyed by the Swedes and Russians, Russia was able to rise and founded the later Russian Empire in early 18th century. The foundation of Russian Empire would play a role in leading to the Partitions of Poland in the later half of the 18th century.
Russo-Japanese War
Tsarist Russia, as a major imperial power, had ambitions in the East. By the 1890s it had extended its realm across Central Asia to Afghanistan, absorbing local states in the process. The Russian Empire stretched from Poland in the west to the Kamchatka Peninsula in the east. With its construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway to the port of Vladivostok, Russia hoped to further consolidate its influence and presence in the region. In the Tsushima incident of 1861 Russia had directly assaulted Japanese territory.
Stroganov family
The Stroganovs or Strogonovs (), referred to in French as Stroganoffs, were a family of highly successful Russian merchants, industrialists, landowners, and statesmen. From the reign of Ivan the Terrible in the 16th century they were the richest businessmen in the Tsardom of Russia. They financed the Russian conquest of Siberia and Prince Pozharsky's reconquest of Moscow from the Poles. The Stroganov School of icon-painting takes its name from them. The most recent common ancestor of the family was Fyodor Lukich Stroganov, a salt industrialist. His elder son, Vladimir, became the founder of the lineage that degraded to state peasants; this lineage is still continued. The lineage from his youngest son, Anikey, died out in 1923. Anikey's descendants had made it to the high Russian nobility under the first Romanovs.
Modern history
In 1900 the World's Population had approached approximately 1.6 billion.
Four years into the 20th century saw the Russo-Japanese War with the Battle of Port Arthur establishing the Empire of Japan as a world power. The Russians were in constant pursuit of a warm water port on the Pacific Ocean, for their navy as well as for maritime trade. The Manchurian Campaign of the Russian Empire was fought against the Japanese over Manchuria and Korea. The major theatres of operations were Southern Manchuria, specifically the area around the Liaodong Peninsula and Mukden, and the seas around Korea, Japan, and the Yellow Sea. The resulting campaigns, in which the fledgling Japanese military consistently attained victory over the Russian forces arrayed against them, were unexpected by world observers. These victories, as time transpired, would dramatically transform the distribution of power in East Asia, resulting in a reassessment of Japan's recent entry onto the world stage. The embarrassing string of defeats increased Russian popular dissatisfaction with the inefficient and corrupt Tsarist government.
Rurik dynasty
In that year, Mikhail I ascended the throne, founding the Romanov dynasty that would rule until 1762 and as Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov until the revolutions of 1917. Tsar Mikhail's first wife Maria Dolgorukova was of Rurikid stock but their marriage produced no children. Emperor Peter III in 1762 brought fresh Rurikid blood to the Romanovs: he and his wife Catherine the Great both descended from the Rurik dynasty. (Catherine the Great descended from a daughter of Yaroslav I (978–1054) through her maternal grandfather, Christian August of Holstein-Gottorp.)
History of Russia (1892–1917)
Under Tsar Nicholas II (reigned 1894–1917), the Russian Empire slowly industrialized while repressing opposition in the political center and on the far left. During the 1890s Russia's industrial development led to a large increase in the size of the urban middle class and of the working class, which gave rise to a more dynamic political atmosphere and the development of radical parties. Because the state and foreigners owned much of Russia's industry, the Russian working class was comparatively stronger and the Russian bourgeoisie comparatively weaker than in the West. The working class and the peasants became the first to establish political parties in Russia, because the nobility and the wealthy bourgeoisie were politically timid. During the 1890s and early 1900s, bad living- and working-conditions, high taxes, and land hunger gave rise to more frequent strikes and agrarian disorders. These activities prompted the bourgeoisie of various nationalities in the Russian Empire to develop a host of different parties, both liberal and conservative. By 1914, 40% of Russian workers were employed in factories of 1,000 workers or more (32% in 1901). 42% worked in businesses of 100 to 1000 workers, and 18% in businesses of 100 workers or fewer (in 1914 the United States had equivalent figures of 18%, 47% and 35% respectively).
History of Russia
The History of Russia begins with that of the East Slavs and the Finno-Ugric peoples. The traditional beginning of Russian history is the establishment of Kievan Rus', the first united Eastern Slavic state, in 882. The state adopted Christianity from the Byzantine Empire in 988, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Orthodox Slavic culture for the next millennium. Kievan Rus' ultimately disintegrated as a state due to the Mongol invasions in 1237–1240 along with the resulting deaths of about half the population of Rus'.
Russian Navy
The first iteration of the Russian Navy was established by Peter the Great (Peter I) in October 1696. Ascribed to him is the oft quoted statement: "A ruler that has but an army has one hand, but he who has a navy has both." The symbols of the Russian Navy, the St. Andrew's ensign (seen to the right), and most of its traditions were established personally by Peter I.
House of Romanov
Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich, a male-line grandson of Tsar Alexander II, claimed the headship of the deposed Imperial House of Russia, and assumed, as pretender, the title "Emperor and Autocrat of all the Russias" in 1924 when the evidence appeared conclusive that all Romanovs higher in the line of succession had been killed. Kirill was followed by his only son Vladimir Kirillovich. Vladimir's only child, Maria Vladimirovna (born 1953), claims to have succeeded her father. The only son of her marriage with Prince Franz Wilhelm of Prussia, George Mikhailovich, is her heir apparent. The Romanov Family Association (RFA) formed in 1979, a private organization of most of the male-line descendants of Emperor Paul I of Russia (other than Vladimir Kirillovich, Maria Vladimirovna and her son) acknowledges the dynastic claims to the throne of no pretender, and is officially committed to support only that form of government chosen by the Russian nation. However the RFA's former president, Nicholas Romanovich, along with his brother Dimitri and some other family members, have repudiated the transfer of the dynasty's legacy to the female-line, contending that his claim is as valid as that of Maria Vladimirovna or her son. A great-grandson of Kirill's who is not a male-line Romanov, Prince Karl Emich of Leiningen, also claims to be the rightful representative of the Romanov Imperial heritage and has become the founder of Romanov Empire.
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire expanded its influence and possessions in Central Asia, especially in the later 19th century, conquering much of Russian Turkestan in 1865 and continuing to add territory as late as 1885.
Ukrainians in Russia
Grand Prince of Kiev Vladimir II Monomakh founded the principality of Vladimir-Suzdal, and his son Yuri Dolgoruki founded the city of Moscow in 1147. However, by the end of the 12th century the prominence of Rus' began to decline as Kiev's central role became disputed by the surrounding principalities which were increasingly more powerful and independent. Dolgoruki's son Andrei I Bogolyubsky plundered Kiev in 1169, an event that allowed the Principality of Vladimir-Suzdal to take a leading role as the predecessor of the modern Russian state.
Grand Orient of Russia’s Peoples
Freemasonry in Russia was outlawed in 1822 during the reign of Alexander I of Russia and a further crackdown was initiated during the reign of Nicholas I of Russia, as the creators of the Decembrist Revolt, the Union of Salvation, were accused of being connected to Freemasonry. By the end of the 19th century, Russian political and intellectual emigres living in Paris had started to enter Masonic lodges working the Scottish Rite. This included Maksim Kovalevsky, Grigorii Nikolayevich Vyrubov and Pavel Yablochkov.
Dystopian Wars
The Russian Coalition has existed as a single political union since the crowning of Ivan IV - known as Ivan Grozny: 'the Terrible' or 'the Fearsome' - as the first true Tsar of all Russia in the 16th Century. Known as the Russian Empire before 1800, it has steadily expanded its borders, most notably under the guiding hand of Romanov Tsar Peter the Great.
Michael of Russia
Michael I of Russia (Russian: Михаи́л Фёдорович Рома́нов, "Mikhail Fyodorovich Romanov") () became the first Russian Tsar of the House of Romanov after the zemskiy sobor of 1613 elected him to rule the Tsardom of Russia. He was the son of Feodor Nikitich Romanov (later known as Patriarch Filaret) and of Xenia (later known as "the "great nun"" Martha). He was also a nephew of Feodor I (the last Rurikid Tsar) through his great-aunt Anastasia Romanovna (his paternal grandfather's sister) and through marriage with Tsar Ivan IV of Russia. His accession marked the end of the Time of Troubles. During his reign, Russia conquered most of Siberia, largely with the help of the Cossacks and the Stroganov family. Russia had extended to the Pacific Ocean by the end of Michael's reign.
Russia
Under Peter the Great, Russia was proclaimed an Empire in 1721 and became recognized as a world power. Ruling from 1682 to 1725, Peter defeated Sweden in the Great Northern War, forcing it to cede West Karelia and Ingria (two regions lost by Russia in the Time of Troubles), as well as Estland and Livland, securing Russia's access to the sea and sea trade. On the Baltic Sea, Peter founded a new capital called Saint Petersburg, later known as Russia's "window to Europe". Peter the Great's reforms brought considerable Western European cultural influences to Russia.
Nicholas II of Russia
Nicholas II or Nikolai II (; 1868 – 17 July 1918), known as Saint Nicholas the Passion-Bearer in the Russian Orthodox Church, was the last Emperor of Russia, ruling from 1 November 1894 until his forced abdication on 15 March 1917. His reign saw the fall of the Russian Empire from one of the foremost great powers of the world to economic and military collapse. He was given the nickname Nicholas the Bloody or Vile Nicholas by his political adversaries due to the Khodynka Tragedy, anti-Semitic pogroms, Bloody Sunday, the violent suppression of the 1905 Russian Revolution, the execution of political opponents, and his perceived responsibility for the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905). Soviet historians portrayed Nicholas as a weak and incompetent leader whose decisions led to military defeats and the deaths of millions of his subjects.
Shakhovskoy
The family was founded by Prince Konstantin Glebovich, nicknamed “Shah.” Konstantin was a direct descendant of Rurik, whose dynasty formed ancient Rus' and ruled from the 9th to the 17th century. At the time, the land comprised many city-states and principalities, each of which was ruled by its own prince, or knyaz (). The Rurik dynasty brought these together under the authority of the Grand Duchy of Kiev and later Moscow. The land would later become modern-day Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine.Prince Konstantin was the youngest of three sons of Prince Gleb Vasilievich, whose brother Vasili Vasilievich ruled the Principality of Yaroslavl. The rule was passed down to Vasili's sons.
Charles XII of Sweden
The Swedish defeat at Poltava in 1709 marks the downfall of the Swedish Empire, as well as the founding of the Russian Empire.
Russian Empire
The third largest empire in world history, at its greatest extent stretching over three continents, Europe, Asia, and North America, the Russian Empire was surpassed in landmass only by the British and Mongol empires. The rise of the Russian Empire happened in association with the decline of neighboring rival powers: the Swedish Empire, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Persia and the Ottoman Empire. It played a major role in 1812–1814 in defeating Napoleon's ambitions to control Europe and expanded to the west and south.
List of Russian rulers
This is a list of all reigning monarchs in the history of Russia. It includes titles Prince of Novgorod, Grand Prince of Kiev, Grand Prince of Vladimir, Grand Prince of Moscow, Tsar of All Rus'(Russia), and Emperor of All Russia. The list begins with a semi-legendary Rurik, Prince of Novgorod, sometime in the mid 9th century (c. 862) and ends with the Emperor of All Russia Nicholas II who abdicated in 1917, and was executed with his family in 1918.
List of Russian rulers
The land that is today known as Russia was populated by various East Slavic peoples from before the 9th century. The first states to exert hegemony over the region were those of the Rus' people, a branch of Nordic Varangians who entered the region occupied by modern Russia sometime in the ninth century, and set up a series of states starting with the Rus' Khaganate circa 830. Little is known of the Rus' Khaganate beyond its existence, including the extent of its territory or any reliable list of its Khagans (rulers). Traditionally, Russian statehood is traced to Rurik, a Rus' leader of Holmgard (later Novgorod, modern Veliky Novgorod), a different Rus' state. Rurik's successor Oleg moved his capital to Kiev, founding the state of Kievan Rus'. Over the next several centuries, the most important titles were those of the Grand Prince of Kiev and Grand Prince of Novgorod whose holder (often the same person) could claim hegemony. By the early 11th century the Rus' state had fragmented into a series of petty principalities which warred constantly with each other. In 1097, the Council of Liubech formalized the federal nature of the Russian lands. By the 12th century, the Grand Duchy of Vladimir became the dominant principality, adding its name to those of Novgorod and Kiev, culminating with the rule of Alexander Nevsky. After Alexander Nevsky, the region once again broke up into petty states, though the Grand Duchy of Moscow, founded by Alexander Nevsky's youngest son Daniel, began to consolidate control over the entire Russian territory in the 15th century. Following the Mongol conquests of the 13th century, all of the Russian principalities paid tribute to the Golden Horde, effectively operating as vassals of the Mongol state. The Russians began to exert independence from the Mongols, culminating with Ivan the Great of Moscow ceasing tribute to the Horde, effectively declaring his independence. Last Grand Prince of Moscow Ivan the Terrible assumed the title Tsar of All the Russias in 1547.
Empire of Japan–Russian Empire relations
In 1902 Japan and the British Empire forged the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, which would last until 1923. The purpose of this alliance was to contain the Russian Empire in East Asia. In response to this alliance, Russia formed a similar alliance with France and began to renege on agreements to reduce troop strength in Manchuria. From Russian perspective, it seemed inconceivable that Japan, a non-European power which was considered to be undeveloped (i.e. not-industrial), and almost bereft of natural resources, would challenge the Russian Empire. This view would change when Japan started and won the Russo-Japanese War (1904–05).
19th century
It was marked by the collapse of the Spanish, Napoleonic, Holy Roman and Mughal empires. This paved the way for the growing influence of the British Empire, the Russian Empire, the United States, the German Empire (essentially replacing the Holy Roman Empire), the French colonial empire and Meiji Japan, with the British boasting unchallenged dominance after 1815. After the defeat of the French Empire and its allies in the Napoleonic Wars, the British and Russian empires expanded greatly, becoming the world's leading powers. The Russian Empire expanded in central and far eastern Asia. The British Empire grew rapidly in the first half of the century, especially with the expansion of vast territories in Canada, Australia, South Africa and heavily populated India, and in the last two decades of the century in Africa. By the end of the century, the British Empire controlled a fifth of the world's land and one quarter of the world's population. During the post-Napoleonic era, it enforced what became known as the Pax Britannica, which had ushered in unprecedented globalization and economic integration on a massive scale.
Russians
Russian culture originated from that of the East Slavs, who were largely polytheists, and had a specific way of life in the wooded areas of Eastern and Northern Europe. The Scandinavian Vikings, or "Varangians", also took part in forming the Russian identity and state in the early Kievan Rus' period of the late 1st millennium AD. The Rus' accepted Christianity from the Byzantine Empire in 988, and this largely defined Russian culture for the next millennium, namely as a synthesis of Slavic and Byzantine cultures. After the fall of Constantinople in 1453, Russia remained the largest Orthodox nation in the world and claimed succession to the Byzantine legacy in the form of the Third Rome idea. At different points of its history, the country was strongly influenced by European culture, and since the reforms of Peter the Great Russian culture largely developed in the context of Western culture. For most of the 20th century, Marxist ideology shaped the culture of the Soviet Union, where Russia, i.e. the Russian SFSR, was the largest and leading part.
Asia
The border between Asia and Europe was historically defined by European academics. The Don River became unsatisfactory to northern Europeans when Peter the Great, king of the Tsardom of Russia, defeating rival claims of Sweden and the Ottoman Empire to the eastern lands, and armed resistance by the tribes of Siberia, synthesized a new Russian Empire extending to the Ural Mountains and beyond, founded in 1721. The major geographical theorist of the empire was actually a former Swedish prisoner-of-war, taken at the Battle of Poltava in 1709 and assigned to Tobolsk, where he associated with Peter's Siberian official, Vasily Tatishchev, and was allowed freedom to conduct geographical and anthropological studies in preparation for a future book.
Russian Archaeological Institute of Constantinople
The Russian Archaeological Institute of Constantinople () was founded in 1895 and led by two distinguished Russian Byzantinists, Fyodor Uspensky and Nikodim Kondakov. The institute carried out excavations and studies across the entire Ottoman Empire, carrying off large numbers of relics, manuscripts and other finds to Russia. Aside from its research role, the institute was from the outset intended as a statement of foreign policy, following the Russian Empire's claim to be the inheritor of the Byzantine Empire as the "Third Rome", and its long-standing ambition to conquer Constantinople from the Ottoman Empire. The institute continued to function until the outbreak of the First World War in 1914.
House of Romanov
The Romanovs achieved prominence as boyars of the Grand Duchy of Moscow, later the Tsardom of Russia. In 1613, following years of interregnum (Time of Troubles), the "zemsky sobor" offered the Russian crown to Mikhail Romanov. He acceded to the throne as Michael I, becoming the first Tsar of Russia from the House of Romanov. His grandson Peter I established the Russian Empire and transformed the country into a continental power through a series of wars and reforms.
Russian colonization of the Americas
Imperial Russia was unique among European empires for having no state sponsorship of foreign expeditions or territorial (conquest) settlement. The first state-protected trading company for sponsoring such activities in the Americas was the Shelikhov-Golikov Company of Grigory Shelikhov and Ivan Larionovich Golikov. A number of other companies were operating in Russian America during the 1780s. Shelikhov petitioned the government for exclusive control, but in 1788 Catherine II decided to grant his company a monopoly only over the area it had already occupied. Other traders were free to compete elsewhere. Catherine's decision was issued as the imperial "ukase" (proclamation) of September 28, 1788.
Russian culture
Russian literature is considered to be among the most influential and developed in the world, with some of the most famous literary works belonging to it. Russia's literary history dates back to the 10th century; in the 18th century its development was boosted by the works of Mikhail Lomonosov and Denis Fonvizin, and by the early 19th century a modern native tradition had emerged, producing some of the greatest writers of all time. This period and the Golden Age of Russian Poetry began with Alexander Pushkin, considered to be the founder of modern Russian literature and often described as the ""Russian Shakespeare" or the "Russian Goethe"". It continued in the 19th century with the poetry of Mikhail Lermontov and Nikolay Nekrasov, dramas of Aleksandr Ostrovsky and Anton Chekhov, and the prose of Nikolai Gogol, Ivan Turgenev, Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin, Ivan Goncharov, Aleksey Pisemsky and Nikolai Leskov. Tolstoy and Dostoevsky in particular were titanic figures, to the point that many literary critics have described one or the other as the greatest novelist ever.
History of Russia (1855–92)
Russia continued to expand its empire, occupying the Caucasus, Tashkent and Samarkand. In foreign affairs, the period began with the conclusion of the Crimean War. Russian policy brought it into conflict with other European powers, in particular Austria-Hungary, as it sought to extend influence over the European portions of the receding Ottoman Empire and regain naval access to the Black Sea. This culminated in a successful war with the Ottoman Empire in 1877–1878, followed by the Treaty of San Stefano and Congress of Berlin in 1878 by which an independent Bulgaria came into being, and by acquisition of former Ottoman territories in the South Caucasus. Russia joined Germany and Austria-Hungary in the League of the Three Emperors, but friction continued with both partners over Bulgaria, and the alliance with Germany came to an end in 1890.
House of Romanov
The House of Romanov (; also Romanoff; , "Románovy", ) was the reigning dynasty in Russia from 1613 until the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II on 15 March 1917, as a result of the February Revolution. The House of Romanov was the second dynasty to rule Russia, the first being the House of Rurik.
Anglo-Russian
Notable Anglo-Russian families were built around the trading houses and businesses of the Cazalet family, - the Cazalet-Miller business empire including the Ebsworth family, and Whishaw family. One of the first Anglo-Russian families was established by Noah Cazalet (1757-1800), a silk weaver, settled in St Petersburg and expanded into the burgeoning business of rope manufacture for sailing ships. In 1860 Edward Cazalet married an Elizabeth Marshall, and became connected to the company of William Miller & Co, of Leith in Scotland. The Whishaw family, of Hills and Whishaw Ltd, included James Whishaw, and influential intermediary in development of the Baku oilfields and Stella Zoe Whishaw, later Baroness Meyendorff, an Anglo-Russian actress who wrote a memoir "Through terror to freedom - the dramatic story of an Englishwoman's life and adventures in Russia before, during & after the revolution" in 1929, and then became a film diva in the 1930s.
Russian Empire
In 1889, a Russian adventurer, Nikolay Ivanovitch Achinov, tried to establish a Russian colony in Africa, Sagallo, situated on the Gulf of Tadjoura in present-day Djibouti. However this attempt angered the French, who dispatched two gunboats against the colony. After a brief resistance, the colony surrendered and the Russian settlers were deported to Odessa.
Rurik dynasty
The Yuryeviches were founded by Yuriy Dolgorukiy, the founder of Moscow and spread vastly in the north-east. Yuri's son Vsevolod the Big Nest was Prince of Vladimir-Suzdal, a precursor state to the Grand Principality of Moscow and thus of the Russian Empire. Vsevolod's son Konstantin of Rostov was Prince of Rostov and the progenitor of various "Rostov" princely lines. Another son, Ivan Vsevolodich, was Prince of Starodub and progenitor of a number of extant lines, most notably the Gagarin line.
Russian Empire
Between 1742 and 1867, the Russian-American Company administered Alaska as a colony. The Company also established settlements in Hawaii, including Fort Elizabeth (1817), and as far south in North America as Fort Ross Colony (established in 1812) in Sonoma County, California just north of San Francisco. Both Fort Ross and the Russian River in California got their names from Russian settlers, who had staked claims in a region claimed until 1821 by the Spanish as part of New Spain.
Russian Constitution of 1906
Prior to the enactment of the 1906 Russian constitution, the Russian Empire had been an absolute monarchy, ruled by an autocratic emperor, who was commonly referred to by his pre-imperial title of "Tsar". The precise regulations by which the Tsar exercised his imperial prerogatives were first codified in 1832, with the issuance of the "Set of Laws of the Russian Empire" ("Свод законов Российскои империи"), penned by Mikhail Speransky. These laws could be altered or repealed by the emperor. However, the autocratic Tsars were generally limited by two constraints: they and their spouses must profess the Russian Orthodox faith, and they must obey the laws of succession laid down by Emperor Paul I. Beyond that, the power of the Russian emperor was virtually limitless.
Russia–Turkey relations
The Turks in Anatolia were separated from Russia by the Black Sea and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth to the northwest and the Caucasus mountains to the east. The Turks founded the Ottoman Empire in Anatolia and began expanding outwards, while Russia was doing the same. The two empires began a series of clashes over the Black Sea basin.
Russian colonization of the Americas
The Russian colonization of the Americas covers the period from 1732 to 1867, when the Russian Empire laid claim to northern Pacific Coast territories in the Americas. Russian colonial possessions in the Americas are collectively known as Russian America. Russian expansion eastward began in 1552, and in 1639 Russian explorers reached the Pacific Ocean. In 1725, Emperor Peter the Great ordered navigator Vitus Bering to explore the North Pacific for potential colonization. The Russians were primarily interested in the abundance of fur-bearing mammals on Alaska's coast, as stocks had been depleted by over hunting in Siberia. Bering's first voyage was foiled by thick fog and ice, but in 1741 a second voyage by Bering and Aleksei Chirikov made sight of the North American mainland.
History of Russia
Daniil Aleksandrovich, the youngest son of Alexander Nevsky, founded the principality of Moscow (known as Muscovy in English), which first cooperated with and ultimately expelled the Tatars from Russia. Well-situated in the central river system of Russia and surrounded by protective forests and marshes, Moscow was at first only a vassal of Vladimir, but soon it absorbed its parent state.
History of Russia
In the 15th century, the grand princes of Moscow continued to consolidate Russian land to increase their population and wealth. The most successful practitioner of this process was Ivan III, who laid the foundations for a Russian national state. Ivan competed with his powerful northwestern rival, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, for control over some of the semi-independent Upper Principalities in the upper Dnieper and Oka River basins.
Russia
The East Slavs emerged as a recognizable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. Founded and ruled by a Varangian warrior elite and their descendants, the medieval state of Rus arose in the 9th century. In 988 it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Rus' ultimately disintegrated into a number of smaller states; most of the Rus' lands were overrun by the Mongol invasion and became tributaries of the nomadic Golden Horde in the 13th century. The Grand Duchy of Moscow gradually reunified the surrounding Russian principalities, achieved independence from the Golden Horde. By the 18th century, the nation had greatly expanded through conquest, annexation, and exploration to become the Russian Empire, which was the third largest empire in history, stretching from Poland on the west to Alaska on the east.
Kuwait–Russia relations
In the beginning of the 20th century, the Russian Empire sought to expand its international presence by creating new spheres of influence, and the Empire looked to the Arab world. Russian interest in the region was twofold. Inroads were made by the Empire in Persia, and there was increasing rivalry between the French and British in the region. Britain had suffered major setbacks in the Boer War, and its colonial rivals sought to capitalise upon the position of the British which was increasingly undermined in the region. The Russians were also further motivated to increase their presence in the region, as both the Russians and Arabs shared a common hostility towards the Ottoman Empire. At the same time, the German Empire was planning to build a railway which would ultimately link Baghdad with Berlin, which was planned to terminate in Kuwait.
Line of succession to the former Russian throne
At first, many members of the Imperial House either did not believe or were wary of acting on news of the demise of the immediate imperial family. However, camps started to be formed in the monarchist movement, where Paris was a focal location. Several monarchists grouped around Grand Duke Cyril Vladimirovich, who was first in the line of succession by male primogeniture after the execution of Alexei Nikolaevich and Michael Alexandrovich. Many of Cyril's opponents grouped around a young grand duke, Dmitri Pavlovich, who was next in the line of succession if Cyril and his brothers, the Vladimirovichi, were ineligible (Paul Alexandrovich, who had been ahead of Dmitri, had been killed in 1919), though Dimitri himself refused these advances, supporting instead Grand Duke Cyril as emperor. Several grouped around the old Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich, appreciating his career as general and former commander-in-chief, or his position as the oldest member of the imperial dynasty. On August 8, 1922, Nicholas was proclaimed as the emperor of all Russia by the "Zemsky Sobor" of the Priamursk region, convened in Vladivostok by General Mikhail Diterikhs. At the time, Grand Duke Nicholas was already living abroad and consequently was not present at the "Sobor". Two months later the Priamursk region fell to the Bolsheviks.
Tsardom of Russia
The Tsardom of Russia (, "Russkoje tsarstvo" later changed to , "Rossiyskoye tsarstvo"), Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth called it Tsardom of Muscovy, was the centralized Russian state from the assumption of the title of Tsar by Ivan IV in 1547 until the foundation of the Russian Empire by Peter the Great in 1721.
Empire of Japan–Russian Empire relations
Later on, these unsuccessful attacks would be disavowed by Russia and its interest in Japan would drop for a full generation. This would be the case until the First Opium War in 1839. The Russian Tsar Nicholas I realised the territorial expansion of Great Britain in Asia and the expansion of the United States in the Pacific Ocean and northern America. As a result, he founded a committee in 1842 to investigate Russia's power in areas around the Amur River and in Sakhalin. The committee proposed a mission to the area under the lead of Admiral Yevfimy Putyatin. The plan was not approved because officials expressed concerns it would disrupt the Kyakhta trade, and many did not believe Russia had great commercial assets to be defended in these cold and desolate places. 
The highly esteemed China was surprisingly (in the eyes of the Japanese) beaten by Great Britain in the Opium Wars. Although Japan was in isolation from the outside world, it was not blind to European capabilities and dangers. In light of these events, Japan began modernization of its military and coastal defenses.
Foreign policy of the Russian Empire
The Kingdom of England and Tsardom of Russia established relations in 1553 when English navigator Richard Chancellor arrived in Arkhangelsk, when Ivan the Terrible ruled Russia. In 1555 the Muscovy Company was established. The Muscovy Company held a monopoly over trade between England and Russia until 1698.
Empire of Japan–Russian Empire relations
In 1852, on learning of American plans to send Commodore Matthew Perry in an attempt to open Japan for foreign trade, the Russian government revived Putyatin’s proposal, which received support from Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich of Russia. The expedition included several notable Sinologists and a number of scientists and engineers, as well as the noted author Ivan Goncharov, and the "Pallada" under the command of Ivan Unkovsky was selected as the flagship. After many mishaps, Putyatin signed three treaties between 1855 and 1858 by which Russia established diplomatic and commercial relations with Japan. (see Treaty of Shimoda)
Empire Earth
In the Russian campaign, the player leads Novaya Russia, a reconstruction of the Russian Federation. The game begins in 2018, with the Russian political dissident Grigor Stoyanovich heading up a full-sized civil war from Volgograd, followed by a seizure of power in the Kremlin in Moscow. The second scenario is about Europe's unsuccessful attempt to free Novaya Russia's oppressed population and Russia's conquest of the continent. In the third scenario the now-old Grigor appoints his robotic bodyguard as his successor, crushes a coup in Moscow with help from loyalist forces, and finally succumbs to heart problems. Under Grigor II, Novaya Russia continues its conquest of the world by invading and subjugating China. China had been building a time machine, but the Russian forces destroy it, narrowly averting a time paradox. By this time, Novaya Russia has control over much of Eurasia.
Notes on Muscovite Affairs
"Muscovy" in the 16th century was the Russian state which separated itself from the Kievan Rus' after it fell apart. It evolved into the Russian Empire under Peter the Great starting at the end of the 17th century. Russia was the region, Muscovy was the state until it no longer included just Moscow. Muscovy was then ruled by the Muscovite monarchy, starting with Ivan III (1462–1505), who expanded Muscovy, and ending with Ivan IV, who claimed the title "Tsar of Russia".
Maria Ananina
Maria Ananina was the daughter of an officer Ananin. In 1756, the Imperial Theatres was founded in Saint Petersburg by the empress Elizabeth of Russia. Previously, foreign actresses had performed in Russia in the French, Italian and German theater companies that visited Russia, but the acting profession had not been practiced by Russian women. A proclamation from the Russian Senate 30 August 1756 allowed for the hiring of women actors to the newly founded Russian theatre, and directly afterward, the first two actresses was hired. Maria Ananina and her sister Olga Ananina, who thereby became the first professional actresses in Russia; shortly after, they were joined by Agrafena Musina-Pushkina.
Coronation of the Russian monarch
The Romanov dynasty came to power in July 1613, and ruled Russia until the Russian Revolution of 1917, when the monarchy was abolished. Tsars Ivan VI and Peter III were never crowned, as neither reigned long enough to have a coronation ceremony. Peter the Great adopted the formal title of "Emperor" during his reign and his successors used it until the Revolution, but common usage still assigned the title of "Tsar" to the Russian monarch.Although no photography was permitted inside the Cathedral of the Dormition during the crowning of Nicholas II or any Russian Tsar, several artistic representations of the ceremony have been made (some of which have been reproduced in this article), and numerous photos and even one motion picture exist of the Tsar's procession, coronation celebrations and other events taking place outside of the church and in surrounding areas of Moscow. Some of these include:
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire, also known as Imperial Russia or simply Russia, was an empire that existed across Eurasia and North America from 1721, following the end of the Great Northern War, until the Republic was proclaimed by the Provisional Government that took power after the February Revolution of 1917.
Russian Empire
Economically, the empire had a predominantly agricultural base, with low productivity on large estates worked by serfs, Russian peasants (until they were freed in 1861). The economy slowly industrialized with the help of foreign investments in railways and factories. The land was ruled by a nobility (the boyars) from the 10th through the 17th centuries, and subsequently by an emperor. Tsar Ivan III (1462–1505) laid the groundwork for the empire that later emerged. He tripled the territory of his state, ended the dominance of the Golden Horde, renovated the Moscow Kremlin, and laid the foundations of the Russian state. Emperor Peter the Great (1682–1725) fought numerous wars and expanded an already huge empire into a major European power. He moved the capital from Moscow to the new model city of St. Petersburg, and led a cultural revolution that replaced some of the traditionalist and medieval social and political mores with a modern, scientific, Europe-oriented, and rationalist system.
Stenka Razin
Russia began the 17th century with the Time of Troubles, which lasted from 1598 to 1613. This time marked the end of the Rurik dynasty and the beginning of the Romanov dynasty (which would eventually end with the October Revolution and the execution of the last tsar, Nicholas II, and the tsarevich, Alexei Nikolaevich in 1918). Michael Romanov (tsar from 1613 to 1645) and his son Alexis (tsar from 1645 to 1676) both strove to strengthen the power of the tsar in order to stabilize the country after the turmoil of the Time of Troubles. As a result, the Zemsky Sobor and the boyar council, two other bodies of government in Russia, slowly lost influence. The Russian population went from fifteen years of "near anarchy" to the reigns of two strong, centralizing autocrats.
First Russian circumnavigation
After publishing a paper pointing out the advantages of direct communication between Russia and China by Cape Horn or the Cape of Good Hope, Krusenstern was appointed by Tsar Alexander I to make a voyage to the east coast of Asia to endeavour to carry out the project. Under the patronage of the Tsar, Krusenstern and Rezanov co-led the first Russian circumnavigation of the world. The purpose of the two-ship expedition was to establish trade with China and Japan, introduce Rezanov as first Russian ambassador to Japan, facilitate trade in South America, and examine California for a possible colony.
Russian Primary Chronicle
The historical period covered in the "Tale of Bygone Years" begins with biblical times, in the introductory portion of the text, and concludes with the year 1117 in the "Chronicle's" third edition. Russian philologist and founder of the science of textology, Aleksey Shakhmatov, was the first one to discover early on that the chronology of the "Russian Primary Chronicle" opens with an error. The "Chronicle" has it that “In the year 6360 (852), the fifteenth of the indiction, at the accession of the Emperor Michael, the land of Rus’ was first named.” However, John Skylitzes' accounts of the Byzantine history show that Emperor Michael III did not begin his reign in 852 but rather a decade earlier, on January 20, 842. Because of the work's several identified chronological issues and numerous logical incongruities that have been pointed out by historians over the years, the "Chronicle's" value as a reliable historical source has been placed under strict scrutiny by the contemporary experts in the field (see “”).
Anglo-Russian Convention
During the last third of the nineteenth century, the Russian Empire's advances into Central Asia and the consolidation of the British Empire's domination of South Asia led to intense rivalry between the two European colonial empires. The conflicting interests centered on Afghanistan, Iran, and Tibet, three states that constituted buffers between Britain's and Russia's colonial possessions in Asia. The emergence of the German Empire as a world power and the humiliating defeat in 1905 of Russia by a nascent Asian power, the Empire of Japan, in the Russo-Japanese War, helped to persuade some British and Russian officials of a need to resolve their respective differences in Asia.
Russia
Science and technology in Russia blossomed since the Age of Enlightenment, when Peter the Great founded the Russian Academy of Sciences and Saint Petersburg State University, and polymath Mikhail Lomonosov established the Moscow State University, paving the way for a strong native tradition in learning and innovation. In the 19th and 20th centuries the country produced a large number of notable scientists and inventors.
Russian culture
At the start of the 18th century the reforms of Peter the Great (the founder of Russian Academy of Sciences and Saint Petersburg State University) and the work of such champions as polymath Mikhail Lomonosov (the founder of Moscow State University) gave a great boost for development of science, engineering and innovation in Russia. In the 19th and 20th centuries Russia produced a large number of great and inventors.
Russian Empire
Empress Catherine the Great (reigned 1762–1796) presided over a golden age; she expanded the state by conquest, colonization and diplomacy, continuing Peter the Great's policy of modernization along Western European lines. Emperor Alexander II (1855–1881) promoted numerous reforms, most dramatically the emancipation of all 23 million serfs in 1861. His policy in Eastern Europe involved protecting the Orthodox Christians under the rule of the Ottoman Empire. That connection by 1914 led to Russia's entry into the First World War on the side of France, the United Kingdom, and Serbia, against the German, Austrian, and Ottoman empires.
History of Russia
After the 13th century, Moscow became a cultural center, and by the 18th century, the Tsardom of Russia had grown to become the Russian Empire, stretching from eastern Poland to the Pacific Ocean. Peasant revolts were common, and all were fiercely suppressed. Russian serfdom was abolished in 1861, but the peasants fared poorly and often turned to revolutionary pressures. In the following decades, reform efforts such as the Stolypin reforms, the constitution of 1906, and the State Duma attempted to open and liberalize the economy and political system, but the tsars refused to relinquish autocratic rule or share their power.
History of Russia
In this way, internal consolidation accompanied outward expansion of the state. By the 16th century, the rulers of Moscow considered the entire Russian territory their collective property. Various semi-independent princes still claimed specific territories, but Ivan III forced the lesser princes to acknowledge the grand prince of Moscow and his descendants as unquestioned rulers with control over military, judicial, and foreign affairs. Gradually, the Russian ruler emerged as a powerful, autocratic ruler, a tsar. The first Russian ruler to officially crown himself "Tsar" was Ivan IV.
Duke Constantine Petrovich of Oldenburg
During the 18th Century, the Dukes of Holstein-Gottorp gained influence through a carefully planned series of marital alliances with the royal houses of Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Prussia. The childless Empress Elizabeth of Russia proclaimed her nephew, Charles Peter Ulrich of Holstein-Gottorp heir to the throne and when he became Tsar Peter III of Russia in 1762, the Holstein-Gottorps, themselves a cadet branch of the House of Oldenburg, became the Imperial house of Russia, which they ruled until 1917 under the name of Romanov.
Russia
Catherine II ("the Great"), who ruled in 1762–96, presided over the Age of Russian Enlightenment. She extended Russian political control over the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and incorporated most of its territories into Russia during the Partitions of Poland, pushing the Russian frontier westward into Central Europe. In the south, after successful Russo-Turkish Wars against Ottoman Turkey, Catherine advanced Russia's boundary to the Black Sea, defeating the Crimean Khanate. As a result of victories over Qajar Iran through the Russo-Persian Wars, by the first half of the 19th century Russia also made significant territorial gains in Transcaucasia and the North Caucasus, forcing the former to irrevocably cede what is nowadays Georgia, Dagestan, Azerbaijan and Armenia to Russia. This continued with Alexander I's (1801–25) wresting of Finland from the weakened kingdom of Sweden in 1809 and of Bessarabia from the Ottomans in 1812. At the same time, Russians colonized Alaska and even founded settlements in California, such as Fort Ross.
In 1803–1806, the first Russian circumnavigation was made, later followed by other notable Russian sea exploration voyages. In 1820, a Russian expedition discovered the continent of Antarctica.
Russian Empire
By the end of the 19th century the size of the empire was about or almost 1/6 of the Earth's landmass; its only rival in size at the time was the British Empire. However, at this time, the majority of the population lived in European Russia. More than 100 different ethnic groups lived in the Russian Empire, with ethnic Russians composing about 45% of the population.
Romanov Empire (micronation)
Bakov declared the new Russian Empire to be the successor to the historical Russian Empire that ceased to exist in 1917. The Imperial Throne also claimed the right to maritime territories that were either claimed by the Russian Empire or discovered by the Imperial Russian Navy but never absorbed into the Soviet Union. The 17 claimed territories include the entire continent of Antarctica and land under the jurisdiction of Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States, and other nations.
Russian Empire
The accession in 1801 of Alexander I (1801–1825) was widely welcomed as an opening to fresh liberal ideas from the European Enlightenment. Many reforms were promised, but few were actually carried out before 1820, when he turned his attention to foreign affairs and personal religion and ignored reform issues. In sharp contrast to Western Europe, the entire empire had a very small bureaucracy – about 17,000 public officials, most of whom lived in Moscow or St. Petersburg. Modernization of government required much larger numbers, but that in turn required an educational system that could provide suitable training. Russia lacked that, and for university education young men went to Western Europe. The Army and the church had its own training programs, narrowly focused on their particular needs. The most important successful reform under Alexander I came in the setting up a national system of education. The Ministry of Education was set up in 1802, and the country was divided into six educational regions. The long-term plan was for a university in every region, a secondary school in every major city, upgraded primary schools,and – for the largest number of students –a parish school for every two parishes. by 1825 the national government operated six universities, forty-eight secondary state schools, and 337 improved primary schools. Highly qualified teachers arrived from exile in France, where they fled the revolution. Exiled Jesuits set up elite boarding schools until their order was expelled in 1815. At the highest level, universities were set up on the German model in Kazan, Kharkov, St. Petersburg, Vilna and Dorpat, while the relatively young Imperial Moscow University was expanded. The higher forms of education were reserved for a very small elite, with only a few hundred students at the universities by 1825 and 5500 in the secondary schools. There were no schools open to girls. Most rich families still depended on private tutors. t Tsar Nicholas I was a reactionary who wanted to neutralize foreign ideas especially those he ridiculed as "pseudo-knowledge." Nevertheless, his minister of education, Sergey Uvarov at the university level was able to promote more academic freedom for the faculty, who were under suspicion by reactionary church officials. he raised academic standards, improved facilities, and opened the admission doors a bit wider. Nicholas tolerated Uvarov's achievements until 1848, then reversed his innovations. for the rest of the century, the national government continue to focus on universities, and generally ignore elementary and secondary educational needs. By 1900 there were 17,000 university students, and over 30,000 were enrolled in specialized technical institutes. The students were conspicuous in Moscow and St. Petersburg as a political force typically at the forefront of demonstrations and disturbances.
Physical geography
One of the most prolific empires in this regard was Russia. In the mid-eighteenth century many geographers were sent by the Russian altamirazgo different opportunities to perform geographical surveys in the area of Arctic Siberia. Among these is who is considered the patriarch of Russian geography, Mikhail Lomonosov. In the mid-1750s Lomonosov began working in the Department of Geography, Academy of Sciences to conduct research in Siberia, their contributions are notable in this regard, showing the soil organic origin and developing a comprehensive law on the movement of the ice that still governs the basics, thereby founding a new branch of geography: glaciology. In 1755 his initiative was founded Moscow University where he promotes the study of geography and the training of geographers. In 1758 he was appointed director of the Department of Geography, Academy of Sciences, a post from which would develop a working methodology for geographical survey guided by the most important long expeditions and geographical studies in Russia. Thus followed the line of Lomonosov and the contributions of the Russian school became more frequent through his disciples, and in the nineteenth century we have great geographers as Vasily Dokuchaev who performed works of great importance as a "principle of comprehensive analysis of the territory" and "Russian Chernozem" latter being the most important where introduces the geographical concept of soil, as distinct from a simple geological strata, and thus founding a new geographic area of study: pedology. Climatology also receive a strong boost from the Russian school by Wladimir Köppen whose main contribution, climate classification, is still valid today. However, this great geographer also contributed to the paleogeography through his work "The climates of the geological past" which is considered the father of paleoclimatology. Russian geographers who made great contributions to the discipline in this period were: NM Sibirtsev, Pyotr Semyonov, K.D. Glinka, Neustrayev, among others.
First Russian circumnavigation
The first Russian circumnavigation of the Earth took place from August 1803 to August 1806. It was sponsored by Count Nikolay Rumyantsev, funded by the Russian-American Company, and was headed by Adam Johann von Krusenstern. In addition to its exploratory goals, the expedition was also meant to help establish diplomatic and economic relations between Russia and Japan, for which the party included a large diplomatic delegation headed by Court Chamberlain and Ambassador Nikolai Rezanov.
Science and technology in Russia
Science and technology in Russia developed rapidly since the Age of Enlightenment, when Peter the Great founded the Russian Academy of Sciences and Saint Petersburg State University and polymath Mikhail Lomonosov founded the Moscow State University, establishing a strong native tradition in learning and innovation.
List of Russian rulers
The Empire of Russia was declared by Peter the Great in 1721. Officially, Russia would be ruled by the Romanov dynasty until the Russian Revolution of 1917. However, direct male descendants of Michael Romanov came to an end in 1730 with the death of Peter II of Russia, grandson of Peter the Great. The throne passed to Anna, a niece of Peter the Great, and after the brief rule of her niece's infant son Ivan VI, the throne was seized by Elizabeth, a daughter of Peter the Great. Elizabeth would be the last of the direct Romanovs to rule Russia. Elizabeth declared her nephew, Peter, to be her heir. Peter (who would rule as Peter III) spoke little Russian, having been a German prince of the House of Holstein-Gottorp before arriving in Russia to assume the Imperial title. He and his German wife Sophia changed their name to Romanov upon inheriting the throne. Peter was ill-liked, and he was assassinated within six months of assuming the throne, in a coup orchestrated by his wife, who became Empress in her own right and ruled as Catherine the Great (both Peter and Catherine were descended from the House of Rurik). Following the confused successions of the descendants of Peter the Great, Catherine's son Paul I established clear succession laws which governed the rules of primogeniture over the Imperial throne until the fall of the Empire in 1917.
Nicholas II abdicated in favour of his brother, Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich, but the next day, after a nominal reign of only 18 hours, "Emperor Michael II" abdicated, ending dynastic rule in Russia forever. (He is not normally considered to be the last tsar.)
Foreign policy of the Russian Empire
Russia entered the World War in 1914 against Germany, Austria and the Ottoman Empire to defend the Kingdom of Serbia, and to gain access to the Mediterranean Sea at the expense of the Ottoman Empire. Financial help came from its allies Britain and France. The Russian military failed, as did the political and economic system. Russians lost faith in the failed tsar. The result was two revolutions in 1917 that destroyed the Russian Empire, and led to independence for the Baltic states, Poland and (briefly) Ukraine and a host of smaller nation-states such as Georgia. After sharp fighting in the Russian Civil War with international involvement, a new regime of Communism took over and established the Soviet Union (USSR).