When was the Russian Empire started?
History of Russia
The war ended in 1721 when an exhausted Sweden sued for peace with Russia. Peter acquired four provinces situated south and east of the Gulf of Finland, thus securing his coveted access to the sea. There, in 1703, he had already founded the city that was to become Russia's new capital, Saint Petersburg, as a "window opened upon Europe" to replace Moscow, long Russia's cultural center. Russian intervention in the Commonwealth marked, with the Silent Sejm, the beginning of a 200-year domination of that region by the Russian Empire. In celebration of his conquests, Peter assumed the title of emperor, and the Russian Tsardom officially became the Russian Empire in 1721.
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.
Ottoman Empire
The history of the Ottoman Empire during World War I began with the Ottoman surprise attack on the Russian Black Sea coast on 29 October 1914. Following the attack, Russia and its allies, France and Britain, declared war on the Ottomans. There were several important Ottoman victories in the early years of the war, such as the Battle of Gallipoli and the Siege of Kut.
Empire under Attack
The series covers eight years of the history of the Russian Empire - from 1901 to 1908.
Russian Far East
In Russia, the region is usually referred to as just "Far East" (). What is known in English as the Far East is usually referred to as "the Asia-Pacific Region" (, abbreviated to ), or "East Asia" ().
Russia reached the Pacific coast in 1647 with the establishment of Okhotsk, and consolidated its control over the Russian Far East in the 19th century, after the annexation of part of Chinese Manchuria. Primorskaya Oblast was established as a separate administrative division of the Russian Empire in 1856, with its administrative center at Khabarovsk.
Cinema of the Russian Empire
In April 1896, just four months after the first films were shown in Paris, the first cinematic apparatus appeared in Russia. The first films seen in the Russian Empire were via the Lumière brothers, in Moscow and St. Petersburg in May 1896. In the same month, the first film was shot in Russia, by Lumière cameraman Camille Cerf, a record of the coronation of Nicholas II at the Kremlin in Moscow. The first permanent cinema was opened in St Petersburg in 1896 at Nevsky Prospect, No. 46.
Tsardom of Russia
In 1547, Ivan IV assumed the title of “Tsar and Grand Duke of all Rus'” (Царь и Великий князь всея Руси) and was crowned on 16 January, thereby turning the Grand Duchy of Moscow into Tsardom of Russia, or "the Great Russian Tsardom", as it was called in the coronation document, by Constantinople Patriarch Jeremiah II and in numerous official texts, but the state partly remained referred to as "Moscovia" () throughout Europe, predominantly in its Catholic part, though this Latin term was never used in Russia. The two names "Russia" and "Moscovia" appear to have co-existed as interchangeable during the later 16th and throughout the 17th century with different Western maps and sources using different names, so that the country was called ""Russia, or Moscovia"" () or ""Russia, popularly known as Moscovia"" (). In England of the 16th century, it was known both as Russia and Muscovy. Such notable Englishmen as Giles Fletcher, author of the book "Of the Russe Common Wealth" (1591), and Samuel Collins, author of "The Present State of Russia" (1668), both of whom visited Russia, were familiar with the term "Russia" and used it in their works. So did numerous other authors, including John Milton, who wrote "A brief history of Moscovia and of other less-known countries lying eastward of Russia", published posthumously, starting it with the words: "The Empire of Moscovia, or as others call it, Russia..."
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.
Soviet Union
Modern revolutionary activity in the Russian Empire began with the Decembrist revolt of 1825. Although serfdom was abolished in 1861, it was done on terms unfavorable to the peasants and served to encourage revolutionaries. A parliament—the State Duma—was established in 1906 after the Russian Revolution of 1905, but Tsar Nicholas II resisted attempts to move from absolute to constitutional monarchy. Social unrest continued and was aggravated during World War I by military defeat and food shortages in major cities.
Judicial system of the Russian Empire
The judicial system of the Russian Empire, existed from the mid-19th century, was established by the "tsar emancipator" Alexander II, by the statute of 20 November 1864.
Russian Empire
In the aftermath of the Russo-Turkish War, 1806–12, and the ensuing Treaty of Bucharest (1812), the eastern parts of the Principality of Moldavia, an Ottoman vassal state, along with some areas formerly under direct Ottoman rule, came under the rule of the Empire. This area (Bessarabia) was among the Russian Empire's last territorial increments in Europe. At the Congress of Vienna (1815), Russia gained sovereignty over Congress Poland, which on paper was an autonomous Kingdom in personal union with Russia. However, this autonomy was eroded after an uprising in 1831, and was finally abolished in 1867.
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'.
History of Russia
Peter the Great (1672–1725) brought autocracy into Russia and played a major role in bringing his country into the European state system. Russia had now become the largest country in the world, stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean. The vast majority of the land was unoccupied, and travel was slow. Much of its expansion had taken place in the 17th century, culminating in the first Russian settlement of the Pacific in the mid-17th century, the reconquest of Kiev, and the pacification of the Siberian tribes. However, a population of only 14 million was stretched across this vast landscape. With a short growing season grain yields trailed behind those in the West and potato farming was not yet widespread. As a result, the great majority of the population workforce was occupied with agriculture. Russia remained isolated from the sea trade and its internal trade, communication and manufacturing were seasonally dependent.
Russia
The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (called "Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic" at the time), together with the Ukrainian, Byelorussian, and Transcaucasian Soviet Socialist Republics, formed the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), or Soviet Union, on December 30, 1922. Out of the 15 republics that would make up the USSR, the largest in size and over half of the total USSR population was the Russian SFSR, which came to dominate the union for its entire 69-year history.
First stamp of the Russian Empire
The first stamp of the Russian Empire was a postage stamp issued in 1857 and introduced within the territory of the Russian Empire in 1858. It was an imperforate 10-kopeck stamp depicting the coat of arms of Russia, and printed using typography in brown and blue.
History of Russia
Much of Russia's expansion occurred in the 17th century, culminating in the first Russian colonisation of the Pacific in the mid-17th century, the Russo-Polish War (1654–67) that incorporated left-bank Ukraine, and the Russian conquest of Siberia. Poland was divided in the 1790–1815 era, with much of the land and population going to Russia. Most of the 19th century growth came from adding territory in Asia, south of Siberia.
Foreign policy of the Russian Empire
To build up a presence on the Pacific Ocean, Russia seized some 400,000 square miles of almost uninhabited territory from Qing dynasty China in 1858–1860. It sent in settlers and prisoners, so that its holdings from Vladivostok north along the Sea of Japan reached 310,000 in 1897. Russia established an economic role east into the Sinkiang and Manchuria regions of China peacefully, using the Treaty of Saint Petersburg (1881), loans to the Chinese government, networks of merchants, and by building the Chinese Eastern Railway, a branch of the Trans-Siberian railroad, through Manchuria to the ocean. Meanwhile, in the late 19th century, the Empire of Japan was expanding into Manchuria and especially Korea. It proposed a deal whereby the Russians would have the predominant role in Manchuria, and Japan in Korea. The tsar, contemptuous of the Japanese, bluntly refused. In the Russo-Japanese War, Japan attacked, pushing back the Russian army on the ground, and sinking the main Russian battle fleet. Japan took control of Korea and of the southern half of the Chinese Eastern Railway.
Russian Republic
The Russian Republic () was a short-lived state which controlled, "de jure", the territory of the former Russian Empire after its proclamation by the Russian Provisional Government on 1 September (14 September, ) 1917 in a decree signed by Alexander Kerensky as Minister-President and Alexander Zarudny as Minister of Justice.
Archaeology of Russia
Russian archaeology begins in the Russian Empire in the 1850s and becomes Soviet archaeology in the early 20th century. 
The journal "Sovetskaya Arkheologiia" is published from 1957.
Russian Empire at the 1900 Summer Olympics
The Russian Empire competed at the 1900 Summer Olympics in Paris. It was the first appearance of the European nation, which had entered the names of competitors for the first modern Olympics in 1896 but had failed to appear.
History of the Ottoman Empire during World War I
The Ottoman entry into World War I began on 29 October 1914 when it launched the Black Sea Raid against Russian ports. Following the attack, Russia and its allies (Britain and France) declared war on the Ottomans in November 1914. The Ottoman Empire started military action came after three months of formal neutrality, but it had signed a secret alliance with the Central Powers in August 1914.
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.
History of Russia (1721–96)
During the early nineteenth century, Russia's population, resources, international diplomacy, and military forces made it one of the most powerful states in the world. Its power enabled it to play an increasingly assertive role in Europe's affairs. This role drew the empire into a series of wars against Napoleon, which had far-reaching consequences for Russia and the rest of Europe.
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.
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:
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.
1st Army (Russian Empire)
The 1st Army () was an army-level command of the Russian Imperial Army created during World War I. The First Army, commanded by General Paul von Rennenkampf, invaded East Prussia at the outbreak of war in 1914 along with the Second Army commanded by General Alexander Samsonov. After declaring war on the German Empire, the Russian Empire had been able to mobilize very quickly. All Russian forces were put under the command of Grand Duke Nikolai and his Quartermaster General Yuri Danilov.
List of modern great powers
At the beginning of the 19th century the Russian Empire extended from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Black Sea on the south, from the Baltic Sea on the west to the Pacific Ocean on the east. With 125.6 million subjects registered by the 1897 census, it had the third largest population of the world at the time, after Qing China and the British Empire. Like all empires it represented a large disparity in economic, ethnic, and religious positions. Its government, ruled by the Emperor, was one of the last absolute monarchies in Europe. Prior to the outbreak of World War I in August 1914 Russia was one of the five major Great Powers of Europe. After the October revolution it was transformed into the Soviet Union.
History of Russia
Scandinavian Norsemen, known as Vikings in Western Europe and Varangians in the East, combined piracy and trade throughout Northern Europe. In the mid-9th century, they began to venture along the waterways from the eastern Baltic to the Black and Caspian Seas. According to the earliest Russian chronicle, a Varangian named Rurik was elected ruler ("knyaz") of Novgorod in about 860, before his successors moved south and extended their authority to Kiev, which had been previously dominated by the Khazars. Oleg, Rurik's son Igor and Igor's son Sviatoslav subsequently subdued all local East Slavic tribes to Kievan rule, destroyed the Khazar khaganate and launched several military expeditions to Byzantium and Persia.
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.
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 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 “”).
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.
Anti-Russian sentiment
The Russian state is said to have been organized in the 9th century AD at Novgorod by Rurik, supposedly coming from Sweden. In the 13th century, Stockholm was founded to stop foreign navies from invading lake Mälaren. Both events are signs that hostile naval missions across the Baltic Sea go a long way back, temporarily ending with the peace treaty of Nöteborg 1323 between Sweden and the Novgorod Republic (which later became Russia), soon to be broken by another Catholic Swedish crusade into Greek-orthodox Novgorod. Russia has been described as Sweden's "archenemy" (a title also given to Denmark). The two countries have often been at war, most intensively during the Great Northern War (1700–1721) and the Finnish War (1808–1809), when Sweden lost that third of its territory to Russia that now is Finland. Sweden defeated a Russian army in the Battle of Narva (1700), but was defeated by Russia in the Battle of Poltava 1709. In 1719 Russian troops burnt most Swedish cities and industrial communities along the Baltic sea coast to the ground (from Norrköping up to Piteå in the north) in what came to be called "Rysshärjningarna" (the Russian ravages, a term first recorded in 1730). "The Russians are coming" ("ryssen kommer") is a traditional Swedish warning call. After the death of king Charles XII in 1718 and the peace in 1721, Swedish politics was dominated by a peace-minded parliament, with a more aggressive opposition (Hats and Caps). When Swedish officer Malcolm Sinclair was murdered in 1739 by two Russian officers, the anti-Russian ballad "Sinclairsvisan" by Anders Odel became very popular.
List of Russian explorers
The history of exploration by citizens or subjects of the Russian Federation, the Soviet Union, the Russian Empire, the Tsardom of Russia and other Russian predecessor states forms a significant part of the history of Russia as well as the history of the world. At , Russia is the largest country in the world, covering more than a ninth of the Earth’s land mass. In the times of the Soviet Union and the Russian Empire the country's share in the world's land mass reached 1/6. Most of these territories were first discovered by Russian explorers (if indigenous peoples of inhabited territories are not counted). Contiguous exploration in Eurasia and the building of overseas colonies in Russian America were some of the primary factors in Russian territorial expansion.
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.
History of the Eastern Orthodox Church
Russia lay under Mongol rule from the 13th through the 15th century. The Mongol invasion of Rus of 1237–1242AD lead to what is called the Tatar period in Russian history. This period lead to great calamity for the internal structure of Russia. Much of Russia was ruled by Mongols and Russian Princes (of whom had limited power).
The eventual end of the reign of the Golden Horde is said to have begun with the Battle of Kulikovo 8 September 1380. Which involves the famous Orthodox legend of Monk and Russian champion Alexander Peresvet and his death that mark the battle's beginning. The final pseudo-battle or face off that ended Mongol rule in Russia was the Great stand on the Ugra river in 1480AD. The death toll (by battle, massacre, flooding, and famine) of the Mongol wars of conquest is placed at about 40 million according to some sources.
Russian Air Force
The Russian Air Force (, literally "military air forces of Russia") is a branch of the Russian Aerospace Forces, the latter being formed on 1 August 2015 with the merger of the Russian Air Force and the Russian Aerospace Defence Forces. The modern Russian Air Force was originally established on 7 May 1992 following Boris Yeltsin's creation of the Ministry of Defence; however, the Russian Federation's air force can trace its lineage and traditions back to the Imperial Russian Air Service (1912–1917) and the Soviet Air Forces (1918–1991).
First stamp of the Russian Empire
The stamps went on sale 10 December 1857, but officially people started to use them to pay internal correspondence in Russia on 1 January 1858, and on 1 March 1858 in the Caucasus, Transcaucasia, and Siberia. Since then, all private letters had been sent only with postal stamps that were cancelled with two crossed lines. This was because supply of the numerous post offices with postmarks took a while and the Postal Department ordered to cancel stamps with pen and ink following the previous practice of cancelling stamped envelopes. A total of 3,00,000 stamps were printed.
History of Moscow
The city of Moscow gradually grew around the Moscow Kremlin, beginning in the 14th century. It was the capital of the Grand Duchy of Moscow (or Muscovy), from 1340 to 1547 and in 1713 renamed as the Tsardom of Russia by Peter I "the Great" (when the capital was moved to Saint Petersburg). Moscow was the capital of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic from 1918, which then became the Soviet Union (1922 to 1991), and since 1991 has served as capital of the Russian Federation.
Secession in Russia
In Russian history, there were two periods during which significant territories fell away from it. The first is the disintegration of the Russian Empire as a result of the February and October revolutions in 1917–1921. Active disintegration processes began in the economy, social structure, public and political spheres of the Russian Empire, which ultimately led to the end of the Tsarist regime and became parts of independent states as Poland, Finland and Romania. The second is the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1990–1991 which to the independence of the 15 republics of the USSR (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan).
Castro District, San Francisco
Up to the 19th century, the areal possession of the Russian Empire in North America included the modern-day U.S. state of Alaska and settlements in the modern-day U.S. states of California (1 settlement) and Hawaii (3 settlements, starting in 1817). These Russian possessions were collectively and officially referred to by the name Russian America from 1733 to 1867. Formal incorporation of the possessions by Russia did not take place until the establishment of the Russian-American Company (RAC) in 1799.
Emperor of All Russia
On November 2, 1721 Peter I accepted the title. The Dutch Republic and Kingdom of Prussia immediately recognized the new title of the Russian Tsar, followed by the Kingdom of Sweden in 1723, the Ottoman Empire in 1739, the British Empire and the Austrian Empire in 1742, French Empire and the Spanish Empire in 1745, and finally the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1764. Since then the Russian State was referred to as the Russian Empire.
Coat of arms of Russia
The heraldic device of Russia has gone through three major periods in its history, undergoing major changes in the transitions between the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, and the Russian Federation. The use of the double-headed eagle as a Russian coat of arms goes back to the 15th century. With the fall of Constantinople and the end of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, the Grand Dukes of Muscovy came to see themselves as the successors of the Byzantine heritage, a notion reinforced by the marriage of Ivan III to Sophia Paleologue (hence the expression "Third Rome" for Moscow and, by extension, for the whole of Imperial Russia). Ivan adopted the golden Byzantine double-headed eagle in his seal, first documented in 1472, marking his direct claim to the Roman imperial heritage and posing as a sovereign equal and rival to the Holy Roman Empire. In 1497 it was stamped on a charter of share and allotment of independent princes' possessions. At about the same time, the image of a gilt, double-headed eagle on a red background appeared on the walls of the Palace of Facets in the Moscow Kremlin.
Russian entry into World War I
On 30 July, Russia declared general mobilisation in support of Serbia; on 1 August, Germany declared war on Russia, followed by Austria-Hungary on 6th. Russia and the Entente declared war on the Ottoman Empire in November 1914, after Ottoman warships bombarded the Black Sea port of Odessa in late October. Unlike its Allies, Russia's Empire was one contiguous landmass but it also considered itself the defender of its fellow Slavs in countries like Serbia.
History of Western civilization
The years between 1870 and 1914 saw the expansion of Western power. By 1914, the Western and some Asian and Eurasian empires like the Empire of Japan, Russian Empire, Ottoman Empire, and Qing China dominated the entire planet. The major Western players in this New Imperialism were Britain, Russia, France, Germany, Italy, and the United States. The Empire of Japan is the only one non-Western power involved in this new era of imperialism.
Censorship in the Russian Empire
The history of censorship in the Russia began long before the emergence of the empire. The first book containing an index of prohibited works dates to the year 1073, in Kievan Rus. For several centuries these were mere translations of censorship lists from other languages; the first authentic old Russian censorship index was created only in the fourteenth century. The number of indices (as well as illegal publications) increased steadily until the beginning of the sixteenth century. Censorship first attained a kind of official status in the period of the Tsardom (1547–1721): it was encoded in law in the "Stoglav" and was directed against heresies, schisms, and other alleged deviations from religious dogmas and sacred texts.
Asia
The Russian Empire began to expand into Asia from the 17th century, and would eventually take control of all of Siberia and most of Central Asia by the end of the 19th century. The Ottoman Empire controlled Anatolia, most of the Middle East, North Africa and the Balkans from the mid 16th century onwards. In the 17th century, the Manchu conquered China and established the Qing dynasty. The Islamic Mughal Empire and the Hindu Maratha Empire controlled much of India in the 16th and 18th centuries respectively.
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was, predominantly, a rural society spread over vast spaces. In 1913, 80% of the people were peasants. Soviet historiography proclaimed that the Russian Empire of the 19th century was characterized by systemic crisis, which impoverished the workers and peasants and culminated in the revolutions of the early 20th century. Recent research by Russian scholars disputes this interpretation. Mironov assesses the effects of the reforms of latter 19th-century especially in terms of the 1861 emancipation of the serfs, agricultural output trends, various standard of living indicators, and taxation of peasants. He argues that they brought about measurable improvements in social welfare. More generally, he finds that the well-being of the Russian people declined during most of the 18th century, but increased slowly from the end of the 18th century to 1914.
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.
Georgia within the Russian Empire
The country of Georgia became part of the Russian Empire in the 19th century. Throughout the early modern period, the Muslim Ottoman and Persian empires had fought over various fragmented Georgian kingdoms and principalities; by the 18th century, Russia emerged as the new imperial power in the region. Since Russia was an Orthodox Christian state like Georgia, the Georgians increasingly sought Russian help. In 1783, Heraclius II of the eastern Georgian kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti forged an alliance with the Russian Empire, whereby the kingdom became a Russian protectorate and abjured any dependence on its suzerain Persia. The Russo-Georgian alliance, however, backfired as Russia was unwilling to fulfill the terms of the treaty, proceeding to annex the troubled kingdom in 1801, and reducing it to the status of a Russian region (Georgia Governorate). In 1810, the western Georgian kingdom of Imereti was annexed as well. Russian rule over Georgia was eventually acknowledged in various peace treaties with Persia and the Ottomans, and the remaining Georgian territories were absorbed by the Russian Empire in a piecemeal fashion in the course of the 19th century.
History of the administrative division of Russia
Technically, the territorial-administrative reform started out in the Tsardom of Russia before the Imperial period. On , 1708, in order to improve the manageability of the vast territory of the state, Tsar Peter the Great issued an ukase (edict) dividing Russia into eight administrative divisions, called governorates ("guberniyas"), which replaced the 166 uyezds and razryads which existed before the reform:
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).
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.
Iran–Russia relations
Contacts between Russians and Persians have a long history, extending back more than a millennium. There were known commercial exchanges as early as the 8th century AD between Persia and Russia. They were interrupted by the Mongol invasions in the 13th and 14th centuries but started up again in the 15th century with the rise of the state of Muscovy. In the 9th–11th century AD, there were repetitive military raids undertaken by the Rus' between 864 and 1041 on the Caspian Sea shores of what are nowadays Iran, Azerbaijan, and Dagestan as part of the Caspian expeditions of the Rus'. Initially, the Rus' appeared in Serkland in the 9th century traveling as merchants along the Volga trade route, selling furs, honey, and slaves. The first small-scale raids took place in the late 9th and early 10th century. The Rus' undertook the first large-scale expedition in 913; having arrived on 500 ships, they pillaged the Gorgan region, in the territory of present-day Iran, and the areas of Gilan and Mazandaran, taking slaves and goods.
Russian Empire
The judicial system of the Russian Empire, existed from the mid-19th century, was established by the "tsar emancipator" Alexander II, by the statute of 20 November 1864 ("Sudebny Ustav"). This system – based partly on English, partly on French models – was built up on certain broad principles: the separation of judicial and administrative functions; the independence of the judges and courts; the publicity of trials and oral procedure; and the equality of all classes before the law. Moreover, a democratic element was introduced by the adoption of the jury system and – so far as one order of tribunal was concerned – the election of judges. The establishment of a judicial system on these principles constituted a major change in the conception of the Russian state, which, by placing the administration of justice outside the sphere of the executive power, ceased to be a despotism. This fact made the system especially obnoxious to the bureaucracy, and during the latter years of Alexander II and the reign of Alexander III there was a piecemeal taking back of what had been given. It was reserved for the third Duma, after the 1905 Revolution, to begin the reversal of this process.
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.
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.)
The Romanovs: An Imperial Family
The film begins on the night of February 22, 1917, before the Tsar departs to the war front of Stavka. Russia under Tsar Nicholas II was in the third year of World War I. By 1917, Russia had suffered many losses. Nevertheless, the tsar's authority with the people was high. Petrograd (formerly St. Petersburg) was an exception. Late at night, Nicholas and Alexandra are woken up by their son, Alexei who has a high fever, as well as Olga, the eldest of the five children. The next morning, Nicholas leaves for Stavka, at the war front. Meanwhile, in Petrograd, people are starting to revolt. A street is bombed and many are killed. The Russian Revolution has started. Nicholas arrives at Stavka and he is told that his son Alexei, a hemophiliac, will not live to the age of 16. Back in Petrograd, Alexandra is told about the chaos in the city. At the Imperial Train, Nicholas is given documents requesting his abdication. He signs and is no longer Emperor of All the Russias. He had decided to give the throne to his son Alexei, but due to his bad health, he decides to give the throne to his brother Michael, who does not accept it. Russia is left without an emperor.
List of Russian explorers
By the beginning of the Age of Discovery, most of the former principalities of Kievan Rus were re-integrated by the Grand Duchy of Moscow. Proclaimed the Tsardom of Russia, by the end of the 16th century the state had colonized the easternmost territories of Europe by conquering the Khanate of Kazan in 1552 and the Khanate of Astrakhan in 1556, thus gaining full control of the Volga River valley. The road to Asia was opened, and in 1581 Yermak Timofeyevich crossed the Ural Mountains with a band of adventurers, defeated the Siberian Khanate and started the Russian conquest of Siberia.
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.
Iran–Russia relations
It was not until the 16th century that formal diplomatic contacts were established between Persia and Russia, with the latter acting as an intermediary in the trade between Britain and Persia. Transporting goods across Russian territory meant that the British could avoid the zones under Ottoman and Portuguese control. The Muscovy Company (also known as the Russian Company) was founded in 1553 to expand the trade routes across the Caspian sea. Moscow's role as an intermediary in exchanges between Britain and Persia led Russian traders to set up business in urban centres across Persia, as far south as Kashan. The Russian victories over the Kazan Khanate in 1552 and the Astrakhan Khanate in 1556 by Tsar Ivan IV (r. 1533–84) revived trade between Iran and Russia via the Volga-Caspian route and marked the first Russian penetration of the Caucasus and the Caspian area. Though these commercial exchanges in the latter half of the 16th century were limited in scope, they nonetheless indicate that the fledgling entente between the two countries emerged as a result of opposition to the neighboring Ottoman Empire.
Diplomatic relations between Russia and Iran date back to 1521, when the Safavid Shah Ismail I sent an emissary to visit the Czar Vasili III. As the first diplomatic contacts between the two countries was being established, Shah Ismail was also working hard with the aim of joining forces against their mutual enemy, namely neighboring Ottoman Turkey. On several occasions, Iran offered Russia a deal exchanging a part of its territory (for example Derbent and Baku in 1586) for its support in its wars against their Ottoman arch rivals. In 1552–53, Safavid Iran and the Moscovy state in Russia exchanged ambassadors for the first time, and, starting in 1586, they established a regular diplomatic relationship. In 1650, extensive contact between the two people, culminated in the Russo-Persian War (1651–53), after which Russia had to cede its footholds in the North Caucasus to the Safavids. In the 1660s the famous Russian Cossack "ataman" Stenka Razin raided, and occasionally wintered at, Persia's north coast, creating diplomatic problems for the Russian Czar in his dealings with the Persian Shah. The Russian song telling the tragic semi-legendary story of Razin's relationship with a Persian princess remains popular to this day.
Russian Empire
The formerly Swedish-controlled Baltic provinces (Courland, Livonia and Estonia) were incorporated into the Russian Empire after the defeat of Sweden in the Great Northern War. Under the Treaty of Nystad of 1721, the Baltic German nobility retained considerable powers
of self-government and numerous privileges in matters affecting education, police and the administration of local justice. After 167 years of German language administration and education, laws were declared in 1888 and 1889 where the rights of the police and manorial justice were transferred from Baltic German control to officials of the central government. Since about the same time a process of Russification was being carried out in the same provinces, in all departments of administration, in the higher schools and in the Imperial University of Dorpat, the name of which was altered to Yuriev. In 1893 district committees for the management of the peasants' affairs, similar to those in the purely Russian governments, were introduced into this part of the empire.
Russian Empire
Newly discovered Arctic islands became part of the Russian Empire as Russian explorers found them: the New Siberian Islands from the early 18th century; Severnaya Zemlya ("Emperor Nicholas II Land") first mapped and claimed as late as 1913.
Time of Troubles
Numerous histories have been written, as well. In 2001, Chester Dunning, a specialist in Russian history at Texas A&M University published the nearly 700-page "Russia's First Civil War: The Time of Troubles and the Founding of the Romanov Dynasty". Twelve years in the research and writing, his work was a History Book Club selection published by the Pennsylvania State University Press. Dunning's thesis is that modern Russia begins in 1613 with the founding of the Romanov dynasty. He covers the Time of Troubles and their contribution to the founding.
Russo-Circassian War
The Russo-Circassian War (1763–1864) involved a series of battles and wars in Circassia, the northwestern part of the Caucasus, in the course of the Russian Empire's conquest of the Caucasus. Fighting lasted approximately 101 years, starting in the reign of Empress Catherine the Great and finishing in 1864. Although the Russian conquest of the Caucasus started at least as early as the Russo-Persian Wars, the term Caucasian War commonly refers only to the period 1817–1864. Those who use the term Russian–Circassian War take its starting date as 1763, when the Russians began establishing forts, including at Mozdok, to be used as springboards for conquest.
Territorial evolution of Russia
This continued for centuries; by the end of the 19th century, the Russian Empire reached from the Black Sea to the Pacific Ocean, and for some time included colonies in the Americas (1732-1867) and a short-lived unofficial colony in Africa (1889) in present-day Djibouti.
First stamp of the Russian Empire
The first Russian postage stamp was officially issued on , by the circular of the Postal Department "On the bringing of postal stamps for the common use" that also directed the following:
Starting from 1 January of the next year 1858, usual private letters to all the places of the Empire, the Kingdom of Poland, and the Grand Duchy of Finland brought to the post in usual envelopes or without envelope at all just with addresses written on the letter itself should be sent only with the stamp corresponding to the letter weight.
Military history of the Russian Empire
The war between Russia and the Japanese Empire broke out on February 8, 1904 with a Japanese attack upon the Russian Far East Fleet stationed at Port Arthur. Plagued with logistical problems, outdated military equipment and incompetent Russian officers, Russian forces suffered numerous defeats in the course of the war, which ended in September 1905, in the aftermath of the destruction of the Russian fleet at the Battle of Tsushima. Faced with growing internal problems, including the revolution of 1905, Russia sued for peace as the war concluded with the Treaty of Portsmouth.
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire functioned as an absolute monarchy on principles of Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality until the Revolution of 1905 and then became a "de jure" constitutional monarchy. The empire collapsed during the February Revolution of 1917, largely as a result of massive failures in its participation in the First World War.
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.
History of Russia
Thus, the first East Slavic state, Rus', emerged in the 9th century along the Dnieper River valley. A coordinated group of princely states with a common interest in maintaining trade along the river routes, Kievan Rus' controlled the trade route for furs, wax, and slaves between Scandinavia and the Byzantine Empire along the Volkhov and Dnieper Rivers.
Military history of Russia
The military history of the modern-day Russian Federation has antecedents involving the Rus' (who built Kiev), the Mongol invasion of the early 13th century, Russia's numerous wars against Turkey, against Poland, Lithuania and Sweden, the Seven Years' War, France (especially the Napoleonic Wars), and the Crimean War of 1853–1856. The 20th century saw two World wars and the Cold War. The military history of the Russian Federation itself began in 1991.
Culture of ancient Rus
Mid-fifteenth-century Russia is known for bloody internecine wars for the Moscow seat of the Grand Prince. Ivan III managed to unite the Russian lands around Moscow (at the cost of ravaging Novgorod and Pskov) only by the end of the fifteenth century, and put an end to Russia’s subordination to the Golden Horde after the Great standing on the Ugra river of 1480. The river was later poetically dubbed the "Virgin Belt" ("Poyas Bogoroditsy"). This event marked the birth of the sovereign Russian state, headed by the Grand Prince of Moscow.
New Imperialism
"The Great Game" (Also called the "Tournament of Shadows" (, "Turniry Teney") in Russia) was the strategic economic and political rivalry and conflict between the British Empire and the Russian Empire for supremacy in Central Asia at the expense of Afghanistan, Persia and the Central Asian Khanates/Emirates. The classic Great Game period is generally regarded as running approximately from the Russo-Persian Treaty of 1813 to the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907, in which nations like Emirate of Bukhara fell. A less intensive phase followed the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, causing some trouble with Persia and Afghanistan until the mid 1920s.
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.
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 Compound
The Russian Compound had begun to develop in the early 19th century with the opening of the first hospital for pilgrims outside of the Old City walls. It hosted a market where local peddlers could sell their wares and services to pilgrims. In 1847 the first Russian Ecclesiastical Mission was sent to Jerusalem, which, in 1857, was officially inaugurated with the recognition from the Sultan of Turkey. Its purpose was to offer Russian pilgrims spiritual supervision, provide assistance, and sponsor charitable and educational work among the Orthodox Arab population of Palestine and Syria.
European Russia
Some theories say that early Eastern Slavs arrived in modern-day western Russia (also in Ukraine and Belarus) sometime during the middle of the first millennium AD. Around the middle of the first millenium the population in todays European Russia was composed of Slavic, Finno-Ugric, Turkic, Caucasian, Scandinavian, Baltic, Finnic, Khazarian, Hungarian and Norse peoples. One of the first Rus' regions was according to the Sofia First Chronicle Veliky Novgorod in 859. In late 8th and early-to-mid-9th centuries AD the Rus' Khaganate was formed in todays western Russia. The region was a place of operations for Varangians, eastern Scandinavian adventurers, merchants, and pirates. From the late 9th to the mid-13th century a large section of todays European Russia was part of Kievan Rus'. Many sources say that Ryazan, Kolomna, Moscow, Vladimir and Kiev were destroyed by the Mongol invasion. After the Mongol invasion the Muscovite Rus' arose and formed over time today's Russia. Over all this time, western Russia and the various Rus' regions had strong cultural contacts with the Byzantine Empire, while the Slavic culture was cultivated all the time. The elements of East Slavic paganism and Christianity overlapped each other and sometimes produced even double faith in Muscovite Rus'. The synthesis of Orthodox faith and Slavic paganism is still part of Russian culture.
Modern history
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. Catherine II ("the Great"), who ruled in 1762–96, 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 and southward. Russia would colonize the vast Asian lands of Siberia expanding by land to the Pacific Coast of Asia, and North America. As the large realm embraced Absolute Monarchy Russia remained more conservative than its western neighbors. In the 19th century, Russia was invaded by France in 1812 but emerged as a more powerful superpower afterwards. Nonetheless industrialization did not come to Russia until the 1870s. The Medieval practice of serfdom was abolished in 1861 freeing over thirty million Russian peasants. A market economy finally emerged in the Russian Empire. However class warfare rose, and the nation was vulnerable due to rivalries with the United Kingdom, the Ottoman Empire, and the Japanese Empire.
Empire of Japan
The Russo-Japanese War was a conflict for control of Korea and parts of Manchuria between the Russian Empire and Empire of Japan that took place from 1904 to 1905. The victory greatly raised Japan's stature in the world of global politics. The war is marked by the Japanese opposition of Russian interests in Korea, Manchuria, and China, notably, the Liaodong Peninsula, controlled by the city of Port Arthur.
Russian Empire national football team
The development of league football in Russia was stopped by the outbreak of First World War in 1914. Meetings with Germany national team and France national team were planned for the spring of 1915, but the matches were cancelled. A large number of players were killed in the war and others fled the country after the 1917 Russian Revolution. The Soviet Union national football team was formed in August 1923 and it was accepted by FIFA as the successor of the Russian Empire football team, itself becoming the Russia national football team in 1992.The Russian Empire national football team played a total number of 8 official and 8 unofficial internationals between October 1910 and July 1914.
Russian Empire
In addition to almost the entire territory of modern Russia, prior to 1917 the Russian Empire included most of Dnieper Ukraine, Belarus, Bessarabia, the Grand Duchy of Finland, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, the Central Asian states of Russian Turkestan, most of the Baltic governorates, as well as a significant portion of the Kingdom of Poland and Ardahan, Artvin, Iğdır, Kars and northeastern part of Erzurum Provinces from the Ottoman Empire.
History of Soviet Russia and the Soviet Union (1917–27)
The history of Soviet Russia and the Soviet Union reflects a period of change for both Russia and the world. Though the terms Soviet Russia and Soviet Union are synonymous in everyday vocabulary, Soviet Russia, in the context of the foundation of the Soviet Union, refers to the few years after the abdication of the crown of the Russian Empire by Tsar Nicholas II (in 1917), but before the creation of the Soviet Union in 1922. Early in its conception, the Soviet Union strived to achieve harmony among all people of all countries. The original ideology of the state was primarily based on the works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. In its essence, Marx's theory stated that economic and political systems went through an inevitable revolution based upon class struggle, by which the current capitalist system would be destroyed or abolished before achieving international cooperation and peace in a "Workers' Paradise," creating a system directed by what Marx called "Pure Communism." Marx favoured abolishment of the bourgeois state and to establish a new state, however not a copy of the old. A state is not supposed to exist forever and defend development of new class structures. The aim was to create a system with an internal logic and direction based upon spreading the class-struggle worldwide simply because the working class and working population just as the capitalist mode of production is international. Engels at first agreed with the aim to abolish the bourgeois state - but later in London 6 of March 1895 in the introduction to Marx' book 'Class struggle in France 1848-1850' he dismissed the idea of revolution. Engels instead favoured to reach socialism through elections in the capitalist parliaments and not in socialist revolution confronting the capitalist state.
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.
Marxism–Leninism
In March 1917, the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II led to the Russian Provisional Government (March–July 1917), who then proclaimed the Russian Republic (September–November 1917). Later, in the October Revolution, the Bolshevik's "coup d'état" against the Provisional Government resulted in their establishment of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (1917–1991); yet parts of Russia remained occupied by the counter-revolutionary White Movement of anti-communists who had united to form the White Army to fight the Russian Civil War (1917–1922) against the Bolshevik government. Despite the White–Red civil war, Russia remained a combatant in the Great War (1914–1918), which the Bolshevik's had quit with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (3 March 1918), which then provoked the Allied Intervention to the Russian Civil War (1918–1925) by the armies of seventeen countries, featuring Great Britain, France, and Italy, the United States and Imperial Japan.
Russian Republic
The term Russian Republic is sometimes used erroneously for the period between the abdication of the Emperor Nicholas II on 2 March 1917 (15 March, N.S) and the declaration of the Republic in September. However, during that period the future status of the monarchy remained to be resolved.
Azerbaijanis in Russia
Diplomatic missions and merchants from Shirvan and the Safavid Empire first appeared in Russia in the fourteenth and fifteenth century. Despite the Russian Empire conquering what is now Azerbaijan in the early nineteenth century and its incorporation into the Soviet Union in 1920, the Azeri population did not tend to leave its traditional areas of settlement until the second half of the twentieth century. However, isolated communities of Azeris in Russia can trace their existence to the mid-nineteenth century.
Imperial Russian Navy
Peter the Great established a modern Russian navy. During the Second Azov campaign of 1696 against Turkey, the Russians for the first time used 2 warships, 4 fireships, 23 galleys and 1300 strugs, built on the Voronezh River. After the occupation of the Azov fortress, the Boyar Duma looked into Peter's report of this military campaign. It passed a decree on October 20, 1696 to commence construction of a navy. This date is considered the official founding of the Imperial Russian Navy.
August curse
It has to be observed that tragic August events in Russia tended to occur before 1991 as well. For example, the Eastern Front of World War I was opened in August 1914 with German invasion of Congress Poland, part of the Russian Empire; subsequent victories of the Central Powers led to the collapse of the Empire, rise of the bolsheviks, Russian Civil War and the creation of the Soviet Union 8 years later. The bloody and devastating, though ultimately victorious to the Soviets, battle of Stalingrad also commenced in that month (23 August 1942), as did the disastrous Siege of Leningrad (22 August 1941).
Russian Empire
According to the 1st article of the Organic Law, the Russian Empire was one indivisible state. In addition, the 26th article stated that "With the Imperial Russian throne are indivisible the Kingdom of Poland and Grand Principality of Finland". Relations with the Grand Principality of Finland were also regulated by the 2nd article, "The Grand Principality of Finland, constituted an indivisible part of the Russian state, in its internal affairs governed by special regulations at the base of special laws" and the law of 10 June 1910.
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.
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.
History of Asia
The Russian Empire began to expand into Asia from the 17th century, and would eventually take control of all of Siberia and most of Central Asia by the end of the 19th century. The Ottoman Empire controlled Anatolia, the Middle East, North Africa and the Balkans from the 16th century onwards. In the 17th century, the Manchu conquered China and established the Qing Dynasty. In the 16th century, the Mughal Empire controlled much of India and initiated the second golden age for India. China was the largest economy in the world for much of the time, followed by India until the 18th century.
Religion in Russia
Before the tenth century, Russians practised Slavic religion. As recalled by the "Primary Chronicle", Orthodox Christianity was made the state religion of Kievan Rus' in 987 by Vladimir the Great, who opted for it among other possible choices as it was the religion of the Byzantine Empire. Since then, religion, mysticism and statehood remained intertwined elments in Russia's identity. The Russian Orthodox Church, perceived as the glue consolidating the nation, accompanied the expansion of the Russian Empire in the eighteenth century. Czar Nicholas I's ideology, under which the empire reached its widest extent, proclaimed "Orthodoxy, autocracy and nation" ("Pravoslavie", "samoderzhavie", "narodnost"') as its foundations. The dominance of the Russian Orthodox Church was sealed by law, and, as the empire incorporated peoples of alternative creeds, religions were tied to ethnicities to skirt any issue of integration. Until 1905, only the Russian Orthodox Church could engage in missionary activity to convert non-Orthodox people, and apostasy was treated as an offense punishable by law. Catholicism, Islam and other religions were tolerated only among outsider ("inoroditsy") peoples but forbidden from spreading among Russians.
Uzbekistan
In the 19th century, the Russian Empire began to expand and spread into Central Asia. There were 210,306 Russians living in Uzbekistan in 1912. The "Great Game" period is generally regarded as running from approximately 1813 to the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907. A second, less intensive phase followed the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. At the start of the 19th century, there were some separating British India and the outlying regions of Tsarist Russia. Much of the land between was unmapped.
Peter the Great
Peter the Great (), Peter I () or Peter Alexeyevich (;  – ) ruled the Tsardom of Russia and later the Russian Empire from until his death in 1725, jointly ruling before 1696 with his elder half-brother, Ivan V. Through a number of successful wars, he expanded the Tsardom into a much larger empire that became a major European power and also laid the groundwork for the Russian navy after capturing ports at Azov and the Baltic Sea. He led a cultural revolution that replaced some of the traditionalist and medieval social and political systems with ones that were modern, scientific, Westernised and based on the Enlightenment. Peter's reforms made a lasting impact on Russia, and many institutions of Russian government trace their origins to his reign. He is also known for founding and developing the city of Saint Petersburg, which remained the capital of Russia until 1917.
Russia, Ohio
Russia was founded by Lewis Phillips, who purchased and plotted the land where the village now sits. Phillips' house, built in 1853, was the first house in Russia; other settlers followed by the late 1850s. Phillips was also the first businessman in the village, opening a grocery store in 1853. Later settlers soon founded a dry goods store and multiple sawmills; Russia's economy was once heavily dependent on its sawmills. Among the earliest settlers were French speaking Suisse who had served under L. Napoleon Bonaparte during the war with Russia. According to tradition, the village's name commemorates a battle these veterans had fought in Russia.
Foreign policy of the Russian Empire
For three centuries, from the days of Ivan the Terrible (ruled 1547 to 1584), Russia expanded in all directions at 18,000 square miles per year, becoming by far the largest power. (China had more people but far less military or economic or diplomatic power.) The expansion brought in many minorities who had their own religions and languages. The political system was an autocracy ruled by the tsar; in its later days it was challenged by various revolutionary groups who were rendered ineffective by a tough police state that sent many thousands to exile in remote Siberia. Expansion had largely ended by the 1850s, but there was some movement south toward Afghanistan and India, which greatly annoyed Britain, which controlled India. Russia's main historic enemy was the Ottoman Empire, which controlled Russia's access to the Mediterranean Sea. The tsar's solution was to sponsor Slavic insurgents in the Balkans against the Ottomans. Serbia supported insurgents against Austria, and Russia stood behind Serbia, which was Greek Orthodox in religion and Slavic in culture. Russia's main ally was France, which needed its size and power to counter the increasingly powerful German Empire.
Military history of the Russian Empire
In the resultant Treaty of Nystad, Peter was extremely lenient with the Swedes, keeping Estonia, Livonia, Ingria, and part of southern Finland (especially Saint Petersburg) in exchange for the return of most of Finland to the Swedes and the payment of 2 million silver riksdaler. Peter could afford to be lenient, as the war was a decisive shift in the European balance of power. The Swedish Empire was carved up, and its position as a great power was taken by Russia. Celebrating these victories, Peter took the title of "imperator", and the Russian Empire was thus founded. The Northern War left Russia as the dominant power in Northern Europe, and gave it firm control over the Baltic and thus a "window to the west". The war had also bettered Russia's position with respect to its Polish rival, which came to a head much later under Catherine the Great with the First Partition of Poland. Finally, it put Russia into direct contact with another of the great powers of Europe, Germany. Peter himself emerged a national hero; scripts at the time compared him to Hercules, Sampson, and David.