RUSSIA: ORIGINS OF THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE,  THE GROWING IMPORTANCE OF MOSCOW,  THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE, THE END OF THE EMPIRE, Invasions by Early Inhabitants,   The House of Rurik,  The Decline of Kiev,   The Mongol Invasion, Oleg and Svyatoslav,  Vladimir the Great, Yaroslav the Wise, Ethnic changes, Tribute to the khanate, The Expansion of Muscovy, "Time of Troubles.",  Romanov Rule,  Ivan the Terrible,  Boris Godunov, Peter the Great, Peter’s Successors, Catherine the Great,  Paul I and Alexander I,  Nicholas I, Alexander II, Alexander III, Nicholas II, The Revolution of 1905, The Dumas, World War I

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RUSSIA,

ORIGINS OF THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE
THE GROWING IMPORTANCE OF MOSCOW
THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE
THE END OF THE EMPIRE

Russia, formerly an empire in Europe and western and northern Asia, comprising territory that was, for the most part, included in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) established following the Russian Revolution of 1917. The term may also be applied to the Russian Federation, the largest and most influential of the 15 former constituent republics of the USSR. In its strictest sense, the term Russia is used only historically to connote the former Russian Empire. (Even more narrowly, it refers to the land of the Great Russians, the chief ethnic component of the Russian Federation.) At its greatest extent, in 1914, the empire included about 22 million sq km (about 8.5 million sq mi), an estimated one-sixth of the land area of the earth, divided into four general regions: Russia proper, comprising the easternmost part of Europe and including the Grand Duchy of Finland and most of Poland; the Caucasus; all of northern Asia, or Siberia; and Russian Central Asia, divided into the regions of The Steppes, in the southwest, and Russian Turkestan, in the southeast.

This enormous area, to a large degree made up of level lowlands, extends almost uninterruptedly from the western frontier to beyond the Yenisey River. The Russian plains, or steppes, stretching in every direction, greatly facilitated the establishment of the Russian Empire as the world’s largest continuous landmass comprising a single political unit.

ORIGINS OF THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE

Invasions by Early Inhabitants
The House of Rurik
The Decline of Kiev
The Mongol Invasion

During the pre-Christian era the vast territory that became Russia was sparsely inhabited by groups of nomadic tribes, many of which were described by Greek and Roman writers. In the largely unknown north, a region of extensive forests, dwelt tribes later known collectively as Slavs, the ancestors of the modern Russian people. Far more important was the south, where the indeterminate region known as Scythia was occupied by a succession of Asian peoples, including, chronologically, the Cimmerians, Scythians, and Sarmatians. In these early times, Greek traders and colonists established many trading posts and settlements, particularly along the north coast of the Black Sea and in the Crimea.

Invasions by Early Inhabitants

Meanwhile, during this long period of successive invasions, the Slavic tribes dwelling northeast of the Carpathian Mountains had begun a series of migratory movements. As these migrations took place, the western tribes eventually evolved as the Moravians, Poles, Czechs, and Slovaks; the southern tribes as the Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, and the slavicized Bulgars; and the eastern tribes as the modern Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarussians. The Eastern Slavs became renowned traders, and the systems of rivers and waterways extending through the territory from the Valdai Hills facilitated the establishment of Slav trading posts, notably the cities of Kiev, in the south, and Novgorod, in the north. The Valdai Hills region in northwestern Russia is the high point of the eastern European plain and the source of most of its rivers. The easy portages in this region allowed the transport of goods from the Baltic to the Black Sea. Most of the expansion and migratory movements of the Eastern Slavs were from the Valdai Hills. Control of this strategic region was an important element in the Russian domination of eastern Europe.

The House of Rurik

Oleg and Svyatoslav
Vladimir the Great
Yaroslav the Wise

The political organization of the Eastern Slavs was still largely tribal; they had created no unified system through which their constant tribal conflicts could be resolved. According to Russian tradition recorded in the Primary Russian Chronicle, the chief source of much of early Russian history, internal dissension and feuds among the Eastern Slavs around Novgorod became so violent that they voluntarily chose to call upon a foreign prince who could unite them into one strong state. Their choice was Rurik, or Ryurik (d. 879), a Scandinavian chief, who in 862 became ruler of Novgorod. Two other Scandinavians, Dir and Askold, possibly legendary figures, gained control of Kiev. Thus, 862 is considered the beginning of the Russian Empire. From the Scandinavians, called Varangians, or Rus, came the name Rossiya, or Russia, meaning the country of the Rus. (It is debated, however, whether Rus is derived from ruotsi, the Finnish name for the Swedes, or from Rukhs-As, from the name of an Alanic tribe of southern Russia.) Scandinavian names were modified into Slavonic, resulting, for example, in Olga for Helga, Oleg for Helgi, and Igor for Ingvar. The establishment of Rurik and the dynasty he founded initiated a period of internal consolidation, expansion of Slav territory, and the spread of the Slavic people, notably toward the northeast and northwest, where the native Finnic strains were largely absorbed or replaced by Slavs. back to home  see Origins of the Russian People

Oleg and Svyatoslav

Rurik was succeeded in 879 by his son Igor (877?–945), a child for whom Oleg (fl. 879–912), Rurik’s kinsman, ruled as regent. Prince Oleg, realizing the value of the Kiev region, had the Varangian rulers of that city killed in 882 and then united the two centers, establishing his capital at Kiev. He extended Russian rule considerably, subduing neighboring tribes, and he led his raiders as far south as Constantinople, where he concluded a commercial treaty with Byzantium in 911, the first authentically dated event in Russian history. From that time Russian cultural and trade relations with the Byzantine Empire became continually closer. Igor assumed power in 912, and in 945 he was succeeded by his widow, Olga (c. 890–969), who became a Christian in 955. In 964 Olga abdicated in favor of her son, Svyatoslav (920?–72), the first prince of the house of Rurik to bear a Slav name. With his government centered in Kiev, which rose to a preeminent position among Russian cities, Svyatoslav, who was a great military leader, devoted himself to strengthening the Russian position in the south. He led his troops against the Khazars in the southeast; against the Pechenegs, a warlike, nomadic tribe of the Black Sea steppes; and against the Bulgars. He built a great empire, and commerce and crafts increased under his reign. back to home     see The House of Rurik  see Origins of the Russian People

Vladimir the Great

The empire was divided among the prince’s three sons, causing dynastic conflicts that were ended in 980, when the youngest son, Vladimir I, later known as Vladimir the Great, became sole ruler. The most significant event of his reign was his conversion to Byzantine Christianity in 988 and the institution of that religion as the official religion of the Russian people. After casting off his several pagan wives, he married Anne (963–1011), sister of the Byzantine emperor Basil II. From its inception, the Russian Orthodox church differed from its Byzantine parent. Services were given in liturgical Slavonic, and the church enjoyed a large measure of autonomy, even though it remained under the canonical authority of the patriarch of Constantinople and the Russian ruler was in fact its supreme head. Monasteries and churches were built in Byzantine style, however, and Byzantine culture ultimately became the predominant influence in such fields as architecture, art, and music. back to home    see The House of Rurik    see Origins of the Russian People

Yaroslav the Wise

At the death of Vladimir in 1015, his dominions were divided among his sons, and strife immediately developed. Vladimir’s eldest son, Svyatopolk, called The Accursed (r. 1015, 1018–19), held the supreme power and, to secure his position, murdered his brothers Boris and Gleb. Svyatopolk was, in turn, defeated and deposed by his brother Yaroslav the Wise (980?–1054), prince of Novgorod. Yaroslav attempted to re-create the empire of his grandfather, Svyatoslav, and by 1036 had succeeded in making himself ruler of all Russia. With him, the Kievan state reached its greatest power. Yaroslav made Kiev an imperial capital with magnificent buildings, including the notable Hagia Sophia (Cathedral of the Holy Wisdom). Schools were opened, and the grand duke revised the first Russian law code, the Russkaya Pravda (Russian Truth). To consolidate the position of his heirs, Yaroslav devised a system of precedence, grading the various principalities from the smallest to Kiev, the most powerful, so that, as a grand duke of Kiev died, each vassal below him was moved to a larger principality, ending with the throne of Kiev. back to home   see The House of Rurik
see Origins of the Russian People

The Decline of Kiev

The decline of Kiev was due in part to loss of trade following the sack of Constantinople by the Crusaders in 1204 and the consequent migration of the people of Kiev to the north. Novgorod became a flourishing commercial state, which rose to a dominant position and in the 13th century was made the site of a major factory of the Hanseatic League. Kiev also lost its importance as the great national and cultural center, its place taken by the cities of Suzdal, Vladimir, and, ultimately, Moscow (founded c. 1147). Russia became a loose federation of city-states, held together by a common language, religion, traditions, and customs and ruled by members of the multitudinous house of Rurik, usually at war with one another. Difficulties resulted also from depredations on the frontiers. In the west the Poles, Lithuanians, and the Teutonic Knights encroached on Russian territory. In the south it was constantly raided by the Polovtzy nomads; one of these raids was the subject of the Russian epic The Lay of Igor’s Host. back to home       see Origins of the Russian People

The Mongol Invasion

Ethnic changes
Tribute to the khanate

In the early 13th century a greater danger than any of these menaced Russia from the east. In 1223 the Mongol armies of Genghis Khan appeared in the southeast. The Polovtzy sent for help to the Russian princes, who came to their aid against this common, greater foe. In 1223, in the Battle of the Kalka River (now Kalmius River), the Polovtzy-Russian coalition was completely routed. After their victory, however, the Mongols were recalled to Asia by the khan and retreated as rapidly as they had come. For 12 years, they made no move in the direction of Russia. Then, in 1237, Batu Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan, led the Mongols back to eastern Russia. On their northward march they captured and destroyed most of the major cities in the Vladimir-Suzdal region.

The Mongol sweep was halted by the difficult terrain of the forests and swamps south of Novgorod, and Batu Khan was forced to change the direction of his armies. In 1240 he swept over the southwest, destroying Kiev after a desperate defense by that city. The Tatars ravaged Poland and Hungary and progressed as far east as Moravia. In 1242 Batu established his capital at Sarai on the lower Volga (near modern Volgograd), and founded the khanate known as the Golden Horde, which was virtually independent of the Mongol Empire.
see Origins of the Russian People

Ethnic changes

In addition to the havoc it created in Russia, the Mongol invasion was determinative in later Russian history. Tatar control destroyed the elements of self-government by representative assembly that had developed in some Russian cities, arrested the progress of industry and culture, and kept Russia more than two centuries behind the countries of western Europe. Tatar customs, law, and government made their influence felt. The Kievan region was largely depopulated because of massacres and because much of the Russian population had fled west to escape the Mongols’ advance. One group, culturally influenced by the Poles and Lithuanians, eventually became known as Belarussians, or White Russians. A second group, formed of the Slavic population from the Kievan and adjacent regions, became known as Little Russians, or Malorussians. The region of old Kiev, influenced by foreign languages and customs that were superimposed on the traditions of the old Rus, came to be called the Ukraine. In northern Russia, the inhabitants became the principal group of Russian Slavs known as the Great Russians, modified principally by various branches of the Finno-Ugrian population. back to home       The Mongol Invasion    
see Origins of the Russian People

Tribute to the khanate

Although the Mongols did not attack Novgorod, northwestern Russia was menaced by invaders from the west at the same time. The Swedes descended from the Baltic and sought to penetrate the territories of Novgorod. In 1240 a Swedish army landed on the banks of the Neva, and Prince Alexander Yaroslavevich led a Russian army to meet them. The prince so completely defeated the Swedes that he was thenceforth known as Alexander Nevsky, meaning "of the Neva." Two years later the Teutonic Knights advanced from the west. Alexander led his troops to meet the Germans, crossing the frozen Lake Peipus, and routed them. Faced with continuing danger in the west, Alexander, rather than risk invasion from the south, adopted a policy of loyal submission to the Golden Horde and conciliation with the khan. In 1246 Alexander succeeded his father as grand prince of Novgorod and in 1252 was invested by the khan as grand prince of Vladimir and Suzdal. Most of the Russian princes followed Alexander’s example, paying tribute and considering themselves vassals of the Tatar rule. back to home         The Mongol Invasion     see Origins of the Russian People

THE GROWING IMPORTANCE OF MOSCOW

The Expansion of Muscovy
"Time of Troubles."
Romanov Rule

The town of Moscow, in the principality of Vladimir, occupied an exceedingly favorable geographical position in the center of Russia and on the principal trade routes. In 1263 Alexander Nevsky gave Moscow to his younger son, Daniel (d. 1303), progenitor of a line of powerful Muscovite dukes. These rulers were astute men who worked closely with the khans. As Mongol favorites they gradually extended their lands by annexing surrounding territories. In 1328 Daniel’s son, Ivan I, became duke of Muscovy. He seems to have influenced the metropolitan of the Russian church to take up residence in Moscow. Thus, given the sanction of the church, the Muscovite dukes began to organize a new Russian state, with themselves as rulers. Beginning with Ivan, the dukes of Muscovy styled themselves princes "of all Russia."

In the mid-14th century internal dissensions weakened the power of the Golden Horde. Taking advantage of this weakness the grand duke, Dmitry Donskoy (1350–89), made the first successful revolt against the Mongols. In 1380 his important victory over the Mongols at Kukikovo, on the banks of the Don River, gave him his surname Donskoy ("of the Don") and marked the turning point of Mongol power. Muscovite strength grew steadily thereafter.
back to home

The Expansion of Muscovy

Ivan the Terrible
Boris Godunov

Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, and the Russian Orthodox church thereafter considered Moscow the "third Rome," successor to Constantinople and the center of Christian Orthodoxy. The two-headed eagle of Byzantium was incorporated into the Muscovite arms and regarded as the symbol of Holy Russia. A large factor in this investiture of Moscow as a holy, imperial city was the marriage of the grand duke Ivan III Vasilyevich to Zoe Sophia, niece of the last Byzantine emperor. The grand duke began to regard himself as the czar, the autocratic sovereign, rather than the head of the nobility. He added to Muscovy the states of Novgorod in 1478 and Tver in 1485. In 1480, taking advantage of strife among the Mongols, which had divided the Golden Horde into several separate khanates, he refused to pay the annual tribute. The Mongols were too disorganized to enforce payment, and the date is regarded as the end of Tatar domination. Once free of Tatar rule, Ivan turned his attention to the western part of former Kievan Russia, then controlled by Lithuania and Poland. He invaded Lithuanian territory in 1492 and 1500; at the end of hostilities in 1503 Moscow controlled many of the borderlands. Ivan’s son and successor, Basil III Ivanovich (1479–1533), followed his father’s aggressive policy of expansion to the west; he annexed Pskov in 1510, captured Smolensk in 1514, and absorbed the nominally independent grand duchy of Ryazan in 1521. Russian policy thus became, externally, the continued territorial aggrandizement of Muscovy and, internally, the formalization of autocratic rule with concomitant social change.
back to home         back to "The Expansion of Muscovy"      back to The Growing Importance of Moscow

Ivan the Terrible

Ivan IV Vasilyevich, called the Terrible, became ruler in 1533 at the age of 3, and during his long minority the state was continually torn by a struggle for dominance among the noble, or boyar, class. In 1547 Ivan assumed the throne and became the first Muscovite grand duke to be formally crowned as czar; in the same year he married Anastasia Romanovna (d. 1560), a member of the Romanov family. Ivan opposed the old nobility because of the strife that had disrupted his childhood, and in 1549 he called the first Zemsky Sobor, an irregular national assembly, representing all classes of Russian society except the peasants. His aim was to consolidate his autocratic position by weakening the power of the boyars and the church. In December 1564, Ivan left Moscow and announced that he had abdicated; the following January he agreed to resume the throne after receiving absolute powers. Returning to Moscow, he seized half of Muscovy as his personal property. This territory, called the oprichnina, was a separate administrative unit ruled directly by the czar. Ivan distributed it among his supporters as rewards for military and personal service, thereby establishing a new service corps called oprichniki. In return for the land, the oprichniki acted as Ivan’s personal police force. When the boyars, resentful of their diminishing power, plotted against him, Ivan resorted to torture, exile, and execution to repress them.

In 1552 Muscovite armies conquered and annexed the Tatar kingdom of Kazan; Astrakhan became a Russian territory in 1556. The pacification of the southern and eastern frontiers opened the eastern territories to Russian colonization. Muscovy borderlands were increasingly settled by warlike adventurers known as cossacks, many of them runaway peasants. They were concentrated particularly in the Don River Basin and around the lower Volga. Some cossacks went farther north, and in 1581 the cossack hetman (leader) Yermak Timofeyevich (fl. 1579– 85) led an expedition east across the Ural Mountains for the wealthy Stroganov family. Ivan warned Yermak against stirring up the wild tribesmen of the area but forgave him when, in 1581, he brought most of the Ob River Basin under Russian rule, thus beginning the conquest of Siberia. In the west, Ivan led his forces to the Baltic Sea and for a time held Livonia. By the time of his death, however, he had lost all his western conquests. Ivan concluded several trade treaties with England. He also imported many foreign technical and professional experts, a practice continued throughout the history of the Russian monarchy. Although Ivan’s name is perpetuated as The Terrible for the savage cruelty and excesses of his later reign, he founded a strong Russian state and set the pattern for supreme czarist rule.

back to home              back to "The Expansion of Muscovy"       back to The Growing Importance of Moscow

Boris Godunov

Ivan’s son, Fyodor I (1557–98), was sickly and feeble-minded, and during his reign (1584–98) he was dominated by his brother-in-law, the boyar Boris Godunov. Directed by Boris, the Russian state continued to increase in wealth and prestige. The discontent of the peasants was augmented in 1597, however, by a law binding the serfs to the soil and legalizing serfdom. In 1598, when Fyodor died childless, ending the house of Rurik, Boris was elected czar by a Zemsky Sobor. Although he ruled with ability, his hold on the throne was uneasy because of the widely held belief that he had murdered Dmitry Ivanovich (1581–91), a son and legal heir of Ivan the Terrible. Dmitry’s mysterious death made possible the subsequent appearance of pretenders to his name and ranks, inaugurating a period of unrest and revolt that was known as the Smutnoye Vremya (Time of Troubles). back to home
back to "The Expansion of Muscovy"        back to The Growing Importance of Moscow

"Time of Troubles."

In 1604 a pretender to the throne calling himself Dmitry I, and known as the False Dmitry (d. 1606), gained the support of some Polish and Lithuanian nobles and the cossacks. Three months after the death of Boris in 1605, Dmitry I entered Moscow and was crowned czar. He was a conscientious and able ruler, but he displeased the boyars, who had hoped for a revival of their power. They revolted, murdered the czar, and elevated Prince Basil Shuysky (d. 1612) to the throne. This move was opposed by the cossacks and rebellious peasants, who chafed under oppressive serf laws and feared the severity of boyar rule. They rose in southern Russia and joined a second pretender, Dmitry II (d. 1610), who was already advancing on Moscow. At the same time King Sigismund III of Poland, himself desirous of the Russian throne, invaded from the west, and Sweden, at the request of Basil, sent armed support for the boyar czar. After a long period of fighting and intrigue Basil was de-posed in 1610, and the throne was left vacant. Some boyars advanced the candidacy of Wladislaw, the son of Sigismund, and a Polish army entered Moscow, setting itself up as Russian authority. The entire country then fell into a state of anarchy.

The situation was at last resolved by the initiative of Kuzma Minin, a Nizhny Novgorod butcher, who succeeded in raising a national army in northeast Russia. Under Prince Dmitry Mikhailovich Pozharsky (1578–1642), who gained the help of some cossacks, this army marched on Moscow and in 1612 expelled the Poles. In 1613 a Zemsky Sobor, representing the chief towns and the church, elected Michael Romanov (1596–1645), great-nephew of Anastasia Romanovna, as czar. Michael thus founded the ruling house of Romanov. back to home            back to The Growing Importance of Moscow

Romanov Rule

Russia, meanwhile, was advancing to the status of a European power, and in the urban centers influences from western Europe were at last penetrating the isolation caused by the Mongol invasion. Reform in the traditional viewpoints and practices of Moscow was required to form a base for cultural reconciliation with its former territories, regained from Poland and Lithuania. In 1654 the cossacks of the Ukraine, rebelling from Polish rule, offered their allegiance to Czar Alexis. In the resulting war with Poland (1654–67) Russia was victorious, regaining Smolensk (lost in 1611) as well as the eastern Ukraine, including Kiev. The reincorporation of the Ukraine hastened reforms in the ritual of the Russian church. The Ukraine was a metropolitan district of the patriarchate of Constantinople and, in order to integrate western Russia with Moscow, the Ukrainian church had to be induced to accept the Moscow patriarch. Nikon (1605–81), then patriarch, introduced reforms into the Russian ritual that caused a great schism, as many of the Russian clergy and laity refused to abandon their centuries-old ritual. At a church council in 1667 the traditionalist dissenters, or Raskolniki, were declared schismatics. Thus, millions of so-called Old Believers found themselves excluded from full participation in Russian life.

Alexis was succeeded by his son, Fyodor III (1661–82), under whom Russia successfully fought its first war against the Ottoman Empire. On Fyodor’s death his half brother, Peter the Great, was named czar (Peter I), but Peter’s older half sister, Sophia Alekseyevna (1657–1704), succeeded in having her own brother, the half-witted Ivan V (1666–96), declared senior co-ruler, with herself as regent. After an attempt to deprive Peter of his right to the throne and, this failing, to assassinate both him and his mother, Sophia was forced to resign all power in 1689.
back to home               back to The Growing Importance of Moscow

THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE

Peter the Great
Peter’s Successors
Catherine the Great
Paul I and Alexander I
Nicholas I
Alexander II

The accession of Peter I to the czardom in 1682 marked the beginning of a period during which Russia became a major European power.

Peter the Great

Peter was greatly attracted by the culture of Western Europe, particularly that of Prussia. In 1697 he led a technical and diplomatic mission to the West; he was absent from Russia for 18 months. Peter attempted, by decrees and forced reforms, to transform the traditional society of Moscow into a Western one and to make Russia a major power in Europe. He decreed the reorganization of the Russian army and navy, government, and social classes along Western lines. By direct orders, he encouraged the development of Russian industry and trade, technical training, education, and the sciences. Moreover, during his reign Russia began a series of great territorial acquisitions. Peter’s greatest military campaigns were in the west, and his principal conflict, the Great Northern War (1700–21), was with the strongest Baltic power of the time, Sweden. Control of the Baltic Sea was necessary for the creation of a great navy and the expansion of Russian foreign trade. Peter’s forces were badly defeated by the Swedes at Narva (now in Estonia) in 1700. The Swedes, however, did not pursue the Russians, thus enabling Peter to reorganize his forces and attack Swedish bases in Livonia. In 1703 Peter began construction of his new capital city of Saint Petersburg on territory taken from Sweden; the government moved there from Moscow in 1714. The Russian army crushed the Swedes at Poltava, in 1709, and Russia gained supremacy in the Baltic. By the terms of the Treaty of Nystad (Aug. 30, 1721), Russia acquired Livonia, Estonia, Ingria, part of Karelia, and several Baltic islands. With Russian dominance in northern Europe, the Byzantine conception of the czar was exchanged for the Latin conception and title of emperor; when Peter was formally proclaimed emperor in 1721, the Muscovite state became the Russian Empire.
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Peter’s Successors

Peter’s strong rule was followed by a period of weakness on the throne. His son, Alexis (1690–1718), had been charged with treason and died in prison, probably from torture. The throne went to Peter’s second wife, Catherine I. After her death in 1727 it passed to a succession of rulers as a result of intrigues and coups, often engineered by the palace guards. Peter II, the son of Alexis, was chosen emperor after Catherine; he was succeeded in 1730 by Anna Ivanovna, daughter of Ivan V. Anna, a duchess of Courland, filled the court with her Prussian favorites and ruled as a despot. She was succeeded by Ivan VI (1740–64), an eight-week-old grandnephew. A palace conspiracy the next year placed Elizabeth Petrovna, youngest daughter of Peter the Great, on the throne (1741–62). Under her rule a national revival took place. In a war with Sweden (1741–43) Russia gained a portion of Finland. The empress also joined Austria and France in the Seven Years’ War against Prussia. Her nephew and successor, Peter III, was an admirer of King Frederick II of Prussia, and at his accession concluded a separate peace with Frederick. Peter was swiftly deposed and murdered. His wife, a German princess by birth, ascended the throne as Catherine II; she became known as Catherine the Great.
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Catherine the Great

Catherine was the first of the successors of Peter the Great to understand and further his policies. With striking success, she carried out ambitious plans for Russian expansion. Her campaigns took two main directions. First, she turned her armies against the Ottoman Empire in order to acquire warm-water Black Sea ports necessary for Russian commerce. In the Russo-Turkish War of 1768–74, Russia acquired territory in the Crimea, and the Tatar Crimea region was annexed to the Russian Empire in 1783. In the Russo-Turkish War of 1787–92 Russia acquired all the territory west to the Dniester River, including the Black Sea port of Ochakov. The second phase of Catherine’s wars dealt with territories in the west; here, as a result of the three partitions of Poland (1772, 1793, 1795), Russia gained 468,000 sq km (180,000 sq mi) of land with about 6 million inhabitants. Catherine’s domestic policies echoed the Westernization of Peter’s reign. She chose French culture as a guide and, for a time, appeared to be interested in the liberal theories espoused by such French writers as Voltaire. In 1767 Catherine issued an outline of proposed legal and administrative reforms, particularly in regard to serfs, but they were not carried out because of the opposition of the nobility. Her own opposition was stirred by a cossack and peasant uprising led by the cossack Yemelyan Ivanovich Pugachov (1726–75). The rebellion was suppressed in 1775, and Pugachov was executed. Catherine, instead of relaxing the oppressive serf laws, strengthened them. After the beginning of the French Revolution in 1789, the empress discarded her liberal views entirely. back to home           back to "The Russian Empire"

Paul I and Alexander I

His son, Alexander I, had been Catherine’s favorite grandson. Imbued with the liberal policies of her early reign and educated by the Swiss thinker Frederic Cesar de La Harpe (1754–1838), he began his reign by granting amnesty to political prisoners, projecting a constitution for the empire, and repealing many of his father’s restrictive measures. His advanced domestic policies, however, were soon abandoned because of involvement in foreign wars. In 1805 Russia joined Great Britain, Austria, and Sweden in the Third Coalition against Napoleon. After French armies crushed Prussia in the Battle of Jena (Oct. 14, 1806) and defeated Russia at Friedland (June 14, 1807), Alexander reversed himself and allied Russia with France by the Treaty of Tilsit (1807). By this agreement Alexander, in return for helping France against Great Britain, was allowed freedom of action against Sweden and Turkey. After the Russo-Turkish War of 1806–12, Russia received Bessarabia from Turkey. The Russo-Swedish War of 1808–9 ended with Russian acquisition of the Aland Islands and all of Finland. In 1813, as a result of war with Iran following the Russian annexation of Georgia in 1801, Russia also acquired Dagestan and other areas. Meanwhile, relations with France had deteriorated, and in 1812 Napoleon invaded Russia. The campaign was a disaster for the French emperor. His troops entered Moscow on September 14, but the city was burned by the Russians, and the French were forced to fall back in a retreat which became a rout, exposed to hunger, cold, and constant guerrilla attacks in a country devastated by the Russian "scorched-earth" policy. After the French retreat from Moscow, Alexander became a central figure in the alliance that accomplished the overthrow of Napoleon. In 1815, at the Congress of Vienna, most of the duchy of Warsaw was awarded to Russia.

Although the last decade of Alexander’s reign was marked by reaction and repressive measures, closer intellectual intercourse between Western Europe and Russia resulted in much liberalization of political views among the Russian intelligentsia, particularly students, the upper middle class, and the younger landed nobility. Viewing Russia as a despotic state with an intricate, corrupt bureaucracy, little concerned with the oppressed masses, they began to form secret political societies, thus initiating the revolutionary movement.

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Nicholas I

Nicholas also made some efforts to expand the empire. This expansion took three directions: southwest toward the Mediterranean, involving interference in the Balkan provinces of Turkey; south into the Caucasus and Central Asia; and east to the Pacific Ocean. A war with Iran began in 1826 and ended two years later with the Russian acquisition of part of Armenia, including the strategic city of Yerevan. At the same time Nicholas espoused the cause of the Greek revolutionists, and a Russian fleet joined the British and French vessels that destroyed the Turkish fleet in the Battle of Navarino (Oct. 20, 1827). In the resulting Russo-Turkish War of 1828–29, Turkey was defeated. The Treaty of Adrianople (Sept. 14, 1829) gave Russia suzerainty over the peoples of the Caucasus and the emperor a protectorate over Moldavia and Walachia, with rights of interference.

A major Polish revolt against Russian rule began in 1830. Polish nationalists expelled their Russian governor and organized a provisional government. Russian troops forced the capitulation of the rebel leaders in a year. As a result, scarcely any autonomy was left to Poland.

Increasing Russian power in the Middle East was regarded as a threat by other European powers, particularly after Russian forces appeared in the Dardanelles by agreement with Turkey in 1833. Great Britain, France, Prussia, and Austria formed a bloc to circumvent Russian plans for eventual mastery of Constantinople. In 1853, after Nicholas invaded the Danubian principalities, Turkey declared war on Russia. In the Crimean War that followed, Russia was faced by British, French, and Sardinian, as well as Turkish, troops and was utterly defeated. back to home      back to "The Russian Empire"

Alexander II

Nicholas died in 1855, and peace was concluded a year later by his son, Alexander II. Russia was compelled to relinquish Kars and part of Bessarabia, the Black Sea was neutralized, and the Russian protectorate over the Danubian principalities was abolished. This setback in the southwest, however, had little effect on the Russian advance to the Pacific Ocean and toward the Persian Gulf. In 1850 a Russian settlement was established on the estuary of the Amur River, and the northern half of the island of Sakhalin was occupied in 1855. Three years later the entire Amur region and the coast south to the city of Vladivostok (founded in 1860) was annexed. In Central Asia the empire was extended almost to the border of India, with the annexations of Tashkent (1865), Bokhara (1866), Samarkand (1868), Khiva (1873), and Kokand (1876). Merv (now Mary) was annexed in 1884, three years after Alexander’s death.

Domestically, Alexander’s reign was an era of reform, necessary after the debacle of the Crimean War. In 1861 he decreed the emancipation of the serfs. This necessitated a reform of local government, and in 1864 Zemstvos, or district assemblies, were introduced to deal with local problems such as education, public welfare, and health services. The judicial system was revised and trial by jury instituted for serious criminal offenses. The emperor refused, however, to countenance a constitution or the organization of a representative assembly. Revolutionary movements increased and adopted definite policies and aims. One prominent group advocated nihilism, which aimed to tear down the basis of the existing society and build a new one on its ruins. The narodniki, a populist movement, worked for a peasant uprising. Revolutionaries were also prominent in Poland, and in 1863 the Poles rose in a second major rebellion against Russia. After it was quelled, Poland was deprived of the last vestiges of its autonomy and was extensively Russified.

Russia resumed its aggressive attitude toward Turkey after 1871. The overthrow of Napoleon III, a principal opponent of Russian interference in the Balkans, enabled Russia to widen its sphere of influence there. When Serbia and Montenegro revolted against Turkey in 1876, Russia intervened on their behalf. After the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78, Alexander obtained major concessions from Turkey, but these were largely negated by a conference of the European powers at Berlin, fearful of Russian domination of the Dardanelles. back to home             back to "The Russian Empire"

THE END OF THE EMPIRE

Alexander III
Nicholas II

The essential failure of the war increased popular discontent with the government. Alexander II was assassinated in 1881 by a bomb thrown by a revolutionist.

Alexander III

Alexander II’s son, Alexander III, instituted rigid censorship and police supervision of intellectual activities. The power of the Zemstvos was drastically curbed, and Russification programs were forced upon the many racial minorities within the empire. The oppression of Jews was particularly severe. They were forced to live in certain areas, not permitted to enter specific professions, and killed in great numbers. Revolutionary propaganda was eagerly accepted by Russian factory workers, and Marxist theories found many supporters. An intensified program of industrialization resulted in a great increase in the number of workers. Such industrialized cities as St. Petersburg and Moscow became notorious for the miserable working and living conditions of factory laborers. An underground revolutionary movement soon developed among the workers.

Nicholas II

The Revolution of 1905
The Dumas
World War I

Nicholas II, eldest son of Alexander III, ascended the throne in 1894. Although well-intentioned, he was a weak ruler, easily dominated by others and a firm believer in the autocratic principles taught him by his father. His wife, Alexandra (1872–1918), bore him four daughters and a son, Alexis (1904–18), who suffered from hemophilia. In their vain attempts to effect a cure for him, Nicholas and Alexandra became prey to quacks and religious fanatics, notably the Siberian monk Grigory Yefimovich Rasputin.

Autocracy, oppression, and police control increased under Nicholas. They were met by an upsurge of terrorist acts. From outside Russia revolutionary leaders, including notably Lenin, directed the Socialist movement. In foreign affairs, Russian interests in Manchuria were opposed to those of the expanding Japanese Empire, and the resulting friction led to a Japanese attack on Feb. 8, 1904.
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The Revolution of 1905

The massacre was the signal for a revolution. Strikes and riots began throughout the industrialized sections of Russia. The rush of events, combined with continued disaster in the war, influenced the government to make concessions. The emperor promised a representative assembly, or Duma. He issued decrees granting freedom of worship to Old Believers (April 29) and more liberty for Poland (May 16). The tide of revolution could not be halted, however. Soldiers and sailors mutinied, and on October 14, a soviet, or council of workers’ delegates, was formed at St. Petersburg to lead a general strike. The strike was accompanied by uprisings of nationalist groups, peasant unrest, and turmoil throughout the empire. To this was added the complete defeat of Russia in the war with Japan. The government threw troops against the revolutionists and gave support to the conservative groups that were opposed to the radical workers’ soviets. The arrest of the St. Petersburg soviet in December brought about a violent worker’s rebellion in Moscow, which was quelled by army troops. By the beginning of 1906, the government was again in control.

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The Dumas

The first Duma was scheduled to meet in May 1906. Before the meeting, however, the government announced the Fundamental Laws, which reserved autocratic powers for the emperor. When the Duma demanded vigorous reform, it was dissolved after two months. A second Duma met in 1907, and it was also dissolved. The revolutionary movement again began to mount. It was met by repression, directed particularly against minorities. Meanwhile, conservative and moderate reform movements began to cooperate with the government and became the dominant influence in the third Duma, which enacted various moderate reform measures.
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World War I

The outbreak of World War I put a temporary halt to the revolutionary activities of the radicals. The war was directly precipitated when Russia refused to stand aside while Austria invaded Serbia after the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand of Austria at Sarajevo on June 28, 1914. The fourth Duma was then in session, and it rallied popular support to the government.

By the end of 1914 severe reverses had been inflicted on the Russian army, notably in East Prussia. The reverses increased in 1915 and, except for temporary victories, the defeat began to assume the proportions of the Crimean and Japanese disasters. Lack of supplies and transport, and the inefficiency of military leaders, disheartened the troops. Desertions mounted, and the war became unpopular throughout Russia. Moreover, repression and corruption in the government continued. The emperor was dominated by his German-born wife, Alexandra, who was distrusted by the Russians and largely under the control of Rasputin. Rasputin became the chief influence in the empire, controlling even military decisions. His conduct was so resented that in December 1916, a group of aristocrats, including members of the imperial family, murdered him. Revolutionary agitation increased, and in February 1917, riots began in Moscow. When troops were ordered to fire upon the rioters, they instead joined them. Demands for changes in the government finally resulted in the abdication of Nicholas II and his son on March 15, leaving the administration to a provisional government organized by the fourth Duma. The abdications ended the Russian Empire.

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