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78-523: 52°17′00″N 104°18′00″E  /  52.2833°N 104.3000°E  / 52.2833; 104.3000 This Russian history –related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This Russian location article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . History of Russia The history of Russia begins with the histories of the East Slavs . The traditional start date of specifically Russian history

156-662: A vassal of Vladimir, but soon it absorbed its parent state. A major factor in the ascendancy of Moscow was the cooperation of its rulers with the Mongol overlords, who granted them the title of Grand Prince of Moscow and made them agents for collecting the Tatar tribute from the Russian principalities. The principality's prestige was further enhanced when it became the center of the Russian Orthodox Church . Its head,

234-421: A "wager on the strong and sober". The reforms began with and introduced the unconditional right of individual landownership ( Ukase of November 9, 1906). Stolypin's reforms abolished the obshchina system and replaced it with a capitalist-oriented form highlighting private ownership and consolidated modern farmsteads designed to make peasants conservative instead of radical. The multifaceted reforms introduced

312-583: A bone fragment found in Denisova Cave , belonging to a female who died about 90,000 years ago, shows that she was a hybrid of a Neanderthal mother and a Denisovan father . Russia was also home to some of the last surviving Neanderthals - the partial skeleton of a Neanderthal infant in Mezmaiskaya cave in Adygea showed a carbon-dated age of only 45,000 years. In 2008, Russian archaeologists from

390-646: A huge (Europe's biggest) earth- and wood-fortified grad inhabited around 500 BC by Heloni and Budini . In 513 BC, the king of the Achaemenid Empire , Darius I , would launch a military campaign around the Black Sea into Scythia, modern-day Ukraine, eventually reaching the Tanais river (now known as the Don ). Greeks, mostly from the city-state of Miletus , would colonize large parts of modern-day Crimea and

468-702: A powerful, autocratic ruler, a tsar. The first Russian ruler to officially crown himself " Tsar " was Ivan IV . Ivan III tripled the territory of his state, ended the dominance of the Golden Horde over the Rus', renovated the Moscow Kremlin , and laid the foundations of the Russian state. Biographer Fennell concludes that his reign was "militarily glorious and economically sound," and especially points to his territorial annexations and his centralized control over local rulers. However, Fennell argues that his reign

546-641: A result, the Grand Duchy of Moscow tripled in size under his rule. During his conflict with Pskov, a monk named Filofei (Philotheus of Pskov) composed a letter to Ivan III, with the prophecy that the latter's kingdom would be the Third Rome . The Fall of Constantinople and the death of the last Greek Orthodox Christian emperor contributed to this new idea of Moscow as New Rome and the seat of Orthodox Christianity, as did Ivan's 1472 marriage to Byzantine Princess Sophia Palaiologina . Under Ivan III,

624-467: A series of changes to Imperial Russia 's agricultural sector instituted during the tenure of Prime Minister Pyotr Stolypin . Most, if not all, of these reforms were based on recommendations from a committee known as the "Needs of Agricultural Industry Special Conference," which was held in Russia between 1901 and 1903 during the tenure of Minister of Finance Sergei Witte . The reforms aimed to transform

702-592: A significant level of control by the family elder. Stolypin, as a staunch conservative, also sought to eliminate the commune system — known as the mir — and to reduce radicalism among the peasants, thus preventing further political unrest such as that which occurred during the Revolution of 1905 . Stolypin believed that tying the peasants to their own private land-holdings would produce profit-minded and politically conservative farmers like those living in parts of western Europe. Stolypin referred to his own programs as

780-732: A single state. Between 1922 and 1991 the history of Russia essentially became the history of the Soviet Union . During this period, the Soviet Union was one of the victors in World War II after recovering from a surprise invasion in 1941 by Nazi Germany and its collaborators , which had previously signed a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union's network of satellite states in Eastern Europe, which were brought into its sphere of influence in

858-581: A vassal to the Golden Horde, not having the strength to resist its power. Daniil Aleksandrovich , the youngest son of Alexander Nevsky, founded the principality of Moscow (known as Muscovy in English), which first cooperated with and ultimately expelled the Tatars from Russia. Well-situated in the central river system of Russia and surrounded by protective forests and marshes, Moscow was at first only

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936-470: Is important for its introduction of a Slavic variant of the Eastern Orthodox religion, dramatically deepening a synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next thousand years. The region adopted Christianity in 988 by the official act of public baptism of Kiev inhabitants by Prince Vladimir I . Some years later the first code of laws, Russkaya Pravda ,

1014-597: Is rated as the worst in Europe, and Russia's human rights situation has been increasingly criticized by international observers. The first human settlement on the territory of Russia dates back to the Oldowan period in the early Lower Paleolithic . About 2 million years ago, representatives of Homo erectus migrated from Western Asia to the North Caucasus (archaeological site of Kermek  [ ru ] on

1092-530: Is the establishment of the Rus' state in the north in the year 862, ruled by Varangians . In 882, Prince Oleg of Novgorod seized Kiev , uniting the northern and southern lands of the Eastern Slavs under one authority, moving the governance center to Kiev by the end of the 10th century, and maintaining northern and southern parts with significant autonomy from each other. The state adopted Christianity from

1170-722: The Arab Caliphates . In the 8th century, the Khazars embraced Judaism. Some of the ancestors of the modern Russians were the Slavic tribes , whose original home is thought by some scholars to have been the Pripet Marshes . The Early East Slavs gradually settled Western Russia in two waves: one moving from Kiev (present-day Ukraine ) towards present-day Suzdal and Murom and another from Polotsk (present-day Belarus ) towards Novgorod and Rostov . From

1248-644: The Cossack leader Stenka Razin , who led a revolt in 1670–1671. In 1721, in the wake of the Great Northern War , Tsar Peter the Great renamed the state as the Russian Empire ; he is also noted for establishing St. Petersburg as the new capital of his Empire, and for his introducing Western European culture to Russia. In 1762, Russia came under the control of Catherine the Great , who continued

1326-749: The Khazars , ruled the lower Volga basin steppes between the Caspian and Black Seas through to the 8th century. Noted for their laws, tolerance, and cosmopolitanism, the Khazars were the main commercial link between the Baltic and the Muslim Abbasid empire centered in Baghdad . They were important allies of the Eastern Roman Empire , and waged a series of successful wars against

1404-905: The Metropolitan , fled from Kiev to Vladimir in 1299 and a few years later established the permanent headquarters of the Church in Moscow under the original title of Kiev Metropolitan. By the middle of the 14th century, the power of the Mongols was declining, and the Grand Princes felt able to openly oppose the Mongol yoke . In 1380, at Battle of Kulikovo on the Don River , the Mongols were defeated, and although this hard-fought victory did not end Tatar rule of Russia, it did bring great fame to

1482-515: The Pontic Steppe was known as " Scythia ". ) Remnants of these long-gone steppe cultures were discovered in the course of the 20th century in such places as Ipatovo , Sintashta , Arkaim , and Pazyryk . In the later part of the 8th century BCE, Greek merchants brought classical civilization to the trade emporiums in Tanais and Phanagoria . Gelonus was described by Herodotus as

1560-773: The Russian Revolution in 1917. The end of the monarchy initially brought into office a coalition of liberals and moderate socialists, but their failed policies led to the October Revolution . In 1922, Soviet Russia , along with the Ukrainian SSR , Byelorussian SSR , and Transcaucasian SFSR signed the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR , officially merging all four republics to form the Soviet Union as

1638-638: The Russian famine of 1601–1603 and increased the social disorganization. Boris Godunov 's reign ended in chaos, civil war combined with foreign intrusion, devastation of many cities and depopulation of the rural regions. The country rocked by internal chaos also attracted several waves of interventions by the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth . During the Polish–Muscovite War (1605–1618) , Polish–Lithuanian forces reached Moscow and installed

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1716-570: The Russian language was little influenced by the Greek and Latin of early Christian writings. This was because Church Slavonic was used directly in liturgy instead. A nomadic Turkic people, the Kipchaks (also known as the Cumans), replaced the earlier Pechenegs as the dominant force in the south steppe regions neighbouring to Rus' at the end of the 11th century and founded a nomadic state in

1794-763: The Sea of Azov during the seventh and sixth centuries BC, eventually unifying into the Bosporan Kingdom by 480 BC, and would be incorporated into the large Kingdom of Pontus in 107 BC. The Kingdom would eventually be conquered by the Roman Republic , and the Bosporan Kingdom would become a client state of the Roman Empire . At about the 2nd century AD Goths migrated to the Black Sea, and in

1872-586: The Stolypin reforms of 1906–1914, the constitution of 1906 , and the State Duma (1906–1917) attempted to open and liberalize the economy and political system, but the emperors refused to relinquish autocratic rule and resisted sharing their power. A combination of economic breakdown, mismanagement over Russia's involvement in World War I , and discontent with the autocratic system of government triggered

1950-593: The Taman Peninsula ). At Bogatyri/Sinyaya balka  [ ru ] , in a skull of Elasmotherium caucasicum , which lived 1.5–1.2 million years ago, a stone tool was found. 1.5-million-year-old Oldowan flint tools have been discovered in the Dagestan Akusha region of the north Caucasus, demonstrating the presence of early humans in the territory of present-day Russia. Fossils of Denisovans in Russia date to about 110,000 years ago. DNA from

2028-580: The Time of Troubles , ending with the coronation of Michael Romanov as the first Tsar of the Romanov dynasty in 1613. During the rest of the seventeenth century, Russia completed the exploration and conquest of Siberia , claiming lands as far as the Pacific Ocean by the end of the century. Domestically, Russia faced numerous uprisings of the various ethnic groups under their control, as exemplified by

2106-605: The Treaty of Pereyaslav between Russia and the Ukrainian Cossacks . In the treaty, Russia granted protection to the Cossacks state in Left-bank Ukraine , formerly under Polish control. This triggered a prolonged Russo-Polish War (1654–1667) , which ended with the Treaty of Andrusovo , where Poland accepted the loss of Left-bank Ukraine, Kiev and Smolensk . The Russian conquest of Siberia , begun at

2184-579: The petty principalities around Moscow had been united with the Grand Duchy of Moscow , which took full control of its own sovereignty under Ivan the Great . Ivan the Terrible transformed the Grand Duchy into the Tsardom of Russia in 1547. However, the death of Ivan's son Feodor I without issue in 1598 created a succession crisis and led Russia into a period of chaos and civil war known as

2262-634: The 17th century, culminating in the first Russian colonisation of the Pacific in the mid-17th century, the Russo-Polish War (1654–1667) 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. Stolypin reform The Stolypin agrarian reforms were

2340-671: The 1920s reversed the Stolypin reforms. The state took over land owned by peasants and moved them to collective farms. As a result of the expansion of the Trans-Siberian Railroad and other railroads east of the Ural Mountains and the Caspian Sea , migration to Siberia increased. Thompson estimated that between 1890 and 1914 that over 10 million persons migrated freely from western Russia to areas east of

2418-535: The 3rd and 4th centuries AD, a semi-legendary Gothic kingdom of Oium existed in Southern Russia until it was overrun by Huns . Between the 3rd and 6th centuries AD, the Bosporan Kingdom was also overwhelmed by successive waves of nomadic invasions, led by warlike tribes which would often move on to Europe, as was the case with the Huns and Turkish Avars . In the second millennium BC, the territories between

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2496-778: The 7th century onwards, East Slavs constituted the bulk of the population in Western Russia and slowly conquered and assimilated the native Finnic and Baltic tribes , such as the Merya , the Muromians , and the Meshchera . 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

2574-419: The Byzantine Empire in 988, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Kievan Rus' ultimately disintegrated as a state due to the Mongol invasions in 1237–1240. After the 13th century, Moscow emerged as a significant political and cultural force, driving the unification of Russian territories . By the end of the 15th century, many of

2652-400: The Grand Prince Dmitry Donskoy . Moscow's leadership in Russia was now firmly based and by the middle of the 14th century its territory had greatly expanded through purchase, war, and marriage. In the 15th century, the grand princes of Moscow continued to consolidate Russian land to increase their population and wealth. The most successful practitioner of this process was Ivan III , who laid

2730-517: The Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology of Novosibirsk , working at the site of Denisova Cave in the Altai Mountains of Siberia , uncovered a 40,000-year-old small bone fragment from the fifth finger of a juvenile hominin , which DNA analysis revealed to be a previously unknown species of human, which was named the Denisova hominin . The first trace of Homo sapiens on the large expanse of Russian territory dates back to 45,000 years, in central Siberia ( Ust'-Ishim man ). The discovery of some of

2808-405: The Kama and the Irtysh Rivers were the home of a Proto-Uralic-speaking population that had contacts with Proto-Indo-European speakers from the south. The woodland population is the ancestor of the modern Ugrian inhabitants of Trans-Uralia. Other researchers say that the Khanty people originated in the south Ural steppe and moved northwards into their current location about 500 AD. A Turkic people,

2886-416: The Khazars. 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. By the end of the 10th century,

2964-423: The Polish prince Władysław IV Vasa as the Tsar of Russia on 6 September [ O.S. 27 August] 1610. The Poles occupied Moscow on 21 September [ O.S. 11 September] 1610. Moscow revolted but riots there were brutally suppressed and the city was set on fire. The crisis provoked a patriotic national uprising against the invasion , both in 1611 and 1612. A volunteer army, led by

3042-433: The Rus' principalities, along with tax collection by various overlords such as the Crimean Khans , continued into the early 16th century, despite later claims of Muscovite bookmen that the indecisive standoff at the Ugra in 1480 had signified "the end of the Tatar yoke" and the "liberation of Russia". The Mongols dominated the lower reaches of the Volga and held Russia in sway from their western capital at Sarai , one of

3120-495: The Russians defeated the Crimean Tatar army at the Battle of Molodi and Ivan abandoned the oprichnina . At the end of Ivan IV's reign the Polish–Lithuanian and Swedish armies carried out a powerful intervention in Russia, devastating its northern and northwest regions. The death of Ivan's childless son Feodor was followed by a period of civil wars and foreign intervention known as the Time of Troubles (1606–13). Extremely cold summers (1601–1603) wrecked crops, which led to

3198-412: The Russians in such areas as military tactics and transportation. Under Mongol occupation, Muscovy also developed its postal road network, census, fiscal system, and military organization. At the same time, Prince of Novgorod, Alexander Nevsky , managed to repel the offensive of the Northern Crusades against Novgorod from the West. Despite this, becoming the Grand Prince, Alexander declared himself

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3276-450: The Sit' River , and then moved west into Poland and Hungary . By then they had conquered most of the Russian principalities. Only the Novgorod Republic escaped occupation and continued to flourish in the orbit of the Hanseatic League . The impact of the Mongol invasion on the territories of Kievan Rus' was uneven. The advanced city culture was almost completely destroyed. As older centers such as Kiev and Vladimir never recovered from

3354-407: The Soviet Union , leaving Russia again on its own and marking the start of the history of post-Soviet Russia . The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic renamed itself as the Russian Federation and became the primary successor state to the Soviet Union . Russia retained its nuclear arsenal but lost its superpower status. Scrapping the central planning and state-ownership of property of

3432-527: The Soviet era in the 1990s, new leaders, led by President Vladimir Putin , took political and economic power after 2000 and engaged in an assertive foreign policy . Coupled with economic growth, Russia has since regained significant global status as a world power. Russia's 2014 annexation of the Crimean Peninsula led to economic sanctions imposed by the United States and the European Union . Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine led to significantly expanded sanctions . Under Putin's leadership, corruption in Russia

3510-502: The Urals. This was encouraged by the Trans-Siberian Railroad Committee, which was personally headed by Tsar Nicholas II . The Stolypin agrarian reforms included resettlement benefits for peasants who moved to Siberia. An emigration department was created in 1906 at the ministry of agriculture. It organized resettlement and assisted the settlers during their first years in the new settlements. The settlers received on average 16.5 hectares (40.8 acres) of land per man. The total area allocated

3588-639: The Witte reforms — but in the fact that Stolypin's reforms were to the agricultural sector, including improvements to the rights of individuals on a broad level and had the backing of the police. These reforms laid the groundwork for a market-based agricultural system for Russian peasants. The principal ministers involved in the implementation of the Stolypin agrarian reforms included Stolypin himself as Interior Minister and Prime Minister, Alexander Krivoshein as Agriculture and State Property Minister , and Vladimir Kokovtsov as Finance Minister and Stolypin's successor as Prime Minister. The Soviet agrarian program in

3666-424: The boyars cooperated with the first Romanovs, enabling them to finish the work of bureaucratic centralization. Thus, the state required service from both the old and the new nobility, primarily in the military. In return, the tsars allowed the boyars to complete the process of enserfing the peasants. In the preceding century, the state had gradually curtailed peasants' rights to move from one landlord to another. With

3744-406: The closing stages of World War II, helped the country become a superpower competing with fellow superpower the United States and other Western countries in the Cold War . By the mid-1980s, with the weaknesses of Soviet economic and political structures becoming acute, Mikhail Gorbachev embarked on major reforms, which eventually led to the weakening of the communist party and dissolution of

3822-512: The declining Golden Horde , now divided into several Khanates and hordes. Ivan and his successors sought to protect the southern boundaries of their domain against attacks of the Crimean Tatars and other hordes. To achieve this aim, they sponsored the construction of the Great Abatis Belt and granted manors to nobles, who were obliged to serve in the military. The manor system provided a basis for an emerging cavalry-based army. In this way, internal consolidation accompanied outward expansion of

3900-494: The devastation of the initial attack, the new cities of Moscow, Tver and Nizhny Novgorod began to compete for hegemony in the Mongol-dominated Rus' principalities under the suzerainty of the Golden Horde . Although a coalition of Rus' princes led by Dmitry Donskoy defeated Mongol warlord Mamai at Kulikovo in 1380, forces of the new khan Tokhtamysh and his Rus' allies immediately sacked Moscow in 1382 as punishment for resisting Mongol authority. Mongol domination of

3978-475: The earliest evidence for the presence of anatomically modern humans found anywhere in Europe was reported in 2007 from the Kostenki archaeological site near the Don River in Russia (dated to at least 40,000 years ago ) and at Sungir (34,600 years ago). Humans reached Arctic Russia ( Mamontovaya Kurya ) by 40,000 years ago. During the prehistoric eras the vast steppes of Southern Russia were home to tribes of nomadic pastoralists . (In classical antiquity,

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4056-458: The end of the 16th century, continued in the 17th century. By the end of the 1640s, the Russians reached the Pacific Ocean, the Russian explorer Semyon Dezhnev , discovered the strait between Asia and America. Russian expansion in the Far East faced resistance from Qing China . After the war between Russia and China, the Treaty of Nerchinsk was signed, delimiting the territories in the Amur region. Rather than risk their estates in more civil war,

4134-473: The faction controlling the throne. However, the Time of Troubles caused the loss of much territory to the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in the Russo-Polish war , as well as to the Swedish Empire in the Ingrian War . In February 1613, after the chaos and expulsion of the Poles from Moscow, a national assembly elected Michael Romanov , the young son of Patriarch Filaret , to the throne. The Romanov dynasty ruled Russia until 1917. The immediate task of

4212-458: The first Russian feudal representative body ( Zemsky Sobor ), curbed the influence of the clergy, and introduced local self-management in rural regions. Tsar also created the first regular army in Russia: Streltsy . His long Livonian War (1558–1583) for control of the Baltic coast and access to the sea trade ultimately proved a costly failure. Ivan managed to annex the Khanates of Kazan , Astrakhan , and Siberia . These conquests complicated

4290-414: The first central government bodies were created in Russia: Prikaz . The Sudebnik was adopted, the first set of laws since the 11th century. The double-headed eagle was adopted as the coat of arms of Russia . Ivan proclaimed his absolute sovereignty over all Russian princes and nobles. Refusing further tribute to the Tatars, Ivan initiated a series of attacks that opened the way for the complete defeat of

4368-421: The following: The state implemented the Stolypin agrarian reforms in a comprehensive campaign from 1906 through 1914. This system was not a command economy like that found in the Soviet Union in the 1920s, but rather a continuation of the modified state capitalism program begun under Sergei Witte . Stolypin's program differed from Witte's reforms not in the rapid push — which was a characteristic also found in

4446-401: The foundations for a Russian national state. Ivan competed with his powerful northwestern rival, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania , for control over some of the semi-independent Upper Principalities in the upper Dnieper and Oka River basins. Through the defections of some princes, border skirmishes, and a long war with the Novgorod Republic, Ivan III was able to annex Novgorod and Tver. As

4524-469: The impostor False Dmitriy I in 1605, then supported False Dmitry II in 1607. The decisive moment came when a combined Russian-Swedish army was routed by the Polish forces under hetman Stanisław Żółkiewski at the Battle of Klushino on 4 July [ O.S. 24 June] 1610. As the result of the battle, the Seven Boyars , a group of Russian nobles, deposed the tsar Vasily Shuysky on 27 July [ O.S. 17 July] 1610, and recognized

4602-414: The largest cities of the medieval world. The princes had to pay tribute to the Mongols of the Golden Horde, commonly called Tatars ; but in return they received charters authorizing them to act as deputies to the khans. In general, the princes were allowed considerable freedom to rule as they wished, while the Russian Orthodox Church even experienced a spiritual revival. The Mongols left their impact on

4680-407: The merchant Kuzma Minin and prince Dmitry Pozharsky , expelled the foreign forces from the capital on 4 November [ O.S. 22 October] 1612. The Russian statehood survived the "Time of Troubles" and the rule of weak or corrupt Tsars because of the strength of the government's central bureaucracy. Government functionaries continued to serve, regardless of the ruler's legitimacy or

4758-453: The migration of aggressive nomadic hordes from Asia to Europe via the Volga and Urals . Through these conquests, Russia acquired a significant Muslim Tatar population and emerged as a multiethnic and multiconfessional state. Also around this period, the mercantile Stroganov family established a firm foothold in the Urals and recruited Russian Cossacks to colonise Siberia. In the later part of his reign, Ivan divided his realm in two. In

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4836-406: The minority Norse military aristocracy had merged with the native Slavic population, which also absorbed Greek Christian influences in the course of the multiple campaigns to loot Tsargrad , or Constantinople . One such campaign claimed the life of the foremost Slavic druzhina leader, Svyatoslav I , who was renowned for having crushed the power of the Khazars on the Volga. Kievan Rus'

4914-474: The new monarch was to restore peace. Fortunately for Moscow, its major enemies, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and Sweden , were engaged in a bitter conflict with each other, which provided Russia the opportunity to make peace with Sweden in 1617 and to sign a truce with the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1619. Recovery of lost territories began in the mid-17th century, when the Khmelnitsky Uprising (1648–1657) in Ukraine against Polish rule brought about

4992-414: The periphery of Kiev, would establish the basis for the modern Russian nation. The invading Mongols accelerated the fragmentation of the Rus '. In 1223, the disunited southern princes faced a Mongol raiding party at the Kalka River and were soundly defeated. In 1237–1238 the Mongols burnt down the city of Vladimir (4 February 1238) and other major cities of northeast Russia, routed the Russians at

5070-409: The population were subject to military levy and special taxes. Riots among peasants and citizens of Moscow at this time were endemic and included the Salt Riot (1648), Copper Riot (1662), and the Moscow Uprising (1682). By far the greatest peasant uprising in 17th-century Europe erupted in 1667. As the free settlers of South Russia, the Cossacks , reacted against the growing centralization of

5148-477: The princely family that ruled it collectively. Kiev's dominance waned, to the benefit of Vladimir-Suzdal in the north-east, Novgorod in the north, and Halych-Volhynia in the south-west. Conquest by the Mongol Golden Horde in the 13th century was the final blow. Kiev was destroyed. Halych-Volhynia would eventually be absorbed into the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth , while the Mongol-dominated Vladimir-Suzdal and independent Novgorod Republic , two regions on

5226-401: The reign of Ivan IV (1547–1584), known as "Ivan the Terrible". He strengthened the position of the monarch to an unprecedented degree, as he ruthlessly subordinated the nobles to his will, exiling or executing many on the slightest provocation. Nevertheless, Ivan is often seen as a farsighted statesman who reformed Russia as he promulgated a new code of laws ( Sudebnik of 1550 ), established

5304-502: The state now fully sanctioning serfdom , runaway peasants became state fugitives, and the power of the landlords over the peasants "attached" to their land had become almost complete. Together, the state and the nobles placed an overwhelming burden of taxation on the peasants, whose rate was 100 times greater in the mid-17th century than it had been a century earlier. Likewise, middle-class urban tradesmen and craftsmen were assessed taxes, and were forbidden to change residence. All segments of

5382-492: The state, serfs escaped from their landlords and joined the rebels. The Cossack leader Stenka Razin led his followers up the Volga River, inciting peasant uprisings and replacing local governments with Cossack rule. The tsar's army finally crushed his forces in 1670; a year later Stenka was captured and beheaded. Yet, less than half a century later, the strains of military expeditions produced another revolt in Astrakhan , ultimately subdued. Much of Russia's expansion occurred in

5460-412: The state. By the 16th century, the rulers of Moscow considered the entire Russian territory their collective property. Various semi-independent princes still claimed specific territories, but Ivan III forced the lesser princes to acknowledge the grand prince of Moscow and his descendants as unquestioned rulers with control over military, judicial, and foreign affairs. Gradually, the Russian ruler emerged as

5538-401: The steppes along the Black Sea (Desht-e-Kipchak). Repelling their regular attacks, especially in Kiev, was a heavy burden for the southern areas of Rus'. The nomadic incursions caused a massive influx of Slavs to the safer, heavily forested regions of the north, particularly to the area known as Zalesye . Kievan Rus' ultimately disintegrated as a state because of in-fighting between members of

5616-442: The traditional obshchina form of Russian agriculture , which bore some similarities to the open-field system of Britain. Serfs who had been liberated by the emancipation reform of 1861 lacked the financial ability to leave their new lands, as they owed money to the state for periods of up to 49 years. Perceived drawbacks of the obshchina system included collective ownership, scattered land allotments based on family size, and

5694-883: The waterways from the eastern Baltic to the Black and Caspian Seas . According to the legendary Calling of the Varangians , recorded in several Rus' chronicles such as the Novgorod First Chronicle and Primary Chronicle , the Varangians Rurik , Sineus and Truvor were invited in the 860s to restore order in three towns – either Novgorod (most texts) or Staraya Ladoga ( Hypatian Codex ); Beloozero ; and Izborsk (most texts) or "Slovensk" ( Pskov Third Chronicle ), respectively. Their successors allegedly moved south and extended their authority to Kiev , which had been previously dominated by

5772-585: The westernizing policies of Peter the Great, and ushered in the era of the Russian Enlightenment . Catherine's grandson, Alexander I , repulsed an invasion by the French Emperor Napoleon , leading Russia into the status of one of the great powers . Peasant revolts intensified during the nineteenth century, culminating with Alexander II abolishing Russian serfdom in 1861. In the following decades, reform efforts such as

5850-568: The zone known as the oprichnina , Ivan's followers carried out a series of bloody purges of the feudal aristocracy (whom he suspected of treachery after prince Andrey Kurbsky 's betrayal), culminating in the Massacre of Novgorod in 1570. This combined with the military losses, epidemics, and poor harvests so weakened Russia that the Crimean Tatars were able to sack central Russian regions and burn down Moscow in 1571 . However, in 1572

5928-453: Was 21 million hectares. Migrants received a small state subsidy, exemption from some taxes, and advice from state agencies specifically developed to help with peasant resettlement. In part thanks to these initiatives, approximately 2.8 million of the 10 million migrants to Siberia relocated between 1908 and 1913. This increased the population of the regions east of the Urals by 2.5 times before

6006-452: Was also "a period of cultural depression and spiritual barrenness. Freedom was stamped out within the Russian lands. By his bigoted anti-Catholicism Ivan brought down the curtain between Russia and the west. For the sake of territorial aggrandizement he deprived his country of the fruits of Western learning and civilization." The development of the Tsar's autocratic powers reached a peak during

6084-592: Was introduced by Yaroslav the Wise . From the onset, the Kievan princes followed the Byzantine example and kept the Church dependent on them. By the 11th century, particularly during the reign of Yaroslav the Wise , Kievan Rus' displayed an economy and achievements in architecture and literature superior to those that then existed in the western part of the continent. Compared with the languages of European Christendom,

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