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131-515: This article related to the history of China is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This Russian history –related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This article related to a treaty 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

262-516: A major agrarian reform , stimulated in part by his view that "it is better to liberate the peasants from above" than to wait until they won their freedom by rising "from below". Between 1864 and 1871 serfdom was abolished in Georgia . In Kalmykia , serfdom was not abolished until 1892. Serfdom was abolished, but not always on favorable terms to the peasants. Even after emancipation, feudal agriculture practices continued. Most former serfs had to pay

393-662: 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,

524-531: A better fate). Jerzy Czajewski and Piotr Kimla wrote that until the partitions solved this problem, Russian armies raided territories of the Commonwealth, officially to recover the escapees, but in fact kidnapping many locals. In 1816, 1817, and 1819, serfdom was abolished in Estland , Courland , and Livonia respectively. However all the land stayed in noble hands and labor rent lasted until 1868. It

655-583: 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

786-400: A group effort, so the wage went to the family. The children who worked industrial jobs gave their earnings to their family as well, but some used it as a way to gain a say in their own marriages. In this case some families allowed their sons to marry whom they chose as long as the family was in similar economic standing as their own. No matter what, parental approval was required in order to make

917-646: 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

1048-632: A land redemption fee (redemption payments were not abolished until 1907), and could only purchase less fertile, less profitable plots of land that weren't necessarily contiguous. Peasants often had to pay more than the market price for land, with the percentage varying by location. 90% of the serfs who got larger plots were in Congress Poland , where the Tsar wanted to weaken the szlachta . Many peasants remained indebted and bound to landowners. Nobility didn't lose their privileges. A 2018 study in

1179-403: A marriage legal. According to a study completed in the late 1890s by the ethnographer Olga Petrovna Semyonova-Tian-Shanskaia, husband and wife had different duties in the household. In regards to ownership, the husband assumed the property plus any funds required to make additions to the property. Additions included fence, barns, and wagons. While primary purchasing power belonged to the husband,

1310-661: A new social category of "free agriculturalist", for peasants voluntarily emancipated by their masters, in 1803. The great majority of serfs were not affected (under this decree by 1858 152,000 male souls, or 1.5 per cent of serfs, had been bought out to freedom ). Alexander I forbade to advertise the sale of serfs without land (1801), to sell peasants at fairs (1808), cancelled the right of landlords to exile peasants to katorga ('hard labour') ; 1807) and to settle them in Siberia (1809). In 1818 Alexander I gave secret instructions to 12 dignitaries to develop projects to abolish serfdom (among

1441-459: A peasant – but this was only a narrow contextual meaning. The origins of serfdom in Russia may be traced to the 12th century, when the exploitation of the so-called zakups on arable lands ( ролейные (пашенные) закупы , roleyniye (pashenniye) zakupy ) and corvée smerds (Russian term for corvée is барщина , barschina ) was the closest to what is now known as serfdom. According to

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1572-411: A peasant" the papers would advertise "servant for hire" or similar. By the eighteenth century, the practice of selling serfs without land had become commonplace. Owners had absolute control over their serfs' lives, and could buy, sell and trade them at will, giving them as much power over serfs as Americans had over chattel slaves, though owners did not always choose to exercise their powers over serfs to

1703-702: 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

1834-641: 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,

1965-538: A short-term persecution due to the fact that many runaways would usually flee to the southern parts of Russia. During the first half of the 17th century the dvoryane sent their collective petitions ( челобитные , chelobitniye ) to the authorities, asking for the extension of the "fixed years". In 1642, the Russian government established a 10-year limit for search of the runaways and 15-year limit for search for peasants taken away by their new owners. The Sobornoye Ulozhenie introduced an open-ended search for those on

2096-732: 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

2227-581: 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

2358-399: Is also increased assurance of chastity, which was more important for women than men. The average age of marriage for women was around 19 years old. During serfdom, when the head of the house was being disobeyed by their children they could have the master or landowner step in. After the emancipation of serfs in 1861, the household patriarch lost some of his power, and could no longer receive

2489-470: 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 ,

2620-597: 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

2751-530: 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

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2882-552: The American Economic Review found "substantial increases in agricultural productivity, industrial output, and peasants' nutrition in Imperial Russia as a result of the abolition of serfdom in 1861". In Russia, the terms barshchina ( барщина ) or boyarshchina ( боярщина ), refer to the obligatory work that the serfs performed for the landowner on his portion of the land (the other part of

3013-477: The Russkaya Pravda , a princely smerd had limited property and personal rights and his escheat was given to the prince. From the 13th century to the 15th century, feudal dependency applied to a significant number of peasants , but serfdom as we know it was still not a widespread phenomenon. In the mid-15th century the right of certain categories of peasants in some votchinas to leave their master

3144-722: 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

3275-467: The Black Earth Region was flax . Husbands owned most of the livestock, such as pigs and horses. Cows were the property of the husband, but were usually in the wife's possession. Chickens were considered to be the wife's property, while sheep was common property for the family. The exception was when the wife owned sheep through a dowry ( sobinki ). Typical Russian serf clothing included

3406-566: The Central Black Earth Region 70–77% of the serfs performed labour services ( barshchina ), the rest paid rent ( obrok ). Owing to the high fertility, 70% of Russian cereal production in the 1850s was here. In the seven central provinces, 1860, 67.7% of the serfs were on obrok . In literature, Russian serfdom provided both a backdrop and a source of dramatic tension for the works of prominent authors like Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky . Characters drawn from

3537-644: 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

3668-566: The Cossack uprisings benefited from disturbances among the peasants, and they in turn received an impetus from Cossack rebellion, none of the Cossack movements were directed against the institution of serfdom itself. Instead, peasants in Cossack-dominated areas became Cossacks during uprisings, thus escaping from the peasantry rather than directly organizing peasants against the institution. Rich Cossacks owned serfs themselves. Between

3799-749: 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

3930-905: 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

4061-529: The Napoleonic Wars and Russo-Persian Wars ; this did not change the disparity between Russia and Western Europe, who were experiencing agricultural and industrial revolutions. Compared to Western Europe it was clear that Russia was at an economic disadvantage. European philosophers during the Age of Enlightenment criticized serfdom and compared it to medieval labor practices which were almost non-existent in

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4192-515: 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

4323-773: 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

4454-638: 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

4585-570: 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

4716-763: 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

4847-586: 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

4978-646: 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

5109-580: 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

5240-605: 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

5371-480: The military 's need for soldiers. The term muzhik , or moujik (Russian: мужи́к , IPA: [mʊˈʐɨk] ) means "Russian peasant" when it is used in English. This word was borrowed from Russian into Western languages through translations of 19th-century Russian literature , describing Russian rural life of those times, and where the word muzhik was used to mean the most common rural dweller –

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5502-409: 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

5633-414: The zipun  [ ru ] ( Russian : зипун , a collarless kaftan ) and the smock . A 19th-century report noted: "Every Russian peasant, male and female, wears cotton clothes. The men wear printed shirts and trousers, and the women are dressed from head to foot in printed cotton also." By the mid-19th century, peasants composed a plurality of the population, and according to the census of 1857,

5764-450: 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. Serfdom in Russia In tsarist Russia ,

5895-518: The 17th century. Serfdom most commonly existed in the central and southern areas of the Tsardom of Russia and, from 1721, of the subsequent Russian Empire. Serfdom was rare in Little Russia (parts of today's central Ukraine ), other Cossack lands, the Urals and Siberia until the reign of Catherine the Great ( r.  1762–1796 ), when it spread to Ukraine ; noblemen began to send their serfs into Cossack lands in an attempt to harvest their extensive untapped natural resources. The emperor and

6026-463: The 18th century Russian peasants were escaping from Russia to the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (where once harsh serfdom conditions were improving) in significant enough numbers to become a major concern for the Russian Government and sufficient to play a role in its decision to partition the Commonwealth (one of the reasons Catherine II gave for the partition of Poland was the fact that thousands of peasants escaped from Russia to Poland to seek

6157-420: 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

6288-436: 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

6419-419: 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

6550-400: 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

6681-517: 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

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6812-405: 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,

6943-416: 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,

7074-423: 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

7205-433: 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

7336-495: 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

7467-412: 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

7598-450: 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

7729-407: 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

7860-527: 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

7991-439: The abolition of serfdom. He ended mandatory military service for nobles with the abolition of compulsory noble state service. This provided a rationale to end serfdom. Second, was the secularization of the church estates, which transferred its peasants and land to state jurisdiction. In 1775 measures were taken by Catherine II to prosecute estate owners for the cruel treatment of serfs. These measures were strengthened in 1817 and

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8122-414: The amount of pozhiloye and introduced an additional tax called za povoz ( за повоз , or transportation fee), in case a peasant refused to bring the harvest from the fields to his master. A temporary ( Заповедные лета , or forbidden years ) and later an open-ended prohibition for peasants to leave their masters was introduced by the ukase of 1597 under the reign of Boris Godunov , which took away

8253-426: The authorities about the cruelty of their masters, to bring lawsuits for emancipation, and also restored the right of landlords to exile peasants to Siberia at their discretion. The Russian state also continued to support serfdom due to military conscription . The conscripted serfs dramatically increased the size of the Russian military during the war with Napoleon . With a larger military Russia achieved victory in

8384-399: The authors of the projects were A. A. Arakcheev , P. A. Vyazemsky , V. N. Karazin , P. D. Kiselyov , N. S. Mordvinov , N. G. Repnin ). All these projects were united by the principle of gradual emancipation of peasants without infringement of economic interests of landlords. However, in 1822–23, due to changes in the domestic political course, Alexander I again forbade serfs to complain to

8515-424: 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

8646-406: 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

8777-512: 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

8908-494: 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

9039-475: 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,

9170-510: The empire as a whole; it was the Cossacks and nomads who rebelled initially and recruited serfs into rebel armies. But many landowners died during serf uprisings against them. The revolutions of 1905 and 1917 happened after serfdom's abolition. There were numerous rebellions against this bondage, most often in conjunction with Cossack uprisings, such as the uprisings of Ivan Bolotnikov (1606–1607), Stenka Razin (1667–1671), Kondraty Bulavin (1707–1709) and Yemelyan Pugachev (1773–1775). While

9301-423: The end of Pugachev's Rebellion and the beginning of the 19th century, there were hundreds of outbreaks across Russia, and there was never a time when the peasantry was completely quiescent. As a whole, serfdom both came and remained in Russia much later than in other European countries. Slavery remained a legally recognized institution in Russia until 1723, when Peter the Great abolished slavery and converted

9432-621: 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,

9563-759: 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

9694-444: The female and male ages were raised to 16 and 18 respectively. To marry over the age of 60, the serf had to receive permission, but marriage over the age of 80 was forbidden. The Church also did not approve marriages with large age differences. Landowners were interested in keeping all of their serfs and not losing workers to marriages on other estates . Prior to 1812 serfs were not allowed to marry serfs from other estates. After 1812

9825-580: 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

9956-478: 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

10087-469: 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

10218-652: The fullest extent. The official estimate is that 23 million Russians were privately owned, 23 million were considered personally free and another 3500,000 peasants were under the Tsar's patronage ( udelnye krestiane ) before the Great Emancipation of 1861 . Unlike serfs, state peasants and peasants under tsar's patronage were considered personally free, nobody had the right to sell them, to interfere in their family life, by law they were considered as 'free agricultural inhabitants' (Russ 'свободные сельские обыватели') One particular source of indignation in Europe

10349-516: The highest state officials feared that the peasants' emancipation would be accompanied by popular unrest, given the reluctance of the landlords to lose their serf property, but took some actions to alleviate the situation of the peasantry. Emperor Alexander I ( r.  1801–1825 ) wanted to reform the system but moved cautiously, liberating serfs in Estonia (1816), Livonia (1816), and Courland (1817) only. New laws allowed all classes (except

10480-634: 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

10611-408: The land, usually of a poorer quality, the peasants could use for themselves). Sometimes the terms are loosely translated by the term corvée . While no official government regulation to the extent of barshchina existed, a 1797 ukase by Paul I of Russia described a barshchina of three days a week as normal and sufficient for the landowner's needs. In the black earth region, 70% to 77% of

10742-427: The landowner had no right to kill the serf. About four-fifths of Russian peasants were serfs according to the censuses of 1678 and 1719; free peasants remained only in the north and north-east of the country. Most of the dvoryane (nobles) were content with the long time frame for search of the runaway peasants. The major landowners of the country, however, together with the dvoryane of the south, were interested in

10873-411: The landowner's help. The younger generations now had the freedom to work off their estates; some even went to work in factories. These younger peasants had access to newspapers and books, which introduced them to more radical ways of thinking. The ability to work outside of the household gave the younger peasants independence as well as a wage to do with what they wanted. Agricultural and domestic jobs were

11004-414: 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

11135-399: The late 1820s. There were even laws that required estate owners to help serfs in time of famine, which included grain to be kept in reserve. These policies failed to aid famines in the early nineteenth century due to estate owner negligence. As the ideas of Enlightenment and humanism spread among the Russian nobility at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, a conviction developed that

11266-407: 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

11397-557: 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

11528-406: 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'

11659-673: 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

11790-477: The number of private serfs was 23.1 million out of 62.5 million citizens of the Russian empire, 37.7% of the population. The exact numbers, according to official data, were: entire population 60 909 309 ; peasantry of all classes 49 486 665 ; state peasants 23 138 191 ; peasants on the lands of proprietors 23 022 390 ; peasants of the appanages and other departments 3 326 084 . State peasants were considered personally free, but their freedom of movement

11921-407: The peasants' right to free movement around Yuri's Day, binding the vast majority of the Russian peasantry in full serfdom. These also defined the so-called fixed years ( Урочные лета , urochniye leta ), or the 5-year time frame for search of the runaway peasants. In 1607, a new ukase defined sanctions for hiding and keeping runaways: the fine had to be paid to the state and pozhiloye – to

12052-505: The per capita tax by their peasants (the tax was collected from the peasants and paid to the treasury by the landlord himself or his clerk). It was forbidden to put peasants on torture for their master's debts. In order to suppress fraudulent practices of landlords, who during audits recorded persons who did not belong to serfs, allegedly with their consent, decrees of 1775, 1781 and 1783 prohibited voluntary registration of serfs. The legislation stipulated conditions that allowed peasants to leave

12183-473: 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

12314-529: 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

12445-401: The previous owner of the peasant. The Sobornoye Ulozhenie ( Соборное уложение , "Code of Law") of 1649 gave serfs to estates, and in 1658, flight was made a criminal offense. Russian landowners eventually gained almost unlimited ownership over Russian serfs. The landowner could transfer the serf without land to another landowner while keeping the serf's personal property and family; however,

12576-635: 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

12707-457: 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

12838-553: The rest of the continent. Most Russian nobles were not interested in change toward western labor practices that Catherine the Great proposed. Instead they preferred to mortgage serfs for profit. Napoleon did not touch serfdom in Russia. In 1820, 20% of all serfs were mortgaged to state credit institutions by their owners. This was increased to 66% in 1859. To discuss the peasant question, Nicholas I successively created 9 secret committees, issued about 100 decrees aimed at mitigating serfdom, but did not affect its foundations. From 1833 it

12969-469: The rules relaxed slightly, but in order for a family to give their daughter to a husband in another estate they had to apply and present information to their landowner ahead of time. If a serf wanted to marry a widow , then emancipation and death certificates were to be handed over and investigated for authenticity by their owner before a marriage could take place. Before and after the abolition of serfdom, Russian peasant families were patriarchal . Marriage

13100-539: The run, meaning that all of the peasants who had fled from their masters after the census of 1626 or 1646–1647 had to be returned. The government would still introduce new time frames and grounds for search of the runaways after 1649, which applied to the peasants who had fled to the outlying districts of the country, such as regions along the border abatises called zasechniye linii ( засечные линии ) (ukases of 1653 and 1656), Siberia (ukases of 1671, 1683 and 1700), Don (1698) etc. The dvoryane constantly demanded that

13231-519: The scattering of their estates, lack of primogeniture , and the high turnover and mobility from estate to estate. The Tsar's aunt Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna played a powerful role backstage in the years 1855 to 1861. Using her close relationship with her nephew Alexander II, she supported and guided his desire for emancipation, and helped mobilize the support of key advisors. In 1861, Alexander II freed all serfs (except in Georgia and Kalmykia ) in

13362-533: The search for the runaways be sponsored by the government. The legislation of the second half of the 17th century paid much attention to the means of punishment of the runaways. Serfdom was hardly efficient; serfs and nobles had little incentive to improve the land. However, it was politically effective. Nobles rarely challenged the tsar for fear of provoking a peasant uprising. Serfs were often given lifelong tenancy on their plots, so they tended to be conservative as well. The serfs took little part in uprisings against

13493-448: The serf population were portrayed with profound emotional depth, their stories shedding light on the harsh realities of serfdom. These narratives served to amplify calls for social reform and underscored the deep inequalities of the Russian societal structure. The influence of serfdom was also notable in Russian music and art. Folk songs and dances, often performed by serfs, contributed significantly to Russia's unique cultural tradition. At

13624-452: The serf state. Edicts of 1737, 1743, 1744, 1745, 1770, and 1773 declared free those who returned from captivity, as well as foreigners who accepted Eastern Orthodoxy . The children of foster homes and those who had graduated from the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts could not be enserfed. Freedom was granted to retired soldiers who were serfs. Peter III created two measures in 1762 that influenced

13755-415: The serfs performed barshchina ; the rest paid levies ( obrok ). The Russian Orthodox Church had many rules regarding marriage that were strictly observed by the population. For example, marriage was not allowed to take place during times of fasting, the eve or day of a holiday, during the entire week of Easter , or for two weeks after Christmas . Before the abolition of serfdom in 1861 , marriage

13886-412: The serfs) to own land, a privilege previously confined to the nobility. Emperor Alexander II abolished serfdom in the emancipation reform of 1861, a few years later than Austria and other German states. Scholars have proposed multiple overlapping reasons to account for the abolition, including fear of a large-scale revolt by the serfs, the government's financial needs, changing cultural sensibilities, and

14017-463: The size of the dowry as well as the bride's decency, modesty, obedience, ability to do work, and family background. Upon marriage, the bride came to live with her new husband and his family, so she needed to be ready to assimilate and work hard. Serfs looked highly upon early marriage because of increased parental control. At a younger age there is less chance of the individual falling in love with someone other than whom his or her parents chose. There

14148-414: The slaves into serfs. This was relevant more to household slaves because Russian agricultural slaves were formally converted into serfs earlier in 1679. Formal conversion to serf status and the later ban on the sale of serfs without land did not stop the trade in household slaves; this trade merely changed its name. The private owners of the serfs regarded the law as a mere formality. Instead of "sale of

14279-502: 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

14410-609: 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

14541-412: 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

14672-452: 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

14803-454: The successor states of the Golden Horde , chiefly the Khanate of Crimea . Annually the Russian population of the borderland suffered from Tatar invasions and slave raids and tens of thousands of noblemen protected the southern borderland (a heavy burden for the state), which slowed its social and economic development and expanded the taxation of peasantry. The Sudebnik of 1550 increased

14934-569: The system of serfdom was flawed and hindered economic development and urban growth. Tsar Alexander I and his advisors quietly discussed the options at length. Obstacles included the failure of abolition in Austria and the political reaction against the French Revolution . Cautiously, he freed peasants from Estonia and Latvia and extended the right to own land to most classes of subjects, including state-owned peasants, in 1801 and created

15065-605: The term serf ( Russian : крепостной крестьянин , romanized :  krepostnoy krest'yanin , lit.   'bonded peasant') meant an unfree peasant who, unlike a slave , historically could be sold only together with the land to which they were "attached". However, this stopped being a requirement by the 19th century, and serfs were practically indistinguishable from slaves. Contemporary legal documents, such as Russkaya Pravda (12th century onwards), distinguished several degrees of feudal dependency of peasants. While another form of slavery in Russia, kholopstvo ,

15196-549: The use of peasants, for which they had to perform duties in favour of the landlord. The landlords were given the right to let the peasants go free by mutual agreement with them (1844). The peasants of the landlord's estates sold at auction for the owner's debts were allowed to buy out at will (1847; in 1848–52 964 male peasants used the right). Emperor Nicholas I also banned the trade of African slaves in 1842, though there were almost no Russians who participated in it. Bourgeois were allowed to own serfs 1721–62 and 1798–1816; this

15327-883: 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

15458-585: 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

15589-455: The wife was expected to buy certain items. She was also expected to buy household items such as bowls, plates, pots, barrels and various utensils. Wives were also required to purchase cloth and make clothes for the family by spinning and using a dontse . Footwear was the husband's responsibility - he made bast shoes and felt boots for the family. As for crops, it was expected for men to sow and women to harvest. A common crop harvested by serfs in

15720-568: 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

15851-460: Was Kolokol published in London, England (1857–65) and Geneva (1865–67). It collected many cases of horrendous physical, emotional and sexual abuse of the serfs by the landowners. Edicts of 1718, 1734, 1750, 1761, and 1767 obliged landlords to feed their peasants in times of crop failure and famine and to prevent their impoverishment. Since 1722 landlords were responsible for the correct payment of

15982-446: Was ended by Peter I in 1723, serfdom (Russian: крепостное право , romanized:  krepostnoye pravo ) was abolished only by Alexander II 's emancipation reform of 1861 ; nevertheless, in times past, the state allowed peasants to sue for release from serfdom under certain conditions, and also took measures against abuses of landlord power. Serfdom became the dominant form of relation between Russian peasants and nobility in

16113-401: 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

16244-473: Was important for families economically and socially. Parents were in charge of finding suitable spouses for their children in order to help the family. The bride's parents were concerned with the social and material benefits they would gain in the alliance between the two families. Some also took into consideration their daughter's future quality of life and how much work would be required of her. The groom's parents would be concerned about economical factors such as

16375-592: 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,

16506-447: Was limited to a period of one week before and after Yuri's Day (November 26). The Sudebnik of 1497 officially confirmed this time limit as universal for everybody and also established the amount of the "break-away" fee called pozhiloye ( пожилое ). The legal code of Ivan III of Russia , Sudebnik (1497), strengthened the dependency of peasants, statewide, and restricted their mobility . The Russians persistently battled against

16637-535: Was not allowed to sell serfs at public auction "with the splitting of families", "to satisfy public and private debts", paying for them with serfs with their detachment from the land, as well as to transfer peasants into household serfs, taking away their plots. The right of landlords to exile peasants to Siberia at their discretion was restricted (1828). A decree on obliged peasants was issued (1842), according to which landlords could let their peasants go free, but peasants' plots were transferred not into ownership, but into

16768-403: Was replaced with landless laborers and sharecropping ( halbkörner ). Landless workers had to ask permission to leave an estate. The nobility was too weak to oppose the emancipation of the serfs. In 1820, a fifth of the serfs were mortgaged, half by 1842. By 1859, a third of noble's estates and two thirds of their serfs were mortgaged to noble banks or the state. The nobility was also weakened by

16899-864: Was restricted. Russian serfdom depended entirely on the traditional and extensive technology of the peasantry. Yields remained low and stationary throughout most of the 19th century. Any increase in income drawn from agriculture was largely through increasing land area and extensive grain raising by means of exploitation of the peasant labor, that is, by burdening the peasant household still further. % peasants enserfed in each province, 1860 >55%: Kaluga Kyiv Kostroma Kutais Minsk Mogilev Nizhny Novgorod Podolia Ryazan Smolensk Tula Vitebsk Vladimir Volhynia Yaroslavl 36–55%: Chernigov Grodno Kovno Kursk Moscow Novgorod Oryol Penza Poltava Pskov Saratov Simbirsk Tambov Tver Vilna 16–35%: Don Ekaterinoslav Kharkov Kherson Kuban Perm Tiflis Vologda Voronezh In

17030-422: Was strictly prohibited on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. Because of these firm rules most marriages occurred in the months of January, February, October, and November. After the emancipation the most popular marrying months were July, October, and November. Imperial laws were very particular with the age in which serfs could marry. The minimum age to marry was 13 years old for women, and 15 for men. After 1830

17161-479: Was to encourage industrialisation. In 1804, 48% of Russian factory workers were serfs, 52% in 1825. Landless serfs rose from 4.14% in 1835 to 6.79% in 1858. They received no land in the emancipation. Landlords deliberately increased the number of domestic serfs when they anticipated serfdom's demise. In 1798, Ukrainian landlords were banned from selling serfs apart from land. In 1841, landless nobles were banned also. According to certain Polish sources, increasingly in

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