The Crimean War (1853-1856), in which Russia was defeated by France and Britain, showed that industrialized countries could equip, arm, transport, and pay for much more formidable armies and fleets than largely agricultural countries such as Russia. After the war the Romanov regime was forced to rapidly modernize the economy in order to ensure the country’s security and its position among the Great Powers, which also included Austria, Britain, France, and Prussia. At the beginning of World War I in 1914, Russia’s economy was more industrialized and its people were more urbanized and literate than they had been before the Crimean War. Still, Russia was well behind Germany and Britain. In addition, rapid modernization created acute conflicts between classes and nationalities. The strains of World War I caused internal conflicts and brought down the Romanov dynasty in 1917.
| G2 | The 17th Century (1613-1689) |
The tsarist state in the 17th century was not very different from what it had been under the 16th-century Ryurikids. The monarch ruled in alliance with the leading aristocratic families, but his power was enhanced by the steady growth of the (still small) bureaucracy and the minor provincial landowning nobles. The tightening of serfdom and of the state’s control over the frontier Cossack communities led to a number of peasant and Cossack rebellions, of which the most famous was that of Stenka Razin in 1670.
During the reign of Michael’s son Alexis (1645-1676), Russia became involved in the struggle between Cossacks living in present-day Ukraine and that region’s Polish rulers. The Cossacks, supported by Ukrainians, revolted against the Poles, but they requested Russia’s aid to sustain their success. In 1654 Alexis extended his help in return for a Cossack pledge of loyalty, which immediately led to war between Russia and Poland. The war was settled in 1667 by a treaty that split Ukraine into two parts, divided by the Dnieper River. Poland retained the land west of the river, and Russia gained the land to the east and Kyiv. Western influences entered Russia partly through Ukraine but encountered fierce resistance, especially in the religious sphere. In the 1650s Nikon, the patriarch of Moscow, initiated a series of liturgical reforms that caused a major schism in the Russian Orthodox Church. The loss of the so-called Old Believers—those members of the church who rejected the reforms—did long-term damage to the Orthodox Church’s vitality, to its ability to remain independent of the state, and to its hold on the peasantry.
| G3 | Peter I and Catherine II |
The reign of Peter I (1682-1725), third son of Alexis, was a turning point in Russian history. At the end of the 17th century, Russia was a backward land that stood outside the political affairs of Europe. Superstition, distrust of foreigners, and conservatism characterized most of the society. The economy was based on primitive agriculture and the military organization was sorely out of date. Peter carried forward the Westernizing policies of his father, but in a much more radical and uncompromising manner. He remodeled the armed forces and bureaucracy along European lines, and imposed new taxes that dramatically increased the state’s revenues. He also fostered the military and metallurgical industries, whose main center became the Urals region.
Peter’s policy of territorial expansion resulted in almost constant war. He created Russia’s first navy, which took an Ottoman fortress on the Sea of Azov in 1696. Peter then turned his attention to Sweden. Early in the Great Northern War (1700-1721) between Sweden and a coalition of Russia, Poland, and Denmark, Peter conquered the northeastern coast of the Baltic Sea from Sweden, and in 1703 began building a new capital city, which he called Saint Petersburg, on the Baltic coast. The war, which officially ended with the Treaty of Nystad in 1721, established Russia as the dominant power in the Baltic region. After the war Peter took the title emperor, marking the official inauguration of the Russian Empire, and for his military accomplishments he became known as Peter the Great.
Both technological and cultural Westernization advanced quickly under Peter, but the mass of the population paid heavily for his incessant demands for soldiers and taxes. When Peter died in 1725 Russia was more respected and feared in Europe than ever before. The Russian army’s excellent performance against Prussia in the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763) and its resounding victories over the Ottoman Empire in the Russo-Turkish Wars of the 18th century resulted in Russia’s acceptance as an equal by the other leading European powers.
Under Catherine II (1762-1796), known in the West as Catherine the Great, Russia annexed 468,000 sq km (180,000 sq mi) from Poland, which disintegrated as Austria and Prussia also took Polish land. Still more significant were the gains of southern Ukrainian territories, which would become the center of Russian agriculture and heavy industry in the 19th century. Although the state’s pressure on the population relaxed somewhat after Peter’s death, serfdom continued, as did peasant resentment. In 1773 Yemelyan Pugachev led a Cossack rebellion against the monarchy that also developed into a revolt against serf owners. Romanov troops crushed the revolt in 1774, and Catherine strengthened the oppressive serf laws. She encouraged the spread of Western culture and values among the Russian elite, although as a result of the French Revolution (1789-1799), which resulted in the overthrow of the monarchy in France, she became more suspicious of public opinion in the last years of her reign. This set the pattern for much of the 19th century, which was marked by increasing conflict between the Romanov state and sections of the educated classes who demanded Western-style freedoms and rights.
| G4 | Alexander I |
Catherine II died in 1796 and was succeeded by her son, Paul I. His increasingly despotic and unbalanced policies prompted court nobles to conspire against him, and he was murdered in 1801. Paul’s eldest son, Alexander I, then ascended to the throne and ruled until 1825. Under Alexander, Russia achieved unprecedented prestige and glory as a result of its victory over Napoleon’s invading army in 1812 and subsequent military victories in Germany and France. Russian rule was extended to much of the South Caucasus, Finland, and further regions of Poland. After the patriotic euphoria caused by the victory over Napoleon, part of the nobility increasingly resented Alexander’s failure to live up to his reputation as a reformer. Upon Alexander’s death in 1825, a group of military officers who became known as the Decembrists launched a coup to prevent Alexander’s brother Nicholas I from ascending to the throne. The Decembrists wanted a constitutional monarchy led by Alexander’s other brother, Constantine. They sought to increase civil and political rights and to end serfdom and the brutal mistreatment of the peasantry.
| G5 | Nicholas I |
In the end the Decembrists were easily suppressed, but the revolt had threatened Nicholas’s life and the empire’s stability. Furthermore, Polish nationalists expelled the Russian imperial authorities from Poland in 1830, although Russian troops regained Warsaw in 1831. In 1848 a wave of nationalist revolutions swept across Europe. These events persuaded Nicholas that the threat of revolution in both Europe and Russia was real. In foreign policy Nicholas responded by entering into a conservative alliance with Austria and Prussia. This alliance was intended to ensure peace and stability among the European powers and to ensure the suppression of any revolts that might occur. In 1849 Russian troops helped the Austrian emperor repress the rebellion of his Hungarian subjects.