Peter continued and intensified his predecessors' requirement of state service for all nobles. Peter told the Senate that its mission was to collect taxes, and tax revenues tripled over the course of his reign. The serfdom that had developed in Russia in the 16th century, and had become enshrined by law in 1649, was abolished in 1861. Instead of imposing the traditional punishment of drawing and quartering, Catherine issued secret instructions that the executioners should carry the death sentences quickly and with a minimum of suffering, as part of her effort to introduce compassion into the law. Local nobles, merchants, and entrepreneurs imagined the future from "locality" to "empire" to promote their regional interests. Tsar Ivan III (1462–1505) laid the groundwork for the empire that later emerged. Japan took over Korea, and Manchuria remained a contested area. Recent research by Russian scholars disputes this interpretation. During World War I, Russia briefly occupied a small part of East Prussia, then part of Germany; a significant portion of Austrian Galicia; and significant portions of Ottoman Armenia. Franklin, Simon, and Bowers, Katherine (eds). Prussia remained the dominant force in the nation until the empire’s demise at the end of another war in 1918. Between 1742 and 1867, the Russian-American Company administered Alaska as a colony. While later rulers did not discard this new title, the ruler of Russia was commonly known as Tsar or Tsaritsa until the imperial system was abolished during the February Revolution of 1917. She contributed to the resurgence of the Russian nobility that began after the death of Peter the Great. The latter path was advocated by Slavophiles, who held the "decadent" West in contempt. In 1815, Dr. Schäffer, a Russian entrepreneur, went to Kauai and negotiated a treaty of protection with the island's governor Kaumualii, vassal of King Kamehameha I of Hawaii, but the Russian Tsar refused to ratify the treaty. France, Britain and Austria tried to intervene in the crisis but were unable to do so. It was successful for Russia militarily, but fruitless politically. European Russia thus embraced 59 governorates and 1 oblast (that of the Don). In ancient times, Greek and Iranian settlements appeared in the southernmost portions of what is now Ukraine. On the other hand, since 1861, and more especially since 1882, when the Peasant Land Bank was founded for making advances to peasants who were desirous of purchasing land, the former serfs, or rather their descendants, had between 1883 and 1904 bought about 78,900 km2 (19,500,000 acres) from their former masters. In every group, women were far less literate than men. In order to repress further revolts, censorship was intensified, including the constant surveillance of schools and universities. 1877-78 - Russian-Turkish War sees Russia seize land from Ottoman Empire in the Caucasus and establish client states in the Balkans. Nicholas II proved ineffective as a ruler and in the end his dynasty was overthrown by revolution. ", the rebels threatened to take Moscow before they were ruthlessly suppressed. At the Congress of Vienna (1815), Russia gained sovereignty over Congress Poland, which on paper was an autonomous Kingdom in personal union with Russia. Access to the Baltic Sea was blocked by Sweden, whose territory enclosed it on three sides. The tsar's most influential adviser was Konstantin Pobedonostsev, tutor to Alexander III and his son Nicholas, and procurator of the Holy Synod from 1880 to 1895. The executive is in the hands of an elective mayor and an uprava, which consists of several members elected by the duma. Moreover, a democratic element was introduced by the adoption of the jury system and – so far as one order of tribunal was concerned – the election of judges. For these allotments the peasants had to pay a fixed rent, which could be fulfilled by personal labour. Despite losing almost all recently consolidated territories in the first year of the Russo-Persian War of 1826–28, Russia managed to bring an end to the war with highly favourable terms with the Treaty of Turkmenchay, including the official gains of what is now Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Iğdır Province. This fact made the system especially obnoxious to the bureaucracy, and during the latter years of Alexander II and the reign of Alexander III there was a piecemeal taking back of what had been given. Peter still lacked a secure northern seaport, except at Archangel on the White Sea, where the harbor was frozen for nine months a year. Russian control is gradually exerted over the fierce Turkish tribes living to the east of the Caspian Sea. [citation needed] According to another point of view, the term Tsardom, which was used after the coronation of Ivan IV in 1547, was already a contemporary Russian word for empire. Hundreds of thousands of move to cities to work in factories, but they typically retained their village connections. Thirteen years previously the government had endeavored to secure greater fixity and permanence of tenure by providing that at least twelve years must elapse between every two redistributions of the land belonging to a mir amongst those entitled to share in it. A growing humanitarian movement attacked serfdom as inefficient. The areas increased every year; one-fifth of the inhabitants left their houses; cattle disappeared. A Review Article", Suny, Ronald Grigor. Over the 10th and 11th century the Kievan Rus became a powerful empire in Europe reaching its peak under Vladimir the Great and Yaroslav I the Wise. He tripled the territory of his state, ended the dominance of the Golden Horde, renovated the Moscow Kremlin, and laid the foundations of the Russian state. The Crown paid the landlord and the peasants had to repay the Crown, for forty-nine years at 6% interest. Accustomed to the use of compulsory labor, they failed to adapt to the new conditions. ", Olson, Gust, and Aleksei I. Miller. It played a major role in 1812–1814 in defeating Napoleon's ambitions to control Europe and expanded to the west and south, becoming one of the most powerful European empires of all time. The urban population was divided into two categories according to taxable wealth, and elected delegates directly to the college of the Governorates. Soviet historiography proclaimed that the Russian Empire of the 19th century was characterized by systemic crisis, which impoverished the workers and peasants and culminated in the revolutions of the early 20th century. By contrast in Western Europe, urban men had about a 50 percent literacy rate. Revolutionaries believed that the newly freed serfs were merely being sold into wage slavery in the onset of the industrial revolution, and that the bourgeoisie had effectively replaced landowners.[33]. The rates were highest for the nobility (84 to 87 percent), merchants (over 75 percent), then the workers and peasants. But the revolt was easily crushed, leading Nicholas to turn away from the modernization program begun by Peter the Great and champion the doctrine of Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality. As a result, Peter acquired four provinces situated south and east of the Gulf of Finland, securing access to the sea. The tsar eventually ended up ruling Finland as a semi-constitutional monarch through the Governor-General of Finland and a native-populated Senate appointed by him. Russia had signed the Treaty of Georgievsk with the Georgian Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti to protect them against any new invasion of their Persian suzerains. [20], The liberal tsar was replaced by his younger brother, Nicholas I (1825–1855), who at the beginning of his reign was confronted with an uprising. The ecclesiastical heads of the national Russian Orthodox Church consisted of three metropolitans (Saint Petersburg, Moscow, Kyiv), fourteen archbishops and fifty bishops, all drawn from the ranks of the monastic (celibate) clergy. In this it differed from contemporary colonial-style empires. Under the Treaty of Nystad of 1721, the Baltic German nobility retained considerable powers The result was the Decembrist revolt (December 1825), the work of a small circle of liberal nobles and army officers who wanted to install Nicholas' brother as a constitutional monarch. The aggregate value of the redemption and land taxes often reached 185 to 275% of the normal rental value of the allotments, not to speak of taxes for recruiting purposes, the church, roads, local administration and so on, chiefly levied from the peasants. [28] Poland was punished by losing its distinctive political and judicial rights, with Russianization imposed on its schools and courts.[29]. "Rehabilitating Tsarism: The Imperial Russian State and Its Historians. "Russia as a great power, 1815–2007.". This resulted in a significant weakening of the Crimean Khanate, an Ottoman vassal and long-term Russian adversary. This period claims the first written evidence about the "Rus" and "Rusah". Be on the lookout for your Britannica newsletter to get trusted stories delivered right to your inbox. When Tsar Alexander II ascended the throne in 1855, desire for reform was widespread. Elizabeth supported the arts, architecture and the sciences (for example with the foundation of the Moscow University). The administrative boundaries of European Russia, apart from Finland and its portion of Poland, coincided approximately with the natural limits of the East-European plains. The Gulf of Riga and the Baltic belong also to territory which was not inhabited by Slavs, but by Baltic and Finnic peoples and by Germans. Many of the government and other major buildings were designed with Italianate influence. She fell under the spell of a monk, Grigori Rasputin (1869–1916). These gestures of compassion garnered Catherine much positive attention from Europe in the Enlightenment age. Peter the Great changed his title from Tsar in 1721, when he was declared Emperor of all Russia. It was catastrophic for France, as his army was decimated through the winter. Every year more than half the adult males (in some districts three-quarters of the men and one-third of the women) quit their homes and wandered throughout Russia in search of labor. This status concealed the inefficiency of its government, the isolation of its people, and its economic and social backwardness. [78], Tsar Nicholas I was a reactionary who wanted to neutralize foreign ideas, especially those he ridiculed as "pseudo-knowledge." But the cost of her campaigns added to the burden of the oppressive social system, which required serfs to spend almost all of their time laboring on their owners' land. Some favored imitating Western Europe while others were against this and called for a return to the traditions of the past. Much of Russia's expansion occurred in the 17th century, culminating in the first Russian colonisation of the Pacific in the mid-17th century, the Russo-Polish War (1654–67) that incorporated left-bank Ukraine, and the Russian conquest of Siberia. Textbooks were strictly regulated by the government. By 1900 there were 17,000 university students, and over 30,000 were enrolled in specialized technical institutes. Thence it ran to the Curonian Lagoon in the southern Baltic Sea, and thence to the mouth of the Danube, taking a great circular sweep to the west to embrace Poland, and separating Russia from Prussia, Austrian Galicia and Romania. Some years later, the Rus conquered the city of Kiev and started the kingdom of the Kievan Rus. [70], After the Emancipation reform, one quarter of peasants received allotments of only 1.2 hectares (2.9 acres) per male, and one-half less than 3.4 to 4.6 hectares (8.5 to 11.4 acres); the normal size of the allotment necessary for the subsistence of a family under the three-fields system is estimated at 11 to 17 hectares (28 to 42 acres). Following the Swedish defeat in the Finnish War of 1808–1809 and the signing of the Treaty of Fredrikshamn on 17 September 1809, the eastern half of Sweden, the area that then became Finland was incorporated into the Russian Empire as an autonomous grand duchy. Disappointment at the results of the war stimulated revolutionary tensions, and helped Serbia, Romania and Montenegro to gain independence from and strengthen themselves against the Ottomans.[34]. [24] To the south-west, Russia attempted to expand at the expense of the Ottoman Empire, using recently acquired Georgia at its base for the Caucasus and Anatolian front. By the end of 1905, there was disunity among the reformers, and the tsar's position was strengthened for the time being. Ten years after Moscow’s official founding, a wooden wall was built to protect it, forming the original Kremlin. But even this sheet of water is an inland sea, the only outlet of which, the Bosphorus, was in foreign hands, while the Caspian, an immense shallow lake, mostly bordered by deserts, possessed more importance as a link between Russia and its Asiatic settlements than as a channel for intercourse with other countries. Soviet historiography proclaimed that the Russian Empire of the 19th century was characterized by systemic crisis, which impoverished the workers and peasants and culminated in the revolutions of the early 20th century. [12], Catherine the Great was a German princess who married Peter III, the German heir to the Russian crown. The Senate (Pravitelstvuyushchi Senat, i.e. [9] Nearly the entire population was devoted to agricultural estates. In September 1914, in order to relieve pressure on France, the Russians were forced to halt a successful offensive against Austro-Hungary in Galicia in order to attack German-held Silesia. Only a small percentage of the population lived in towns. ", Stephen R. Burant, "The January Uprising of 1863 in Poland: Sources of Disaffection and the Arenas of Revolt. A major peasant uprising took place in 1773, after Catherine legalised the selling of serfs separate from land. This area (Bessarabia) was among the Russian Empire's last territorial increments in Europe. of self-government and numerous privileges in matters affecting education, police and the administration of local justice. The parochial clergy had to be married when appointed, but if left widowers were not allowed to marry again; this rule continues to apply today. Her reign, which lasted nearly 20 years, is also known for her involvement in the Seven Years' War. The Army and the church had its own training programs, narrowly focused on their particular needs. In particular, they called into being a loyal and competent administration, and centralised the government. [71][72], The average allotment in Kherson was only 0.36 hectares (0.90 acres), and for allotments from 1.2 to 2.3 hectares (2.9 to 5.8 acres) the peasants paid 5 to 10 rubles of redemption tax. [38] It finally ended with an Anglo-Russian Entente in 1907. Serfs were the least literate. The central authorities and the imperial elite made most of the key decisions, but local elites set up a demand for rail linkages. Modernization of government required much larger numbers, but that, in turn, required an educational system that could provide suitable training. The Bolsheviks declared “no annexations, no indemnities” and called on workers to accept their policies and demanded the end of the war. A hereditary monarch, called the tsar, ruled the people without any constitutional constraints. The right to vote was extended and no law was to become final without confirmation by the Duma. For administration, Russia was divided (as of 1914) into 81 governorates (guberniyas), 20 oblasts, and 1 okrug. As a result, there was a slow improvement in the living standards of Russian peasants in the Empire's last two decades before 1914. In the 1260s, Moscow was inherited by Daniel, Alexander Ne… Catherine successfully waged war against the Ottoman Empire and advanced Russia's southern boundary to the Black Sea. By signing up for this email, you are agreeing to news, offers, and information from Encyclopaedia Britannica. [76], The accession in 1801 of Alexander I (1801–1825) was widely welcomed as an opening to fresh liberal ideas from the European Enlightenment. Although Napoleon's Grande Armée reached Moscow, the Russians' scorched earth strategy prevented the invaders from living off the country. The military history of the Russian Empire encompasses the history of armed conflict in which the Russian Empire participated. However the Russian forces fell further behind the technology, training and organization of the German, French and particularly the British military. Catherine II (the Great), who ruled from 1762-1796, presided over the Age of Russian Enlightenment. Plagued with logistical problems, outdated military equipment and incompetent Russian officers, Russi… [23] More extreme social doctrines were elaborated by such Russian radicals on the left as Alexander Herzen, Mikhail Bakunin, and Peter Kropotkin. He raised academic standards, improved facilities, and opened the admission doors a bit wider. ancient coins of the Russian Empire found during archaeological excavations, using a metal detector, the front and back background is blurred with the bokeh effect - Buy this stock photo and explore similar images at Adobe Stock However, he retained the right to disband the newly established Duma, and he exercised this right more than once. Much of Russia's expansion occurred in the 17th century, culminating in the first Russian colonization of the Pacific in the mid-17th century, the Russo-Polish War (1654–67) that incorporated left-bank Ukraine, and the Russian conquest of Siberia. Nevertheless, his minister of education, Sergey Uvarov at the university level was able to promote more academic freedom for the faculty, who were under suspicion by reactionary church officials. See for these periods of extraterritorial control the empire of Japan–Russian Empire relations. By the time of her death in 1796, Catherine's expansionist policy had developed Russia as a major European power. Since the majority consisted of conservative elements (the landowners and urban delegates), the progressives had little chance of representation at all save for the curious provision that one member at least in each government was to be chosen from each of the five classes represented in the college. The members of the Duma were chosen by electoral colleges and these, in their turn, were elected in assemblies of the three classes: landed proprietors, citizens and peasants. In 1893 district committees for the management of the peasants' affairs, similar to those in the purely Russian governments, were introduced into this part of the empire. In the 19th century, they were closely watched by the imperial secret police, and thousands were exiled to Siberia. Omissions? This number must be augmented by the nearly 3 million Jews who emigrated from the Russian Empire to the West from the 1870s to 1917. From 1860 to 1905, the Russian Empire occupied all territories of the present-day Russian Federation, with the exception of the present-day. Vassals and protectorates of the Russian Empire included the Emirate of Bukhara, the Khanate of Khiva and, after 1914, Tuva (Uriankhai). The result of this was that while the British and French colonial empires declined in the 20th century, a large portion of the Russian Empire's territory remained together, first within the Soviet Union, and after 1991 in the still-smaller Russian Federation. Though the empire was only officially proclaimed by Tsar Peter I in 1721, following the Treaty of Nystad, many Russian and European historians consider the date of the Empire's actual birth to be 1682, when Peter, then 10 years old, came to the throne. Alexander II obtained Outer Manchuria from the Qing China between 1858–1860 and sold the last territories of Russian America, Alaska, to the United States in 1867. Both lines served the commercial and strategic needs of the empire, and facilitated migration.[59]. Often they had to compete with other cities. The background of this revolt lay in the Napoleonic Wars, when a number of well-educated Russian officers travelled in Europe in the course of military campaigns, where their exposure to the liberalism of Western Europe encouraged them to seek change on their return to autocratic Russia. A committed Slavophile, Alexander III believed that Russia could be saved from turmoil only by shutting itself off from the subversive influences of Western Europe. The economy slowly industrialized with the help of foreign investments in railways and factories. The legal code known as Russkaya Pravda (Russian Truth) is founded in his reign. Novgorod Republic • Vladimir-Suzdal Educational institutions in the empire included: Former empire in Eurasia (1721–1917) and North America (1721–1867), For other places with a similar name, see. There were regional variations, with more poverty in the heavily populated central black earth region, and there were temporary downturns in 1891-93 and 1905–1908. It also had supreme jurisdiction in all disputes arising out of the administration of the Empire, notably differences between representatives of the central power and the elected organs of local self-government. The war ended in 1721 when an exhausted Sweden asked for peace with Russia. The system established by the law of 1864 was significant in that it set up two wholly separate orders of tribunals, each having their own courts of appeal and coming in contact only in the Senate, as the supreme court of cassation. This marked the beginning of the Revolution of 1905. By envisioning their own role in a rail network they came to understand how important they were to the empire's economy. The Slavophiles were opponents of bureaucracy who preferred the collectivism of the medieval Russian obshchina or mir over the individualism of the West. That war broke out when the Austro-Hungarian Empire, with strong German support, tried to suppress Serbian nationalism, and Russia supported Serbia. Russian Empire, historical empire founded on November 2, 1721, when the Russian Senate conferred the title of emperor of all the Russias upon Peter I. The House of Romanov ruled the Russian Empire from 1721 until 1762. The Social Democrats differed from the SRs in that they believed a revolution must rely on urban workers, not the peasantry. Peter I the Great (1672–1725) played a major role in introducing Russia to the European state system. The western boundary was purely conventional: it crossed the Kola Peninsula from the Varangerfjord to the Gulf of Bothnia. Peter died in 1725, leaving an unsettled succession. The Russian Empire(Pre-reform Russian orthography: Россійская Имперія, Modern Russian: Российская империя, translit:Rossiyskaya Imperiya) is a country situated in northern Eurasia.It is a semi-constitutional monarchy that existed from 1721 to the present. Then, by plotting with the rulers of Austria and Prussia, she incorporated territories of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth during the Partitions of Poland, pushing the Russian frontier westward into Central Europe. Further reforms of 1860s included socio-economic reforms to clarify the position of the Russian government in the field of property rights and their protection. [25] In the 1828–29 Russo-Turkish War, Russia invaded northeastern Anatolia and occupied the strategic Ottoman towns of Erzurum and Gümüşhane and, posing as protector and saviour of the Greek Orthodox population, received extensive support from the region's Pontic Greeks. The principal ecclesiastical authority of the Russian Church that extended its jurisdiction over the entire territory of the Empire, including the ex-Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti, was the Most Holy Synod, the civilian Over Procurator of the Holy Synod being one of the council of ministers with wide de facto powers in ecclesiastical matters. In 1881 Alexander II was assassinated by the Narodnaya Volya, a Nihilist terrorist organization. Under Peter the Great, Russia was proclaimed an Empire in 1721 and became recognised as a world power. (2004) "The Siberian Frontier and Russia's Position in World History,", Hellie, Richard. Finally, in the Baltic provinces nearly all the land belonged to the German landlords, who either farmed the land themselves, with hired laborers, or let it in small farms. Everyone began to mobilize, and Berlin decided to act before the others were ready to fight, first invading Belgium and France in the west, and then Russia in the east. "The economic development of Russia. "Language and power in the late Ottoman Empire" (Chapter 7). In spite of this, all three were popular tsars who left behind a good reputation among the people and whom the Slavophiles of the 19th century idealized as model Russian monarchs. Furthermore, the empire at times controlled concession territories, notably the Kwantung Leased Territory and the Chinese Eastern Railway, both conceded by Qing China, as well as a concession in Tianjin. Between 1744 and 1867, the empire also controlled Russian America. At the highest level, universities were set up on the German model in Kazan, Kharkov, St. Petersburg, Vilna and Dorpat, while the relatively young Imperial Moscow University was expanded. After 167 years of German language administration and education, laws were declared in 1888 and 1889 where the rights of the police and manorial justice were transferred from Baltic German control to officials of the central government. Like all empires, it featured great diversity in terms of economies, ethnicities, languages, and religions. "Writing the History of the Russian Revolution after the Fall of Communism. [55] The distinctly liberal notion of "progress" was replaced by a conservative notion of modernization based on the incorporation of modern technology to serve the established system. From 1875 to 1877, the Balkan crisis intensified with rebellions against Ottoman rule by various Slavic nationalities, which the Ottoman Turks dominated since the 16th century. The Russian patriotic press used the Polish uprising to unify the Russian nation, claiming it was Russia's God-given mission to save Poland and the world. The following century marked yet another tribal union of Eastern Slavs, the Polyants, in the middle basin of the Dnieper River. In: Murphey, Rhoads (editor). Of the elected members, 3 were returned by the "black" clergy (the monks), 3 by the "white" clergy (seculars), 18 by the corporations of nobles, 6 by the academy of sciences and the universities, 6 by the chambers of commerce, 6 by the industrial councils, 34 by the governments having zemstvos, 16 by those having no zemstvos, and 6 by Poland. The forests were sold, and the only prosperous landlords were those who exacted rack-rents for the land without which the peasants could not live upon their allotments. When Britain threatened to declare war over the terms of the Treaty of San Stefano, an exhausted Russia backed down. Emperor Alexander II (1855–1881) promoted numerous reforms, most dramatically the emancipation of all 23 million serfs in 1861. The Bolsheviks, under Vladimir Lenin, supported the idea of forming a small elite of professional revolutionists, subject to strong party discipline, to act as the vanguard of the proletariat in order to seize power by force. He also retained an absolute veto over all legislation, and only he could initiate any changes to the Organic Law itself. This contradiction in terms demonstrated the difficulty of precisely defining the system, essentially transitional and meanwhile sui generis, established in the Russian Empire after October 1905. The empire had a predominantly agricultural economy, with low productivity on large estates worked by Russian peasants, known as serfs, who were tied to the land in a feudal arrangement. Michael’s son Alexis came to the throne in 1645 at age 16; he was much under the influence first of Boris Ivanovich Morozov and then of the patriarch Nikon. In these assemblies the wealthiest proprietors sat in person while the lesser proprietors were represented by delegates. However, this autonomy was eroded after an uprising in 1831, and was finally abolished in 1867. States in the February Revolution in 1917 many landowners and also businessmen scope after April... 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