Creating Mother Russia

I. The Russian Empire

A. The Drive Across Northern Asia--from modest beginnings before 1500, Russia expanded rapidly during the next three centuries to create an empire that stretched from eastern Europe across northern Asia in into North America (Alaska was bought in in 1867 from Russia, after all).

1. Rule by the Golden Horde--Russia, to become a world power, had do overcome a lot of unfavorable geography. Part of its political "backwardness" was the result of being a favored target for many of the nomadic invasion from Central Asia into Europe. The Mongol Khanate of the Golden Horde ruled Russians and their neighbors from the 1240s until 1480, and made Moscow their capital. The princes of Moucovy, the territory surrounding Moscow, eventually led the resistance against the Golden Horde, winning complete control of their own territory, and annexing the territories of Novgorod for good measure in 1478.

2. Prince Ivan IV--Once the princes of Muscovy were successful in overcoming the Golden Horde in Muscovy, they continue the push southeast-ward. Prince Ivan IV (who ruled from 1533 to 1584) was the most successful of these princes, and the gains here came at the expense of the Khanates of Kazan and Astrkhan. By the end of the 16th century, Russia was the largest state in Europe, with the largest territory of any state east of the Ural Mountains.

3. The Problem of Geography--despite the great growth of the country during this time period, Russia remained largely land-locked, with its only port being Arkhangelsk, in the Arctic Circle--which is obviously unnavigable for a part of the year. Russia attempted for many years, therefore, to establish ports on the Black Sea, but had to overcome the governments that were already established there--in particular the Crimean Turks. The kingdoms of Sweden and Poland-Lithuania to the west similarly blocked Russian access to the Baltic Sea. The one route left open was east, across Siberia. Siberia contained considerable riches (particularly fur), and was sparsely populated, so overcoming the nomadic people living was less problematic. What your textbook fails to mention, however, was to get the these Pacific ports meant traveling 4,000 miles across the tundra to reach them.

4. Strogonov Family of Traders--the Strogonov family, already wealthy, were well-positioned to exploit the riches of Siberia. The employed armed adventurers who used superior fire power to overcome both the nomadic peoples living there as well as the only political entity in the area, the Khanate of Sibir, in 1582. Strongonov traders worked their way east, reaching the Pacific during the 17th century, and then crossing the Bering Straight and establishing settlement in North America shortly afterward. Theses settlements where more like outposts in a frontier environment than an organized provincial government, however.

5. The Amur River Valley--by the 1640s, Russian settlers were growing grain in the Amur Rive Valley in Mongolia. By the time the Qing reacted to the presence of the Russians, the threat of Galdan's Mongol military power worried the Qing more. The Russians, also feeling threatened by the Mongols, were happy to negotiate the Treaty of Nerchinsk, which recognized Russian claims west of Mongolia, but required the Russians to withdraw their settlements farther east.

B. Russian Society and Politics to 1725--Russian expansion involved demographic changes as well as new relations between the tsar, the elite class (known as the boyars), and peasants. Attempts were made to convert these new peoples to Russian Orthodox Christianity, but many people on the steppes remained loyal to Islam.

1. Cossacks--the word probably derives from a Turkic word for warrior or mercenary soldier, was a name applied to those people living on the steppe (prairie) between Muscovy and the Caspian and Black Seas. Cossacks supplied most of the soldiers for the Strogonov's, and were responsible for setting every town in Siberia. In the west, Cossacks defended Russia against Swedish and Turkic incursions, but their real allegiance lie with their clan leader, rather than with the tsar of Russia.

2. Boyars--in the early 17th century, both Swedish and Polish forces briefly occupied Moscow on separate occasions. This spelled the end for the Muscovite rulers, as the boyars allowed one of their own--Mikhail Romanov--to inaugurate a dynasty that consolidated its own power while also successfully competing with other states, as well.

3. Serfs--peasant were, of course, the big losers in this upheaval. The Muscovy princes and the early tsars rewarded their loyal nobles with grant of land and the labor to work it. Technically, serfs were not the personal property of the noble lord of the manor--they were instead tied to the land of which the noble had possession. The long period of warfare in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries disrupted peasant life and caused many to flee to the Cossacks or across the Urals; some who couldn't flee sold themselves into slavery. When peace returned, landlords attempted to recover the runaways on bind them to the property; this was accomplished by eliminating the two week period every year when serfs could choose a new master. Because serfdom was a hereditary condition--like slavery had become in the West--the difference between the two conditions of servitude became a difference without distinction.

C. Peter the Great--the greatest of the Romanov czars, Peter reigned from 1689 to 1725, and instituted a  number of westernizing measures. Peter was not the first tsar to develop these practices, but he was relentless in his pursuit of these programs.

1. Early Life--Peter was the offspring of his father's second marriage, and when he acceded to the throne after the death of his half-brother Theodore, his half-sister Sophia acted as regent for Peter and his half brother Ivan. Peter did not seem to be bothered by this as an adolescent, as he was pursuing a rather idiosyncratic education. Peter was a huge man for his time--6 foot 8 inches tall, which was probably a foot taller than most of his contemporaries.

2. Westernization--although Peter gets all of the credit for this "westernization" drive, it actually starts much earlier; Peter continues this program and amplifies it. He brought in a number of Western craftsmen and others show Russian workers western methods.

3. St. Petersburg--after the long and costly Great Northern War (1700-1721) with Sweden, Peter built a western city that he modestly named after himself. Peter also tried to force his nobles to behave more like nobles in western fashions and appearances.

D. Consolidation of the Empire--eastward expansion continued under Peter and his successors.

1. Bering--Bering crossed the strait bearing (bad pun) his name in 1741, and by 1799--well before Lewis and Clark--Russians agent were trading with native peoples along the northwest coast of North America.

2. Catherine the Great (r. 1762-1796)--was successful in expanding Russia to the West--at the expense of the Ukraine and Poland. Catherine saw herself, and is seen by many historians, as an enlightened ruler, but whose attempts to modernize Russia quickly became bogged down in the huge bureaucracy necessary to run such a large country. Catherine's successes--and the fact that she herself was not Russian, but Prussian, spawned a great deal of jealousy and rumors about her active sexual life.

E. The Comparison of Empires