The History of Russia from circa 900 to 1725.
The Battle of Kalka in 1223
The Battle of Kulikovo in 1380
The development of Russia began in the 6th century. The area was settled by Slavs who formed tribes in the 7th century. Scythians, Sarmatians, Alans, Huns and Avars all crossed the region and left a mark. In the 9th century came the Vikings or Varangians. Although the Scandinavian settlers became absorbed in the population, they provided leaders who formed states, in particular those around Novgorod and Kiev under the Rurik family. In c.900 Prince Oleg united Kiev and Novgorod. Expansion came under his grandson Sviatoslav, who defeated the Khazars in 965 though he was killed during the Pecheneg invasion. His son Vladimir the Saint, so called because he converted Russia to Greek Orthodox Christianity, formed the first recognisable state at Kiev as Grand Duke Vladimir I, 980–1015. Contacts were made with Constantinople though there was also conflict. Waves of nomadic invasion from the east continued with the Khazars and the Pechenegs. Kiev’s dominance ended with its destruction in 1169 by Andrew Bogoliubski prince of Suzdal. Russian colonisation to the north-east had begun and continued until c.1300. The Battle of Kalka in 1223 led to Mongol (Tatar) domination until the late Middle Ages. Alexander Nevsky of Novgorod (a Mongol vassal) defeated the Swedes on the Neva in 1240 and the Teutonic Knights at Lake Peipus in 1242. Under the Mongols Russia fragmented under branches of the Rurik family into principalities—one of which was Moscow. The state of Muscovy was established under Ivan I Kalita (Moneybags) (1328–40). The Mongols were defeated by Dmitri Donskoi of Moscow at Kulikovo in 1380. Tamberlane invaded Russia from 1390 and defeated the Mongols before withdrawing. His actions damaged the Golden Horde. The grand dukes of Moscow, Basil I and II, began to escape Mongol lordship. Basil II defeated Novgorod in 1456. Ivan III (1462–1505) took the title Ruler of all Russia and took over Novgorod, becoming in effect the first tsar. He married Zoe daughter of Constantine XI, the last Byzantine emperor. In 1480 he refused tribute to the Mongols. He also invaded Finland from 1495.
The reign of the tsars started officially with Ivan IV of Russia (Ivan the Terrible), the first monarch to be crowned Tsar of Russia, but in practice it started with Ivan III, who completed centralization of the state (traditionally known as the gathering of the Russian lands) at the same time as Louis XI did the same in France. The Tsardom of Russia was the official[1] name for the Russian state between Ivan IV's assumption of the title of Tsar (Emperor) in 1547 and Peter the Great's foundation of the Russian Empire in 1721.
Many Western sources refer to this state as Muscovite Russia or Muscovy, the term originally applied to its predecessor, the Grand Duchy of Moscow. Some researchers consider the propagation of this term in Western Europe as a result of political interests of Poland. The term Muscovite Tsardom, however, is frequently used by Russian historians and is considered by them to be authentically Russian.
The development of the tsar's autocratic powers reached a peak during the reign of Ivan IV, and he became known as the Terrible (his Russian epithet, groznyi, means "thunderous"). Ivan strengthened the position of the tsar to an unprecedented degree, demonstrating the risks of unbridled power in the hands of a mentally unstable individual. Although apparently intelligent and energetic, Ivan suffered from bouts of paranoia and depression, and his rule was punctuated by acts of extreme violence.
Ivan IV became grand prince of Moscow in 1533 at the age of three. The Shuisky and Belsky factions of the boyars competed for control of the regency until Ivan assumed the throne in 1547. Reflecting Moscow's new imperial claims, Ivan's coronation as tsar was an elaborate ritual modeled after those of the Byzantine emperors. With the continuing assistance of a group of boyars, Ivan began his reign with a series of useful reforms. In the 1550s, he promulgated a new law code, revamped the military, and reorganized local government. These reforms undoubtedly were intended to strengthen the state in the face of continuous warfare.
The Time of Troubles was a period of Russian history comprising the years of interregnum between the death of the last Russian Tsar Feodor Ivanovich of the Rurik Dynasty in 1598 and the establishment of the Romanov Dynasty in 1613.
The immediate task of the new dynasty was to restore order. Fortunately for Russia, its major enemies, Poland and Sweden, were engaged in a bitter conflict with each other, which provided Russia the opportunity to make peace with Sweden in 1617. The Polish-Muscovite War (1605–1618) was ended with the Truce of Deulino in 1618, restoring temporarily Polish and Lithuanian rule over some territories, including Smolensk, lost by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in 1509.
The early Romanovs were weak rulers. Under Mikhail, state affairs were in the hands of the tsar's father, Filaret, who in 1619 became Patriarch of Moscow. Later, Mikhail's son Aleksey (r. 1645-1676) relied on a boyar, Boris Morozov, to run his government. Morozov abused his position by exploiting the populace, and in 1648 Aleksey dismissed him in the wake of the Salt Riot in Moscow.
After an unsuccessful attempt to regain Smolensk from Poland in 1632, Russia made peace with Poland in 1634. Polish king Wladyslaw IV, whose father and predecessor Sigismund III Vasa had been elected by Russian boyars as tsar of Russia during the Time of Troubles, renounced all claims to the title as a condition of the peace treaty.
In the 18th century, Russia was transformed from a static, somewhat isolated, traditional state into the more dynamic, partially Westernized, and secularized Russian Empire. This transformation was in no small measure a result of the vision, energy, and determination of Peter the Great. Historians disagree about the extent to which Peter himself transformed Russia, but they generally concur that he laid the foundations for empire building over the next two centuries. The era that Peter initiated signaled the advent of Russia as a major European power. But, although the Russian Empire would play a leading political role in the next century, its retention of serfdom precluded economic progress of any significant degree. As West European economic growth accelerated during the Industrial Revolution, which had begun in the second half of the eighteenth century, Russia began to lag ever farther behind, creating new problems for the empire as a great power.
