History of Russia

By Natalia Artyomenko

For most western visitors, the bulk of Russia's history is nothing more than a compendium of hazy legends and sensationalist rumors - from scurrilous stories about Catherine the Great to tabloid television reports of the supposed miraculous survival of one of the children, Anastasia, of Nicholas II. However, the factual history of the country is no less compelling than its fabulous legends, and even a brief introduction to the great and not-so-great figures of its past make a visit far more rewarding.

Russian history is a Russian national heritage and abundance. It is impossible now to understand the contemporary Russia without knowing its history from the ancient Slavs’ times to the collapse of USSR and rebirth of a new state.

There are not many countries in the world, which went through monarchy, communism and modern democracy during one century, 20th century. There are not few countries, that have taken part in as many wars as Russia. And there are few countries in the world, which determined the destiny of peoples all over the world, as Russia has done it several times in its history. Many people in the world are thankful to Russia for saving them from the death during the Second World War, because it was the former USSR and Russia, that distributed most of all in that victory over fascism.

It is normal that people always try to understand the presence and foresee the future by learning the past. It is important to realize the past mistakes and not to repeat them in the future. And you should know that there were many mistakes and misunderstandings in Russian history. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union there has been an enormous resurgence of interest in Russia's pre-Soviet past, as well as a great deal of debate and reconsideration of the Soviet era itself. This shift has not resulted in a simple vilification of everything Soviet or a naive embrace of all that preceded it, but it has spurred an unprecedented effort to regain the ancient Russian national heritage. Churches are being restored all across the country, great Russian writers and artists whose works were banned are once again being honored, and the individual character of ancient cities and communities is once again becoming established. This good attitude to the past and its important role in our life returned. Now we understand that we have to respect our history, pre-Soviet, Soviet and post Soviet parts. These three parts of Russian history are bound together very strong and now they are inconceivable without each other.

It is essential to know more about Russian history to understand many Russian traditions, customs, ideas, and main features of Russian mentality and character, which were formed by many generations. Through the centuries different historical events influenced much on this formation.

Conquest of new lands by Slavs in the beginning of Russian history, Tatar-Mongolian press during 3 centuries, formation of specific Russian monarchy, coming of Romanovs to power, foundation of St. Petersburg, ruling of Peter the Great and Catherine the Great, war with Napoleon, abolition of serfdom, First World War, Great October Socialistic Revolution, dethronement and killing of the last emperor Nickolay II and all members of his family, foundation of USSR, the Second World War and the Great Patriotic War, cold war and collapse of USSR, formation of contemporary democratic Russia – this brief collection of main landmarks of Russian history might seem a bloody and horrible thriller to some people or romantic and fascinating story to others.

Either way everyone can find something interesting in Russian history especially for oneself and it will not make one be bored, on the contrary, it will give everyone not depending on his age, sex, profession and position some food for thought and satisfaction for the soul.

The more you learn about Russian history, the more you feel the Russian spirit!

Actually there are book collections consisted of several big volumes each of 600-800 pages about Russian history because this history took more than 1000 years, rich in different events. There are also many books devoted to Russian history or its most essential and interesting events or persons. Such books take from 100 to 1000 pages. But even if to talk briefly about all main events, it will take many pages, maybe around 20 pages of this site. So, the best way is to buy the book or see some special sites devoted to fascinating and great Russian history.

One of the first noted writers and national historians in Russia was Nikolay Karamzin. Also many great Russia writers and poets (such as Tolstoy "War and Peace" and Pushkin "Boris Godunov" include real aspects of Russian history).

Below we present the brief story about the main landmarks of Russian history.

The Russian history begins from the founding of Novgorod in 862 by the Viking Rurik Jutland.

Rurik’s successor, Oleg helped make Kiev the dominant regional power in the 10th and 11th centuries until shifting trade routes rendered it a commercial backwater. The merchants of Novgorod eventually declared independence from Kiev and joined the emerging Hanseatic League, a federation of city-states that controlled Baltic and North Sea trade.

The marauding Mongolian Tatars, who held sway until 1480, quashed centuries of prosperity in the 13th century. The 16th century witnessed the ugly expansionist reign of Ivan the Terrible, whose incursions into the Volga region antagonized Poland and Sweden to Russia’s later cost. When 700-year Rurikid dynasty ended with the childless Fyodor, vengeful Swedish and Polish invaders each bloodily claimed the Russian throne. The issue was finally settled in 1613, with 16-yer-old Mikhail Romanov issuing in a dynasty that was to rule until 1917. Peter the Great, the dynasty’s strongest ruler, celebrated vanquishing the Swedes by building a new capital in St. Petersburg.

The 19th century began with a bang thanks to Napoleon, and ended with the country in ominous turmoil. The long-suffering serfs were freed in 1861 and there was growing opposition to the repressive and autocratic tsarist rule. Peasants were angry at having to pay for land they regarded as their own. Liberals advocated constitutional reform along Western European lines and terrorists expired Alexander II in 1881. Many radicals fled, including the most famous exile Vladimir Ulyanov, better known by his later nom de guerre, Lenin.

Under the young Nicholas II, ignominious defeat in the war with Japan (1904-5) led to further unrest. What became known as Bloody Sunday led to mass strikes and the murder of industrialists. Social Democrat activists formed workers’ councils and a general strike in October 1905 brought the country to its knees. The tsar finally buckled and permitted the formation of the country’s first parliament (duma), only to disband it when he didn’t like its leftist demands. Russia’s disastrous performance in WWI fomented further unrest. Soldiers and police mutinied and a reconvened duma assumed government, manned by the commercial elite. Councils of workers (soviets) and soldiers were also formed, thus creating two alternative power bases. Both were unified in their demands for the abdication of the tsar, an action Nicholas was forced to undertake on 1 March 1917. So from March 1917 the commercial elite effectively had short control until October 1917. And on 25 October the opposite power (councils of workers) or a splinter group of Social Democrats (known as Bolsheviks and led to the exiled Lenin) seized control and empowered soviets as the ruling councils. Headed by Lenin and supported by Trotsky and the Georgian Stalin, the soviet government redistributed land to those who needed it.

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was established as a federation on Dec. 30, 1922. The death of Lenin on January 21, 1924 (his death was mysterious and some people consider he was killed by Stalin) precipitated an intraparty struggle between Joseph Stalin, general secretary of the party, and Trotsky, who favored swifter socialization at home and fomentation of revolution abroad. Trotsky was dismissed as commissar of war in 1925 and banished from the Soviet Union in 1929. He was murdered in Mexico City on Aug. 21, 1940, by a political agent. Stalin further consolidated his power by a series of purges in the late 1930s, liquidating prominent party leaders and military officers. Stalin assumed the premiership on May 6, 1941.

Soviet foreign policy, at first friendly toward Germany and antagonistic toward Britain and France and then, after Hitler's rise to power in 1933, becoming anti-Fascist and pro–League of Nations, took an abrupt turn on Aug. 24, 1939, with the signing of a nonaggression pact with Nazi Germany. The next month, Moscow joined in the German attack on Poland, seizing territory later incorporated into the Ukrainian and Belorussian SSRs. The Russo-Finnish War (1939–40) added territory to the Karelian SSR set up on March 31, 1940; the annexation of Bessarabia and Bukovina from Romania became part of the new Moldavian SSR on Aug. 2, 1940; and the annexation of the Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania in June 1940 created the 14th, 15th, and 16th Soviet republics. The illegal annexation of the Baltic republics was never acknowledged by the U.S. for the 51 years leading up to Soviet recognition of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania's independence on Sept. 6, 1991. The Soviet-German collaboration ended abruptly with a lightning attack by Hitler on June 22, 1941, which seized 500,000 sq mi of Russian territory before Soviet defenses, aided by U.S. and British arms, could halt it. In September, fascists surrounded Leningrad (St. Petersburg) and blockaded the city for about 900 days and nights. This period was a time of hardship and suffering for all citizens of Leningrad. Many (over 1 million) died because of extreme cold and lack of food in those years. Some of them were moved to the free land by way of the frozen Ladozhskoye Lake. This way was called "The Road of Life", because it was the only way to leave the blocked city and be saved from starvation and cold.

The Soviet resurgence at Stalingrad from November 1942 to Feb. 1943 marked the turning point in a long battle, ending in the final offensive of Jan. 1945. Soviet troops gradualy cleaned the territory of the Soviet Union and pursued the escaping Germans to Berlin where on the 9th of May, 1945 the war was over. Now on this day every year we celebrate the anniversary of our victory over fascism.

The Soviet Union lost a lot in this war. The huge amount of victims with between 20 to 30 million dying as being unaccounted for. The broken country was the payment for the victory. But the state was strong and began the process demanded of survival.

When the threat of fascism had gone away, the West and the United States as its leader and the main winner of the Second World War, found a new danger in the face of communism. The Western powers countered with an airlift, completed unification of West Germany, and organized the defense of western Europe in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

The USSR built a cordon of Communist states running from Poland in the north to Albania and Bulgaria in the south, including East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Romania, which composed the territories the Soviet troops occupied at the war's end. With its eastern front solidified, the Soviet Union launched a political offensive against the non-Communist West, moving first to block the Western access to Berlin.

So, the cold war began – a time of confrontation and resistance of two ideological blocks (the socialistic Soviet Union and their satellites – states of the Eastern Europe from the one hand and the capitalistic United States and the Western Europe from the other hand). The core of the cold war was in a possession and accumulation of the nuclear weapon. The cold war lasted about 40 years and was accompanied by really hot conflicts in the outlying regions of the world where two blocks struggled for the influence. Vietnam, the Northern Korea, Afghanistan, Cuba – this list can be continued.

Nikita S. Khrushchev succeeded Stalin as a leader of the Soviet Union after his death in 1953. Khrushchev formalized the eastern European system into a Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon) and a Warsaw Pact Treaty Organization as a counterweight to NATO. The Soviet Union exploded a hydrogen bomb in 1953, developed an intercontinental ballistic missile by 1957, sent the first satellite into space (Sputnik I) in 1957, and put Yuri Gagarin in the first orbital flight around Earth in 1961.

The conflict on Cuba in 1960 was the most dangerous and remarkable in the history of the cold war, because the world was on the edge of the nuclear war, which could lead to the destruction of the Earth. Khrushchev made a decision to place Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba and then, when challenged by the U.S., backing down and removing the weapons. He was also blamed by the Soviet bureaucracy for the ideological break with China after 1963.

In the internal development of the Soviet Union in 60’s there were two main reforms – agricultural reform (attempt to grow the corn on the soviet soils was unsuccessful) and housing reform (Khrushchev ordered to build new similar blocks of flats for all working people. Flats were small, uncomfortable but all workers got homes).

Khrushchev was forced into retirement on Oct. 15, 1964, and was replaced by Leonid I. Brezhnev.

Time of Brezhnev was called a time of stagnation in politics and economics of the country, because no essential changes neither in internal no in foreign life were made, although Brezhnev and U.S. president Jimmy Carter signed the SALT II treaty in Vienna on June 18, 1979, setting ceilings on each nation's arsenal of intercontinental ballistic missiles, but the U.S. Senate refused to ratify the treaty because of the invasion of Afghanistan by Soviet troops on December 27, 1979. On November 10, 1982, Soviet radio and television announced the death of Leonid Brezhnev. Yuri V. Andropov, who had formerly headed the KGB, became his successor, but died less than two years later, in Feb. 1984. Konstantin U. Chernenko, a 72-year-old party stalwart who had been close to Brezhnev, succeeded him.After 13 months in office, Chernenko died on March 10, 1985. He had been ill much of the time and left only a minor imprint on Soviet history.

Chosen to succeed him as Soviet leader was Mikhail S. Gorbachev, who led the Soviet Union in its long-awaited shift to a new generation of leadership. Unlike his immediate predecessors, Gorbachev did not also assume the title of president but wielded power from the post of party general secretary. He understood that the country needed big changes and reforms to make peoples’ lives more free, open and happier. His first reforms were Perestroika (reorganization of the whole political system) and Glasnost (publicity). First private firms were opened. The war in Afghanistan was finished and the cold war was over in 1989.

In June 1987, Gorbachev obtained the support of the Central Committee for proposals that would loosen some government controls over the economy and in June 1988, an unusually open party conference approved several resolutions reforming the Soviet system. These included a shift of some power from the party to local soviets, and a ten-year limit on the terms of elected government and party officials. Gorbachev was elected president in 1989. The elections to the Duma were the first competitive elections in the Soviet Union since 1917. New political forces came to the political arena of the state. Among them was Boris Yeltsin, who wanted to democratize the country.

The possible beginning of the fragmentation of the Communist Party took place when Yeltsin, leader of the Russian SSR who urged faster reform, left the Communist Party along with other radicals. In March 1991, the Soviet people were asked to vote in a referendum on national unity engineered by Gorbachev. The resultant victory for the federal government was tempered by the separate approval in Russia for the creation of a popularly elected presidency of the Russian republics. The bitter election contest for the Russian presidency, principally between Yeltsin and a Communist loyalist, resulted in a major victory for Yeltsin. He took the oath of office for the new position on July 10, 1991.

Reversing his relative hard-line position, Gorbachev together with leaders of nine Soviet republics signed an accord called the Union Treaty, which was meant to preserve the unity of the nation. In exchange the federal government would have turned over control of industrial and natural resources to the individual republics. An attempted coup d'etat took place on Aug. 19, 1991, orchestrated by a group of eight senior officials calling itself the State Committee on the State of Emergency. Boris Yeltsin, barricaded in the Russian Parliament building, defiantly called for a general strike. The next day huge crowds demonstrated in Leningrad, and Yeltsin supporters fortified barricades surrounding the Parliament building. On Aug. 21 the coup committee disbanded, and at least some of its members attempted to flee Moscow. The Soviet Parliament formally reinstated Gorbachev as president. Two days later he resigned from his position as general-secretary of the Communist Party and recommended that its Central Committee be disbanded. On Aug. 29 the Parliament approved the suspension of all Communist Party activities pending an investigation of its role in the failed coup.

At the time of the attempted coup, the republic's president, Boris Yeltsin, was the most popular political figure in the former Soviet Union. A leading reformer, he became the first directly elected leader in Russian history and received 60% of the vote for president of the Russian Republic.

Yeltsin championed the cause for national reconstruction and the adoption of a Union Treaty with the other republics to create a free-market economic association. On Dec. 12, 1991, the Russian Parliament ratified Yeltsin's plea to establish a new commonwealth of independent nations open to all former members of the Soviet Union. The new union was created with the governments of Ukraine and Belarus who along with Russia were the three original cofounders of the Soviet Union in 1922. After the end of the Soviet Union, Russia and ten other Soviet republics joined in a Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) on December 21, 1991.

In June, 1992 Yeltsin declared the independence of the Russian Fedearion. Now we celebrate the day of the independence of the Russian Federation on 12th, June. New political parties were set up. The political system was totally reorganized. The new Constitution (you can see its English version on the http://www.constitution.ru or click here to read more about the contemporary political system of the Russian Federation) was adopted in 1993.

At the start of 1992, Russia embarked on a series of dramatic economic reforms, including the freeing of prices on most goods, which led to an immediate downturn. A national referendum on confidence in Yeltsin and his economic program took place in April 1993. To the surprise of many, the president and his shock-therapy program won by a resounding margin. In September, Yeltsin dissolved the legislative bodies left over from the Soviet era. The impasse between the executive and the legislature resulted in an armed conflict on October 3. Yeltsin prevailed largely through the support of the military and other forces.

The southern republic of Chechnya's president accelerated his region's drive for independence in 1994. In December, Russian troops closed the borders and sought to squelch the independence drive. The Russian military forces met firm and costly resistance. In May 1997, the two-year war formally ended with the signing of a peace treaty that adroitly avoided the issue of Chechen independence.

In March 1998 Yeltsin dismissed his entire government and replaced Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin with the young and little known fuel and energy minister Sergei Kiriyenko.

So, to summarize, it can be said that the 90’s were a hard time for Russia. Liberalization of prices, privatization of the state property, political changes were not successful at once. The society became more free but poorer, it was divided into 3 parts: the top (17%) was taken by the political, business and criminal elite, the middle was taken only by 13% of the society, and the rest (80%) found themselves on the edge of poverty. But gradually the Russian society, which was shocked in all spheres of its life, began to create a new Russian style of life, more or less stable until the financial crisis in 1998, when world oil prices fell down and Russian economy, which depends on the oil (Russia is a big oil exporter) very much, had to overcome one more shock for the last 10 years. The Russian government halted trading of the ruble on international currency markets. This financial crisis led to a long-term economic downturn and to political upheaval.

Boris Yeltsin then sacked Prime Minister Kiriyenko and reappointed Chernomyrdin. The Duma rejected Chernomyrdin and on Sept. 11 elected foreign minister Yevgeny Primakov as prime minister. The repercussions of Russia's financial emergency were felt throughout the Commonwealth of Independent States.

Exchange rate (the US dollar to Russian ruble) increased. Compare with 1 dollar for 6 rubles before the crisis, now you can get 1 dollar for 30 rubles.

Impatient with Yeltsin's chronic illnesses and increasingly erratic behavior, the Duma attempted to impeach him in May 1999 on five charges: provoking the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, using force to dissolve the Parliament in 1993, starting the ill-conceived 1994–96 war in Chechnya, ruining the nation's military, and impoverishing the Russian people through ruinous economic policies—the charge regarding Chechnya was considered the only one with a chance of approval. But the impeachment motion was quickly quashed and soon Yeltsin was on the ascendancy again. In keeping with his capricious style, Yeltsin dismissed Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov and replaced him with Interior Minister Sergei Stepashin. Just three months later, however, Yeltsin ousted Stepashin and replaced him with Vladimir Putin on Aug. 9, 1999, announcing that in addition to serving as prime minister, the former KGB agent was his choice as a successor in the 2000 presidential election.

So, corruption, impotence of the power, growth of the criminal authorities, different social and economic problems pressed Boris Eltsin in the later 1990's. It was not like that Boris Eltsin, who had been so loved and supported by the Russians in 1991, who lead Russia to democracy and independence. Before his retirement he was a man, who became old, ill and tired because of drunkenness and such big responsibility for the country. On the 31st of December 1999, in his traditional television New Year’s Eve address to the country, he declared about his retirement and his new younger successor Vladimir Putin.

So, an era of the first president of the independent Russia was over, and a new era of Putin began.

On March 26, 2000, Putin won the presidential election with about 53% of the vote. Since then Putin has moved to centralize power in Moscow and has attempted to limit the power and influence of both the regional governors and wealthy business leaders. Although Russia remains economically stagnant, Putin has brought his nation a measure of political stability it never had under the mercurial and erratic Yeltsin.

Just three years after the bloody 1994–96 Chechen-Russian war ended in devastation and stalemate, the fighting started again in 1999, with Russia launching air strikes and following up with ground troops. By the end of November, Russian troops had surrounded Chechnya's capital, Grozny, and about 215,000 Chechen refugees had fled to neighboring Ingushetia. Russia maintained that a political solution was impossible until Islamic militants (terrorists) in Chechnya had been vanquished. In Feb. 2000, after almost five months of fighting, Russian troops captured Grozny, the Chechen capital. The control of Grozny was a political as well as a military victory for Putin, whose hard-line stance against Chechen terrorists has greatly contributed to his political popularity. Despite repeated Russian claims of victory, the war continued to drag on in 2002.

In Aug. 2000 the Russian government was severely criticized for its handling of the Kursk disaster, a nuclear submarine accident that left 118 sailors dead.

Russia was initially alarmed in 2001 when the U.S. announced its rejection of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972, which for 30 years had been viewed as a crucial force in keeping the nuclear arms race at bay. But Putin was eventually placated by Bush's reassurances, and in May 2002, the U.S. and Russian leaders announced a landmark pact to cut both countries' nuclear arsenals by up to two-thirds over the next ten years.

On October 23, Chechen terrorists seized a crowded Moscow theater and detained 763 people, including foreigners. Armed and wired with explosives, terrorists demanded that Russian government end the war in Chechnya. Government forces stormed the theater the next day, after releasing a gas into the theater, which killed not only all the terrorists but more than 100 hostages.

During the fall 2002–winter 2003 diplomatic wrangling at the United Nations over Iraq, Russia sided with the majority of western European nations in calling for more weapons inspections and diplomacy before resorting to war. In March 2003, Russia indicated it would go as far as vetoing a UN resolution put forward by the U.S. permitting the use of force against Iraq. Russia's UN ambassador stated: “We see no reason whatsoever to interrupt the inspections and any resolution which contains ultimatums and which contains automaticity for the use of force is not acceptable to us.”

In March Chechens voted in a referendum that approved a new regional constitution making Chechnya a autonomous republic within Russia. Agreeing to the constitution meant abandoning claims for complete independence. While Moscow has presented the referendum as a way of bringing peace to the war-ravaged region, it is unclear how much power Russia would actually grant this separatist republic.