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{{Short description|Eurasian empire (1721–1917)}}
{{For|other places with a similar name|Russia (disambiguation)}}
{{Pp-move}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2024}}
{{Use American English|date=December 2024}}
{{Infobox country
| conventional_long_name = Russian Empire
| native_name = {{native name|ru|Российская Империя}}<br />{{transliteration|ru|Rossíyskaya Impériya}}
| common_name = Imperial Russia
| image_flag = Flag of Russia.svg
| image_flag2 = Flag of the Russian Empire (black-yellow-white).svg
| flag_type = [[Flag of Russia|'''Top:'''<br />Civil ensign (1696–1917);<br />State flag (1896–1917)]]<br />[[Black-yellow-white flag of the Russian Empire|'''Bottom:'''<br />State flag (1858–1896)]]
| image_coat = Greater Coat of Arms of the Russian Empire.svg
| symbol_type = {{Nowrap|[[Coat of arms of the Russian Empire|Greater Coat of Arms]]}}<br />
| national_motto = {{lang|ru|Съ Нами Богъ!}}<br />('God is with us!')
| national_anthem = {{lang|ru|«Боже, Царя храни!»}}<br/>("[[God Save the Tsar!]]"; 1833–1917){{Parabr}}{{Center|[[File:Bozhe, tsarya khrani!.ogg]]}}
| image_map = {{Switcher|[[File:Russian Empire (orthographic projection).svg|frameless]]{{Parabr}}{{Legend0|#145a37|Russia in 1914}} {{Legend0|#148237|Lost in 1856–1914}}<br />{{Legend0|#5faf5f|Spheres of influence}} {{Legend0|#00d321|Protectorates{{Efn|Principalities of [[Moldavia]] and [[Wallachia]] in 1829–1856.}}}}<br />{{Parabr}}|Show globe|[[File:Russian Empire (1914).svg|frameless|alt=The Russian Empire on the eve of the First World War]]|Show map of Europe|default=1}}
| capital = [[Saint Petersburg]]{{Efn|In 1914, the city was renamed [[Saint Petersburg#Toponymy|Petrograd]] to reflect anti-German sentiments of Russia during [[World War I]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=St. Petersburg through the Ages |url=https://forumspb.com/en/o-sankt-peterburge/history |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220806095844/https://forumspb.com/en/o-sankt-peterburge/history |archive-date=6 August 2022 |access-date=6 August 2022 |website=St. Petersburg International Economic Forum}}</ref>}}<br />{{Nowrap|(1721–1728; 1730–1917)}}<br />[[Moscow]] <br />(1728–1730)<ref>"[https://rusmania.com/history-of-russia/18th-century 18th Century in the Russian History]", Rusmania. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220319083640/https://rusmania.com/history-of-russia/18th-century |date=19 March 2022}}.</ref>
| largest_city = [[Saint Petersburg]]
| official_languages = [[Russian language|Russian]]
| recognized_languages = [[Polish language|Polish]], [[German language|German]] (in [[Baltic provinces]]), [[Finnish language|Finnish]], [[Swedish language|Swedish]]
| religion = {{Ublist|item_style=white-space;|{{Tree list}}
* 88.2% [[Christianity]]
** 71.3% [[Eastern Orthodox Church|Eastern Orthodox]] ([[state religion|official]])<ref>{{Cite book |last=Coleman |first=Heather J. |title=Orthodox Christianity in Imperial Russia: A Source Book on Lived Religion |publisher=Indiana University Press |date=2014 |isbn=978-0-253-01318-7 |page=4 |quote=After all, Orthodoxy was both the majority faith in the Russian Empire – approximately 70 percent subscribed to this faith in the 1897 census–and the state religion.}}</ref>
** 9.2% [[Catholic]]
** 7.7% Other [[List of Christian denominations|Christian]]
{{Tree list/end}}|7.1% [[Islam]]|4.2% [[Judaism]]|0.3% [[Buddhism]]|0.2% Others}}
| religion_year = [[Russian Empire census|1897]]
| government_type = Unitary [[absolute monarchy]]<br />(1721–1906)<br />Unitary parliamentary [[semi-constitutional monarchy]]<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Williams |first=Beryl |date=1 December 1994 |title=The concept of the first Duma: Russia 1905–1906 |journal=Parliaments, Estates and Representation |volume=14 |issue=2 |pages=149–158 |doi=10.1080/02606755.1994.9525857}}</ref><br />(1906–1917)<br />[[Russian Provisional Government|Russian provisional government]] (1917)
| title_leader = [[Emperor of Russia|Emperor]]
| leader1 = [[Peter the Great|Peter I]]
| year_leader2 = 1894–1917 (last)<br />(''de facto'')
| leader2 = [[Nicholas II]]
| year_leader1 = 1721–1725 (first)
| year_leader3 = 1917 (last)<br />(''de jure'')
| leader3 = [[Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich of Russia|Grand Duke Michael]]
| title_deputy = {{Longitem|[[Chancellor (Russia)|Chancellor]]/[[List of heads of government of Russia#Russian Empire (1905–1917)|Prime Minister]]}}
| deputy1 = {{Nowrap|[[Nikolai Rumyantsev]]{{Efn|As Chairman of the [[Committee of Ministers of the Russian Empire|Committee of Ministers]].}}}}
| year_deputy1 = 1810–1812 (first)
| deputy2 = [[Alexander Kerensky]]
| year_deputy2 = 1917 (last)
| legislature = [[Governing Senate]]<ref>"The Sovereign Emperor exercises legislative power in conjunction with the State Council and State Duma". [[Russian Constitution of 1906|Fundamental Laws]], [http://www.imperialhouse.ru/en/dynastyhistory/dinzak1/441.html "Chapter One On the Essence of Supreme Sovereign Power Article 7."] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190608203053/http://www.imperialhouse.ru/en/dynastyhistory/dinzak1/441.html|date=8 June 2019}}</ref>
| house1 = [[State Council (Russian Empire)|State Council]]<br />(1810–1917)
| house2 = [[State Duma (Russian Empire)|State Duma]]<br />(1905–1917)
| event_pre = [[Treaty of Nystad]]
| date_pre = 10 September 1721
| event_start = Proclaimed
| date_start = 2 November
| year_start = 1721
| event1 = [[Table of Ranks]]
| date_event1 = 4 February 1722
| event2 = [[Decembrist revolt]]
| date_event2 = {{Nowrap|26 December 1825}}
| event3 = [[Emancipation reform of 1861|Emancipation reform]]
| date_event3 = 3 March 1861
| event4 = [[Alaska Purchase|Sale of Alaska]]
| date_event4 = 18 October 1867
| event5 = [[1905 Revolution]]
| date_event5 = Jan 1905 – Jul 1907
| event6 = [[October Manifesto]]
| date_event6 = 30 October 1905
| event7 = {{Nowrap|[[Russian Constitution of 1906|Constitution]] adopted}}
| date_event7 = 6 May 1906
| event8 = [[February Revolution]]
| date_event8 = 8–16 March 1917
| event_end = Proclamation of the [[Russian Republic|Republic]]
| date_end = 14 September
| year_end = 1917
| stat_year1 = 1895
| stat_area1 = 22800000
| ref_area1 = <ref>{{Cite journal |first=Rein |last=Taagepera |author-link=Rein Taagepera |date=September 1997 |title=Expansion and Contraction Patterns of Large Polities: Context for Russia |url=http://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/3cn68807 |url-status=live |journal=[[International Studies Quarterly]] |volume=41 |issue=3 |pages=475–504 |doi=10.1111/0020-8833.00053 |jstor=2600793 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181119114740/https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3cn68807 |archive-date=19 November 2018 |access-date=28 June 2019|url-access=subscription }}; {{Cite journal |last1=Turchin |first1=Peter |last2=Adams |first2=Jonathan M. |last3=Hall |first3=Thomas D. |date=December 2006 |title=East-West Orientation of Historical Empires |url=http://jwsr.pitt.edu/ojs/index.php/jwsr/article/view/369/381 |url-status=live |journal=Journal of World-Systems Research |volume=12 |issue=2 |page=223 |issn=1076-156X |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160917031715/http://jwsr.pitt.edu/ojs/index.php/jwsr/article/view/369/381 |archive-date=17 September 2016 |access-date=11 September 2016}}</ref>
| stat_year2 = [[Russian Empire census|1897]]
| stat_pop2 = 125,640,021
| stat_year3 = 1910<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Price of Expansion: The Nationality Problem in Russia of the Eighteenth-Early Twentieth Centuries |url=https://src-h.slav.hokudai.ac.jp/sympo/97summer/mironov.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230308110647/https://src-h.slav.hokudai.ac.jp/sympo/97summer/mironov.html |archive-date=8 March 2023 |access-date=20 July 2024 |website=Slavic Research Center}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Population of the Major European Countries in the 19th Century |url=https://dmorgan.web.wesleyan.edu/materials/population.htm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240228222116/https://dmorgan.web.wesleyan.edu/materials/population.htm |archive-date=28 February 2024 |access-date=20 July 2024 |website=Wesleyan University}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Population of Russia and the USSR, 1913 to 1928 |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/4812467 |access-date=20 July 2024 |website=Research Gate}}</ref>
| stat_pop3 = 161,000,000
| currency = [[Russian ruble]]
| p1 = Tsardom of Russia{{!}}{{Nowrap|Tsardom of}}<br />Russia
| flag_p1 = Flag of Oryol ship (variant).svg
| s1 = Russian Republic
| flag_s1 = Flag of Russia.svg
| demonym = [[Russians|Russian]]
}}
The '''Russian Empire'''{{Efn|{{Lang-rus|Россійская Имперія|r=Rossíyskaya Impériya|p=rɐˈsʲijskəjə ɪmˈpʲerʲɪjə|a=Ru-Российская империя.ogg}}; {{Langx|ru|Российская Империя|label=none}} in [[Reforms of Russian orthography#The post-revolution reform|modern Russian spelling]].}}{{Efn|Also known as '''Imperial Russia''', and in some contexts may be imprecisely referred to as '''Tsarist Russia''', or simply '''Russia'''. Also, '''pre-revolutionary Russia''' may refer to the Russian Empire either before the [[Russian Revolution of 1905]] or before the [[Russian Revolution of 1917]].}} was an [[empire]] that spanned most of northern [[Eurasia]] from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the [[Russian Republic]] in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about {{Convert|22,800,000|km2|sqmi|abbr=on}}, roughly one-sixth of the world's landmass, making it the [[list of largest empires|third-largest empire in history]], behind only the [[British Empire|British]] and [[Mongol Empire|Mongol]] empires. It also [[Russian colonization of North America|colonized Alaska]] between 1799 and 1867. The empire's [[1897 census]], the only one it conducted, found a population of 125.6 million with considerable ethnic, linguistic, religious, and socioeconomic diversity.
From the 10th to 17th centuries, the Russians had been ruled by a noble class known as the [[boyar]]s, above whom was the [[tsar]], an absolute monarch. The groundwork of the Russian Empire was laid by [[Ivan III]] ({{Reign|1462|1505}}), who greatly expanded his ___domain, established a centralized Russian [[national state]], and secured independence against the [[Tatars]]. His grandson, [[Ivan IV]] ({{Reign|1533|1584}}), became in 1547 the first Russian monarch to be crowned [[tsar of all Russia]]. Between 1550 and 1700, the Russian state grew by an average of {{Convert|35,000|km2|abbr=on}} per year. [[Peter the Great|Peter I]] transformed the tsardom into an empire, and fought numerous wars that turned a vast realm into a major European power. He moved the Russian capital from [[Moscow]] to the new model city of [[Saint Petersburg]], and led a cultural revolution that introduced a modern, scientific, rationalist, and Western-oriented system. [[Catherine the Great]] ({{Reign|1762|1796}}) presided over further expansion of the Russian state by conquest, [[Russian colonization of North America|colonization]], and diplomacy, while continuing Peter's policy of modernization. [[Alexander I of Russia|Alexander I]] ({{Reign|1801|1825}}) helped defeat the militaristic ambitions of [[Napoleon]] and subsequently constituted the [[Holy Alliance]], which aimed to restrain the rise of secularism and liberalism across Europe. Russia further expanded to the west, south, and east, strengthening its position as a European power. Its victories in the [[Russo-Turkish Wars]] were later checked by defeat in the [[Crimean War]] (1853–1856), leading to a period of reform and [[Russian conquest of Central Asia|conquests in Central Asia]].<ref name=":22">{{Cite web |title=The Great Game, 1856–1907: Russo-British Relations in Central and East Asia |url=https://reviews.history.ac.uk/review/1611 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220410163636/https://reviews.history.ac.uk/review/1611 |archive-date=10 April 2022 |access-date=8 October 2021 |website=reviews.history.ac.uk |language=en}}</ref> [[Alexander II of Russia|Alexander II]] ({{Reign|1855|1881}}) initiated [[Government reforms of Alexander II of Russia|numerous reforms]], most notably the [[Emancipation reform of 1861|1861 emancipation]] of all 23 million serfs.
By the start of the 19th century, Russian territory extended from the [[Arctic Ocean]] in the north to the [[Black Sea]] in the south, and from the [[Baltic Sea]] in the west to [[Russian America|Alaska, Hawaii, and California]] in the east. By the end of the 19th century, Russia had expanded its control over [[Russian conquest of the Caucasus|the Caucasus]], most of [[Central Asia]] and parts of [[Northeast Asia]]. Notwithstanding its extensive territorial gains and great power status, the empire entered the 20th century in a perilous state. The devastating [[Russian famine of 1891–1892]] killed hundreds of thousands and led to popular discontent. As the last remaining [[absolute monarchy]] in [[Europe]], the empire saw rapid political radicalization and the growing popularity of revolutionary ideas such as [[communism]].<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |title=Russian Empire |url=https://www.britannica.com/place/Russian-Empire/Russification-policy#ref340502 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221225190907/https://www.britannica.com/place/Russian-Empire/Russification-policy#ref340502 |archive-date=25 December 2022 |access-date=14 August 2022 |encyclopedia=[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]}}</ref> After the [[Russian Revolution of 1905]], [[Tsar Nicholas II]] authorized the creation of a national parliament, the [[State Duma (Russian Empire)|State Duma]], although he still retained absolute political power.
When Russia entered the [[World War I|First World War]] on the side of the [[Allies of World War I|Allies]], it suffered a series of defeats that further galvanized the population against the emperor. In 1917, mass unrest among the population and mutinies in the army culminated in the [[February Revolution]], which led to the abdication of Nicholas II, the formation of the [[Russian Provisional Government]], and the proclamation of the first [[Russian Republic]]. Political dysfunction, continued involvement in the widely unpopular war, and widespread food shortages resulted in [[July Days|mass demonstrations against the government in July]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Wade |first=Rex A. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uBfnjdxFUkUC |title=The Russian Revolution, 1917 |date=2005-04-21 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-84155-9 |language=en}}</ref> The republic was overthrown in the [[October Revolution]] by the [[Bolsheviks]], who proclaimed the [[Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic]] and whose [[Treaty of Brest-Litovsk]] ended Russia's involvement in the war, but who nevertheless were opposed by various factions known collectively as the [[White movement|Whites]].<ref name="geoffreyswain">{{Cite book |first=Geoffrey |last=Swain |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_a3pAgAAQBAJ |title=Trotsky and the Russian Revolution |publisher=Routledge |date=2014 |isbn=978-1-317-81278-4 |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=_a3pAgAAQBAJ&pg=PR15 15] |ol=37192398M |quote=The first government to be formed after the February Revolution of 1917 had, with one exception, been composed of liberals. |access-date=20 June 2015}}</ref><ref name="alexanderrabinowitch">{{Cite book |first=Alexander |last=Rabinowitch |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BEoBCGJ4VqYC&pg=PA1 |title=The Bolsheviks in Power: The First Year of Soviet Rule in Petrograd |publisher=Indiana University Press |date=2008 |isbn=978-0-253-22042-4 |page=1 |access-date=20 June 2015}}</ref> After emerging victorious in the [[Russian Civil War]], the Bolsheviks established the [[Soviet Union]] across most of the Russian territory; Russia was one of four continental European empires to collapse [[Aftermath of World War I|as a result of World War I]], along with [[German Empire|Germany]], [[Austria–Hungary]], and the [[Ottoman Empire]].<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vZokDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA331 |title=Decades of Reconstruction |publisher=Cambridge University Press |date=2017 |isbn=978-1-107-16574-8 |editor-last=Planert |editor-first=Ute |page=331 |access-date=5 January 2023 |editor-last2=Retallack |editor-first2=James}}</ref>
==History==
{{Main|History of Russia}}
{{see also|Territorial evolution of Russia}}
The foundations of a unified Russian state were laid in the 15th century under [[Ivan III of Russia|Ivan III]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bushkovitch |first=Paul |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Le-n7ZYjGWkC |title=A Concise History of Russia |date=2012 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-5215-4323-1 |___location=New York |page=48 |quote=Ivan III in his own time already had the reputation of the builder of the Russian state... The consolidation of Russia as a state was not just a territorial issue, for Ivan also began the development of a state apparatus... |access-date=30 December 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230423152841/https://books.google.com/books?id=Le-n7ZYjGWkC |archive-date=23 April 2023 |url-status=live}}; {{Cite book |last=Millar |first=James R. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=R-KYwQEACAAJ |title=Encyclopedia of Russian History |date=2004 |publisher=Macmillan Reference USA |isbn=978-0-0286-5693-9 |___location=New York |page=687 |quote=Under Ivan III's reign, the uniting of separate Russian principalities into a centralized state made great and rapid progress. |access-date=30 December 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231026094841/https://books.google.com/books?id=R-KYwQEACAAJ |archive-date=26 October 2023 |url-status=live}}</ref>{{sfn|Lieven|2021|p=964}} [[Moscow]] came to dominate the region known as [[Great Russia]], and by the early 16th century, the Russian states were united with Moscow.{{sfn|Lieven|2021|p=964}}<ref>{{Cite book |last=Moss |first=Walter G. |title=A History of Russia Volume 1: To 1917 |date=2003 |publisher=Anthem Press |isbn=978-0-8572-8752-6 |page=88 |language=en |quote=Ivan III (1462–1505) and his son, Vasili III (1505–1533), completed Moscow's quest to dominate Great Russia. Of the two rulers, Ivan III (the Great) accomplished the most, and Russian historians have called him 'the gatherer of the Russian lands'.}}</ref> The subjects of the Muscovite ruler were overwhelmingly [[Russians|Great Russian]] in ethnicity and [[Russian Orthodox Church|Orthodox]] in religion.{{sfn|Lieven|2021|p=964}} As Moscow was the only independent Orthodox power following the [[Fall of Constantinople|fall of the Byzantine Empire]] in 1453, its rulers had already taken symbolic steps toward becoming an empire by marrying into the Byzantine imperial dynasty, adopting the [[double-headed eagle]] as their symbol, and the title of [[tsar]] (''[[Caesar (title)|caesar]]'').{{sfn|Lieven|2021|p=964}}
During the reign of [[Ivan the Terrible|Ivan IV]], the khanates of [[Khanate of Kazan|Kazan]] and [[Khanate of Astrakhan|Astrakhan]] were conquered by Russia in the mid-16th century, marking the beginning of the transformation from an almost mono-ethnic realm into a multi-ethnic empire.{{sfn|Lieven|2021|p=965}}{{Sfn|Moss|2003|page=131}} The Russians began to expand into [[Siberia]], initially in pursuit of the region's [[Fur trade|profitable furs]].{{sfn|Lieven|2021|p=965}} Following the [[Time of Troubles]] in the early 17th century, the traditional alliance of autocratic monarchy, church, and aristocracy was seen as the only basis for preserving social order and Russian statehood, which legitimized the rule of the [[House of Romanov|Romanov dynasty]].{{sfn|Lieven|2021|p=965}}
===Peter the Great (1682–1725)===
{{See|Government reform of Peter the Great|History of Russia (1721–1796)}}
[[File:J.-M. Nattier (d'après) - Portrait de Pierre Ier (musée de l’Ermitage).jpg|thumb|[[Peter the Great]] officially proclaimed the Russian Empire in 1721 and became its first emperor. He instituted [[Government reform of Peter the Great|sweeping reforms]] and oversaw the transformation of Russia into a major European power. Painting by [[Jean-Marc Nattier]], 1717.]]
[[File:Coat of arms of russia 1710s.png|thumb|upright=.7|Coat of arms during the reign of Peter I]]
[[File:'The Victory at Poltava' by Alexander Evstafyevich Kotzebue, 1862, Hermitage.JPG|''The Victory [[Battle of Poltava|at Poltava]]'', painted by [[Alexander von Kotzebue]] in 1862|thumb]]
The foundations of the Russian Empire were laid during [[Peter the Great|Peter I]]'s reforms, which altered Russia's political and social structure,<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |date=2017 |title=Peter I |encyclopedia=[[Great Russian Encyclopedia]] [in electronic source] |url=https://bigenc.ru/domestic_history/text/3826088 |access-date=20 November 2022 |last=Anisimov |first=Yevgeniya |language=ru |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220104103730/https://bigenc.ru/domestic_history/text/3826088 |archive-date=4 January 2022 |url-status=dead}}</ref> and as a result of the [[Great Northern War]] which strengthened Russia's world standing.<ref name=":0"/><ref name="Osipov">{{Cite encyclopedia |date=2015 |title=Romania to Saint-Jean-de-Luz |encyclopedia=[[Great Russian Encyclopedia]] |url=https://bigenc.ru/military_science/text/3543492 |access-date=20 November 2022 |editor-last=Osipov |editor-first=Yuriy |series=2004–2017 |volume=29 |pages=617–20 |language=ru |isbn=978-5-8527-0366-8 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210417123305/https://bigenc.ru/military_science/text/3543492 |archive-date=17 April 2021 |chapter=The Great Northern War 1700–21 |url-status=dead}}</ref>
Peter I ({{Reign|1682|1725}}), played a major role in introducing the European state system into Russia. While Russia's vast lands had a population of 14 million, grain yields trailed behind those in the West.{{Sfn|Pipes|1974|pp=[https://archive.org/details/russiaunderoldre00pipe/page/9 9–10] |loc=Chapter 1: The Environment and its Consequences}} Nearly the entire population was devoted to agriculture, with only a small percentage living in towns. The class of ''[[kholop]]s'', whose status was close to that of [[slavery|slaves]], remained a major institution in Russia until 1723, when Peter converted household kholops into house [[Serfdom in Russia|serfs]], thus counting them for poll taxation. Agricultural kholops had been converted into serfs in 1679. They were largely tied to the land, in a feudal sense, until the late 19th century.
Peter's first military efforts were directed against the [[Ottoman Empire]]. His attention then turned north; Russia lacked a secure northern seaport, except at [[Arkhangelsk]] on the [[White Sea]], where the harbor was frozen for nine months a year. Access to the [[Baltic Sea]] was blocked by Sweden, whose territory enclosed it on three sides. Peter's ambitions for a "window to the sea" led him, in 1699, to make a secret alliance with [[Electorate of Saxony|Saxony]], the [[Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth]], and [[Denmark-Norway]] against [[Swedish Empire|Sweden]]; they conducted the [[Great Northern War]], which ended in 1721 when an exhausted Sweden asked for peace with Russia. On {{OldStyleDate|2 November|1721|22 October}}, the day of the announcement of the [[Treaty of Nystad]], the [[Governing Senate]] and [[Most Holy Synod|Synod]] invested the tsar with the titles of Peter the Great,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Madariaga |first1=Isabel De |title=Politics and Culture in Eighteenth-Century Russia: Collected Essays by Isabel de Madariaga |date=17 June 2014 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-317-88190-2 |pages=15–16 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=omjXAwAAQBAJ |language=en}}</ref> ''[[Pater Patriae]]'' (father of the fatherland),{{efn|{{Langx|ru|Отец отечества|Otets otechestva}}, {{IPA|ru|ɐˈtʲet͡s ɐˈtʲet͡ɕɪstvə|IPA}}}} and [[Emperor of Russia|''Imperator'' of all Russia]].{{efn|{{Langx|ru|Император и Самодержец Всероссийский|Imperator i Samoderzhets Vserossiyskiy}}}}<ref>{{Cite web |title=Прошение сенаторов к царю Петру I о принятии им титула "Отца Отечества, императора Всероссийского, Петра Великого" |trans-title=Petition of the senators to Tsar Peter I for the adoption of the title of "Father of the Fatherland, Emperor of all the Russias, Peter the Great" |url=http://www.school.edu.ru/collections/collectionitem/11664 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180829070929/http://www.school.edu.ru/collections/collectionitem/11664 |archive-date=2018-08-29 |access-date=2018-07-09 |website=Russian educational portal {{!}} Historical documents}}</ref>{{sfn|Feldbrugge|2017|p=152}} The adoption of the title of ''imperator'' by Peter I is seen as the beginning of "imperial" Russia.{{Efn|Originally there was no distinction between the titles ''[[tsar]]'' and ''[[imperator]]''. However, ''tsar'' was also used to refer to other monarchs below the rank of "[[emperor]]" (according to the Western European view), and thus Westerners began to translate ''tsar'' as ''[[rex (title)|rex]]'' ("king"). By adopting the title ''imperator'', Peter claimed equality to the [[Holy Roman Emperor]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Madariaga |first=Isabel De |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=omjXAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA40 |title=Politics and Culture in Eighteenth-Century Russi |date=2014 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-317-88190-2 |pages=40–42|quote=This explains much of the difficulty encountered by Peter I when he adopted the title ''Imperator''. The etymological origin of the word ''tsar'' had been glossed over and the title had been devalued.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Ageyeva, Olga |date=1999 |title=ТИТУЛ "ИМПЕРАТОР" И ПОНЯТИЕ "ИМПЕРИЯ" В РОССИИ В ПЕРВОЙ ЧЕТВЕРТИ XVIII ВЕКА |trans-title=The title "emperor" and the concept of "empire" in Russia in the first quarter of the 18th century |url=http://www.historia.ru/1999/05/ageyeva.htm |journal=World of History: Russian Electronic Journal |language=ru |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220316061503/http://www.historia.ru/1999/05/ageyeva.htm |archive-date=2022-03-16 |number=5}}</ref>}}<ref>{{Cite thesis |last=Solovyov |first=Yevgeny |title=Петр I в Отечественной Историографии: Конца XVIII – Начала XX ВВ |degree=Doctor of Historical Sciences |url=http://www.dissercat.com/content/petr-i-v-otechestvennoi-istoriografii-kontsa-xviii-nachala-xx-vv |place=Moscow |language=ru |trans-title=Peter I in Russian historiography of the late 18th – early 20th centuries |date=2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180707094918/http://www.dissercat.com/content/petr-i-v-otechestvennoi-istoriografii-kontsa-xviii-nachala-xx-vv |archive-date=7 July 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref>
As a result of the war with Sweden, Peter acquired four provinces situated south and east of the [[Gulf of Finland]], securing access to the sea. There he built Russia's new capital, [[Saint Petersburg]], on the [[Neva]] river in 1703, to replace Moscow, which had long been Russia's cultural center. This relocation expressed his intent to adopt European elements for his empire. Many of the government and other major buildings were designed under [[Italianate architecture|Italianate]] influence.
Peter reorganized his government based on the latest political models, molding Russia into an [[Absolutism (European history)|absolutist]] state. The Military Regulations recognised the [[Tsarist autocracy|autocratic nature]] of the regime.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Drozdek |first=Adam |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9ygSEAAAQBAJ&pg=PR10 |title=Theological Reflection in Eighteenth-Century Russia |date=2021 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=978-1-7936-4184-7 |pages=x}}</ref> Peter replaced the old [[Boyar Duma]] (council of nobles) with a nine-member [[Governing Senate|Senate]], in effect a supreme council of state. The vestiges of the independence of the [[boyar]]s were lost. The countryside was divided into new [[Governorate (Russia)|provinces and districts]]. Peter informed the Senate that its mission was to collect taxes, and tax revenues tripled over his reign. Peter continued and intensified his predecessors' requirement of state service from all nobles, in the [[Table of Ranks]] and equated the ''[[votchina]]'' with an [[Estate (land)|estate]]. Russia's [[Imperial Russian Navy|modern fleet]] was built by Peter, along with an [[Imperial Russian Army|army]] reformed in a European style and educational institutions (the [[Russian Academy of Sciences|Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences]]). Civil lettering was adopted during Peter I's reign, and the first Russian newspaper, ''[[Sankt-Peterburgskie Vedomosti|Vedomosti]]'', was published. Peter I promoted science, particularly [[geography]] and [[geology]], trade, and industry,<ref>{{Cite thesis |last=Dubakov |first=Maxim Valentinovich |title=Промышленно-торговая политика Петра 1 |access-date=4 April 2023 |degree=Dissertation abstract |url=https://economy-lib.com/promyshlenno-torgovaya-politika-petra-1 |language=ru |trans-title=Industrial and trade policy of Peter I |date=2004 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180414233833/http://economy-lib.com/promyshlenno-torgovaya-politika-petra-1 |archive-date=14 April 2018 |url-status=live |___location=Moscow}}</ref> including shipbuilding, as well as the growth of the educational system. Every tenth Russian acquired an education during his reign, when there were 15 million Russians.<ref>{{Cite thesis |last=Yarysheva |first=Svetlana |title=Formation of the system of Russian education during the reforms of Peter I |access-date=20 November 2022 |degree=Abstract dissertion |url=http://www.dissercat.com/content/stanovlenie-sistemy-rossiiskogo-obrazovaniya-v-gody-reform-petra-i |place=Pyatigorsk |language=ru |date=2001 |archive-date=29 June 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180629211159/http://www.dissercat.com/content/stanovlenie-sistemy-rossiiskogo-obrazovaniya-v-gody-reform-petra-i |url-status=live}}</ref>
As part of Peter's reorganization, he enacted a [[Church reform of Peter the Great|church reform]]. The [[Russian Orthodox Church]] was partially incorporated into the country's administrative structure, in effect making it a tool of the state. Peter abolished the [[Patriarch of Moscow and all Rus'|patriarchate]] and replaced it with a collective body, the [[Most Holy Synod]], which was led by a [[Procurator (Russia)|government official]].{{Sfn|Hughes|1998}}
The concept of the triune of the Russian people, composed of the [[Russians|Great Russians]], the [[Little Russians]], and the [[Belarusians|White Russians]], was introduced under Peter I, and it was associated with the name of Archimandrite [[Zacharias Kopystensky]] (1621), the Archimandrite of the [[Kiev Pechersk Lavra]] and expanded upon in the writings of an associate of Peter I, Archbishop Professor [[Theophan Prokopovich]]. Several of Peter I's associates include [[Alexander Danilovich Menshikov|Alexander Menshikov]], [[Jacob Bruce]], [[Mikhail Mikhailovich Golitsyn (Field Marshal)|Mikhail Golitsyn]] and [[Anikita Repnin]]. During Peter's reign serf labor played a significant role in the growth of industry, reinforcing traditional socioeconomic structures. International trade increased as a result of Peter I's industrial reforms. However, imports of goods overtook exports, strengthening the role of foreigners in Russian trade, particularly the [[Kingdom of Great Britain|British]].<ref>{{Cite thesis |last=Novosyolova |first=Nataliya Ivanovna |title=Внешняя торговля и финансово-экономическая политика Петра I |access-date=5 April 2023 |degree=Abstract dissertion |url=http://www.dissercat.com/content/vneshnyaya-torgovlya-i-finansovo-ekonomicheskaya-politika-petra-i |place=Saint Petersburg |language=ru |trans-title=Foreign trade and financial and economic policy of Peter I |date=1999 |archive-date=29 June 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180629211209/http://www.dissercat.com/content/vneshnyaya-torgovlya-i-finansovo-ekonomicheskaya-politika-petra-i |url-status=live}}</ref>
In 1722, Peter turned his aspirations toward increasing Russian influence in the [[Caucasus]] and the [[Caspian Sea]] at the expense of the weakened [[Safavid Iran|Safavid Persians]]. He made [[Astrakhan]] the base of military efforts against Persia, and waged the first full-scale war [[Russo-Persian War (1722–1723)|against them in 1722–23]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Cracraft |first=James |title=The Revolution of Peter the Great |date=2003 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=978-0-6740-1196-0}}</ref> Peter the Great [[Treaty of Saint Petersburg (1723)|temporarily annexed]] areas of Iran to Russia, which after his death were returned in the 1732 [[Treaty of Resht]] and 1735 [[Treaty of Ganja]] as a deal to oppose the Ottomans.<ref>{{Cite web |title=BOUNDARIES ii. With Russia |url=https://iranicaonline.org/articles/boundaries-ii |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210905134755/https://iranicaonline.org/articles/boundaries-ii |archive-date=5 September 2021 |access-date=15 October 2021 |website=iranicaonline.org |language=en-US}}</ref>
Peter died in 1725, leaving an unsettled succession. After a short reign by his widow, [[Catherine I of Russia|Catherine I]], the crown passed to Empress [[Anna of Russia|Anna]]. She slowed reforms and led a successful [[Austro-Russian–Turkish War (1735–39)|war against the Ottoman Empire]]. This resulted in a significant weakening of the [[Crimean Khanate]], an Ottoman vassal and long-term Russian adversary. The next emperor, the infant Ivan VI was deposed and killed. The discontent over the dominant positions of [[Baltic Germans]] in Russian politics resulted in Peter I's daughter [[Elizabeth of Russia|Elizabeth]] being put on the Russian throne. Elizabeth supported the arts, architecture, and the sciences (for example, the founding of [[Moscow University]]). But she did not carry out significant structural reforms. Her reign, which lasted nearly 20 years, is also known for Russia's involvement in the [[Seven Years' War]], where it was successful militarily, but gained little politically.<ref>Philip Longworth and John Charlton, ''The Three Empresses: Catherine I, Anne and Elizabeth of Russia'' (1972).</ref>
===Catherine the Great (1762–1796)===
{{See also|Russia and the American Revolution#Russian Diplomacy during the War}}
[[File:Catherine II by J.B.Lampi (1780s, Kunsthistorisches Museum).jpg|thumb|Empress [[Catherine the Great]], who reigned from 1762 to 1796, continued the empire's expansion and modernization. Considering herself an [[enlightened absolutist]], she played a key role in the [[Russian Enlightenment]] (painted in the 1780s).]]
[[File:Rouble - Catherine II ММД.jpg|thumb|1764, Ruble Catherine II ММД, Krasny Mint]]
[[File:Измаил штурм.jpg|thumb|''The [[Siege of Izmail|Storming of Izmail]] on December 22, 1790'', by Russian troops under the command of [[Alexander Suvorov]]. Suvorov's victory was immortalized with the empire's newfound national anthem: "[[Let the Thunder of Victory Rumble! (anthem)|Let the Thunder of Victory Rumble!]]".]]
[[Catherine the Great]] was a German princess who married [[Peter III of Russia|Peter III]], the German heir to the Russian crown. After the death of Empress Elizabeth, Catherine came to power after she effected a coup d'état against her very unpopular husband. She contributed to the resurgence of the [[Russian nobility]] that began after the death of Peter the Great, abolishing State service and granting them control of most state functions in the provinces. She also removed the [[Beard tax]] instituted by Peter the Great.<ref>Isabel De Madariaga, ''Russia in the Age of Catherine the Great'' (Yale University Press, 1981)</ref>
Catherine extended Russian political control over the lands of the [[Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth]], supporting the [[Targowica Confederation]]. However, the cost of these campaigns further burdened the already oppressive social system, under which serfs were required to spend almost all of their time laboring on their owners' land. A major peasant uprising took place in 1773, after Catherine legalized the selling of serfs separate from land. Inspired by a [[Cossacks|Cossack]] named [[Yemelyan Pugachev]] and proclaiming "Hang all the landlords!", the rebels threatened to take Moscow before they were ruthlessly suppressed. Instead of imposing the traditional punishment of drawing and quartering, Catherine issued secret instructions that the executioners should execute death sentences quickly and with minimal suffering, as part of her effort to introduce compassion into the law.<ref>John T. Alexander, ''Autocratic politics in a national crisis: the Imperial Russian government and Pugachev's revolt, 1773–1775'' (1969).</ref>
She furthered these efforts by ordering the public trial of [[Darya Nikolayevna Saltykova]], a high-ranking noblewoman, on charges of torturing and murdering serfs. Whilst these gestures garnered Catherine much positive attention from Europe during the [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]], the specter of revolution and disorder continued to haunt her and her successors. Indeed, her son [[Paul I of Russia|Paul]] [[Personality and reputation of Paul I of Russia|introduced a number of increasingly erratic decrees]] in his short reign aimed directly against the spread of French culture in response to [[French Revolution|their revolution]].
In order to ensure the continued support of the nobility, which was essential to her reign, Catherine was obliged to strengthen their authority and power at the expense of the serfs and other lower classes. Nevertheless, Catherine realized that serfdom must eventually be ended, going so far in her ''[[Nakaz]]'' ("Instruction") to say that serfs were "just as good as we are" – a comment received with disgust by the nobility. Catherine advanced Russia's southern and western frontiers, [[Russo-Turkish Wars |successfully waging war]] against the Ottoman Empire for territory near the [[Black Sea]], and incorporating territories of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth during the [[Partitions of Poland]], alongside [[Habsburg monarchy|Austria]] and [[Prussia]]. As part of the [[Treaty of Georgievsk]], signed with the Georgian [[Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti]], and her own political aspirations, Catherine waged a new war [[Persian Expedition of 1796|against Persia]] in 1796 after they had invaded [[Eastern Georgia (country) |eastern Georgia]]. Upon achieving victory, she established Russian rule over it and expelled the newly established Persian garrisons in the Caucasus.
Catherine's expansionist policy caused Russia to develop into a major European power,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Massie |first=Robert K. |title=Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman |date=2011 |publisher=Random House |isbn=978-1-5883-6044-1}}</ref> as did the [[Russian Enlightenment|Enlightenment era]] and the Golden age in Russia. But after Catherine died in 1796, she was succeeded by her son, [[Paul I of Russia|Paul]]. He brought Russia into a [[War of the Second Coalition|major coalition war]] against the new-revolutionary [[French First Republic|French Republic]] in 1798. Russian commander Field Marshal [[Suvorov]] led the [[Italian and Swiss expedition]],—he inflicted a series of defeats on the French; in particular, the [[Battle of the Trebbia (1799)|Battle of the Trebbia]] in 1799.
====State budget====
[[File:Russia 1771 Sestroretsk Rouble.jpg|thumb|upright=1.35|Catherine II Sestroretsk Ruble (1771) is made of solid copper measuring {{Convert|77|mm|in|frac=32|abbr=on}} (diameter), {{Convert|26|mm|in|frac=32|abbr=on}} (thickness), and weighs {{Convert|1041|g|lboz|frac=8|abbr=on}}.<ref>{{Citation |title=Catherine II. Novodel Sestroretsk Rouble 1771 |df=dmy-all |url=http://coins.ha.com/itm/russia/russia-catherine-ii-novodel-sestroretsk-rouble-1771-romanov-eagle-with-date-on-breast-within-wreath-crown-over-value-in-two-line/a/410-14564.s?type= |access-date=1 September 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160422100207/http://coins.ha.com/itm/russia/russia-catherine-ii-novodel-sestroretsk-rouble-1771-romanov-eagle-with-date-on-breast-within-wreath-crown-over-value-in-two-line/a/410-14564.s?type= |archive-date=22 April 2016 |url-status=live |publisher=Heritage Auctions}}</ref>]]
Russia was in a continuous state of financial crisis. While revenue rose from 9 million rubles in 1724 to 40 million in 1794, expenses grew more rapidly, reaching 49 million in 1794. The budget allocated 46 percent to the military, 20 percent to government economic activities, 12 percent to administration, and nine percent for the Imperial Court in St. Petersburg. The deficit required borrowing, primarily from bankers in [[Amsterdam]]; five percent of the budget was allocated to debt payments. Paper money was issued to pay for expensive wars, thus causing inflation. As a result of its spending, Russia developed a large and well-equipped army, a very large and complex bureaucracy, and a court that rivaled those of [[Palace of Versailles|Versailles]] and London. But the government was living far beyond its means, and 18th-century Russia remained "a poor, backward, overwhelmingly agricultural, and illiterate country".<ref>Nicholas Riasanovsky, ''A History of Russia'' (4th ed. 1984), p 284</ref>
===Population===
Much of Russia's expansion occurred in the 17th century, culminating in the [[history of Siberia|first Russian colonization of the Pacific]], the [[Russo-Polish War (1654–1667)]] which led to the incorporation of [[left-bank Ukraine]], and the [[Russian conquest of Siberia]]. Poland was partitioned by its rivals in 1772–1815, most of its land and population taken under Russian rule. Most of the empire's growth in the 19th century came from gaining territory in central and eastern Asia south of Siberia.<ref>{{Harvnb|Catchpole|1974|pp=8–31}}; Gilbert, Martin. ''Atlas of Russian history'' (1993) pp 33–74.</ref> By 1795, after the [[Partitions of Poland]], Russia became the most populous state in Europe, ahead of [[France]].
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! width="60" | Year
! width="240pt" | Population of Russia (millions)<ref>{{Harvnb|Catchpole|1974|p=25}}; {{Cite web |title=Первая всеобщая перепись населения Российской Империи 1897 г. |trans-title=First general census of the population of the Russian Empire in 1897 |url=http://demoscope.ru/weekly/ssp/rus_lan_97.php |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120204034344/http://demoscope.ru/weekly/ssp/rus_lan_97.php |archive-date=4 February 2012 |access-date=26 March 2021 |website=Demoscope Weekly |language=ru}}</ref>
! width="300pt" | Notes
|-
| 1720
| 16
| includes new [[Baltic states|Baltic]] & [[Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth|Polish]] territories
|-
| 1795
| 38
| includes part of Poland
|-
| 1812
| 43
| includes [[Grand Duchy of Finland]]
|-
| 1816
| 73
| includes [[Congress Poland]], [[Bessarabia]]
|-
| 1897
| 126
| [[Russian Empire census]],{{Efn|First and only census carried out in the Russian Empire.}} excludes Grand Duchy of Finland
|-
| 1914
| 164
| includes new Asian territories
|-
|}
===First half of the 19th century===
{{Main|History of Russia (1796–1855)}}
[[File:Peter von Hess 002.jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|left|An 1843 painting imagining Russian general [[Pyotr Bagration]], giving orders during the [[Battle of Borodino]] (1812) while wounded]]
In 1801, over four years after Paul became the emperor of Russia, he was killed in [[Saint Michael's Castle]] in a coup. Paul was succeeded by his 23-year-old son, [[Alexander I of Russia|Alexander]]. Russia was in a [[Napoleonic Wars|state of war]] with the French Republic under the leadership of the [[Corsica]]-born [[French Consulate|First Consul]] [[Napoleon Bonaparte]]. After he became the [[Emperor of the French|emperor]], Napoleon defeated Russia at [[Battle of Austerlitz|Austerlitz]] in 1805, [[Battle of Eylau|Eylau]] and [[Battle of Friedland|Friedland]] in 1807. After Alexander was defeated in Friedland, he agreed to negotiate and sued for peace with France; the [[Treaties of Tilsit]] led to the Franco-Russian alliance against the [[Coalition forces of the Napoleonic Wars|Coalition]] and joined the [[Continental System]].{{Sfn|Dowling|2014|p=24}} By 1812, Russia had occupied many territories in Eastern Europe, holding some of [[Eastern Galicia]] from [[Austrian Empire|Austria]] and [[Bessarabia Governorate|Bessarabia]] from the [[Ottoman Empire]];{{Sfn|Dowling|2014|p=801}} from Northern Europe, it had gained [[Grand Duchy of Finland|Finland]] from the [[Finnish War|war]] against a weakened [[Gustavian era|Sweden]]; it also gained some territory in the Caucasus.
Following a dispute with Emperor Alexander I, in 1812, Napoleon launched an [[French invasion of Russia|invasion of Russia]]. It was catastrophic for France, whose army was decimated during the [[Russian winter]]. Although Napoleon's [[Grande Armée]] reached Moscow, the Russians' [[scorched earth]] strategy prevented the invaders from living off the country. In the harsh and bitter winter, thousands of French troops were ambushed and killed by peasant [[guerrilla]] fighters.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Palmer |first=Alan |author-link=Alan Palmer |title=Napoleon in Russia |date=1967 |publisher=Simon and Schuster}}</ref> Russian troops then pursued Napoleon's troops to the gates of Paris, presiding over the redrawing of the map of Europe at the [[Congress of Vienna]] (1815), which ultimately made Alexander the monarch of [[Congress Poland]].<ref>{{Cite book |first=Leonid Ivan |last=Strakhovsky |title=Alexander I of Russia: the man who defeated Napoleon |date=1970}}</ref> The "[[Holy Alliance]]" was proclaimed, linking the monarchist great powers of Austria, Prussia, and Russia.
[[File:Fire of Moscow 1812.jpg|thumb|An 1813 painting depicting the [[Fire of Moscow (1812)|Fire of Moscow]], Russia had burned the city just before Napoleon could reach and occupy it.]]
Although the Russian Empire played a leading political role in the next century, thanks to its role in defeating Napoleonic France, its retention of serfdom precluded economic progress to any significant degree. As Western European economic growth accelerated during the [[Industrial Revolution]], Russia began to lag ever farther behind, creating new weaknesses for the empire seeking to play a role as a great power. Russia's status as a great power concealed the inefficiency of its government, the isolation of its people, and its economic and social backwardness. Following the defeat of Napoleon, Alexander I had been ready to discuss constitutional reforms, but though [[government reform of Alexander I|a few were introduced]], no major changes were attempted.<ref>Baykov, Alexander. "The economic development of Russia." ''[[Economic History Review]]'' 7.2 (1954): 137–149.</ref>
[[File:Livebridge.jpg|thumb|This 1892 painting imagines a scene of Russian troops forming a bridge with their bodies, moving equipment to prepare for invading Persian forces during the [[Russo-Persian War (1804–1813)]], which occurred contemporaneously with the [[French invasion of Russia]].]]
The liberal Alexander I was replaced by his younger brother [[Nicholas I of Russia|Nicholas I]] (1825–1855), who at the beginning of his reign was confronted with an uprising. 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]]. The result was the [[Decembrist revolt]] (December 1825), which was the work of a small circle of liberal nobles and army officers who wanted to install Nicholas' brother [[Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich of Russia|Constantine]] as a constitutional monarch. The revolt was easily crushed, but it caused Nicholas to turn away from the modernization program begun by Peter the Great and champion the doctrine of [[Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Lincoln |first=W. Bruce |author-link=W. Bruce Lincoln |title=Nicholas I, Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias |date=1978}}</ref>
In order to repress further revolts, censorship was intensified, including the constant surveillance of schools and universities. Textbooks were strictly regulated by the government. Police spies were planted everywhere. Under Nicholas I, would-be revolutionaries were sent off to Siberia, with hundreds of thousands sent to [[katorga]] camps.<ref>{{Cite book |first=Anatole Gregory |last=Mazour |title=The first Russian revolution, 1825: the Decembrist movement, its origins, development, and significance |date=1961}}</ref> The retaliation for the revolt made "December Fourteenth" a day long remembered by later revolutionary movements.{{Citation needed|date=May 2024}}
The question of Russia's direction had been gaining attention ever since Peter the Great's program of modernization. Some favored imitating Western Europe while others were against this and called for a return to the traditions of the past. The latter path was advocated by [[Slavophilia|Slavophiles]], who held the "decadent" West in contempt. The Slavophiles were opponents of bureaucracy, who preferred the [[Collectivism and individualism|collectivism]] of the medieval Russian ''[[obshchina]]'' or ''mir'' over the [[individualism]] of the West.{{Sfn|Stein|1976}} More extreme social doctrines were elaborated by such Russian radicals on the left, such as [[Alexander Herzen]], [[Mikhail Bakunin]], and [[Peter Kropotkin]].
====Foreign policy (1800–1864)====
{{Main|Foreign policy of the Russian Empire}}
[[File:Siege of Erivan Fortress on 1 October 1827.jpg|thumb|left|[[Franz Roubaud]]'s 1893 painting of the [[Erivan Fortress]] [[Capture of Erivan|siege in 1827]] by the Russian forces under leadership of [[Ivan Paskevich]] during the [[Russo-Persian War (1826–1828)]]]]
[[File:Aivazovsky, Brig Mercury Attacked by Two Turkish Ships 1892.jpg|thumb|1892 painting depicting [[Imperial Russian Navy]] [[Brig "Mercury" Attacked by Two Turkish Ships]] in a scene from the [[Russo-Turkish War (1828–1829)]], by [[Ivan Aivazovsky]]]]
After Russian armies liberated the [[Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti|Eastern Georgian Kingdom]] (allied since the 1783 [[Treaty of Georgievsk]]) from the [[Qajar dynasty]]'s occupation of 1802,{{Citation needed|date=April 2017}} during the [[Russo-Persian War (1804–1813)]], they clashed with Persia over control and consolidation of Georgia, and also became involved in the [[Caucasian War]] against the [[Caucasian Imamate]]. At the conclusion of the war, Persia irrevocably ceded what is now [[Dagestan]], eastern Georgia, and most of [[Azerbaijan]] to Russia, under the [[Treaty of Gulistan]].{{Sfn|Dowling|2014|p=728}} Russia attempted to expand to the southwest, at the expense of the Ottoman Empire, using recently acquired Georgia at its base for its Caucasus and Anatolian front. The late 1820s were successful years militarily. Despite losing almost all recently consolidated territories in the first year of the [[Russo-Persian War (1826–1828)|Russo-Persian War of 1826–1828]], Russia managed to favorably bring an end to the war with the [[Treaty of Turkmenchay]], including the formal acquisition of what are now [[Armenia]], Azerbaijan, and [[Iğdır Province]].{{Sfn|Dowling|2014|p=729}} In the [[History of the Russo-Turkish wars|1828–1829 Russo-Turkish War]], Russia invaded northeastern [[Anatolia]] and occupied the strategic Ottoman towns of [[Erzurum|Karin]] and [[Gümüşhane]] (Argiroupoli) and, posing as protector of the [[Greek Orthodox Church|Greek Orthodox population]], received extensive support from the region's [[Pontic Greeks]]. Following a brief occupation, the Russian imperial army withdrew back into Georgia.<ref>{{Cite book |first=David Marshall |last=Lang |author-link=David Marshall Lang |title=The last years of the Georgian monarchy, 1658–1832 |date=1957}}</ref>
Russian emperors quelled two uprisings in their newly acquired Polish territories: the [[November Uprising]] in 1830 and the [[January Uprising]] in 1863. In 1863, the Russian autocracy had given the Polish artisans and [[gentry]] reason to rebel, by assailing national core values of language, religion, and culture.<ref>{{Cite journal |first=Stephen R. |last=Burant |title=The January Uprising of 1863 in Poland: Sources of Disaffection and the Arenas of Revolt |journal=European History Quarterly |volume=15 |issue=2 |date=1985 |pages=131–156|doi=10.1177/026569148501500201 }}</ref> [[Second French Empire|France]], [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland|Britain]], and Austria tried to intervene in the crisis but were unable to do so. The Russian press and state [[propaganda]] used the Polish uprising to justify the need for unity in the empire.<ref name="Haynes">{{Cite book |last=Haynes |first=Margaret |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zs7KDwAAQBAJ&dq=russification+failed+finland+poland&pg=PA23 |title=Tsarist and Communist Russia 1855–1964. |date=2017 |publisher=University Press |isbn=978-0-1984-2144-3 |___location=Oxford |page=23 |access-date=11 March 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240227152931/https://books.google.com/books?id=zs7KDwAAQBAJ&dq=russification+failed+finland+poland&pg=PA23 |archive-date=27 February 2024 |url-status=live}}</ref> The semi-autonomous [[polity]] of Congress Poland subsequently lost its distinctive political and judicial rights, with [[Russification]] being imposed on its schools and courts.<ref>{{Cite book |first=Norman |last=Davies |author-link=Norman Davies |title=[[God's Playground|God's Playground: A History of Poland]] |publisher=Oxford University Press |date=1981 |volume=2 |pages=315–333, 352-63}}</ref> However, Russification policies in Poland, Finland and among the Germans in the Baltics largely failed and only strengthened political opposition.<ref name="Haynes"/>
{{Clear}}
{{Panorama
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|caption={{Center|A [[Panorama|panoramic]] view of [[Moscow]] from the [[Spasskaya Tower]] in 1819 (hand-drawn lithograph)}}
|alt=Panorama of Moscow in 1819 (hand-drawn lithograph)
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===Second half of the 19th century===
{{Main|History of Russia (1855–1892)}}
{{Further|Government reforms of Alexander II of Russia|Russia–United Kingdom relations}}
[[File:Imperial Standard of the Emperor of Russia (1858–1917).svg|thumb|Imperial Standard of the Tsar between from 1858 to 1917. Previous variations of the black eagle on gold background were used as far back as Peter the Great's time. The emblems on the wings represent [[Khanate of Kazan|Kazan]], [[Congress Poland|Poland]], [[Taurida Governorate|Taurida]], the [[Kievan Rus']], [[Grand Duchy of Finland|Finland]], [[Georgia within the Russian Empire|Georgia]], [[Khanate of Sibir|Siberia]], and [[Astrakhan Khanate|Astrakhan]]]]
[[File:Siege of Sebastopol 1613429909.jpg|thumb|The eleven-month [[Siege of Sevastopol (1854–55)|siege]] of a Russian naval base at [[Sevastopol]] during the [[Crimean War]]]]
[[File:KarazinNN VstRusVoyskGRM.jpg|thumb|Russian troops taking [[Samarkand]] (8 June 1868)]]
[[File:Russians entering khiva 1873 (cropped).jpg|thumb|right|Russian troops entering [[Khiva]] in 1873]]
[[File:Zahvat grivickogo reduta.jpg|thumb|Capturing of the Ottoman Turkish redoubt during the [[Siege of Plevna]] (1877)]]
In 1854–1855, Russia fought [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland|Britain]], [[Second French Empire|France]] and the [[Ottoman Empire]] in the [[Crimean War]], which Russia lost. The war was fought primarily in the [[Crimea|Crimean peninsula]], and to a lesser extent in the Baltic during the related [[Åland War]]. Since playing a major role in the defeat of Napoleon, Russia had been regarded as militarily invincible, but against a coalition of the great powers of Europe, the reverses it suffered on land and sea exposed the weakness of Emperor Nicholas I's regime.
When Emperor [[Alexander II of Russia|Alexander II]] ascended the throne in 1855, the desire for reform was widespread. A growing humanitarian movement attacked [[serfdom]] as inefficient. In 1859, there were more than 23 million serfs in usually poor living conditions. Alexander II decided to abolish [[serfdom]] from above, with ample provision for the landowners, rather than wait for it to be abolished from below by revolution.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Radzinsky |first=Edvard |title=Alexander II: The Last Great Tsar |date=2006 |publisher=Simon and Schuster |isbn=978-0-7432-8426-4}}</ref>
The [[Emancipation Reform of 1861]], which freed the serfs, was the single most important event in 19th-century Russian history, and the beginning of the end of the landed aristocracy's monopoly on power. The 1860s saw further socioeconomic reforms to clarify the position of the Russian government with regard to property rights.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Baten, Jörg |title=A History of the Global Economy. From 1500 to the Present. |date=2016 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-1075-0718-0 |page=81}}</ref> Emancipation brought a supply of free labor to the cities, stimulating industry, while the middle class grew in number and influence. However, instead of receiving their lands as a gift, the freed peasants had to pay a special lifetime tax to the government, which in turn paid the landlords a generous price for the land that they had lost. In numerous cases the peasants ended up with relatively small amounts of the least productive land. All the property turned over to the peasants was owned collectively by the ''mir'', the village community, which divided the land among the peasants and supervised the various holdings. Although serfdom was abolished, its abolition was achieved on terms unfavorable to peasants; thus, revolutionary tensions remained. Revolutionaries believed that the newly freed serfs were merely being sold into [[wage slavery]] in the onset of the industrial revolution, and that the urban [[bourgeoisie]] had effectively replaced the landowners.<ref>David Moon, ''The abolition of serfdom in Russia 1762–1907'' (Longman, 2001)</ref>
Seeking more territories, Russia [[Amur Annexation|obtained]] Priamurye ([[Outer Manchuria]]) from the weakened [[Qing dynasty|Manchu-led Qing China]], which had been occupied fighting against the [[Taiping Rebellion]]. In 1858, the [[Treaty of Aigun]] ceded much of the Manchu homeland to the Russian Empire, and in 1860, the [[Treaty of Peking]] also ceded the modern [[Primorsky Krai]], which provided the land for the establishment of the outpost of the future [[Vladivostok]].<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Polunov |first1=Alexander Y. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=q2qmBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA164 |title=Russia in the Nineteenth Century: Autocracy, Reform, and Social Change, 1814–1914 |last2=Owen |first2=Thomas C. |last3=Zakharova |first3=Larisa G. |publisher=Routledge |date=2015 |isbn=978-1-3174-6049-7 |page=164 |access-date=21 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230121184735/https://books.google.com/books?id=q2qmBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA164 |archive-date=21 January 2023 |url-status=live}}</ref> Meanwhile, Russia under [[Alexander II of Russia|Alexander II]] decided to sell what it saw as the indefensible [[Russian America]] to the [[History of the United States (1865–1918)|United States]] for 11 million rubles (7.2 million dollars) in 1867 to [[Andrew Johnson]]'s government in the [[Alaska Purchase]].<ref>{{Cite journal |date=1943-04-01 |title=Russian Opinion on the Cession of Alaska |url=https://doi.org/10.2307/1839639 |journal=The American Historical Review |volume=48 |issue=3 |pages=521–531 |doi=10.2307/1839639 |jstor=1839639 |issn=0002-8762|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Akinsha |first1=Konstantin |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=S8akKpxJqoMC&pg=PA74 |title=The Holy Place: Architecture, Ideology, and History in Russia |last2=Kozlov |first2=Georgi |last3=Hochfleid |first3=Sylvya |publisher=Yale University Press |date=2008 |isbn=978-0-3001-4497-0 |page=74 |access-date=21 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230117183005/https://books.google.com/books?id=S8akKpxJqoMC&pg=PA74 |archive-date=17 January 2023 |url-status=live}}; {{Cite book |last=Borrero |first=Mauricio |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dhm0cGdrTOIC&pg=PA54 |title=Russia: A Reference Guide from the Renaissance to the Present |publisher=Infobase Publishing |date=2009 |isbn=978-0-8160-7475-4 |page=54 |access-date=21 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230120173820/https://books.google.com/books?id=dhm0cGdrTOIC&pg=PA54 |archive-date=20 January 2023 |url-status=live}}</ref> Initially, many Americans considered this newly gained territory to be a wasteland and useless, and saw the government wasting money, whereupon the transaction was sometimes called "Seward's Folly" through the eponymous [[United States Secretary of State|Secretary of State]] [[William H. Seward]] who brokered the deal,<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Bailey |first=Thomas A. |date=1934-03-01 |title=Why the United States Purchased Alaska |url=https://doi.org/10.2307/3633456 |journal=Pacific Historical Review |volume=3 |issue=1 |pages=39–49 |doi=10.2307/3633456 |jstor=3633456 |issn=0030-8684|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Jones |first=Preston |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=W5sXAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA21 |title=The Fires of Patriotism: Alaskans in the Days of the First World War 1910–1920 |publisher=University of Alaska Press |date=2017 |isbn=978-1-6022-3206-8 |pages=21}}</ref> but later, much gold and petroleum were discovered.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Grinev |first=Andrei V. |date=2010-02-18 |title=The Plans for Russian Expansion in the New World and the North Pacific in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries |journal=European Journal of American Studies |language=en |volume=5 |issue=2 |doi=10.4000/ejas.7805 |issn=1991-9336 |doi-access=free}}</ref>
In the late 1870s, Russia and the Ottoman Empire again clashed in the Balkans. From 1875 to 1877, the Balkan crisis intensified, with rebellions against Ottoman rule by various Slavic nationalities,{{Sfn|Chapman|2002|p=113}} which the Ottoman Turks had dominated since the 15th century. This was seen as a political risk in Russia, which similarly suppressed its Muslims in Central Asia and Caucasia. Russian nationalist opinion became a major domestic factor with its support for liberating Balkan Christians from Ottoman rule and making Bulgaria and [[Principality of Serbia|Serbia]] independent. In early 1877, Russia intervened on behalf of Serbian and Russian volunteer forces,{{Sfn|Chapman|2002|p=114}} leading to the [[Russo-Turkish War (1877–78)]].{{Sfn|Geoffrey|2011|p=315}} Within one year, Russian troops were nearing [[Constantinople]] and the Ottomans surrendered. Russia's nationalist diplomats and generals persuaded Alexander II to force the Ottomans to sign the [[Treaty of San Stefano]] in March 1878, creating an enlarged, independent Bulgaria that stretched into the southwestern Balkans.{{Sfn|Chapman|2002|p=114}} When Britain threatened to declare war over the terms of the treaty, an exhausted Russia backed down. At the [[Congress of Berlin]] in July 1878, Russia agreed to the creation of a smaller [[Principality of Bulgaria|Bulgaria]] and [[Eastern Rumelia]], as a vassal state and an autonomous principality inside the Ottoman Empire, respectively.{{Sfn|Geoffrey|2011|p=316}}{{Sfn|Waldron|1997|p=121}} As a result, [[Pan-Slavism|Pan-Slavists]] were left with a legacy of bitterness against [[Austria-Hungary]] and [[German Empire|Germany]] for failing to back Russia. Disappointment at the results of the war stimulated revolutionary tensions, and helped Serbia, [[United Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia|Romania]], and [[Principality of Montenegro|Montenegro]] gain independence from, and strengthen themselves against, the Ottomans.{{Sfn|Seton-Watson|1967|pp=445–460}}
[[File:The defeat of Shipka Peak, Bulgarian War of Independence.JPG|thumb|Russian troops fighting against Ottoman troops at the [[Battle of Shipka Pass]] (1877)]]
Another significant result of the war was the acquisition from the Ottomans of the provinces of [[Batumi]], [[Ardahan]], and [[Kars]] in [[Transcaucasia]], which were transformed into the militarily administered regions of [[Batum Oblast]] and [[Kars Oblast]]. To replace Muslim refugees who had fled across the new frontier into Ottoman territory, the Russian authorities settled large numbers of Christians from ethnically diverse communities in Kars Oblast, particularly [[Georgians]], [[Caucasus Greeks]], and [[Armenians]], each of whom hoped to achieve protection and advance their own regional ambitions.
====Alexander III====
In 1881, Alexander II was assassinated by the [[Narodnaya Volya]], a [[Nihilist movement|Nihilist]] [[List of designated terrorist groups|terrorist organization]]. The throne passed to [[Alexander III of Russia|Alexander III]] (1881–1894), a reactionary who revived the maxim of "Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality" of Nicholas I. 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. During his reign, Russia formed the [[Franco-Russian Alliance]], to contain the growing power of Germany; completed the [[History of Central Asia#Russian expansion into Central Asia (19th century)|conquest of Central Asia]]; and demanded important territorial and commercial concessions from China. The emperor'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. Pobedonostsev taught his imperial pupils to fear freedom of speech and the press, as well as dislike democracy, constitutions, and the parliamentary system. Under Pobedonostsev, revolutionaries were persecuted—by the [[Okhrana|imperial secret police]], with thousands being exiled to [[Siberia]]—and a policy of [[Russification]] was carried out throughout the empire.<ref>Charles Lowe, ''Alexander III of Russia'' (1895) [https://archive.org/details/alexanderiiirus00lowegoog online] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170118111426/https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=n9hBAAAAYAAJ |date=18 January 2017}}; {{Cite book |last=Byrnes |first=Robert F. |title=Pobedonostsev: His Life and Thought |date=1968 |publisher=Indiana University Press}}</ref>
====Foreign policy (1864–1907)====
Russia had little difficulty expanding to the south, including conquering [[Turkestan]],<ref>{{Cite book |first=David |last=Schimmelpenninck Van Der Oye |title=Russian foreign policy, 1815–1917 |pages=554–574}} in {{Harvnb|Lieven|2006}}</ref> until Britain became alarmed when Russia threatened [[Emirate of Afghanistan|Afghanistan]], with the implicit threat to [[British Raj|India]]; and decades of diplomatic maneuvering resulted, called the [[Great Game]].{{Sfn|Seton-Watson|1967|pp=441–444, 679–682}} That rivalry between the two empires has been considered to have included far-flung territories such as [[Outer Mongolia]] and [[Tibet under Qing rule|Tibet]]. The maneuvering largely ended with the [[Anglo-Russian Convention]] of 1907.<ref name=":42">{{Cite book |last=Andreev |first=A. I. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MqXnOBX4dREC |title=Soviet Russia and Tibet: the debacle of secret diplomacy, 1918-1930s |date=2003 |publisher=Brill |isbn=9-0041-2952-9 |___location=Leiden |pages=13–15, 37, 67, 96 |oclc=51330174 |quote=In the days of the Great Game, Mongolia was an object of imperialist encroachment by Russia, as Tibet was for the British. |access-date=22 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230124202721/https://books.google.com/books?id=MqXnOBX4dREC |archive-date=24 January 2023 |url-status=live}}</ref>
Expansion into the vast stretches of Siberia was slow and expensive, but finally became possible with the building of the [[Trans-Siberian Railway]], 1890 to 1904. This opened up [[East Asia]]; and Russian interests focused on Mongolia, [[Manchuria]], and [[Korean Empire|Korea]]. China was too weak to resist, and was pulled increasingly into the Russian sphere. Russia obtained treaty ports such as [[Russian Dalian|Dalian]]/[[Lüshunkou District|Port Arthur]]. In 1900, the Russian Empire [[Russian invasion of Manchuria|invaded Manchuria]] as part of the [[Eight-Nation Alliance]]'s intervention against the [[Boxer Rebellion]]. [[Empire of Japan|Japan]] strongly opposed Russian expansion, and defeated Russia in the [[Russo-Japanese War]] of 1904–1905. Japan took over Korea, and Manchuria remained a contested area.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Port Arthur Revisited |url=https://www.historytoday.com/archive/port-arthur-revisited |volume=52 |issue=1 |date=January 2002 |author-link=Richard Connaughton |first=Richard |last=Connaughton |website=HistoryToday.com}}</ref>
Meanwhile, [[French Third Republic|France]], looking for allies against Germany after 1871, formed a [[Franco-Russian Alliance|military alliance]] in 1894, with large-scale loans to Russia, sales of arms, and warships, as well as diplomatic support. Once Afghanistan was informally partitioned by the [[Anglo-Russian Convention]] in 1907, Britain, France, and Russia came increasingly close together in opposition to Germany and Austria-Hungary. The three would later comprise the [[Triple Entente]] alliance in the [[First World War]].<ref>{{Cite book |first=Barbara |last=Jelavich |title=St. Petersburg and Moscow: Tsarist and Soviet Foreign Policy, 1814–1974 |date=1974 |oclc=299007 |ol=5911156M |pages=161–279}}</ref>
===Early 20th century===
{{Main|History of Russia (1892–1917)}}
[[File:Repin 17October.jpg|thumb|A scene from the [[Revolution of 1905|First Russian Revolution]], by [[Ilya Repin]]<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ascher |first=Abraham |title=The Revolution of 1905: A Short History |date=2004 |publisher=Stanford University Press |isbn=978-0-8047-5028-8 |pages=187–210 |chapter=Coup d'État |access-date=19 March 2023 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rNRqfGWR4pIC&pg=PA187 |ol=3681754M}}; {{Cite book |last=Harcave |first=Sidney |title=First blood: the Russian Revolution of 1905 |date=1964 |publisher=Macmillan |chapter=The "Two Russias" |oclc=405923 |ol=5918954M}}</ref>]]
[[File:Moscow clad in snow - Moscou sur la neige - Москва в снежном убранстве - Москва в снегу (1908), noaudio.ogv|thumb|thumbtime=432|View of [[Moscow River]] from the Kremlin, 1908]]
In 1894, Alexander III was succeeded by his son, [[Nicholas II of Russia|Nicholas II]], who was committed to retaining the autocracy that his father had left him. Nicholas II proved as an ineffective ruler, and in the end his dynasty was overthrown by the [[Russian Revolution]].<ref>{{Cite book |first=Robert D. |last=Warth |title=Nicholas II: the life and reign of Russia's last monarch |date=1997}}</ref> The [[Industrial Revolution]] began to show significant influence in Russia, but the country remained rural and poor.
Economic conditions steadily improved after 1890, thanks to new crops such as sugar beets, and new access to railway transportation. Total grain production increased, as well as exports, even with rising domestic demand from population growth. As a result, there was a slow improvement in the living standards of Russian peasants in the empire's last two decades before 1914. Recent research into the physical stature of Army recruits shows they were bigger and stronger. There were regional variations, with more poverty in the heavily populated [[Central Black Earth Region|central black earth region]]; and there were temporary downturns in 1891–93 and 1905–1908.{{Sfn|Lieven|2006|p=391}}
By the end of the 19th century, the Russian Empire had reached its greatest territorial extent, covering a surface area of 22,800,000 km<sup>2</sup>, and ranking as the third-largest empire in world history.
On the political right, the reactionary elements of the aristocracy strongly favored the large landholders, who, however, were slowly selling their land to the peasants through the [[Peasants' Land Bank]]. The [[Union of October 17|Octobrist]] party was a conservative force, with a base of landowners and businessmen. They accepted land reform but insisted that property owners be fully paid. They favored far-reaching reforms, and hoped the landlord class would fade away, while agreeing they should be paid for their land. Liberal elements among industrial capitalists and nobility, who believed in peaceful social reform and a constitutional monarchy, formed the [[Constitutional Democratic Party]] or ''Kadets''.{{Sfn|Freeze|2002|pp=234–268}}
On the left, the [[Socialist Revolutionary Party|Socialist Revolutionaries]] (SRs) and the Marxist [[Russian Social Democratic Labour Party|Social Democrats]] wanted to expropriate the land, without payment, but debated whether to distribute the land among the peasants (the [[Narodniks|Narodnik]] solution), or to put it into collective local ownership.<ref>{{Cite book |first=Hugh |last=Seton-Watson |title=The Decline of Imperial Russia, 1855–1914 |date=1952 |pages=277–280}}</ref> The Socialist Revolutionaries also differed from the Social Democrats in that the SRs believed a revolution must rely on urban workers, not the peasantry.<ref>{{Cite journal |first=Oliver H. |last=Radkey |title=An Alternative to Bolshevism: The Program of Russian Social Revolutionism |journal=Journal of Modern History |volume=25 |issue=1 |date=1953 |pages=25–39|doi=10.1086/237562 }}</ref>
In 1903, at the [[2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party]], in London, the party split into two wings: the gradualist [[Mensheviks]] and the more radical [[Bolsheviks]]. The Mensheviks believed that the Russian working class was insufficiently developed and that socialism could be achieved only after a period of bourgeois democratic rule. They thus tended to ally themselves with the forces of bourgeois liberalism. 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.<ref>{{Cite journal |first=Richard |last=Cavendish |title=The Bolshevik-Menshevik split November 16th, 1903 |journal=History Today |volume=53 |issue=11 |date=2003 |pages=64ff}}</ref>
[[File:Битва при Мукдене.jpg|thumb|Russian soldiers in combat against Japanese [[Battle of Mukden|at Mukden]] (inside China), during the [[Russo-Japanese War]] (1904–1905)]]
Defeat in the [[Russo-Japanese War]] (1904–1905) was a major blow to the tsarist regime and further increased the potential for unrest. In January 1905, an incident known as "[[Bloody Sunday (1905)|Bloody Sunday]]" occurred when Father [[Georgy Gapon]] led an enormous crowd to the [[Winter Palace]] in [[Saint Petersburg]] to present a petition to the emperor. When the procession reached the palace, soldiers opened fire on the crowd, killing hundreds. The Russian masses were so furious over the massacre that a general strike was declared, which demanded a democratic republic. This marked the beginning of the [[Revolution of 1905]]. [[Soviet (council)|Soviets]] (councils of workers) appeared in most cities to direct revolutionary activity. Russia was paralyzed, and the government was desperate.{{Sfn|Ascher|2004|pp=160–186}}
In October 1905, Nicholas reluctantly issued the [[October Manifesto]], which conceded the creation of a national [[State Duma (Russian Empire)|Duma]] (legislature) to be called without delay. The right to vote was extended and no law was to become final without confirmation by the Duma. The moderate groups were satisfied, but the socialists rejected the concessions as insufficient and tried to organise new strikes. By the end of 1905, there was disunity among the reformers, and the emperor's position was strengthened, allowing him to roll back some of the concessions with the new [[Russian Constitution of 1906]].
===War, revolution, and collapse===
{{Further|Russia in World War I}}
{{See also|Eastern Orthodoxy by country}}
====Origins of causes====
{{Main|Causes of World War I}}
Russia, along with [[French Third Republic|France]] and [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland|Britain]], was a member of the [[Triple Entente|Entente]] in antecedent to [[World War I]]; these three powers were formed up in response to [[German Empire|Germany]]'s rival<ref>{{Cite book |last=Garver |first=John W. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xvuuCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA764 |title=China's Quest: The History of the Foreign Relations of the People's Republic of China |publisher=Oxford University Press |date=2015 |isbn=978-0-1908-8435-2 |page=764 |access-date=10 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221228171639/https://books.google.com/books?id=xvuuCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA764 |archive-date=28 December 2022 |url-status=live}}</ref> [[Triple Alliance (1882)|Triple Alliance]], comprising itself, [[Austria-Hungary]] and [[Kingdom of Italy|Italy]]. The relations with Britain were in disquietude from the [[Great Game]] in Central Asia until the 1907 [[Anglo-Russian Convention]], when both agreed to settle their differences and joined to oppose the new rising power of Germany.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Fromkin |first=David |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OV0i1mJdNSwC&pg=PA208 |title=A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East |publisher=Henry Holt and Company |date=2010 |isbn=978-1-4299-8852-0 |page=208 |access-date=10 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221229193129/https://books.google.com/books?id=OV0i1mJdNSwC&pg=PA208 |archive-date=29 December 2022 |url-status=live}}</ref> Russia and France's relations remained isolated before the 1890s when both sides agreed to [[Franco-Russian Alliance|ally]] when peace was threatened.{{Sfn|Lieven|2015|p=82}}
The relations between Russia and the Triple Alliance, especially Germany and Austria, were like those of the [[League of the Three Emperors]]. [[Germany–Russia relations|Russia's relations with Germany]] were deteriorating,{{Sfn|Waldron|1997|p=132}} and tensions over the [[Eastern question]] had reached a breaking point with [[Austria–Russia relations|Austria-Hungary]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Yorulmaz |first=Naci |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2-eKDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA40 |title=Arming the Sultan: German Arms Trade and Personal Diplomacy in the Ottoman Empire Before World War I |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |date=2014 |isbn=978-0-8577-2518-9 |page=40 |access-date=10 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221229183449/https://books.google.com/books?id=2-eKDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA40 |archive-date=29 December 2022 |url-status=live}}</ref> The 1908 [[Bosnian Crisis]] had nearly led to war and in 1912–13 relations between Saint Petersburg and Vienna were tense during the [[Balkan Wars]].{{Sfn|Lieven|2015|p=241}}
The [[Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand|assassination]] of the Austro-Hungarian heir, [[Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria|Archduke Franz Ferdinand]], raised Europe's tensions, which led to the confrontation between Austria and Russia.{{Sfn|Lieven|2015|p=2}} [[Kingdom of Serbia|Serbia]] rejected an [[July Crisis|Austrian ultimatum]] that demanded an obligation for the heir's death, and Austria-Hungary cut all diplomatic ties and declared war on 28 July 1914. Russia supported Serbia because it was a fellow Slavic state, and two days later, Emperor [[Nicholas II of Russia|Nicholas II]] ordered a mobilization to attempt to force Austria-Hungary to back down.{{Sfn|McMeekin|2011|p=88}}
====Declaration of War====
{{Main|Russian entry into World War I}}
[[File:Nicholas II declaring war on Germany from the balcony of the Winter Palace.jpeg|thumb|The Russian Emperor Nicholas II declared war on [[German Empire|Germany]], on the balcony of the [[Winter Palace]], on 2 August 1914.]]
As a result of [[Austria-Hungary|Vienna]]'s declaration of war on Serbia, Nicholas II ordered the mobilization of 4.9 million men. [[German Empire|Germany]], Austria-Hungary's ally, saw the call to arms as a threat,<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2EyJY8uE4WYC&pg=PA180 |title=The Origins of World War I |publisher=Cambridge University Press |date=2003 |isbn=978-0-5218-1735-6 |editor-last=Hamilton |editor-first=Richard F. |page=180 |access-date=30 December 2022 |editor-last2=Herwig |editor-first2=Holger |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221227194005/https://books.google.com/books?id=2EyJY8uE4WYC&pg=PA180 |archive-date=27 December 2022 |url-status=live}}</ref> and declared war on 1 August 1914, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire followed suit by declaring war of Russia on 6 August.{{Sfn|Lieven|2015|p=338}} The Russians were imbued with patriotic earnestness and [[anti-German sentiment|Germanophobic sentiment]], including the name of the capital, [[Saint Petersburg]], which sounded too [[German language|German]] and was renamed Petrograd.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ruthchild |first=Rochelle |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ymzJHyguvigC&pg=PA255 |title=Equality and Revolution |publisher=University of Pittsburgh Press |date=2010 |isbn=978-0-8229-7375-1 |page=255 |access-date=30 December 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221227194008/https://books.google.com/books?id=ymzJHyguvigC&pg=PA255 |archive-date=27 December 2022 |url-status=live}}</ref>
The Russian entry into the First World War was followed by [[French Third Republic|France]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Goldman |first=Emily |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AbtHRsAAPIkC&pg=PA40 |title=Power in Uncertain Times: Strategy in the Fog of Peace |publisher=Stanford University Press |date=2011 |isbn=978-0-8047-7433-8 |page=40 |access-date=30 December 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221227194007/https://books.google.com/books?id=AbtHRsAAPIkC&pg=PA40 |archive-date=27 December 2022 |url-status=live}}</ref> The [[German General Staff]] had devised the [[Schlieffen Plan]], which first eliminated France via nonaligned [[Belgium]] before moving east to attack Russia, whose massive army was much slower to mobilise.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Zabecki |first=David T. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rCWMBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA371 |title=Germany at War: 400 Years of Military History |publisher=ABC-CLIO |date=2014 |isbn=978-1-5988-4981-3 |page=371 |access-date=5 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230104160047/https://books.google.com/books?id=rCWMBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA371 |archive-date=4 January 2023 |url-status=live}}</ref>
====Theaters of operations====
=====German front=====
{{Main|Russian invasion of East Prussia|Great Retreat (Russian){{!}}Great Retreat|Vistula–Bug offensive}}
[[File:Russian prisoners tannenberg.jpg|thumb|Russian POWs and equipments which were captured by Germany after the [[Battle of Tannenberg]], a major disaster for Russia]]
By August 1914, Russia had [[Russian invasion of East Prussia (1914)|invaded]] with unexpected speed the German province of [[East Prussia]], ending with a humiliating defeat at [[Battle of Tannenberg|Tannenberg]], owing to a message sent without wiring and [[Cryptography|coding]],<ref>{{Cite book |last=McNally |first=Michael |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YpeEEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA61 |title=Tannenberg 1914: Destruction of the Russian Second Army |publisher=Bloomsbury |date=2022 |isbn=978-1-4728-5020-1 |page=61 |access-date=30 December 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221226194512/https://books.google.com/books?id=YpeEEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA61 |archive-date=26 December 2022 |url-status=live}}</ref> causing the destruction of the entire [[2nd Army (Russian Empire)|second army]]. Russia suffered a massive defeat at the Masurian Lakes twice, the [[First Battle of the Masurian Lakes|first]] ending with a hundred thousand casualties;{{Sfn|Tucker|2014|p=1048}} and the [[Second Battle of the Masurian Lakes|second]] suffering 200,000.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2YqjfHLyyj8C&pg=PA380 |title=World War I: Encyclopedia |publisher=ABC-CLIO |date=2005 |isbn=978-1-8510-9420-2 |editor-last=Tucker |editor-first=Spencer C. |volume=1 |page=380 |access-date=30 December 2022 |editor-last2=Roberts |editor-first2=Priscilla M. |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221226194508/https://books.google.com/books?id=2YqjfHLyyj8C&pg=PA380 |archive-date=26 December 2022 |url-status=live}}</ref> By October, the [[9th Army (German Empire)|German Ninth Army]] was near [[Warsaw]], and the newly-formed [[10th Army (Russian Empire)|Tenth Army]] had retreated from the frontier in East Prussia. [[Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich of Russia (1856–1929)|Grand Duke Nicholas]], the Russian commander-in-chief, now had the order to invade [[Province of Silesia|Silesia]] with his [[5th Army (Russian Empire)|Fifth]], [[4th Army (Russian Empire)|Fourth]], and [[9th Army (Russian Empire)|Ninth armies]].{{Sfn|Tucker|2019|p=468}} The Ninth Army, led by [[August von Mackensen|Mackensen]], retreated from the frontline in [[Galicia (Eastern Europe)|Galicia]] and concentrated between the cities of [[Poznań|Posen]] and [[Toruń|Thorn]]. The advance [[Battle of Łódź (1914)|took place]] on 11 November against the main army's right flank and rear; the [[1st Army (Russian Empire)|First]] and Second armies were severely mauled, and the Second army was nearly surrounded in [[Łódź]] on 17 November.
Exhausted Russian troops began to [[Great Retreat (Russian)|withdraw]] from [[Congress Poland|Russian-held Poland]], allowing the Germans to capture many cities, including the kingdom's capital [[Warsaw]] on 5 August 1915.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Sondhaus |first=Lawrence |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9in-DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA114 |title=World War One |publisher=Cambridge University Press |date=2020 |isbn=978-1-1084-9619-3 |page=114 |access-date=30 December 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221227173555/https://books.google.com/books?id=9in-DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA114 |archive-date=27 December 2022 |url-status=live}}</ref> In the same month, the emperor dismissed Grand Duke Nicholas and took personal command;<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Kalic |first1=Sean N. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0YI2DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA180 |title=Russian Revolution of 1917: The Essential Reference Guide |last2=Brown |first2=Gates M. |publisher=ABC-CLIO |date=2017 |isbn=978-1-4408-5093-6 |page=180 |access-date=30 December 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221228162636/https://books.google.com/books?id=0YI2DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA180 |archive-date=28 December 2022 |url-status=live}}</ref> this was a turning point for the Russian army and the beginning of the worst disaster.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SZHgBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA556 |title=500 Great Military Leaders |publisher=ABC-CLIO |date=2014a |isbn=978-1-5988-4758-1 |editor-last=Tucker |editor-first=Spencer C. |page=556 |access-date=30 December 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221228162637/https://books.google.com/books?id=SZHgBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA556 |archive-date=28 December 2022 |url-status=live}}</ref> Russia lost the entire territory of Poland and Lithuania,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Horne |first=John |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EjZHLXRKjtEC&pg=PA449 |title=A Companion to World War I |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |date=2012 |isbn=978-1-1199-6870-2 |page=449 |access-date=30 December 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221227173552/https://books.google.com/books?id=EjZHLXRKjtEC&pg=PA449 |archive-date=27 December 2022 |url-status=live}}</ref> part of the [[Courland Governorate|Baltic states]] and [[Grodno Governorate|Grodno]], and partly of [[Volhynian Governorate|Volhynia]] and [[Podolia Governorate|Podolia]] in Ukraine; thereafter the front with Germany was stable until 1917.
=====Austrian front=====
{{Main|Battle of Galicia|Gorlice–Tarnów offensive|Brusilov offensive}}
Austria-Hungary went to war with Russia on 6 August. The Russians started to invade [[Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria|Galicia]], held by Austrian [[Cisleithania]] on 20 August, and annihilated the [[Austro-Hungarian Army]] at [[Battle of Galicia|Lemberg]], leading to the occupation of [[General Government of Galicia and Bukovina|Galicia]].{{Sfn|Sanborn|2014|p=30}} While the [[Przemyśl Fortress|fortress of Premissel]] was [[Siege of Przemyśl|besieged]], the first attempt to capture the fortress failed, but the second attempt seized the redoubt in March 1915.{{Sfn|Sanborn|2014|p=66}} On 2 May, the Russian army was [[Gorlice–Tarnów offensive|broken through]] by joint Austro-German forces, retreating from the [[Gorlice]] to [[Tarnów]] line and losing [[Przemyśl|Premissel]].
On 4 June 1916, General [[Aleksei Brusilov]] carried out an [[Brusilov offensive|offensive]] by targeting [[Kovel]]. His offensive was a great success, taking 76,000 prisoners from the main attack and 1,500 from the Austrian bridgehead. But the offensive was halted by inadequate ammunition and a lack of supplies.{{Sfn|Sanborn|2014|p=125–126}} The eponymous offensive was the most successful allied strike of World War I,{{Sfn|Tucker|2014|p=514}} practically destroying the Austro-Hungarian army as an independent force, but the slaughter of many casualties (approximately one million men) forced the Russian forces not to rebuild or launch any further attacks.
=====Turkish front=====
{{Main|Caucasus campaign}}
On 29 October 1914, a prelude to the Russo-Turkish front, the [[Ottoman Navy|Turkish fleet]], with German support, began to [[Black Sea raid|raid Russian coastal cities]] in [[Odesa|Odessa]], [[Sevastopol]], [[Novorossiysk]], [[Feodosia]], [[Kerch]], and [[Yalta]]{{Sfn|McMeekin|2011|p=111–112}} This led Russia to declare war on the Ottoman Empire on 2 November.{{Sfn|McMeekin|2011|p=114}} In December 1914, Russia obtained success at [[Battle of Sarikamish|Sarikamish]], where the Russian General [[Nikolai Yudenich]] routed [[Enver Pasha]].{{Sfn|Tucker|2019|p=524}} Yudenich [[Battle of Koprukoy|captured Köprüköy]] in January 1916 and [[Erzurum offensive|captured Erzurum]] about one month later in February.{{sfn|Halpern|1994|page=238}}
The Russian Navy's [[Black Sea Fleet]] was on the defensive in 1914, but this changed in the spring of 1915, when the [[Stavka of the Supreme Commander|high command]] ordered the fleet to attack the Turkish coast to assist the [[Gallipoli campaign|Western Entente landings in Gallipoli]].{{sfn|Halpern|1994|pages=223—230}} The Russian naval raids did make any difference for the Gallipoli campaign, but they were very successful in disrupting coal shipments to Constantinople from other parts of Anatolia. The coal shortage caused by Russian submarine and destroyer attacks threatened the Ottoman Empire's continued participation in the war.{{sfn|Halpern|1994|pages=232—233}}
====Problems in the empire====
[[File:Tikhon mitropolit and russian soldiers 1917 in Moskow Krasnaja square.jpg|thumb|[[Patriarch Tikhon of Moscow]] in 1917]]
By the middle of 1915, the impact of the war was demoralizing. Food and fuel were in short supply, casualties were increasing, and inflation was mounting. Strikes rose among low-paid factory workers, and there were reports that peasants, who wanted reforms of land ownership, were restless. The emperor eventually decided to take personal command of the army and moved to the front, leaving his wife, the Empress [[Alexandra Feodorovna (Alix of Hesse)|Alexandra]], in charge in the capital. She fell under the spell of a monk, [[Grigori Rasputin]] (1869–1916). His assassination in late 1916 by a clique of nobles could not restore the emperor's lost prestige.<ref>Andrew Cook, ''To kill Rasputin: the life and death of Grigori Rasputin'' (2011).</ref>
====End of imperial rule====
{{Main|February Revolution}}
On 3 March 1917, [[International Women's Day]], a strike was organized at a factory in the capital, followed by thousands of people took to the streets in Petrograd to protest food shortages. A day later, protesters rose to two hundred thousand, demanding that Russia withdraw from the war and the emperor be deposed. Eighty thousand Russian troops, half of the men sent to restore order, had gone on strike and refused the senior officers' orders.{{Sfn|Pipes|2011|p=77–78}} Any imperial symbols were destroyed and burned. The capital was out of control and gripped by protest and strife.{{Sfn|Pipes|2011|p=79}}
In the city of [[Pskov]], {{Convert|262|km|mi|sp=us|abbr=on}} southwest from the capital, many generals and politicians advised the Emperor to abdicate in favor of the [[Alexei Nikolaevich, Tsarevich of Russia|Tsarevich]]; Nicholas [[Abdication of Nicholas II|accepted]], but he bequeathed the throne to [[Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich of Russia|Grand Duke Michael]] as his legitimate successor.{{Sfn|Pipes|2011|p=90–91}} Michael stated that he would only accept the throne if it would be offered by a [[Russian Constituent Assembly|constituent assembly]].{{sfn|Dukes|1998|page=212}} The form of political organization that emerged has been described as "[[dual power]]", with the [[Russian Provisional Government]] co-existing with the [[Soviet (council)|soviets]].{{sfn|Dukes|1998|page=212}} The constitutional framework of Russia remained in limbo until [[Alexander Kerensky]] finally confirmed Russia's status as [[Russian Republic|a republic]] on 1 September.{{sfn|Dukes|1998|page=212}} In July 1918, following the [[October Revolution]], the [[Execution of the Romanov family|Romanov family was executed]] by the Bolsheviks in [[Yekaterinburg]].
==Territory==
[[File:Russian Empire Map.jpg|thumb|Topographic map of the Russian Empire in 1912]]
[[File:Russian Empire 1745 General Map (Latin, HQ).jpg|thumb|Map of the Russian Empire in 1745]]
By the end of the 19th century the area of the empire was about {{Convert|22400000|km2|sqmi|sp=us}}, or almost one-sixth of the Earth's landmass; its only rival in size at the time was the [[British Empire]]. The majority of the population lived in European Russia. More than 100 different [[ethnic group]]s lived in the Russian Empire, with ethnic [[Russians]] composing about 45% of the population.<ref>Martin Gilbert, ''Routledge Atlas of Russian History'' (4th ed. 2007) {{Cite book |title=The Routledge Atlas of Russian History |isbn=978-0415394840 |last1=Gilbert |first1=Martin |date=2007 |publisher=Routledge }}</ref>
===Geography===
{{Main|Geography of Russia}}
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. To the north was the [[Arctic Ocean]]. [[Novaya Zemlya]] and the [[Kolguyev Island|Kolguyev]] and [[Vaygach Island]]s were considered part of European Russia, but the [[Kara Sea]] was part of [[Siberia]]. To the east were the Asiatic territories of the empire: Siberia and the [[Kyrgyz people|Kyrgyz]] steppes, which were separated from European Russia by the [[Ural Mountains]], the [[Ural River]], and the [[Caspian Sea]]. The administrative boundary, however, partly extended into Asia on the Siberian slope of the Urals. To the south were the [[Black Sea]] and the [[Caucasus]], being separated from the rest of European Russia by the [[Manych River]] depression, which in post-[[Pliocene]] times connected the [[Sea of Azov]] with the Caspian. The western boundary was purely arbitrary: it crossed the [[Kola Peninsula]] from the [[Varangerfjord]] to the [[Gulf of Bothnia]]. It then ran to the [[Curonian Lagoon]] in the southern [[Baltic Sea]], and then to the mouth of the [[Danube]], taking a great circular sweep to the west to embrace east-central Poland, and separating Russia from [[Prussia]], [[Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria|Austrian Galicia]], and Romania.
An important feature of Russia is its few free outlets to the open sea, outside the ice-bound shores of the Arctic Ocean. The deep indentations of the [[Gulf of Bothnia|Gulfs of Bothnia]] and [[Gulf of Finland|Finland]] were surrounded by what is [[Finns|ethnically Finnish]] territory, and it is only at the very head of the latter gulf that the Russians had taken firm foothold by erecting their capital at the mouth of the [[Neva]] river. The [[Gulf of Riga]] and the Baltic belong also to territory that was not inhabited by Slavs, but by Baltic and [[Baltic Finnic peoples|Finnic peoples]], and by [[Germans]]. The east coast of the Black Sea belonged to [[Transcaucasia]], a great chain of mountains separating it from Russia. But even this sheet of water is an inland sea, the only outlet of which, the [[Bosphorus]], was in foreign hands, while the [[Caspian Sea]], 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.
===Territorial development===
From 1860 to 1905, the Russian Empire occupied all territories of the present-day Russian Federation, with the exception of the present-day [[Kaliningrad Oblast]], [[Kuril Islands]] and [[Tuva]]. In 1905 Russia lost [[Karafuto Prefecture|southern Sakhalin]] to [[Empire of Japan|Japan]], but gained Tuva as a protectorate in 1914. Prior to 1917 the Russian Empire included most of [[Dnieper Ukraine]], [[Belarus]], [[Bessarabia]], the [[Grand Duchy of Finland]], [[Armenia]], [[Azerbaijan]], [[Georgia (country)|Georgia]], the Central Asian states of [[Russian Turkestan]], most of the [[Baltic governorates]], a significant part of [[Poland]], and the former Ottoman provinces of [[Ardahan Province|Ardahan]], [[Artvin Province|Artvin]], [[Iğdır Province|Iğdır]], [[Kars Province|Kars]], and the northeastern part of [[Erzurum Province]].
[[Henry Kissinger]] noted that the methodological procedure of how the Russian Empire started to expand their territory was comparable to that of how the United States had done the same. Russian statesman [[Alexander Gorchakov]] justified the Russian expansion in consonance of the [[Manifest destiny]] of the United States; thereafter, the Russian territorial expansion only encountered nomadic or feudal societies which is strikingly similar to the Westward Expansion of the United States.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kissinger |first=Henry |author-link=Henry Kissinger |title=Diplomacy |date=1994 |publisher=Simon & Schuster Paperbacks |isbn=978-0-6716-5991-2 |page=142 |oclc=29428792 |ol=1432465M}}</ref>
Between 1742 and 1867, the [[Russian-American Company]] administered [[Alaska]] as a [[colony]]. The company also established settlements in [[Hawaiian Kingdom|Hawaii]], including [[Russian Fort Elizabeth|Fort Elizabeth]] (1817), and as far south in North America as [[Fort Ross, California|Fort Ross Colony]] (established in 1812) in [[Sonoma County, California]] just north of [[San Francisco]]. Both Fort Ross and the [[Russian River (California)|Russian River]] in [[California]] got their names from Russian settlers, who had staked claims in a region claimed until 1821 by the Spanish as part of [[New Spain]].
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 administrative division|autonomous]] [[grand duchy]]. The emperor eventually ended up ruling [[Grand Duchy of Finland|Finland]] as a [[constitutional monarchy|semi-constitutional monarch]] through the [[Governor-General of Finland]] and a native [[Senate of Finland|Senate]] appointed by him. The emperor never explicitly recognized Finland as a constitutional state in its own right, although his Finnish subjects came to consider the grand duchy as such.
[[File:Evropayskye gubernii Rossii 1910.png|thumb|Map of [[List of governorates of the Russian Empire|governorates]] of the western Russian Empire in 1910]]
In the aftermath of the [[Russo-Turkish War (1806–1812)]], and the ensuing [[Treaty of Bucharest (1812)]], the eastern parts of the [[Moldavia|Principality of Moldavia]], an Ottoman [[vassal state]], along with some areas formerly under direct Ottoman rule, came under the rule of the empire. This area ([[Bessarabia]]) was among the Russian Empire's last territorial acquisitions in Europe. At the [[Congress of Vienna]] (1815), Russia gained sovereignty over [[Congress Poland]], which on paper was an autonomous kingdom in [[personal union]] with Russia. However, this autonomy was eroded after the [[November Uprising]] in 1831, and was finally abolished in 1867.
Saint Petersburg gradually extended and consolidated its control over the [[Caucasus]] in the course of the 19th century, at the expense of [[Qajar dynasty|Persia]] through the [[Russo-Persian War (1804–13)]] and [[Russo-Persian War (1826–28)]] and the respectively ensuing treaties of [[Treaty of Gulistan|Gulistan]] and [[Treaty of Turkmenchay|Turkmenchay]],{{Sfn|Dowling|2014|p=728–730}} as well as through the [[Caucasian War]] (1817–1864).
The Russian Empire expanded its influence and possessions in Central Asia, especially in the later 19th century, conquering much of [[Russian Turkestan]] in 1865 and continuing to add territory as late as 1885.
Newly discovered Arctic islands became part of the Russian Empire: the [[New Siberian Islands]] from the early 18th century; [[Severnaya Zemlya]] ("Emperor Nicholas II Land") first mapped and claimed as late as 1913.
During World War I, Russia briefly occupied a small part of [[East Prussia]], then a part of Germany; a significant portion of Austrian Galicia; and significant portions of Ottoman Armenia. While the modern Russian Federation currently controls the [[Kaliningrad Oblast]], which comprised the northern part of East Prussia, this differs from the area captured by the empire in 1914, though there was some overlap: [[Gusev, Kaliningrad Oblast|Gusev]] (''Gumbinnen'' in German) was the site of the initial [[Battle of Gumbinnen|Russian victory]].
===Imperial territories===
{{See also|Russian colonization of North America|First Russian circumnavigation}}
[[File:Russian Sloop-of-War Neva.jpg|thumb|1814 artwork depicting the Russian warship ''[[Neva (1802 Russian ship)|Neva]]'' and the Russian settlement of St. Paul's Harbor (present-day [[Kodiak, Alaska|Kodiak town]]), [[Kodiak Island]]]]
According to the 1st article of the [[Organic Law]], the Russian Empire was one indivisible state. In addition, the 26th article stated that "With the Imperial Russian throne are indivisible the Kingdom of Poland and Grand Principality of Finland". Relations with the Grand Principality of Finland were also regulated by the 2nd article, "The Grand Principality of Finland, constituted an indivisible part of the Russian state, in its internal affairs governed by special regulations at the base of special laws", and by the law of 10 June 1910.
Between 1744 and 1867, the empire also controlled [[Russian America]]. With the exception of this territory{{Spaced ndash}}modern-day [[Alaska]]{{Spaced ndash}}the Russian Empire was a contiguous mass of land spanning Europe and Asia. In this it differed from contemporary colonial-style empires. The result of this was that, while the British and [[French colonial empire|French]] 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 smaller [[Russia|Russian Federation]].
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 the [[Russian concession of Tianjin]].
In 1815, [[Georg Anton Schäffer]], a Russian entrepreneur, went to [[Kauai]] and [[Schäffer affair|negotiated a treaty of protection]] with the island's governor [[Kaumualii]], vassal of King [[Kamehameha I]] of Hawaii, but the Russian emperor refused to ratify the treaty. See also [[Orthodox Church in Hawaii]] and [[Russian Fort Elizabeth]].
In 1889, a Russian adventurer, [[Nikolay Ivanovitch Achinov]], tried to establish a Russian colony in Africa, [[Sagallo]], situated on the [[Gulf of Tadjoura]] in present-day [[Djibouti]]. However this attempt angered the French, who dispatched two [[gunboat]]s against the colony. After a brief resistance, the colony surrendered and the Russian settlers were deported to [[Odessa]].
==Government and administration==
{{See also|Tsarist autocracy}}
{{History of Russia}}
From its initial creation until the [[Russian Revolution of 1905|1905 Revolution]], the Russian Empire was led by the emperor (also referred to as ''tsar'') who ruled as an absolute monarch. After the Revolution of 1905, Russia developed a new type of government, which became difficult to categorize. In the [[Almanach de Gotha]] for 1910, Russia was described as "a [[constitutional monarchy]] under an [[Tsarist autocracy|autocratic Tsar]]". This contradiction in terms demonstrated the difficulty of precisely defining the system, transitional and ''[[sui generis]]'', established in the Russian Empire after October 1905. Before this date, the fundamental laws of Russia described the power of the emperor as "autocratic and [[absolute monarchy|unlimited]]". After October 1905, while the imperial style was still "Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias", the [[Russian Constitution of 1906|fundamental laws were changed]] by removing the word ''unlimited''. While the emperor retained many of his old prerogatives, including an absolute veto over all legislation, he equally agreed to the establishment of an elected parliament, without whose consent no laws were to be enacted in Russia. Not that the regime in Russia had become in any true sense constitutional, far less parliamentary. But the "unlimited autocracy" had given way to a "self-limited autocracy". Whether this autocracy was to be permanently limited by the new changes, or only at the continuing discretion of the autocrat, became a subject of heated [[Coup of June 1907|controversy]] between conflicting parties in the state. Provisionally, then, the Russian governmental system may perhaps be best defined as "a [[limited monarchy]] under an autocratic emperor".
Conservatism was the ideology of most of the Russian leadership, albeit with some reformist activities from time to time. The structure of conservative thought was based upon anti-rationalism of the intellectuals, religiosity rooted in the Russian Orthodox Church, traditionalism rooted in the landed estates worked by serfs, and militarism rooted in the army officer corps.<ref>{{Cite journal |first=Valerii L. |last=Stepanov |title=Revisiting Russian Conservatism |journal=Russian Studies in History |volume=48 |issue=2 |date=2009 |pages=3–7|doi=10.2753/RSH1061-1983480200 }}</ref> Regarding irrationality, Russia avoided the full force of the European Enlightenment, which gave priority to rationalism, preferring the romanticism of an idealized nation state that reflected the beliefs, values, and behavior of the distinctive people.<ref>{{Cite book |first=Alexander M. |last=Martin |title=Romantics, Reformers, Reactionaries: Russian Conservative Thought and Politics in the Reign of Alexander I |date=1997}}</ref> 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. The promise of modernization in the service of autocracy frightened the socialist intellectual [[Alexander Herzen]], who warned of a Russia governed by "[[Genghis Khan]] with a telegraph".<ref>{{Cite book |first=Bertram D. |last=Wolfe |title=Revolution and Reality |publisher=University of North Carolina Press Books |date=2018 |isbn=978-1-4696-5020-3 |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=AV5gDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT349 349]}}</ref>
===Emperor===
{{Main|Emperor of Russia}}
[[File:Император Николай II.jpg|thumb|[[Nicholas II of Russia|Nicholas II]] was the last emperor of Russia, reigning from 1894 to 1917.]]
[[Peter the Great]] changed his title from [[tsar]] to [[emperor]] in order to secure Russia's position in the European states system.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Plokhy |first=Serhii |title=The origins of the Slavic nations: premodern identities in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus |date=2010 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-5211-5511-3 |edition=1st |___location=Cambridge |pages=285}}</ref> While later rulers did not discard the new title, the Russian monarch was commonly known as the tsar or tsaritsa until the imperial system was abolished during the [[February Revolution]] of 1917. Prior to the issuance of the October Manifesto, the emperor ruled as an absolute monarch, subject to only two limitations on his authority, both of which were intended to protect the existing system: the emperor and his consort must both belong to the [[Russian Orthodox Church]], and he must obey the [[Pauline Laws]] of succession established by [[Paul I of Russia|Paul I]]. Beyond this, the power of the Russian autocrat was virtually limitless.
On 17 October 1905, the situation changed: the ruler voluntarily limited his legislative power by decreeing that no measure was to become law without the consent of the [[State Duma (Russian Empire)|Imperial Duma]], a freely elected national assembly established by the [[Russian Constitution of 1906|Organic Law]] issued on 28 April 1906. However, he retained the right to disband the newly established Duma, and he exercised this right more than once. He also retained an absolute veto over all legislation, and only he could initiate any changes to the Organic Law itself. His ministers were responsible solely to him, and not to the Duma or any other authority, which could question but not remove them. Thus, while the emperor's personal powers were limited in scope after 28 April 1906, they remained formidable.
===Imperial Council===
{{Main|State Council (Russian Empire)}}
[[File:Sadovnikov 1258.jpg|thumb|This painting from {{Circa|1847}} depicts the [[General Staff Building (Saint Petersburg)|General Staff Building]] opposite the [[Winter Palace]], which was the headquarters of the Army General Staff. Today, it houses the headquarters of the Western Military District/Joint Strategic Command West.]]
[[File:Catherine Palace & Cameron Gallery (Premazzi).jpg|thumb|The [[Catherine Palace]], located at [[Tsarskoe Selo]], was the summer residence of the imperial family. It is named after Empress [[Catherine I of Russia|Catherine I]], who reigned from 1725 to 1727 (watercolor painting from the 19th century).]]
Under Russia's revised Fundamental Law of 20 February 1906, the State Council was associated with the Duma as a legislative [[Upper House]]; from this time the legislative power was exercised normally by the emperor only in concert with the two chambers.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.imperialhouse.ru/en/dynastyhistory/dinzak1.html |title=Fundamental Laws of the Russian Empire |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170331030754/http://www.imperialhouse.ru/en/dynastyhistory/dinzak1.html |archive-date=31 March 2017 |at=chapter1, article 7}}</ref> The Council of the Empire, or Imperial Council, as reconstituted for this purpose, consisted of 196 members, of whom 98 were nominated by the emperor, while 98 were elective. The ministers, also nominated, were ''[[ex officio]]'' members. Of the elected members, 3 were returned by the "black" clergy (the monks), 3 by the "white" clergy (secular), 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 local governmental [[zemstvo]]s, 16 by local governments having no zemstvos, and 6 by Poland. As a legislative body the powers of the council were coordinate with those of the Duma; in practice, however, it has seldom if ever initiated legislation.
===State Duma===
{{Main|State Duma (Russian Empire)}}
The Duma of the Empire or Imperial Duma (''Gosudarstvennaya Duma''), which formed the [[lower house]] of the Russian parliament, consisted (since the ''[[ukaz]]'' of 2 June 1907) of 442 members, elected by an exceedingly complicated process. The membership was manipulated as to secure an overwhelming majority of the wealthy (especially the landed classes) and also for the representatives of the Russian peoples at the expense of the subject nations. Each province of the empire, except Central Asia, returned a certain number of members; added to which were those returned by several large cities. The members of the Duma were chosen by electoral colleges and these, in their turn, were elected by assemblies of the three classes: landed proprietors, citizens, and peasants. In these assemblies the wealthiest proprietors sat in person while the lesser proprietors were represented by delegates. The urban population was divided into two categories according to taxable wealth and elected delegates directly to the college of the [[Guberniya|governorates]]. The [[peasants]] were represented by delegates selected by the regional subdivisions called [[volost]]s. Workmen were treated in a special manner, with every industrial concern employing fifty hands electing one or more delegates to the electoral college.
In the college itself, the voting for the Duma was by secret ballot and a simple majority carried the day. Since the majority consisted of conservative elements (the [[landowner]]s 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. That the Duma had any radical elements was mainly due to the peculiar franchise enjoyed by the seven largest towns — [[Saint Petersburg]], [[Moscow]], [[Kiev]], [[Odessa]], [[Riga]], and the Polish cities of [[Warsaw]] and [[Łódź]]. These elected their delegates to the Duma directly, and though their votes were divided (on the basis of taxable property) in such a way as to give the advantage to wealth, each returned the same number of delegates.
===Council of Ministers===
{{Main|Council of Ministers of the Russian Empire}}
In 1905, a Council of Ministers (''Sovyet Ministrov'') was created, under a ''minister president'', the first appearance of a prime minister in Russia. This council consisted of all the ministers and of the heads of other principal departments. The ministries were as follows:
* [[Ministry of the Imperial Court]]
* [[Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Empire|Ministry of Foreign Affairs]];
* [[Ministry of War of the Russian Empire|Ministry of War]];
* [[Ministry of the Navy (Russian Empire)|Ministry of the Navy]];
* [[Ministry of Finance of the Russian Empire|Ministry of Finance]];
* [[Ministry of Commerce of the Russian Empire|Ministry of Commerce and Industry]] (created in 1905);
* [[Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Empire|Ministry of Internal Affairs]] (including police, health, censorship and press, posts and telegraphs, foreign religions, statistics);
* [[Ministry of Agriculture (Russia)|Ministry of Agriculture and State Assets]];
* [[Ministry of Communication Routes of the Russian Empire|Ministry of Ways of Communications]];
* [[Ministry of Justice of the Russian Empire|Ministry of Justice]];
* [[Ministry of National Education (Russian Empire)|Ministry of National Education]].
===Most Holy Synod===
{{Main|Most Holy Synod}}
[[File:Сенат и Синод, Санкт-Петербург.jpg|thumb|The Senate and Synod headquarters – today the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation on [[Senate Square (Saint Petersburg)|Senate Square]] in Saint Petersburg]]
The Most Holy Synod (established in 1721) was the supreme organ of government of the Orthodox Church in Russia. It was presided over by a lay [[Procurator (Russia)|Procurator]], representing the emperor, and consisted of the three metropolitans of Moscow, Saint Petersburg, and Kiev, the Archbishop of [[Georgian Orthodox Church|Georgia]], and a number of bishops sitting in rotation.
===Senate===
{{Main|Governing Senate}}
The Senate (''Pravitelstvuyushchi Senat'', i.e. directing or governing senate), originally established during the [[Government reform of Peter the Great]], consisted of members nominated by the emperor. Its wide variety of functions were carried out by the different departments into which it was divided. It was the supreme [[court of cassation]]; an audit office; a high court of justice for all political offences; and one of its departments fulfilled the functions of a heralds' college. It also had supreme jurisdiction in all disputes arising out of the administration of the empire, notably in differences between representatives of the central power and the elected organs of local self-government. Lastly, it promulgated new laws, a function which theoretically gave it a power akin to that of the [[Supreme Court of the United States]], of rejecting measures not in accordance with fundamental laws.
===Administrative divisions===
{{Further|History of the administrative division of Russia}}
[[File:Subdivisions of the Russian Empire in 1914.svg|thumb|Map showing subdivisions of the Russian Empire in 1914]]
[[File:Tverskaya13 Moscow 06-2015.jpg|thumb|Residence of the governor of Moscow (1778–82) as seen in 2015]]
As of 1914, Russia was divided into 81 governorates (''[[guberniya]]s''), 20 ''[[oblast]]s'', and 1 ''[[okrug]]''. [[Vassals]] and [[protectorates]] of the Russian Empire included the [[Emirate of Bukhara]], the [[Khanate of Khiva]], and, after 1914, [[Tuva]] (Uriankhai). Of these, 11 Governorates, 17 oblasts, and 1 okrug ([[Sakhalin]]) belonged to Asian Russia. Of the rest, 8 Governorates were in Finland and 10 in Congress Poland. European Russia thus embraced 59 governorates and 1 oblast (that of the Don). The Don Oblast was under the direct jurisdiction of the ministry of war; the rest each had a governor and deputy-governor, the latter presiding over the administrative council. In addition, there were governors-general, generally placed over several governorates and armed with more extensive powers, usually including the command of the troops within the limits of their jurisdiction. In 1906, there were governors-general in Finland, Warsaw, [[Vilnius|Vilna]], Kiev, Moscow, and Riga. The larger cities (Saint Petersburg, Moscow, [[Odessa]], [[Sevastopol]], [[Kerch]], [[Mykolaiv|Nikolayev]], and [[Rostov-on-Don|Rostov]]) had administrative systems of their own, independent of the governorates; in these the [[chief of police]] acted as governor.
==Judicial system==
{{Main|Judicial system of the Russian Empire}}
The [[Judiciary|judicial system]] of the Russian Empire was established by the [[Judicial reform of Alexander II|statute of 20 November 1864]] of [[Alexander II of Russia|Alexander II]]. This system – based partly on [[English law|English]] and [[Law of France|French]] law – was predicated on the separation of judicial and administrative functions, the independence of the judges and courts, public trials and oral procedure, and the equality of all classes before the law. Moreover, a democratic element was introduced by the adoption of the [[Jury trial|jury system]] and the election of judges. This system was disliked by the [[bureaucracy]], due to its putting the administration of justice outside of the executive sphere. During the latter years of Alexander II and the reign of Alexander III, power that had been given was gradually taken back, and that takeback was fully reversed by the third Duma after the [[Russian Revolution of 1905|1905 Revolution]].{{Efn|A ''[[Ukase|ukaz]]'' of 1879 gave the governors the right to report secretly on the qualifications of candidates for the office of [[justice of the peace (Russia)|justice of the peace]]. In 1889, Alexander III abolished the election of justices of the peace, except in certain large towns and some outlying parts of the Empire, and greatly restricted the right of trial by jury. The combining of judicial and administrative functions was introduced again by the appointment of officials as judges. In 1909, the third Duma restored the election of justices of the peace.|group=n}}
The system established by the law of 1864 had two wholly separate [[tribunal]]s, each having their own [[court of appeal|courts of appeal]] and coming in contact with each other only in the Senate, which acted as the [[supreme court]] of cassation. The first tribunal, based on the English model, were the courts of the elected [[justices of the peace (Russia)|justices of the peace]], with jurisdiction over petty causes, whether civil or criminal; the second, based on the French model, were the ordinary tribunals of nominated judges, sitting with or without a jury to hear important cases.
==Local administration==
Alongside the local organs of the central government in Russia there are three classes of local elected bodies charged with administrative functions:
* the peasant assemblies in the ''[[mir (social)|mir]]s'' and the ''[[volost]]s'';
* the ''[[zemstvo]]s'' in the 34 governorates of Russia;
* the ''[[Duma#Municipal dumas|municipal dumas]]''.
===Municipal dumas===
[[File:Old city duma.jpg|thumb|The [[Moscow City Duma]] {{Circa|1900}} (colorized photograph)]]
Since 1870, the municipalities in European Russia had institutions like those of the [[zemstvo]]s. All owners of houses, tax-paying merchants, artisans, and workmen were enrolled on lists, in descending order according to their assessed wealth. The total valuation was then divided into three equal parts, representing three groups of electors very unequal in number, each of which would elect an equal number of delegates to the municipal duma. The executive was in the hands of an elected mayor and an ''[[wikt:uprava|uprava]]'', which consisted of several members elected by the municipal duma. Under [[Alexander III of Russia|Alexander III]], however, [[bylaw]]s promulgated in 1892 and 1894, the municipal dumas were subordinated to the governors in the same way as the zemstvos. In 1894, municipal institutions, with still more restricted powers, were granted to several towns in Siberia, and in 1895 to some in the Caucasus.
===Baltic provinces===
{{Main|Baltic governorates}}
The formerly Swedish-controlled Baltic provinces of [[Swedish Livonia|Livonia]] and [[Swedish Estonia|Estonia]] and later [[Duchy of Courland]], a vassal of [[Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth]], were incorporated into the Russian Empire after the defeat of Sweden in the [[Great Northern War]]. Under the [[Treaty of Nystad]] of 1721, the [[Baltic German]] nobility retained considerable powers of self-government and numerous privileges in matters affecting education, police, and the local administration of justice. After 167 years of German language administration and education, in 1888 and 1889 laws were passed transferring administration of the police and [[manorial]] justice from Baltic German control to officials of the central government. About the same time, a process of [[Russification]] was being carried out in the same provinces, in all departments of administration, in the higher schools, and in the [[Imperial University of Dorpat]], the name of which was altered to [[Tartu|Yuriev]]. In 1893, district committees for the management of the peasants' affairs, similar to those in purely Russian governments, were introduced into this part of the empire.
==Economy==
{{Main|Economy of the Russian Empire}}
[[File:Госбанк, СПб, ~1905.jpg|thumb|The [[State Bank of the Russian Empire]] was founded in 1860 as a central bank structure (headquarters in Saint Petersburg, photographed in 1905).]]
Before the [[Emancipation reform of 1861|abolition of serfdom]] in 1861, Russia's economy mainly depended on agriculture.{{Sfn|Chapman|2002|p=3}} By the [[Russian Empire census|census]] of 1897, 95% of the Russian population lived in the countryside.{{Sfn|Chapman|2002|p=5}} [[Nicholas I of Russia|Nicholas I]] attempted to modernise his country, and have it not been so dependent on a single economic sector.{{Sfn|Chapman|2002|p=49}} During the reign of [[Alexander III of Russia|Alexander III]], many reforms occurred. The [[Peasants' Land Bank]] was founded in 1883 to provide loans for Russian peasants, both as individuals and in communes. The [[Nobles' Land Bank]], in 1885, made loans at nominal interest rates to the landed nobility. The [[poll tax]] was abolished in 1886.{{Sfn|Chapman|2002|p=129}}
When [[Ivan Vyshnegradsky]] was appointed as the new minister of finance in 1886, he increased the pressure on peasants by increasing taxes on land and prescribing how they harvested grain. These policies led to the severe [[Russian famine of 1891–1892]], with four hundred thousand perishing from starvation. Vyshnegradsky was succeeded by Count [[Sergei Witte]] in 1892. Witte began by raising revenues through a monopoly on alcohol, which brought in 300 million rubles in 1894. These reforms returned the peasants to essentially being serfs again.{{Sfn|Chapman|2002|p=130}} In 1900, a wealthy peasant class ([[kulaks]]) had emerged, representing less than 20% of the population.{{Sfn|Chapman|2002|p=131}} An [[income tax]] was introduced in 1916.
===Agriculture===
{{Main|Agriculture in the Russian Empire}}
Russia had a longstanding economic bargain on fundamental [[Agriculture in the Russian Empire|agriculture]] on large [[Estate (land)|estates]] worked by Russian [[peasant]]s (also known as [[Serfdom in Russia|serfs]]), who did not get any rights from slave masters under the system of "[[Corvée|barshchina]]".{{Efn|{{Lang-rus|барщина|p=ˈbarɕːɪnə}}}} Another system was called ''obrok'',{{Efn|{{Lang-rus|оброк|p=ɐˈbrok}}}} in which serfs worked in exchange for cash or goods from the master, allowing them to work outside the estate.{{Sfn|Chapman|2002|p=4}} These systems were based on a legal code called the [[Sobornoye Ulozheniye]], which was introduced by [[Alexis of Russia|Alexis I]] in 1649.
From 1891 to 1892, peasants were faced with new policies carried out by Ivan Vyshnegradsky, causing a famine and disease that took the lives of four hundred thousand people,{{Sfn|Waldron|1997|p=27}}<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ziegler |first=Charles E. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7moY9FF4raQC&pg=PA58 |title=The History of Russia |publisher=ABC-CLIO |date=2009 |isbn=978-0-3133-6307-8 |page=58 |access-date=16 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230116174112/https://books.google.com/books?id=7moY9FF4raQC&pg=PA58 |archive-date=16 January 2023 |url-status=live}}</ref> especially in the [[Volga region]], eliciting the greatest decline in grain production.{{Sfn|Waldron|1997|p=55–56}}
===Mining and heavy industry===
{{Main|Industrialization in the Russian Empire}}
[[File:Russian Empire-1910-Bill-100-Reverse.jpg|thumb|100 ruble banknote (1910)]]
[[File:Russian and US equities 1865 to 1917.jpg|thumb|Russian and US equities, 1865 to 1917]]
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center; width:200px; height:200px;"
|+ Output in 1912 of mining and heavy industries of the Russian Empire, as a percentage of national output, by region.
|-
!
! Ural Region
! Southern Region
! Caucasus
! Siberia
! Kingdom of Poland
|-
! Gold
| 21%
| –
| –
| 88.2%
|-
|-
! Platinum
| 100%
| –
| –
| –
| –
|-
! Silver
| 36%
| –
| 24.3%
| 29.3%
| –
|-
! Lead
| 5.8%
| –
| 92%
| –
| 0.9%
|-
! Zinc
| –
| –
| 25.2%
| –
| 74.8%
|-
! Copper
| 54.9%
| –
| 30.2%
| 14.9%
| –
|-
! Pig Iron
| 19.4%
| 67.7%
| –
| –
| 9.3%
|-
! Iron and Steel
| 17.3%
| 36.2%
| –
| –
| 10.8%
|-
! Manganese
| 0.3%
| 29.2%
| 70.3%
| –
| –
|-
! Coal
| 3.4%
| 67.3%
| –
| 5.8%
| 22.3%
|-
! Petroleum
| –
| –
| 96%
| –
| –
|}
==Infrastructure==
===Rail===
[[File:Tzarskoselskaya Railway - Watercolour.jpg|thumb|Watercolor-tinted lithgraph, from the 1840s, depicting the arrival of the first [[Tsarskoye Selo Railway]] train at [[Tsarskoye Selo]] from St. Petersburg on 30 October 1837]]
After 1860, the expansion of Russian rail had far-reaching effects on the economy, culture, and ordinary life of Russia. The central authorities and the imperial elite made most of the key decisions, but local elites made demands for rail linkages. Local nobles, merchants, and entrepreneurs imagined a future of promoting their regional interests, from "locality" to "empire". Often, they had to compete with other cities. By envisioning their own role in a rail network they came to understand how important they were to the empire's economy.<ref>Walter Sperling, "Building a Railway, Creating Imperial Space: 'Locality,' 'Region,' 'Russia,' 'Empire' as Political Arguments in Post-Reform Russia", ''Ab Imperio'' (2006) Issue 2, pp. 101–134.</ref>
During the 1880s, the Russian army built two major rail lines in [[Central Asia]]. The [[Transcaucasus Railway]] connected the city of [[Batum]] on the [[Black Sea]] and the oil center of [[Baku]] on the [[Caspian Sea]]. The [[Trans-Caspian Railway]] began at [[Krasnovodsk]] on the Caspian Sea and reached [[Bukhara]], [[Samarkand]], and [[Tashkent]]. Both lines served the commercial and strategic needs of the empire and facilitated migration.<ref>Sarah Searight, "Russian railway penetration of Central Asia", ''Asian Affairs'' (June 1992) 23#2 pp. 171–180.</ref>
==Religion==
{{Main|Christianity in Russia|Islam in Russia|Catholic Church in Russia|Buddhism in Russia|History of the Jews in Russia}}
[[File:Entry Processin.jpg|thumb|Contemporary painting of the procession of Emperor [[Alexander II of Russia|Alexander II]] into [[Dormition Cathedral, Moscow|Dormition Cathedral]] in Moscow during his [[Coronation of the Russian monarch|coronation]] in 1856]]
[[File:Subdivisions of the Russian Empire by largest ethnolinguistic group (1897).svg|thumb|Map of subdivisions of the Russian Empire by largest ethnolinguistic group (1897)]]
The Russian Empire's [[state religion]] was [[Eastern Orthodox Church|Orthodox Christianity]].<ref>Article 62 of the 1906 [[Russian Constitution of 1906|Fundamental Laws]] (previously, Article 40): "The primary and predominant Faith in the Russian Empire is the Christian Orthodox Catholic Faith of the Eastern Confession."</ref> The emperor was not allowed to "profess any faith other than the Orthodox" (Article 62 of the 1906 [[Russian Constitution of 1906|Fundamental Laws]]) and was deemed "the Supreme Defender and Guardian of the dogmas of the predominant Faith and is the Keeper of the purity of the Faith and all good order within the Holy Church" (Article 64 ''ex supra''). Although he made and annulled all senior ecclesiastical appointments, he did not settle questions of dogma or church teaching. The principal ecclesiastical authority of the [[Russian Orthodox Church|Russian Church]]—which 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 (Russia)|Procurator]] of the Holy Synod being one of the council of ministers with wide ''de facto'' powers in ecclesiastical matters.
The ecclesiastical heads of the national Russian Orthodox Church consisted of three [[Metropolitan bishop|metropolitan]]s (Saint Petersburg, Moscow, Kiev), fourteen [[archbishop]]s and fifty bishops, all drawn from the ranks of the monastic (celibate) clergy. The [[parochialism|parochial]] clergy had to be married when appointed, but if left widowers were not allowed to marry again; this rule continues to apply today.
===Religious policy===
All non-Orthodox religions were formally forbidden from [[Proselytism|proselytizing]] within the empire.<ref name=":6">{{Cite book |last=Kollmann |first=Nancy Shields |title=The Russian Empire 1450–1801 |date=2017 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-1992-8051-3 |edition=1st |___location=Oxford, United Kingdom |pages=404, 407–408 |oclc=969962873 }}</ref> In a policy influenced by Catherine II but solidified in the 19th century, Tsarist Russia exhibited increasing "[[confessionalization]]", pursuing top-down reorganization of the empire's faiths,<ref name=":6"/> also referred to as the "[[confessional state]]".<ref name=":7">{{Cite book |last1=Davies |first1=Franziska |title=Jews and Muslims in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union |last2=Wessel |first2=Martin Schulze |last3=Brenner |first3=Michael |date=2015 |publisher=Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht |isbn=978-3-6473-1028-2 |___location=Göttingen |pages=47–52 |oclc=930490047 }}</ref> The tsarist administration sought to arrange "orthodoxies" within [[Islam in Russia|Islam]], [[Buddhism in Russia|Buddhism]], and the [[Protestantism in Russia|Protestant]] faiths, which was performed by creating spiritual assemblies (in the case of Islam, [[History of the Jews in Russia|Judaism]], and [[Lutheranism]]), banning and declaring [[Diocese|bishoprics]] (in the case of [[Roman Catholicism]]), and arbitrating doctrinal disputes.<ref name=":6"/> When the state lacked resources to provide a secular bureaucracy across its entire territory, guided 'reformation' of faiths provided elements of social control.<ref name=":6"/><ref name=":7"/>
==== Anti-semitism ====
{{Main|Antisemitism in the Russian Empire}}
After Catherine II annexed eastern Poland in the [[Partitions of Poland|Polish Partitions]],<ref>{{Cite news |title=1791: Catherine the Great Tells Jews Where They Can Live |url=https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/.premium-1791-russian-jews-told-where-to-live-1.5302808 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211017084540/https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/.premium-1791-russian-jews-told-where-to-live-1.5302808 |archive-date=17 October 2021 |access-date=17 October 2021 |work=Haaretz |language=en}}</ref> there were restrictions placed against Jews known as the [[Pale of Settlement]], an area of Tsarist Russia inside which Jews were authorized to settle, and outside of which were deprived of various rights such as freedom of movement or commerce.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |title=The Pale of Settlement |url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-pale-of-settlement |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191015030302/https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-pale-of-settlement |archive-date=15 October 2019 |access-date=15 October 2021 |website=www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org}}</ref> Particularly repressive was [[Nicholas I of Russia|Emperor Nicholas I]], who sought the forced assimilation of Jews,<ref name=":8">{{Cite web |title=Russia Virtual Jewish History Tour |url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/russia-virtual-jewish-history-tour |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200423132203/https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/russia-virtual-jewish-history-tour |archive-date=23 April 2020 |access-date=2 February 2022 |website=www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org}}</ref> from 1827 conscripted Jewish children as [[Cantonist]]s in military institutions in the east aiming to compel them to convert to Christianity,<ref>{{Cite web |title=Cantonists |url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/cantonists |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220202061853/https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/cantonists |archive-date=2 February 2022 |access-date=2 February 2022 |website=www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org}}</ref> attempted to stratify Jews into "useful" and "not useful" based on wealth<ref name=":8"/> and further restricted religious and commercial rights within the Pale of Settlement.<ref name=":1"/><ref name="x00b0">{{Cite web |title=Nicholas |url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/nicholas-x00b0-2 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220202064529/https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/nicholas-x00b0-2 |archive-date=2 February 2022 |access-date=2 February 2022 |website=www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org}}</ref> [[Alexander II of Russia|Emperor Alexander II]] ceased this harsh treatment and pursued a more bureaucratic type of assimilation,<ref name=":8"/> such as compensating the Cantonists for their previous military service, including those who remained Jewish,<ref name=":1"/> although certain military ranks were still limited to Christians.<ref name=":8"/> In contrast, Emperor [[Alexander III of Russia|Alexander III]] resumed an atmosphere of oppression, including the [[May Laws]], which further restricted Jewish settlements and rights to own property, as well as limiting the types of professions available,<ref name=":1"/><ref>{{Cite news |title=This Day in Jewish History May Laws Punish Russia's Jews |url=https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/.premium-this-day-may-laws-punish-russia-s-jews-1.5248288 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211028175015/https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/.premium-this-day-may-laws-punish-russia-s-jews-1.5248288 |archive-date=28 October 2021 |access-date=15 October 2021 |work=Haaretz |language=en}}</ref> and the expulsion of Jews from Kiev in 1886 and Moscow in 1891. The overall [[Antisemitism in the Russian Empire|anti-Jewish policy of the Russian Empire]] led to significant sustained emigration.<ref name=":1"/>
==== Persecution of Muslims ====
{{Further|Persecution of Muslims#Russian Empire}}
Islam had a "sheltered but precarious" place in the Russian Empire.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Brower |first=Daniel |date=1996 |title=Russian Roads to Mecca: Religious Tolerance and Muslim Pilgrimage in the Russian Empire |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2502001 |url-status=live |journal=Slavic Review |volume=55 |issue=3 |pages=567–584 |doi=10.2307/2502001 |issn=0037-6779 |jstor=2502001 |s2cid=163469315 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211029205711/https://www.jstor.org/stable/2502001 |archive-date=29 October 2021 |access-date=15 October 2021|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Initially, sporadic [[forced conversion]]s were demanded against Muslims in the early Russian Empire. In the 18th century, Catherine II issued an edict of toleration that gave legal status to Islam and allowed Muslims to fulfill religious obligations.<ref name=":3"/> Catherine also established the [[Orenburg Muslim Spiritual Assembly]], which had a degree of imperial jurisdiction over the organization of Islamic practice in the country.<ref name=":4">{{Cite book |last=Allen |first=Frank |title=Muslim Religious Institutions in Imperial Russia: The Islamic World of Novouzensk District and the Kazakh Inner Horde, 1780–1910 |publisher=Brill |date=2021 |isbn=978-9-0044-9232-5 |pages=1–3, 100}}</ref> As the Russian Empire expanded, tsarist administrators found it expedient to draw on existing Islamic religious institutions that were already in place.<ref name=":5">{{Cite book |last=Crews |first=Robert D. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=R40_QY77IPUC |title=For prophet and tsar : Islam and empire in Russia and Central Asia |date=2006 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=0-6740-2164-9 |___location=Cambridge, Mass. |pages=293–294 |oclc=62282613 |access-date=19 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230326164800/https://books.google.com/books?id=R40_QY77IPUC |archive-date=26 March 2023 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name=":4"/>
[[File:Мухаджиры.jpg|thumb|upright=1.25|Portrait of Muslim Circassian tribes fleeing from persecution after the [[Russo-Circassian War#End of the war|Russian conquest of Circassia]] during the 1860s. Summing up the imperial policy of [[Circassian genocide]], Russian military historian Rostislav Fadeyev wrote: "The state needed the [[Circassians]]' land, but had absolutely no need of them."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Richmond |first=Walter |title=The Circassian Genocide |publisher=Rutgers University Press |date=2013 |isbn=978-0-8135-6068-7 |___location=New Brunswick, New Jersey, US |page=76 |chapter=4: 1864}}</ref>]]
In the 19th century, the restrictive policies became much more oppressive during the Russo-Turkish Wars, and the Russian Empire perpetrated persecutions such as the [[Circassian genocide]] during the 1860s.<ref name=":3">{{Cite book |last=Campbell |first=Elena I. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fM5uBgAAQBAJ |title=The Muslim question and Russian imperial governance |date=2015 |publisher=Indiana University Press |isbn=978-0-2530-1454-2 |___location=Bloomington |pages=1–25 |oclc=902954232 |access-date=19 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230326164800/https://books.google.com/books?id=fM5uBgAAQBAJ |archive-date=26 March 2023 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Richmond |first=Walter |title=The Circassian Genocide |publisher=Rutgers University Press |date=2013 |isbn=978-0-8135-6068-7 |___location=New Brunswick, New Jersey, US}}</ref> Following its [[Russo-Circassian War|conquest of Circassia]], around 1 to 1.5 million Circassians – almost half of the total population – were killed or forcibly deported.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Levene |first1=Mark |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PjPCmnzztfkC&q=Circassian+genocide&pg=PA149 |title=The Massacre in History |last2=Roberts |first2=Penny |publisher=[[Berghahn Books]] |date=1999 |isbn=1-5718-1935-5 |editor-last=Shenfield |editor-first=Stephen D. |editor-link=Mark Levene |___location=New York |pages=149–162 |chapter=7: The Circassians: A Forgotten Genocide? |quote=The number who died in the Circassian catastrophe of the 1860s could hardly, therefore, have been fewer than one million, and may well have been closer to one-and-a-half million |access-date=22 August 2023 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PjPCmnzztfkC&pg=PA149 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231216000738/https://books.google.com/books?id=PjPCmnzztfkC&q=Circassian+genocide&pg=PA149#v=snippet&q=Circassian%20genocide&f=false |archive-date=16 December 2023 |url-status=live}}; {{Cite book |last=Ahmed |first=Akbar |title=The Thistle and the Drone |publisher=Brookings Institution Press |date=2013 |isbn=978-0-8157-2378-3 |___location=Washington, D.C. |pages=357}}; {{Cite book |last=Richmond |first=Walter |title=The Circassian Genocide |publisher=Rutgers University Press |date=2013 |isbn=978-0-8135-6068-7 |___location=New Brunswick, New Jersey, US |pages=88–93 |chapter=4: 1864}}; {{Cite web |last=Cataliotti |first=Joseph |date=22 October 2023 |title=Circassian Genocide: Overview & History |url=https://study.com/learn/lesson/circassian-genocide-overview-facts.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230320101348/https://study.com/learn/lesson/circassian-genocide-overview-facts.html |archive-date=20 March 2023 |access-date=22 August 2023 |website=Study.com}}; {{Cite web |date=21 May 2023 |title=Circassian Genocide on its 159th Anniversary – Genocide is a Crime against Humanity! |url=https://ihd.org.tr/en/circassian-genocide-on-its-159th-anniversary-genocide-is-a-crime-against-humanity |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230822133010/https://ihd.org.tr/en/circassian-genocide-on-its-159th-anniversary-genocide-is-a-crime-against-humanity |archive-date=22 August 2023 |website=Human Rights Association}}</ref> Many of those who fled persecution also died en route to other countries. Today, the vast majority of Circassians live in [[Circassian diaspora|diaspora communities]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Richmond |first=Walter |title=The Circassian Genocide |publisher=Rutgers University Press |date=2013 |isbn=978-0-8135-6068-7 |___location=New Brunswick, New Jersey, US |pages=91, 92}}; {{Cite news |last=Peach |first=Gary |date=10 November 2010 |title=Forgotten genocides of the Caucasus |url=https://www.politico.eu/article/forgotten-genocides-of-the-caucasus |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201025092153/https://www.politico.eu/article/forgotten-genocides-of-the-caucasus |archive-date=25 October 2020 |work=Politico}}; {{Cite book |last=Shenfield |first=Stephen D. |title=The Massacre in History |publisher=[[Berghahn Books]] |date=1999 |isbn=1-5718-1935-5 |editor-last=Levene |editor-first=Mark |editor-link=Mark Levene |___location=New York, NY, US |pages=149–162 |chapter=7: The Circassians: A Forgotten Genocide? |access-date=25 January 2024 |editor-last2=Roberts |editor-first2=Penny |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PjPCmnzztfkC&pg=PA149 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240227153429/https://books.google.com/books?id=PjPCmnzztfkC&pg=PA149#v=onepage&q&f=false |archive-date=27 February 2024 |url-status=live}}; {{Cite book |last=King |first=Charles |title=A History of the Caucasus |publisher=Oxford University Press |date=2008 |isbn=978-0-1951-7775-6 |___location=New York, NY |pages=96–98 |chapter=2: Rule and Resistance |access-date=25 January 2024 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mv0RDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA96 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240227153520/https://books.google.com/books?id=mv0RDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA96#v=onepage&q&f=false |archive-date=27 February 2024 |url-status=live}}</ref> Throughout the late 19th century, the term "Circassian" became a common adage for "highwayman" across the Balkan and Anatolian regions, due to the prevalence of homeless Circassian refugees.<ref>{{Cite book |last=King |first=Charles |title=A History of the Caucasus |publisher=Oxford University Press |date=2008 |isbn=978-0-1951-7775-6 |___location=New York, NY |page=98 |chapter=2: Rule and Resistance |access-date=25 January 2024 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mv0RDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA98 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240227153438/https://books.google.com/books?id=mv0RDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA98#v=onepage&q&f=false |archive-date=27 February 2024 |url-status=live}}</ref>
Many groups of Muslims such as [[Crimean Tatars]] were forced to emigrate to the Ottoman Empire following the Russian defeat in the [[Crimean War]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Williams |first=Brian Glyn |date=2000 |title=Hijra and Forced Migration from Nineteenth-Century Russia to the Ottoman Empire. A Critical Analysis of the Great Crimean Tatar Emigration of 1860–1861 |journal=Cahiers du Monde russe |volume=41 |issue=1 |pages=79–108 |doi=10.4000/monderusse.39 |issn=1252-6576 |jstor=20171169 |s2cid=36114349 |doi-access=free}}</ref> During the latter portion of the 19th century, the status of Islam in the Russian Empire became associated with the tsarist regime's ideological principles of [[Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality|Official Nationality]] requiring Russian Orthodoxy.<ref name=":5"/> Nonetheless, in certain areas Islamic institutions were allowed to operate, such as the [[Orenburg Muslim Spiritual Assembly|Orenburg Assembly]], but were designated with a lower status.<ref name=":4"/>
==== Policy towards non-Eastern Orthodox Christian sects ====
[[File:Pogrom de Bialostok.jpg|thumb|Corpses of Jewish victims collected for burial in the aftermath of the [[Białystok pogrom]] (1906)]]
Despite the predominance of Orthodoxy, several Christian denominations were professed.<ref name=":2">{{Cite journal |last=Paert |first=Irina |date=1 February 2017 |title=The Tsar's Foreign Faiths: Toleration and the Fate of Religious Freedom in Imperial Russia by Paul W. Werth |url=https://doi.org/10.1093/ehr/cew383 |url-status=live |journal=The English Historical Review |volume=132 |issue=554 |pages=175–177 |doi=10.1093/ehr/cew383 |issn=0013-8266 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240227153510/https://academic.oup.com/ehr/article-abstract/132/554/175/3748210?redirectedFrom=fulltext |archive-date=27 February 2024 |access-date=15 October 2021|url-access=subscription }}</ref> [[Lutheranism|Lutherans]] were particularly tolerated with the invited settlement of [[Volga Germans]] and the presence of [[Baltic German nobility]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Stricker |first=Gerd |date=1 June 2001 |title=Lutherans in Russia since 1990 |url=https://doi.org/10.1080/09637490120074792 |url-status=live |journal=Religion, State and Society |volume=29 |issue=2 |pages=101–113 |doi=10.1080/09637490120074792 |issn=0963-7494 |s2cid=145405540 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240227153437/https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09637490120074792 |archive-date=27 February 2024 |access-date=15 October 2021|url-access=subscription }}</ref> During the reign of Catherine II, the [[Suppression of the Society of Jesus|Jesuit suppression]] was not promulgated, so Jesuits survived in Russian Empire, and this "Russian Society" played a role in re-establishing the Jesuits in the west.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Binzley |first=Ronald A. |date=1 June 2017 |title=How the Jesuits Survived Their Suppression: The Society of Jesus in the Russian Empire (1773–1814), written by Mark Inglot, S.J. |journal=Journal of Jesuit Studies |volume=4 |issue=3 |pages=489–491 |doi=10.1163/22141332-00403007 |issn=2214-1324 |doi-access=free}}</ref> Overall, [[Roman Catholicism]] was strictly controlled during Catherine II's reign, which was considered an epoch of relative tolerance for Catholicism.<ref name=":6"/><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Zatko |first=James J. |date=1960 |title=The Roman Catholic Church and Its Legal Position under the Provisional Government in Russia in 1917 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4205179 |url-status=live |journal=The Slavonic and East European Review |volume=38 |issue=91 |pages=476–492 |issn=0037-6795 |jstor=4205179 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211017084536/https://www.jstor.org/stable/4205179 |archive-date=17 October 2021 |access-date=17 October 2021}}</ref> Catholics were distrusted by the Russian Empire as elements of [[Polish nationalism]], a perception which especially increased following the [[January Uprising]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Weeks |first=Ted |date=1 January 2011 |title="Religion, Nationality, or Politics: Catholicism in the Russian Empire, 1863–1905" |journal=Journal of Eurasian Studies |language=en |volume=2 |issue=1 |pages=52–59 |doi=10.1016/j.euras.2010.10.008 |issn=1879-3665 |s2cid=145315419 |doi-access=free}}</ref> After this [[Russification of Poles during the Partitions|Russification]] policies intensified and Orthodox churches such as [[Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, Warsaw]] were built across Congress Poland, but no forced conversion was attempted.
Tsarist religious policy was focused on punishing Orthodox dissenters, such as [[Eastern Catholic Churches|uniates]] and sectarians.<ref name=":6"/> [[Old Believers]] were seen as dangerous elements and persecuted heavily.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Rubinstein |first1=Samara |last2=Dulik |first2=Matthew C. |last3=Gokcumen |first3=Omer |last4=Zhadanov |first4=Sergey |last5=Osipova |first5=Ludmila |last6=Cocca |first6=Maggie |last7=Mehta |first7=Nishi |last8=Gubina |first8=Marina |last9=Posukh |first9=Olga |last10=Schurr |first10=Theodore G. |date=2008 |title=Russian Old Believers: genetic consequences of their persecution and exile, as shown by mitochondrial DNA evidence |journal=Human Biology |volume=80 |issue=3 |pages=203–237 |doi=10.3378/1534-6617-80.3.203 |issn=0018-7143 |pmid=19130794 |s2cid=9520618 }}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite news |date=26 May 2017 |title=Perspective {{!}} Russian Orthodox Old Believers: Keeping their faith and fighting fires in the West Siberian Plain |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-sight/wp/2017/05/26/russian-orthodox-old-believers-keeping-their-faith-and-fighting-fires-in-the-west-siberian-plain |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201113061455/https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-sight/wp/2017/05/26/russian-orthodox-old-believers-keeping-their-faith-and-fighting-fires-in-the-west-siberian-plain |archive-date=13 November 2020 |access-date=15 October 2021 |newspaper=Washington Post |language=en}}</ref> Various minor sects such as [[Spiritual Christianity|Spiritual Christians]] and [[Molokan]] were banished in internal exile to Transcaucasia and Central Asia, with some further emigrating to the Americas.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Hardwick |first=Susan W. |date=1993 |title=Religion and Migration: The Molokan Experience |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/24040086 |url-status=live |journal=Yearbook of the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers |volume=55 |pages=127–141 |issn=0066-9628 |jstor=24040086 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211017084533/https://www.jstor.org/stable/24040086 |archive-date=17 October 2021 |access-date=17 October 2021}}</ref> [[Doukhobors]] came to settle primarily in Canada.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Sainsbury |first=Brendan |title=Canada's little-known Russian sect |url=https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20210623-canadas-little-known-russian-sect |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211017084540/https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20210623-canadas-little-known-russian-sect |archive-date=17 October 2021 |access-date=17 October 2021 |website=www.bbc.com |date=24 June 2021 |language=en}}</ref>
In 1905, Emperor Nicholas II issued a religious [[Edict of toleration|toleration edict]] that gave legal status to non-Orthodox religions.<ref>{{Cite web |date=30 April 2019 |title=On This Day: Nicholas II Signs Decree for "Tolerance Development" |url=https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/04/30/on-this-day-nicholas-ii-signs-decree-for-tolerance-development-a65437 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211029174901/https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/04/30/on-this-day-nicholas-ii-signs-decree-for-tolerance-development-a65437 |archive-date=29 October 2021 |access-date=15 October 2021 |website=The Moscow Times |language=en}}</ref> This created a "Golden Age of Old Faith" for the previously persecuted Old Believers until the emergence of the Soviet Union.<ref name=":0"/> In the early 20th century, some of the restrictions of the Pale of Settlement were reversed, though were not formally abolished until the February Revolution.<ref name=":1"/> However, some historians evaluate Tsar Nicholas II as having given tacit approval to the antisemitic [[Pogroms in the Russian Empire|pogroms]] that resulted from reactionary riots.<ref name="x00b0"/><ref>{{Cite book |last=Sperber |first=Jonathan |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=892sAgAAQBAJ |title=Europe 1850–1914 : progress, participation and apprehension |date=2013 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-3158-3501-3 |___location=Oxon, England |page=325 |oclc=874151263 |access-date=19 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230326164759/https://books.google.com/books?id=892sAgAAQBAJ |archive-date=26 March 2023 |url-status=live}}; {{cite news |last=Masis |first=Julie |title=In the former Soviet Union, statues and hero worship for leaders of pogroms |url=https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-the-former-soviet-union-statues-and-hero-worship-for-leaders-of-pogroms |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220427051624/https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-the-former-soviet-union-statues-and-hero-worship-for-leaders-of-pogroms |archive-date=27 April 2022 |access-date=27 April 2022 |website=[[The Times of Israel]] |date=29 November 2017 |language=en-US |issn=0040-7909}}</ref> [[Edward Radzinsky]] suggested that many pogroms were incited by authorities and supported by the [[Tsar]]ist Russian [[secret police]], the [[Okhrana]], even if some happened spontaneously.<ref name=":9">{{Cite book |last=Radzinsky |first=Edvard |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=L3VS4Kqa_nAC |title=The Last Tsar: The Life and Death of Nicholas II |date=30 March 2011 |publisher=Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group |isbn=978-0-3077-5462-2 |pages=69, 77, 79 |language=en |quote=To the tsar, the pogroms organized by the police seemed like a holy outburst of popular indignation against the revolutionaries |access-date=27 April 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240227153447/https://books.google.com/books?id=L3VS4Kqa_nAC |archive-date=27 February 2024 |url-status=live}}</ref> According to Radzinsky, [[Sergei Witte]] (appointed Prime Minister in 1905) remarked in his ''Memoirs'' that he found that some proclamations inciting pogroms were printed and distributed by imperial [[Police Department of Russia|Police]].<ref name=":9"/>{{Rp|page=69}}
==Demography==
[[File:Demographics of pre-WW1 Europe.png|thumb|upright 1.2|Demographics of pre-WW1 European countries]]
[[File:Dr Heinrich Berghaus' physikalischer Atlas 1852 (135750003).jpg|thumb|upright 1.2|Ethnographic Map of the Russian Empire by [[Heinrich Berghaus]] 1852]]
[[File:Этнографическая Карта Российской Империи Христиановича.png|thumb|upright 1.2|Ethnographic Map of the Russian Empire by Pauli Gustav-Fedor Khristianovich 1862]]
===Imperial census of 1897===
According to returns published in 1905, based on the [[Russian Empire census]] of 1897, adherents of the different religious communities in the empire numbered approximately as follows.
{| class="wikitable sortable"
! Religion
! Count of believers<ref>{{Cite web |script-title=ru:Первая всеобщая перепись населения Российской Империи 1897 г. Распределение населения по вероисповеданиям и регионам |trans-title=First general census of the population of the Russian Empire in 1897. Distribution of the population by faiths and regions |url=http://www.archipelag.ru/ru_mir/religio/statistics/said/statistics-imp |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121024115547/http://www.archipelag.ru/ru_mir/religio/statistics/said/statistics-imp |archive-date=24 October 2012 |publisher=archipelag.ru |language=ru}}</ref>
!%
|-
|[[Russian Orthodox Church|Russian Orthodox]]
|align=right|87,123,604
|align=right| 69.3%
|-
|[[Islam|Muslims]]
|align=right|13,906,972
|align=right| 11.1%
|-
|[[Catholic Church|Roman Catholics]]
|align=right|11,467,994
|align=right|9.1%
|-
|[[Rabbinic Judaism|Rabbinic Jews]]
|align=right|5,215,805
|align=right|4.2%
|-
|[[Lutheranism|Lutherans]]{{Efn|The [[Lutheranism|Lutheran Church]] was the dominant faith of the [[Baltic Provinces]], of [[Ingria]], and of the [[Grand Duchy of Finland]]}}
|align=right|3,572,653
|align=right|2.8%
|-
|[[Old Believers]]
|align=right|2,204,596
|align=right|1.8%
|-
|[[Armenian Apostolic Church|Armenian Apostolics]]
|align=right|1,179,241
|align=right|0.9%
|-
|[[Buddhism|Buddhists]] (Minor) and [[Tibetan Buddhism|Lamaists]] (Minor)
|align=right|433,863
|align=right|0.4%
|-
|Other non-Christian religions
|align=right|285,321
|align=right|0.2%
|-
|[[Calvinism|Reformed]]
|align=right|85,400
|align=right|0.1%
|-
|[[Mennonites]]
|align=right|66,564
|align=right|0.1%
|-
|[[Armenian Catholic Church|Armenian Catholics]]
|align=right|38,840
|align=right|0.0%
|-
|[[Baptists]]
|align=right|38,139
|align=right|0.0%
|-
|[[Karaite Judaism|Karaite Jews]]
|align=right|12,894
|align=right|0.0%
|-
|[[Anglicanism|Anglicans]]
|align=right|4,183
|align=right|0.0%
|-
|Other Christian denominations
|align=right|3,952
|align=right|0.0%
|}
===Russian Central Asia===
Russian Central Asia was also called [[Turkestan]]. As of the 1897 census, Russian Central Asia's five oblasts contained 5,260,300 inhabitants, 13.9 percent of them urban. The largest towns were [[Tashkent]] (156,400), [[Kokand]] (82,100), [[Namangan]] (61,900), and [[Samarkand]] (54,900). By 1911, 17 percent of [[Semirechye Oblast|Semireche]]'s population and half of its urban residents were Russians, four-fifths of them agricultural colonists. In the other four oblasts in the same year, Russians constituted only 4 percent of the population, and the overwhelming majority lived in European-style settlements alongside the native quarters in the major towns.<ref>Encyclopaedia of russian history, by James R. Miller, "Turkestan" entry</ref>
==Military==
{{Main|Military history of the Russian Empire}}{{See also|Russo-Swedish Wars|Russo-Turkish Wars|Russo-Persian Wars|Russo-Polish Wars|Russo-Japanese War|Russo-Circassian War}}
[[File:Suvorov Trebbia.jpg|thumb|[[Battle of the Trebbia (1799)]] by Alexander von Kotzebue]]
[[File:Vasily Surikov - Suvorov Crossing the Alps in 1799 - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|''[[Suvorov crossing the Alps]]''. By [[Vasily Surikov]].]]
The armed forces of the Russian Empire consisted of the [[Imperial Russian Army]] and the [[Imperial Russian Navy]]. The Emperor of Russia was the commander-in-chief of the armed forces and implemented out his military policies through the [[Ministry of War (Russian Empire)|Ministry of War]] and the [[Ministry of the Navy (Russia)|Ministry of the Navy]], which were tasked with administering their respective branches. There was no joint staff, but joint commissions were formed to work on specific tasks that involved both services.{{sfn|General Staff, War Office|1914|pp=18–19}}{{sfn|Papastratigakis|2011|page=40}} The Main Staff of the War Ministry administered the Army's organization, training, and mobilization, as well as coordinating the different branches of the Army, while the [[General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces|General Staff]] was tasked with operational planning. This structure developed in the 1860s after the [[Crimean War]].{{sfn|Mayzel|1975|pages=297—299}} The Navy Ministry had a similar structure, including a Main Staff tasked with administration and a Naval Technological Committee, and after the [[Russo-Japanese War]] a [[Russian Naval General Staff|Naval General Staff]] was added for operational planning and war preparation.{{sfn|Vinogradov|1998|page=269}}{{sfn|Westwood|1994|page=12}}
Peter the Great transformed Russia's mix of irregular, feudal, and modernized forces into a standing army and navy to meet the demands posed by the [[Great Northern War]] against Sweden and the conflicts with the Ottoman Empire. His reign also accelerated changes that had already started earlier. Peter issued a decree in 1699 that formed the basis for army recruitment,{{sfn|Anderson|1995|pages=91–96}} founded an artillery school in 1701 and an engineer school in 1709, put together military regulations for the organization of the army in 1716,{{sfn|Anderson|1995|pages=97–98}} created administrative organs to oversee the land and naval forces in 1718 (the [[College of War]] and the [[Admiralty Board (Russian Empire)|Admiralty]]),{{sfn|Anderson|1995|pages=91–96}} and oversaw the building of a new navy from scratch.{{sfn|Anderson|1995|pages=91–96}} These reforms were done with the help of foreign experts, though before the end of Peter's reign these experts were being increasingly replaced by Russian officers.{{sfn|Anderson|1995|pages=91–96}}
Most of the enlisted soldiers and sailors were peasant conscripts, though by the late 19th century Imperial Navy preferred to draft members of the urban working class to fill its more technical roles. Both the army and navy had a shortage of [[non-commissioned officer]]s, who were promoted from the enlisted ranks and tended to leave the military at the end of their mandatory service.{{sfn|Papastratigakis|2011|pages=53—54}}{{sfn|Reese|2019|pages=98—104}} Except for a few special units,{{sfn|General Staff, War Office|1914|pp=7–12}} almost no one voluntarily joined the military without the intention of becoming an officer.{{sfn|Reese|2019|page=128}} After the post-Crimean War reforms, there were three main commissioning sources of army officers: the [[Page Corps]], the [[Cadet Corps (Russia)|cadet corps]], and the [[junker (Russia)|junker]] or military schools.{{sfn|General Staff, War Office|1914|pp=15–17}} The cadet corps, among which the Page Corps was considered the most elite,{{sfn|Reese|2019|pages=37–40}} provided a military boarding school education to the sons of the high nobility as teenagers.{{sfn|Reese|2019|pages=44–45}} The junker schools provided the largest number of officers, and had a two-year education program for older enlisted soldiers that served for at least one year, and these were most often either lesser nobility or commoners.{{sfn|Reese|2019|pages=41–44}} The majority of army officers were nobles, though this changed by the end of the 19th century, with non-nobles being almost half of the officer corps in the 1890s.{{sfn|Reese|2019|pages=27—28}} The source of naval officers was the [[Naval Cadet Corps (Russia)|Naval Cadet Corps]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Mikaberidze |first=Alexander |year=2005 |title=The Russian Officer Corps of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, 1795-1815 |page=xxiv |publisher=Savas Beatie |isbn=978-1-932714-02-9 }}</ref> The majority of naval officers were also from the nobility, and many of them were descended from Baltic German or Swedish families with a history of naval service.{{sfn|Papastratigakis|2011|page=53}}
The Russian military budget declined in the late 19th century as the government prioritized spending for civilian purposes, paying interest on foreign loans, and building railways.{{sfn|Papastratigakis|2011|page=53}} Russia maintained a large peacetime standing army of over one million men in the decades after the Napoleonic Wars,<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Brooks |first=E. Willis |title=Reform in the Russian Army, 1856-1861 |journal=Slavic Review |volume=43 |issue=1 |date=1984 |page=64 |doi=10.2307/2498735 |jstor=2498735 }}</ref> and at the outbreak of World War I it was the largest in Europe.{{sfn|Stone|2021|page=33}} During the war the Russian Army was unable to match the [[Imperial German Army|German Army]] in tactical and operational proficiency, but its performance against the [[Austro-Hungarian Army]] and the [[Ottoman Army (1861–1922)|Ottoman Army]] was credible.{{sfn|Stone|2021|page=4}} The Russo-Japanese War took Russia from having the third largest navy in the world to the sixth largest.<ref>{{cite book |chapter=Russia |last=Budzbon |first=Prezemyslav |editor-last=Gardiner |editor-first=Robert |editor-last2=Gray |editor-first2=Randal |name-list-style=amp |year=1986 |title=Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1906–1921 |publisher=Conway Maritime Press |___location=London |isbn=0-85177-245-5 |page=291}}</ref> A reconstruction program approved by the State Duma in 1912, but it was not completed before World War I.{{sfn|Halpern|1994|pages=17–18}} Russia's [[Baltic Fleet]] stayed on the defensive against the German [[High Seas Fleet]],{{sfn|Halpern|1994|page=179}} but its [[Black Sea Fleet]] had success in raiding Ottoman merchant shipping and threatened the ability of the Ottoman Empire to continue the war.{{sfn|Halpern|1994|pages=232—233}}
==Society==
{{See also|Culture of Russia|Russian literature|Russian opera|Technology in the Russian Empire|Cinema of the Russian Empire}}
The Russian Empire was predominantly a rural society spread over vast spaces. In 1913, 80% of the people were peasants. 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. Recent research by Russian scholars disputes this interpretation. [[Boris Mironov (historian)|Boris Mironov]] assesses the effects of the reforms of latter 19th-century, especially in terms of the 1861 emancipation of the serfs, agricultural output trends, various [[standard of living]] indicators, and taxation of peasants. He argues that those reforms brought about measurable improvements in social welfare. More generally, he finds that the well-being of the Russian people declined during most of the 18th century but increased slowly from the end of the 18th century to 1914.<ref>[[Boris Mironov (historian)|Boris N. Mironov]], "The Myth of a Systemic Crisis in Russia after the Great Reforms of the 1860s–1870s", ''Russian Social Science Review'' (July/Aug 2009) 50#4 pp 36–48.; Boris N. Mironov, ''The Standard of Living and Revolutions in Imperial Russia, 1700–1917'' (2012) {{Cite book |title=The Standard of Living and Revolutions in Russia, 1700-1917 |isbn=978-0415608541 |last1=Mironov |first1=Boris Nikolaevich |date=2012 |publisher=Routledge }}</ref>
===Estates===
{{Main|Social estates in the Russian Empire}}
Subjects of the Russian Empire were segregated into ''[[sosloviye]]s'', or social estates (classes) such as [[nobility]] (''[[dvoryanstvo]]''), clergy, merchants, [[cossacks]], and [[peasants]]. Native people of the Caucasus, non-ethnic Russian areas such as [[History of Tatarstan|Tatarstan]], [[History of Bashkortostan|Bashkortostan]], [[History of Siberia|Siberia]] and [[History of Central Asia|Central Asia]] were officially registered as a category called ''[[inorodtsy]]'' ('non-Slavic', {{lit|people of another origin}}).
A majority of the population, 81.6%, belonged to the peasant order. The other classes were the nobility, 0.6%; clergy, 0.1%; the burghers and merchants, 9.3%; and military, 6.1%. More than 88 million Russians were peasants, some of whom were former serfs (10,447,149 males in 1858) – the remainder being "state peasants" (9,194,891 males in 1858, exclusive of the Archangel governorate) and "___domain peasants" (842,740 males the same year).
;Other status
* ''[[Intelligentsia]]''
* ''[[Raznochintsy]]''
* ''[[Zemlyachestvo]]''
===Serfdom===
{{Main|Serfdom in Russia|Emancipation reform of 1861}}
[[File:Announcement of the Coronation.JPG|thumb|1856 painting imagining the announcement of the coronation of [[Alexander II of Russia|Alexander II]] that year]]
[[File:Maslenitsa kustodiev.jpg|thumb|right|The 1916 painting ''[[Maslenitsa]]'' by [[Boris Kustodiev]], depicting a Russian city in winter]]
The serfdom that had developed in Russia in the 16th century, and had become enshrined in law in 1649, was [[Emancipation reform of 1861|abolished in 1861]].<ref>Elise Kimerling Wirtschafter, ''Russia's age of serfdom 1649–1861'' (2008)</ref><ref name="jeromeblum">[[Jerome Blum]], ''[[Lord and Peasant in Russia from the Ninth to the Nineteenth Century]]'' (1961)</ref>
Household servants or dependents attached to personal service were merely set free, while the landed peasants received their houses and orchards, and allotments of arable land. These allotments were given over to the rural commune, the ''[[mir (social)|mir]]'', which was responsible for the payment of taxes for the allotments. For these allotments the peasants had to pay a fixed rent, which could be fulfilled by personal labor. The allotments could be redeemed by peasants with the help of the Crown, and then they were freed from all obligations to the landlord. The Crown paid the landlord and the peasants had to repay the Crown, for forty-nine years at 6% interest. The financial redemption to the landlord was not calculated on the value of the allotments but was considered as compensation for the loss of the compulsory serf labor. Many proprietors contrived to curtail the allotments that the peasants had occupied under serfdom, and frequently deprived them of precisely that land of which they were most in need: pasture lands around their houses. The result was to compel the peasants to rent land from their former masters.<ref>Steven L. Hoch, ''Serfdom and social control in Russia: Petrovskoe, a village in Tambov'' (1989)</ref><ref name="David Moon 1999">David Moon, ''The Russian Peasantry 1600–1930: The World the Peasants Made'' (1999)</ref>
Serfs lived in deplorable conditions, working in the fields for nearly seven days a week and being exiled to the harsh land of [[Siberia]] or sent to military service. Owners had the right to sell slaves, depending on whether they were targeting land or accused (i.e., had escaped from working). Children of serfs received less [[Education in Russia|education]]. These serfs were heavily taxed, making them the poorest of any Russians.{{Sfn|Chapman|2002|p=4}} In 1861, Emperor [[Alexander II of Russia|Alexander II]] saw serfs as a problem that held back Russia's development, so he [[Emancipation reform of 1861|liberated]] 23 million serfs to become free,{{Sfn|Chapman|2002|p=9}} but they remained indigent throughout the former enslaved population despite their rights. The [[zemstvo]] system was introduced in 1865 as a rural assembly with administrative authority over the local population, including education and welfare, which ex-serfs were unable to acquire.
;Exceptional status:
* ''[[Free agriculturalist]]''
* ''[[State serf]]''
===Peasants===
{{Further|Obshchina|Repartition}}
[[File:Prokudin-Gorskii-08.jpg|right|thumb|Young Russian peasant women in front of a traditional wooden house ({{Circa|1909 to 1915}}), color photograph taken by [[Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky]]]]
[[File:Gorskii 04422u.jpg|right|thumb|Peasants in Russia (color photograph taken by Prokudin-Gorsky in 1909)]]
The former serfs became peasants, joining the millions of farmers who already had peasant status.<ref name="David Moon 1999"/><ref name="jeromeblum"/> Most peasants lived in tens of thousands of small villages under a highly patriarchal system. Hundreds of thousands moved to cities to work in factories, but they typically retained their village connections.<ref>Orlando Figes, "The Peasantry" in {{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NAZm2EdxKqkC&pg=PA543 |title=Critical Companion to the Russian Revolution, 1914–1921 |publisher=Indiana UP |date=1997 |isbn=0-2533-3333-4 |editor-last=Vladimir IUrevich Cherniaev |pages=543–53 |access-date=5 July 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240227153451/https://books.google.com/books?id=NAZm2EdxKqkC&pg=PA543#v=onepage&q&f=false |archive-date=27 February 2024 |url-status=live}}</ref>
After Emancipation reform, one-quarter of peasants received allotments of only {{Convert|2.9|acre|ha|order=flip}} per male, and one-half received less than {{Convert|8.5|to|11.4|acre|ha|order=flip}}; the normal size of the allotment necessary for the subsistence of a family under the three-fields system is estimated at {{Convert|28|to|42|acre|ha|order=flip}}. This land was of necessity rented from the landlords. 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 on the peasants. This burden increased every year; consequently, one-fifth of the inhabitants left their houses and cattle disappeared. 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 work. In the governments of the [[Black Earth Area]] the state of matters was hardly better. Many peasants took "gratuitous allotments", whose amount was about one-eighth of the normal allotments.<ref>Steven Hoch, "Did Russia's Emancipated Serfs Really Pay Too Much for Too Little Land? Statistical Anomalies and Long-Tailed Distributions". ''Slavic Review'' (2004) 63#2 pp. 247–274.; Steven Nafziger, "Serfdom, emancipation, and economic development in Tsarist Russia" (Working paper, Williams College, 2012). [http://www.ehs.org.uk/dotAsset/60e0d541-627e-4028-bca1-5fb981169cc2.doc online] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140429045548/http://www.ehs.org.uk/dotAsset/60e0d541-627e-4028-bca1-5fb981169cc2.doc |date=29 April 2014}}</ref>
The average allotment in [[Kherson]] was only {{Convert|0.90|acre|ha|order=flip}}, and for allotments from {{Convert|2.9|to|5.8|acre|ha|order=flip}} the peasants paid 5 to 10 rubles in redemption tax. The state peasants were better off; but they, too, were emigrating in masses. It was only in the [[steppe]] that the situation was more hopeful. In Ukraine, where the allotments were personal (the mir existing only among state peasants), the state of affairs was not better, on account of high redemption taxes. In the western provinces, where the land was more cheaply valued and the allotments somewhat increased after the [[January Uprising|Polish insurrection]], the situation was better. Finally, in the [[Baltic provinces]] nearly all the land belonged to the [[Baltic Germans|German landlords]], who either farmed the land themselves, with hired laborers, or let it in small farms. Only one-quarter of the peasants were farmers; the remainder were mere laborers.<ref name="Christine D. Worobec 1991">[[Christine D. Worobec]], ''Peasant Russia: family and community in the post-emancipation period'' (1991).</ref>
===Landowners===
The situation of the former serf-proprietors was also unsatisfactory. Accustomed to the use of compulsory labor, they failed to adapt to the new conditions. The millions of rubles of redemption money received from the crown was spent without any real or lasting agricultural improvements having been effected. The forests were sold, and the only prosperous landlords were those who exacted [[rack-rent]]s for the land allotted to peasants. There was an increase of wealth among the few, but along with this a general impoverishment of the mass of the people. Added to this, the peculiar institution of the mir—framed on the principle of community ownership and occupation of the land—the overall effect was not encouraging of individual effort.
During the years 1861 to 1892 the land owned by the nobles decreased 30%, or from {{Convert|210,000,000|to|150,000,000|acre|km2|order=flip|abbr=on}}; during the following four years an additional {{Convert|2119500|acre|km2|order=flip|abbr=on}} were sold; and since then the sales went on at an accelerated rate, until in 1903 alone close to {{Convert|8000|km2|acre|sigfig=1|abbr=on}} passed out of their hands. 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 {{Convert|19500000|acre|km2|-2|order=flip|abbr=on}} from their former masters.
In November 1906, however, Emperor Nicholas II promulgated a provisional order permitting the peasants to become freeholders of allotments made at the time of emancipation, all redemption dues being remitted. This measure, which was endorsed by the third Duma in an act passed on 21 December 1908, was calculated to have far-reaching and profound effects on the rural economy of Russia. 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. The order of November 1906 provided that the [[open field system|various strips of land]] held by each peasant should be merged into a single holding; the Duma, however, on the advice of the government, left its implementation to the future, regarding it as an ideal that could only gradually be realized.<ref name="Christine D. Worobec 1991"/>
===Media===
{{Main|History of journalism#Russia}}
Censorship was heavy-handed until the reign of Alexander II, but it never went away.<ref>Louise McReynolds, ''News under Russia's Old Regime: The Development of a Mass-Circulation Press'' (1991).</ref> Newspapers were strictly limited in what they could publish, and intellectuals favored literary magazines for their publishing outlets. [[Fyodor Dostoyevsky]], for example, ridiculed the St. Petersburg newspapers, such as ''[[Golos (newspaper)|Golos]]'' and ''Peterburgskii Listok'', accusing them of publishing trifles and distracting readers from the pressing social concerns of contemporary Russia through their obsession with spectacle and European popular culture.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Dianina |first=Katia |date=2003 |title=Passage to Europe: Dostoevskii in the St. Petersburg Arcade |journal=Slavic Review |volume=62 |issue=2 |pages=237–257 |doi=10.2307/3185576 |jstor=3185576 |s2cid=163868977}}</ref>
===Education===
[[File:Saint Petersburg University.jpg|thumb|Saint Petersburg Imperial University]]
Educational standards were very low in the Russian Empire, though they slowly increased in its last century of existence. By 1800, the level of literacy among male peasants ranged from 1 to 12 percent and from 20 to 25 percent for urban men. Literacy among women was very low. Literacy rates were highest for the nobility (84 to 87 percent), followed by merchants (over 75 percent), and then the workers and peasants. Serfs were the least literate. In every group, women were far less literate than men. By contrast, in Western Europe, urban men had about a 50 percent literacy rate. The Orthodox hierarchy was suspicious of education, seeing no religious need for literacy whatsoever. Peasants did not need to be literate, and those who did — such as artisans, businessmen, and professionals — were few in number. As late as 1851, only 8% of Russians lived in cities.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Mironov |first=Boris N. |date=1991 |title=The Development of Literacy in Russia and the USSR from the Tenth to the Twentieth Centuries |journal=History of Education Quarterly |volume=31 |issue=2 |pages=229–252 |doi=10.2307/368437 |jstor=368437 |s2cid=144460404}} esp p. 234.</ref>
The accession in 1801 of Alexander I (1801–1825) was widely welcomed as an opening to fresh liberal ideas from the European Enlightenment. Many reforms were promised, but few were implemented before 1820, when the emperor shifted his focus to foreign affairs and personal religious matters, neglecting issues of reform. In sharp contrast to Western Europe, the entire empire had a very small bureaucracy – about 17,000 public officials, most of whom lived in two of the largest cities, Moscow and Saint Petersburg. Modernization of government required much larger numbers; but that, in turn, required an educational system that could provide suitable training. Russia lacked that, and for university education, young men went to Western Europe. The army and the church had their own training programs, narrowly focused on their particular needs. The most important successful reform under Alexander I was the creation of a national system of education.<ref>Franklin A. Walker, "Enlightenment and religion in Russian education in the reign of Tsar Alexander I." ''History of Education Quarterly'' 32.3 (1992): 343–360.</ref>
[[File:Zemskaya shkola.jpg|thumb|Russian primary school in the 1900s]]
The [[Ministry of National Education (Russian Empire)|Ministry of Education]] was established in 1802, and the country was divided into six educational regions. The long-term plan was for a university in every region, a secondary school in every major city, upgraded primary schools, and – serving the largest number of students – a parish school for every two parishes. By 1825, the national government operated six universities, forty-eight secondary state schools, and 337 improved primary schools. Highly qualified teachers arrived from France, fleeing the revolution there. Exiled Jesuits set up elite boarding schools until their order was expelled in 1815. At the highest level, universities were based on the German model—in [[Kazan Federal University|Kazan]], [[National University of Kharkiv|Kharkov]], [[Saint Petersburg Imperial University|St. Petersburg]], [[Vilnius University|Vilna]] (refounded as the Imperial University in 1803) and [[University of Tartu|Dorpat]]—while the relatively young [[Imperial Moscow University]] was expanded. The higher forms of education were reserved for a very small elite, with only a few hundred students at the universities by 1825 and 5500 in the secondary schools. There were no schools open to girls. Most rich families still depended on private tutors.<ref>Nicholas V. Riasanovsky, ''Russian Identities: A Historical Survey'' (2005) pp 112–18.</ref>
Emperor Nicholas I was a reactionary who wanted to neutralize foreign ideas, especially those he ridiculed as "pseudo-knowledge". Nevertheless, his Minister of Education, Sergey Uvarov, promoted greater academic freedom at the university level for faculty members, who were under suspicion by reactionary church officials. Uvarov raised academic standards, improved facilities, and opened the admission doors a bit wider. Nicholas tolerated Uvarov's achievements until 1848, after which he reversed these innovations.<ref>Stephen Woodburn, "Reaction Reconsidered: Education and the State in Russia, 1825–1848." ''Consortium on Revolutionary Europe 1750–1850: Selected Papers 2000'' pp 423–31.</ref> For the rest of the century, the national government continued to focus on universities, and generally ignored elementary and secondary educational needs. By 1900 there were 17,000 university students, and over 30,000 were enrolled in specialized technical institutes. The students were conspicuous in Moscow and Saint Petersburg as a political force typically at the forefront of demonstrations and disturbances.<ref>Hans Rogger, ''Russia in the Age of Modernisation and Revolution 1881 – 1917 '' (1983) p 126.</ref> The majority of tertiary institutions in the empire used Russian, while some used other languages but later underwent Russification.<ref name="StraussPT196">Strauss, Johann. "Language and power in the late Ottoman Empire" (Chapter 7). In: Murphey, Rhoads (editor). ''Imperial Lineages and Legacies in the Eastern Mediterranean: Recording the Imprint of Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman Rule'' (Volume 18 of Birmingham Byzantine and Ottoman Studies). Routledge, 7 July 2016. {{ISBN|1-3171-1844-8}}, 9781317118442. [[Google Books]] [https://books.google.com/books?id=gY-kDAAAQBAJ&pg=PT196 PT196] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221226183253/https://books.google.com/books?id=gY-kDAAAQBAJ&pg=PT196 |date=26 December 2022}}.</ref> Other educational institutions in the empire included the [[Nersisian School]] in [[Tbilisi|Tiflis]].
==See also==
{{Portal|History|Russia}}
* [[Expansion of Russia (1500–1800)]]
* [[Russian imperialism]]
==Notes==
{{Notelist}}
==References==
{{Reflist}}
== Works cited ==
{{Refbegin|30em|indent=yes}}
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* {{Cite book |last=Freeze |first=George |url=https://www.amazon.com/Russia-A-History-ebook/dp/B00A7LNOQY |title=Russia: A History |date=2002 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-1986-0511-9 |edition=2nd |___location=Oxford |page=556 |access-date=11 September 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230326035510/https://www.amazon.com/Russia-A-History-ebook/dp/B00A7LNOQY |archive-date=26 March 2023 |url-status=live}}
*{{Cite book |author=General Staff, War Office |title=Handbook of the Russian Army |year=1914 |publisher=Imperial War Museum |___location=London}}
* {{Cite book |last=Geoffrey |first=Hosking |authorlink=Geoffrey Hosking |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oh-5AAmboMUC |title=Russia and the Russians: A History |date=2011 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=978-0-6740-6195-8 |edition=2nd |access-date=5 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230120183051/https://books.google.com/books?id=oh-5AAmboMUC |archive-date=20 January 2023 |url-status=live}}
* {{cite book |last=Halpern |first=Paul G. |title=A Naval History of World War I |year=1994 |___location=Annapolis |publisher=Naval Institute Press |isbn=978-1-61251-172-6 }}
* {{Cite book |last=Hughes |first=Lindsey |author-link=Lindsey Hughes |title=Russia in the Age of Peter the Great |date=1998 |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=978-0-3000-8266-1 |___location=New Haven, CT |page=640 |ol=358704M}}
* {{Cite book |title=The Cambridge History of Russia |date=2006 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |editor-last=Lieven |editor-first=Dominic C. B. |editor-link=Dominic Lieven |volume=II, Imperial Russia, 1689–1917}}
* {{Cite book |last=Lieven |first=Dominic C. B. |author-link=Dominic Lieven |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2AkbBQAAQBAJ |title=The End of Tsarist Russia: The March to World War I and Revolution |date=2015 |publisher=Penguin |isbn=978-0-1431-0955-6 |access-date=10 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240227154045/https://books.google.com/books?id=2AkbBQAAQBAJ |archive-date=27 February 2024 |url-status=live}}
* {{cite book |last1=Lieven |first1=Dominic |editor1-last=Bang |editor1-first=Peter Fibiger |editor2-last=Bayly |editor2-first=Christopher Alan |editor3-last=Scheidel |editor3-first=Walter |title=The Oxford World History of Empire |date=2021 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-753276-8 |pages=964–988 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nz0HEAAAQBAJ |language=en |chapter=The Russian Empire (1453–1917)}}
*{{Cite journal |last=Mayzel |first=Matitiahu |title=The Formation of the Russian General Staff. 1880-1917. A Social Study |journal=Cahiers du Monde Russe et Soviétique |volume=16 |issue=3/4 |date=1975 |pages=297–321 |doi=10.3406/cmr.1975.1241 |jstor=20169731 }}
* {{Cite book |last=McMeekin |first=Sean |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5u6buAAACAAJ |title=The Russian Origins of the First World War |date=2011 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=978-0-6740-6210-8 |access-date=10 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230107194801/https://books.google.com/books?id=5u6buAAACAAJ |archive-date=7 January 2023 |url-status=live}}
* {{Cite book |last=Papastratigakis |first=Nicholas |date=2011 |title=Russian Imperialism and Naval Power: Military Strategy and the Build-Up to the Russo-Japanese War |isbn=978-1-8488-5691-2 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |___location=London }}
* {{Cite book |last=Pipes |first=Richard |authorlink=Richard Pipes |title=Russia under the Old Regime |date=1974 |publisher=Scribner |isbn=978-0-6841-4041-4 |___location=New York}}
* {{Cite book |last=Pipes |first=Richard |authorlink=Richard Pipes |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5mSkxsos488C |title=A Concise History of the Russian Revolution |date=2011 |publisher=Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group |isbn=978-0-3077-8858-0 |access-date=13 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230112181721/https://books.google.com/books?id=5mSkxsos488C |archive-date=12 January 2023 |url-status=live}}
*{{Cite book |last=Reese |first=Roger R. |title=The Imperial Russian Army in Peace, War, and Revolution, 1856-1917 |year=2019 |publisher=University Press of Kansas |___location=Lawrence |isbn= 978-0-7006-2860-5 }}
* {{Cite book |last=Sanborn |first=Joshua A. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UBENBAAAQBAJ |title=Imperial Apocalypse: The Great War and the Destruction of the Russian Empire |date=2014 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-1996-4205-2 |access-date=11 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230110183105/https://books.google.com/books?id=UBENBAAAQBAJ |archive-date=10 January 2023 |url-status=live}}
* {{Cite book |last=Seton-Watson |first=Hugh |title=The Russian empire 1801–1917 |ol=18540198M |isbn=0-1982-2103-7 |date=1967|publisher=Clarendon Press }}
* {{Cite journal |last=Stein |first=Howard F. |date=December 1976 |title=Russian Nationalism and the Divided Soul of the Westernizers and Slavophiles |journal=Ethos |volume=4 |issue=4 |pages=403–438 |doi=10.1525/eth.1976.4.4.02a00010 |doi-access=free}}
* {{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DBwTBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA1048 |title=World War I: The Definitive Encyclopedia and Document Collection [5 volumes]: The Definitive Encyclopedia and Document Collection |date=2014 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |isbn=978-1-8510-9965-8 |editor-last=Tucker |editor-first=Spencer C. |access-date=30 December 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221226194501/https://books.google.com/books?id=DBwTBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA1048 |archive-date=26 December 2022 |url-status=live}}
* {{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=H3iSDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA468 |title=World War I: A Country-by-Country Guide |date=2019 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |isbn=978-1-4408-6369-1 |editor-last=Tucker |editor-first=Spencer C. |access-date=30 December 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221226195336/https://books.google.com/books?id=H3iSDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA468 |archive-date=26 December 2022 |url-status=live}}
* {{Cite book |last=Stone |first=David R. |title=The Russian Army in the Great War: The Eastern Front, 1914–1917 |page=33 |___location=Lawrence |publisher=University Press of Kansas |year=2021 |isbn= 978-0-7006-3308-1 }}
* {{Cite journal |last=Vinogradov |first=Sergei E. |title=Battleship Development in Russia from 1905 to 1917 |journal=Warship International |volume=35 |issue=3 |year=1998 |pages=267–90 |jstor=44892563 }}
* {{Cite journal |last=Waldron |first=Peter |date=1997 |title=The End of Imperial Russia, 1855–1917 |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-25483-5 |journal=European History in Perspective |doi=10.1007/978-1-349-25483-5 |isbn=978-0-333-60168-6|url-access=subscription }}
* {{cite book |last=Westwood |first=J. N. |title=Russian Naval Construction, 1905–45 |___location=London |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |year=1994 |isbn=978-1-349-12458-9 }}
{{Refend}}
==Further reading==
{{Main|Bibliography of Russian history (1613–1917)}}
===Surveys===
{{Refbegin|30em|indent=yes}}
* Ascher, Abraham. ''Russia: A Short History'' (2011)
* Kamenskii, Aleksandr B. ''The Russian Empire in the Eighteenth Century: Searching for a Place in the World'' (1997) . xii. 307 pp. A synthesis of much Western and Russian scholarship.
* [[Dominic Lieven|Lieven, Dominic C. B.]] ''Empire; The Russian Empire and Its Rivals'' (Yale University Press, 2001)
* Lincoln, W. Bruce. ''The Romanovs: Autocrats of All the Russias'' (1983), narrative history
* {{Cite book |last=Longley |first=David |title=The Longman Companion to Imperial Russia, 1689–1917 |publisher=Longman Publishing Group |date=2000 |isbn=978-0-5823-1990-5 |___location=New York |pages=496}}
* McKenzie, David & Michael W. Curran. ''A History of Russia, the Soviet Union, and Beyond''. 6th ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing, 2001. {{ISBN|0-5345-8698-8}}.
* Pares, Bernard. ''A history of Russia'' (1947) pp 221–537, [https://archive.org/details/historyofrussia00pare online]
* {{Cite book |title=The Cambridge History of Russia |date=2006 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |editor-last=Perrie |editor-first=Maureen |volume=I, From Early Rus' to 1689}}
* Riasanovsky, Nicholas V. and Mark D. Steinberg. ''A History of Russia''. 7th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. [https://archive.org/details/historyofrussia00rias online]
* {{Cite book |title=The Cambridge History of Russia |date=2006 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |editor-last=Suny |editor-first=Ronald Grigor |volume=III, The Twentieth Century}}
* Ziegler; Charles E. ''The History of Russia'' (Greenwood Press, 1999) [https://web.archive.org/web/20090330121926/http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=23391126 online edition]
{{Refend}}
===Geography, topical maps===
{{Refbegin|30em|indent=yes}}
* Barnes, Ian. ''Restless Empire: A Historical Atlas of Russia'' (2015), copies of historic maps
* Channon, John, and Robert Hudson. ''The Penguin historical atlas of Russia'' (Viking, 1995), new topical maps.
* Chew, Allen F. ''An atlas of Russian history: eleven centuries of changing borders'' (Yale University Press, 1970), new topical maps.
* Gilbert, Martin. ''Atlas of Russian history'' (Oxford University Press, 1993), new topical maps.
* Parker, William Henry. ''An historical geography of Russia'' (Aldine, 1968).
{{Refend}}
===1801–1917===
{{Refbegin|30em|indent=yes}}
* {{Cite book |last=Manning |first=Roberta Thompson |title= The Crisis of the Old Order in Russia: Gentry and Government |publisher= Princeton University Press |date=1982 |isbn=0-6910-5349-9 |ol=3785581M}}
* {{Cite book |last=Pares |first=Bernard |author-link=Bernard Pares|title=The Fall of the Russian Monarchy |date=1939 |pages= 94–143 |publisher= Phoenix |oclc=45990840 |ol=3532000M}}
* {{Cite book |last=Westwood |first=J. N. |ol=3569059M |title=Endurance and Endeavour: Russian History 1812–2001 |publisher= Oxford University Press |date=2002 |isbn=978-0-1992-4617-5 |edition=5th |___location=Oxford |pages=[https://archive.org/details/enduranceendeavo00west/page/656 656]}}
{{Refend}}
===Military and foreign relations===
{{Refbegin|30em|indent=yes}}
* Adams, Michael. ''Napoleon and Russia'' (2006).
* {{Cite book |last=Englund |first=Peter |author-link=Peter Englund |title=The Battle That Shook Europe: Poltava and the Birth of the Russian Empire |publisher=I. B. Tauris |date=2002 |isbn=978-1-8606-4847-2 |___location=New York}}, 288 pp.
* Fuller, William C. ''Strategy and Power in Russia 1600–1914'' (1998); military strategy
* Gatrell, Peter. "Tsarist Russia at War: The View from Above, 1914 – February 1917." ''Journal of Modern History'' 87#3 (2015): 668–700.
* Lieven, Dominic C.B. ''Russia and the Origins of the First World War'' (1983).
* {{Citation | last = Lieven | first = Dominic C.B. | author-mask = 3 | title = Russia Against Napoleon: The True Story of the Campaigns of War and Peace | year = 2011}}.
* LeDonne, John P. ''The Russian empire and the world, 1700–1917: The geopolitics of expansion and containment'' (1997).
* Neumann, Iver B. "Russia as a great power, 1815–2007." ''Journal of International Relations and Development'' 11#2 (2008): 128–51. [http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.694.5006&rep=rep1&type=pdf online] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170118110733/http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.694.5006&rep=rep1&type=pdf |date=18 January 2017}}
* Saul, Norman E. ''Historical Dictionary of Russian and Soviet Foreign Policy'' (2014)
* Stone, David. ''A Military History of Russia: From Ivan the Terrible to the War in Chechnya''
{{Refend}}
===Economic, social, and ethnic history===
{{Refbegin|30em|indent=yes}}
* Christian, David. ''A History of Russia, Central Asia and Mongolia''. Vol. 1: ''Inner Eurasia from Prehistory to the Mongol Empire''. (Blackwell, 1998). {{ISBN|0-6312-0814-3}}.
* De Madariaga, Isabel. ''Russia in the Age of Catherine the Great'' (2002), comprehensive topical survey
* {{Cite book |last=Dixon |first=Simon |title=The Modernisation of Russia, 1676–1825 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |date=1999 |isbn=978-0-5213-7100-1 |___location=Cambridge |pages=288}}
* Etkind, Alexander. ''Internal Colonization: Russia's Imperial Experience'' (Polity Press, 2011); discussion of serfdom, the peasant commune, etc.
* Franklin, Simon, and Bowers, Katherine (eds). ''Information and Empire: Mechanisms of Communication in Russia, 1600–1850'' (Open Book Publishers, 2017) [https://www.openbookpublishers.com/product/636 online] {{Webarchive|url= https://web.archive.org/web/20171205194804/https://www.openbookpublishers.com/product/636 |date=5 December 2017}}
* Freeze, Gregory L. ''From Supplication to Revolution: A Documentary Social History of Imperial Russia'' (1988)
* {{Cite book |last=Kappeler |first=Andreas |title=The Russian Empire: A Multi-Ethnic History |publisher=Longman |date= 2001 |isbn=978-0-5822-3415-4 |___location=New York |pages=480}}
* Milward, Alan S. and S. B. Saul. ''The Development of the Economies of Continental Europe: 1850–1914'' (1977) pp. 365–425
* Milward, Alan S. and S. B. Saul. ''The Economic Development of Continental Europe 1780–1870'' (2nd ed. 1979), 552 pp
* {{Citation | author-link1 = Boris Mironov (historian)| last1 = Mironov | first1 = Boris N. | first2 = Ben | last2 = Eklof | title = The Social History of Imperial Russia, 1700–1917 | publisher = Westview Press | date = 2000 |url= http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=89764491 | access-date=8 February 2014 |archive-date=29 September 2008 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20080929091826/http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=89764491 |url-status=dead}}; {{Citation |url= http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=100513328 |title=The Social History of Imperial Russia, 1700–1917 | volume = 2: Patterns of State Building |access-date=8 February 2014 |archive-date=29 September 2008 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20080929083153/http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=100513328 |url-status=dead}}
* {{Citation | last = Mironov | first = Boris N | author-mask = 3 | year = 2012 | title = The Standard of Living and Revolutions in Imperial Russia, 1700–1917}}.
* Mironov, Boris N. (2010) "Wages and Prices in Imperial Russia, 1703–1913", ''Russian Review'' (Jan 2010) 69#1 pp. 47–72, with 13 tables and 3 charts [http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?sid=e380f9ff-36a4-426e-88fd-b587d8fe61e9%40sessionmgr12&vid=1&hid=25&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d online]
* {{Cite book |last=Moon |first=David |title=The Russian Peasantry 1600–1930: The World the Peasants Made |publisher=Addison-Wesley |date=1999 |isbn=978-0-5820-9508-3 |___location=Boston}} 396 pp.
* Stolberg, Eva-Maria. (2004) "The Siberian Frontier and Russia's Position in World History", ''Review: A Journal of the Fernand Braudel Center'' 27#3 pp. 243–67
* Wirtschafter, Elise Kimerling. ''Russia's age of serfdom 1649–1861'' (2008).
{{Refend}}
===Historiography and memory===
{{Refbegin|30em|indent=yes}}
* Burbank, Jane, and David L. Ransel, eds. ''Imperial Russia: new histories for the Empire'' (Indiana University Press, 1998)
* Cracraft, James. ed. ''Major Problems in the History of Imperial Russia'' (1993)
* Hellie, Richard. "The structure of modern Russian history: Toward a dynamic model." ''Russian History'' 4.1 (1977): 1–22. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/24649558 Online] {{Webarchive|url= https://web.archive.org/web/20190705044623/https://www.jstor.org/stable/24649558 |date=5 July 2019}}
* Lieven, Dominic C.B. ''Empire: The Russian empire and its rivals'' (Yale University Press, 2002), compares Russian with British, Habsburg & Ottoman empires.
* Kuzio, Taras. "Historiography and national identity among the Eastern Slavs: towards a new framework." ''National Identities'' (2001) 3#2 pp. 109–32.
* Olson, Gust, and Aleksei I. Miller. "Between Local and Inter-Imperial: Russian Imperial History in Search of Scope and Paradigm." ''Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History'' (2004) 5#1 pp. 7–26.
* Sanders, Thomas, ed. ''Historiography of imperial Russia: The profession and writing of history in a multinational state'' (ME Sharpe, 1999)
* Smith, Steve. "Writing the History of the Russian Revolution after the Fall of Communism." ''Europe‐Asia Studies'' (1994) 46#4 pp. 563–78.
* Suny, Ronald Grigor. "Rehabilitating Tsarism: The Imperial Russian State and Its Historians. A Review Article" ''Comparative Studies in Society and History'' 31#1 (1989) pp. 168–79 [https://www.jstor.org/stable/178799 online] {{Webarchive |url= https://web.archive.org/web/20190728221710/https://www.jstor.org/stable/178799 |date=28 July 2019}}
* {{Citation | last = Suny | first = Ronald Grigor | author-mask = 3 | contribution = The empire strikes out: Imperial Russia, 'national' identity, and theories of empire | title = A state of nations: Empire and nation-making in the age of Lenin and Stalin | editor-first = Peter | editor-last = Holquist | editor2-first = Ronald Grigor | editor2-last = Suny | editor3-first = Terry | editor3-last = Martin | year = 2001 | pages = 23–66}}.
{{Refend}}
===Primary sources===
{{Refbegin|30em|indent=yes}}
* Golder, Frank Alfred. ''Documents Of Russian History 1914–1917'' (1927), 680pp [https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.88417/page/n2 online]
* Kennard, Howard Percy, and Netta Peacock, eds. ''The Russian Year-book: Volume 2 1912'' (London, 1912) [https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=lfbTAAAAMAAJ&rdid=book-lfbTAAAAMAAJ&rdot=1 full text in English]
{{Refend}}
==External links==
* {{Commonscatinline}}
* {{Wikivoyage inline|Russian Empire|Russian Empire|travel information}}
* {{YouTube|EPgbIK002us|Film «Moscow clad in snow», 00:07:22, 1908}}
* [https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire The Empire that was Russia]: color photographs from [[Library of Congress]]
{{Russia topics}}
{{Monarchies}}
{{History of Europe}}
{{Colonial Empires}}
{{Great Power diplomacy}}
{{Authority control}}
[[Category:1721 establishments in Russia]]
[[Category:1917 disestablishments in Russia]]
[[Category:Articles containing video clips]]
[[Category:Former Christian states]]
[[Category:Countries and territories where Russian is an official language]]
[[Category:Former monarchies of Europe]]
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[[Category:Historical transcontinental empires]]
[[Category:Modern history of Russia]]
[[Category:Russian Empire| ]]
[[Category:States and territories established in 1721]]
[[Category:States and territories disestablished in 1917]]
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