History of Russia

The genesis of Russia can be traced back to the histories of the East Slavs. The conventional commencement of Russian history is marked by the establishment of the Rus' state in the northern region in 862, which was governed by Varangians. In 882, Prince Oleg of Novgorod captured Kiev, thereby unifying the northern and southern territories of the Eastern Slavs under a single authority. By the end of the 10th century, the governance center had shifted to Kiev, and the northern and southern parts were administered with significant autonomy from each other. The state embraced Christianity from the Byzantine Empire in 988, initiating the amalgamation of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the ensuing millennium. The Mongol invasions in 1237-1240 led to the disintegration of Kievan Rus' as a state. Subsequently, Moscow emerged as a political and cultural hub for the consolidation of Russian lands. By the conclusion of the 15th century, numerous petty principalities around Moscow had merged with the Grand Duchy of Moscow, which attained complete control of its own sovereignty under Ivan the Great.

Ivan the Terrible undertook the transformation of the Grand Duchy into the Tsardom of Russia in 1547. However, the demise of Ivan's son Feodor I without any heirs in 1598 gave rise to a succession crisis, plunging Russia into a period of disorder and internal conflict known as the Time of Troubles. This tumultuous era concluded with the ascension of Michael Romanov as the first Tsar of the Romanov dynasty in 1613.

Throughout the remainder of the seventeenth century, Russia successfully accomplished the exploration and conquest of Siberia, extending its territorial claims as far as the Pacific Ocean by the century's end. Domestically, Russia confronted numerous uprisings from various ethnic groups under its dominion, exemplified by the rebellion led by Cossack leader Steinke Razing in 1670–1671.

In 1721, following the conclusion of the Great Northern War, Tsar Peter the Great rechristened the state as the Russian Empire. Notably, he established St. Petersburg as the new capital of his Empire and introduced Western European culture to Russia.

In 1762, Catherine the Great assumed control of Russia, continuing the westernizing policies initiated by Peter the Great and ushering in the era of the Russian Enlightenment. Catherine's grandson, Alexander I, successfully repelled an invasion by the French Emperor Napoleon, elevating Russia to the status of one of the prominent global powers.

In the mid-1980s, as the deficiencies within the economic and political structures of the Soviet Union became increasingly severe, Mikhail Gorbachev initiated substantial reforms that ultimately resulted in the weakening of the communist party and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Consequently, Russia found itself once again standing alone, marking the commencement of the post-Soviet era. The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic underwent a name change to the Russian Federation and emerged as the primary successor state to the Soviet Union. While Russia maintained its nuclear arsenal, it relinquished its status as a superpower. During the 1990s, the central planning and state ownership of property that characterized the Soviet era were discarded, and new leaders, led by President Vladimir Putin, assumed political and economic control after 2000, adopting an assertive foreign policy. Alongside economic growth, Russia has since reclaimed a significant global standing as a world power. However, the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in 2014 resulted in economic sanctions imposed by the United States and the European Union, and the invasion of Ukraine in 2022 led to a substantial expansion of these sanctions. Under Putin's leadership, corruption in Russia has been deemed the most severe in Europe, and the country's human rights situation has faced escalating criticism from international observers.

Peasant uprisings experienced a marked increase during the nineteenth century, culminating in the abolition of Russian serfdom by Alexander II in 1861. In the ensuing decades, various reform initiatives, such as the Stolypin reforms of 1906-1914, the constitution of 1906, and the State Duma (1906-1917), sought to liberalize and open up the economy and political system. However, the emperors remained steadfast in their refusal to relinquish autocratic rule and resisted sharing their power. A combination of economic breakdown, mismanagement of Russia's involvement in World War I, and discontent with the autocratic system of government ultimately triggered the Russian Revolution in 1917. The end of the monarchy initially brought a coalition of liberals and moderate socialists to power, but their policies proved unsuccessful, leading to the October Revolution. In 1922, Soviet Russia, along with the Ukrainian SSR, Byelorussian SSR, and Transcaucasian SFSR, signed the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR, officially merging all four republics into a single state. From 1922 to 1991, the history of Russia was essentially the history of the Soviet Union. During this period, the Soviet Union emerged as one of the victors of World War II, having recovered from a massive surprise invasion by Nazi Germany in 1941, which had previously signed a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union. The USSR's network of satellite states in Eastern Europe, which were brought into its sphere of influence in the closing stages of World War II, helped the country become a superpower competing with fellow superpower the United States and other Western countries in the Cold War.