Russian History From 700 Years Ago [part two] This is a continuation of part one incredible story about the past and present Kings and queens of Russia.
Russian History From 700 Years Ago [part two]
Russian History From 700 Years Ago part two, The Russian militia was led to Moscow by Prince Pozharsky and a businessman named Kuzma Minin, who drove away the Polish garrison. Since 2005, November 4 has been designated as Russian National Unity Day to honour this occasion.
The Russian assembly, the Zemsky Sobor, recognized that the nation needed to come together behind a new leader and chose Mikhail Romanov, a 16-year-old aristocrat, as the next Tsar. For the following 300 years, his dynasty would rule Russia.
By trading land for peace, Tsar Mikhail gave Russia some much-needed breathing room. The Sobornoye Ulozheniye, a new legal code, was put into effect by his son, Tsar Alexei.
It virtually reduced all Russian peasants, who made up 80% of the population, to slaves, with no freedom to move or choose their owners. Their position was passed down to their offspring.
For the following 200 years, it was a regime that controlled rural life in Russia.
Patriarch Nikon, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, enacted religious reforms that divided the congregation between reformers and “Old Believers.” This division still exists today.
In gratitude for Tsar Alexei’s military assistance, Ukrainian Cossacks who rebelled against the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth acknowledged him as their master. The result was the Thirteen Years War between Russia and the Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania.
Russia reclaimed Smolensk, and it also gained control of eastern Ukraine.
Stenka Razin, a renegade Cossack, launched a rebellion against the Tsarist authority that left southern Russia in a state of lawlessness. In order to put an end to it, Razin was transported to Moscow and quartered to death.
Feodor III, who was ill but highly educated, passed numerous reforms.
The Reign Of The Sickler But Highly Educated Feodor lll
The mestnichestvo system, which had given government positions based on nobility rather than merit, was abolished by him, and the old rank books were symbolically burned.
Feodor, however, passed away at the young age of 19. In place of their younger brothers, the joint tsars Ivan V and Peter I, his sister Sofia assumed the role of Princess Regent.
A Treaty of Eternal Peace was made by Russia and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth after centuries of hostilities. After that, Russia joined “the Holy League” in its conflict with the Ottoman Empire.
The first treaty establishing the border between Russia and China was signed during Sofia’s rule. Peter, I overthrew his half-sister, Sofia, at the age of 17. Peter was the first Russian tsar to leave the country. In search of friends for Russia’s war against Turkey, Alexander travelled around Europe with his “Grand Embassy,” learning about the most recent advances in science and shipbuilding.
The Turkey War
By signing the Treaty of Constantinople, Russia won Azov from Turkey’s ally, the Crimean Khanate, and with it, a foothold on the Black Sea, effectively ending the war against Turkey.
Peter implemented numerous reforms in an effort to make Russia a more contemporary, European nation.
He insisted that Russian nobility behave and dress like Europeans. He imposed a beard levy on individuals who wouldn’t shave.
Peter established the country’s first navy, overhauled the military and political system, and fostered business, trade, and education. In the Great Northern War, Sweden, the main power in the Baltic, was opposed by Russia, Poland, Lithuania, and Denmark. With a terrible loss at Narva to Charles XII of Sweden, the war got off to a horrible start for Russia.
However, Russia defeated Charles XII’s army at the Fight of Poltava after winning the second battle of Narva.
Peter finished building St. Petersburg, a new capital, on the Baltic coast.
Peter The Great
Though it resulted in the deaths of many thousands of serfs, the construction of what would eventually grow to be Russia’s second-largest city among coastal marshes was a spectacular accomplishment.
With the signing of the Treaty of Nystad, the Great Northern War came to an end. Thanks to Sweden’s losses, Russia became the new, dominant force in the Baltic. Peter was crowned “Peter the Great, Father of His Country, Emperor of All the Russias” four years before he passed away.
Peter’s wife Catherine followed him, and then his grandson Peter II, who passed away at the age of 14 from smallpox, succeeded him. The half-sibling of Peter the Great, Ivan V, Empress Anna Ioannovna was renowned for her decadence and the influence of her German lover, Ernst Biron.
The first trip to map the Alaskan coast was led by Vitus Bering, a Danish explorer serving in the Russian military, during Anna’s rule. Additionally, he made the discovery of the Aleutian Islands and eventually gave his name to the body of water dividing America from Russia.
Elizabeth, the daughter of Peter the Great, overthrew Ivan VI, Anna’s baby grand-nephew when Anna passed away. Ivan VI lived all of his life in captivity and was killed by his guards at the age of 23 after an unsuccessful effort to liberate him. While everything was going on, Elizabeth gained notoriety for her excess, conceit, and numerous young lovers.
However, she was also capable of taking decisive action. Elizabeth led Russia into the Seven Year’s War against Frederick the Great of Prussia in coalition with France and Austria.
Peter The Great and The Russian Army
At the Battle of Kunersdorf, the Russian force devastated Frederick but was unable to capitalize on its success. The Winter Palace in St. Petersburg was finished at a significant cost.
It would continue to serve as the monarch’s formal residence until the 1917 Russian Revolution.
Peter the Great’s eldest daughter Anna Petrovna, who passed away after giving birth, had a grandson named Peter III. brought up in Denmark
Peter had Russia switch sides in the Seven Years’ War, sparing Frederick the Great from an almost certain defeat despite his little knowledge of Russian and admiration for Russia’s adversary, Frederick the Great. Many army officers were enraged by Peter’s conduct.
Additionally, Catherine, his German-born wife, had always hated him.
The Reign Of Catherine
Peter III was removed by them all, and he passed away a week later under strange circumstances.
His wife Catherine went on to become Russia’s Empress. Russia would look back on her reign as one of its most glorious Peter the Great’s policies set Russia on the route to becoming a major European power in the early 1700s.
However, the consummation of that transition was overseen by his grandson’s German wife, Catherine, who ousted her husband to become the Empress of Russia. She would also be known as “the Great,” like Peter.
Catherine was a follower and admirer of the French Enlightenment
and the two even exchanged letters. She ruled as an “enlightened autocrat” with unrestrained power, yet she upheld ideas of reason, tolerance, and development. Catherine was a generous supporter of the humanities and education.
Buildings for schools and universities, the Bolshoi Theatre, and the Imperial
Academy of Fine Arts and the world-famous Hermitage museum are now built on the foundation of her outstanding personal art collection.
In order to share her skills, Catherine urged Europeans to immigrate to Russia. She also assisted German immigrants in settling in the Volga region, where they earned the nickname “Volga Germans.”
Prior to being deported to the east at the outbreak of World War II on Stalin’s orders, their communities had endured for nearly 200 years. Additionally, Catherine’s rule saw a significant geographical expansion.
Russia conquered the Ottoman Empire in the south, capturing fresh territory as well as the forts at Azov and Kerch. Yemelyan Pugachev, a cossack rebel, staged a significant uprising against Catherine.
Before being routed by the Russian army, the rebels assaulted Kazan and seized forts and cities.
The Crimean Khanate was an annoyance to Russia for 300 years until Catherine forcibly integrated the Zaporozhian Cossacks into the Russian Empire.
A New Russia
Novorossiya, or “New Russia,” was the name given to Russia’s new southern lands.
They were sparsely populated when Russian colonists arrived and were governed by Catherine’s lover and advisor, Prince Potemkin.
The depleted Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which was at the mercy of its neighbours due to the conflict, was divided into several parts, with Russia taking the lion’s share.
1918 saw the reemergence of Poland as a sovereign state.
Poland left a sizable Jewish community behind in Russia, which Catherine the Great decided could only live in the so-called “Pale of Settlement” and was expelled from the majority of cities.
King Louis XVI of France was put to death as a result of the French Revolution.
In the final years of her reign, Catherine fully abandoned the liberal idealism of her youth because she was appalled by it. Three years later, Catherine passed away, bringing an end to one of Russia’s most illustrious eras.
Her son Paul, who was hostile to all of his mother’s efforts and was possessed by a military-style obsession with detail, succeeded her.
Conclusion
I will like you to stay tuned to the continuation of our great story about Russian History From 700 Years Ago. Next week, thanks for reading. The story continues…