AP Skills Final Exam Study Guide – Tsarist & Communist Russia

Tsarist Russia (1547–1917)

Period of absolute monarchy in Russia from Ivan IV to Nicholas II.

Communist Russia / Soviet Union (1917–1991)

Era beginning with Bolshevik rule and lasting until the USSR’s dissolution.

Ivan IV (Ivan the Terrible)

First ruler to take the title Tsar; centralized power and used the brutal Oprichnina.

Peter the Great

Westernizing Tsar (1682–1725) who built St. Petersburg and created the Table of Ranks.

Catherine the Great

Enlightened absolutist empress who expanded Russian territory and continued westernization.

Alexander I

Tsar during the Napoleonic Wars; began liberal, later conservative.

Nicholas I

Reactionary Tsar (1825–1855) who crushed the Decembrist Revolt and promoted "Orthodoxy, Autocracy, Nationalism."

Alexander II

“Tsar Liberator” who emancipated the serfs in 1861 and launched major reforms.

Alexander III

Reactionary Tsar who reversed many of his father’s reforms and enforced Russification.

Nicholas II

Last Romanov Tsar; abdicated in 1917 amid revolution and war.

Grigori Rasputin

Mystic adviser influential over Nicholas II’s court before the 1917 revolution.

Autocracy

System of government in which the Tsar held unlimited power.

Boyars

Hereditary landowning nobility of Russia.

Serfdom

Institution binding peasants to the land and their lords until 1861.

Table of Ranks

Peter the Great’s hierarchy tying state service, not birth, to status.

Russification

Policy promoting Russian language and culture among empire’s minorities.

Orthodox Church and Tsarist Rule

Religious institution that legitimized the Tsar’s divine authority.

Peter the Great’s Westernization

Broad reforms introducing European tech, dress, and administration to Russia.

Great Embassy

Peter’s 1697–98 tour of Europe to learn ship