Russia: Political History and Notable Figures

862 - 1598 - House of Rurik (All Facts)

1325 - 1340 - Ivan (All Facts)

• Ruler of Russia

  • He was Prince of Moscow

  • He was born with the last name of Danilovitch

  • He was nicknamed “Moneybags” (“Kalita” in Russian)

• Under his reign,

  • The grand ducal palace called the Kremlin was constructed

• He helped suppress the suicidal revolt against the Tartars of his predecessor Alexander of Tver

• He served as the Tartars’ trusted tax collector throughout Kievan Rus territory, adding his own percentage

  • Most people benefited, even if the price of relative peace was the namesake’s threats as well as penal taxation

  • Under his reign, the Rus tribes were still a series of separate kingdoms paying taxes to the Tartars

• He manipulated

  • Russia’s absentee Mongol masters

  • His countrymen’s wealth

• He set a precedent of local self-government

1340 - 1353 - Simeon of Moscow (All Facts)

• Ruler of Russia

• He continued his father and predecessor’s policies to increase the power and prestige of the state

1359 - 1389 - Dmitri Donskoy (All Facts)

• Ruler of Russia

  • He was Grand Duke

• He and his forces defeated Mamai and his Mongolian forces in the Battle of Kulikovo

• He was succeeded by his son

1400s -1500s - Stroganov Family (All Facts)

• Powerful Russian Family / House which

  • was comprised of immensely rich merchants and businessmen who made a vast fortune from the fur trade and salt trade

  • ran the north-eastern corner of (European) Russia virtually as a private kingdom, anything but nominally independent of the Tsardom

    • As this kingdom became larger, they needed more Cossack troops to fight off the (Mongol) Tartars

  • hired Yermak Timofeyevich and his 1,500 Cossack mercenaries to help Russia conquer Sibir (modern-day Siberia)

1389 - 1425 - Vasily (All Facts)

• Ruler of Russia

  • He was Grand Prince of Moscow and Vladimir

  • He succeeded his father

  • Upon assumption to the throne, Tuqtamish of the Golden Horde recaptured Moscow and renewed the Tartar yoke, despite his father’s victory against the Mongols

1425 - 1462 - Vasily II (All Facts)

• Ruler of Russia

  • He was Grand Prince of Moscow

  • He successfully fought over the throne with Dmitri Shemyaka during the Muscovite War of Succession

1445 - 1447 - Dmitri Shemyaka (All Facts)

• Grand Prince of Moscow

  • He unsuccessfully maintained the throne with Vasily II during the Muscovite War of Succession

1462 - 1505 - Ivan III (All Facts)

• Ruler of Russia

  • He was the Grand Prince of Moscow and all Russia

  • He asserted his rights as titular prince of Novgorod (one of the oldest of Russian towns with wide authority over northern Russia)

  • He was nicknamed “the Great”

  • He adopted the title of tsar, the first tsar of Russia

• He issued the first “Sudebnik”

• He

  • forced Novgorod to renounce its relations with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

    • After an attempted revolt, he removed 8,000 of the leading families to his own domain and replaced them with merchants from Moscow (Muscovy)

    • He thus subjected Novgorod to Muscovite (Moscow) rule

  • declared Russia (Muscovy) totally independent from the Golden Horde

    • Up to that point, the Golden Horde occupied Russia for 200 years

    • He defended Russia from Tartar attacks and ended the Tatar threat to Moscow, having annexed Tver

    • He consistently refused to continue paying the tribute protection money demanded from him and his people by Khan Akhmat and the Mongols and Ahmed Khan and the Golden Horde, the descendants of Genghis Khan

    • He outmaneuvered Ahmed Khan by

      • negotiating a mutual defense treaty with the Crimean Khan

      • fighting hard against him

    • Muscovite rulers thereafter continued to buy off or repel Tartar invaders, but no longer accepted the patent from the khans

  • annexed

    • Smolensk

    • Chernigov

  • pushed back the boundary with Lithuania

1505 - 1533 - Vasily III (All Facts)

• Ruler of Russia

  • He was the Grand Prince of Moscow and all Russia

  • He styled himself as “emperor”

• He energetically led Moscow and built the country into a powerful political force to be reckoned with in Europe as he confronted its neighbors of Poland and Lithuania to the West

  • He and his Muscovite forces, along with the help of Lithuanian rebels led by Mikhail Glinsky, defeated Sigismund and his Polish-Lithuanian forces in the Lithuanian-Muscovite War / Ten Years’ War

    • His forces gained control of Smolensk after two bloody but abortive previous attempts to take it

    • The armistice which ended the war was a triumph as well as diplomatic coup for the namesake

    • His defensive alliance with Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian created papal concern about the conflict and brought pressure from the Catholic Church on Sigismund of Polish-Lithuania to settle

  • He took Smolensk, then built it up

    • The city was strategically placed on the banks of the Dnieper River; the pivot of the namesake’s (and Muscovy’s) western defensive system

  • He annexed Pskov and Ryazan, with little difficulty and no military effort

    • He appointed a civil servant to run Pskov

    • He took Ryazan over when its grand prince entered into secret negotiations with the Crimean Tartars

  • He and Muscovy’s problems on his / its eastern and southern borders were eased by the failure of a Crimean Tartar invasion

• He deprived 300 leading families of their estates, deported them to the interior, and replaced them by an equal number of families from Moscow

• He died and was succeeded by his son

1533 - 1584 - Ivan IV (All Other Facts and Consolidation of Power)

• Founder of the Tsardom and First Tsar of Russia

  • He was initially the last Grand Prince of Moscow and all Russia, the title his predecessors bore

    • During this time his mother ruled as regent

    • She died upon his assumption to the throne, rumored to have been poisoned by the boyars (Russian aristocrats) or perhaps by a regency council

  • He was nicknamed “The Terrible”

    • He was also nicknamed “The Dread” or “Grozny;” for his military exploits, which were, in part, due to his major reforms of the army; but also because of the reign of terror he administered in his later rule

  • When he was 3, he assumed the throne, succeeding his father

  • When he was 13, he had his principal advisor torn apart by dogs when he was in a fit of temper

  • When he was 17, he created (inherited) the Tsardom and became the first Tsar (Czar)

    • He was crowned “first tsar (czar) of Russia” in Moscow at a ceremony in the Moscow Kremlin’s Assumption cathedral

    • He was the first Tsar (czar) to inherit all of Russia, and, in theory, enjoyed undisputed sway over the territories it controlled up to that point

  • He was a strong and successful ruler

• During his reign,

  • He had the Cathedral of St. Basil constructed

• During his reign,

  • He met with Richard Chancellor (of England)

  • He only trusted one man, St. Macarius, the Metropolitan of Moscow at the time

  • He granted Grigory Stoganov the right to use and cultivate the lands in the area of the Kama River and its tributaries

  • He married his first wife, one of the Romanovs, chosen out of 1,500 virgins sent to Moscow from all over Russia

1533 - 1584 - Ivan IV (Foreign Policy)

• During his reign,

  • He expanded Russia and extended Muscovy’s power and influence

    • capturing and conquering

      • the Kazan Khanate

        • He dealt a devastating blow to the decaying power of the Tartars (Mongol invaders from the East) in two well-conceived military campaigns, in which he was supported by excellent artillery

        • He and his forces defeated the Tartars in the Siege of Kazan during his Conquest of the Kazan Khanate

          • The Kazan Khanate soon tried but failed to successfully revolt against his rule

      • the Astrakhan Khanate

        • thus reaching the Caspian Sea

    • stretching the emerging Tsardom / empire of Russia all the way to the Volga River basin as far as the Caspian Sea,

      • thus thereby opening the way for Russian expansion beyond the Ural Mountains and as far as the Pacific Ocean

      • thus pushing the borders of Russia eastwards, ambitiously looking towards Cathay and the Pacific Ocean

      • thus linking new trade routes which appealed to foreign merchants at the time

  • He and his Russian forces

    • defeated Selim II and his Ottoman forces in the First Russo-Ottoman War

      • They thus maintained their control over the Astrakhan Khanate region which they had previously conquered

    • were defeated by the Baltic states (including Poland, Lithuania, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and Livonia) in the Livonian War

      • He was thus denied an outlet to the west by failing to seize the Baltic region

  • His 25 years of war brought Muscovy to the verge of anarchy

  • He established diplomatic and commercial relations with England, during which

    • He entered into curious negotiations for an English marriage, not shrinking from a union with Queen Elizabeth herself if it were possible

1533 - 1584 - Ivan IV (Domestic Policy)

• During his reign,

  • He declared an end to the rule of the Boyars, attempting a social revolution

    • He established a special council composed of personally selected advisors in order to the counter the power of the Boyars

    • He established the Oprichnina / Oprichniki, which was the first political police force which heavily persecuted Boyars, an organization which he established after a period of bloody fighting with the Boyars

      • He used the Oprichniki to conduct absurd denunciations, executions, and terror simply for the sake of terror which shattered Muscovite society at the time

      • He then had the Oprichniki destroy Novgorod savagely, to pre-empty moves by the feudal lords towards their independence

  • He established the Zemsky Sobor / Assembly of the Land (Russian Parliament)

    • He set up a two-chamber body, containing representatives of the gentry, merchants, and nobles; to act as a check on the power of the Boyars

    • He presided over the First Assembly, in which he gave a speech in which

      • he harked back to his youth when the Boyars

        • plotted against him

        • dealt harshly with the gentry and the peasants

      • warned the Boyars that they would be punished if they did not obey his orders without question

      • proposed setting up courts to hear complaints against the Boyars

    • He issued the second “Sudebnik”

  • He worked to develop a centralized and unified state in Muscovy

  • He ruled with a group of good advisors from the clergy and the boyars

  • He introduced a new code of law and reformed provincial government

  • He founded the Russian Streltsy

1533 - 1584 - Ivan IV (Reign of Terror and Decline)

• During his reign, he oversaw a reign of terror, likely having been deranged for the last 25 years of his life, in which

  • He ordered the drowning of Jews in the Dvina River

  • He attended the public executions of almost all of his close advisors and ministers

  • He divided Muscovy (Russia) into two distinct realms in order to

    • eliminate all villains and traitors

    • reaffirm his power

    • reaffirm the servility of the peasants

• He died while preparing to play a game of chess and was succeeded by his son

  • Upon his death, special guards have surrounded the Kremlin Palace

  • He was a man in whom many saw him as a great leader but just as many saw him as a monster

• His son, Dmitri Ivanovitch, a nine-year old epileptic, was murdered, his throat cut by a gang of hired killers

  • It was assumed that his successor’s successor was responsible

  • His mother (his seventh and final wife) and his son, Dmitri Ivanovitch, were exiled to Uglitch where they may have served as a tool for disaffected boyars anxious to unseat his successor’s successor

1532 - 1585 - Yermak Timofeyevich (All Facts)

• Russian Cossack Leader

• He and his Cossack forces (hired by the Stroganov family of Russia) defeated Khan Kuchum and the Sibir Khanate and its Siberian Tartar forces and captured its capital of Kashlyk

1584 - 1598 - Feodor (All Facts)

• 2nd Tsar of Russia

  • He was nicknamed “The Blessed”

  • He was an amiable and pious imbecile

  • He succeeded his father

  • Boris Godunov ruled as regent during his reign, as the namesake was considered incompetent

• He ordered that fugitive serfs been subjected to ferocious punishments

• His death marked the end of the House of Rurik / Rurik Dynasty of Russian Rulers and the beginning of the Time of Troubles

1585 - 1605 - Boris Godunov (All Facts)

• 3rd Tsar of Russia

  • He ruled as regent for his predecessor and brother-in-law (he had his sister married to his predecessor), ruling practically for 14 years

  • He was a powerful aristocratic Boyar of Tartar origin

  • He began his career in the Oprichnina (the secret police of his predecessor’s predecessor)

  • He secured his own coronation as Tsar

  • He assumed the throne amid universal rejoicing, as the death of his predecessor sent with it the death of the royal house of Russia

  • He was the favored candidate, but he insisted upon being “elected” by the Zemsky Sobor

  • He was illiterate, but, despite that, he directed all correspondence with heads of foreign states and looked like the man running Russia

  • His maintained six foreign doctors at his court, for fear of being poisoned, as land-owning nobles were never reconciled to his election as Tsar

• He was suspected of being behind the killing of the epileptic czarevitch Dimitri Invanovitch, son of his predecessor’s predecessor

  • Ivanovitch was found murdered, his throat cut by a gang of hired killers

  • He was the “logical successor” to his brother, which was the main motive behind the rumors that he engineered his murder

• During his regency,

  • He created the post of Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia and appointed Job, the prior Metropolitan of Moscow, to the position

• Under his regency,

  • the independence of the Russian Orthodox Church was formally ratified by an ecumenical synod (in Istanbul)

• During his reign,

  • His rule at home followed the pattern of his predecessor’s predecessor

    • He was hostile to the Boyars and more reliant on support from the lesser serving nobility

    • He pursued the aggressive foreign policy of his predecessor’ predecessor

• Under his reign,

  • Russia suffered from

    • a terrible famine

      • During this famine, he ordered for the distribution of grain to the most needy from the palace granaries

      • He also oversaw a vast building program in Moscow as a relief measure

    • epidemics

    • a revolt started by a pretender to the throne against him

• He died from a stroke or a self-administered poison

1605 - 1606 - (False) Dmitry (All Facts)

• 5th Tsar of Russia

  • He was a Russian who passed himself off as “Prince” of the namesake, the supposedly murdered son of Tsar Ivan IV, who had himself crowned czar with Polish support

  • He was considered “false” because he claimed to be the son of Tsar Ivan IV, who was already known to be dead

• His downfall was precipitated by the arrival of his fiancée from Poland with her entourage, which angered the Muscovites, who had backed the namesake in order to get rid of his predecessor’s predecessor rather than to install another Tsar (unless he was from their own ranks)

• He was killed and replaced in a revolt by the landowning boyars

  • He tried to escape those hunting him by jumping from a Kremlin window, but he broke his legs

  • His body was then burnt and his ashes were shot from a cannon

  • Afterwards, rumors spread of another pretender Tsar that was being groomed for Tsardom

1606 - 1607 - Ivan Bolotnikov (All Facts)

• Leader of his namesake uprising during the Time of Troubles

• He was a former serf who had been captured by the Tartars and sold as a slave to the Ottoman Turks

• His revolt was eventually suppressed and the nobles who initially supported his rebellion had him imprisoned

1582 - 1610 - (False) Dmitry II (All Facts)

• He was the second pretender to the Russian throne who claimed to be the murdered son of Tsar Ivan IV during the Time of Troubles

  • However, he was never actually crowned tsar

  • He was groomed for the Tsardom, however, following the death by burning of his earlier namesake counterpart

  • He attempted to usurp the throne, supported by the Polish (whom he called on for help) in their Siege of Moscow

  • He set up a Council in Tushino and was nicknamed “The Bandit of Tushino”

1606 - 1610 - Vasily IV (All Facts)

• 6th Tsar of Russia

  • He overthrew his predecessor to become czar

  • He was the last Russian ruler of the Rurikid Dynasty

• Under his reign,

  • a second “false Dimitri” attempted to usurp the throne, again supported by the Polish in their Siege of Moscow

1610 - 1613 - Ladislaus IV (All Facts)

• 7th Tsar of Russia

  • He was installed by his father King Sigismund III after his father’s Polish-Lithuanian forces defeated his predecessor and his Russian and Swedish forces in the Siege of Smolensk and in battles during the Russo-Polish War

1611 - 1612 - Kuzma Minin (All Facts)

• Russian Merchant who

  • appealed for money and setup a militia to oust the Poles from their incursions into Russia during the Russo-Polish War

  • was responded to by the Russian people after his requests with great generosity

  • appointed Prince Dimitri Pojarsky as military leader of the revolt against the Poles during the Russo-Polish War

1611 - 1612 - Dmitry Pozharsky (All Facts)

• Russian Prince who

  • was a military hero from the Siege of Moscow during the Russo-Polish War

  • led a militia setup and funded by Kuzma Minin to force the invading Poles to capitulate during the Russo-Polish War, which encouraged the Russian people to organize against the Poles

  • eventually achieved his aim of kicking out the Poles during the Russo-Polish War with the support of the Cossacks

1613 - 1917 - House of Romanov (All Facts)

1613 - 1645 - Michael (All Facts)

• 8th Tsar of Russia

  • Founder and First Tsar of the House of Romanov

  • His assumption to the throne marked the end of the “Time of Troubles” in Russia’s history

    • His election solved the dynastic problem / succession crisis

  • He was “elected” Tsar, chosen by the Zemsky Sobor after much deliberation, at the age of 16

    • The election was not altogether a break with the past for Tsar Ivan IV’s first wife, Anastasia, had been a member of the Romanov family

  • His father was a nobleman who was the Patriarch of Moscow, and who acted as a regent for a short time during the namesake’s early rule

    • He received no training for the monarchy, having been brought up and raised in a monastery

  • He was crowned in the Kremlin, with all his autocratic prerogatives intact

  • He and his Romanov family ascended to the throne amid rejoicing, but they inherited

    • a then-deserted land as

      • half the villages of Russia were deserted of people

      • huge areas were vulnerable to wandering bandits

      • there was the ongoing virtual collapse of authority

    • the throne with an empty treasury

      • He asked another noble family for a loan in cash and kind - fish, salt, and grain, to meet the urgent demands of his military and civil officials

    • a Muscovy in which Poles and Swedes still occupied many of its parts following the First Russo-Polish War

• Under his reign,

  • a small group of Russians crossed Siberia and reached the Pacific Ocean, acquiring vast territories in northern Asia via their attraction to easy profits as trappers and traders

    • They moved eastwards and overwhelmed the indigenous Siberian populations

    • They established Russian rule by building strategically located forts

    • These Russian pioneers eventully reached the Amur River in Siberia

  • Russian forces were defeated by Gustavus Adolphus and his Swedish forces in the Ingrian War

  • Yeniseysk was founded and made capital of the region of the same name; it was at the heart of the gold-mining region and on the Yenisei River, which, at the time, was Russia’s eastern frontier

  • One-third of the Russian army was constituted on western lines, with troops being recruited locally and mercenaries being engaged in the European Protestant countries as hired officers

  • Russian forces were defeated by King Ladislaus IV and his Polish-Lithuanian forces in the Siege and War of Smolensk

  • Russian forces captured Azov

  • Cossack forces invaded Poland on two fronts after swearing an oath of allegiance to the namesake after John II Casimir of Poland failed to make an alliance with them

1645 - 1676 - Alexis / Alexei Mikhailovich (All Facts)

• 9th Tsar of Russia and 2nd Tsar of the House of Romanov

  • He backed Nikon, the Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia at the time

• He led Russia in the Northern War

• He and his Russian forces and Bohdan Khmelnytsky and his Cossack forces defeated John II Casimir Vasa and his Polish-Lithuanian forces in the Second Russo-Polish War

  • As a result, Ukraine came under Russian domination following the end of the Second Russo-Polish War

• He and his Russian forces fought against Sultan Mehmed IV and Kara Mustafa Pasha and their Ottoman forces in the Second Russo-Turkish War

• During his reign,

  • He issued the Sobornoye Ulozheniye, which essentially instituted serfdom into Russia

  • He ordered Stenka Razin and his Cossack forces to raid Safavid Persia following the Safavid’s rude treatment of Russian ambassadors and traders who stepped onto Safavid territory

• Under his reign,

  • The Russian Orthodox Church Schism / Raskol occurred

  • Russians settled in Albazino in attempt to penetrate the forests of Manchuria, which were rich in fur-skinned animals

  • The Treaty of Valiesar was signed with Sweden, which ended the War of Rupture

  • The Treaty of Cardis was signed with Sweden, which confirmed the Treaty of Valiesar

  • many robber bands of renegade serfs formed together due to famine, plague, and the namesake’s “Sobornoye Ulozheniye” law code who killed and stole in order to survive after their last legal means of escaping the country were closed due to the issuing of the law

  • Stenka Razin’s Rebellion occurred against him and his regime

1630 - 1671 - Stenka Razin (All Facts)

• Russian Cossack Military Leader, Robber Baron, and Rebel Chieftain

• He and his marauding Cossacks were ordered by Tsar Alexis to raid Safavid Persia in Mazandaran and the Ashurada Peninsula by the shores of the Caspian Sea, terrorizing the Persian populace that lived there

  • Their raids exacerbated Persian fear and loathing of their Russian neighbors

  • This all occurred because of a diplomatic mission to the Persian court earlier in the year, which had 800 followers, and was a pretext for Russian traders to evade duty on large quantities of merchandise which they had brought with them, arousing Persian resentment

  • When the Russian ambassadors were rudely treated and one died, Tsar Alexis ordered the namesake and his men to raid Safavid Persia in response

• He led his namesake rebellion against Tsar Alexis and the Tsardom of Russia

  • He gained the support of many Russian peasants, who initially protected their marauding but eventually joined them in his rebellion

  • He refused to submit to the Tsar in return for a pardon for his actions

  • He led raids on Tsarist ships

  • He led massacres on nobles and officers

  • He took the fortress of Yaitsk, threatening Astrakhan

  • He worked alongside fellow Cossack and second-in-command Vaska Us, who had marched towards Moscow to appeal to Tsar Alexis collecting several thousand supporters, only to return after refusing to hand over the rebels to the Tsar

1676 - 1682 - Feodor III (All Facts)

• 10th Tsar of Russia and 3rd Tsar of the House of Romanov

• He and his Russian forces fought against Sultan Mehmed IV and Kara Mustafa Pasha and their Ottoman forces in the Second Russo-Turkish War, which ended in a stalemate

  • He signed the Treaty of Radzin (with Kara Mustafa Pasha of the Ottoman Empire), in which the Ottomans gave up Ukraine and which ended the Second Russo-Turkish War

• Under his reign,

  • As Russia extended its boundaries eastwards, the Tartar lands in the Volga River region were confiscation and there were forced conversions to Christianity

• He died childless and did not name a successor

1682 - 1689 - Sophia Alekseyevna (All Facts)

• Regent of Russia

  • She was the elder sister of Peter and Ivan V and daughter of Tsar Alexis

1682 - 1689 - Peter (Rise to Power)

• 11th Co-Tsar of Russia and 4th Co-Tsar of the House of Romanov

  • He was nicknamed “The Great”

  • He was raised to the throne as co-tsar and was his co-tzar’s half-brother

  • He assumed the throne when he was just 9 years old, son of his Tsar Alexis

  • He had a permanent nervous and violent facial twitch

• He and his Russian forces defeated the Ottoman forces and Crimean Khanate in the Third Russo-Turkish War

• He launched a successful coup against his co-tsar and brother and sister to become sole ruler of Russia (seven years into his rule)

  • He plotted the coup from a monastery where he had taken refuge, having been frightened that his sister and former regent of Russia planned his execution to ensure his elder-brother’s succession to the throne

  • He took over the country, forcing his half-sister, the regent, to resign and retire to a convent (nunnery)

  • He arrested her advisors

  • He exiled Galitzin

  • He put Chalitsky to death (who was the head of the “Streltsy” at the time, who had revolted against the namesake)

• He appointed a new regent to rule in place of his elder sister, his mother, who became the new regent of Russia until the namesake reached adulthood

• Under his reign,

  • the Slavic Greek Latin Academy was established

  • the Treaty of Nerchinsk was signed (with China)

1721 - 1917 - Russian Empire (All Facts)

1682 - 1696 - Ivan V (All Facts)

• 11th Co-Tsar of Russia and 4th Co-Tsar of the House of Romanov

  • He was raised to the throne as co-tsar and was his co-tzar’s half-brother

1690 - 1721 / 1725 - Peter (All Facts)

• 11th Co-Tsar of Russia and 4th Co-Tsar of the House of Romanov and First Emperor and Founder of the Russian Empire and 4th Ruler from the House of Romanov

  • He was nicknamed “The Great”

  • He was raised to the throne as co-tsar and was his co-tzar’s half-brother

  • He assumed the throne when he was just 9 years old, son of his Tsar Alexis

  • He had a permanent nervous and violent facial twitch

  • He was renown for his cruelty

• During his reign,

  • He “westernized” and thus transformed Russia, as

    • He visited Western European states to gather knowledge and techniques in order to westernize Russia,

      • in which

        • He was the first Tsar to have crossed Russian frontiers with a non-militaristic purpose

        • He was accompanied by a “travelling embassy” of 250 Russians including priests, officials, bodyguards, and “dwarfs”

        • He had shown most of his interest in European ships, guns, lathes, and coins; and the least of his interest in their government and political ideas

      • including

        • England, where he

          • worked in the Deptford shipyard with the English working class for three months, wielding their saws, hammers, and adzes

          • attended a debate in the House of Lords in Parliament, after which he was to have said that, “it is pleasant to learn how the sons of the fatherland tell the truth plainly to the king; we must learn that from the English”

          • lodged in the home of John Evelyn with 15 other Russians, where his coarse habits and drunken horseplay contributed to his leaving behind much damage to Evelyn’s furniture and gardens

        • the Netherlands, where he

          • worked as a carpenter in Dutch shipyards

        • France, where he

          • proposed a marriage between his daughter Elizabeth Petrovna and King Louis XV of France, however the marriage proposal was declined

          • oversaw a treaty of friendship to be signed between Russia and France, however the treaty was delayed

        • Prussia

        • Sweden

        • Denmark

        • Norway

    • He imposed the use of tobacco on the Russian people

    • He banned traditional clothing, insisting that the Russian people

      • wear European dress including

        • the short coat

          • In fact, anyone who appeared at the gates of a Russian city wearing a long Russian robe was made to kneel while the coat was cut to the knee

      • wear their hair European-like by

        • shaving their chin

    • He reformed and remodeled the Russian calendar

    • He founded the first Russian newspaper

    • He founded his namesake city named after himself, where he died

• During his reign,

  • He founded the Most Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church

• During his reign,

  • He reorganized the Russian government

  • He abolished the old “duma” of the Muscovite (Moscow) aristocracy

  • He introduced a poll tax among other major financial changes

  • He introduced the “Table of Ranks”

• During his reign,

  • He strengthened, Westernized, and made formidable the Russian army, which, by the end of his reign had amounted to some 200K men

  • He built and developed the Russian Navy, enabling Russia to become one of the major sea powers of Europe

  • He established a naval base which was built at Tallinn (in modern-day Estonia)

  • He brutally suppressed the Streltsy Uprising, putting to death around one thousand of them

• He and his Russian forces

  • defeated the Ottoman forces, after mounting a blockade, in the Azov Campaigns where they took that city, with their newly built fleet, from the Ottoman Empire during the Third Russo-Turkish War

  • defeated Shah Tahmasp II and his Safavid forces in the Second Russo-Persian War

    • He began the war as an preemptive offensive against the encroaching Ottoman Empire who made him anxious as they pushed towards the Caspian Sea

    • He had the Treaty of St. Petersburg signed, which ended the Second Russo-Persian War

• He led Russia in the Great Northern War, in which he and his Russian forces

  • along with Ivan Mazepa and his Cossack forces defeated King Charles XII and his Swedish and Cossack forces in the Battle of Poltava

  • were defeated by Sultan Ahmed III and his Ottoman forces and Swedish forces in the Fourth Russo-Turkish War

• Under his reign,

  • a truce was signed with the Ottoman Empire, ending the Third Russo-Turkish War

  • Russian forces were defeated by King Charles XII of Sweden in the Battle of Narva during the Great Northern War

  • Russia signed the Treaty of Pruth with the Ottoman Empire, ending the Fourth Russo-Turkish War

  • The Treaty of Nystad was signed with Sweden, ending the Great Northern War

• During his reign,

  • He founded Moscow University

• He died in his namesake city and was succeeded by his wife

1712 - 1721 / 1725 - 1727 - Catherine (All Facts)

• 12th Co-Tsarina of Russia and 5th Co-Tsarina of the House of Romanov and First and Second Empress of the Russian Empire and Co-Founder of the Russian Empire and 5th Ruler from the House of Romanov

  • She was bawdy, kindly, and a great brandy-drinker

  • She was illiterate and left the affairs of state to Prince Alexander Menshikov, a close aide of her husband and predecessor

1703 - 1729 - Alexander Menshikov (All Facts)

• Prince and Statesman of the Russian Empire

  • He was a close aide to Tsar Peter

  • He ruled for Tsar Peter’s successor and widow Catherine

  • He ruled temporarily for Catherine’s successor and Peter’s grandson Peter II

• He had secured the betrothal of his daughter to Peter II, but his overbearing ways upset his prospective son-in-law who had him exiled

• He oversaw Russia’s alliance with Austria, in which it recognized Holy Roman Emperor and Austrian Archduke Charles VI’s “Pragmatic Sanction”

1727 - 1730 - Peter II (All Facts)

• 3rd Emperor of Russia

  • He was the 6th Ruler from the House of Romanov

  • He was the grandson of Tsar Peter

  • He spent much of his time on extending hunting expeditions and in precocious flirtation, not least with his voluptuous aunt Elizabeth

• He moved the Russian imperial court from St. Petersburg to Moscow

• He had Alexander Menshikov exiled

• He died of smallpox and was succeeded

1730 - 1740 - Anna Ivanova (All Facts)

• 4th Empress (Ruler) of Russia

  • She was the 7th Ruler from the House of Romanov