From Strickler, James E. Russia of the Tsars. Lucent Books: San Diego, 1998.

-in 1400s, Russia was small empire ruled by city of Moscow; its citizens were slavs from Eastern Europe but by 1917, half of Russia's population were non-slav groups such as Uzbecks and Kazakhs who were related to those from Turkey
-it was a poor country run by a dictator known as a tsar or csar who considered the country to be their own possession given by God; nobles enforced the laws and sometimes owned tens of thousand of acres of land, though most nobles were neither rich nor powerful
-the citizens were poor, religious peasants and never seriously challenged the power of the czars; however in 1800s, university Russians and factory workers led rebellions that led to Russian Revolution of 1917
-the empire began when slave kingdoms around Baltic and Black Seas united in 800s; the leader of the empire was the prince of Kiev, a city near southwest Russia around the Dnieper River, so the empire was known as Kievan Russia; the empire controlled trade along Volga and Dnieper Rivers which connected Scandinavian countries with Turkey, Persia and Byzantine Empire
-the Kievans protected merchants from Tatar/Tartar pirate raids in exchange for a tax (tribute) from the prince of each kingdom in the empire; goods sold by Russians included furs, grain, honey and beeswax and made the princes rich; they also sold humans that were in debt or captured in feuds
-85% of Kievans were peasants and provided the basic wealth of the nobles; they blamed themselves for disasters that they suffered and saw famine and disease as punishment by their gods; they believed in nature gods such as Stribog the wind god and Perun of thunder; they thought spirits lived in trees, plants and special places
-988AD, Kievan ruler Vladimir converted to Christianity and the peasants merged their nature beliefs with Christian beliefs; Vladimir adopted the Byzantine Orthodoxy which led to frequent wars with their Polish Roman Catholic neighbours; Orthodoxy helped Russia develop a sense of national identity and slavs began seeing themselves as one people
-1200s, the Mongols invade; 1206, Genghis Khan conquers almost all of Asia and Europe and ruled the largest empire ever made for over two centuries
-one of the first Kievan cities to fall to Genghis was Ryazan, five hundred miles northeast of Kiev; churches were destroyed and there was not a single survivor; however, after the Mongols did not want to kill but merely wanted tribute so Russian Orthodoxy remained strong under Mongol rule; Russians were trained to fight in the Mongol army and trade routes were formed between Europe, Russia, and Asia because the Kievan military could now take care of all bandits; however, though merchants became rich, peasants became even poorer when they were forced to repair their farms and homes
-disputes among Mongol leaders gave Russians the ability to collect tribute for the empire; this allowed Russian princes to grow stronger than Mongol leaders; 1462, Ivan III becomes ruler of Moscow (which was almost all of the Russian empire) and refused to pay tribute to the Mongols; 1480, Ivan defeats a Mongol attacks and ends all allegiances with the Golden Horde
-his next goal was to reunite Kievan territories; 1487, he attacked Novgorod, a key trading centre along the Lovat River; by conquering this city, Ivan destroyed the beginnings of democracy in Russia because Novgorod was the only town to have a city assembly; he put the mayor in jail because Ivan believed that not all men were created equal
-Ivan III The Great's conquests allowed peasants to expand east for new farmland; to prevent peasants from leaving their nobles, Ivan the Great made a law so that peasants could only move on one day of the year: St. George's Day
-Ivan III died peacefully in 1505 after tripling the size of the empire; he had name himself tsar from the Roman word Caesar/emperor; his son, Vasily, took the throne and died in 1533 from an infection
-he was succeeded by Ivan IV who was a child so the nobles ran the government for him; the nobles were constantly fighting each other for more power, and treated Ivan IV like a servant; they left him cold and hungry
-1547 at the age of 17, Ivan IV declared himself ready to rule and after years of mistreatment, had developed a cruel, violent distemper; his nickname, Grozny, is translated as "Terrible"; unlike his grandfather, Ivan the Grozny conquered lands that did not want to be conquered; he established a 6 thousand police force called the Oprichniki to kill any noble that disobeyed him; their symbol was a broom for sweeping the land clean of enemies; they tortured and killed tens of thousands of peasants and nobles
-Ivan the Grozny added Kazan and Astrakhan to his empire, and spent 24 years attempting to conquer Livonia in the North; to maintain his army, Ivan raised taxes so high that peasants could not pay for them; Ivan the Grozny also invaded past the Ural Mountains to the east; his army was led by Yermak Timofeyevich who conquered the city of Sibir in 1580; soon after, all of Siberia would surrender and join the Russian empire and Siberian furs would become a great source of wealth for Russians in the 1600s and 1700s
-the peasants were sympathetic to Ivan the Grozny's brutality towards nobles; in fact, Grozny could be translated as awe-inspiring or wonderful; however, Ivan the Grozny did not help the peasants and took away even more of their freedom of mobility; peasants soon became serfs and were owned by their lord; peasants working on government or church lands were known as state peasants
-Ivan the Grozny is also known for when he struck down his son during an argument; using an iron staff in a fit of rage, he killed his only child that showed the ability to govern Russia; 1584, Ivan the Grozny died and Russia plunged into an era of poor leadership and turmoil
-he was succeeded by his son, Fyodor, who died in 1598 without a clear heir; this, coupled with a terrible famine, led Russia into the 15-year long Time of Troubles; 1602, peasants were on the brink of starvation and tried to survive by eating grass and straw and reports of cannibalism were common; the rich would buy grain at a low price and resell it to peasants at a high price; Boris Godunov, Fyodor's brother, wanted to hand out gov't food but was blocked by nobles; by the end of the famine, over 100 000 had died in Moscow alone
-throughout Godunov's reign, many nobles declared themselves Tsar because they did not see him as the rightful heir; many people claimed to be Fyodor's half-brother Dmitri who had really died in 1591 when he fell on a knife; rumour had it that Godunov had murdered Dmitri to remove a possible heir to the throne; rumours also had it that Dmitri had faked his own death to escape from Godunov
-Godunov died from poisoning in 1605 and each would-be tsar raised an army to fight for the throne; hoping to take advantage of the situation, Sweden invaded and took Novgorod; 1610, Poland invades and takes control of Moscow and tried to install a Roman Catholic Polish king as tsar
-Russian clergy and minor nobles raised an army of 100 thousand and pushed the Poles out by September 1612
-Russian leaders gathered and picked 16-year old Michael Romanov, grandnephew of Ivan IV; he was selected because he was too meek to run the nobles properly; during his reign, the nobles united against the Poles and made Moscow the centre of Russian government; he founded the Romanov dynasty
-1617, Michael signs a truce with Sweden that gave back most of Novgorod, though Sweden kept the Gulf of Finland; 1618, a truce is signed with Poland that gave Smolensk to Poland in exchange for the release of Michael's father, Philaret, who was captured in 1610
-1645, Michael dies and is succeeded by Alexis who wanted to retake Ukraine and Kiev which were both under Polish control; 1648, the Orthodox Ukrainians rebel against Poland and sought help from Russia; they agreed to join Russia and Moscow immediately sent in troops; 1667, a truce was signed and Russia had retaken Ukraine and Kiev
-this brought the Cossacks under Russian rule; Cossacks were former peasants who had fled Russia and Polish landlords and established communities around the Dnieper and Don Rivers; Cossacks were fierce fighters and were soon the most feared of the tsar's troops as well as the most brutal leaders of peasant uprisings
-lured by fur wealth, more and more Russians moved into Siberia and found timber, salt, and minerals; criminals and prisoners were exiled to Siberia to dig mines; within 3 decades, the Russians had advanced 3 thousand miles all the way to the Pacific
-Siberia was inhabited by indigenous people such as the Dolgany in the North and the Buryats near Lake Baikal who raised sheep; the Kamchadales lived bear the Pacific Ocean and began trading with the Russians; they were soon infected by Western diseases; the Yukagirs tribe near the Lena River lost 95% of their population in only a few years
-Alexis waged wars between Christians and Jews, there were open massacres of Semites leading to 250 000 Jewish deaths; Orthodox masses were still conducted in Old Church slavic language which no one could understand anymore, but the peasants would not tolerate if even a single syllable was said incorrectly; however, scholars soon discovered that the slavic chants were incorrect translations of the Greek chants; they also discovered that Russians made the sign of the cross differently than other Christians by using two fingers rather than 3
-1652, Alexis appoints Nikon as head of the Russian Orthodox Church to correct the errors; the peasants quickly denounced the reformations and rebelled to keep the old traditions; however, Nikon did not listen to the people and continued on with the reforms
-after Nikon left office in 1666, the Church began excommunicating opponents of reform and many were exiled to Siberia; Avvakum was sent to prison in Siberia for example and was executed in 1682; opponents of reform became known as Old Believers and thought reform would end the world; over 20 000 Old Believers committed suicide during the next 20 years; 1917, 10-20% of the population were still Old Believers
-peasants were fiercely conservative and rebelled against any major changes; Russian leaders thought peasants had no right to question their authority; Alexis died in 1676 and was replaced by his son, Fyodor III who was never healthy and died in 1682; 2 other sons of Alexis then became co-tsars and one died before he was old enough to rule
-the other child soon grew old enough to take over; his name was Peter the Great; he was fascinated by Western Europe after living in a German suburb of Moscow during his childhood; he concluded that Westerners knew far more math and science than Russians; he learned algebra and geometry from his English friends which helped him to fire artillery accurately and build strong forts
-at adulthood, he was 6'7" tall and had too much energy to sit down for long; he learned dozens of trades including carpentry and dentistry; 1694 at age of 22, Peter became tsar and believed that Russia must copy the ways of England and France; he hired technicians to construct ships and fortresses, set up schools to teach engineering for soldiers, he started Russia's first newspaper so that peasants could be involved in worldly affairs, adopted the Gregorian calendar, he appointed talented people to positions that nobles would normally get, and ordered people to call him emperor because it sounded more western
-he even wanted to look western so he ordered all Russians except clergy and peasants to shave; this opposed the Church that claimed shaving the beard was heresy; Peter enforced the cosmetic changes through his cruel and volatile temper and torture; he even sent his son to jail for not obeying with the reforms; the son later died during torture; he thought honesty could only be produced through God's existence in torture
-the Russian military grew to 200 000 soldiers and 70 000 sailors and called upon 100 000 Cossacks to fight for him; he hoped to take complete control over the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea; Russian troops attacked the Turkish port of Azov in 1695 but failed; they attacked again the following year and succeeded until 4 years later when the Turks retook it
-the Great Northern War between Sweden and Russia lasted from 1700 to 1721 AD and at first, Russia was doing very badly; November 1700 at battle of Narva, Swedish forces wiped out 10 000 Russian troops; 1709 with Peter leading his troops into battle, he defeated the Swedes at Poltava; by the end of the war, Russia had won control over Livonia and Estonia along the Baltic Sea
-1703, Russia had captured land along Neva River and Peter decided to build St. Petersburg on it; he ordered thousands of labourers to build buildings, roads, and canals; over 100 000 died building the city built on bones which would serve as the capitol of Russia for two centuries
-January 28, 1725, Peter dove into icy water to save a sailor and died afterwards from sickness; for his wars, he had raised taxes to the extreme but was luckily balanced by the economic growth spawned his the schools, ships and canals that he built
-1762, Catherine II became tsar after her husband Peter was murdered; she had supported a plot to kill him; she had a stunning coronation ceremony and wore a crown made of a pound of gold and 20 lbs of silver; the mantle used 4 thousand ermine skins and contained enough silver coins to fill over 00 kegs
-Russians referred to her as Little Mother; once she tried to protect a peasant from the whips of her police and the crowd cheered her name; she wore the most expensive clothes, bought the finest art; she never remarried, but she had relationships with many men and sent them away with lavish gifts and thousands of serfs; she often worked 5 hours a day reading reports and listening to advisors; she wanted to dominate Russia like Peter the Great
-she resumed the war with Poland; 1772 to 1795, Russia was allied with Austria and Prussia and divided Poland amongst themselves; Russia took control of the Ukraine and Lithuania and took Baltic Sea land from Sweden in 1787 and 1788; Russia also managed to take Black Sea fertile land from Turkey and annexed Crimea in 1783
-Catherine the Great's conquests added 7 million people to Russia population; to add even more, she welcomed European immigrants and by 1798, over 40000 Germans were living along Volga River
-Catherine was intrigued by Western philosophy and literature and read the works of Voltaire and Diderot; she collected European art and built English-style parks; she made her nobles speak French and started orphanages and schools for girls, and even published a literary journal
-she wanted to stop the infant death rate in Russia and advised the peasants to consult doctors when giving birth; however, the peasants ignored her because they preferred to have a midwife present because she knew chants to protect the child from evil; though she wanted to help the common folk, Catherine was forced to raise taxes to pay for her wars; the obrok were taxes paid in money or goods; the barschina were taxes paid through labour and lasted 3 days a week but during her reign, peasants were forced by nobles to work more than 3 days
-Catherine criticized the nobles who overworked serfs but could not control the situation; Catherine was also disgusted how serfs were sold between landlords like cattle so she instituted a ban on the practice but it was ignored; peasants took matters in their own hands and fled from their lords; some revolts began against the nobles but all were crushed and their leaders executed; Catherine had spread the word of the American and French Revolutions but the failure of the Russian peasant revolts led to resentment
-1770s, a peasant revolt was led by a man pretending to be Catherine's husband Peter; his name was Yemelyan Pugachov and was a Cossack from Don River; September 1773, he assembled an army made mostly of Old Believers who thought Pugachov would restore traditional ways; he also was joined by thousands of Bashkirs, Kalmucks, Kirghiz, Tatars, and Finns who hated their Russian oppressors; the army burned buildings, raped women yet peasants cheered because Pugachov did the same to nobles; Catherine sent her armies out and by fall of 1774, Pugachov was near defeat; he was betrayed by his men to Catherine who ordered the death penalty
-out of mercy, Catherine did not quarantine Pugachov but merely beheaded him immediately; meanwhile, villages still believed in the rebellion and peasants were hanged for mentioning Pugachov's name; Catherine died in 1796 with only 1 rebellion occurring since Pugachov
-after Catherine died from a brain blood vessel bursting, her son Paul became tsar; he was murdered by a coup 5 years later that was led by his son, Alexander; Alexander I did not care about western reforms and wanted to maintain Russian traditions; he saw himself as military saviour and representative of God; Alex believed it was his duty to stop Napoleon to the west when he wrote "There isn't enough room in Europe for us both; sooner or later one of us will have to go"
-June 1812, Napoleon and 420 000 French and 150 000 Italians, Poles, Swiss, Dutch, Germans, Austrians, and Prussians invaded Russia; Alexander knew he was no match for Bonaparte so he suggested retreat; Russian peasants hailed Napoleon as their liberator but soon found out that he was just as oppressive as the tsars; soon, Napoleon faced guerilla attacks from all sides and to protect their supply lines, Napoleon had to leave troops behind
-September 7, Napoleon attacks the Russians at Borodino and 50 000 Russians were killed; Alexander signaled the retreat and Napoleon moved towards Moscow; Russian field Marshal Kutuzov declared that Russia could not defend Moscow and did not really need it when he said "Napoleon is like a stormy torrent which we are as yet unable to stop. Moscow will be the sponge that will suck him in"
-Napoleon took Moscow without a fight and expected Alexander to accept defeat; Napoleon was then shocked when the city went on fire and burned for 5 days; the Russians refused to negotiate and Napoleon knew he could not chase the Russians all the way to the Pacific so on October 9, he signaled the French to retreat; on the way back, Napoleon's army became ill and could not get food because of peasant guerrilla attacks; November 5, snow came and by December, fewer than 40 000 Napoleonic troops were left
-November 1825, Alexander I died and in a letter declared his youngest brother, Nicholas, to be heir rather than his middle brother, Constantine; however, the nobles did not make the letter public and wanted Constantine to be tsar even though he insisted that he did not want the job; in St. Petersburg, one group of military soldiers declared their support for Constantine after battling in Europe and seeing citizens reading newspapers, debating politics, and even eating until full; they did not care about Constantine but rather wanted a revolution
-by December 14, the rebels had made an army of 3000 based not on the will of revolution but on the promise of easier conditions and more pay; they simply stood in the town square to show defiance to tsar Nicholas; the government sent representatives to negotiate but they were fired on by some soldiers; Nicolas decided he had no choice but to open fire; peasants caught in the crossfire tried to escape over the frozen Neva river but the ice was broken from cannon fire and they drowned; after the rebellion in St. Petersburg was crushed, another started in Kiev; however, this rebellion had traitors that allowed the government to capture the Kiev rebel leaders within days
-these rebellions became known a the Decembrist Revolts and Nicholas soon after vowed "Revolution stands on the threshold of Russia, but I swear it will never enter Russia while my breath lasts"; he organized a private army of spies and soldiers to seek out anyone who challenged his power; he became known as Nicholas the Flogger for his brutality; he ordered mustaches to be illegal for all men outside of the military and all mustaches had to be dyed black; however, the Decembrist Revolts had started a movement that would topple the tsars in a century
-grain exports from Eussia doubled between 1830s and 1840s; wheat and Russian rye went to the growing cities in the West; 1870, rail lines linked Moscow to St. Petersburg on the Baltic to Odessa on the Black Sea to Orenburg on the Ural; 1800s, peasants began producing extra items to sell to merchants and earned enough commission to buy extra food or better clothes
-to produce more goods, merchants and nobles began buying machines and hired peasants to work in them; early Russian factories produced textiles, carpets and shoes and the Industrial Revolution began; education went on the rise along with demand for citizens who could negotiate trade deals, supervise factories, run railroads, follow business contracts, timetables, and government regulations; however, outside of cities schools were rare and by mid-1800s, Russia only had 5 universities with all students being of the nobility or military
-for the first time, Russian writers, composers and intellectuals became famous outside of Europe; Aleksandr Pushkin wrote plays and poetry that became famous even in the USA, and was exiled from Russia twice for his association with political dissenters; Nicholas I censured what Pushkin wrote; other Russian writers included Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Leo Tolstoy, and Anton Chekhov
-Mikhail Glinka was the first significant Russian orchestral composer; he combined German and French styles with Russian folk melodies; other composers included Aleksandr Borodin, Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov, Pyotr Tchaikovsky, and Igor Stravinsky
-Aleksandr Herzen was a professor at a university who wrote books and essays and was exiled for 6 years in 1834for joining a group of political dissenters; after leaving Russia, he found that he could openly criticize them and while in London, published the Bell which was so influential that even Nicholas I read it; it was smuggled into the Russian underground; Herzen wanted more schools, freedom of press, more scientific study, and end to punishments like whipping; he also wanted an end to serfdom and wanted Russia to copy the Westerners
-however, he did not want to copy capitalism because he believed workers were treated as poorly as serfs; he instead supported socialism in which factories are owned by the people who work in them; however, Russian peasants refused reform yet again and said Democracy was not Russian and science threatened the Orthodox Church; these Slavophiles wanted to return to Slavic tradition and was led by A.S. Khomyakov, a friend of Herzen
-N.G. Chernyshevsky disliked both Western and Slavic ways so he helped mold the Nihilists that wanted none of the changes; Westerners (Russians who believed in Western ways) praised Peter the Great while Slavophiles attacked him; this was the first time in Russian history when intellectuals were deciding the fate of Russia society
-after the Napoleonic wars, Russia had used its military to crush revolts in Hungary, Austria, and eastern Europe and the peasants were proud of their military strength; 1853, Nicholas I sent troops to Walachia and Moldavia to protect Christians living in the Ottoman Empire; this led to France, Great Britain and Austrian declaring war on Russia and beginning the Crimean War
-Russia entered the war with confidence but was immediately crushed; Leo Tolstoy claimed that the Russians had "senseless training, useless weapons, ill treatment, universal procrastination, ignorance, appalling hygiene and food, stifle the last spark of pride in a man"; February 1855, Nicholas I died of pneumonia and his successor, Alexander II, brought the war to an end; the treaty signed in March 1856 cost Russia most of its land along the Danube River and also had to agree not to fortify its ports along the Black Sea; but worst of all, the intellectuals and peasants began asking what was wrong with Russia? Why was the army humiliated? Why were their officials so corrupt?
-Russia now averaged 6 peasant revolts each month and after Crimean War, Alexander realized that Russia was a weak country; he decided to free the serfs by saying "it is better to abolish serfdom from above than await the time when it will begin to abolish itself from below"; he then hired commissions to advise him whether nobles should be compensated, would serfs own land, and how fast should the emancipation occur; serfs had no reps at these talks
-Spring 1861, Alexander II finally decreed "the right of bondage over the peasants… is forever abolished"; he freed over 50 million people and Alexander II became known as the Tsar Liberator; he also revamped the judicial system, revised tax code, and improved education
-however, serfs could not earn land because most of it was given to nobles as compensation; also, serfs could not afford land because it was not free and serfs felt like they were trapped again; two thousand peasant rebellions should occurred in the next 35 years because they thought the nobles were restricting their freedom
-a group of intellectuals that follow Herzen soon began talking of revolution; they were urban sons and daughters of minor nobles and gov't officials and had little contact with peasants; they wanted democracy and believed that Russia peasants could handle it
-1873 to 1874, 3000 radicals moved to villages to spread the revolutionary word; some wanted immediate riots, others wanted to educate the peasants to prepare them for a later revolution; they offered medical care and taught children how to read and write while teaching them of the need for revolution; however, the radicals were met with suspicion and resentment, mostly because it would be a peasants' revolt that would aid the radicals
-the radicals found that most peasants still saw the tsar as defender and as Orthodox Christians, did not listen to the radicals' anticlerical message; the radicals then decided that another group than the peasants would have to lead the revolution; radicals who believed this, such as Georgy Plekhanov, believed in the ideas of German philosopher Karl Marx
-terrorist groups had emerged in the 1840s; a group known as People's Will repeatedly tried to assassinate the tsar and March 1881, they finally succeeded when a bomb exploded at Alexander II's feet; the liberator was dead; he was succeeded by Alexander III who repealed his father's reforms except for Emancipation; a group of 7 men tried to kill the tsar but were discovered and hanged in 1887; one of the hanged was Aleksandr Ulanov, brother of Vladimir Ulyanov who would later be known a Nikolay Lenin
-Alexander III blamed problems on ethnic groups because he had grown up with the new Russian nationalism that all Russians should share the same language, religion, and customs; however, only half of Russia's population was actually Russian; his drive to Russify/Russianize all ethnic groups led to violence; Poles were pressured to attend Orthodox Church and laws were passed that did not allow any religion but the Orthodox Church to recruit new members; 1881, gov't issued new regulation that allowed tsar to declare state of emergency in a region, thus would be able to fine, jail without trial, close businesses, and prohibit gatherings to any minority that he wanted to punish
-one of tsar's advisors thought all Jews should be eliminated so Alexander III passed restrictions; gov't limited the number of Jews admitted into high school depending on the amount of Jews who took the entrance exams; porgram mobs burned Jewish homes and sacked synagogues; local governments showed support for porgrams by waiting a few days before stopping the violence; Alexander III said "in my heart, I am very glad when they beat the Jews, even though this practice cannot be permitted"
-Passover 1903 at Kishinev, a Christian girl had committed suicide and her Jewish employer had been caught trying to revive her; however, the public chose to believe that he had committed ritual sacrifice which resulted in 45 Jewish deaths, several hundred injuries, and thousands of burned shops and homes; 1880 to 1914, 1 million Jews fled Russia while others tried to defend themselves by joining the Bund which demanded laws to protect all Russia citizens
-under Alexander III, iron production went from 800 000 tons in 1870 to 2 million tons in 1890; he created jobs for peasants and Russia's urban population jumped from 6 million in 1863 to 18.6 million in 1914; however, average personal wealth stayed low at $400 Russian (did they have rubles yet?); in Great Britain, it was $1600
-in St. Petersburg, work day lasted 13-17 hours; 1897, law limited work to 11.5 hours but laws were enforced loosely; the 3 meals each day consisted of rye bread with cabbage; Russians blamed the poor working conditions on competition (capitalism)
-the Trans-Siberian Railway linked Russia with Pacific Ocean; construction began in 1891 with workers labouring for 17 hours a day and were given food that newspapers claimed not even the pigs would eat; the railway was finished in 1904 and the return of diamonds, rubies, coal, and oil made the economy grow; to pay for railway construction, Russia exported goods and by 1890, grain was exported so much that the peasants had none to ear
-1891, little rain fell in Russia & Europe and drought brought grain prices up and by May, Russian officials feared widespread famine; though some officials wanted to save grain for peasants, finance minister Ivan Vyshnegradskii decided to export as much grain as possible to make extra money from hungry Europe; soon, 36 million Russians were near starvation; 400 000 Russians died from famine by end of 1892
-1894, Alexander III died from kidney failure and his son, Nicholas II said "what am I going to do? What is going to happen to me… to all of Russia? I am not prepared to be a Tsar. I never wanted to become one"; at his coronation, a rumour began that there was not enough drinks for everyone and panic to get a cup began; 2000 were trampled to death and Nicholas II cancelled the rest of the festivities; however, he was forced to join a party with a French ambassador which gave him a reputation as a cruel, no-respect for dead man
-while New Zealand, Australia, & the US passed laws to increase rep by pop in gov't but Nicholas II branded all democratic steps as "senseless dreams; meanwhile, peasants protested poverty and employees protested working conditions and one of the tsar's top advisors said "in order to hold back the revolution we need a small victorious war"
-Russia went to war against Japan for control over Korea and Manchuria; this war called the Russo-Japanese War and Russia assumed they would win easily because they were racially superior; February 1904, Japanese surprise and defeat Russians at Port Arthur in Manchuria and by fall, Russia knew they would lose the war
-January 1905, 200 000 peasants met in St. Petersburg to deliver a petition; though they claimed to hate & respect the tsar, they demanded 8-hour workday and increase in wages; these peasants believed the tsar was their protector and would protect them from oppressive employers
-however, the gov't panicked and surrounded them with troops on January 22, 1905 which became known as Bloody Sunday; between 150 and 1000 men, women, and children were slaughtered & peasants cried that they no longer had a tsar; movement began that believed tsar had lost right to rule
-1905, several thousand revolts occurred led by industrial workers; Nicholas II created an elected legislature called the Duma to advise him but peasants continued to attack; 65 were killed in Stavropol in one day and in Belostok, 100 died in a revolt; news from the Russo-Japanese war made the revolts even worse so Nicholas II made peace with Japan in September 1905; Japan won control of Korea and key railways in Manchuria
-October, railroad strike paralyzed Russia; December, a general strike occurred in Moscow and 1000 citizens are shot; in Odessa, 2000 citizens and soldiers die in fighting; 1906, 400 mutinies occurred in military including the sailors of battleship Potemkin who killed their officers and took the vessel; 1907, shootings and terrorist bombings killed 3000
-Prime Minister Pyotr Stolypin executed so many thousands of citizens in 1906 and 1907 that gallows became known as Stolypin's necktie; however, he also made reforms that gave peasants more land and control which made 1908-1911 relatively peaceful; however, number of strikes grew in 1912 and 1913 and Russian cities were impossible to govern
-1904, Nicholas II and wife Alexandra gave birth to heir, Alexis; 10 weeks later, the parents discovered that the child had hemophilia that causes blood to not clot properly so Alexandra turned to religious teacher, Grigory Rasputin, for guidance; he was a Siberian who could barely read, was often drunk and took part in sexual orgies yet had a rep as a faith healer
-at first, he seemed to control the bleeding of Alexis; once Alexis was very sick and the doctors could not do anything yet when Rasputin prayed by the boy's bed, Alexis was miraculously cured; Alexandra soon asked Rasputin about anything that affected her family and he became the most powerful influence on the tsar; the officials hated him because he was a peasant, the peasants were offended by his orgies and drunkenness
-World War 1 broke out in 1914 and protests stopped; peasants happily enlisted and other worked overtime for no pay; Russians dreamed of a short war and men would return home as heroes; however, these soldiers went to war unprepared, without food, and half didn't even have rifles; August 1914 at Tennenberg 100 miles North of Warsaw, 170 000 Russians were captured or killed by Germans
-soon soldiers began wondering what they were dying for; they began wondering if the war was more for Russia or for Poland; in Russia, transportation was all used for military and food was scarce; because of the lack of food, prices jumped and meat costed 5 times more than it did before the war; March 1917, food riots occur in Petrograd (is this the re-named St. Petersburg?) and soldiers sent to stop the protests actually joined
-the Duma realized that Nicholas II could not longer rule and made a provisional government to rule until an election, and without a choice, Nicholas II abdicated; some nobles urged Nicholas' brother, Michael, to become tsar but refused; the new government was run by Aleksandr Kerensky but he failed to help the peasants so on November and was taken over by a group called the Bolsheviks
-the Bolsheviks based their principles on Karl Marx; the revolution occurred in October so it's known as the October Revolution; the old calendar was 13 days behind the European so in 1918, they adopt the Gregorian calendar
-the leader of the Bolsheviks was Nikolay Lenin and he immediately made peace with Germany; he gave land to peasants, made workers run factories according to socialism, and moved the capital from Petrograd to Moscow; the Russian Revolution began 3 years of civil war; the Bolsheviks were the reds and the whites were anyone who opposed their ruthless, undemocratic methods; the civil war included organized ransacking and many towns became ghost towns from battles; Nicholas II and his family were imprisoned on July 16, 1918 in Ekaterinburg; with white troops coming to perhaps free the tsar, Nicholas and his family were executed; Great Britain, France, US, & Japan sent troops into Russia to help the Whites; nevertheless, the reds won
-1922, Russia and its neighbours formed the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics; Lenin died in 1924 and was succeeded by Joseph Stalin who claimed to be a socialist Marxist; however, the Soviet Union turned communist when workers had little control over their factories and the government did not allow civil rights
-in 1920s, 6 million died from famine and Stalin's attempts to restructure;1930s, Stalin cracked down on political opponents by arresting 8 million and executing 800 000; Stalin ruled until his death in 1953
-in World War 2, 20 million Russians died; soon after, Russia then entered a cold war with America and dissolved in 1991 when Mikhail Gorbachov dissolved the Union