The territorial composition of the Russian Empire. In what year did Russia become an empire: the reasons and periods of its greatest prosperity
The Russian Empire began its existence in 1721, during the reign.
Russia became an Empire after completion, the results of which secured new lands for Russia, access to the Baltic Sea, various economic benefits, and other privileges. The capital of the Russian Empire was the city of St. Petersburg, the creation of Petrovo.
Between 1728 and 1730, Moscow was again the capital of Russia. From 1730 to 1917, St. Petersburg was again the main city. The Russian Empire was big state whose lands were vast.
In world history, it was the third state by area that ever existed (the palm in the nomination is held by the Mongolian and British Empires).
The Empire was ruled by the EMPEROR, the monarch, whose power was not limited by anything, except for Christian postulates. In 1905, after the first revolution, the State Duma appeared, which limited the power of the monarch.
On the eve of 1917 Russian Agriculture was at the peak of its development. In many ways, the land reform had a beneficial effect. Between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the First World War, the grain harvest in Russia doubled.
Russia harvested one-third more grain than Canada, the US and Argentina combined. For example, the harvest of rye from the fields of the Russian Empire in 1894 yielded a crop of 2 billion poods of grain, and in the last pre-war year(1913) - 4 billion.
During the reign of Nicholas II, it provided all of Europe with agricultural products.Between 1894 and 1911, cotton production in Russia increased by 388%.
During the period 1890-1913, industry quadrupled (!!!) its productivity. The income received by the Russian Empire from industrial enterprises was equal to the receipts to the treasury of income from such an industry as agriculture.
Goods produced at Russian enterprises covered 4/5 of the domestic market demand for industrial products. In the four years before, the number of established joint-stock companies in Russia increased by 132%.
Capital invested in joint-stock companies increased four times.
The main principle of budget planning was the absence of deficits. The ministers did not forget about the need to accumulate gold reserves. Government revenues in last years life
In 1721 Russian state received a new name - the Russian Empire. The word "empire" better than "state" conveyed the strength and power of Russia, which, thanks to Peter I and his victory in northern war turned into a powerful state.
After the Northern War, which took place in 1700-1721, Peter I managed to completely defeat the Swedish army, take away the Russian lands they had previously conquered from the Swedes - Karelia, Estonia, Livonia, Ingria - and gain access to the Baltic Sea. On the reclaimed lands, Peter I lays the capital of his future empire - the city of St. Petersburg. Now the Russian state can rightfully be considered a real European state, and Peter I decides from now on to call it the Russian Empire.
What happened during the era of palace coups?
The time after the death of Peter I and before the accession to the throne of Empress Catherine II - from 1725 to 1762. - called by historians of time palace coups ov. Since no one knew exactly who could become the next Russian ruler after the death of the emperor, power at that time did not change hands, but was seized and won by force.
The first palace coup took place immediately after the death of Peter I. One group of people wanted to see the emperor's grandson, Tsarevich Peter, on the throne, and the other wanted Catherine, the wife of Peter I. As a result of a palace coup, in which the guards took part, Ekaterina Alekseevna ascended the throne.
As a result of the Northern War of 1700-1721, a powerful Swedish army was defeated, and the Russian lands captured by Sweden in the late 16th and early 17th centuries were returned. At the mouth of the Neva, the city of St. Petersburg was built, where in 1712 the capital of Russia was transferred. Moscow state becomes in 1721 the Russian Empire, headed by the Emperor of All Russia.
Of course, Russia took a long time to create an empire, and not only the victory in the Northern War contributed to this.
Long haul
At the beginning of the XIII century, Rus' consisted of about 15 principalities. However, the natural course of centralization turned out to be crossed out. Mongol invasion(1237-1240). Further unification of the Russian lands took place in difficult foreign policy conditions and was dictated primarily by political prerequisites.
In the XIV century, most of the Russian lands were united around Vilna - the capital of the emerging Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Russia. During the XIII-XV centuries, Gorodenskoe, Polotsk, Vitebsk, Turovo-Pinsk, Kiev principality, as well as most of the Chernihiv region, Volyn, Podolia, Smolensk region and a number of other Russian lands. Thus, the sole rule of the Rurikovichs and the tribal unity of Rus' have gone into the past. Lands were annexed both by military and peaceful means.
End XV - early XVI centuries became a kind of frontier, after which the lands annexed to Russia formed a single whole with it. The process of joining the rest of the inheritance Ancient Rus' stretched out for another two centuries, and by that time their own ethnic processes had gained strength there.
In 1654 Left-Bank Ukraine joined Russia. The lands of the Right-Bank Ukraine (without Galicia) and Belarus became part of the Russian Empire as a result of the second division of the Commonwealth in 1793.
“The Russian kingdom (both conceptually, ideologically, and institutionally) had two sources: the “kingdom” (khanate) of the Golden Horde and the Byzantine Orthodox kingdom (empire).”
One of the first to formulate new idea the royal power of the Moscow princes was Metropolitan Zosima. In the essay "The Presentation of the Paschal", submitted to the Moscow Cathedral in 1492, he emphasized that Moscow became the new Constantinople thanks to the fidelity of Rus' to God. God Himself appointed Ivan III - "the new Tsar Constantine to the new city of Constantine - Moscow and the whole Russian land and many other lands of the sovereign." Thus, Ivan IV was the first tsar crowned king. This happened on January 16, 1547.
Under Ivan IV, Russia managed to significantly expand its possessions. As a result of the campaign against Kazan and its capture in 1552, she gained the middle Volga region, and in 1556, with the capture of Astrakhan, the lower Volga region and access to the Caspian Sea, which opened up new trade opportunities with Persia, the Caucasus and Central Asia. At the same time, the ring of hostile Tatar khanates that hampered Rus' was broken, and the road to Siberia was opened.
V. Surikov "Conquest of Siberia by Yermak"
The era of Ivan the Terrible also marked the beginning of the conquest of Siberia. A small detachment of Cossacks Yermak Timofeevich, hired by the Ural industrialists Stroganovs to protect against the raids of the Siberian Tatars, defeated the army of the Siberian Khan Kuchum and took his capital Kashlyk. Despite the fact that due to the attacks of the Tatars, few of the Cossacks managed to return alive, the disintegrated Siberian Khanate has not recovered. A few years later, the tsarist archers of the voivode Voeikov crushed the last resistance. The gradual development of Siberia by the Russians began. Over the next decades, forts and trading settlements began to appear: Tobolsk, Verkhoturye, Mangazeya, Yeniseisk and Bratsk.
Russian empire
P. Zharkov "Portrait of Peter I"
On August 30, 1721, the Treaty of Nystadt was concluded between Russia and Sweden, according to which Russia received access to the Baltic Sea, annexed the territory of Ingria, part of Karelia, Estonia and Livonia.
Russia has become a great European power. Peter I accepted from the Senate the titles "Great" and "Father of the Fatherland", he was proclaimed emperor, and Russia - an empire.
The formation of the Russian Empire was accompanied by a number of reforms.
Public Administration Reform
Creation of the Near Office (or Council of Ministers) in 1699. It was transformed in 1711 into the Governing Senate. Establishment of 12 collegiums with a specific scope of activity and powers.
System government controlled became more perfect. Majority activities government agencies became regulated, the boards had a clearly defined area of activity. Supervisory bodies were created.
Regional (provincial) reform
At the first stage of the reform, Peter I divided Russia into 8 provinces: Moscow, Kyiv, Kazan, Ingermanland (later St. Petersburg), Arkhangelsk, Smolensk, Azov, Siberia. They were ruled by governors who were in charge of the troops located on the territory of the province, and also possessed full administrative and judicial power. At the second stage of the reform, the provinces were divided into 50 provinces ruled by governors, and those were divided into districts led by zemstvo commissars. The governors were stripped of their administrative power and were in charge of judicial and military matters.
There was a centralization of power. Local governments have almost completely lost influence.
Judicial reform
Peter 1 formed new judicial bodies: the Senate, the Justic College, the Hofgerichts, and the lower courts. Judicial functions were also performed by all colleagues, except for Foreign. The judges were separated from the administration. The court of kissers (an analogue of the jury trial) was canceled, the principle of the inviolability of an unconvicted person was lost.
A large number of judiciary and persons who carried out judicial activities (the emperor himself, governors, governors, etc.) brought confusion and confusion to the proceedings, the introduction of the possibility of "knocking out" testimony under torture created grounds for abuse and bias. At the same time, the adversarial nature of the process was established and the need for the verdict to be based on specific articles of the law corresponding to the case under consideration.
Military reforms
The introduction of recruitment, the creation of the navy, the establishment of the Military Collegium, which was in charge of all military affairs. Introduction using the "Table of Ranks" military ranks, common for all of Russia. Creation of military-industrial enterprises, as well as military educational institutions. Introduction of army discipline and military regulations.
With his reforms, Peter 1 created a formidable regular army, numbering up to 212 thousand people by 1725 and a strong navy. Subdivisions were created in the army: regiments, brigades and divisions, in the navy - squadrons. Many military victories were won. These reforms (although ambiguously assessed by different historians) created a springboard for the further success of Russian weapons.
Church reform
The institution of the patriarchate was actually liquidated. In 1701, the management of church and monastery lands was reformed. Peter 1 restored the Monastic order, which controlled church revenues and the trial of the monastery peasants. In 1721, the Spiritual Regulations were adopted, which actually deprived the church of independence. Created to replace the patriarchate Holy Synod, whose members were subordinate to Peter 1, by whom they were appointed. Church property was often taken away and spent on the needs of the emperor.
Church reforms of Peter 1 led to almost complete submission secular clergy. In addition to the elimination of the patriarchate, many bishops and ordinary clergy were persecuted. The church could no longer pursue an independent spiritual policy and partly lost its authority in society.
Financial reforms
The introduction of many new (including indirect) taxes, the monopolization of the sale of tar, alcohol, salt and other goods. Damage (reduction in weight) of the coin. The penny becomes the main coin. Transition to the poll tax.
Increase in revenues of the treasury several times. But! It was achieved at the expense of the impoverishment of the bulk of the population, and most of this income was embezzled.
Culture and life
Peter I led the fight against the external manifestations of the "outdated" way of life (the most famous ban on beards), but no less paid attention to the introduction of the nobility to education and secular Europeanized culture. Secular educational institutions began to appear, the first Russian newspaper was founded, translations of many books into Russian appeared. Success in the service of Peter made the nobles dependent on education.
N. Nevrev "Peter I"
A number of measures were taken to develop education: on January 14, 1700, a school of mathematical and navigational sciences was opened in Moscow. In 1701-1721, artillery, engineering and medical schools were opened in Moscow, an engineering school and a naval academy in St. Petersburg, mining schools at the Olonets and Ural factories. In 1705, the first gymnasium in Russia was opened. The goals of mass education were to be served by the digital schools created by decree of 1714 in provincial towns called " to teach children of all ranks literacy, numbers and geometry". It was supposed to create two such schools in each province, where education was supposed to be free. Garrison schools were opened for soldiers' children, and a network of theological schools was created for the training of priests in 1721. Peter's decrees introduced compulsory education for nobles and clergy, but a similar measure for the urban population met with fierce resistance and was canceled. Peter's attempt to create an all-estate primary school failed (the creation of a network of schools ceased after his death, most of the digital schools under his successors were redesigned into class schools for the training of the clergy), but nevertheless, during his reign, the foundations were laid for the spread of education in Russia.
Peter I created new printing houses.
In 1724, Peter approved the charter of the Academy of Sciences being organized, which was opened after his death.
Of particular importance was the construction of stone Petersburg, in which foreign architects took part and which was carried out according to the plan developed by the tsar. He created a new urban environment with previously unfamiliar forms of life and pastime (theatre, masquerades). Has changed interior decoration houses, lifestyle, food composition, etc.
By a special decree of the tsar in 1718, assemblies were introduced, representing a new form of communication between people in Russia. At the assemblies, the nobles danced and mingled freely, unlike earlier feasts and feasts.
S. Khlebovsky "Assemblies under Peter I"
Peter invited foreign artists to Russia and at the same time sent talented young people to study "arts" abroad.
On December 30, 1701, Peter issued a decree ordering to write full names in petitions and other documents instead of pejorative half-names (Ivashka, Senka, etc.), not to fall on your knees in front of the tsar, in winter, in the cold, wear a hat in front of the house in which you are king, do not shoot. He explained the need for these innovations in this way: "Less baseness, more zeal for service and loyalty to me and the state - this honor is characteristic of the king ...".
Peter tried to change the position of women in Russian society. He by special decrees (1700, 1702 and 1724) forbade forced marriage and marriage. It was prescribed that there should be at least six weeks between the betrothal and the wedding, "so that the bride and groom could recognize each other." If during this time, the decree said, “the bridegroom does not want to take the bride, or the bride does not want to marry the groom,” no matter how the parents insisted, “there is freedom.”
The transformations of the era of Peter I led to the strengthening of the Russian state, the creation of a modern European army, the development of industry and the spread of education among the upper classes of the population. An absolute monarchy was established, headed by the emperor, to whom the church was also subordinate (through the chief prosecutor of the Holy Synod).
To the question "In what year did Russia become an empire?" Not everyone will be able to give an accurate answer. Someone forgot that the country was proudly called it, someone may not know this at all. But it was at that time that it was recognized as one of the most powerful powers in the world, there was a significant economic and cultural upsurge of the state. Therefore, you need to know when this rich on historical events path.
General information
The Russian Empire is a state that existed from 1721 until the February Revolution, when the collapse of the existing political system and Russia became a republic. The country became an empire after the Northern War during the reign of Peter the Great. The capital changed - it was St. Petersburg, then Moscow, then St. Petersburg, renamed Leningrad after the revolution.
The borders of the Russian Empire stretched from the Arctic Ocean on the northern borders to the Black Sea - on the south, from the Baltic Sea - on the west to the Pacific Ocean - on the east. Thanks to such a vast territory, Russia was considered the third largest power in the world. At the head of the state was the emperor, who was an absolute monarch until 1905.
The Russian Empire was founded by Peter the Great, who in the course of his reforms completely changed the state structure. Russia has turned from an estate monarchy into an absolutist empire. Absolutism is introduced into the Military Regulations. Peter, who took the country as a model Western Europe, decided to proclaim it an imperial power.
For achievement absolute monarchy the Boyar Duma and the Patriarchate, which could influence the royal decisions, are abolished. After the introduction of the Table of Ranks, the main support of the monarch is the nobility, and the church becomes synodal, which is subordinate to the emperor. Russia has a permanent army and navy, which allows expanding Russian borders in a westerly direction, access to the Baltic Sea was won. Peter founded St. Petersburg, which later became the capital of the empire.
On October 22 (November 2), 1721, after the end of the Northern War, Russia was proclaimed an empire, and Peter the Great himself became emperor. In the eyes of the European rulers, Russia thus showed everyone that it has great political influence and that it must be reckoned with. Not all powers recognized the increased influence of Russia, Poland submitted later than all, claiming part of the territories of Kievan Rus.
The period of "enlightened absolutism"
After the death of Peter the Great, the era of palace coups began - a time when there was no stability in the country, therefore, there was no significant state rise. Everything changed when, during the next coup, Catherine the Second ascended the throne. During her reign, Russia makes another breakthrough as in foreign policy, and in internal arrangement states.
During Russian-Turkish wars the Crimea is conquered, Russia takes an active part in the division of Poland, the development of Novorossia takes place. During the colonization of Transcaucasia, Russian interests collide with Persian and Ottoman ones. In 1783, the Treaty of St. George was signed on patronage over Eastern Georgia.
There were also popular uprisings. Catherine the Great created a "Charter to the nobility", which exempted him from compulsory military service, but the peasants were still obliged to perform military service. The reaction of the peasantry and Cossacks, from whom the Empress took away their liberties, was "Pugachevshchina".
Catherine's reign proceeds in the spirit of enlightened absolutism; she personally corresponds with famous French philosophers that time. The Free Economic Society is founded, the development of science and art is encouraged. But at the same time, the Empress understands that large territory The Russian Empire requires tight control and absolute monarchy.
During the reign of Emperor Nicholas II, events take place that turned and completely changed Russian history. Despite the fact that the emperor favored industrial growth and demographic growth, the number of peasants and workers dissatisfied with working conditions is growing: the latter demand an 8-hour working day, and the peasantry wants to divide the landed lands.
During that period, Russia is trying to expand its Far Eastern borders, this leads to a clash of interests with Japan, which resulted in war and defeat, which was the result of the revolution. After that, Russia ceased to expand its influence on Far East. The revolution was suppressed, the emperor made concessions - he created a Parliament that allowed political parties. But this did not help: discontent continued to grow, including with the policy of Russification in Finland, the Poles were outraged by the loss of Polish autonomy, and the Jews by the repressive policies that had increased since the 1880s.
The Russian Empire took part in the First World War, which led to a huge tension of all participating countries. Due to the large military expenditures, a huge number of peasants are mobilized, which leads to an aggravation of the food problem. Growing difficulties cause dissatisfaction with politics and the established state structure of all segments of the population, which results in the February Revolution of 1917, and in 1924 the USSR appears.
Why was it told about the reign of these two emperors and the empress? In what year did Russia become an empire? That's right, in 1721, during the reign of Peter the Great, during the reign of the Russian Empire, the Russian Empire made a big leap in its development, and Nicholas II became the last Russian emperor, and it was necessary to write about the reasons that led to the collapse of the empire. Russian state had a great influence in world politics, the emperors sought to expand their borders, but did not take into account the interests of the common population, who were dissatisfied with politics, which led to the creation of the republic.
The Russian Empire existed from 1721 to 1917. It occupied a vast territory, almost 36 million square kilometers, from of Eastern Europe and to Asia (inclusive). The empire had an autocratic type of government and the capital in the city of St. Petersburg. The population of the empire was more than 170 million people and included more than a hundred different ethnic groups. The largest of them are Christians, Muslims and Jews.
The Russian Empire was born during the reign of Peter the Great (1694-1725) after Russia won the Great Northern War (1700-1721). In this war, Russia fought against the Swedish and Polish empires.
Most of the population of Russia at that time consisted of serfs. The Russian rulers tried to reform the system by abandoning slavery, following the example of Western states. This led to the abolition of serfdom in 1861. The cancellation occurred during the reign of Alexander II (1855-1881). The liberation of the peasants did not lead to an improvement in their lives. Disagreements and intrigues in the ruling circles grew, and as a result, this led to the fact that Tsar Nicholas II was forced to abdicate on March 15, 1917, during.
Absolute dominance over their neighbors in Europe and Asia
Russian offensive in East Prussia and Austria-Hungary had to be distracted German troops from the western front. During the implementation of this plan, the Russian Empire suffered catastrophic losses and a number of defeats in 1914-1915. The incompetence of the military leadership and serious problems inside the country. The losses suffered during the war caused massive unrest, especially among the proletariat, peasantry and soldiers.
This led to massive protests in 1916. The split in the government grew, and the opposition Progressive Bloc was formed. Regardless of all attempts by the government to maintain order and the monarchy, demonstrators in the capital called for the abolition of autocracy. was forced to abdicate on March 15, thereby ending the existence of the Russian Empire. Seven months later, the Bolshevik Revolution began and the Soviet Union emerged.
