Nicholas II (1894 - 1917) Due to the stampede that occurred during his coronation, many people died. Thus, the name “Bloody” was attached to the kindest philanthropist Nikolai. In 1898, Nicholas II, caring for world peace, issued a manifesto calling on all countries in the world to completely disarm. After this, a special commission met in The Hague to develop a number of measures that could further prevent bloody clashes between countries and peoples. But the peace-loving emperor had to fight. First in the First World War, then the Bolshevik coup broke out, as a result of which the monarch was overthrown, and then he and his family were shot in Yekaterinburg. The Orthodox Church canonized Nikolai Romanov and his entire family as saints.

Rurik (862-879)

The Novgorod prince, nicknamed Varangian, as he was called to reign over the Novgorodians from across the Varangian Sea. is the founder of the Rurik dynasty. He was married to a woman named Efanda, with whom he had a son named Igor. He also raised Askold’s daughter and stepson. After his two brothers died, he became the sole ruler of the country. He gave all the surrounding villages and suburbs to the management of his confidants, where they had the right to independently conduct justice. Around this time, Askold and Dir, two brothers who were in no way related to Rurik by family ties, occupied the city of Kyiv and began to rule the glades.

Oleg (879 - 912)

Prince of Kyiv, nicknamed the Prophetic. Being a relative of Prince Rurik, he was the guardian of his son Igor. According to legend, he died after being bitten in the leg by a snake. Prince Oleg became famous for his intelligence and military valor. With a huge army at that time, the prince went along the Dnieper. On the way, he conquered Smolensk, then Lyubech, and then took Kyiv, making it the capital. Askold and Dir were killed, and Oleg showed the little son of Rurik, Igor, to the glades as their prince. He went on a military campaign to Greece and with a brilliant victory secured the Russians preferential rights to free trade in Constantinople.

Igor (912 - 945)

Following the example of Prince Oleg, Igor Rurikovich conquered all the neighboring tribes and forced them to pay tribute, successfully repelled the raids of the Pechenegs and also undertook a campaign in Greece, which, however, was not as successful as the campaign of Prince Oleg. As a result, Igor was killed by neighboring conquered tribes of the Drevlyans for his irrepressible greed in extortions.

Olga (945 - 957)

Olga was the wife of Prince Igor. She, according to the customs of that time, very cruelly took revenge on the Drevlyans for the murder of her husband, and also conquered the main city of the Drevlyans - Korosten. Olga was distinguished by very good leadership abilities, as well as a brilliant, sharp mind. Already at the end of her life, she converted to Christianity in Constantinople, for which she was subsequently canonized and named Equal to the Apostles.

Svyatoslav Igorevich (after 964 - spring 972)

The son of Prince Igor and Princess Olga, who, after the death of her husband, took the reins of power into her own hands while her son grew up, learning the intricacies of the art of war. In 967, he managed to defeat the army of the Bulgarian king, which greatly alarmed the Byzantine emperor John, who, in cahoots with the Pechenegs, persuaded them to attack Kiev. In 970, together with the Bulgarians and Hungarians, after the death of Princess Olga, Svyatoslav went on a campaign against Byzantium. The forces were not equal, and Svyatoslav was forced to sign a peace treaty with the empire. After his return to Kyiv, he was brutally killed by the Pechenegs, and then Svyatoslav’s skull was decorated with gold and made into a bowl for pies.

Yaropolk Svyatoslavovich (972 - 978 or 980)

After the death of his father, Prince Svyatoslav Igorevich, made an attempt to unite Rus' under his rule, defeating his brothers: Oleg Drevlyansky and Vladimir of Novgorod, forcing them to leave the country, and then annexed their lands to the Principality of Kiev. He managed to conclude a new agreement with the Byzantine Empire, and also attract the horde of the Pecheneg Khan Ildea into his service. Tried to establish diplomatic relations with Rome. Under him, as the Joachim manuscript testifies, Christians were given a lot of freedom in Rus', which caused the displeasure of the pagans. Vladimir of Novgorod immediately took advantage of this displeasure and, having agreed with the Varangians, recaptured Novgorod, then Polotsk, and then besieged Kyiv. Yaropolk was forced to flee to Roden. He tried to make peace with his brother, for which he went to Kyiv, where he was a Varangian. Chronicles characterize this prince as a peace-loving and meek ruler.

Vladimir Svyatoslavovich (978 or 980 - 1015)

Vladimir was the youngest son of Prince Svyatoslav. He was the Prince of Novgorod from 968. Became Prince of Kyiv in 980. He was distinguished by a very warlike disposition, which allowed him to conquer the Radimichi, Vyatichi and Yatvingians. Vladimir also waged wars with the Pechenegs, with Volga Bulgaria, with the Byzantine Empire and Poland. It was during the reign of Prince Vladimir in Rus' that defensive structures were built on the boundaries of the rivers: Desna, Trubezh, Osetra, Sula and others. Vladimir also did not forget about his capital city. It was under him that Kyiv was rebuilt with stone buildings. But Vladimir Svyatoslavovich became famous and remained in history thanks to the fact that in 988 - 989. made Christianity the state religion of Kievan Rus, which immediately strengthened the country’s authority in the international arena. Under him, the state of Kievan Rus entered its period of greatest prosperity. Prince Vladimir Svyatoslavovich became an epic character, in which he is referred to as “Vladimir the Red Sun.” Canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church, named Prince Equal to the Apostles.

Svyatopolk Vladimirovich (1015 - 1019)

During his lifetime, Vladimir Svyatoslavovich divided his lands between his sons: Svyatopolk, Izyaslav, Yaroslav, Mstislav, Svyatoslav, Boris and Gleb. After Prince Vladimir died, Svyatopolk Vladimirovich occupied Kyiv and decided to get rid of his rival brothers. He gave the order to kill Gleb, Boris and Svyatoslav. However, this did not help him establish himself on the throne. Soon he himself was expelled from Kyiv by Prince Yaroslav of Novgorod. Then Svyatopolk turned for help to his father-in-law, King Boleslav of Poland. With the support of the Polish king, Svyatopolk again took possession of Kiev, but soon circumstances developed such that he was again forced to flee the capital. On the way, Prince Svyatopolk committed suicide. This prince was popularly nicknamed the Damned because he took the lives of his brothers.

Yaroslav Vladimirovich the Wise (1019 - 1054)

Yaroslav Vladimirovich, after the death of Mstislav of Tmutarakansky and after the expulsion of the Holy Regiment, became the sole ruler of the Russian land. Yaroslav was distinguished by a sharp mind, for which, in fact, he received his nickname - the Wise. He tried to take care of the needs of his people, built the cities of Yaroslavl and Yuryev. He also built churches (St. Sophia in Kyiv and Novgorod), understanding the importance of spreading and establishing the new faith. It was he who published the first set of laws in Rus' called “Russian Truth”. He divided the plots of the Russian land between his sons: Izyaslav, Svyatoslav, Vsevolod, Igor and Vyacheslav, bequeathing them to live in peace among themselves.

Izyaslav Yaroslavich the First (1054 - 1078)

Izyaslav was the eldest son of Yaroslav the Wise. After the death of his father, the throne of Kievan Rus passed to him. But after his campaign against the Polovtsians, which ended in failure, the Kievans themselves drove him away. Then his brother Svyatoslav became the Grand Duke. Only after the death of Svyatoslav did Izyaslav return to the capital city of Kyiv. Vsevolod the First (1078 - 1093) It is likely that Prince Vsevolod could well have been a useful ruler, thanks to his peaceful disposition, piety and truthfulness. Being himself an educated man, knowing five languages, he actively contributed to enlightenment in his principality. But, alas. Constant, incessant raids of the Polovtsians, pestilence, and famine did not favor the rule of this prince. He remained on the throne thanks to the efforts of his son Vladimir, who would later be called Monomakh.

Svyatopolk the Second (1093 - 1113)

Svyatopolk was the son of Izyaslav the First. It was he who inherited the Kiev throne after Vsevolod the First. This prince was distinguished by a rare lack of spine, which is why he was unable to calm the internecine friction between the princes for power in the cities. In 1097, a congress of princes took place in the city of Lyubich, at which each ruler, kissing the cross, pledged to own only his father’s land. But this fragile peace treaty was not allowed to come to fruition. Prince Davyd Igorevich blinded Prince Vasilko. Then the princes, at a new congress (1100), deprived Prince David of the right to own Volyn. Then, in 1103, the princes unanimously accepted Vladimir Monomakh’s proposal for a joint campaign against the Polovtsians, which was done. The campaign ended in Russian victory in 1111.

Vladimir Monomakh (1113 - 1125)

Despite the right of seniority of the Svyatoslavichs, when Prince Svyatopolk the Second died, Vladimir Monomakh was elected Prince of Kyiv, who wanted the unification of the Russian land. Grand Duke Vladimir Monomakh was brave, tireless and stood out from the rest with his remarkable mental abilities. He managed to humble the princes with meekness, and he fought successfully with the Polovtsians. Vladimir Monoma is a vivid example of a prince serving not his personal ambitions, but his people, which he bequeathed to his children.

Mstislav the First (1125 - 1132)

The son of Vladimir Monomakh, Mstislav the First, was very similar to his legendary father, demonstrating the same remarkable qualities of a ruler. All the disobedient princes showed him respect, fearing to anger the Grand Duke and share the fate of the Polovtsian princes, whom Mstislav expelled to Greece for disobedience, and in their place he sent his son to reign.

Yaropolk (1132 - 1139)

Yaropolk was the son of Vladimir Monomakh and, accordingly, the brother of Mstislav the First. During his reign, he came up with the idea of ​​​​transferring the throne not to his brother Vyacheslav, but to his nephew, which caused turmoil in the country. It was because of these strife that the Monomakhovichs lost the throne of Kiev, which was occupied by the descendants of Oleg Svyatoslavovich, that is, the Olegovichs.

Vsevolod the Second (1139 - 1146)

Having become the Grand Duke, Vsevolod the Second wanted to secure the throne of Kiev for his family. For this reason, he handed over the throne to Igor Olegovich, his brother. But Igor was not accepted by the people as a prince. He was forced to take monastic vows, but even the monastic robe did not protect him from the wrath of the people. Igor was killed.

Izyaslav the Second (1146 - 1154)

Izyaslav the Second fell in love with the people of Kiev to a greater extent because with his intelligence, disposition, friendliness and courage he very much reminded them of Vladimir Monomakh, the grandfather of Izyaslav the Second. After Izyaslav ascended the Kiev throne, the concept of seniority, accepted for centuries, was violated in Rus', that is, for example, while his uncle was alive, his nephew could not be the Grand Duke. A stubborn struggle began between Izyaslav II and Rostov Prince Yuri Vladimirovich. Izyaslav was driven out of Kyiv twice during his life, but this prince still managed to retain the throne until his death.

Yuri Dolgoruky (1154 - 1157)

It was the death of Izyaslav the Second that paved the way to the throne of Kyiv Yuri, whom the people later nicknamed Dolgoruky. Yuri became the Grand Duke, but he did not reign for long, only three years later, after which he died.

Mstislav the Second (1157 - 1169)

After the death of Yuri Dolgoruky, as usual, internecine strife began between the princes for the Kiev throne, as a result of which Mstislav the Second Izyaslavovich became the Grand Duke. Mstislav was expelled from the Kyiv throne by Prince Andrei Yuryevich, nicknamed Bogolyubsky. Before the expulsion of Prince Mstislav, Bogolyubsky literally ruined Kyiv.

Andrey Bogolyubsky (1169 - 1174)

The first thing Andrei Bogolyubsky did when he became the Grand Duke was to move the capital from Kyiv to Vladimir. He ruled Russia autocratically, without squads or councils, persecuted everyone who was dissatisfied with this state of affairs, but in the end he was killed by them as a result of a conspiracy.

Vsevolod the Third (1176 - 1212)

The death of Andrei Bogolyubsky caused strife between ancient cities (Suzdal, Rostov) and new ones (Pereslavl, Vladimir). As a result of these confrontations, Andrei Bogolyubsky’s brother Vsevolod the Third, nicknamed the Big Nest, became king in Vladimir. Despite the fact that this prince did not rule and did not live in Kiev, nevertheless, he was called the Grand Duke and was the first to force an oath of allegiance not only to himself, but also to his children.

Constantine the First (1212 - 1219)

The title of Grand Duke Vsevolod the Third, contrary to expectations, was transferred not to his eldest son Constantine, but to Yuri, as a result of which strife arose. The father’s decision to approve Yuri as Grand Duke was also supported by Vsevolod the Big Nest’s third son, Yaroslav. And Konstantin was supported in his claims to the throne by Mstislav Udaloy. Together they won the Battle of Lipetsk (1216) and Constantine nevertheless became the Grand Duke. Only after his death did the throne pass to Yuri.

Yuri the Second (1219 - 1238)

Yuri successfully fought with the Volga Bulgarians and Mordovians. On the Volga, on the very border of Russian possessions, Prince Yuri built Nizhny Novgorod. It was during his reign that the Mongol-Tatars appeared in Rus', who in 1224, at the Battle of Kalka, defeated first the Polovtsians, and then the troops of the Russian princes who came to support the Polovtsians. After this battle, the Mongols left, but thirteen years later they returned under the leadership of Batu Khan. Hordes of Mongols devastated the Suzdal and Ryazan principalities, and also defeated the army of Grand Duke Yuri II in the Battle of the City. Yuri died in this battle. Two years after his death, hordes of Mongols plundered the south of Rus' and Kyiv, after which all Russian princes were forced to admit that from now on they and their lands were under the rule of the Tatar yoke. The Mongols on the Volga made the city of Sarai the capital of the horde.

Yaroslav II (1238 - 1252)

The Khan of the Golden Horde appointed Prince Yaroslav Vsevolodovich of Novgorod as Grand Duke. During his reign, this prince was engaged in restoring Rus', devastated by the Mongol army.

Alexander Nevsky (1252 - 1263)

Being at first the Prince of Novgorod, Alexander Yaroslavovich defeated the Swedes on the Neva River in 1240, for which, in fact, he was named Nevsky. Then, two years later, he defeated the Germans in the famous Battle of the Ice. Among other things, Alexander fought very successfully against Chud and Lithuania. From the Horde he received a label for the Great Reign and became a great intercessor for the entire Russian people, as he traveled to the Golden Horde four times with rich gifts and bows. was subsequently canonized.

Yaroslav the Third (1264 - 1272)

After Alexander Nevsky died, his two brothers began to fight for the title of Grand Duke: Vasily and Yaroslav, but the Khan of the Golden Horde decided to give the label to reign to Yaroslav. However, Yaroslav failed to get along with the Novgorodians; he treacherously called even the Tatars against his own people. The Metropolitan reconciled Prince Yaroslav III with the people, after which the prince again swore an oath on the cross to rule honestly and fairly.

Vasily the First (1272 - 1276)

Vasily the First was the prince of Kostroma, but laid claim to the throne of Novgorod, where the son of Alexander Nevsky, Dmitry, reigned. And soon Vasily the First achieved his goal, thereby strengthening his principality, previously weakened by division into appanages.

Dmitry the First (1276 - 1294)

The entire reign of Dmitry the First took place in a continuous struggle for the rights of the grand duke with his brother Andrei Alexandrovich. Andrei Alexandrovich was supported by Tatar regiments, from which Dmitry managed to escape three times. After his third escape, Dmitry nevertheless decided to ask Andrei for peace and, thus, received the right to reign in Pereslavl.

Andrew the Second (1294 - 1304)

Andrew the Second pursued a policy of expanding his principality through the armed seizure of other principalities. In particular, he laid claim to the principality in Pereslavl, which led to civil strife with Tver and Moscow, which, even after the death of Andrei II, was not stopped.

Saint Michael (1304 - 1319)

The Tver prince Mikhail Yaroslavovich, having paid a large tribute to the khan, received from the Horde a label for the grand reign, bypassing the Moscow prince Yuri Danilovich. But then, while Mikhail was waging war with Novgorod, Yuri, conspiring with the Horde ambassador Kavgady, slandered Mikhail in front of the khan. As a result, the khan summoned Mikhail to the Horde, where he was brutally killed.

Yuri the Third (1320 - 1326)

Yuri the Third married the khan's daughter Konchaka, who in Orthodoxy took the name Agafya. It was for her premature death that Yuri insidiously accused Mikhail Yaroslavovich Tverskoy, for which he suffered an unjust and cruel death at the hands of the Horde Khan. So Yuri received a label to reign, but the son of the murdered Mikhail, Dmitry, also laid claim to the throne. As a result, Dmitry killed Yuri at the first meeting, avenging his father's death.

Dmitry the Second (1326)

For the murder of Yuri the Third, he was sentenced to death by the Horde Khan for arbitrariness.

Alexander Tverskoy (1326 - 1338)

The brother of Dmitry II - Alexander - received from the khan a label for the Grand Duke's throne. Prince Alexander of Tverskoy was distinguished by justice and kindness, but he literally ruined himself by allowing the Tver people to kill Shchelkan, the Khan’s ambassador, hated by everyone. Khan sent a 50,000-strong army against Alexander. The prince was forced to flee first to Pskov and then to Lithuania. Only 10 years later, Alexander received the khan's forgiveness and was able to return, but at the same time, he did not get along with the Prince of Moscow - Ivan Kalita - after which Kalita slandered Alexander Tverskoy in front of the khan. Khan urgently summoned A. Tverskoy to his Horde, where he executed him.

John the First Kalita (1320 - 1341)

John Danilovich, nicknamed “Kalita” (Kalita - wallet) for his stinginess, was very careful and cunning. With the support of the Tatars, he devastated the Tver Principality. It was he who took upon himself the responsibility of accepting tribute for the Tatars from all over Rus', which also contributed to his personal enrichment. With this money, John bought entire cities from appanage princes. Through the efforts of Kalita, the metropolis was also transferred from Vladimir to Moscow in 1326. He founded the Assumption Cathedral in Moscow. Since the time of John Kalita, Moscow has become the permanent residence of the Metropolitan of All Rus' and becomes the Russian center.

Simeon the Proud (1341 - 1353)

The Khan gave Simeon Ioannovich not only the label for the Grand Duchy, but also ordered all the other princes to obey only him, so Simeon began to call himself the Prince of All Rus'. The prince died without leaving an heir from a pestilence.

John the Second (1353 - 1359)

Brother of Simeon the Proud. He had a meek and peace-loving disposition, he obeyed the advice of Metropolitan Alexei in all matters, and Metropolitan Alexei, in turn, enjoyed great respect in the Horde. During the reign of this prince, relations between the Tatars and Moscow improved significantly.

Dmitry the Third Donskoy (1363 - 1389)

After the death of John the Second, his son Dmitry was still small, so the khan gave the label for the grand reign to the Suzdal prince Dmitry Konstantinovich (1359 - 1363). However, the Moscow boyars benefited from the policy of strengthening the Moscow prince, and they managed to achieve grand reign for Dmitry Ioannovich. The Suzdal prince was forced to submit and, together with the rest of the princes of northeastern Rus', swore allegiance to Dmitry Ioannovich. The relationship between Rus' and the Tatars also changed. Due to civil strife within the horde itself, Dmitry and the rest of the princes took the opportunity not to pay the already familiar quitrent. Then Khan Mamai entered into an alliance with the Lithuanian prince Jagiell and moved with a large army to Rus'. Dmitry and other princes met Mamai’s army on the Kulikovo field (next to the Don River) and at the cost of huge losses on September 8, 1380, Rus' defeated the army of Mamai and Jagiell. For this victory they nicknamed Dmitry Ioannovich Donskoy. Until the end of his life, he cared about strengthening Moscow.

Vasily the First (1389 - 1425)

Vasily ascended the princely throne, already having experience of rule, since during his father’s life he shared the reign with him. Expanded the Moscow Principality. Refused to pay tribute to the Tatars. In 1395, Khan Timur threatened Rus' with invasion, but it was not he who attacked Moscow, but Edigei, the Tatar Murza (1408). But he lifted the siege from Moscow, receiving a ransom of 3,000 rubles. Under Vasily the First, the Ugra River was designated as the border with the Lithuanian principality.

Vasily the Second (Dark) (1425 - 1462)

Yuri Dmitrievich Galitsky decided to take advantage of Prince Vasily’s minority and declared his rights to the grand ducal throne, but the khan decided the dispute in favor of the young Vasily II, which was greatly facilitated by the Moscow boyar Vasily Vsevolozhsky, hoping in the future to marry his daughter to Vasily, but these expectations were not destined to come true . Then he left Moscow and assisted Yuri Dmitrievich, and he soon took possession of the throne, on which he died in 1434. His son Vasily Kosoy began to lay claim to the throne, but all the princes of Rus' rebelled against this. Vasily the Second captured Vasily Kosoy and blinded him. Then Vasily Kosoy’s brother Dmitry Shemyaka captured Vasily the Second and also blinded him, after which he took the throne of Moscow. But soon he was forced to give the throne to Vasily the Second. Under Vasily the Second, all metropolitans in Rus' began to be recruited from Russians, and not from Greeks, as before. The reason for this was the acceptance of the Florentine Union in 1439 by Metropolitan Isidore, who was from the Greeks. For this, Vasily the Second gave the order to take Metropolitan Isidore into custody and appointed Ryazan Bishop John in his place.

John the Third (1462 -1505)

Under him, the core of the state apparatus and, as a consequence, the state of Rus' began to form. He annexed Yaroslavl, Perm, Vyatka, Tver, and Novgorod to the Moscow principality. In 1480, he overthrew the Tatar-Mongol yoke (Standing on the Ugra). In 1497, the Code of Laws was compiled. John the Third launched a large construction project in Moscow and strengthened the international position of Rus'. It was under him that the title “Prince of All Rus'” was born.

Vasily the Third (1505 - 1533)

“The last collector of Russian lands” Vasily the Third was the son of John the Third and Sophia Paleologus. He was distinguished by a very unapproachable and proud disposition. Having annexed Pskov, he destroyed the appanage system. He fought with Lithuania twice on the advice of Mikhail Glinsky, a Lithuanian nobleman whom he kept in his service. In 1514, he finally took Smolensk from the Lithuanians. He fought with Crimea and Kazan. In the end, he managed to punish Kazan. He recalled all trade from the city, ordering from now on to trade at the Makaryevskaya fair, which was then moved to Nizhny Novgorod. Vasily the Third, wishing to marry Elena Glinskaya, divorced his wife Solomonia, which further turned the boyars against themselves. From his marriage to Elena, Vasily the Third had a son, John.

Elena Glinskaya (1533 - 1538)

She was appointed to rule by Vasily the Third himself until their son John came of age. Elena Glinskaya, as soon as she ascended the throne, dealt very harshly with all the rebellious and dissatisfied boyars, after which she made peace with Lithuania. Then she decided to repel the Crimean Tatars, who were boldly attacking Russian lands, however, these plans were not allowed to come true, since Elena died suddenly.

John the Fourth (Grozny) (1538 - 1584)

John the Fourth, Prince of All Rus', became the first Russian Tsar in 1547. Since the late forties, he ruled the country with the participation of the Elected Rada. During his reign, the convening of all Zemsky Sobors began. In 1550, a new Code of Law was drawn up, and reforms of the court and administration were carried out (Zemskaya and Gubnaya reforms). conquered the Kazan Khanate in 1552, and the Astrakhan Khanate in 1556. In 1565, the oprichnina was introduced to strengthen the autocracy. Under John the Fourth, trade relations with England were established in 1553, and the first printing house in Moscow was opened. From 1558 to 1583, the Livonian War for access to the Baltic Sea continued. In 1581, the annexation of Siberia began. The entire internal policy of the country under Tsar John was accompanied by disgraces and executions, for which the people called him the Terrible. The enslavement of peasants increased significantly.

Fyodor Ioannovich (1584 - 1598)

He was the second son of John the Fourth. He was very sickly and weak, and lacked mental acuity. That is why very quickly the actual control of the state passed into the hands of the boyar Boris Godunov, the tsar’s brother-in-law. Boris Godunov, surrounding himself with exclusively devoted people, became a sovereign ruler. He built cities, strengthened relations with the countries of Western Europe, and built the Arkhangelsk harbor on the White Sea. By order and instigation of Godunov, an all-Russian independent patriarchate was approved, and the peasants were finally attached to the land. It was he who in 1591 ordered the murder of Tsarevich Dmitry, who was the brother of the childless Tsar Feodor and was his direct heir. 6 years after this murder, Tsar Fedor himself died.

Boris Godunov (1598 - 1605)

The sister of Boris Godunov and the wife of the late Tsar Fyodor abdicated the throne. Patriarch Job recommended that Godunov’s supporters convene a Zemsky Sobor, at which Boris was elected tsar. Godunov, having become king, was afraid of conspiracies on the part of the boyars and, in general, was distinguished by excessive suspicion, which naturally caused disgrace and exile. At the same time, boyar Fyodor Nikitich Romanov was forced to take monastic vows, and he became the monk Filaret, and his young son Mikhail was sent into exile to Beloozero. But it was not only the boyars who were angry with Boris Godunov. A three-year crop failure and the ensuing pestilence that struck the Muscovite kingdom forced the people to see this as the fault of Tsar B. Godunov. The king tried as best he could to ease the lot of the starving people. He increased the earnings of people working on government buildings (for example, during the construction of the bell tower of Ivan the Great), generously distributed alms, but people still grumbled and willingly believed rumors that the legitimate Tsar Dmitry had not been killed at all and would soon take the throne. In the midst of preparations for the fight against False Dmitry, Boris Godunov suddenly died, and at the same time managed to bequeath the throne to his son Fedor.

False Dmitry (1605 - 1606)

The fugitive monk Grigory Otrepiev, who was supported by the Poles, declared himself Tsar Dmitry, who miraculously managed to escape from the murderers in Uglich. He entered Russia with several thousand people. An army came out to meet him, but it also went over to the side of False Dmitry, recognizing him as the rightful king, after which Fyodor Godunov was killed. False Dmitry was a very good-natured man, but with a sharp mind; he diligently dealt with all state affairs, but caused the displeasure of the clergy and boyars because, in their opinion, he did not sufficiently respect the old Russian customs, and completely neglected many. Together with Vasily Shuisky, the boyars entered into a conspiracy against False Dmitry, spread a rumor that he was an impostor, and then, without hesitation, they killed the fake tsar.

Vasily Shuisky (1606 - 1610)

The boyars and townspeople elected the old and inexperienced Shuisky as king, while limiting his power. In Russia, rumors about the salvation of False Dmitry again arose, in connection with which new unrest began in the state, intensified by the rebellion of a serf named Ivan Bolotnikov and the appearance of False Dmitry II in Tushino (“Tushino thief”). Poland went to war against Moscow and defeated Russian troops. After this, Tsar Vasily was forcibly tonsured a monk, and a troubled time of interregnum came to Russia, lasting three years.

Mikhail Fedorovich (1613 - 1645)

The letters of the Trinity Lavra, sent throughout Russia and calling for the defense of the Orthodox faith and the fatherland, did their job: Prince Dmitry Pozharsky, with the participation of the Zemstvo head of Nizhny Novgorod Kozma Minin (Sukhorokiy), gathered a large militia and moved towards Moscow in order to clear the capital of rebels and Poles, which was done after painful efforts. On February 21, 1613, the Great Zemstvo Duma met, at which Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov was elected Tsar, who, after much denial, nevertheless ascended the throne, where the first thing he did was to pacify both external and internal enemies.

He concluded the so-called pillar agreement with the Kingdom of Sweden, and in 1618 he signed the Treaty of Deulin with Poland, according to which Filaret, who was the Tsar’s parent, was returned to Russia after a long captivity. Upon his return, he was immediately elevated to the rank of patriarch. Patriarch Filaret was an adviser to his son and a reliable co-ruler. Thanks to them, by the end of the reign of Mikhail Fedorovich, Russia began to enter into friendly relations with various Western states, having practically recovered from the horror of the Time of Troubles.

Alexey Mikhailovich (Quiet) (1645 - 1676)

Tsar Alexei is considered one of the the best people ancient Russia. He had a meek, humble disposition and was very pious. He absolutely could not stand quarrels, and if they happened, he suffered greatly and tried in every possible way to reconcile with his enemy. In the first years of his reign, his closest adviser was his uncle, boyar Morozov. In the fifties, Patriarch Nikon became his advisor, who decided to unite Rus' with the rest of the Orthodox world and ordered everyone from now on to be baptized in the Greek manner - with three fingers, which created a split among the Orthodox in Rus'. (The most famous schismatics are the Old Believers, who do not want to deviate from the true faith and be baptized with a “cookie”, as the Patriarch - Boyarina Morozova and Archpriest Avvakum ordered).

During the reign of Alexei Mikhailovich, riots broke out every now and then in different cities, which were suppressed, and the decision of Little Russia to voluntarily join the Moscow state provoked two wars with Poland. But the state survived thanks to the unity and concentration of power. After the death of his first wife, Maria Miloslavskaya, in whose marriage the tsar had two sons (Fedor and John) and many daughters, he married a second time to the girl Natalya Naryshkina, who bore him a son, Peter.

Fedor Alekseevich (1676 - 1682)

During the reign of this tsar, the issue of Little Russia was finally resolved: its western part went to Turkey, and the East and Zaporozhye to Moscow. Patriarch Nikon was returned from exile. They also abolished localism - the ancient boyar custom of taking into account the service of their ancestors when occupying government and military positions. Tsar Fedor died without leaving an heir.

Ivan Alekseevich (1682 - 1689)

Ivan Alekseevich, together with his brother Pyotr Alekseevich, was elected tsar thanks to the Streltsy revolt. But Tsarevich Alexei, suffering from dementia, did not take any part in state affairs. He died in 1689 during the reign of Princess Sophia.

Sophia (1682 - 1689)

Sophia remained in history as a ruler of extraordinary intelligence and possessed all the necessary qualities of a real queen. She managed to calm the unrest of schismatics, curb the archers, conclude an “eternal peace” with Poland, very beneficial for Russia, as well as the Nerchinsk Treaty with distant China. The princess undertook campaigns against the Crimean Tatars, but fell victim to her own lust for power. Tsarevich Peter, however, having guessed her plans, imprisoned his half-sister in the Novodevichy Convent, where Sophia died in 1704.

Peter the Great (1682 - 1725)

The greatest tsar, and since 1721 the first Russian emperor, statesman, cultural and military figure. He carried out revolutionary reforms in the country: collegiums, the Senate, bodies of political investigation and state control were created. He made divisions in Russia into provinces, and also subordinated the church to the state. Built a new capital - St. Petersburg. Peter's main dream was to eliminate Russia's backwardness in development compared to European countries. Taking advantage of Western experience, he tirelessly created manufactories, factories, and shipyards.

To facilitate trade and for access to the Baltic Sea, he won the Northern War against Sweden, which lasted 21 years, thereby “cutting through” a “window to Europe.” Built a huge fleet for Russia. Thanks to his efforts, the Academy of Sciences was opened in Russia and the civil alphabet was adopted. All reforms were carried out using the most brutal methods and caused multiple uprisings in the country (Streletskoye in 1698, Astrakhan from 1705 to 1706, Bulavinsky from 1707 to 1709), which, however, were also mercilessly suppressed.

Catherine the First (1725 - 1727)

Peter the Great died without leaving a will. So, the throne passed to his wife Catherine. Catherine became famous for equipping Bering on a trip around the world, and also established the Supreme Privy Council at the instigation of the friend and comrade-in-arms of her late husband Peter the Great, Prince Menshikov. Thus, Menshikov concentrated virtually all state power in his hands. He persuaded Catherine to appoint as heir to the throne the son of Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich, to whom his father, Peter the Great, had sentenced Peter Alekseevich to death for his aversion to reforms, and also to agree to his marriage with Menshikov’s daughter Maria. Before Peter Alekseevich came of age, Prince Menshikov was appointed ruler of Russia.

Peter the Second (1727 - 1730)

Peter the Second did not rule for long. Having barely gotten rid of the imperious Menshikov, he immediately fell under the influence of the Dolgorukys, who, by distracting the emperors in every possible way with amusements from state affairs, actually ruled the country. They wanted to marry the emperor to Princess E. A. Dolgoruky, but Peter Alekseevich suddenly died of smallpox and the wedding did not take place.

Anna Ioannovna (1730 - 1740)

The Supreme Privy Council decided to somewhat limit the autocracy, so they chose Anna Ioannovna, the Dowager Duchess of Courland, daughter of Ivan Alekseevich, as empress. But she was crowned on the Russian throne as an autocratic empress and, first of all, having assumed her rights, she destroyed the Supreme Privy Council. She replaced it with the Cabinet and instead of the Russian nobles, she distributed positions to the Germans Ostern and Minich, as well as the Courlander Biron. The cruel and unjust rule was subsequently called “Bironism.”

Russia's intervention in the internal affairs of Poland in 1733 cost the country dearly: the lands conquered by Peter the Great had to be returned to Persia. Before her death, the empress appointed the son of her niece Anna Leopoldovna as her heir, and appointed Biron as regent for the baby. However, Biron was soon overthrown, and Anna Leopoldovna became the empress, whose reign cannot be called long and glorious. The guards staged a coup and proclaimed Empress Elizaveta Petrovna, daughter of Peter the Great.

Elizaveta Petrovna (1741 - 1761)

Elizabeth destroyed the Cabinet established by Anna Ioannovna and returned the Senate. Issued a decree abolishing the death penalty in 1744. She established the first loan banks in Russia in 1954, which became a great boon for merchants and nobles. At Lomonosov's request, she opened the first university in Moscow and in 1756 opened the first theater. During her reign, Russia fought two wars: with Sweden and the so-called “seven years”, in which Prussia, Austria and France took part. Thanks to the peace concluded with Sweden, part of Finland was ceded to Russia. The “Seven Years” War was brought to an end by the death of Empress Elizabeth.

Peter the Third (1761 - 1762)

He was absolutely unsuited to governing the state, but he was of a complacent disposition. But this young emperor managed to turn absolutely all layers of Russian society against himself, since, to the detriment of Russian interests, he showed a craving for everything German. Peter the Third, not only made a lot of concessions in relation to the Prussian Emperor Frederick the Second, but also reformed the army according to the same Prussian model, dear to his heart. He issued decrees on the destruction of the secret chancellery and the free nobility, which, however, were not distinguished by certainty. As a result of the coup, because of his attitude towards the empress, he quickly signed an abdication of the throne and soon died.

Catherine the Second (1762 - 1796)

Her reign was one of the greatest after the reign of Peter the Great. Empress Catherine ruled harshly, suppressed Pugachev's peasant uprising, won two Turkish wars, which resulted in recognition of the independence of Crimea by Turkey, and the shore of the Sea of ​​Azov was ceded to Russia. Russia acquired the Black Sea Fleet, and active construction of cities began in Novorossiya. Catherine the Second established the colleges of education and medicine. Cadet corps were opened, and the Smolny Institute was opened to train girls. Catherine the Second, herself possessing literary abilities, patronized literature.

Paul the First (1796 - 1801)

He did not support the changes that his mother, Empress Catherine, started in the state system. Among the achievements of his reign, one should note a very significant improvement in the life of serfs (only a three-day corvee was introduced), the opening of a university in Dorpat, as well as the emergence of new women's institutions.

Alexander the First (Blessed) (1801 - 1825)

The grandson of Catherine the Second, upon ascending the throne, vowed to rule the country “according to the law and heart” of his crowned grandmother, who, in fact, was involved in his upbringing. At the very beginning, he took a number of different liberation measures aimed at different sections of society, which aroused the undoubted respect and love of people. But external political problems distracted Alexander from internal reforms. Russia, in alliance with Austria, was forced to fight against Napoleon; Russian troops were defeated at Austerlitz.

Napoleon forced Russia to abandon trade with England. As a result, in 1812, Napoleon nevertheless, violating the treaty with Russia, went to war against the country. And in the same year, 1812, Russian troops defeated Napoleon’s army. Alexander the First established the State Council in 1800, ministries and the cabinet of ministers. He opened universities in St. Petersburg, Kazan and Kharkov, as well as many institutes and gymnasiums, Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum. Made the life of the peasants much easier.

Nicholas the First (1825 - 1855)

He continued the policy of improving peasant life. Founded the Institute of St. Vladimir in Kyiv. Published a 45-volume complete collection of laws of the Russian Empire. Under Nicholas the First in 1839, the Uniates were reunited with Orthodoxy. This reunification was a consequence of the suppression of the uprising in Poland and the complete destruction of the Polish constitution. There was a war with the Turks, who oppressed Greece, and as a result of Russia's victory, Greece gained independence. After the break in relations with Turkey, which was sided with England, Sardinia and France, Russia had to join a new struggle.

The emperor died suddenly during the defense of Sevastopol. During the reign of Nicholas the First, the Nikolaevskaya and Tsarskoye Selo railways were built, great Russian writers and poets lived and worked: Lermontov, Pushkin, Krylov, Griboedov, Belinsky, Zhukovsky, Gogol, Karamzin.

Alexander II (Liberator) (1855 - 1881)

Alexander II had to end the Turkish war. The Paris Peace Treaty was concluded on very unfavorable terms for Russia. In 1858, according to an agreement with China, Russia acquired the Amur region, and later Usuriysk. In 1864, the Caucasus finally became part of Russia. The most important state transformation of Alexander II was the decision to free the peasants. He died at the hands of an assassin in 1881.

The middle and second half of the 18th century went down in Russian history as a continuation of the “St. Petersburg period,” as the time of our country’s transformation into a great European power. The reign of Peter the Great opened a new era. Russia acquired Europeanized features of the state structure: administration and jurisdiction, the army and navy were reorganized in a Western manner. This time was a period of great upheaval (mass unrest of peasants in the middle of the century, the Plague Riot, Pugachev's uprising), but also serious transformations. The need to strengthen the social basis of “autocratic absolutism” forced the Russian monarchs to change the forms of cooperation with class structures. As a result, the nobility were given class management and guarantees of property.

The history of Russia in the second quarter and mid-18th century was characterized by an intense struggle between noble groups for power, which led to frequent changes of reigning persons on the throne and reshuffles in their immediate circle. With the light hand of V.O. Klyuchevsky’s term “the era of palace coups” was assigned to this period. IN. Klyuchevsky associated the onset of political instability after the death of Peter I with the “arbitrariness” of the latter, who decided, in particular, to break the traditional order of succession to the throne. Previously, the throne passed through a direct male descendant, but according to the manifesto of February 5, 1722, the autocrat was given the right to appoint a successor for himself at his own request. “Rarely has autocracy punished itself so cruelly as in the person of Peter with this law on February 5,” wrote Klyuchevsky. Peter I did not have time to appoint an heir for himself: the throne turned out to be given “to chance and became its plaything” - it was not the law that determined who should sit on the throne, but the guard, which was the “dominant force” at that time.

After the death of Peter I, the contenders for supreme power were Empress Ekaterina Alekseevna, the wife of the late sovereign, and his grandson, the son of Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich, 9-year-old Pyotr Alekseevich. Catherine was supported by the guard and the new nobility that emerged under Peter I - A.D. Menshikov, P.A. Tolstoy and others. Pyotr Alekseevich was supported by representatives of the old aristocracy led by Prince D.M. Golitsyn. Strength was on the side of the first party. With the support of the Guards regiments - Preobrazhensky and Semenovsky - Catherine I (1725-1727) ascended the throne.

Empress Catherine was practically not involved in state affairs. All power was concentrated in the Supreme Privy Council, created on February 8, 1726. The council included 7 nobles, the most influential of whom was His Serene Highness Prince A.D. Menshikov. The Supreme Privy Council reduced the size of the poll tax and abolished the participation of the army in its collection. The official duties of the nobility were eased, the nobles were given the right to trade in all cities and on the piers (before this, only merchants had this right). After the death of Catherine I and the accession to the throne of Peter II, the struggle between the leaders and those who were not members of the Supreme Privy Council intensified. Against A.D. Menshikov was intrigued by princes Dolgoruky, vice-chancellor Osterman and others. As soon as His Serene Highness fell ill, he was sent into retirement, and then into exile in the Siberian city of Berezov, where Menshikov died two years later. However, Peter II did not reign for long - on January 19, 1730, he died of smallpox.

Disputes began in the Supreme Privy Council over the issue of a candidate for the Russian throne. Prince D.M. Golitsyn put forward a proposal to invite the niece of Peter the Great - Anna Ioannovna, the widow Duchess of Courland. Anna satisfied everyone, since she was not associated with either the guard or court groups. Having invited Anna Ioannovna to the throne, the nobles offered her written conditions (conditions), which were supposed to significantly limit the autocracy. According to these conditions, the future empress was not supposed to marry, appoint an heir to the throne, or decide the most important state affairs without the consent of eight members of the Supreme Privy Council; the army and guard were to submit to the Privy Council.

Anna Ioannovna initially signed the conditions. However, the nobility was dissatisfied with the dominance of the family aristocracy from the Supreme Privy Council. On February 25, noble representatives, primarily from the guard, submitted a petition to Anna asking her to cancel the rules and restore autocracy. The Empress immediately, in the presence of a crowd of nobles, broke her condition. Soon the Supreme Privy Council was abolished; its members were subjected to exile and execution. The former Senate was restored, which, however, did not play a significant role in public administration under Anna Ioannovna (1730-1740). In 1731, a Cabinet of three ministers was created, headed by A.I. Osterman. Subsequently, the decrees of the Cabinet were equated to imperial ones; in essence, the Cabinet took over the functions of the Privy Council.

At court, the Courland nobles who arrived with Anna Ioannovna, who headed government institutions, army and guards regiments, acquired increasing power. The favorite of the Empress E.I. enjoyed omnipotent influence. Biron, whom she later made Duke of Courland.

Before her death, Anna Ioannovna declared her successor the infant John VI Antonovich (1740-1741), the son of her niece Anna Leopoldovna and Prince Anton-Ulrich of Brunswick (representatives of this family were called the “Brunswick surname”). Biron became regent under John. However, the commander of the Russian army, Field Marshal B.-H. On the night of November 9, 1740, Minich arrested Biron. The former temporary worker was exiled to the Siberian city of Pelym. The emperor's mother, Anna Leopoldovna, became the ruler. A year later, a new palace coup followed.

In 1741, as a result of a palace coup, the daughter of Peter the Great, Elizaveta Petrovna, ascended the Russian throne. The coup was carried out by the forces of the Guard. On the night of November 25, Elizabeth appeared at the barracks of the Preobrazhensky Regiment and addressed the soldiers. 300 guards followed her to the imperial palace. Representatives of the ruling “Brunswick family” were arrested. The infant Emperor John Antonovich was subsequently imprisoned in the Shlisselburg fortress. His mother, the ruler, with her husband and other children were sent into exile in Kholmogory. Here in 1746 Anna Leopoldovna died. John Antonovich was killed by the guards of the Shlisselburg fortress in 1756 during an attempt by officer V. Mirovich to free the prisoner.

Those who helped Elizaveta Petrovna ascend the throne were generously rewarded. The 300 guardsmen who carried out the military coup formed a special privileged detachment, a “life company.” All of them received noble dignity and estates. The Germans surrounding Anna were replaced by Russian nobles.

Elizaveta Petrovna preferred to spend her time in court entertainment; She left the government to her ministers. Among the nobles close to the empress, the Razumovsky brothers, who came from simple Little Russian Cossacks, enjoyed great influence. The eldest of the brothers, Alexei Grigorievich, who in his youth was a court singer, rose to prominence thanks to the merciful attention of Elizabeth Petrovna, and became a field marshal and count. The youngest, Kirill, became hetman of Little Russia. The Shuvalovs occupied a prominent position at court. One of them, Ivan Ivanovich, provided significant services to the state with his concerns about public education and earned the fame of a Russian philanthropist. He patronized the famous M.V. Lomonosov; Through his efforts, the first Russian university was founded. A prominent role during the reign of Elizabeth Petrovna was played by Chancellor Alexei Petrovich Bestuzhev-Ryumin, who was in charge of foreign affairs.

The first important order of Elizabeth Petrovna in matters of internal administration was the destruction of the Cabinet of Ministers created by Anna Ioannovna, and the return to the Senate of the importance that was given to it by Peter I.

During the reign of Elizabeth, city magistrates were restored. In 1752, the Naval Cadet Corps was founded in St. Petersburg (instead of the Maritime Academy). Two loan banks were established - one for the nobility, the other for the merchants. The loan was made against collateral of movable and immovable property with the condition of payment of 6%. In 1754, at the suggestion of Pyotr Ivanovich Shuvalov, internal customs and petty fees, which were restrictive for trade, were abolished. At the same time, duties on foreign goods imposed by the tariff of Peter I were significantly increased. The death penalty was abolished in criminal proceedings. But in general, legal proceedings and administration under Elizaveta Petrovna were in a rather disordered state. As the famous Russian historian D.I. wrote. Ilovaisky, “the regional administration was still a discordant mixture of the old Moscow order with the institutions of Peter I.” The lack of public safety measures was especially severe. The oppression of landowners and the injustice of governors and officials continued to serve as a source of internal unrest and disaster. The peasants responded with uprisings, continuous escapes and participation in bandits. The Volga, whose deserted banks abounded in convenient channels and creeks, was especially famous for its robberies. Gangs gathered here under the command of the most famous atamans (“lower freemen”). They were sometimes very numerous, had cannons on their boats, attacked convoys of ships and even entered into open battle with military detachments.

A significant change took place in the upper strata of society: the German influence, which had dominated since the time of Peter I, under Elizabeth was replaced by the influence of French culture. At court and in the houses of the nobility, the era of the dominance of French morals and Parisian fashions begins.

Having removed the descendants of Tsar Ivan Alekseevich from power, Elizabeth tried to consolidate the Russian throne for the descendants of Peter I. The Empress summoned her nephew, Duke of Holstein Karl-Peter Ulrich (son of Elizabeth’s elder sister Anna Petrovna), to Russia and declared him her heir. Karl-Peter received the name Peter Fedorovich in baptism. From birth, the boy grew up without a mother, lost his father early and was left in the care of educators who turned out to be ignorant and rude, cruelly punished and intimidated the sickly and weak child. When the Grand Duke turned 17 years old, he was married to the princess of the small Anhalt-Zerbst principality, Sophia Augusta Frederick, who received the name Ekaterina Alekseevna in Orthodoxy.

Everything connected with Russia was deeply alien to Peter, who was raised in Protestant Holstein. He knew little and did not strive to study the language and customs of the country in which he was to reign; he disdained Orthodoxy and even the outward observance of Orthodox ritual. The Russian prince chose the Prussian king Frederick II as his ideal, and considered his main goal to be a war with Denmark, which had once taken Schleswig from the Holstein dukes.

Elizabeth did not like her nephew and kept him away from government affairs. Peter, in turn, sought to oppose the empress’s court with his “small court” in Oranienbaum. In 1761, after the death of Elizabeth Petrovna, Peter III ascended the throne.

As soon as he ascended the throne, Peter III irrevocably turned public opinion against himself. He informed Frederick II of Russia's intention to make peace with Prussia separately, without allies France and Austria. On the other hand, despite the brevity of his reign, Peter III managed to make very important and beneficial orders. Firstly, the “Manifesto on the Freedom of the Nobility” is remarkable, which eliminated the obligation of public service for the nobility. Now it could serve only of its own accord. The nobles were given the opportunity to live on their estates, freely travel abroad, and even enter the service of foreign sovereigns. But at the same time, the military or civil service of the nobles was encouraged by the state. Secondly, there followed a decree on the secularization2 of church lands: all estates were confiscated from the church and transferred to the jurisdiction of a special state Board of Economy, and officer-administrators were appointed to the estates. Former monastic peasants received land that they cultivated for the monasteries; they were exempt from quitrent in favor of the church and were subject to state quitrent, like state peasants. Thirdly, Peter III abolished the Secret Investigative Office. The Secret Chancellery was engaged in political investigation and made extensive use of denunciations. As soon as any informer uttered the phrase “word and deed,” a political investigation immediately began with interrogations and torture. True criminals sometimes uttered “word and deed” to gain time and avoid deserved punishment; others spoke it out of malice and slandered innocent people. Peter III forbade the utterance of the hated “word and deed.” The functions of political investigation were transferred to the Secret Expedition, which was part of the Senate.

Peter III forbade the persecution of the Old Believers, and those of them who fled abroad were allowed to return; they were allocated land in Siberia for settlement. The peasants who disobeyed the landowners were forgiven if they repented. Many nobles exiled during the previous reign were returned from Siberia, including the famous Field Marshal B.-Kh. Minich, Duke E.I. Biron and others.

At the same time, the decrees of Peter III on equalizing the rights of all religions and the allocation of money for the construction of a Lutheran church gave rise to rumors about the imminent closure of Orthodox churches. It is clear that the decree on secularization did not contribute to the growth of Peter’s popularity among the Russian clergy. Peter's commitment to the Germans, immoderate worship of Frederick II, the strict military discipline instituted by the tsar - all this aroused the displeasure of the guard. Attempts to transform the army along the Prussian model and the creation of a special commission for this, the liquidation of the “life company” confirmed the long-standing suspicion of Peter III’s intention to liquidate the guards regiments. The emperor's Holstein relatives and Oranienbaum officers crowded the old nobility at court and forced them to worry about the future. Clever Catherine skillfully took advantage of the displeasure of the guard and the excessive self-confidence of her husband, and Peter III had to give up the throne to her.

The era of Catherine II (1762-1796) constitutes a significant stage in the history of Russia. Although Catherine came to power as a result of a coup, her policies were closely linked with those of Peter III.

Catherine's real name was Sophia-Frederica-Augusta, she was born in Prussian Pomerania, in the city of Stettin, in 1729. Sophia's father, a general in the Prussian service, was the governor of Stettin, and later, when his cousin, the sovereign prince of Zerbst, died, he became his successor and moved to his small principality. Sophia's mother was from a Holstein family, therefore, Sophia was a distant relative of her future husband, Pyotr Fedorovich. Frederick II, who hoped in this way to enter into a close alliance with Russia, was the one who was most concerned about the marriage of the future empress. At the age of 14, Sophia came with her mother to Russia; the bride converted to Orthodoxy, and in 1745 her marriage to the heir to the throne took place.

Having been baptized into Orthodoxy, Sophia-Frederica-Augusta received the name Ekaterina Alekseevna. Gifted by nature with various abilities, Catherine managed to develop her mind through literary pursuits, especially by reading the best French writers of her time. By diligently studying the Russian language, history and customs of the Russian people, she prepared herself for the great task that awaited her, that is, to govern Russia. Catherine was characterized by insight, the art of taking advantage of circumstances and the ability to find people to carry out her plans.

In 1762, as a result of a conspiracy by guards officers, in which Catherine herself took part, her husband Peter III was overthrown from the throne. Catherine's main assistants in carrying out the coup were the Orlov brothers, Panin, and Princess Dashkova. The spiritual dignitary Dmitry Sechenov, Archbishop of Novgorod, also acted in favor of Catherine, relying on the clergy who were dissatisfied with the secularization of church estates.

The coup was carried out on June 28, 1762, when the emperor was in his beloved Oranienbaum castle. On this morning, Catherine arrived from Peterhof to St. Petersburg. The guard immediately swore allegiance to her, and the entire capital followed the example of the guard. Peter, having received news of the events in the capital, was confused. Having learned about the movement of troops led by Catherine against him, Peter III and his retinue boarded a yacht and sailed to Kronstadt. However, the Kronstadt garrison had already gone over to Catherine's side. Peter III finally lost heart, returned to Oranienbaum and signed an act of abdication. A few days later, on July 6, he was killed by the guards officers guarding him in Ropsha. It was officially announced that death was due to “hemorrhoidal colic.” All prominent participants in the events of June 28 were generously rewarded.

Historians have certain disagreements about the motivations for the activities of Catherine II. Some believe that during her reign the empress tried to implement a well-thought-out program of reforms, that she was a liberal reformer who dreamed of cultivating the ideas of enlightenment on Russian soil. According to another opinion, Catherine solved the problems that arose before her in the spirit of Russian tradition, but under the cover of new European ideas. Some historians believe that in reality Catherine’s policy was determined by her nobles and favorites.

From the perspective of the 18th century, the monarchical form of government and the ideas of enlightenment did not contain a contradiction at all. The Enlightenmentists (C. Montesquieu and others) fully accepted a monarchical form of government, especially for countries with such a vast territory as Russia. Moreover, it was the monarch who was entrusted with the task of caring for the welfare of his subjects and introducing principles of legality consistent with reason and truth. How young Catherine imagined the tasks of an enlightened monarch can be seen from her draft note: “1. It is necessary to educate the nation that is to be governed. 2. It is necessary to introduce good order in the state, support society and force it to comply with the laws. 3. It is necessary to establish a good and accurate police force in the state. 4. It is necessary to promote the flourishing of the state and make it abundant. 5. It is necessary to make the state formidable in itself and inspiring respect among its neighbors.”

What life circumstances influenced this educational program and subjugated it? Firstly, the nature and national specificity of those state tasks that the empress had to solve. Secondly, the circumstances of accession to the throne: without any legal rights, elevated to the throne by her own mind and the support of the nobility, Catherine had to express the aspirations of the nobility, and correspond to the ideal of the Russian monarch, and demonstrate her moral - due to personal qualities and merits - right to reign. German by birth, Catherine aspired to become a good Russian empress. This meant being a continuator of the work of Peter I and expressing Russian national interests.

Many of the activities of Catherine II, most imbued with the spirit of liberalism and enlightenment, turned out to be unfinished and ineffective, rejected by Russian reality. This applies in particular to the attempt to develop new legislation based on Enlightenment principles. Peter I also made an attempt to draw up a new set of laws, since the code of his father (the Council Code of 1649) did not satisfy the new needs of the state. Peter's successors renewed his attempt and appointed commissions for this purpose, but the matter did not move forward. Meanwhile, the difficult state of finance, legal proceedings and regional administration caused an urgent need to improve legislation. From the very beginning of her reign, Catherine began to develop a project for a new government system. In 1767, a commission was convened to revise Russian laws, which received the name Stalin; it was headed by A.I. Bibikov. The commission was composed of deputies from different class and social groups - the nobility, townspeople, state peasants, Cossacks. All deputies came to the commission with instructions from their electors, which allow them to judge the problems, needs and demands of the local population.

Before the commission began its work, Catherine addressed it with an eloquent message, “Instruction,” which used the educational ideas of Montesquieu and the Italian lawyer Beccaria about the state, laws, duties of a citizen, the equality of citizens before the law and the presumption of innocence. On June 30, 1767 in Moscow, in the Chamber of Facets, the grand opening of the commission took place. At the initiative of Catherine II, one of the liberal nobles raised the issue of abolishing serfdom. But the majority of noble deputies rebelled against this. Representatives of the merchant class also made claims to the right to own serfs.

In December 1768, due to the outbreak of the Russian-Turkish War, the general meeting of the commission ceased its work, and some of the deputies were dissolved. Individual commissions continued to work on projects for another five years, but the main goal set for the commission - the development of a new Code - was never achieved. However, the commission, as Catherine II claimed, “gave me light and information about the entire empire, with whom we are dealing and about whom we should care.” The debates that continued throughout the year introduced the empress to the real state of affairs in the country and the demands of the estates, but did not produce any practical results. The commission provided the government with information about the internal state of the state and had a great influence on the subsequent government activities of Catherine II, especially on her regional institutions.

An important part of the domestic policy of Catherine II was the reform of government bodies. In 1762, Catherine rejected N.I.’s proposal. Panin on the creation of the Imperial Council, which was to become the legislative body under the Empress. In 1763, the Senate was reformed: it was divided into 6 departments with strictly defined functions and under the leadership of the Attorney General appointed by the monarch. The Senate became a body of control over the activities of the state apparatus and the highest court, but lost its main function - legislative initiative; the right of legislative initiative actually passed to the empress.

In 1775, a regional reform was carried out, which increased the number of provinces from 23 to 50. The size of the new provinces was determined by the size of the population; each of them was supposed to have a population of 300 to 400 thousand souls, the provinces were divided into districts of 20-30 thousand inhabitants each. 2-3 provinces were entrusted to the governor-general or governor, who was invested with great power and supervised all branches of government. The governor's assistants were the vice-governor, two provincial councilors and the provincial prosecutor, who made up the provincial government. The vice-governor headed the treasury chamber (treasury income and expenses, state property, tax farming, monopolies, etc.), the provincial prosecutor was in charge of all judicial institutions. In cities, the position of mayor, appointed by the government, was introduced.

Simultaneously with the establishment of provinces, a system of estate courts was created: for each estate (nobles, townspeople, state peasants) their own special judicial institutions were introduced. In the districts, district courts were introduced for nobles, city magistrates for merchants and townspeople, and lower reprisals for foreigners and state peasants. In some of the new courts the principle of elected assessors was introduced. Power in the district belonged to the police captain elected by the noble assembly. From district institutions, cases could move to higher authorities, that is, to provincial institutions: the upper zemstvo court, the provincial magistrate and the upper justice. In provincial cities, the following were established: a criminal chamber - for criminal proceedings, a civil chamber - for civil proceedings, a state chamber - for state revenues, a provincial government - with executive and police powers. In addition, conscientious courts, noble guardianship, orphans' courts and public charity orders (in charge of schools, shelters, hospitals) were established.

The provincial reform significantly strengthened the administrative apparatus, and therefore the supervision of the population. As part of the centralization policy, the Zaporozhye Sich was liquidated, and the autonomy of other regions was abolished or limited. The system of local government created by the provincial reform of 1775 was preserved in its main features until 1864, and the administrative-territorial division introduced by it remained until 1917.

The government of Catherine II took a lot of care about the appearance of cities, that is, about the construction of straight, wide streets and the construction of stone buildings. Economic growth resulted in an increase in population; up to 200 expanded villages received the status of cities. Catherine took care of the sanitary condition of cities, the prevention of epidemics, and as an example for her subjects, she was the first to vaccinate with smallpox.

The program documents of Catherine II were the Charters granted to the nobility and cities. Catherine defined the meaning, rights and responsibilities of different classes. In 1785, the Charter of Grant was granted to the nobility, which defined the rights and privileges of the noble class, which was considered the main support of the throne after Pugachev’s rebellion. The nobility finally took shape as a privileged class. The charter confirmed the old privileges: the monopoly right to own peasants, lands and mineral resources; secured the rights of the nobility to their own corporations, freedom from poll tax, conscription, corporal punishment, confiscation of estates for criminal offenses; the nobility received the right to petition the government for their needs; the right to trade and entrepreneurship, the transfer of the title of nobility by inheritance and the impossibility of losing it except in court, etc. The diploma confirmed the freedom of nobles from public service. At the same time, the nobility received a special class corporate structure: district and provincial noble assemblies. Once every three years, these assemblies elected district and provincial leaders of the nobility, who had the right to directly address the tsar. This measure turned the nobility of the provinces and districts into a cohesive force. The landowners of each province formed a special noble society. Nobles filled many official positions in the local administrative apparatus; They have long dominated the central apparatus and the army. Thus, the nobility turned into the politically dominant class in the state.

In the same 1785, the Charter to the cities was promulgated, completing the organization of the so-called urban society. This society was made up of ordinary people belonging to the tax-paying classes, that is, merchants, petty bourgeois and artisans. Merchants were divided into three guilds according to the amount of capital they declared; those who declared less than 500 rubles. capital were called "philistines". Craftsmen for different occupations were divided into “guilds” on the model of Western European ones. City government bodies appeared. All tax-paying inhabitants gathered together and formed a “common city duma”; They elected the city head and 6 members from among themselves to the so-called six-voice Duma. The Duma should have been engaged current affairs the city, its income, expenses, public buildings, and most importantly, she took care of the execution of government duties, for the correctness of which all townspeople were responsible.

Urban residents were granted the right to engage in trade and business activities. A number of privileges were received by the top citizens - “eminent citizens” and the guild merchants. But the privileges of the townspeople, against the backdrop of the permissiveness of the nobility, seemed imperceptible; the bodies of city self-government were strictly controlled by the tsarist administration. In general, the attempt to lay the foundations of the bourgeois class failed.

Under Catherine II, attempts were made to resolve the peasant issue. In the first years of her reign, Catherine had the intention of beginning to limit the power of the landowners. However, she did not meet with sympathy on this issue from the court aristocracy and the mass of nobles. Subsequently, the empress, occupied primarily with foreign policy issues, abandoned the idea of ​​reforming the peasant class. New decrees were even issued that strengthened the power of the landowners. Landowners were given the right to exile peasants “for their insolent state” to hard labor (1765). Serfs were forbidden to file complaints against their masters under pain of whipping and exile to Nerchinsk for eternal hard labor (decree of August 22, 1767). Meanwhile, the number of serfs increased significantly due to the continued distribution of state peasants to dignitaries and favorites. The empress distributed 800 thousand serfs to her associates. In 1783, serfdom was legally formalized in Ukraine.

Under Catherine II, the government tried to return Old Believers to Russia, who were leaving in large numbers abroad. Those who returned were given complete forgiveness. Old Believers were exempted from double capitation, from the obligation to wear a special dress and shave their beards. At Potemkin's request, the Old Believers in Novorossiya were allowed to have their own churches and priests (1785). Ukrainian Old Believers formed the so-called Edinoverie Church.

Catherine II completed the secularization of ecclesiastical estates, which was begun by Peter I and continued by Peter III. On the day of the coup in 1762, Catherine tried to attract the clergy to herself and promised to return to them the lands confiscated by Peter III. However, the empress soon “changed her mind” and appointed a commission to accurately inventory all church lands and income. By decree of February 26, 1764, all peasants belonging to monasteries and bishops' houses (more than 900 thousand male souls) were transferred to the jurisdiction of the College of Economics. Instead of the previous taxes and duties, they were subject to a tax of one and a half rubles per soul. New staffs were drawn up for monasteries and bishops' houses and it was decided that they would receive salaries from the College of Economy. In addition, some lands were left to them. Secularization naturally caused displeasure on the part of many members of the clergy. Of these, the most famous is the Rostov Metropolitan Arseny Matseevich, deprived of his rank and imprisoned under the name of the defrocked Andrei Vral in the Revel casemate.

In 1773-1775 the entire southeast of Russia, the Urals, the regions of the Middle and Lower Volga region, Western Siberia were engulfed in a peasant-Cossack uprising under the leadership of the Don Cossack Emelyan Pugachev, who declared himself to be miraculously saved from death by Emperor Peter III. On behalf of Peter III, Pugachev announced the abolition of serfdom and the liberation of all privately owned peasants. Soviet historians qualified this uprising as a peasant war,3 although in reality the social composition of the participants in the movement was complex, and the initiator of the uprising, as is known, was the Cossacks. The movement received wide support among the Yaik Cossacks, Russian peasants, the mining population of the Urals, non-Russian peoples: Bashkirs, Kalmyks, Tatars, Mari, Mordvins, Udmurts, dissatisfied with serfdom exploitation, the state’s attack on traditional rights and privileges. The rebels besieged Orenburg for a long time, they managed to burn Kazan and take Penza and Saratov.

However, in the end, the Pugachevites were defeated by government troops that were superior in equipment and training. The leader of the movement himself was captured, taken to Moscow and executed in 1775. To erase the memory of the Great Rebellion, Catherine II ordered the Yaik River to be renamed the Ural, and the Yaik Cossacks to be renamed the Ural Cossacks.

Pavel Petrovich's childhood years were not cloudless, but they did not foretell a difficult character in adulthood. He had good teachers and educators, his main mentor was N.I. Panin. Pavel studied easily, showing both sharpness of mind and good abilities; was distinguished by an extremely developed imagination, lack of perseverance and patience, and inconstancy. Paul's character began to emerge from the time when he grew up and began to realize his position as the heir to the throne, neglected by his mother. Paul was deeply offended by the disdainful attitude of Catherine's favorites and the fact that he was not trusted with any state affairs.

Gradually, the court opposition began to group around Paul (brothers N.I. and P.I. Panin, Prince N.V. Repnin, A.I. Razumovsky). Having visited Berlin, Pavel became an ardent supporter of the Prussian order; he began to sharply criticize his mother's policies. Removal from the court followed: in 1783, Pavel received the Gatchina manor as a gift and moved there with his “court.” Removed from politics, he concentrated on his favorite military work: he organized three battalions according to the Prussian model, dressed them in the uniforms of the Prussian army, he himself was engaged in watch parades, reviews, maneuvers, imitating Frederick II in clothes, gait, even in the manner of riding a horse. horses. The similarity with the actions of her father, Peter III, was striking, and Catherine herself noted this, ironically speaking about the Gatchina battalions: “father’s army.”

Rumors about his mother's intentions to deprive Paul of his rights to the throne and make his son Alexander heir were reflected in the character and behavior of the crown prince. Pavel became suspicious and hot-tempered; irritability increasingly broke out in the form of fits of uncontrollable anger. At the same time, he was quick-witted: he admitted his mistakes and asked for forgiveness, was generous, tried to take care of his subordinates, and had a kind, sensitive heart.

Outside Gatchina, Pavel was strict, gloomy, taciturn, sarcastic, and endured the ridicule of his favorites with dignity (it was not by chance that he was called the “Russian Hamlet”). With his family, he was not averse to having fun and dancing. As for Paul's moral principles, they were unshakable. He idolized discipline and order, he himself was an example of this, he strived to be fair and uphold the rule of law, he was honest and committed to strict standards of family morality.

Before the death of Catherine II, Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich and his wife Maria Feodorovna (Princess of Württemberg) lived mainly in Gatchina, away from state affairs. Catherine, who did not love her son, did not pay him due attention and kept him at a distance. She hatched plans, bypassing Paul, to transfer the throne to her beloved grandson Alexander. However, these plans did not come true. After the death of Catherine in 1796, Paul I, the “Russian Hamlet”, the “Knight Tsar”, as his contemporaries called him, ascended the throne.

While still an heir, Paul was thinking through a program for his future actions and upon ascending the throne he discovered tireless activity. On the day of coronation, April 5, 1797, a new law on succession to the throne was issued: female rule was no longer allowed, the throne passed by primogeniture and only through the male line of the reigning house. The Polish revolutionary T. Kosciuszko and freethinkers N.I. were released. Novikov and A.N. Radishchev. Paul ordered the reburying of the ashes of his father, Peter III - this ceremony looked like an accusation against Catherine, who killed her husband and usurped the throne.

Having ascended the throne, Paul I not only took unpredictable steps, but also sinned, according to his contemporaries, with outright tyranny, a morbid addiction to shagistics and the barracks, into which he seemed to want to turn the entire country. Paul broke off relations with England for the sake of an alliance with Napoleonic France, thereby striking both his subjects and all of Europe. He stated that everyone could ask the emperor for anything, but many visitors were beaten and exiled to Siberia. The emperor granted amnesty to political prisoners and exiles, but soon thousands of new prisoners appeared, some of them were imprisoned for the smallest offenses, at his whim. As soon as he ascended the throne, Paul introduced a new military regulation that oriented the army towards Prussian traditions and drill.

The Tsar's manifesto in January 1797 ordered all landowner peasants, under pain of punishment, to remain obedient and obedient to their masters. Even earlier, in December 1796, a decree was issued on the assignment of peasants (that is, the extension of serfdom) to the owners in the Don Army Region and Novorossiya. In March 1797, permission was given to merchant manufacturers to buy peasants with and without land for their factories. These measures worsened the situation of the peasant class.

At the same time, in 1797 (April), two decrees were adopted aimed at some limitation and mitigation of serfdom: it was forbidden to force peasants to work on Sunday, it was recommended to limit corvee to three days a week, and it was not allowed to sell courtyards and landless peasants under the hammer. In 1799, a ban was established on the sale of Ukrainian peasants without land.

Moreover, the emperor was not an opponent of serfdom as such. During the 4 years of his reign, 600 thousand serfs were distributed to private landowners, of which 82 thousand on the day of coronation.

While the emperor's policy towards the peasants showed a softening, noble freedoms began to be curtailed. The noble liberties and privileges granted by the Charter of 1785 were violated: provincial noble meetings were prohibited, and the control of the governor and the prosecutor general of the Senate over district noble meetings was strengthened.

In 1798, governors began to control the elections of leaders of the nobility, and in 1799 provincial noble assemblies were abolished. Moreover, the nobles lost their immunity against corporal punishment. In some cases, corporal punishment was used for nobles, and nobles were prohibited from submitting collective petitions to the tsar. However, the use of corporal punishment could only be carried out after the deprivation of the title of nobility by court for the corresponding crimes; the nobles could still individually appeal to the sovereign. Paul, trying to economically strengthen the nobility, established for him the State Auxiliary Bank, which provided loans with a long deferred payment and on preferential terms.

The reform of the army, objectively necessary, but hardly desirable, was perceived most painfully by the nobility (and in the capital). The guards officers were not warriors, but courtiers who attended theaters and balls and wore tailcoats. Pavel forced all officers to serve: the vacations that had lasted for years ended, the practice of enrolling in the guard from birth stopped; the officer had to be personally responsible for the training of his unit. Negligence was most often punished by exile to the estate, to the provinces, or to an army regiment.

The increased hardships of service, the enrollment of Gatchina residents in the guard, new regulations that neglected the combat training of soldiers, caused a murmur. General indignation was provoked by a new uniform based on the Prussian model, a wig with curls and braids for soldiers. But at the same time, the maintenance of soldiers improved, army officers began to advance faster; Non-noble officers who had risen from the ranks of non-commissioned officers were excluded from the service.

The greatest resistance and indignation of the capital's nobility was caused by the petty regulation of everyday life. The appearance of St. Petersburg changed dramatically; it began to resemble Gatchina: two-color black and white sentry boxes with barriers, mileposts. It was forbidden to wear tailcoats and round hats; German camisoles, cocked hats, wigs and shoes with buckles were prescribed. At 10 o'clock in the evening the lights were extinguished everywhere, and the capital had to go to bed. Everyone had to have lunch at 1 o'clock in the afternoon. Officers were not allowed to ride in a closed carriage, but only on horseback and in droshky. Paul's autocracy turned into despotism. The meaning of Pavlov's transformations was not clear to contemporaries, and “absurdities and insults in trifles” were in plain sight. The nobility, accustomed to relatively broad personal freedom, feeling the contrast with the past reign, sarcastically ridiculed the new and had fun behind double curtains at night. At the same time, Paul strictly monitored compliance with the laws: any person could drop a complaint into a special box - the emperor’s response was published in the newspaper. Thus, many abuses were revealed, for which Paul punished, regardless of persons.

Fearing the penetration of the ideas of the French Revolution into Russia, Paul forbade sending young people abroad for education. However, he allowed the German nobility of the Baltic region to open a university in Dorpat (1799). Private printing houses were closed. Censorship and control over book printing intensified.

The recognition of the Old Believers as equal to the official church, which began under Catherine, continued during the reign of Paul. The right for Old Believers to have their own churches was extended to all dioceses.

Paul I sought, as was the case under his ancestor Peter I, to equalize the classes before the throne. In general, the common people were impressed by Paul I, and not so much with his steps to improve the situation of the peasants (in fact, little has changed), but with his reprisals against unloved “bars,” which seemed to give him the features of a “nationality” in the mass consciousness. But the nobility could not forgive the encroachments on their rights and the stability of their position. Because of his extreme temper, Paul did not enjoy the love of the courtiers and dignitaries around him. This decided the fate of the emperor. As a result of a conspiracy from March 11 to March 12, 1801, Paul I was killed. The new Emperor Alexander I announced that his “father died of apoplexy.”

Internal political instability in the second quarter of the 18th century did not always make it possible to fully take advantage of the advantages that military victories gave Russia. Under Anna Ioannovna, Russia interfered in Polish affairs and opposed French candidates for the Polish throne (War of the Polish Succession 1733-1735). The clash of interests between Russia and France in Poland led to a serious deterioration in Russian-French relations. French diplomacy tried to raise Turkey and Sweden against Russia.

The Turkish government was dissatisfied with the entry of Russian troops into Poland and was actively looking for allies in a close war with Russia. The Russian government also considered war inevitable. In order to enlist the support of Iran, a neighbor of the Ottoman Empire, in 1735 Russia returned to it the provinces annexed to Russia as a result of the Persian campaign of Peter I. In 1735, the Crimean army, by decision of the Ottoman government, went through Russian possessions to the lands returned by Russia to Iran. Clashes began between the Crimeans and the Russian armed forces. The following year, Russia officially declared war on Turkey. Russian-Turkish War 1735-1739 was carried out mainly in Crimea and Moldova. Russian troops under the command of Field Marshal B.-H. Minikh won a series of important victories (near Stavuchany, near Khotin), occupied Perekop, Ochakov, Azov, Kinburn, Gezlev (Evpatoria), Bakhchisarai, Yassy. According to the Belgrade Peace Treaty of 1739, Russia slightly moved its border to the south, gaining steppe spaces from the Bug to Taganrog.

In 1741, Sweden, incited by France and Prussia, declared war on Russia, dreaming of returning the part of Finland conquered by Peter I. But Russian troops under the command of P.P. Lassi defeated the Swedes. According to the peace concluded in 1743 in the town of Abo, Russia retained all its possessions and received a small part of Finland, up to the Kyumen River (Kyumenogorsk and part of the Savolaki province).

In the middle of the 18th century, the rapid strengthening of Prussia under Frederick II (1740-1786) upset the European balance and dramatically changed the balance of power on the continent. The threat of Prussian hegemony in Europe united Austria, France, Russia, Saxony and Sweden against it. Great Britain became Prussia's ally. At the beginning of the war (1756-1757), Frederick II won a number of victories over Austria, France and Saxony. Russia's entry into the war in 1757 changed its character. East Prussia was occupied by the Russian army. In the same 1757, Russian troops took Memel and defeated the Prussian field marshal H. Lewald at Gross-Jägersdorf. In 1759, the Russian army under the command of General Count P.S. Saltykova, together with the Austrians, inflicted a decisive defeat on Frederick II at the Battle of Kunersdorf. The following year, Russian troops occupied Berlin. Prussia was brought to the brink of destruction. Only the death of Elizabeth Petrovna and the rise to power of Peter III, an admirer of Frederick II, saved Prussia. Elizabeth's successor concluded a separate peace with Frederick. Moreover, he wanted to send the Russian army to help Prussia against the recent Russian allies, but this intention caused the performance of the guard and a palace coup, which ended with the overthrow and death of Peter III.

Russia's participation in the war (1757-1762) did not give it any material gains. But the prestige of the country and the Russian army grew significantly as a result of the Seven Years' War. It can be said without exaggeration that this war played an important role in the emergence of Russia as a great European power.

If the almost 40-year period between 1725 and 1762. (the death of Peter I and the coronation of Catherine II) was insignificant from the point of view of the immediate results of Russia's foreign policy in Europe, but for the eastern direction of Russian policy it was of great importance. The main milestones of the new Eastern policy were outlined by Peter I, who erected strongholds for it in the Middle and Far East. He tried to enter into relations with China and tried to establish relations with Japan. After the death of Peter, Russia concluded an eternal treaty with China (Treaty of Kyakhta, 1727). Russia received the right to have a religious mission in Beijing, which at the same time performed diplomatic functions. The result of Russian eastern policy was the successful acquisition of lands in the Far East and annexation to Russia in 1731-1743. lands of the Younger and Middle Kazakh zhuzes.

Peter organized V. Bering's expedition to study the junction of Asia and America. In St. Petersburg they did not know that this problem had already been solved by S.I. in 1648. Dezhnev. The first expedition of captain Vitus Bering in 1724-1730. did not give serious practical results. But in 1732, navigator Fedorov and surveyor Gvozdev stumbled upon the “Main Land” - Alaska - on the American continent. Over the next decade (1733-1743), the Russian government organized the so-called “Great Northern Expedition,” which was of enormous scientific importance and was one of the most outstanding enterprises in the history of science. In 1741, the ships of captains Bering and Chirikov reached the coast of America. From the islands near Alaska, Chirikov brought many valuable furs, which aroused the interest of Siberian merchants. The first “merchant sea voyage” was undertaken in 1743, and many others followed. The Russian development of Alaska and the formation of Russian America, the only official colony in the history of the Russian Empire, began.

Catherine II completed the transformation of Russia into an empire, begun by Peter the Great. During her reign, Russia became an authoritative European and world power, dictating its will to other states. In 1779, with the mediation of Russia, the Treaty of Teschen was concluded, which put an end to the war between Austria and Prussia for the Bavarian inheritance. The Treaty of Teschen, of which Russia became the guarantor, demonstrated Russia’s increased international weight, which allowed it to influence the state of affairs in Europe. In modern Western literature, this event is viewed as a turning point, indicating the transformation of Russia from an Eastern European great power (from the beginning of the 18th century) into a great European power, which over the next century played not the last violin in the concert of European states.

Catherine's policy in Europe was closely connected with the Polish and Black Sea issues. First of all, she sought to decide the fate of the former Kyiv lands, most of which in the middle of the 18th century belonged to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and secondly, to expand the territory of Russia to the shores of the Black Sea.

In 1772, an agreement was reached between the courts of Austria, Prussia and Russia, which resulted in the first partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which was torn apart by the struggle of factions of the autocratic gentry. As a result, Russia received the northern and eastern parts of Belarus and part of the Latvian lands.

For two decades the situation remained without significant changes, but in 1791 the patriotic gentry achieved the adoption of a new constitution and strengthening of the political system of Poland. The publication of this constitution provoked a civil war in Poland. Conservative circles of the Polish nobility, dissatisfied with her, demanded intervention from Catherine II. Russia sent troops to Poland and occupied Warsaw. In 1793, the second partition of Poland followed, carried out by Russia and Prussia. Russia received a significant part of Belarus and Right Bank Ukraine (Minsk region, part of Volyn and Podolia); Prussia received the indigenous Polish lands - Gdansk, Torun, part of Greater Poland. After the suppression of the Polish liberation uprising under the leadership of T. Kosciuszko (1794), Russia, Austria and Prussia carried out the third partition (1795), as a result of which Western Belarus, Lithuania, Courland, and part of Volyn were transferred to Russia. So, during the three partitions carried out by Prussia, Austria and Russia, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as a state ceased to exist. Russia included Belarus, Right Bank Ukraine (except Galicia), Lithuania and the Duchy of Courland. Russia gained direct access to the countries of Central Europe.

The Black Sea issue remained an important foreign policy problem for Russia during the reign of Catherine II. The expansion of the Russian state to the Black Sea required extraordinary efforts and took most of a century.

Russian-Turkish War 1768-1774 was associated with complications in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Turkey was pushed to war with Russia by France and Austria, dissatisfied with the decline of their influence in Poland. Türkiye demanded the withdrawal of Russian troops from Poland. In 1768 she declared war on Russia. The fighting took place on the Danube, Crimea, Transcaucasia and the Mediterranean Sea. The army under the command of Count P.A. Rumyantseva moved to the Danube, the fleet from the Baltic Sea under the command of A.G. Orlov and admirals A.G. Spiridov and S.K. Greiga traveled around the whole of Europe to the Mediterranean. In 1770, significant successes were achieved on both fronts. Rumyantsev defeated the Turkish army three times: at Ryaba Mogila, Larga and Kagul. 100 thousand people were scattered on the banks of the Larga River. army of the Crimean Khan. On the banks of the Cahul River P.A. Rumyantsev, whose army numbered only 27 thousand people, defeated 150 thousand. the army of the Grand Vizier. At the same time, the fleet occupied the Aegean archipelago and destroyed almost the entire Turkish fleet (about 100 ships in total) in the Battles of Chesme and Chios. However, the Russian fleet was unable to overcome the Dardanelles; The Greek uprising against the Turks in Morea, caused by his successes, was not successful. The Turks suppressed it with great cruelty, and the Russian forces landed in Morea were too weak to resist them. Despite the successes of the Russian army and navy, the Turks were still far from broken. During the campaign of 1771, Russian troops under the command of Prince V.M. Dolgoruky made a successful campaign in the Crimea and captured the peninsula. In 1774 I.P. Saltykov and A.V. Suvorov won new brilliant victories over the Turks. The Porte sued for peace. Under the terms of the Kuchuk-Kainardzhi Treaty of 1774, Russia returned Moldavia and Wallachia, occupied by the troops of Count Rumyantsev, to Turkey and liberated the Aegean archipelago. At the same time, a Russian protectorate was actually established over Moldova and Wallachia. Russia received access to the Black Sea: the mouth of the Bug and Dnieper on the northwestern coast and the mouth of the Don and the Kerch Strait on the northeastern coast of the Black Sea. Azov, Kerch, Yenikale, and Kinburn passed to Russia. Russia received the right to build its fleet on the Black Sea. Russian merchant ships were given the right of passage through the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits. Russian merchants in Turkey received special privileges. The Crimean Khanate was declared independent from Turkey.

Turkey's attempts, in violation of peace terms, to intervene in the affairs of the Crimean Khanate prompted the latter's annexation to Russia in 1783. The Crimean peninsula became an important stronghold of Russia on the Black Sea, firmly ensuring the use of southern sea routes. Built in 1783-1784. the port of Sevastopol became the cradle of the Russian Black Sea Fleet.

The outstanding Russian statesman G.A. was appointed as the manager of “New Russia”. Potemkin. He put enormous energy into developing the fertile lands of Novorossiya and using the economic resources of new territories. After the conclusion of the Kuchuk-Kainardzhi peace and the annexation of Crimea to Russia, productive forces in the south of Russia began to develop rapidly, new cities were built - Kherson, Nikolaev, Yekaterinoslav, and Russian foreign trade through southern ports increased.

Relations between Russia and Turkey continued to remain tense. The Turkish government could not come to terms with the loss of Crimea and the weakening of its power in Moldova and Wallachia. England, dissatisfied with the strengthening of Russia in the Black Sea, pushed Porto into conflict with its northern neighbor. In 1787, Türkiye declared a new war on Russia.

In the winter of 1788, the Russian army under the command of G.A. Potemkin, after a difficult and costly siege, captured the strongest Turkish fortress of Ochakov. After a long struggle on the Black Sea coast, the Russian army launched an offensive in Moldova, across the Prut River. In 1789, Russian-Austrian troops under the command of General A.V. Suvorov won resounding victories over the Turkish army at Focsani and Rymnik. In 1790, Suvorov stormed the seemingly impregnable Turkish fortress on the Danube - Izmail, which controlled the routes to the Balkans. During the Russian-Turkish war of 1787-1791. F.F.’s naval leadership talent was fully revealed. Ushakov, who, at the head of the young Black Sea Fleet, won major victories at Fidonisi Island (1788), in the Kerch Strait and at Tendra Island (1790), at Cape Kaliakria (1791). The Porte, defeated on land and at sea, was forced to sue for peace. Under the terms of the Yassy Peace Treaty of 1791, Russia consolidated its possessions and acquired new territories along the coasts of the Black Sea (between the Bug and the Dniester) and the Azov Sea, including the Taman Peninsula. Crimea remained with Russia, new territories in the Kuban were populated by former Zaporozhye Cossacks displaced from the Dnieper (they laid the foundation for the Kuban Cossacks). Thus, as a result of the Russian-Turkish wars of the second half of the 18th century, the entire northern coast of the Black Sea (Novorossiya) was included in the empire, the Black Sea Fleet was created, and Russia’s international prestige grew.

Defending its state interests, Russia took on the role of protector and support of all Slavic and Christian peoples. In 1783, according to the Treaty of Georgievsk, Eastern Georgia came under the protection of Russia. Catherine II promised patronage to the Armenians. Their mass migration to Russia began. Serbs, Montenegrins, Bulgarians, Albanians, and German colonists received shelter and land in New Russia, the Volga region, and the Southern Urals.

Russia, thanks to the successes of weapons and diplomacy, continued to expand its borders. The lands that became part of Russia were of enormous economic importance. These were fertile black soils (Novorossiya, Right Bank Ukraine) or economically developed lands (Baltic states, Belarus). New seaports gave a powerful impetus to the development of trade. Large territorial acquisitions and military-political successes made the empire one of the leading forces in European politics, and not just, as before, its secondary accomplice. “I don’t know how it will be with you,” said the chancellor of Catherine’s times, Prince A.A., at the beginning of the next century. It’s bezbordno for diplomats of the new generation, - and with my mother and me, not a single cannon in Europe dared to fire without our permission.”

In the 18th century, the country experienced a spiritual revolution. Its essence was the transition from a predominantly traditional, ecclesiastical and relatively closed culture to a secular and European culture, with an increasingly distinct personal element. Unlike Western Europe, this transition was later, more compressed in time (and hence controversial) and coincided with the Age of Enlightenment.

The great achievements of the imperial period were accompanied by deep internal conflicts. The main crisis was brewing in the national psychology. Europeanization in Russia brought with it new political, religious and social ideas that were adopted by the ruling and upper classes of society before they reached the masses. Accordingly, a split arose between the top and bottom of society, between the “intellectuals” and the “people.” The main psychological support of the Russian state - the Orthodox Church - was shaken in its foundations at the end of the 17th century and gradually lost its influence, starting from 1700 until the revolution of 1917, when the threat of collapse arose.

First of all, in the 18th century there were changes in noble morals. The love of luxury, which began with the imitation of Western customs, took a significant step forward during the reign of Elizabeth Petrovna. High Russian society tried to surround itself with the outward splendor of European civilization and zealously worshiped Western fashions. The habit of living beyond one's fortune quickly spread - a habit that always characterizes a semi-educated society. The woman, freed by Peter from her mansion, was especially carried away by this luxury and expensive outfits. During the time of Elizabeth, the development of luxury among the ladies of the upper class was facilitated by the example of the empress: she loved to dress magnificently and changed her costume several times a day. After the death of the empress, they say that more than 15 thousand dresses and a corresponding number of other toilet accessories were found in her wardrobe. Under Elizabeth, court art made noticeable progress. Thus, during her reign, St. Petersburg was decorated with magnificent buildings built according to the plans of the Italian architect Count Rastrelli; Among them, the first place is occupied by the Winter Palace, built at the end of the Elizabethan reign.

Meanwhile, in most of Russian society, almost the same patriarchal morals, the same beliefs and habits that characterize pre-Petrine Rus' prevailed. The education of youth, which is the main concern of educated peoples, has advanced little since Peter the Great. The custom spread among noble people of teaching children foreign languages ​​and entrusting them to foreign tutors who rarely possessed scientific knowledge or moral virtues. The education of poor people was still limited to Church Slavonic literacy. Their teaching usually began with the alphabet, continued with the book of hours and ended with the psalter.

As for the life of provincial nobles at that time, we are closely introduced to this topic by the “Notes” of Major M.V. Danilova. Initially, Danilov learned to read and write from a village sexton, who tormented children by sitting in one place for a long time and very often used rods, which were still considered necessary accessory teachings. Subsequently, Danilov entered the Moscow artillery school (established for minor nobles); here the teacher was a bayonet cadet who rarely came to school drunk and whipped his students with rods without mercy. As a child, the author of “Notes” spent some time staying with his relative, the Dankovsky governor. When Christmastide arrived, the governor took him and his son around the district to “glorify Christ,” accompanied by servants with several empty sleighs. Every day the sleigh returned to the governor, filled with bread and live chickens. At the same time, the voivode's servants collected birds even from those courtyards in which the boys were not celebrated. The “Notes” mention robbers robbing landowners’ houses as a very common phenomenon at that time (landowners themselves sometimes took part in the robberies).

Another nobleman, Bolotov, who left his notes, also reports many interesting details about the provincial life of that time. For example, acquaintances from small estates came to visit his mother in the village. Their amusements were almost the same as in the 17th century. “In the mornings,” says Bolotov, “we usually had festive breakfasts, then lunches, followed by rest, then snacks and snacks, then teas, and then dinners. Having woken up, we started eating again, and so on.” Numerous court cases that have come down to us show that mutual relations between neighboring landowners and their peasants were rarely peaceful, which was facilitated by the lack of definite boundaries (delimitation) for estates. Attacks on neighbors, fights, and violent seizure of land were common occurrences of the time.

During the reign of Catherine II, the influence of French customs and French literature on the upper classes of society made rapid progress. This influence was noticeably reflected in the softening of morals, which was greatly facilitated by the enlightened view of the empress herself. The executions of Peter and Anna Ioannovna and the whippings of the times of Elizabeth begin to move into the realm of legends. Although torture was used during judicial interrogations, it was not carried out on such a scale and not with such cruelty as before.

After Peter's reform, the outward separation between the higher and lower classes of the people intensified; the former more and more adopted foreign customs, while the latter remained faithful to the customs and concepts of Ancient Rus'. The dominance of serfdom and the absence of public schools constituted an insurmountable obstacle to the mental education and material well-being of the rural population.

Education has made a qualitative leap. A whole network of various schools, military and civilian special educational institutions was created in the country (the beginning of which was laid by the Navigation, Artillery, Engineering, and Medical Schools), a system was being formed higher education: Moscow University (1755), St. Petersburg Mining School (1773), etc. Moscow University had three faculties: law, medicine and philosophy - and 10 professors. To train students at the university, two gymnasiums with class differences were founded: one for nobles, the other for commoners. The first curator (trustee) of the new institution was its founder I.I. Shuvalov. In 1756, the university began publishing the newspaper “Moskovskie Vedomosti”, modeled on the “Petersburg Vedomosti” published by the Academy of Sciences. In 1757, through the efforts of the same Shuvalov, the Academy of Arts was opened in St. Petersburg for the education of Russian architects, painters and sculptors. Thanks to the care of I.I. Shuvalov also opened a gymnasium in Kazan.

For the first time, studying abroad began to be practiced on a large scale (under Peter I alone, more than a thousand people left). As a result, not only advanced knowledge spread in Russia, but in the second half of the century the first secularly educated class appeared - the nobility. This result is especially surprising considering that back in 1714 Peter I was forced to issue a decree prohibiting uneducated young nobles from marrying.

The reign of Catherine II was marked by attempts to create a harmonious and permanent system of public schools. For this purpose, she appointed the Commission on the Establishment of Public Schools (1781). According to the commission's plan, it was proposed to establish small public schools in district towns, and main ones in provincial towns. It was also planned to open new universities.

To educate the people, during the reign of Catherine, a system of educational and educational institutions was created (under the leadership of I.I. Betsky). They were built on the principles of Rousseau: to isolate children from a corrupt society and give nature the opportunity to raise them honest, free and morally pure. For this purpose, closed class schools were created: a school at the Academy of Arts, the Society of Two Hundred Noble Maidens at the Smolny Institute, educational homes for orphans and illegitimate children in Moscow and St. Petersburg, a commercial school (in the capital), and the gentry corps (military schools) were reformed.

The greatest achievement of Russia in the 18th century was the creation of domestic science. Its center was the Academy of Sciences (1725), then Moscow University, the Mining School in St. Petersburg and the Russian Academy (1783), which studied the Russian language and grammar, were added to it. The Russian Academy of Sciences, unlike Western academies, was entirely supported by government funds. This created favorable conditions for the widespread attraction of foreign scientists to the country. Among them were such luminaries of world science as L. Euler and D. Bernoulli.

By the middle of the century, the first Russian scientists appeared. The largest and most versatile of them, a kind of Russian Leonardo da Vinci, became M.V. Lomonosov (1711-1765). His areas of interest covered chemistry, physics, mathematics, geology, geography, metallurgy, literature, linguistics, history, etc. He was the first to formulate the law of conservation of matter in a unique interpretation and concluded that heat is molecular motion, refuting the prevailing theory of caloric. His “Russian Grammar” laid the foundations of the modern Russian language.

In the 18th century, with the help of regular expeditions, a comprehensive study of the country, its geography, ethnography, history and natural resources began for the first time. Domestic technical thought also made itself known. Lomonosov invented self-recording meteorological instruments, the periscope, and I.I. Polzunov in 1764-1765, i.e. two decades earlier than D. Watt, invented the first steam engine. Unfortunately, this and a number of other inventions remained unclaimed.

The 18th century marked the beginning of the flowering of Russian art, historiography, theater, sculpture, literature and architecture. Domestic literature is quickly taking shape, and the first professional writers are appearing. With the publication of the newspaper Vedomosti (1702), periodicals and journalism were born in Russia.

During the reign of Catherine, a grandiose urban planning program was carried out: Tver (after the fire), Odessa, Sevastopol, Nikolaev, Ekaterinoslav, Mariupol were built. Civil architecture is reaching unprecedented prosperity. In the first half of the century it was dominated by baroque, and in the second by classicism. The largest architects were V. Rastrelli (Smolny Monastery, Great Palace in Peterhof, Catherine Palace in Tsarskoe Selo, Winter Palace), V.I. Bazhenov (Pashkov's house in Moscow), M.F. Kazakov (Senate in the Kremlin, Golitsyn hospital - now the 1st city hospital, the building of the Noble Assembly - now the Column Hall of the House of Unions), I.E. Starov (Tavrichesky Palace, Trinity Cathedral of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra). In St. Petersburg, Catherine II laid the foundation for St. Isaac's Cathedral, the construction of which was completed in the second half of the 19th century under Alexander II. In the square opposite this cathedral, she erected a monument to Peter the Great, depicting the emperor on horseback; its base is a granite rock (discovered in 1782).

The mass passion for collecting was started by Catherine herself. The result of the empress's collecting mania was the birth of the Hermitage. In Europe, the empress bought 1,383 paintings, including paintings by Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Murillo, and Tintoretto; the collection of engravings totaled 80 thousand sheets, drawings - 7 thousand. The libraries of Voltaire, Diderot, d'Alembert, Prince M.M. were purchased. Shcherbatov, collection of manuscripts of the historian G.F. Miller, which laid the foundation for both the Public Library and the Archive of Ancient Acts.

At the same time, the processes of rapid secularization and Europeanization affected mainly the noble, urban “tops,” while the peasant “bottoms” still adhered to the traditional system of values. Thus, starting with Peter’s reforms, a socio-cultural4 split between the “lower classes” and the “higher classes” of society has taken place in Russia. From now on, they are separated not only by social barriers, but also by everyday life, clothing, housing, and even language (especially with the beginning of a passion for French in high society). They now differ not so much “quantitatively” as before, but “qualitatively”, as a manifestation of two types of cultures.

THEORIES OF STUDY

FROM THE RULES OF MULTITHORETICAL STUDY

1. Understanding objective historical facts is subjective.

2. Subjectively, three theories of study are distinguished: religious, world-historical (directions: materialistic, liberal, technological), local-historical.

3. Each theory offers its own understanding of history: it has its own periodization, its own conceptual apparatus, its own literature, its own explanations of historical facts.

LITERATURE OF VARIOUS THEORIES

Buganov V.I., Zyryanov P.N. History of Russia, late XVII-XIX centuries: Textbook. for 10th grade general education institutions / Ed. A.N. Sakharov. 4th ed. M., 1998 (universal - synthesis of theories). Vernadsky G.V. Russian history: Textbook. M., 1997 (local). Ionov I.N. Russian civilization, IX - early XX centuries: Textbook. book for 10-11 grades. general education institutions. M., 1995 (liberal). History of the USSR from ancient times to the end of the 18th century / Under. ed.B. A. Rybakova. M., 1975; Munchaev Sh. M., Ustinov V. V. History of Russia. M., 2000; Markova A. N., Skvortsova E. M., Andreeva I. A. History of Russia. M., 2001; Pavlenko N. I., Kobrin V. B., Fedorov V. A. History of the USSR from ancient times to 1861. Textbook for universities. M., 1989 (materialistic).

1. Monographs: Anisimov E.V., Eidelman N.Ya. In the struggle for power: Pages of the political history of Russia in the 18th century. M., 1988 (materialistic). Brickner A.G. The History of Catherine the Second: In 3 volumes. M., 1996 (liberal). Kamensky A.B. The Russian Empire in the 18th century: traditions and modernization. M., 1999 (liberal). Kartashov A.V. History of the Russian Church: In 2 vols. M., 1992-1993 (religious). Lotman Yu.M. Conversations about Russian culture. Life and traditions of the Russian nobility (XVIII - early XIX centuries). St. Petersburg, 1994 (liberal). Mylnikov A.S. Temptation by miracle: “Russian Prince”, its prototypes and impostor doubles. L., 1991 (liberal). Eidelman N.Ya. Edge of centuries. M., 1986 (materialistic). Pipes R. Russia under the old regime. M., 1993 (liberal).

2. Articles: Volkova I.V., Kurukin I.V. The phenomenon of palace coups in the political history of Russia in the 17th–20th centuries // Questions of history, 1995, No. 5-6 (liberal). Gordin Y. Power and the Guard // Knowledge is power. 1991, No. 11-12 (liberal). Kamensky A.B. Catherine II. // Questions of History, 1989, No. 3 (materialistic). Mylnikov A.S. Peter III // Questions of History, 1991, No. 4-5 (liberal). Moryakov V.I. Finding the way: Russian social thought of the second half of the 18th century. about the state // History of the Fatherland: people, ideas, decisions / Comp. S.V. Mironenko. M., 1991 (liberal). Zapariy V.V., Lichman B.V., Nefedov S.A. Technological interpretation of the new history of Russia // Science and education in the strategy of national security and regional development. Ekaterinburg, 1999 (technological).

EXPLANATIONS OF HISTORICAL FACTS

IN VARIOUS STUDY THEORIES

Each theory selects its own facts from a variety of historical facts, builds its own cause-and-effect relationship, has its own explanations in literature and historiography, studies its own historical experience, draws its own conclusions and forecasts for the future.

ASSESSMENTS OF RUSSIA'S DEVELOPMENT AFTER PETER

Religious-historical theory studies the movement of man towards God.

In Orthodox literature, this period, like the entire “St. Petersburg period,” starting with Peter I, is assessed more negatively than positively.

The famous book of Archpriest Georgy Florovsky (1893-1979) “The Ways of Russian Theology” contains a harsh and merciless condemnation of Peter the Great and his assistant in church affairs Feofan Prokopovich (1681-1736) for the subordination of the Russian Church to the state, for turning it into an instrument of the government, for undermining her spiritual and moral role. As a result of the reforms of Peter I, who ignored the Greek-Byzantine roots of Orthodoxy, the Church and its ministers found themselves cut off from the living historical tradition of the Russian people. This internal gap, according to G. Florovsky, occurred both at the social and psychological levels and prevented the clergy and the Church from playing a constructive, creative role in post-Petrine culture.

According to G. Florovsky, the Protestant influence, which from the beginning of the 18th century replaced the previously dominant “Latin” influence, had dramatic consequences for the church and society. However, according to the archpriest, the invasion of culture by the ideas of Protestantism, imposed by the Enlightenment, aroused resistance and criticism from the emerging Russian intellectual elite for a century. The latter’s response, to some extent, was to go into mysticism and Freemasonry.

The materialist direction of world-historical theory, studying the progress of mankind, gives priority to the development of society.

In the works of M. N. Pokrovsky (1868-1932), the contradiction of this era looks like the simultaneous development of industrial capitalism and the serfdom state, which embodied the interests of merchant capitalism (autocracy as “merchant capital in Monomakh’s hat”). Moreover, industrial capitalism in the scheme of M. N. Pokrovsky caused a kind of feudal reaction, “new feudalism” in the second half of the 18th century. Later, representatives of Soviet historical science (N.I. Pavlenko, V.I. Buganov and others) also noted the inconsistency of the period, which was characterized by the heyday of noble Russia and at the same time the active growth of bourgeois relations.

For Marxist historians (B. A. Rybakov, N. I. Pavlenko, V. I. Buganov, V. A. Fedorov, etc.), the second half of the 18th century is notable for the evolution of the feudal socio-economic formation, within which the capitalist structure matures . Its appearance causes the beginning of the decomposition of the feudal-serf system. The policy of enlightened absolutism was considered by them as a consequence of the contradictions between feudal and capitalist elements in the mode of production, and for most researchers it was of a superficial, demagogic nature. Soviet historians divide the reign of Catherine II into two stages: 1) the policy of enlightened absolutism - from the convening of the Commission to draw up a new set of laws to the uprising led by Pugachev (1767-1773-75); 2) open noble reaction - from the uprising led by Pugachev to the death of Catherine II (1773-75-1796).

The liberal direction of world-historical theory, studying the progress of mankind, gives priority to the development of the individual.

Liberal literature (I.N. Ionov, R. Pipes, etc.) explains that in Russian history it is the middle and second half of the 18th century that is the era from which the actual ideas of liberalism (that is, the implementation of individual freedom based on the spread of private property; the elimination of everything that threatens the existence of individual freedom or interferes with its development) are beginning to acquire significance in Russia. Plans for reforms truly based on the principles of Western European liberalism, primarily on the ideas of Montesquieu, emerged only in the second half of the 18th century. Empress Catherine II tried to provide a legal justification for religious tolerance, make criminal law more humane, open the way for private initiative in economic life, strengthen through laws the personal freedom of nobles and cities and protect them from the possibility of violation by the state.

The era was characterized by a transition to the path of gradual elimination of the general enslavement of the population by the state (initially this process affected the nobility); a departure from the idea of ​​the omnipotence of the king; recognition of certain rights of the individual; strengthening the positions of both the local bureaucracy and the local nobility in the local administration and court; strengthening the idea of ​​cooperation, activating local forces.

A significant place in the ideology of the Enlightenment was occupied by the concept of an “enlightened sovereign” who cares about the welfare of his subjects. In an “enlightened” state, laws established for the benefit of the people were to be at the forefront of government regulations and policies. The ruler, recognizing his unlimited and free powers in relation to society, had to follow the laws of his society and be guided by them.

In the atmosphere of social transformations, unique state-political movements, spiritual renewal, stimulated by the ideas of the Enlightenment, in the second half of the 18th century in Russia, as well as in a number of other European countries (Austrian Empire, Prussia, Denmark, Sweden, Portugal, Spain, Lombardy, Piedmont ), a phenomenon called “enlightened absolutism” unfolded.

As a historical and political concept, “enlightened absolutism” (or “enlightened reign”) entered scientific circulation around the 1830s. First of all, the reign of Frederick the Great in Prussia began to be called “enlightened absolutism” (or “enlightened despotism”). Over time, many, even opposing, features of politics and ideology, government reforms, and even the appearance of society during the reign of Elizabeth Petrovna, Catherine II (sometimes Peter I and Alexander I) began to be understood and explained as manifestations of “enlightened absolutism.”

The technological direction of world-historical theory, studying the progress of mankind, gives priority to technological development and accompanying changes in society.

Historians of this direction (S. A. Nefedov and others) see the reason for radical changes in Russia’s involvement in global technological progress. This is the path of radical reforms carried out by the state from above and aimed at changing social relations, administrative structures, the army and the general way of life according to the European model, which is why it received the name Europeanization (Westernization) in the literature.

Peter's reforms were only the beginning of the modernization of Russia according to the European model. Having opened a window to Europe, Russia found itself in a powerful field of cultural influence of Western civilization. As before, this influence was twofold: on the one hand, the influence of the “sea powers” ​​spread through trade (the role of Holland was now played by England), on the other, the military influence of continental empires (the role of Sweden was now played by Prussia). This influence was manifested in the liberalization of economic life and the gradual displacement of eastern traditions: the abolition of internal customs, the permission of free trade in grain, the privatization of state factories under Elizabeth, the secularization of monastic property and the abolition of compulsory service for the nobility under Peter III.

After the “manifesto on the freedom of the nobility,” landowners ceased to be a service class (as in Turkey) and turned into free landowners (as in Europe) - this was a decisive act that marked the victory of Western traditions over Eastern ones. The state stopped interfering in relations between peasants and landowners, which resulted in aggravation of peasant duties and the flourishing of corvee serfdom - a result that seemed to contradict the usual idea of ​​“Western values.” However, we must not forget that serfdom reigned in Prussia and the Austrian Empire at that time, and the economy of the freedom-loving American colonies was based on slavery. Be that as it may, just at this time the era of Prussian and Austrian serfdom was coming to an end, and Paul I, following the example of his idol Frederick the Great, tried to alleviate the situation of the peasants. This first attempt ended in failure, but later serfdom was abolished precisely as a result of military pressure from the West (as a result of the defeat in the Crimean War).

Local historical theory studies the unity of man and his environment, which constitutes the concept of local civilization. On the territory of Russia, such a civilization is Eurasia.

L. N. Gumilyov (1912-1992) connects the second half of the 18th century with certain phases of Russian history. In his opinion, this era completed the akmatic phase of ethnogenesis (the formation of an ethnos and its spread within its landscape area), which was characterized by the unification under the rule of autocrats of the peoples of Eurasia from the Baltic to the Pacific Ocean.

The largest historian of the Russian diaspora G.V. Vernadsky (1887-1973), whose views are closely related to the theory of Eurasianism, proposes a periodization of Russian history based on a change in the mutual connection between the forest and steppe zones. In Russian history, he highlights the period 1696-1917, which was marked by the spread of the Russian Empire to the natural borders of Eurasia. According to G.V. Vernadsky, the final unification of forest and steppe was achieved; two great zones merged into a single economic whole. Agriculture took a dominant position throughout Eurasia. The entire continent began to be cultivated. The rapidly developing industry began to use the rich explored natural resources.

Comparative theoretical schemes

subject of study + historical fact = theoretical interpretation

No. 1. Reasons for palace coups

Name	Item studying	Interpretations of the fact
World historical (XIX – beginning XX centuries):		“Rampant passions”, the struggle of the “patriotic party” against the “German party”, the decree of Peter I “On succession to the throne” gave rise to uncertainty in matters of succession to the throne
		The statement of V.I. is used as a methodological basis. Lenin, “coups were ridiculously easy as long as it was a matter of taking power away from one group of nobles or feudal lords and giving it to another.” Palace coups are the result of the struggle of factions within the noble class for the purpose of personal enrichment
Liberal direction		Continuation of the process of concentration and militarization of power laid down during the reforms in the first quarter of the 18th century, but less intense. Under the weak heirs of Peter I, power was in the hands of various factions fighting among themselves for the influence of the monarch.
Technological direction	Technological development, scientific discoveries	Continuation of the modernization process according to the European model. Modernization affects the main socio-political institutions, the duty of noble service is abolished, the first attempts are made to limit serfdom

No. 2. Reasons for the policy of “enlightened absolutism”

Name	Item studying	Interpretations of the fact
Religious-historical (Christian)	The movement of humanity towards God	The retreat of the Russian people from the faith under the influence of Protestantism, which began with the anti-church reforms of Peter I. In high society, a shift to spiritualism, mysticism, and Freemasonry began
World historical:	Global development, human progress
Materialistic direction	Development of society, social relations related to forms of ownership. Class struggle	The beginning of the crisis of the feudal-economic formation forced the autocracy to maneuver, to pursue a policy of adapting the ruling class to the needs and demands of the growing bourgeois class. The reign of Catherine II is divided into two stages: 1)1) the policy of enlightened absolutism (1767–1773-75); 2)2) open noble reaction (1775–1796)
Liberal direction	Development of personality and ensuring its individual freedoms	Modernization in the 18th century took place in Europe under the influence of the humanistic ideas of Voltaire, Rousseau, Montesquieu and others. The monarchs of France, Prussia, Russia and other countries tried to carry out liberal reforms “from above”, using the power of absolutist rule

No. 3. Assessments of the reign of Peter III 5

Name	Item studying	Interpretations of the fact
World historical:	Global development, human progress	A weak creature physically and spiritually, Peter III was not ready to reign on the Russian throne, his overthrow was natural. “An accidental guest of the Russian throne, he flashed like a shooting star on the Russian political horizon, leaving everyone at a loss as to why he appeared there” (V.O. Klyuchevsky)
Materialistic direction	Development of society, social relations related to forms of ownership. Class struggle	An eccentric, cruel sovereign, completely alien to Russia and openly expressing his disdain for everything Russian. He was not popular among the Russian nobility. The progressive measures of his reign were determined by the spirit of the times, and not by the personal contribution of the emperor
Liberal direction	Development of personality and ensuring its individual freedoms	Peter III was the creator of the course to protect the personal rights of the nobility. His political views were quite liberal and reflected “pro-bourgeois” tendencies. His policies can be seen in the context of enlightened absolutism

No. 4. Assessments of the reign of Paul I

Name	Item studying	Interpretations of the fact
World historical: before 1917	Global development, human progress	The era of Paul was a time of “arbitrary whims and violence” (N.K. Schilder) and “the most bureaucratic era” (V.O. Klyuchevsky)
Materialistic direction	Development of society, social relations related to forms of ownership. Class struggle	Paul I is an extremely controversial figure on the Russian throne. An unbalanced person, unpredictable behavior, unexpected, confusing changes in mood and preferences, weak-willed, neurasthenic, supporter of authoritarian methods of management
Liberal direction	Personal development and ensuring individual freedoms	Behind the external chaotic and contradictory actions of the emperor, a coherent, integral ideology and system can be traced. Pavlovian system as unenlightened absolutism. Paul reveals a tendency to see the solution to the problems facing the country in tightening bureaucratic regulation and strengthening the personal influence of the monarch on the work of the state apparatus, in equalizing all classes before the throne. Paul's goal is maximum centralization, the utmost strengthening of imperial power as the only path to “the bliss of one and all.”

The transformation of fragmented feudal Rus', weakened by the Tatar-Mongol invasion, into a centralized strong state is a complex and lengthy process.

One of the main signs of this process is the strengthening of power. The reign gradually became a thing of the past. The administration of vast territories could only be effective under the sole rule of a strong monarch.

Russian tsarism, with all its shortcomings, lasted almost 400 years. At the same time, a change of dynasty occurred only once, and even then as a result of events that became a turning point in Russian history. Of great interest are the two Russian monarchs who became the first tsars of each dynasty.

The first emperor of Russia was.

Let's consider the life of the last tsar and first emperor of Russia, Peter I. He completely overthrew the old mores and brought Russia to a new level of development in various sectors. Thanks to his successful innovative ideas and competent approach to leading the country, he was called the Great.

Personality of a great man

Outwardly, Peter I (06/09/1672 - 02/08/1725) was handsome, stood out for his tall stature, regular physique, large, penetrating black eyes, and beautiful eyebrows.

From an early age, he was interested in mastering various crafts such as carpentry, turning, blacksmithing and others. He had the ability to master foreign languages.

Tsarevna Sofya Alekseevna was the daughter of Marie Miloslavskaya. After the tsars declared sixteen-year-old Ivan and ten-year-old Peter boyars, the Streletsky revolt took place in May 1682.

The Sagittarius suffered disfavor from the state and were dissatisfied with their living and service conditions. The Streltsy troops at that time were a huge force, and from childhood I remembered how the mass of soldiers smashed the Naryshkins.

Sophia was smart, ambitious, and also possessed English language and knew Latin. In addition, she was pretty and wrote poetry. Legally, the queen could not get to the throne, but her excessive ambition was constantly “gnawing from the inside.”

Sophia managed to stop the Khovanshchina - the Streltsy riot. The Sagittarius attracted the Apologist Nikita from the uprising, trying to give the performance a religious character.

However, Sofya Alekseevna invited Nikita to the Garnovitaya Chamber to talk with him in person, away from the people. Next, the queen fought against the “schismatics” according to the law, relying on 12 articles. Thousands of people were accused of Old Belief and executed publicly.

Tsar Fyodor Ivanovich is known as Theodore the Blessed. One of the kings of all and the princes of Moscow. His reign spanned from March 1584 until his death in 1598.
Fedor, the son of the Fourth and Anastasia Romanova, became the last of the Rurikovichs. In honor of the birth of Fedor, he ordered the construction of a temple in. The church still exists today and bears the name of Theodore Stratelates.
In 1581, the heir to the throne, John, died tragically: this is how Fyodor the Blessed became king. The twenty-year-old youth was completely unfit to reign. The father himself spoke of him as if he was born more “for the cell than for power.”
characterize Fedor as a person of weak mind and health. The tsar actually did not take part in governing the state, but relied on the opinion of the nobles and his brother-in-law. It was he who ruled the kingdom through the mouth of Theodore the Blessed. It was Godunov who became the tsar’s successor after his death.

There is a very sad period of history in Russia - we are talking about a period of time called "". This era “gave” many tragic destinies.

Especially tragic, against the backdrop of the unfulfilled lives of historical characters, are the fates of the children of the emperors - Peter II and Ivan VI Antonovich. It is the latter that will be discussed.

The Empress had no children; she had to think about the heir to the Russian throne. Anna spent a long time choosing, and her choice fell on her niece’s unborn child.

In August 1740, Anna Leopoldovna and her husband Anton Ulrich had their first child, named John. Soon he was destined to become the Russian emperor.

In mid-autumn, Empress Anna Ioannovna dies and Ivan Antonovich becomes her heir. The baby ascended the throne on October 28, 1740, and Biron was proclaimed regent under him.

Biron was already pretty boring to everyone with his anti-Russian rules, and his regency, with his parents still alive, looked strange. Soon Biron was arrested, and Anna Leopoldovna was proclaimed regent of Ivan Antonovich.

Anna Leopoldovna was unsuited to govern the country and at the end of 1741 another palace coup took place.

Relying on the guard, the daughter of Elizaveta Petrovna became the new Russian empress. Fortunately, the coup took place without bloodshed.

Catherine II was born on April 21, 1729, before accepting Orthodoxy she had the name Sophia-August-Frederike. As fate would have it, in 1745 Sophia converted to Orthodoxy and was baptized under the name of Ekaterina Alekseevna.

Married the future Emperor of Russia. The relationship between Peter and Catherine somehow did not work out right away. A wall of barriers arose between them due to the banal misunderstanding of each other.

Despite the fact that the spouses did not have a particularly big difference in age, Pyotr Fedorovich was a real child, and Ekaterina Alekseevna wanted a more adult relationship with her husband.

Catherine was quite well educated. Since childhood, I studied various sciences, such as history, geography, theology and foreign languages. The level of her development was very high, she danced and sang beautifully.

Arriving in, she was immediately imbued with the Russian spirit. Realizing that the emperor’s wife must have certain qualities, she sat down with textbooks on Russian history and the Russian language.

There have been incomprehensible characters in Russian history. One of these was Peter III, who, by the will of fate, was destined to become the Russian emperor.

Peter-Ulrich was the son of Anna Petrovna, the eldest daughter, and the Duke of Holstein, Kal - Friedrich. The heir to the Russian throne was born on February 21, 1728.

Anna Petrovna died three months after the birth of the boy, from consumption. At the age of 11, Peter-Ulrich will lose his father.

Peter-Ulrich's uncle was the Swedish king Charles XII. Peter had rights to both the Russian and Swedish thrones. From the age of 11, the future emperor lived in Sweden, where he was brought up in the spirit of Swedish patriotism and hatred of Russia.

Ulrich grew up as a nervous and sickly boy. This was largely due to the manner of his upbringing. His teachers often took humiliating and harsh punishments towards their ward. The character of Peter-Ulrich was simple-minded; there was no particular malice in the boy.

In 1741, Peter-Ulrich's aunt became Empress of Russia. One of her first steps at the head of the state was the proclamation of an heir. The Empress named Peter-Ulrich as his successor.

Why? She wanted to establish the paternal line on the throne. And her relationship with her sister, Peter’s mother, Anna Petrovna, was very, very warm.

Admit it, who among us has not dreamed of being a representative of a noble and wealthy family? Well, they say, they have power and wealth. But power and wealth do not always bring happiness to a person.

In Russian history there are many examples of the unfortunate fates of monarchs, various officials, and people.

Of particular note in the list of these examples is the personality of Emperor Peter II, and we will talk about him.

Peter II was the grandson of Peter I, the son of Tsarevich Alexei and Princess Sophia Charlotte of Blankenburg, who received the name Natalya Alekseevna at baptism.

Pyotr Alekseevich was born on October 12, 1715. Natalya Alekseevna died ten days after giving birth. And three years later, his father, Tsarevich Alexei, died.

At the end of 1726 she began to get sick. This circumstance forced the empress and the Russian public to think about the heir to the throne.

Several descendants claimed the Russian throne at once. These were his daughters - Elizabeth (the future Empress), Anna and grandson Peter Alekseevich.

Representatives of the old boyar families advocated for little Peter to sit on the Russian throne.

There are some dark spots in the biography of Catherine I; information about some periods of her life is very scarce. It is known that before the adoption of Orthodoxy, Ekaterina Alekseevna’s name was Marta Samuilovna Skavronskaya.

She was born in April 1684. Marta was of Baltic origin, lost her parents at an early age and was raised in the family of a Protestant pastor.

At the beginning of the 18th century, Russia participated in. Sweden was the enemy of the Russian state. In 1702, the army occupied the Marienburg fortress, which is located on the territory of modern Latvia.

During the military operation, about four hundred residents of the fortress were captured. Martha was among the prisoners. There are two versions of how Martha got surrounded.

The first says that Marta became the mistress of the commander of the Russian army, Sheremetyev. Later, Menshikov, who had more influence than the field marshal, took Marta for himself.

The second version looks like this: Martha was entrusted with managing the servants in the house of Colonel Baur. Baur could not get enough of his manager, but Menshikov drew attention to her, and until the last decade of 1703 she worked in the house of His Serene Highness Prince Alexander Danilovich.

In Menshikov’s house, Peter I drew attention to Martha.

Peter I solemnly entered Moscow, and the monarch was immediately informed that his daughter had been born. As a result, they celebrated not the military successes of the state, but the birth of the daughter of Peter I.

In March 1711, Elizabeth was recognized as the daughter of august parents and proclaimed princess. Even in childhood, courtiers, as well as foreign ambassadors, noticed the amazing beauty of the daughter of the Russian monarch.

She danced excellently, had a lively mind, resourcefulness and intelligence. The young princess lived in the villages of Preobrazhenskoye and Izmailovskoye, where she received her education.

She studied foreign languages, history, and geography. She devoted a lot of time to hunting, horse riding, rowing, and, like all girls, she was very concerned about her appearance.

Elizaveta Petrovna excelled in horse riding; she felt very confident in the saddle and could give odds to many cavalrymen.

The wife of Peter III, who became empress after dethroning her husband. Being a German princess who converted to Orthodoxy, having no relationship with the Romanov dynasty, nor any rights to the Russian throne, she nevertheless held the reins of power in her hands for more than 30 years. And this time in Russia is usually called the “golden age”.

Catherine pursued her policy in three main directions:

Expanding the territory of the state, strengthening its authority in the world;

Liberalization of methods of governing the country;

Administrative reforms involving the involvement of nobles in the management of local authorities.

During her reign, the country was divided into 50 provinces. The principle of division was a certain number of inhabitants.

The reign of this empress was the era of the heyday of the noble class. The provinces were completely under the rule of their nobles. At the same time, the nobleman was exempt from taxes and corporal punishment. Only a court of equals could deprive him of his title, property or life.

In the foreign policy arena, the main directions of Russia were:

Strengthening its influence in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Catherine carefully ensured that only Russian proteges sat on the Polish throne;

Relations with Turkey. In this direction, the struggle was for Russia's access to the Black Sea. As a result, two long military campaigns were carried out, ending in the victory of the Russian troops;

The fight against revolutionary France. Despite the fact that Catherine was a fan of the French enlighteners, she gradually became disillusioned with their ideas and methods, and perceived the revolution in this country rather hostilely. To fight France, it was decided to join forces with Prussia, England and Austria. However, death prevented Catherine from fulfilling her plans.

Such illustrious names as G. Potemkin, A. Suvorov, F. Ushakov, P. Rumyantsev are closely associated with the name of Catherine the Great and the conquests of her period.

The ruler paid great attention to the development of education, the main goal of which was not simply to increase the level of education, but to educate a new generation of people, true citizens of their state.

It was she who became the founder of female school education in Russia, establishing institutions for the “education of noble maidens.”

However, for all her desire for liberalism, Catherine zealously persecuted dissent and cruelly punished those who disagreed with her state policy. Thus, A. Radishchev was sentenced to death and then “pardoned” by exile to Siberia for his famous “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow”, public activist, writer and publisher N. Novikov was persecuted, some foreign publications were banned, etc. .

In Catherine's era, culture and science actively developed. A thorough study of Russia, its history, geography, ethnography, etc. was carried out. Thanks to the high imperial support, the Academy of Sciences gave the world such people as I. Kulibin, I. Polzunov. The names of D. Fonvizin, G. Derzhavin and others became known in the literature. The empress herself made a valuable contribution to literature by writing memoirs.

Art also developed during this period: painting, sculpture, architecture.

Along with achievements in many areas of life, the reign of Catherine the Great was marked by one of the most famous and major uprisings in Russia - the Pugachev uprising. The reason for this uprising under the leadership of the Cossack E. Pugachev was the further enslavement of the peasants. By posing as Peter III, who miraculously managed to escape death, Emelyan Pugachev managed to unite workers, peasants, representatives of national minorities, and Cossacks. The uprising grew into a real bloody war. Pugachev's army, growing as it advanced, won victories one after another, taking advantage of the fact that most of the Russian troops were absent from the country (the Russian-Turkish war was going on). The months-long struggle ended with the betrayal of Pugachev by his own comrades. After he was handed over to government forces, Catherine ordered his public execution on Bolotnaya Square.

After the death of the leader, the uprising was suppressed, and all those responsible were severely punished.

In addition, civil unrest periodically broke out in many parts of the country, but they were not of such proportions.

Thus, the “golden age” was significantly overshadowed, especially in relation to the ordinary population of Russia.

Almost half of Catherine's reign was occupied by wars and riots. Bribery and theft flourished.

However, with all this, during her reign the population of Russia almost doubled, the territory of the state expanded significantly, the army strengthened and the fleet increased (instead of 21 half-rotten battleships, by the end of her reign there were 67 well-equipped ships and 40 frigates). The number of factories and factories increased to 2 thousand (instead of 500), and state income increased 4 times.

The great emperors of Russia represented the alpha and omega, as well as the prosperity of their people. Just as God is the ruler of the Universe, so they were the rulers of their lands. And they had a lot under their control. The very first representative of this title was Peter the Great. And, probably, it is not in vain that the history of the Russian Empire begins with this greatest personality.

Future Great Emperor

Peter was born in Moscow in 1672, on the ninth of June. This was the fourteenth child of Alexei Mikhailovich and his second wife Natalya Kirillovna Naryshkina. After the death of the Tsar, Peter inherited a country that was very undeveloped compared to the culturally prosperous European countries. While the Renaissance and Reformation swept Europe, Russia rejected Westernization and remained isolated from modernization.

Peter the Great is the first emperor of Russia, who became famous for his numerous reforms and attempts to make his state a great power. He created a strong navy and reorganized the army according to Western standards. Under him, new administrative and territorial divisions of the country were introduced, he initiated a number of changes that affected all spheres of Russian life.

Radical changes and overall development

The first emperor of Russia paid special attention to the development of science. He hired several foreign experts to train his people in all sorts of technological advancements. He focused on the development of trade and industry, modernized the Russian alphabet, introduced the Julian calendar, and also created the first Russian newspaper.

Pyotr Alekseevich was a far-sighted and skillful diplomat who abolished archaic forms of government and created the Governing Senate. It was the highest body of state power that regulated all branches of the administration, as well as decisions and innovative achievements in Russian foreign policy.

New territorial possessions

Under the reign of Peter the Great, the state acquired numerous territories, such as Estonia, Latvia and Finland. After battles with Turkey, he gained access to the Black Sea. And in one thousand seven hundred and twelve, Pyotr Alekseevich moved the capital to a new city on the Neva - Petersburg, founded by him and which soon became a “window to Europe.”

In accordance with Peter's rules and changes, Russia became a great European power. And in 1721, he proclaimed it an empire; accordingly, Peter Alekseevich himself was given the title of Emperor of All-Russia, Great Father of the Fatherland.

Peter was married twice and had eleven children, many of whom died in infancy. The eldest son from his first marriage, Alexei, was convicted of and secretly executed in 1718. Pyotr Alekseevich died on February 8, 1725 without nominating an heir.

Another Peter Alekseevich

Naturally, not only the emperors of Russia ruled; chronology also indicates the presence of four empresses. One of them was Catherine the First. She sat on the throne after Peter the Great. And then the grandson of Peter the Great came to power. He was born on the twelfth of October 1715. His mother died ten days after his birth. And three years later, his father followed his mother.

In 1727, Menshikov urged Catherine the First to sign a will in favor of Peter. And when the empress died, Peter the Second continued the list of Russian emperors.

Menshikov settled the boy in his house and began to control all his actions. Little Peter was lively, smart, skillful and very much like his great-grandfather. Despite this similarity, he, unlike Peter the Great, did not want to study.

Being too young, Peter the Second could not rule the empire and almost did not participate in the activities of the Privy Council. This quickly led to a breakdown of the state system, as officials were afraid of Peter's unmotivated actions and did not want to take responsibility for any important decisions.

On November thirtieth, one thousand seven hundred and twenty-nine, Peter the Second was engaged to the eighteen-year-old beauty Ekaterina Alekseevna Dolgorukova. But the following year, on January 6th, he caught a cold during a military review and fell ill with smallpox. Died on the nineteenth of January 1730.

After death, a woman sits on the throne again - Anna Ioannovna. And the subsequent emperors of Russia - the chronology shows the ten-year term of her reign - are awaiting their place in the history of the state.

The Baby Emperor or the Struggle for Power

Ivan the Sixth was born in St. Petersburg on August 12, 1740. He was the son of Prince Anton of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel and Anna Leopoldovna. Twelve days before her death, the empress declared two-month-old Ivan her heir. And Ernst Johann Biron was supposed to serve as regent for the boy until he reached the age of seventeen.

But Ivan’s mother overthrew Biron in 1740 and declared herself regent. And a year later she herself was overthrown by Elizaveta Petrovna, who was supported by the grenadiers and officers of the Preobrazhensky Regiment. The daughter of Peter the Great, Anna, with her entire family and baby, was arrested by the emperor and imprisoned in a fortress near Riga. Then Emperor Ivan the Sixth was transferred to Kholmogory. There, the bishop's empty house was converted into a prison. There the boy lived for the next twelve years, seeing no one but his jailer.

A mysterious prisoner or the death of another emperor

Many representatives of the royal family, who were supposed to take their place on the throne, had a difficult fate. And perhaps this was one of the reasons why some emperors of Russia (the chronology indicates their names) voluntarily renounced power in favor of one of their relatives.

But what happened next to the matured Ivan the Sixth? Rumors about his imprisonment in Kholmogory are spreading more and more, and the reigning lady transfers him to where he was placed in solitary confinement. The prisoner's identity was kept in deep secrecy. Even the jailers did not know who they were guarding. Ivan was kept in terrible conditions. The only source of light for him was candles.

The guards reported that the young man's mental abilities were impaired, Ivan lost his memory and did not have the slightest idea of ​​who he was. His stuttering was so strong that it became almost impossible to understand what the prisoner was saying, nevertheless, Ivan the Sixth remembered his real name.

The deposed emperor was dangerous for the German princess who had seized the Russian throne, and she ordered him to be guarded very carefully, and if there was an attempt to free the prisoner, to kill him. And soon after this, on the night from the fourth to fifth of July 1764, second lieutenant of the Smolensk infantry regiment Vasily Mirovich, at the head of the rebel soldiers, tried to save Ivan, and the prisoner was immediately executed. So the list of Russian emperors was replenished with one more name. Unhappy Ivan the Sixth, who was never able to take his rightful place.

Grandson of two emperors of Russia and Sweden

All emperors of Russia, by order of succession or by way of occupying the throne, are one way or another indicated in the historical archives. And one cannot fail to mention here Peter the Third, who ruled Russia for only six months. He was born on February twenty-first in one thousand seven hundred and twenty-eight in northern Germany. This was the only son of Anna Petrovna and Karl Friedrich. Grandson of two emperors - Peter the Great and Charles the Twelfth.

The boy showed interest in art, loved military parades and dreamed that one day he would become a world-famous warrior. At the age of fourteen he was brought to Russia to his aunt, reigning Elizabeth. On August 21, 1745, Peter married Princess Anhalt-Zerb, who took the name Catherine. The political marriage arranged by Petra's aunt was a disaster from the very beginning.

The Emperor who hated the Russian state and its people

Catherine was a woman of amazing intelligence, and Peter remained a child in the body of an adult man. They had one son, Pavel, the future emperor, and a daughter, Anna, who dies in childhood. All the emperors of Russia, in order, occupying the throne and governing the state, basically tried to bring maximum benefit to the country. But Peter the Third became an exception. He hated Russia. He did not care about the Russian people, and could not stand the Orthodox Churches.

After Peter the Third took his place on the throne, he reversed his aunt's foreign policy and led Russia out of the Seven Years' War, a move that contemporaries viewed as a betrayal of the Russian victims of the war. But at the same time, experts who are interested in the history of the emperors of Russia suggest that perhaps this decision of Peter III was part of a pragmatic plan for the influence of the Russian state in the West.

Reforms or services to the state

However, Peter the Third during his reign organized a number of internal reforms that today seem very democratic. He proclaimed freedom of religion, abolished the secret police, and prohibited the murder of serfs by their owners. He also created the first state bank.

The reign of many emperors in Russia ended in tragic death. The same thing happened with Peter the Third. There are many speculations about his death, but in fact he became a victim of a conspiracy by his own wife Catherine, who dreamed of getting rid of him in order to take the throne. On June twenty-eighth, 1762, Peter was arrested and soon killed.

Paul's Tyrannical Rule

Some names of Russian emperors cannot be mentioned with special gratitude or pride. For example, Paul the First, who ruled the country for five tyrannical years before he was killed. He was born in St. Petersburg in 1754. His parents are the future Emperor Peter the Third and Catherine the Second. His mother did not consider him as a future ruler and sent him to live on an estate in Gatchina. And Catherine prepared his son Alexander to take the place of the future emperor.

But after the death of the empress, Paul seized the throne, and his first decree was to establish the right of primogeniture to the throne, and not the choice of a successor by the emperor himself. Believing that Russia needed an absolute monarchy, he began to reduce the power and privileges of the nobility. To prevent the ideals of the French Revolution from spreading in the country, he outlaws foreign books and travel outside the state.

Numerous changes in Paul's domestic and foreign policies, coupled with his despotic attitude and fits of rage, caused rumors to spread about his mental instability. And on the twenty-third of March 1801, Paul the Third was killed. And his son Alexander ascended the throne.

Pupil of grandmother Catherine

Alexander was born in St. Petersburg on December 12, 1777. He was raised by Catherine the Great, who did not love her son Paul at all and did not think that he was capable of ruling the country. She saw her grandson as the future emperor. He was well versed in European culture, history and politics and was brought up in the free-thinking spirit of the Empress's court.

But the hatred between Paul and Catherine forced him to play two different roles. Under his grandmother, he adhered to the principles of human rights and civil freedom, and enjoyed opera and philosophy. And next to my father there was strict military discipline and endless training. Soon Alexander turned into a natural chameleon, became secretive and easily changed his views in accordance with the circumstances.

In 1801, at the age of twenty-three, Alexander was crowned king. The handsome and charming emperor was extremely popular. True to the ideals of his liberal school, he embarked on a series of social reforms. Torture was prohibited, and the new law allowed peasants to redeem themselves from serfdom. Administrative, financial and educational changes followed.

Triumph of the Great Monarch

During the reign of the Russian emperors there were many different wars and battles. But one of the most important, even called the Patriotic War, was the war with Napoleon. For Alexander, this was a divine mission, something more than just a war between two countries. It was a battle between good and evil. And when Alexander, after the victory, entered Paris at the head of his troops, he turned into one of the most powerful monarchs. It was a triumph of his reign.

In the last years of his reign, the emperor became especially obsessed with God and Christianity. And when he died on November 19, 1825, many rumors began to circulate that the king secretly abdicated the throne and became a monk. What kind of emperors of Russia there really were and what kind of thoughts were in their great minds, even history does not know.

Nicholas's childhood and reign

Nicholas the First was the ninth child of Paul the First and Maria Feodorovna. Born on the twenty-fifth of June, 1796. As a child he was rude and mischievous. He received his education first from a Scottish nanny, and then from General Gustav Lambsdorff. Lacking a broad and inquisitive mind, Nikolai did not like to study. The young prince perked up only when the lessons came to an end and he was allowed to put on a military uniform and participate in war games.

Nicholas was not raised as a future emperor and already at the beginning of his reign he was faced with an event that shocked him. This is the Decembrist uprising. Five leaders were executed and about one hundred and twenty were exiled to Siberia. Understanding the need for reforms, the king was nevertheless afraid that the changes would shake the foundations of the empire, which he was obliged to pass on to his descendants. There were other obstacles to reform - these were the emperor's immediate relatives, whose views had a huge influence on his actions.

Nicholas's slogans were Orthodoxy, autocracy and nationality. His reign marked the rise of absolute monarchy in Russia. He died on the eighteenth of February one thousand eight hundred and fifty-five from pneumonia. And finally, the last emperors of Russia. The chronology marks their years of reign. These were Alexander the Second and Alexander the Third, as well as Nicholas the Second. This is where the story of the Russian emperors ends.

Reign of Nicholas's son

Alexander the Second, the eldest son of Nicholas the First, was born on April 17, 1818. He received a wonderful education. He knew several languages, studied the art of war, finance and diplomacy. From an early age he traveled a lot.

Having become emperor, Alexander issued a law on the emancipation of the peasants. The serfs now received a more dignified life. And since they became free citizens, it was necessary to reform the entire local system of government. During the reign of Alexander, the judicial system was reformed, all social classes became equal before the law. The pressure on censorship was eased and people began to have more freedom of speech.

Despite numerous reforms to improve the lives of the Russian people, Alexander II became a target for revolutionaries. A member of a terrorist group assassinated the emperor in 1881.

Personification of the Russian bear

Alexander the Third was born on the twenty-sixth of February, 1845. Strong, menacing, desperate patriot, he became the embodiment of the legendary Russian bear. Came to power at a critical moment for the empire. One half of society was dissatisfied with the slow pace of reforms, the other was afraid of change. The economy has not yet recovered from the war with Turkey. The widespread terror unleashed by the revolutionaries led to the formation of a counter-revolutionary group of monarchists.

The emperor did not like foreigners and pursued a policy of Russification. This led to outbreaks of Russian nationalism and Jewish pogroms. He firmly adhered to the principle of "Russia for the Russians" and strengthened the power of the administration. Alexander Alexandrovich Romanov died of nephritis in 1894. And the last Emperor of Russia, Nicholas II, came to power.

The tragic ending of the imperial family

Interesting fact! Royal titles consist of three different structural formations. The title of Emperor of Russia also has its own forms, one of which is full. And this title of the Russian Emperor Nicholas II consisted of one hundred and thirteen words.

Nicholas II was born in 1868. In 1894, Nicholas becomes emperor. Despite his thorough education, he felt that he was not ready for the responsibility that was imposed on him. And many contemporaries note that he looked confused and confused.

For most of his reign he followed his father's policies. He was stubborn and very slow to accept the need for change due to the events of 1901. Even though his powers had become limited, the last Emperor of Russia tried to act as if he were still an autocrat. Nicholas wanted to go back in time and restore the power of his ancestors.

After the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, the position of the imperial family became very difficult, and a year later, early on the morning of July 17, Nicholas II, his wife and children were shot. Thus ended the reign of the emperors in Russia, and another starting point began in the history of the country.