Moscow ballet

Russian History 1607-1915

By jforest

  • Poland Invades Russia

    In 1604, a pretender to the throne claimed to be Ivan the Terrible%u2019s son Dmitry who actually had died as a child. This %u201CFalse Dmitry%u201D marched on Muscovy with Polish support and seized power from Boris Godunov, only to be deposed the following year. Muscovy%u2019s chaotic political situation invited both popular rebellion and Polish invasion.

  • Russians Expel Poles

    Russians unite and expel the Poles from Moscow.

  • Romanovs Come to Power

    Election of a new line of Russian rulers%u2014the Romanovs.

  • Peter the Great Born

  • Russia Begins War with Sweden

  • Saint Petersburg

    St. Petersburg, Peter the Great%u2019s grand legacy, was begun in 1703 on marshy territory won from Sweden. Foreign architects directed all construction, and untold thousands died in the process. Within a decade, St. Petersburg was a city of nearly 35,000 buildings and the capital of all of Russia.

  • Russia Defeats the Swedes

    Russia gains land along the Baltic sea

  • Peter the Great Dies

  • Academy of Sciences Established

  • Peter III Murdered

  • Catherine the Great Takes Power

  • Russia Partitions Poland

    Russia takes the Eastern half

  • Russia Partitions Poland Again

  • Russia Partitions Poland Again

  • Catherine the Great Dies

  • Napoleon Invades Russia

    The year 1812 was a watershed in Russian history. In June, Napoleon invaded Russia. After the historic battle of Borodino (where Russians suffered 42,000 casualties and the French, 58,000 on a single day), Napoleon entered the Kremlin. Rather than submit, Alexander I (1801-1825) continued to fight and Moscow burned to the ground. Heroic efforts by soldiers and peasants%u2014and the approach of winter%u2014eventually contributed to the expulsion of the French from Russian territory.

  • Decembrist Uprising

    After the Napoleonic war, Alexander I became more mystical and conservative. At the same time, Russian thinkers turned to German idealistic philosophy because, according to James Billington, %u201Crationalism was identified with revolution, revolution with Napoleon, and Napoleon with the invasion of Russia and the burning of Moscow.%u201D (The Icon and the Axe, page 303)
    Disappointment with the government%u2019s change to a more conservative course led to the Decembrist rebellion of 1825, an unorganized revolt

  • Crimean War

  • Alexander Abolishes Serfdom

    The reign of Alexander II began with the promise of change, as he implemented administrative, judicial, and social reforms, the most dramatic of which was the freeing of the serfs in 1861. Unfortunately, he offered so many concessions to landlords that many peasants found themselves in worse economic circumstances than before.

  • Russia Sells Alaska

  • Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace

  • Congress of Berlin

  • Alexander II Murdered

    On March 1, 1881, Tsar Alexander II was killed by a bomb thrown by I. Grinevitskii, a student and a member of the revolutionary organization %u201CThe National Will.%u201D The Cathedral of the Resurrection on the Blood was built to commemorate the spot where the assassination took place. Alexander II is buried in the Cathedral of the St. Peter and St. Paul Fortress in St. Petersburg.

  • Russo-Japenese War

  • Revolution Begins

    Unrest led to massive strikes and peasant demonstrations, and even rebellion in the armed forces in 1905. On government orders, over a hundred workers who had gathered before the Winter Palace to ask for the tsar%u2019s help were shot and killed, setting the stage for further unrest and, finally, concessions by the tsar to create Russia%u2019s first democratically elected parliament: the Duma. Briefly, Russia became a limited constitutional monarchy. This system collapsed in 1917, when the Bolsheviks laun

  • Bloody Sunday

    Peaceful demonstrators arrived at the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg to present a petition to the tsar, leading was a priest named Georgi Gapon. The Imperial Guard fired on the crowd, killing around 200 and wounding 800.

  • First Duma Called

  • First Duma Disolved

  • First Duma Disolved

  • Second Duma Called

  • Ballet Russes Founded

    Ballet Russes was the Russian emigre ballet company that toured outside Russia from 1909 to 1929 under the direction of Russian impresario Sergey Diaghilev, who gathered the foremost chreographers, dancers, and designers of his time. He featured such dancers as Anna Pavlova, George Balanchine, and Vaslav Nijinsky. Many of the company%u2019s works broke with classical tradition. For example Nijinsky%u2019s %u201CThe Rite of Spring%u201D (1912), caused riots at its 1913 premiere in Paris. The Russian Revolution of 19

  • WWI Begins

  • Nicholas II and His Family are Murdered

  • Vladmir Lenin Comes to Power

    Vladimir Ilich Lenin (1870-1924), was a Russian revolutionary leader, political ideologist, and the creator of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).

  • WWI Ends