History
First civilizations
The first human settlement in Russia dates back to the Oldowan period in the early Lower Paleolithic. About 2 million years ago, Homo erectus migrated to the Taman Peninsula in southern Russia.[27] Flint tools, about 1.5 million years old, have been discovered in the North Caucasus.[28] Radiocarbon-dated specimens from the Denisova Caves in the Altai Massif estimate that the oldest specimen of Denisova Man lived about 2 million years ago. between 195,000 and 122,700 years ago.[29] Within this last cave, fossils of «Denny "Denny (Denisova 11)"), an archaic human hybrid that was half Neanderthal and half Denisovan, and who lived about 90,000 years ago, were also found.[30] Some of the last surviving Neanderthals also lived in Russia, from about 45,000 years ago, found in the Mezmayskaya cave.[31].
The first trace of an early modern human in Russia dates back to 45,000 years ago, in Western Siberia.[32] The discovery of a high concentration of anatomically modern human cultural remains, dating back at least 40,000 years, was found at Kostionki-Borshchiovo,[33] and at Sungir, dating back to 34,600 years ago—both in Western Russia.[34] Humans reached the Russian Arctic at least 40,000 years ago, in Mamontovaya Kurya.[35] Ancient populations of northern Siberia, genetically similar to the Mal'ta-Buret' and Afontova Gora culture, were an important genetic contributor to ancient Native Americans and eastern hunter-gatherers.[36]
Nomadic herding developed in the Pontic steppe from the Chalcolithic.[38] Remains of these steppe civilizations were discovered in places such as Ipátovo),[38] Sintashta,[39] Arkaim and Pazyryk,[40][41] which contain the first known traces of horses in war.[39] In classical antiquity, the Pontic steppe was known as Scythia.[42] At the end of the century BC, ancient Greek merchants brought classical civilization to the trading emporiums of Tanais and Phanagoria.[43].
In the centuries and d. The Gothic kingdom of Oium developed in southern Russia, which was later invaded by the Huns. Between the 10th and 12th centuries AD, the Bosphorus Kingdom, which was a Hellenistic state that had succeeded the Greek colonies in the Black Sea, was also overwhelmed by nomadic invasions led by warrior tribes such as the Huns and Avars. Eurasians.[46] The Khazars, of Turkic origin, ruled the steppes of the lower Volga basin between the Caspian and Black seas until the 1st century.[47].
The ancestors of the Russians are among the Slavic tribes that separated from the Proto-Indo-Europeans, who appeared in the northeastern part of Europe approx. 1500 years.[48] The Eastern Slavs gradually settled in western Russia in two waves: one that moved from kyiv towards present-day Suzdal and Murom and another from Polotsk towards Novgorod and Rostov. From the century onwards, the Eastern Slavs made up the majority of the population in western Russia and slowly but peacefully assimilated the native Finnic peoples.[49][44].
Kievan Rus
The establishment of the first East Slavic states in the century coincided with the arrival of the Varangians, Vikings who ventured along the waterways stretching from the eastern Baltic to the Black and Caspian Seas. According to the Primary Chronicle, a Varangian of the Rus' people, named Rurik, was elected ruler of Novgorod in 862. In In 882, his successor Oleg ventured south and conquered kyiv, which had previously been paying tribute to the Khazars.[44] Subsequently, Rurik's son Igor and Igor's son Svyatoslav brought all local East Slavic tribes under kyiv's rule, destroyed the Khazarian Khaganate, and launched several military expeditions to Byzantium and Persia.[51][52][53].
In the 2nd centuries, Kievan Rus became one of the largest and most prosperous states in Europe. The reigns of Vladimir the Great (980-1015) and his son Yaroslav the Wise (1019-1054) constitute the Golden Age of kyiv, which saw the acceptance of Orthodox Christianity from Byzantium and the creation of the first legal code written in East Slavic, Russkaya Pravda.[44] The era of feudalism and decentralization had arrived, marked by constant infighting among members of the Ruríkid dynasty that collectively ruled Kievan Rus. kyiv's rule faded, benefiting Vladimir-Suzdal in the northeast, the Novgorod Republic in the northwest, and Galicia-Volhynia in the southwest.[44]
Kievan Rus' eventually disintegrated, and the final blow was the Mongol invasion between 1237 and 1240, which resulted in the sacking of kyiv and the death of a significant portion of the Rus' population. The invaders, later known as Tatars, formed the Golden Horde state, which plundered the Russian principalities and ruled southern and central Russia for more than two years. centuries.[54].
Galicia-Volhynia was eventually assimilated by the Kingdom of Poland ("Kingdom of Poland (1025-1385)"), while the Novgorod Republic and Vladimir-Suzdal, two regions on the outskirts of kyiv, laid the foundations for the modern Russian nation. Led by Prince Alexander Nevsky, the Novgorodians repelled the invading Swedes at the Battle of the Neva in 1240,[55] as well as the Germanic crusaders in the Battle of the Ice in 1242.[56].
Moscow Principality
The Mongol invasion and the rule of the Golden Horde profoundly marked the evolution of the Russian principalities, imposing a system of vassalage and tribute that lasted for more than two centuries. During this period, several cities were destroyed, the population decreased drastically and political development was limited by dependence on the Mongol khans. However, external pressure also strengthened some principalities, especially Moscow, which gradually increased its power and influence by becoming an intermediary between the Russian peoples and the Horde.[58]
The most powerful state that finally emerged after the destruction of Kievan Rus' was the Principality of Moscow, initially part of the Principality of Vladimir-Suzdal.[59] While still under the yoke of the Mongol-Tatars and with their connivance, Moscow began to assert its influence in the region at the beginning of the century, gradually becoming the leading force in the process of reunification of the Rus' lands and the expansion of Russia.[60] Moscow's last rival, the Novgorod Republic, prospered as the main center of the fur trade and the easternmost port of the Hanseatic League.[61].
The united army of the Russian principalities, led by Prince Dmitri Donskoy of Moscow and aided by the Russian Orthodox Church, inflicted a historic defeat on the Mongol Tatars at the Battle of Kulikovo in 1380. Moscow gradually absorbed its Vladimir-Suzdal parent, and then the surrounding principalities, including formerly strong rivals such as Tver and Novgorod.[59].
Ivan III "the Great" eventually threw off the control of the Golden Horde and consolidated all of northern Rus under the rule of Moscow, and was the first Russian ruler to take the title "Grand Prince of All Russia." After the fall of Constantinople in 1453, Moscow claimed succession to the legacy of the Eastern Roman Empire. Ivan III married Sophia Palaiologos, the niece of the last Byzantine emperor, Constantine XI, and adopted the symbol of the Byzantine double-headed eagle, which would eventually appear on the Russian coat of arms.
Russian zarato
Grand Duke Ivan IV "The Terrible" was officially crowned the first Tsar of Russia in 1547, during the development of the ideas of the Third Rome. The tsar promulgated a new code of laws (Sudébnik of 1550), established the first Russian feudal representative body (Zemski Sobor), renewed the armed forces, curbed the influence of the clergy, and reorganized local government.[59] During his long reign, Ivan nearly doubled the already extensive Russian territory by annexing the three Tatar khanates: Kazan and Astrakhan along the Volga,[62] and the Sibir Khanate in southwestern Siberia. Finally, at the end of the century, Russia expanded east of the Ural Mountains.[63] However, the tsardom was weakened by the long and unsuccessful Livonian War against the coalition of the Kingdom of Poland "Kingdom of Poland (1385-1569)") and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (from their later union the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was born), the Kingdom of Sweden and Denmark-Norway for access to the coast Baltica and maritime trade.[64] In 1572, an invading army of Crimean Tatars was completely defeated at the crucial Battle of Molodi.[65].
The death of Ivan's sons marked the end of the ancient Rurikid dynasty in 1598 and, in combination with the disastrous famine of 1601-1603, led to civil war, rule of the pretenders, and foreign intervention during the Time of Instability at the turn of the century.[66] The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, taking advantage, occupied parts of Russia and extended to the capital, Moscow.[67] In 1612, the Poles were forced to retreat by the Russian volunteer corps, led by the merchant Kuzma Minin and Prince Dmitri Pozharsky.[68] The Romanov dynasty acceded to the throne in 1613 by decision of the Zemsky Sobor, and the country began its gradual recovery from the crisis.[69].
Russia continued its territorial growth during the 19th century, considered the era of the Cossacks.[70] In 1654, the Cossack leader, Bogdan Khmelnytsky, offered to place Ukraine under the protection of the Russian Tsar Alexis; whose acceptance of this offer led to another Russo-Polish war "Russian-Polish War (1654-1667)"). Ultimately, Ukraine was divided along the Dnieper, leaving the eastern part (Left Bank Ukraine and kyiv) under Russian rule.[71] In the east, rapid Russian exploration and colonization of vast Siberia continued, in search of valuable furs and ivory. Russian explorers advanced eastward mainly along Siberian waterways, and by the middle of the century there were Russian settlements in eastern Siberia, on the Chukchi Peninsula, along the Amur River, and on the coast of the Pacific Ocean.[70] In 1648, Semyon Dezhniov became the first European to sail through the Bering Strait.[72]
Russian Empire
During the reign of Peter the Great, Russia was proclaimed an empire in 1721 and became one of the great European powers. Peter, who ruled from 1682 to 1725, defeated Sweden in the Great Northern War (1700-1721), securing Russia's access to the sea and maritime trade. In 1703, on the Baltic Sea, Peter founded Saint Petersburg as the new capital of Russia. Throughout her rule, radical reforms were made, bringing important Western European cultural influences to Russia.[73] The reign of Elizabeth (1741-1762), daughter of Peter I, saw Russia's participation in the Seven Years' War (1756-1763). During the conflict, Russian troops invaded East Prussia and even reached the gates of Berlin.[74] However, after the death of Elizabeth, all these conquests were returned to the Kingdom of Prussia by the pro-Prussian Peter III of Russia.[75]
Catherine II ("the Great"), who ruled from 1762 to 1796, presided over the Russian Age of Enlightenment. She extended Russian political control over the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and incorporated most of its territories into Russia, making it the most populous country in Europe.[76] In the south, after the successful Russo-Turkish wars against the Ottoman Empire, Catherine extended Russia's borders to the Black Sea, she dissolved the Crimean Khanate and annexed Crimea.[77] As a result of victories over Qajar Iran through the Russo-Persian Wars, in the first half of the century, Russia also made significant territorial gains in the Caucasus.[78] Paul I, Catherine's son and successor, was unstable and focused predominantly on domestic affairs.[79] After her brief reign, Catherine's strategy continued with Alexander I. (1801-1825) seizing Finland from weakened Sweden in 1809,[80] and Bessarabia from the Ottomans in 1812.[81] In North America, the Russians became the first Europeans to reach and colonize Alaska.[82] Between 1803 and 1806, the first Russian circumnavigation was made.[83] In 1820, an expedition Russia discovered the continent of Antarctica.[84].
During the Napoleonic Wars, Russia allied itself with several European powers and fought against France. The French invasion of Russia at the height of Napoleon's power reached Moscow, in 1812, but ultimately failed miserably as stubborn resistance combined with the freezing Russian winter led to a disastrous defeat of the invaders, in which the pan-European Grande Armée faced complete destruction. The Imperial Russian Army, led by Mikhail Kutuzov and Barclay de Tolly, overthrew Napoleon and swept across Europe in the War of the Sixth Coalition, eventually entering Paris.[85] Alexander I controlled the Russian delegation at the Congress of Vienna, which defined the map of post-Napoleonic Europe.[86]
The officers who persecuted Napoleon in Western Europe brought the ideas of liberalism to Russia and attempted to limit the tsar's powers during the frustrated Decembrist revolt of 1825.[87] The end of the conservative reign of Nicholas I (1825–1855), a zenith period of Russian power and influence in Europe, was interrupted by defeat in the Crimean War.[88] Nicholas's successor, Alexander II (1855-1881), enacted important changes throughout the country, including the emancipatory reform of 1861.[89] These reforms fueled industrialization and modernized the Imperial Russian army, which liberated much of the Balkans from Ottoman rule after the Russo-Turkish War (1877-1878) "Russian-Turkish War (1877-1878)").[90] For most of the century and early , Russia and Britain colluded over Afghanistan and its neighboring territories in central and southern Asia; The rivalry between the two great European empires became known as the Great Game.[91].
Revolution and civil war
In 1914, Russia entered the First World War in response to the Austro-Hungarian Empire's declaration of war on Russia's ally Serbia,[97] and fought on multiple fronts while isolated from its Triple Entente allies.[98] In 1916, the Imperial Russian Army's Brusilov Offensive almost completely destroyed the Austro-Hungarian Army.[99] However, existing public distrust of the regime was eroded. In early 1917, Nicholas II was forced to abdicate; he and his family were imprisoned and then executed in Yekaterinburg during the Russian Civil War.[101]
In the wake of the February Revolution, the monarchy was replaced by an unstable coalition of political parties that proclaimed itself the Provisional Government.[102] The Provisional Government proclaimed the Russian Republic in September. On January 6, the Russian Constituent Assembly declared Russia a democratic federal republic (thus ratifying the decision of the Provisional Government). The next day, the Constituent Assembly, dominated by the Socialist Revolutionaries, was dissolved by the All-Russian Central Executive Committee[100] dominated by the Bolsheviks.
An alternative socialist establishment coexisted, the Petrograd Soviet, which exercised power through democratically elected workers' and peasants' councils, called soviets. The rule of the new authorities only aggravated the country's crisis instead of resolving it, and eventually the October Revolution, led by Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin, overthrew the Provisional Government and gave full power to the Bolshevik government, leading to the creation of the world's first socialist state.[100] The Russian civil war broke out between the White Monarchist movement, moderate social democrats, such as the Socialist Revolutionaries, and the new regime. Soviet with its Red Army.[103] Following the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk that ended hostilities with the central powers of the First World War; Bolshevik Russia handed over most of its western territories, which housed its population, its industries, its agricultural lands, and approximately its coal mines.[104]
The Allied powers launched an unsuccessful military intervention in support of the anti-communist forces.[105] At the same time, both the Bolsheviks and the White movement mutually carried out campaigns of deportations and executions, known respectively as the Red Terror "Red Terror (Russia)") and the White Terror "White Terror (Russia)").[106] At the end of the violent civil war, Russia's economy and infrastructure suffered serious damage and up to 10 Millions perished during the war, most of them civilians.[107] Millions became white emigrants and the Russian famine of 1921-1922 claimed up to five million victims.[108][109]
Soviet Union
Lenin and his collaborators, on December 30, 1922, founded the Soviet Union, uniting the Russian SFSR into a single state with the republics of Belarus, Transcaucasia and Ukraine. Over time, changes in internal borders and annexations during World War II created a union of 15 republics; the largest in size and population was the Russian SFSR, which led the union throughout its history; politically, culturally and economically.[111] After Lenin's death in 1924, a troika was appointed to take charge. Eventually, Joseph Stalin, the general secretary of the Communist Party, managed to suppress all opposition factions and consolidate power in his hands to become the sole ruler of the country in the 1930s.[112] Leon Trotsky, the main proponent of the world revolution, was exiled from the Soviet Union in 1929,[113] and Stalin's idea of socialism in one country became official policy.[114] The continuation Internal fighting within the Bolshevik party culminated in the Great Purge.[115].
Under Stalin's leadership, the government launched a planned economy, the industrialization of the largely rural country, and the collectivization of its agriculture. During this period of rapid economic and social change, millions of people were sent to forced labor camps, including many political convicts for their perceived or real opposition to Stalin's government;[116] and millions were deported and exiled to remote areas of the Soviet Union.[117] The disorganization of the country's agricultural transition, combined with harsh state policies and drought, led to the Soviet famine of 1932–1933; which killed up to 8.7 million people.[118] The Soviet Union ultimately made the costly transformation from a largely agrarian economy to a major industrial power in a short period of time.[119].
The Soviet Union entered World War II on September 17, 1939 with its invasion of Poland,[120] in accordance with a protocol within the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact with Nazi Germany.[121] The Soviet Union subsequently invaded Finland,[122] occupied and annexed the Baltic republics,[123] as well as parts of Romania.[124] On September 22, 1939, June 1941, Germany broke the non-aggression treaty and invaded the Soviet Union;[125] which opened the Eastern Front, the largest theater of World War II.[126].
Eventually, some 5 million Red Army soldiers were captured by the Nazis;[127] they deliberately starved or otherwise killed 3.3 million Soviet prisoners of war and a large number of civilians, as the "Hunger Plan" sought to fulfill the General Eastern Plan.[128] Although the Wehrmacht had considerable initial success, its attack was halted at the Battle of Moscow.[129]The Germans subsequently suffered major defeats, first in the Battle of Stalingrad in the winter between 1942 and 1943;[130] and then in the Battle of Kursk in the summer of 1943.[131] Another German failure was the siege of Leningrad, in which the city was completely blockaded by land between 1941 and 1944 by German and Finnish forces, suffered hunger and more than a million deaths, but never surrendered.[132] Soviet forces swept across central and eastern Europe between 1944 and 1945; They captured Berlin in May 1945.[133] In August 1945, the Soviet army invaded Manchuria and expelled the Japanese from northeast Asia, contributing to the Allied victory over Japan.[134]
Russian Federation
The economic and political collapse of the Soviet Union led Russia into a deep and prolonged depression. During and after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, wide-ranging reforms were undertaken, including Privatization and market and trade liberalization, including radical changes in the sense of "shock therapy".[162] Privatization largely shifted control of businesses from state agencies to people with internal connections in the government, leading to the rise of the infamous Russian oligarchs.[163] Many of the nouveau riche moved billions in cash and assets. out of the country in a massive capital flight.[164] The depression of the economy led to the collapse of social services — the birth rate plummeted while the death rate skyrocketed and millions sank into poverty;[165][166][167] while extreme corruption,[168] as well as criminal gangs and organized crime increased significantly.[169] Excess mortality directly attributable to these policies of shock is estimated between 3.5 and 10 million people.[170].
In late 1993, tensions between Yeltsin and the Russian parliament culminated in a constitutional crisis that ended violently through military force. During the crisis, Yeltsin was backed by Western governments and more than 100 people were killed.[171] In December, a referendum was held and approved that introduced a new constitution, giving the president extensive powers.[172] The 1990s were plagued by armed conflicts in the North Caucasus, both local ethnic skirmishes and separatist Islamist insurrections.[173] From the time When Chechen separatists declared their independence in the early 1990s, an intermittent guerrilla war was fought between rebel groups and Russian forces.[174] Chechen separatists carried out terrorist attacks against civilians"), which claimed the lives of thousands of Russian civilians.[175].
Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Russia assumed responsibility for paying off the latter's external debts.[176] In 1992, most consumer price controls were removed, leading to extreme inflation and a significant devaluation of the ruble.[177] High budget deficits, coupled with increased capital flight and an inability to pay debts, led to the Russian financial crisis of 1998, which resulted in a further decline. of GDP.[178].
In 1999, President Yeltsin unexpectedly resigned and handed over to the newly appointed prime minister and his chosen successor, Vladimir Putin.[179] Putin then won the 2000 presidential election and defeated the Chechen separatists in the Second Chechen War.[180][181] He won a second presidential term in 2004.[182] High oil prices and increased foreign investment They caused the Russian economy to expand significantly for nine consecutive years.[183] Putin's rule increased stability, which improved the quality of life and increased Russia's influence on the world stage.[184] In 2008, Dmitri Medvedev was elected president of Russia, while Putin took over as prime minister after reaching the legal term limit.[185].