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1460 - 1861
(1460-1725) The continuous growth and consolidation of the
REOC and a change of dynasties from Rurik to Romanoff (1613)
were highlights. With the taking of Kazan (near the old Mongol
Empire capital) in 1551, Russia began its outward march eastward
towards Siberia. Entry there was in about 1585 and besides the
obvious pretenses of political and military, salt and furs were on the
agenda. Serfdom was established around 1615, meaning a formal
end to, in the literal sense, hunting-gathering and the beginning of
an all-people-registered-in–only-one-location, agrarian-based
society. This was also found to be a good base for a conscript
army. Obviously, this took time to develop, so not much happened
until the adulthood of Peter the Great around 1700. He cleared a
path to the Baltic Sea after driving out the Swedes and established
the city of St. Petersberg in 1703. (*KEY*) To facilitate his plans,
he began bringing in Germans as workers, skilled craftsman,
scientists, advisors, etc.---a trend that continued unabated until
Hitler’s rise to power in 1933. He built a navy, with plans to
compete with other world colonists and sent Vitas Bering off
towards discovery but everything crashed when he died
unexpectedly in 1725, leaving a huge vacuum of power for 40
years.
(1725-1861) Things stayed relatively calm in Russia until the
Napoleonic invasion of 1812 but the following things up until then
are worth noting. Around the mid-1700’s, the Russian Academy of
Science was founded by the great polymath Lomonosov, who is
sometimes considered to be a bastard son of Peter The Great, as
their appearances were very similar. The Academy’s first president
was a woman, Dashkova. In the early 1760’s came the next great
leader, Catherine the Great. In `1764, she began her expansionist
plans by importing about 25,000 German farmers to live in that
same region where the old Mongolian capital was as a buffer
against incursions from the south by still extant Mongol/Siberian
Turkic descendants, generally called Crimeans. This freed up her
REOC and a change of dynasties from Rurik to Romanoff (1613)
were highlights. With the taking of Kazan (near the old Mongol
Empire capital) in 1551, Russia began its outward march eastward
towards Siberia. Entry there was in about 1585 and besides the
obvious pretenses of political and military, salt and furs were on the
agenda. Serfdom was established around 1615, meaning a formal
end to, in the literal sense, hunting-gathering and the beginning of
an all-people-registered-in–only-one-location, agrarian-based
society. This was also found to be a good base for a conscript
army. Obviously, this took time to develop, so not much happened
until the adulthood of Peter the Great around 1700. He cleared a
path to the Baltic Sea after driving out the Swedes and established
the city of St. Petersberg in 1703. (*KEY*) To facilitate his plans,
he began bringing in Germans as workers, skilled craftsman,
scientists, advisors, etc.---a trend that continued unabated until
Hitler’s rise to power in 1933. He built a navy, with plans to
compete with other world colonists and sent Vitas Bering off
towards discovery but everything crashed when he died
unexpectedly in 1725, leaving a huge vacuum of power for 40
years.
(1725-1861) Things stayed relatively calm in Russia until the
Napoleonic invasion of 1812 but the following things up until then
are worth noting. Around the mid-1700’s, the Russian Academy of
Science was founded by the great polymath Lomonosov, who is
sometimes considered to be a bastard son of Peter The Great, as
their appearances were very similar. The Academy’s first president
was a woman, Dashkova. In the early 1760’s came the next great
leader, Catherine the Great. In `1764, she began her expansionist
plans by importing about 25,000 German farmers to live in that
same region where the old Mongolian capital was as a buffer
against incursions from the south by still extant Mongol/Siberian
Turkic descendants, generally called Crimeans. This freed up her
going west and southwest with her troops and, by the time of her
death in 1796, Russia had annexed all of what was left of Ukraine,
Poland, and a good chunk of Prussia, (*KEY*) meaning almost all
of European Jewry lived in Russia. Then she annexed the Crimean
Peninsula in the 1780’s, with an eye on the Black Sea and Turkey
(engagement there actually began before her death). (*KEY*) She
added French imported talent to the ever-growing German stock
(she herself being 100% German), especially after many French
aristocrats fled France during and after the revolution in 1789. The
language at Court was French, not Russian, which was considered
vulgar. In these contexts, Catherine was fully extended manpower-
wise; however, she refused British requests for contract soldiers
needed to serve in the American colony leading up to 1776 on
ideological grounds. Russia and the U.S.A. established formal
diplomatic relations in the 1780’s. Catherine’s son Paul, who
assumed power when she died in 1796 was too fond of Germany
and very weak (just like his father, who was disposed of by his
mother 35 years earlier so as to assume power); this vacuum fit the
expansionist desires of Napoleon perfectly, ultimately culminating in
his invasion of Russia in 1812. By late Autumn, he was in Moscow.
The Russian commander, Kutuzov, ordered Moscow burned so as
to deprive the French of provisions---Napoleon was forced to flee.
Of the original 200,000+ army that invaded, only 5,000 made it back
to Paris. This war of 1812 (which is what Tchaikovsky’s 1812
overture is about) was the first example of modern guerilla warfare
using forest on a large scale; the exact scenario repeated itself
(partisans) in ww-2 against Germany. (*KEY*) The long chase to
Paris exposed many of Russia’s best officers to Western Europe
and its heightened modernity/enlightenment compared to their
homeland. This allowed brief intellectual flirtations with ideas like
constitutional monarchy but these ended during the interregnum
between Tsars in 1825. Between then and 1861, the monarchy
spent most of its energy trying to curb enthusiasm for even the
slightest progressive change, symbolized mainly by the great
Russian literary figure Alexander Pushkin. These efforts culminated
in the disastrous Crimean War in 1854, which showed the world
what a weak comprehensive power Russia really was. This fact,
combined with the rapidly accelerating Industrial Revolution (with its
attendant inefficiencies related to slavery) led to 1861 and the end
of serfdom---just at the same time as slavery ended in the U.S.A.
The U.S.A. and Russia---distant and worlds apart ideologically---
continued to have good diplomatic relations.
death in 1796, Russia had annexed all of what was left of Ukraine,
Poland, and a good chunk of Prussia, (*KEY*) meaning almost all
of European Jewry lived in Russia. Then she annexed the Crimean
Peninsula in the 1780’s, with an eye on the Black Sea and Turkey
(engagement there actually began before her death). (*KEY*) She
added French imported talent to the ever-growing German stock
(she herself being 100% German), especially after many French
aristocrats fled France during and after the revolution in 1789. The
language at Court was French, not Russian, which was considered
vulgar. In these contexts, Catherine was fully extended manpower-
wise; however, she refused British requests for contract soldiers
needed to serve in the American colony leading up to 1776 on
ideological grounds. Russia and the U.S.A. established formal
diplomatic relations in the 1780’s. Catherine’s son Paul, who
assumed power when she died in 1796 was too fond of Germany
and very weak (just like his father, who was disposed of by his
mother 35 years earlier so as to assume power); this vacuum fit the
expansionist desires of Napoleon perfectly, ultimately culminating in
his invasion of Russia in 1812. By late Autumn, he was in Moscow.
The Russian commander, Kutuzov, ordered Moscow burned so as
to deprive the French of provisions---Napoleon was forced to flee.
Of the original 200,000+ army that invaded, only 5,000 made it back
to Paris. This war of 1812 (which is what Tchaikovsky’s 1812
overture is about) was the first example of modern guerilla warfare
using forest on a large scale; the exact scenario repeated itself
(partisans) in ww-2 against Germany. (*KEY*) The long chase to
Paris exposed many of Russia’s best officers to Western Europe
and its heightened modernity/enlightenment compared to their
homeland. This allowed brief intellectual flirtations with ideas like
constitutional monarchy but these ended during the interregnum
between Tsars in 1825. Between then and 1861, the monarchy
spent most of its energy trying to curb enthusiasm for even the
slightest progressive change, symbolized mainly by the great
Russian literary figure Alexander Pushkin. These efforts culminated
in the disastrous Crimean War in 1854, which showed the world
what a weak comprehensive power Russia really was. This fact,
combined with the rapidly accelerating Industrial Revolution (with its
attendant inefficiencies related to slavery) led to 1861 and the end
of serfdom---just at the same time as slavery ended in the U.S.A.
The U.S.A. and Russia---distant and worlds apart ideologically---
continued to have good diplomatic relations.
