25 Facts About Imperial Russia

1.

Russian Empire, known as Imperial Russia, spanned Eurasia from 1721 to 1917 and held colonies in North America between 1799 and 1867.

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2.

Imperial Russia lacked a secure northern seaport, except at Archangel on the White Sea, where the harbor was frozen for nine months a year.

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3.

Imperial Russia replaced the old boyar Duma with a nine-member Senate, in effect a supreme council of state.

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4.

Imperial Russia slowed the reforms and led a successful war against the Ottoman Empire.

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5.

Imperial Russia contributed to the resurgence of the Russian nobility that began after the death of Peter the Great, abolishing State service and granting them control of most state functions in the provinces.

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6.

Imperial Russia removed the tax on beards instituted by Peter the Great.

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7.

Imperial Russia furthered these efforts by ordering the public trial of Darya Nikolayevna Saltykova, a high-ranking nobleman, on charges of torturing and murdering serfs.

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8.

Imperial Russia presided over the redrawing of the map of Europe at the Congress of Vienna, which ultimately made Alexander the monarch of Congress Poland.

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9.

Question of Imperial Russia's direction had been gaining attention ever since Peter the Great's program of modernization.

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10.

Imperial Russia attempted to expand to the southwest, at the expense of the Ottoman Empire, using recently acquired Georgia at its base for its Caucasus and Anatolian front.

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11.

Since playing a major role in the defeat of Napoleon, Imperial Russia had been regarded as militarily invincible, but against a coalition of the great powers of Europe, the reverses it suffered on land and sea exposed the weakness of Emperor Nicholas I's regime.

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12.

At the Congress of Berlin in July 1878, Imperial Russia agreed to the creation of a smaller Bulgaria, as an autonomous principality inside the Ottoman Empire.

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13.

The throne passed to Alexander III, a reactionary who revived the maxim of "Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality" of Nicholas I A committed Slavophile, Alexander III believed that Russia could be saved from turmoil only by shutting itself off from the subversive influences of Western Europe.

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14.

Imperial Russia had little difficulty expanding to the south, including conquering Turkestan, until Britain became alarmed when Imperial Russia threatened Afghanistan, with the implicit threat to India; and decades of diplomatic maneuvering resulted, called the Great Game.

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15.

Once Afghanistan was informally partitioned in 1907, Britain, France, and Imperial Russia came increasingly close together in opposition to Germany and Austria.

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16.

An important feature of Imperial Russia is its few free outlets to the open sea, outside the ice-bound shores of the Arctic Ocean.

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17.

Imperial Russia established settlements in Hawaii, including Fort Elizabeth, and as far south in North America as Fort Ross Colony in Sonoma County, California just north of San Francisco.

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18.

At the Congress of Vienna, Imperial Russia gained sovereignty over Congress Poland, which on paper was an autonomous Kingdom in personal union with Imperial Russia.

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19.

Not that the regime in Imperial Russia had become in any true sense constitutional, far less parliamentary.

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20.

Imperial Russia retained an absolute veto over all legislation, and only he could initiate any changes to the Organic Law itself.

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21.

Imperial Russia's ministers were responsible solely to him, and not to the Duma or any other authority, which could question but not remove them.

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22.

Under Imperial Russia's revised Fundamental Law of 20 February 1906, the Council of the Empire was associated with the Duma as a legislative Upper House; from this time the legislative power was exercised normally by the Emperor only in concert with the two chambers.

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23.

Alongside the local organs of the central government in Imperial Russia there are three classes of local elected bodies charged with administrative functions:.

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24.

Imperial Russia argues that those reforms brought about measurable improvements in social welfare.

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25.

Imperial Russia lacked that, and for university education, young men went to Western Europe.

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