38 Facts About Russian Empire

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

The groundwork leading up to the establishment of the Russian Empire was laid by Ivan III: he tripled the territory of the Russian state and laid its foundation, renovating the Moscow Kremlin and ending the dominance of the Golden Horde.

From 1721 until 1762, the Russian Empire was ruled by the House of Romanov; its matrilineal branch of patrilineal German descent, the House of Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov, ruled from 1762 until 1917.

At the beginning of the 19th century, the territory of the Russian Empire extended from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Black Sea in the south, and from the Baltic Sea in the west to Alaska, Hawaii, and California in the east.

The Russian Empire further expanded to the west, south, and east, concurrently establishing itself as one of the most powerful European powers.

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Until the 1905 Russian Revolution, the Russian Empire functioned as an absolute monarchy, following which a semi-constitutional monarchy was nominally established.

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

Russian Empire's slowed the reforms and led a successful war against the Ottoman Empire.

Discontent over the dominant positions of Baltic Germans in Russian Empire politics resulted in Peter I's daughter Elizabeth being put on the Russian Empire throne.

Russian Empire's 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.

Russian Empire's removed the tax on beards instituted by Peter the Great.

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

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

The background of this revolt lay in the Napoleonic Wars, when a number of well-educated Russian Empire officers travelled in Europe in the course of military campaigns, where their exposure to the liberalism of Western Europe encouraged them to seek change on their return to autocratic Russia.

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

Russian Empire emperors quelled two uprisings in their newly acquired Polish territories: the November Uprising in 1830 and the January Uprising in 1863.

In 1863, the Russian Empire autocracy had given the Polish artisans and gentry reason to rebel, by assailing national core values of language, religion, and culture.

In 1900, the Russian Empire invaded Manchuria as part of the Eight-Nation Alliance's intervention against the Boxer Rebellion.

The Mensheviks believed that the Russian Empire working class was insufficiently developed and that socialism could be achieved only after a period of bourgeois democratic rule.

The Russian Empire masses were so furious over the massacre that a general strike was declared, which demanded a democratic republic.

Russian Empire established settlements in Hawaii, including Fort Elizabeth, and as far south in North America as Fort Ross Colony (established in 1812) in Sonoma County, California just north of San Francisco.

Russian Empire expanded its influence and possessions in Central Asia, especially in the later 19th century, conquering much of Russian Turkestan in 1865 and continuing to add territory as late as 1885.

The result of this was that, while the British and French empires declined in the 20th century, a large portion of the Russian Empire's territory remained together, first within the Soviet Union, and after 1991 in the still-smaller Russian Federation.

In 1815, Dr Schaffer, a Russian Empire entrepreneur, went to Kauai and negotiated a treaty of protection with the island's governor Kaumualii, vassal of King Kamehameha I of Hawaii, but the Russian Empire emperor refused to ratify the treaty.

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

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

Under Russia's revised Fundamental Law of 20 February 1906, the Council of the Russian 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.

Duma of the Empire or Imperial Duma, which formed the lower house of the Russian parliament, consisted (since the ukaz of 2 June 1907) of 442 members, elected by an exceedingly complicated process.

Vassals and protectorates of the Russian Empire included the Emirate of Bukhara, the Khanate of Khiva, and, after 1914, Tuva.

Judicial system of the Russian Empire was established by the statute of 20 November 1864 of Alexander II.

In 1893, district committees for the management of the peasants' affairs, similar to those in purely Russian governments, were introduced into this part of the Empire.

Empire had a predominantly agricultural economy based on large estates worked by Russian peasants, known as serfs, who were tied to the land under a feudal arrangement.

The principal ecclesiastical authority of the Russian Church—which extended its jurisdiction over the entire territory of the Empire, including the ex-Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti—was the Most Holy Synod, the civilian Over Procurator of the Holy Synod being one of the council of ministers with wide de facto powers in ecclesiastical matters.

Military of the Russian Empire consisted of the Imperial Russian Army and the Imperial Russian Navy.

However, the Russian Empire forces fell further behind the technology, training, and organization of the German, French, and particularly the British militaries.

Russian Empire was predominantly a rural society spread over vast spaces.

Russian Empire argues that those reforms brought about measurable improvements in social welfare.

Subjects of the Russian Empire were segregated into sosloviyes, or social estates such as nobility (dvoryanstvo), clergy, merchants, cossacks, and peasants.