W4343: Imperial Russia, 1682-1918

Important Names, Dates, Russian Terms

• Chronology
• Russian Rulers
• Other Important Names
• The Muscovite Social Hierarchy
• Foreign and Technical Terms, with a note on the Russian language

CHRONOLOGY
 

7th-8th Centuries	Settlement of Slavs in East Europe
800	Charlemagne crowned first Holy Roman Emperor
863-885	Mission of St. Cyril and St. Methodius
862	The Varangian (Viking) Rurik becomes ruler of Novgorod
882	Oleg becomes ruler of Kiev
860-1043	Russian raids on Constantinople
988	Prince Vladimir baptizes Rus'
1066	Battle of Hastings
1097	The First Crusade Begins
11th-12th Centuries	Kievan Rus' disintegrates into many parts
1147	Founding of Moscow
1185	Crusade of Prince Igor against the Kumans, later immortalized in "The Lay of Igor's Campaign"
1206	Genghis Khan assumes command of the Mongols
1237-1241	Invasion and conquest of Rus' by Batu Khan (grandson of Genghis)
1240	Alexander Nevsky's victory of the Swedes on the Neva River
c. 1243	Formation of the Golden Horde, of which northeastern Russia and Novgorod become tributaries
1252	Emergence of Moscow as an independent hereditary principality
1318	Prince Yury of Moscow acquires the Charter of the Grand Prince from the Mongols
1325-1340	Ivan I (Kalita, or "Moneybags"), prince of Moscow. Moscow begins rapid growth
1360s-70s	Dynastic crises in Golden Horde, collapse of Mongol power in Iran and China
1380	Dmitri Donskoi defeats Mongols at Kulikovo
1382	Moscow sacked by Mongols
1395	Defeat of the Golden Horde by Tamerlane
1408	Principality of Moscow devasted by Golden Horde
1439	Council of Florence attempts to reunite eastern and western churches. Russian hierarchy rejects attempt.
1448	Church of Moscow declared autocephalous
c. 1450	Golden Horde disintegrates; formation of Kazan, Astrakhan, and Crimean principalities (khanates)
1453	Ottoman Turks capture Constantinople
1463-68	First limitations opon freedom of peasant movement
1463-1514	Moscow annexes: Yaroslavl', Perm, Rostov, Novgorod, Tver, Vyatka, Pskov, Smolensk
1480	Ivan III terminates the "Mongol Yoke"
1484, 1489	Massacres in Novgorod and deportation of its leading citizens to inland Russia. Annexation of Pskov in 1510 also followed by mass deportations.
1533-84	Rule of Ivan IV, the Terrible
1547	Ivan assumes the title, "Tsar." Marriage and coronation of Ivan IV. Fire of Moscow.
1549	First meeting of the Semskii sobor (Landed Assembly)
1550s	First prikazy formed and reforms of local administration. Moscow constructs chain of stockades along the southern border and Russian colonization of the steppe begins
1552	Capture and annexation of Khanate of Kazan
1556	Conquest of Astrakhan
1564	First book printed in Moscow by Ivan Fedorov
1565-1584	Ivan IV's reign of terror
1571-72	Crimean Tatars raid and burn Moscow
1577	Establishment of commercial ties with Holland
1589	Formation of the office of patriarch in Moscow. Metropolitan is raised to rank of patriarch.
1596	Creation of Uniate Church in Poland-Lithuania
1598	End of the Riurik dynasty. End if the dynasty of Ivan Kalita. Coronation of Boris Godunov
1601-04	Years of famine
1605	Death of Boris Godunov and beginning of period of unrest
1605-1613	"Time of Troubles": Russia threatened with Polish and Swedish conquest. Ends with the accesstion of the Romanov dynasty. (Election of Michael Romanov by Semskii sobor in 1613)
1649	Zemskii sobor issues Sobornoye Ulozhenie (Code of Laws)
1652-58	Nikon as patriarch institutes his reforms
1653	Last full meeting of Zemskii sobor
1654	Ukrainian Cossacks swear allegience to the tsar of Moscow; Church Council adopts Nikon's reforms thereby causing a schism
1654-67	Russo-Polish war over Ukraine
1666	Establishment of postal service in Russia; Church Council deposes Patriarch Nikon. Synod condemns Nikon, but retains his reforms; beginning of schism (raskol).
1667	Poland cedes Kiev and Smolensk to Russia in the Peace of Andrusovo
1670-71	Revolt of Stenka Razin
1676-81	War with the Ottoman Empire and in the Crimea
1682	Death of Fedor III. After strel'tsy attack on the Kremlin Ivan V and Peter I are established as co-tsars. Beginning of hte regency of Sophia. Execution of Archpriest Avvakim. Mestnichestvo abolished.
1696	Death of Ivan V. Capture of Azov, after an unsuccessful attack in the previous year. Building of a naval squadron begins there.
1697-98	"Great Embassy" to western Europe. Peter visits the Netherlands, England, and Austria, but fails to secure help against the Ottoman Empire.
1698	Strel'tsy revolt breaks out and is savagely suppressed.
1700	Peace is made with the Ottoman Empire. Outbreak of war with Sweden, and great Russian defeat at Narva. Patriarch Adrian dies, but no successor is appointed; replaced by acting head of church. Abolition of patriarchate
1703	Peter founds St. Petersburg, foundations of new city laid. Vedomosti, Russia's first newspaper, published.
1705	Systematic conscription for the armed forces established, recruitment obligation instituted
1707	Great advance against Russia of Sweden's Charles XII begins. Outbreak of Cossack rising in the Don area, which lasts into the following year. St. Petersburg replaces Moscow as capital of Russia.
1708	Effort at reform of local administration by the creation of the gubernii and their subdivisions (followed by further changes, notably in 1715). The Swedes are defeated at the battle of Lesnaya but are joined by Cossack hetman Mazepa.
1709	Decisive Russian victory over Sweden at Poltava, followed by rapid rise in Russia's prestige and internatinoal standing. Construction of St. Petersburg begins.
1710	Russians take Livonia and Estonia
1711	Outbreak of war with the Ottoman Empire and Russian defeat on the Prut. Creation of the senate. Peter abolishes most trading monopolies. Boyar Duma replaced by the senate.
1713	Peace treaty with the Ottoman Empire
1714	Decree forbids subdivision of estates among the heirs when the holder dies. Edict requiring landowners to bequeath estates intact to a single heir. Kormleniya abolished and civil servants placed on a salary
1717	Peter's second journey to western Europe. He visits the Netherlands and Paris
1718	Creation of the administrative colleges starts. Unsuccessful peace negotiations with Sweden begin. Beginning of first "soul" census. Colleges replace prikazy.
1721	War with Sweden is ended by the treaty of Nystad. Peter assumes the title of emperor
1722	Table of Ranks promulgated. War with Perisa begins. Peter assumes the right to nominate his own successor. Succession law abolished: emperors free to choose successors.
1724	Catherine, Peter's second wife (married privately in 1707), is crowned as empress. "Soul" tax introduced. First comprehensive protective tariff.
1725	Death of Peter and accession of Catherine. Establishment of the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg.
1730	Constitutional crisis; unsuccessful attempt by Supreme Privy Council to impose "Conditions" on Empress Anna. Inheritance laws of 1714 repealed.
1736	Compulsory state service limited to 25 years and may begin at age 20; one son of landlord may remain home. "Possessional" serfs attached in perpetuity to factories and mines.
1755	University of Moscow founded.
1762	"Manifesto of Dvoryanstvo Liberty" exempting dvoryanye (gentry) from compulsory state service. Church and monastic properties sequestered; law goes into effest in 1764. Most commercial and manufacturing monopolies (regalia) abolished. Law of 1721 allowing merchants to buy villages revoked.
1762	Catherine II, the Great, gains throne by coup d'etat; her husband, Peter II, is murdered.
1767	Legislative Commission convoked to draft new code of laws.
1772	First Partition of Poland
1773-75	Peasant and Cossack uprising under Yemelian Pugachev
1775	Provincial reform. All manufacturing activity open to all estates
1785	Charter of the Nobility and Charter of the Cities (April)
1787-91	War with the Ottoman Empire
1790	Publication of Radishchev's Journey, followed by his arrest.
1793	Second Partition of Poland
1795	Third Partition of Poland
1802	Reorganization of senate. Establishment of Ministries.
1804	Kharkov and Kazan universities founded. Statute on Jews
1807	Treaty of Tilset with Napoleon
1809	Abortive attempt to introduce civil service examinations. Conquest of Finland
1812	French invade Russia and take Moscow
1814	Paris taken and Tsar Alexander I enters in triumph
1815	Holy Alliance and Quadruple Alliance
1825	Decembrist Revolt
1826	Execution of conspirators; organization of political police (Third Section of Imperial Chancery). Censorship code
1830-31	Suppression of Polish revolt. Polish constitution abrogated
1832	Code of Laws issued
1834	Alexander Herzen banished to Vyatka. New radical intelligentsia from now on in conflict with censors and police.
1836	Publication of Chaadaev's First Philosophical Letter. Chaadaev declared insane by Nicholas I for his critique of Russian backwardness.
1845	Hereditary gentry restricted to top five ranks. Revised version of Criminal Code.
1848	Revolution in France, Austia, Italy and Germany. Chartist Petition in England. Publication of Marx's Communist Manifesto
1851	Opening of St. Petersburg-Moscow Railway
1853-56	Crimean War
1861	Emancipation of serfs. Formation of first revolutionary groups.
1862	Bismarck becomes chencellor of Prussia. Start of Russian railway boom
1863	Poland rebels. Leo Tolstoy begins War and Peace
1863-64	Reforms of lae, education, and local government (zemstva)
1864-68	Conquest of Central Asia
1867	Sale of Alaska to the United States
1873-74	First "Going to the People" movement
1877-78	Russo-Turkish war. Mass trials of radicals and revolutionaries
1878-81	Development of terrorist activity. Dynamiting of Winter Palace; wrecking of imperial trains
1881	Alexander II assassinated
1881	Reaction. Institution of Emergency Powers. Ascendancy of Pobedonostsev. Major edict concerning "Temporary Laws."
1883	Law requiring peasants to buy out their land allotment
1887	Execution of Lenin's brother for participating in attempt on Alexander III. Soul tax abolished.
1890	Famine
1891	Start of Trans-Siberian Railway
1892-1903	Sergei Witte revolutionizes industry, commerce, and transport
1898	Foundation of Marxist Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party
1902	Foundation of Socialist Revolutionary Party. Assassination of D. S. Sipyagin (minister of interior)
1903	Lenin splits Social-Democratic party into Bolshevik and Menshevik wings. Kishinev pogrom
1904-05	Russo-Japanese war
1905	Bloody Sunday (Jan. 9) Desturction of Russian fleet at Tsushima by Japanese (May). Assassination of Grand Duke Sergei. Abortive revolution (general strike; establishment of Soviets of Worker's Deputies; violent repression. Concession of representative assembly, or state duma, Oct. 17). Manifesto promising civil liberties and representative institutions.
1906-1911	The Stolypin era. Successive dumas convened and prorogued. Revolutionary agricultural reforms. Industrial progress. Rasputin gains ascendancy over Tsaritsa and Tsar.
1907	Anglo-Russian entente. Redemption payments and arrears canceled.
1908	Austria annexes Bosnia-Herzegovina
1914-1917	War with Germany and Austria
1916	Rasputin murdered (Dec)
1917	Nicholas I abdicates (Feb). Outbreak of revolution. Bolshevik seizure of power (Oct). Provisional government formed but duma takes over.
1918	Murder of former tsar and his family (July)

RUSSIAN RULERS
 

House of Rurik - Princes of Moscow
1263-1303	Daniel (son of Alexander I of Vladimir; prince of Moscow, 1263 or later)
1303-1325	Yurii (son)
1325-1340	Ivan I, Kalita ("moneybags") (brother)
1340-1353	Simeon the Proud (son)
1353-1359	Ivan II, the Gentle (brother)
Grand Princes of Moscow-Vladimir
1359-1389	Dimitri Donskoi (son)
1389-1425	Basil I (son) also, Vassily
1425-1462	Basil II, the Blind (son) also, Vassily
1462-1505	Ivan III, the Great (son)
1471-1490	Ivan the Younger (son; co-regent)
1505-1533	Basil III (brother; co-regent 1502) also, Vassily
Tsars of Russia
1533-1584	Ivan IV, the Terrible (son; crowned tsar 1547)
1584-1598	Theodore I (son) also, Fyodor, Fe(o)dor
House of Godunov
1598-1605	Boris Godunov
1605	Theodore II (son) also, Fyodor, Fe(o)dor
1605-1606	Dimitri (pretended son of Ivan IV)
House of Shuiskii
1606-1610	Basil IV Shuiskii (deposed, died 1612; interregnum 1610-13)
House of Romanov
1613-1645	Michael Romanov also Mikhail
1645-1676	Alexis (son) also, Alexei Mikhailovich
1676-1682	Theodore III (son) also, Fyodor or Fe(o)dor
1682-1696	Ivan V (brother)
1682-1725	Peter I, the Great (brother, emperor 1721)
1725-1727	Catherine I (widow) born Martha
1727-1730	Peter II (grandson of Peter I)
1730-1740	Anne (daughter of Ivan V)
1740-1741	Ivan VI (maternal grandson of Catherine, sister of Anne; deposed, died 1764)
1741-1762	Elizabeth (daughter of Catherine I and Peter I)
House of Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov
1762	Peter III (son of Anne, sister of Elizabeth, and Charles Frederick of Holstein-Gottorp; deposed, died 1762)
1762-1796	Catherine II, the Great (widow) born Princess Sophia of Anhalt-Zerbst
1796-1801	Paul I (son)
1801-1825	Alexander I (son)
1825-1855	Nicholas I (brother)
1855-1881	Alexander II (son)
1881-1894	Alexander III (son)
1894-1917	Nicholas II (son; deposed, died 1918; provisional government, then Soviet rule)

from The Wordsworth Handbook of Kings & Queens, 1989.
See also Appendix I, p. 629,  in Riasanovsky for the same info in family-tree format.

OTHER IMPORTANT NAMES

Boris Morozov - tutor of Tsar Alexei and important boiar. His corrupt practices made him extremely unpopular and were the cause of violent riots in Moscow in 1648.
Patriarch Philaret - a.k.a. Fedor Nikitich Romanov, father of Michael Romanov, first Romanov tsar. Compelled to take monastic vows by Boris Godunov, he was released by the first False Dmitri and made metropolitan of Rostov in 1606. Arrested and sent to Poland in 1611. Returned to Moscow when his son Michael was elected tsar and was enthroned at patriarch in 1619. From that time on he ruled Russia jointly with Tsar Michael.
Patriarch Nikon - His reforms created a schism in the Orthodox Church and alienated a section of the clergy and of laymen (the Old Believers). The reforms included the standardization of the ritual and the introduction of a new prayer book (1654). Nikon aroused powerful opposition and was condemned by a church council in 1666-7, deposed and confined to a monastery. His reforms remained in place, however.
Semyon Polotskii - One of tsar Alexei Mikhailovich's tutors, and a monk, preacher, playwright and poet. Known mainly for the metrical innovations of his verse, which was taken from Polish models. He had studied in Poland and brought to Russia the influence of Polish and Classical arts and literature.
Boris Golitsyn - Tutor of Peter the Great, also helped him come to power and was in charge of the administration in lower Volga region. Alcoholic, and rather despotic.
Basil (or Vasily) Golitsyn - Statesman in charge of foreign affairs under the regent Sofiia (also her lover, and real ruler during her regency). Assited in the reorganization of military service and abolition of mestnichestvo.
Alexei Petrovich Romanov - Son of Peter the Great, removed from the succession in favor of Peter's second wife, Catherine, because Alexei "refused to serve the state." Later, Peter was behind Alexei's murder.
Demidov - Urals manufacturer under Peter the Great. Fabulously wealthy, and famous for his cruel treatment of workers.
Ivan Mazepa - Ukrainian Hetman from 1687. Conspired with the Polish and Swedish kings to overthrow Peter, and supported Charles XII's invasion of Ukraine. Defeated at the battle of Poltava in 1709.
Feofan Prokopovich - Ukrainian theologian and archibishop. Summoned to Saint Petersburg by Peter the Great in 1716 to assist in both ecclesiastical and secular reforms. See the Ecclesiastical Regulations in Cracraft.
Alexander Menshikov - Close friend to Peter the Great. Rose from obscure origins to become extremely wealthy statesman and field marshal, and later ruled Russia during the reign of Catherine I and the minority of Peter II. Eventually banished to Siberia due to court intrigue.
Charles XII - Ruled Sweden 1697 to 1718, led the Swedish Army during the Great Northern War with Russia, beginning with a major Russian defeat at Narva in 1700, and ending with the Russian victory at Poltava in 1709.
Sofiia Alekseevna - Regent of Russia from 1682 to 1689, during the minority of Peter and Ivan V. Daughter of Alexei Mikhailovich and well educated by Semën Polotsk. Her lover, Vasily Golitsyn, mostly ruled for her during her regency.
Anna Ioannovna (sometimes spelled Ivanovna) - Daughter of Ivan V (Peter the Great's sickly co-tsar, and thus niece to Peter). She married the duke of Courland in 1710, and he died soon thereafter. She was elected empress by the Supreme Privy Council on the condition that she accept a number of provisions ("points," punkty ) curtailing her powers. She accepted, but upon her arrival in Moscow -- where she found support from the guards regiments and the lesser nobility, who were suspicious of the powerful old families represented on the Supreme Privy Council -- she violated the agreement and took total power into her own hands. She then proceeded to devote herself to luxury while letting her German advisors run the state.
Dolgorukii family - Very old, very wealthy, very powerful noble family. Prince Vasily was on the Supreme Privy Council that attempted to impose conditions on Anna Ioannovna, and a Princess Dolgorukaia was engaged to marry Peter II, but he died of smallpox in 1729, forcing the "crisis" of 1730.
Vasily Tatishchev - Historian, administrator and geographer. Advisor to Peter the great and supporter of Anna Ioannovna during the 1730 crisis.
Ernst Johann Biron (Buhren) - German favorite of Anna Ioannovna. Her lover from 1727, made a grand chamberlain and count. Extremely unpopular owing to his vindictive and corrupt character. Regent for three weeks after Anna's death, he was deposed and banished to Siberia. Allowed to return under Peter III.
Count Bartolommeo Rastrelli - Court architect under Empress Elizabeth. Built several Baroque palaces for the Romanovs (the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, Peterhof, and the Catherine Palace in Tsarskoe Selo) as well as the Smolny convent.
Alexander Sumorokov - Playwright, journalist, literary critic, and man of letters. In 1756 he was director of the first permanent theater in Russia. His style mimics French neoclassical literature.
Denis Fonvizin - First Russian playwright, noted for his comedies, many of which satirized the Gallomania of Russian elite society.
Mikhail Lomonosov - Poet and scientist, sometimes called the father of modern Russian literature. As an assistant professor at the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg, he did research in the principles of matter and partially anticipated the atomic theory of the structure of matter. He established the first chemical laboratory in Russia and wrote the first Russian grammar. He also wrote a history of Russia and altered the character of Russian prosody by adopting tonic versification in his poetry. He has long been venerated in Russia as a symbol of Russian creative genuis.
(Y)Emelian Pugachëv - Cossack leader of a revolt during Catherine II's reign. Declaring himself Emperor Peter III in 1773, he issued a manifesto promising to free the serfs. Pugachev won widespread support in the Volga area and in the Urals, but the revolt was eventually crushed and he was executed. Hundreds of estates were looted and burned during the revolt, and the landlords with their families often suffered violents at the hands of the peasant. The specter of this revolt hung for a long time over the minds of the provincial gentry, making the prospect of a peasant emancipation almost impossible.
Count Nikita Panin - Statesman and diplomatic advisor to Catherine the Great. Appointed to supervise the Grand Duke Paul's education in 1760 and supported Catherine's coup in 1762. Later led a circle of intellectuals in support of Catherine's Nakaz, or "Instruction."
Nikolas Novikov - Writer and publisher, seminal figure in the early printing industry in Russia. He edited and published four periodicals, including "The Drone," which satirized the idleness of the gentry and engaged in a running debate with Catherine's own journal on issues of the day, until Catherine became displeased with his views and began to shut down his journals, one after the other. He took over the Moscow University Press in 1778, but it was closed by Catherine in 1791 and he was later imprisoned. He was released upon the accession of Paul I.
Alexander Radishchev - His Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow exposes the injustices of serfdom and earned him the death sentence. This was commuted to 10 years' exile in Siberia, where he continued his literary activity. Following the death of Catherine the Great, Radishchev was permitted to return and in 1801 served on the commission for the codification of laws. He committed suicide in 1802, despairing that he was unable to effect any real change in the lot of the serfs.
Nikolai Novosil'tsev -
Viktor Kochubei -
Count Pavel Stroganov -
Prince Adam Czartoryski -
Michael Speransky -
N. M. Karamzin -
Professor Pavlov -
Schelling -
Aleksei Arakcheev -
Alexander Golitsyn -

THE STRUCTURE OF RUSSIAN SOCIETY IN THE 17TH CENTURY
  (If you're viewing this in frames and have trouble with the table, try right-clicking, then open the frame in a new window, and maximize that window. If all else fails, see the simplified hierarchy below.)
 

Civil Hierarchy	Church Hierarchy	Civil Urban Hierarchy
The Tsar and his Family *** Upper Service Class Boyars/Boiars         (Members Okolnichie              of the  Dumnye dvoryane   Boyar Dumnye d'yaki       Council)   Stol'niki Stryapchie D'yaki   Moscow dvoryane Zhil'tsy *** Middle Service Class Dvoryane (Gentry) Deti boyarskie *** Lower Service Class   Musketeers (strel'tsy) Cossacks Gunners (pushkari) Riflemen (zatinshchiki) Soldiers *** Peasants Landed peasants (krest'yane) Landless peasants (bobyli) *** Bondmen Contract bondmen (kabal'nye kholopi) Hereditary bondmen (close to slaves; various types)	- Patriarch - Metropolitans - Archbishops - Bishops - Monastery heads - archimandrites (in important monasteries, or overseeing several) - Monastery fathers superior - Archdeacons - Monastery cellarers - Monastery treasurers - Cathedral elders - Elders - Monks - Priests - Deacons - Servants	- Gosti (merchants of the first guild) - Gostinaya sotnya (merchants of the second guild) - Sukonnaya sotnya (merchants of the third guild) - Townsmen (posadskie liudi) - Dependents (zakladchiki)

(adapted from Richard Hellie. Muscovite Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967)

Or, in incredibly simplified terms:

- Tsar and family
- Boyars (old princely families) and other high nobility (the Patriarch and metropolitans fit in somewhere around here in status)
- Lesser nobility, landed gentry (many very poor, constituting middle service class) (also, Monastery officials and monks)
- Soldiers, merchants, most clergymen, landed peasants
- Serfs, or peasants bound to land and lord (by 1649, very fine line between serfs and slaves)

(This hierarchy remains essentially the same throughout the Imperial period, except that the term 'boyar' or 'boiar' is no longer in use after Peter the Great abolishes the Boyar Council and institutes the Table of Ranks.)
 
 
 

FOREIGN / TECHNICAL TERMS

Some terms you will encounter frequently in lecture and readings:

chernozëm - lit. "black soil" - the region with the most productive soil for agriculture (mostly Ukraine)
zemskii sobor - "Assembly of the Land" - an occasional gathering of boyars, clergy, gentry, and sometimes burghers and peasants, called by Muscovite tsars to consider matters of special importance. Abandoned by Peter the Great.
vlast' - "power" - has very strong, often forbidding, connotations in Russian
prikazy - "chancelleries" - departments of the Muscovite government, headed by a boyar or okolnich. There were many.
boiars - members of the medieval Russian aristocracy in the 16th and 17th centuries, as distinguished from the service nobles, "pomeshchiki." Boiars received their titles from the tsars, headed important offices, and participated in the Boiar duma, an advisory council.
pomestiia - estates held on service tenure. In the early 18th century and later, the term is used more generally to describe estates owned by nobles (largely replacing the term votchina, meaning inherited, privately owned land).
strel'tsy - "musketeers" - a military corps established by Ivan the Terrible and holding special privileges. Abolished by Peter the Great after an uprising.
duma - council, or later parliament. There is a "State Duma" in the Russian government today, composed of an upper and lower house.
Rossiia - term adopted after the 17th-century annexations of Ukraine ("Little Rus'") and Belorussia ("White Russia") to "Great Russia". The adjective is "rossiskii," generally connoting empire, or "all the Russias," including many ethnicities beyond that connected with the Muscovite state, as opposed to "russkii" meaning ethnic Russianness or having to do only with Russia proper
Rus' - term for the state / nation originally centered around Kiev, and then around Moscow.
raskol' - "schism" - generally refers to the Great Schism following Patriarch Nikon's reforms in 1666.
raskol'niki - "schismatics" - or Old Believers, followers of the pre-Nikon Church.
mestnichestvo - "system of places" - by which appointment of court officials, ambassadors, and army officials depended upon inherited rank and status. Records of genealogical tables were burned in 1682, thus abolishing mestnichestvo.
dvoryanstvo - "gentry" - a dvoryanin is a gentleman (in terms of class, if not character), dvoryanye, is plural
gubernii - "provinces" - an administrative unit introduced by Peter the Great and abolished by the Soviet government in 1923
kormlenie - "feeding" - a system of local administration prevalent from the 14th through the 16th century, under which local administrators, who were appointed from Moscow, received payments in kind from the local population.
patronymic - see below.
tatar / tartar - Turkic-speaking descendants of the Golden Horde Mongols. Tatars settled along the central section of the Volga, in the Crimean peninsula and other areas in the 15^th century. The term "tatar" was often used to refer more widely to all the nomadic tribes of the Asian deserts and steppes. From the fifth to the ninth century, the Tatars were predominantly farmers, but from the 18^th century onward, became renowned as traders.
primogeniture - the principle of succession by the eldest male heir. Was the tacit tradition in Russian and other monarchies, but Peter the Great overturned it with his own succession law (the first written law of succession in Russia), allowing the tsar to designate his own successor (see Cracraft)
Preobrazhenskoe - a village near Moscow where Peter the Great spent time with his play regiments as a child. Later one of the senior guards infantry regiments in the Imperial Army was named the Preobrazhensky. The word "preobrazhensk" in Russian means "transfiguration."
Semënov, Semyonnovsky Regiment - Another village of Peter's childhood, from which is derived the name of an élite Guards regiment.
The Bronze Horseman - Famous statue in Petersburg by French sculptor Falconet, commissioned by Catherine the Great. See Pushkin's famous poem of the same name.
Voronezh - Town 300 miles south of Moscow where Peter established a shipbuilding industry during the Azov campaign in 1695.
Azov - River port at the mouth of the Don river, guarding access to the Black Sea. The port was subject to Turkey from 1471, and won briefly by Peter, only to be lost again. It became Russian finally under Catherine the Great in 1774.
Poltava - Ukrainian town on the Vorskiya river, near which the Battle of Poltava took place on July 8, 1709, ending the Great Northern War with Sweden.
Narva - Town situated on the Gulf of Finland in present-day Estonia. Possession was contested between Sweden and Russia - it was the site of a great defeat for Russia in 1700, which spurred Peter onto many military reforms. It was captured by Peter in 1714.
Tula - Town in central European Russia, and site of an arms factory built by Peter in 1712 and always a center of the Russian metallurgical industry. Small arms were being produced in Tula before Peter declared war on Sweden.
Holy Synod - The administrative organ of the Russian Orthodox Church, founded by Peter on the Lutheran model in 1720. The establishment of the Synod placed church affairs firmly under the state, and meant that they were often administered by lay officials.
The Twelve Colleges - Administrative structure established by Peter, meant to replace the characteristically chaotic and corrupt prikazy system with one based on order and reason. The colleges were also corrupt, but they did somewhat rationalize the arrangment of administrative departments within the central government.
Senate - Administrative body composed of officials chosen by virtue of service rather than birth (at least in theory), as opposed to the old boiar duma.
Procurator General - highest (and very powerful) administrative office, established by Peter the Great.
shliaketstvo (based on the Polish Szłachta) - Petrine term for gentry, or aristocracy, later replaced by the Russian "dvorianstvo."
Treaty of Nystad / Nyshtadt - Treaty between Russia and Sweden of September 10, 1721 concluding the Great Northern War. Sweden ceded to Russia several Baltic territories, while Russia retained Vyborg but returned the rest of Finland to Sweden. Peter the Great formally assumed the title of emperor (imperator) after the ratification of the treaty. Russia replaces Sweden as the great power in the Baltic.
blagorodnyi(noble) versus podlyi (base) - class distinction with ethical connotations.
terem - Term for the part of a noble Muscovite household where women were sequestered. Peter forced Muscovite noble women to appear in public and to wear (much more revealing) western dress, and generally gave them a much more prominent and positive role in society.
assemblé (the French term, used in Russian) - Social gatherings Peter imposed on the nobility by state decree, in which rank order was not observed and women participated fully. Nobles were to dress and behave with western manners.
ex nihilo - Latin for "out of nothing," often applied by pro-Petrine historians to describe the sweeping quality of Peter's reforms, which created a modern, European Russia "out of nothing," as opposed to historians who believe Peter's reforms either (a) were merely a progression in the series of changes already taking place throughout the 17^th century, or (b) represent a break from and denial of a previous Russia whose unique qualities were (tragically) subsumed by the westernization and modernization processes Peter began.
repartitional commune - distribution of land depending on tax-paying ability. I.e., those households (each containing an extended family) who can / must pay more taxes, are given more land. The commune redistributes land accordingly each year.
dvor - lit. "court," "yard," and of course "courtyard." Also refers to a household, as in the peasant household, an extremely important unit in the commune system.
starosta - "elder," an elected office, putting the holder in charge of the commune (with the help of a small group of other villagers, similarly elected) for a term of a few years. A very desirable office, as it put the holder in the way of a lot of bribes.
nakaz - "instruction," the Nakaz was Catherine's "Instruction to the Nobility," a document stating her principles of law and government, according to which a committee was to formulate and codify Russian laws. The committee came to naught, but the Nakaz was published widely at home and abroad (in several languages), and made a big impression on contemporaries. Catherine's views were largely borrowed - sometimes word for word - from Western Enlightenment thinkers like Montesquieu, Baccariat, etc.
zakonnost' - the principle of "legality," from the Russian root "zakon," meaning legislative measure or fundemental law. Russian law had not been codified since the law code of 1649 (and wouldn't be until the reign of Nicholas I), and courts functioned more according to custom, corruption, or whim than according to state law. The principle of zakonnost' put forward by Catherine in her Nakaz and supported by intellectuals like those of the Panin circle was the notion that the "Enlightened monarchy" they envisioned for Russia (as opposed to the "absolute monarchy" of Peter the Great) would rest on an organized, rational code of laws, not so much restraining the monarchy but imposing order and reason on the bureacracy, which in turn was presupposed to be toward the "general good" of the people.
The Unofficial Committee
Free Agriculturist Law
Constitutionalism
Ministries
lycée
military colonies
Freemasonry

A Very Short Course on the Russian Language:

• Russian is an Indo-European language, which along with Ukrainian and Belorussian constitutes the East Slavic sub-group of the Slavic language family (West Slavic languages include Polish and Czech, South Slavic languages include Serbo-Croatian and Bulgarian). The cyrillic alphabet was brought to you by two monks, Saints Cyrill and Methodius, who developed the system in Bulgaria in the 9th century as part of the conversion of Slavic peoples to Christianity (the official conversion of the Kievan state took place in 988 under Prince Vladimir). The Eastern Orthodox Church, unlike the Roman Catholic, generally rendered services and Church texts in the vernacular, but the vernacular of 9th and 10th-century South Slavic lands has been far removed from spoken Russian for many centuries. The Church language still in use is known as Old Church Slavonic, and is unintelligible to untrained native speakers of Russian.

• Russian is heavily inflected, like Latin. Verbs take perfective and imperfective forms, and conjugate according to gender and number. Nouns decline in six cases according to gender and number, and adjectives, participles, some pronouns, ordinal numbers and past tense verbs all agree with their head noun in gender. Thus, grammatical endings are complicated, but give you a lot of information (and also make it easy to rhyme in Russian - hence all the poetry). See below. Russian words are made up of many variations of the basic prefix-root-suffix form. The literary language dates approximately back to Alexander Pushkin (1799-1837), who is credited with reconciling the many disparate forms the language had taken by that time (bureaucratese, the Church language, lower-class spoken Russian), along with many foreign borrowings (educated and upper-class Russians spoke and wrote languages other than Russian until quite late in the Imperial period -- Dutch under Peter, later German, or French), along with enough neologisms to make Shakespeare jealous, to create a written language rich enough to form the basis of Russian-language literature equivalent or superior to the best of Western Europe.

• The plural in Russian is formed by adding -i, -y, or in adjectives, -ii or -yi.

• The ending "-nik" or "-ik" indicates "one who..." as in Bolshevik, or refusenik.

• The ending "-skii" or "-sky" is the masculine, nominative adjectival ending. Many last names take this form, as they often consist of a place name or other noun plus adjectival ending. (as in Dmitri Donskoi - "skoi" as an alternative spelling of -ski, and the name means "of the Don," since this Dmitri made his name in a military campaign on that river)

• Similarly, the ending "-ov" or "-off" is the genitive plural noun ending, also very common in last names. (as in Romanov, a very common Russian name meaning "of Roman.")

• The ending -ovich or -evich means "son of" and -ovna or -evna means "daughter of". These are most often seen in patronymics. The patronymic is the Russian middle name, composed of the individual's father's name plus the appropriate ending. Hence "Alexei Mikhailovich," son of Mikhail (Fedorovich, son of Fedor).

• The ending "-shchina" (with its various spellings) is a handy Russian way of making a noun of almost any word, meaning the "times or concept having to do with X." Thus "Pugachevshina" means the period (and experience) of the Pugachev Revolt.

  The ending "nost'" is another common noun-ending, usually denoting a big idea or concept, as in zakonnost' (legality) and sobornost' (the philosophical concept of community, from the root "sobor" as in "zemskii sobor," the Assembly of the Land - see the works of philosopher Vladimir Soloviev [son of the famous historian Sergei Soloviev] if you're interested in the idea of sobornost' - there's a great three-volume collection of Russian Philosophy edited by Edie, Scanlon, Kline, et al.)

• You will often see vowels in Russian words preceded by an "i" or "y" - this is because every Russian vowel has a "soft" variant, which sounds like it's got a "y" in front of it, as in "a" (pronounced "ah") and its variant "ia" or "ya" (pronounced "yah" and written in cyrillic with what looks like a backwards 'R'). The soft variant of 'e' ("eh") mutates strangely into the sound "yoh" spelled in cyrillic like ë (an "e" with an umlaut over it), and transliterated by "yo", "io" or sometimes just "e". This is why "Gorbachev" is pronounced "GorbaCHYOFF" (roughly) and Pugachev is "PugaCHYOFF", Potemkin is "PotYOmkin." The yo-sound ALWAYS takes the stress in any word in which it appears.

• Speaking of stress - it's unpredictable in Russian, but unlike English it generally falls on only one syllable at a time (i.e., there's no "secondary stress"). Many textbooks mark the stress with a "`" symbol.

• You will also often run into seemingly mysterious apostrophes scattered about transliterated Russian words - this indicates a soft sign in the original, meaning the consonant preceding the sign should be palatalized, or soft. English doesn't have soft consonants, and most English speakers can't hear the difference. Don't worry about it.

• A few other miscellaneous notes on pronunciation, for those who care (and naturally it's by no means necessary for the course): unstressed "o" sounds like "ah", and final consonants are "devoiced," meaning pronounced without vibrating the vocal cords ('v' becomes 'f', 'd' becomes 't', 'g' becomes 'k')

• A final note on names: Russian last names have different endings depending on whether the holder is male or female (unless they're of foreign derivation). Thus, Anna Karenina, but her husband is "Karenin." Likewise, Princess Dashkova and her husband Dashkov, while there was a Prince Dolgorukii but Princess Dolgorukaia.