Notes

1. Local princes began to carve out greater autonomy, and the effectiveness of Mongol control began to diminish. Under Ivan III who claimed succession from the Rurik dynasty and the old Kievan days-a large Russian territory emerged. Ivan organized a strong army, giving the new government a military emphasis it would long retain . By 1480, Moscow had been freed from any payment to the Mongols and Ivan had gained a vast kingdom running from the borders of the Polish Lithuanian kingdom to the rural mountains.

2. It was the Mongol invasion which, perhaps more than any other historical event, helped to determine the course of development that Russian culture, political geography, history, and national identity would take. Economic life deteriorated as well: With trade down and manufacturing limited, Russia had become a purely agricultural economy depended on peasant labor. Ivan the Great claimed an earlier tradition of centralized rule, which went back to the Rurik dynasty and Byzantine precedent,s and added to it the new sense of imperial mission. He married the niece of the last Byzantine emperor, which gave him the chance to assert control over all Orthodox churches regardless of whether in Russia.

3. The traditional beginning of Russian history is 862 A.D. Kievan Rus', the first united East Slavic state, was founded in 882. The state adopted Christianity from the Byzantine Empire in 988, beginning with the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. The region adopted Christianity in 988 by the official act of public baptism of Kiev inhabitants by Prince Vladimir I. Compared with the languages of European Christendom, the Russian language was little influenced by the Greek and Latin of early Christian writings. This was because Church Slavonic was used directly in liturgy instead.

4. Russia's early expansion, along with that of the Ottoman empire to the south, eliminated independent central Asia-that age old source of nomadic cultures and periodic invasions in both the east and the west. The same expansion, although driven by the movement of Russian peasants and landlords to new areas, also added to Russia diverse new peoples, making this a multicultural empire, like that of the Mughals and Ottomans. Particularly important was the addition of a large Muslim minority, over seen by the tsarist government but not pressed to integrate with Russian culture.
5. Territorial expansion focused on central Asia as the Russians moved to the Caspian Sea and the Ural Mountains making their way into Siberia as well. Cossacks were recruited to occupy the new lands while loyal nobles and bureaucrats received land grants in the territories. These land grants gave Russia increased agricultural regions and labor sources. As the Russians advanced in the North, the Ottomans moved in the south, both uniting various territories thus eliminating independent central Asia as a source of nomadic invasions.

6. Ivan IV died without an heir. This led to some new power claims by the boyars- the Time of Troubles, when nobles competed with each other for power- plus Swedish and Polish attacks on Russian territory. In 1613, however, an assembly of boyars chose a member of the Romanov family as tsar. This family, the Romanov dynasty, was to rule Russia until the great revolution of 1917. Although many individual Romano rulers were weak, an tensions with the claims of nobles recurred, the Time of Troubles did not prouce any lasting constraints on tsarist power.

7. The Romanov Dynasty began with the election of Mikhail Romanov, a 16-year-old boyar, by the Zemsky Sobor, or Assembly of the Land – the first Russian parliament of the feudal estates type. When young Mikhail learned he was about to be granted the highest title anyone could dream of in Russia, he burst into tears of fear and despair. He was finally persuaded to accept the throne by his mother who saw no way out, so she blessed the young man who had to obey. Mikhail Romanov was crowned on 22 July 1613.

8. The Romanovs' probably went through some challenges to gain the people's loyalty as they were a completely new family line coming in after the Ivans'. The Ivans' formed the base of Russia and the people were probably very used to stable life because of that. They must've been worried that a new family line would come in a disrupt the peace and mess up the government, thus making it very hard for the Romanovs' to gain the loyalty of its nobility and subject people.

9. Peter built many new features into this framework. In essence, Peter extended his predecessors' policies of building up tsarist control and expanding Russian territory. He added a more definite interest in changing selected aspects of Russian economy and culture by imitating Western froms. Peter's basic motives were familiar enough: He wantet to further tsarist power and enhance Russia's military strength. Early setbacks in wars with Sweden convinced him that some new departures were essential.

10. Peter's foreign policy maintained many well-established lines. He attacked the Ottoman empire, but he won no great victories. He warred with Sweden, at the time one of the leading northern powers in Europe, ane gained territory on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea, thus reducing Sweden to second-rate military status. Russia now had a window on the sea, including a largely ice free port. From this time onward, Russia became a major factor in European diplomatic and military alignments. The tsar commemorated Russia's shift of interests westward by moving his capital from Moscow to a new Baltic city that he named St. Petersburg.

11. Peter's economic efforts focused on building up metallurgical and mining industries, using Russia's extensive iron holding to feed state-run munitions and ship building facilities. Without urbanizing extensively or developing a large commercial class, Peter's reforms changed the Russian economy. Landlords were rewarded for using serf labor to staff new manufacturing operations. This gave Russia the internal economic means to maintain a substantial military presence for almost two centuries.

12. Like Peter the Great, Catherine was a selective Westernizer as her instruction of 1767 clearly demonstrated. She flirted with the ideas of the Enlightenment importing several French philosopher for visits, and she established commissions to discuss new law codes and other Western-style measure, including reduction of traditionally severe punishments. Catherine also encouraged upper class education and the arts and literature.

13. During the 17th and 18th centuries, the power of the nobility over the serfs increased steadily. Before the Mongol conquest, Russian peasants had been largely free farmers with a legal position superior to that of their medieval Western counterparts. After the expulsion of the Tatars, however, increasing numbers of Russian peasants fell into debt and had to accept servile status to the noble landowners when they could not repay. They retained access to much of the land, but not primary ownership.

14. Coerced labor was used to produce grain surpluses purchased by Western merchants to feed the grwoing cities of western Europe. In return, Western merchants tbroguh in manufactures goods, including the luxury furnishings and clothing essential to the aristocratic lifestyle. Long largely separate, Russia was being drawn into the world economy as a food and raw materials producer, dependent on cheap labor, another example of growing regional inequalities in the global system.