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Russia

862 CE – 1917 CE

From Kievan Rus' and the Mongol yoke through Muscovy to the tsars — a thousand years up to the 1917 revolution.

448 events · 627 people

Key events

1. Battle of the Kalka River1223 CE
   The Battle of the Kalka River was fought between the Mongol Empire, whose armies were led by Jebe and Subutai, and a coalition of several Rus' principalities, including Kiev and Galicia-Volhynia, and the Cumans under Köten. They were under the joint command of Mstislav the Bold and Mstislav III of Kiev. The battle was fought on May 31, 1223 on the banks of the Kalka River in present-day Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, and ended in a decisive Mongol victory.
2. Battle of Kulikovo1380 CE
   The Battle of Kulikovo was fought between the forces of Mamai, a powerful Mongol military commander of the Golden Horde, and Russian forces led by Grand Prince Dmitry of Moscow. The battle took place on 8 September 1380, at Kulikovo Field near the Don River and was won by Dmitry, who became known as Donskoy after the battle.
3. Great Northern War1700 CE
   In the Great Northern War (1700–1721) a coalition led by Russia successfully contested the supremacy of Sweden in Northern, Central and Eastern Europe. The initial leaders of the anti-Swedish alliance were Peter I of Russia, Frederick IV of Denmark–Norway and Augustus II the Strong of Saxony-Poland-Lithuania. Frederick IV and Augustus II were defeated by Sweden, under Charles XII, and forced out of the alliance in 1700 and 1706, respectively, but rejoined it in 1709 after the defeat of Charles XII at the Battle of Poltava. George I of Great Britain and the Electorate of Hanover joined the coalition in 1714 for Hanover and in 1717 for Britain, and Frederick William I of Brandenburg-Prussia joined it in 1715.
4. Battle of Narva1700 CE
   The Battle of Narva on 30 November 1700 was an early battle in the Great Northern War. A Swedish relief army under Charles XII of Sweden defeated a Russian siege force three to four times its size. Previously, Charles XII had forced Denmark–Norway to sign the Treaty of Travendal. Narva was not followed by further advances of the Swedish army into Russia; instead, Charles XII turned southward to expel August the Strong from Livonia and Poland–Lithuania. Tsar Peter the Great of Russia took Narva in a second battle in 1704.
5. Sixth Russo-Turkish War1701 CE
   The Russo-Turkish War of 1768–1774 was a major armed conflict that saw Russian armies victorious against the Ottoman Empire. Russia's victory brought the Yedisan between the rivers Bug and Dnieper, and Crimea into the Russian sphere of influence. Though a series of victories accrued by the Russian Empire led to substantial territorial conquests, including direct conquest over much of the Pontic–Caspian steppe, less Ottoman territory was directly annexed than might otherwise be expected due to a complex struggle within the European diplomatic system to maintain a balance of power that was acceptable to other European states and avoided direct Russian hegemony over Eastern Europe.
6. Battle of Poltava1709 CE
   The Battle of Poltava fought on 8 July 1709, was the decisive and largest battle of the Great Northern War. A Russian army under the command of Tsar Peter I defeated a Swedish army commanded by Carl Gustaf Rehnskiöld. The battle would lead to the Swedish Empire losing its status as a European great power and also marked the beginning of Russian supremacy in eastern Europe.
7. Battle of Borodino1812 CE
   The Battle of Borodino or the Battle of Moscow took place on the outskirts of Moscow near the village of Borodino on 7 September 1812, during Napoleon's invasion of Russia. The Grande Armée fought against the Imperial Russian Army.
8. Decembrist revolt1825 CE
   The Decembrist revolt was a failed coup d'état led by liberal military and political dissidents against the Russian Empire. It took place in Saint Petersburg on 26 December [O.S. 14 December] 1825, following the death of Emperor Alexander I.
9. Crimean War1853 CE
   The Crimean War was fought between Russia and an alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom, and Sardinia from October 1853 to February 1856. Geopolitical causes of the war included the Eastern question, the expansion of Russia in the preceding Russo-Turkish wars, and the British and French preference to preserve the Ottoman Empire to maintain the balance of power in the Concert of Europe.
10. Bloody Sunday1905 CE
    Bloody Sunday, also known as Red Sunday, was the series of events on Sunday, 22 January [O.S. 9 January] 1905 in St Petersburg, Russia, when demonstrators, led by Father Georgy Gapon, were fired upon by soldiers of the Imperial Guard as they marched towards the Winter Palace to present a petition to Tsar Nicholas II.
11. Treaty of Stolbovo1617 CE
    The Treaty of Stolbovo was a peace treaty that ended the Ingrian War, which had been fought between the Swedish Empire and the Russian Tsardom between 1610 and 1617.
12. Treaty of Pereyaslav1654 CE
    The Pereiaslav Agreement or Pereyaslav Agreement was an official meeting that convened for a ceremonial pledge of allegiance by Zaporozhian Cossacks to Russian tsar Alexis in the town of Pereiaslav in central Ukraine, in January 1654. The ceremony took place concurrently with ongoing negotiations that started on the initiative of Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky to address the issue of the Cossack Hetmanate with the ongoing Khmelnytsky Uprising against the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and which concluded the Treaty of Pereiaslav. The treaty itself was finalized in Moscow in April 1654.

Notable people

• Napoleon1769 CE – 1821 CE
• Genghis Khan1162 CE – 1227 CE
• Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky1840 CE – 1893 CE
• Peter the Great1672 CE – 1725 CE
• Timur1336 CE – 1405 CE
• Catherine II of Russia1729 CE – 1796 CE
• Nicholas II of Russia1868 CE – 1918 CE
• Napoleon III1808 CE – 1873 CE
• Ivan the Terrible1530 CE – 1584 CE
• Carl von Clausewitz1780 CE – 1831 CE
• Nicholas I of Russia1796 CE – 1855 CE
• Alexander II of Russia1818 CE – 1881 CE

Cultural works

Related atlas views

• Western Europe

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• China
• Tang Dynasty China
• Three Kingdoms
• Japan
• Heian Japan
• East Asia

Want the background? Read the guides on what was happening at the same moment in history.

Events from Wikipedia/Wikidata (CC-BY-SA); base map © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL); era boundaries are a hand-curated set in v1. Spotted a mistake? Email [email protected].