Ms. Susan M. Pojer
Horace Greeley HS Chappaqua, NY
Russia Today
Siberia  “Permafrost”
 A former “gulag”
Soviet prison camp.
 Average temperatures of January
vary from 0 to -50°C, and in
July from 1 to 25°C
 150,000,000 population.
Themes
in Russian History
 Expansion by conquest.
Need for warm-water
ports.
 The necessity of a strong,
central government.
Early Byzantine Influences:
Orthodox Christianity
Early Byzantine Influences:
Orthodox Christianity
Novgorod
Russian Boyars
Alexander Nevsky: 1220-1263
Protected Novgorod and Moscow from
Mongols – Moscow becomes center
Teutonic
Knight
The Mongols Invade Russia
Ivan the Great (r. 1462-1505)
Ivan III Tearing the Great Khan’s Letter Requesting
More Tribute in 1480.
IVAN “THE TERRIBLE” IV
Ivan became TSAR / CZAR in 1547
Expanded Russia to the east – Sweden
stopped them from going WEST
Became quite paranoid
after his wife died –
went after the BOYARS
Michael Romanov
(r. 1613-1645)
Romanov Dynasty
(1613-1917)
The Pendulum
of Russian History
Pro-West
For Progress & Change
Encourage New Ideas,
Technologies, etc.
Anti-West
Isolationist
Xenophobic
Ultra-Conservative
 A few Tsars
 Most Tsars
 Intellectual elites
 Russian Orthodox
Church
 Merchants/businessmen
 Young members of the
middle class.
 Military
 Boyars
 peasants
REFORM-MINDED
LEADER
DEMAGOGUE
Peter the Great (r. 1682-1725)
PETER THE GREAT
- WANTED A WARM WATER PORT
(GREAT NORTHERN WAR – forced
people into St. Petersburg)
MODERNIZED ARMY & NAVY
WESTERNIZING RUSSIA
(industry, trade, less Boyar influence, fashion)
Russia & Sweden After the
Great Northern War