Russia

Russia
Russian National Republic
Россия
Location of Russia
Capital	Moscow
Government Type	Republic
Languages	Russian (official) Turkic dialects Georgian Others

Russia (Cyrillic: Россия, Perso-Arabic: روسیه‎) is a transcontinental county spanning from Eastern Europe to Northern Asia. It is one of the largest countries in the world by area and has one of the largest populations. It borders several countries including Mongolia, Turkestan, Persia, & Poland.

History

Early Russian History

Kievan Rus and the Grand Duchy of Moscow

The East Slavs emerged as a recognisable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. The medieval state of Rus' arose in the 9th century. In 988, it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Rus' ultimately disintegrated until the Grand Duchy of Moscow finally reunified it in the 15th century.

Tsardom of Russia

In development of the Third Rome ideas, the Grand Duke Ivan IV "the Terrible" was officially crowned the first Tsar of Russia in 1547. The Tsar promulgated a new code of laws, established the first Russian feudal representative body, curbed the influence of the clergy, and introduced local self-management in rural regions. Ivan the Terrible doubled the already large Russian territory during his long reign by annexing the three Tatar khanates (parts of the disintegrated Golden Horde): Kazan and Astrakhan along the Volga and the Siberian Khanate in southwestern Siberia. Thus, by the end of the 16th century, Russia expanded east of the Ural Mountains, thus east of Europe, and into Asia, transformed into a transcontinental state. In the east, the rapid Russian exploration and colonization of the vast territories of Siberia were primarily led by Cossacks hunting for valuable furs and ivory. Russian explorers pushed eastward primarily along the Siberian River Routes. By the mid-17th century, there were Russian settlements in Eastern Siberia, on the Chukchi Peninsula, along the Amur River, and the coast of the Pacific Ocean.

Imperial Russia

Russian colonization of Alyeska

Main article: Alyeska

Russia was the first European power to explore and settle the far northeast of North America. In 1788, the private Kurile Island Company, founded initially to explore the business opportunities in the Kurile Islands, was given by the Russian Tsar permission to explore the region of what is now modern-day Alyeska. A few years later, the tsar proclaimed the Ukase of 1790, which detailed the claims of Russia on the American continent. The Kurile Island Company was given a charter to the Aleutian Islands and eventually other parts of Alaska. Russians tried to settle Kolchak island in the south of their claimed land with the Port Alexander colony (1816 - 1832). However, the Russians eventually relinquished much of their claims in North America in the Russo-Dutch Treaty of 1832.

The part that they retained, Alyeska, was a mostly forgotten colony and a backwater for much of the 19th century, with a revolving door of colonization companies trying to find a way to profit from the region. Nevertheless, in the 1870s, after realizing the geopolitical importance of Alyeska to Russian interests, the Tsar founded and granted a monopolistic charter to the Russian Pacific Company to oversee the colonization and management of the territory. Since the company was state-funded, the Russian Pacific Company was able to pour more development into Alyeska than its private company predecessors. In the 1890s, gold was discovered in the Alyeskan territory. This resulted in an influx of immigrants from Russia and East Asia to Alyeska.

The Russian Succession Crisis & modernization period

After the death of the Russian tsar Alexander III in 1867, the heir and eldest male dynast, Ivan, was expected to inherit the Russian throne. At the time of his father's death, Ivan had been bedridden for over a year. He was extremely sick and was expected to be an incompetent leader, with Russian newspapers mocking his appearance and perceived inability to rule. Before the death of the Tsar, Alexander III, to gain influence in the Kingdom of the Netherlands, appointed a Dutch prince of House Oranje, Henry-Williams, as his chief naval reformer (additionally the husband of the Tsar's niece). Over the 1860's Henry-Williams (the cousin of the current Dutch King) became wildly popular in Russia because of his success in modernizing the navy and his adaptation and promotion of Russian culture. He was a frequent subject of interest in the press, had strong ties to the Russian elites, and became a great patron of Russian literature. He studied the language and could speak fluent Russian (as well as Ukrainian and Polish) and even converted to orthodox Christianity and was baptized with a Slavic name.

After being urged by his wife and other members of the Russian court, Henry-Williams claimed the throne, which kicked off the Russian-Succession Crisis and a Russian War of Succession. After only eight months of fighting (with the Dutch supporting Henry-Williams' claim) the war was over, and Henry-Williams was declared Emperor and Tsar of Russia. This was possible due to Henry-Williams naval and military contacts in Russia, his support amongst the people, and support from the Kingdom of the Netherlands. To gain additional legitimacy and appease conservative members of the royal family, Henry-Williams and his wife (the niece of the late tsar) both ruled as co-emperors, and in 1868 the new tsar and tsarina started their reign.

Being a past naval reformer, Henry-Williams, the new tsar, shifted his focus to the expansion of Russia's influence in the pacific and the growing wealth and geostrategic position that could be found in a pacific empire. He believed one of the early steps to a Russian pacific empire was to create a Trans-Siberian railway to connect the Muscovite region to the Russian Pacific ports.

Russo-Ottoman War (1884 - 1885)

During the late 19th century, Russia slowly strengthened its economic and military power due to the reforms in the 1870s. In addition to this, the Russian realized the weakness of Ottoman control in the Balkans and Crimea. After a series of revolts in the Balkans were put down harshly by Ottoman forces, Russia pledged support for independence movements in Serbia and Romania. This led to Russia retaking Crimea, Wallachia, Moldavia, Serbia gaining independence. Austria, who joined the war late, also annexed the northwestern tip of Ottoman territory (but were promised more but didn't receive it from Russia, which strained Russo-Austrian relations for a while).

The Great Game

Beginning in the 1840's Russia and Britain started to compete for influence in Central Asia, with the British believing that without countering Russian ambitions in the region, the Raj could eventually be at risk of invasion. This led to a military build-up and increased conflict over alliances with Afghanistan, Persia, and the Chinese nations. By 1893 tensions had simmered down. The great game ended with the creation of Serindia as a Buffer state between Russian and the British Raj, and the demilitarization of the border with the Kingdom of Afghanistan.

The Russian Revolution & Republican Civil War

In the 1920s, the European Economic Crisis and its lead-up hit Russia especially hard. In 1922, a series of crop failures and poor financial decisions by the Russian imperial authorities caused a financial crisis known as the Russian depression. During the depression, massive famines in Ukraine and the Don Kuban region sent thousands of refugees north towards urban centers such as Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Kiev, leading to food riots, strikes, and crackdowns by imperial authorities. Around every large city in Russia, large shantytowns, informally known as "Tsartowns," started popping up; these shantytowns were overcrowded, and disease outbreaks were common in them. During this period, anti-elite, anti-tsar, and pro-republican sentiments grew throughout the Russian empire. In 1923, the Russian Republican Congress (the largest republican organization in Russia at the time, also known as the R.R.C.) had over a million members in the Muscovite region alone. By the winter of 1925, the situation in Russia rapidly deteriorated, with most citizens believing that the Tsar mishandled the economic crisis and exacerbated the famines in the rural south through poor economic policy. Additionally, there was an outrage at the continued opulence of the Tzar, Tsarina, and nobilities lifestyles while so many lower classes starved.

Storming of the Winter Palace & the Birth of Republican Russia

On December 3rd, the winter palace was surrounded by a bread riot that swept through Moscow, and after 6 hours of rioting, the protestors stormed the Winter Palace. The nobility left the previous day to St. Petersburg (but upon hearing of the storming of the palace, left for Britain). After two days of further agitation and the breakdown of imperial civil control in Russia, the Russian Republican Congress declared the first Russian Republic and the end of imperial rule. After a week of tension with the new government, the imperial military reluctantly agreed to back the new government.

For the first month of its existence, the new Republic was stuck in a deadlock between the two major factions in government, the liberal republicans and the nationalist republicans (more commonly known as the Vosstanists (from Russian восстановление, vosstanovlenie) . Additionally, after the Tsar fled, many non-Russian regions of the empire declared independence, while the Russian military acted mostly autonomously from the Republics congress. In February of 1926, after the first wave of elections was marred with controversy. The Vosstanists walked out of congress and started to conspire to overthrow the liberal-republican-dominated congress. The following week after a series of negotiations with the military (led by General Mikhail Orlov) and the leaders of the Cossacks, the newly reformed Nationalist Republican / Vosstanist faction now known as the 'Russian National Congress' declared the Russian Republican Congress illegitimate.

Russian Civil War

The Russian Republican Congress reacted harshly to the National Congresses declaration and raised militias from loyalist cities and regions. By March of 1926, the Liberal Russian Republic relied only on a decentralized system of militias with dubious loyalties and often recruited from rebellious national interest groups who feared that the Vosstanists would destroy the local autonomy given to them by the Tsar's Viceroy system. This faction was often known collectively on the battlefield as the Tricolor Army due to their use of the Russian white, blue & red tricolor flag. Initially, the Tricolor Army was able to hold on to land in southern Russian, the Baltics and regions in Northern Russia.

In contrast, the Vosstanists were able to rapidly take control of the core of Russian ethnic and industrial land in the Muscovite region. They consolidated their rule with a variety of social and work programs, which alleviated the worst of the effects of the famines and economic crisis and the use of harsh authoritarian crackdowns on dissenters. The Vosstanists were able to push the Tricolor Republic Army out of North Russia by the summer of 1926. They then slowly turned their attention to their core region of support in south Russia. Throughout 1927, opponents from the Liberal Republic would try desperately to gain a foreign backer, first from the British and then the Ottomans, but as the European Economic Crisis raged, there was little desire from the other powers of Europe to get involved in a civil war that seemed to be already lost. However, they were able to find an ally in the Finnish Nationalist Republican insurgents that launched the Finnish revolution a year prior (1925).

By the winter of 1927, the Liberals realized their plight was doomed and so used their resources to provide an exodus route for the leaders, military, and businesspeople of the ill-fated republic. By February of 1928, there were only pockets of isolated fighting as the Vosstanists swept into Southern Russia and gained control. By March, the last battle of the Russian Civil War was over.

Government and Politics

Reforming the State

Autonomous National Republics and Sister Republics

As part of the reforms of the new Russian National Republic, the Vosstanists set up two new administrative classifications for the former Imperial Russian territories.

1. Autonomous National Republics (ANRs): ANRs are semi-autonomous nationalist republics modeled after the Russian National Republic. ANRs were not sovereign and independent nations, and therefore had no international representation and recognition, and was instead part of the Russian National Republic. Examples of ANRs are Circassia and Transcaucasia.
2. Sister Republics (SRs): Sister republics were nominally independent and sovereign states. They had their own government modeled after the Russian National Republic. However, unlike ANRs, they were not politically bound to the Russian National Republic. Most of the SRs created maintained close economic, military, and diplomatic ties with the Russian Nationalist Government. Examples of SRs include the Ainu National Republic.

Outside of the former Russian Empire's territories, the definition of a "Sister Republic" was loosely defined. Some states that describe themselves as Nationalist-Republican consider themselves as sister republics of Russia, while others refrained the use of the term as it implies Russian suzerainty.