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From 1721 until 1762, the Russian Empire was ruled by the House of Romanov; its matrilineal branch of patrilineal German descent, the House of Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov, ruled from 1762 until 1917.
- Ivan III
- Vasiliy III
- Ivan IV The Terrible
- Fyodor Ioannovich
- Boris Godunov
- False Dmitry I
- Vasili IV Shuisky
- Mikhail Fyodorovich
- Alexey Mikhailovich
- Fyodor Alekseevich
The Grand Duchy of Moscow was created well before Ivan III (1440-1505), but it was he who ceased paying tributes to the Golden Horde in 1480, effectively declaring Moscow’s independence from the Mongol-Tatars. He created the Sudebnik (Code of Laws) of 1497, a unified legislation for the lands who swore allegiance to the Grand Duchy of Moscow or wer...
Ivan’s son, Vasiliy III (1479-1533), finalized the centralization of the Russian lands under Moscow’s reign. He was the father of Ivan IV the Terrible.
Ivan IV (1530-1584) was the first to be crowned and anointed to Tsardomas the Tsar of All Russia in 1547. He revisited the Russian legislation in his Code of Laws of 1550, established diplomatic relations with England and doubled Russia’s territory. His time was also known for repressions against some noble Moscow boyar families, known as the ‘opri...
Fyodor (1557-1598), the third son of Ivan the Terrible, wasn’t known to have taken part in governing the state. Almost all his days were dedicated to praying, visiting monasteries, studying theology and the scriptures, etc. Some historians, including Dmitry Volodikhin, argue that Fyodor deliberately removed himself from politics to evade the chance...
Boris Godunov (1552-1605),Tsar Fyodor’s brother in law was probably the first Russian ruler who tried to establish cultural connections and cooperation between Moscow and Europe. However, he didn’t last long at the helm and died under ambiguous circumstances.
An impostor whose identity is debated to the present day, False Dmitry I (16th century – 1606) posed as Dmitry, the last son of Ivan IV, who miraculously survived a murder attempt. Dmitry took the Moscow throne during the Time of Troubles, using the help of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. He was crowned as the tsar and ruled for about a year be...
The last Rurikid on the Russian throne, Vasiliy Shuisky (1552-1612), became the tsar after the uprising against False Dmitry I, which Vasiliy Shuisky ignited himself. However, Shuisky wasn’t trusted among the Russian population. He couldn’t stop the ongoing uprisings and, in 1610, he was deposed by the Moscow boyars and forcibly tonsured as a monk;...
The first tsar in the Romanov dynasty, Mikhail Fyodorovich(1596-1645), was chosen as the tsar at the Zemsky Sobor (people’s assembly) of 1613. During his reign, the Moscow Tsardom recuperated after the disastrous Time of Troubles.
The second Romanov, Alexey Mikhailovich(1629-1676), encouraged Russia’s trade and cooperation with Europe and invited European military men and engineers to Russia. He introduced the Council Code (Sobornoye Ulozhenie) of 1649 and he was the father of Peter the Great.
Alexey Mikhailovich’s son Fyodor (1661-1682), who inherited the throne, had weak health and spent most of his time in bed. During his short reign, a population census was performed and the Russian military was reviewed and assessed.
The Russian Empire stretched from the Baltic Sea and eastern Europe to the Pacific Ocean, and during its nearly two-hundred-year history (1721–1917), it was ruled by a succession of autocratic czars who assigned varying degrees of local authority to as many as fifty appointed provincial governors.
Russian intervention in the Commonwealth marked, with the Silent Sejm, the beginning of a 200-year domination of that region by the Russian Empire. In celebration of his conquests, Peter assumed the title of emperor, and the Russian Tsardom officially became the Russian Empire in 1721.
Officially, Russia would be ruled by the Romanov dynasty until the Russian Revolution of 1917. However, direct male descendants of Michael Romanov came to an end in 1730 with the death of Peter II of Russia, grandson of Peter the Great.
NameLifespanReign StartReign EndOleg [7] the Seer Олег Вещий855–912c. 882c. 912Igor I [8] Игорь Рюрикович878–945c. 912945Sviatoslav I [9] Святослав ...942–972945 [10]March 972Yaropolk I [11] Ярополк ...950–980March 97211 June 980Mar 10, 2022 · Vladimir Lenin was the founder of the Russian Communist Party and the first Soviet head of state. Following the February Revolution that ousted the Russian monarchy and ended the Russian Empire...
Oct 10 2020. Georgy Manaev. Public Domain; Russia Beyond. Follow Russia Beyond on Twitter. The Russian Empire was the third largest Empire in the world. How was it created? In the course of...
