Russian Colonialism
Muscovite/Russian Colonialism has evolved in a course of five hundred and fourteen years in the wake of military conquest or ideological and political unions in four eras. Its starting point is believed to be 1477 and its end was believed to be 1991.
Ivan III and IV expanded Muscovy's borders considerably by annexing Novgorod and settled the annexed territories with Muscovite/Russian servitors and peasants from the Kliazma-Suzdal region. After a period of political instability the Romanovs came to power and this expansion-colonization of the Tsardom continued.
While the western Europeans explored the new world building colonial empires overseas; Russia expanded overland east and south. East of the Urals it encountered little resistance in a region that had developed little since the height of Mongol power.
By the end of the 19th century the Russian Empire reached from the Black sea to the Pacific Ocean including for some time Russian America (Alaska and some settlements in California.)
The region ruled from Moscow and settled by Russians continued to grow under Soviet rule. Areas that were formerly part of the Russian Empire, and others that had been captured from the Nazis during World War II were proclaimed as autonomous republics, within the USSR.
Read more about Russian Colonialism: Tsarist Era, Soviet Era, Post Soviet Era, See Also
Famous quotes containing the word russian:
“A country is strong which consists of wealthy families, every member of whom is interested in defending a common treasure; it is weak when composed of scattered individuals, to whom it matters little whether they obey seven or one, a Russian or a Corsican, so long as each keeps his own plot of land, blind in their wretched egotism, to the fact that the day is coming when this too will be torn from them.”
—Honoré De Balzac (1799–1850)