Russia

Russia's political history as a unified state begins with the Grand Duchy of Moscow, which gradually absorbed the fragmented principalities after the Mongol devastation of Kievan Rus (1237–1240). Ivan III (Ivan the Great, r. 1462–1505) ended Mongol suzerainty and consolidated a unified Russian state. Ivan IV (Ivan the Terrible) proclaimed the Tsardom of Russia in 1547. Peter I (Peter the Great) transformed the realm into the Russian Empire in 1721, westernising the state and expanding to the Baltic. The vast empire stretched from the Baltic to the Pacific; under Alexander I it fought Napoleon as both ally (Tilsit 1807) and mortal enemy — the failed 1812 invasion broke the Grande Armée and turned the tide of the Napoleonic Wars. The empire entered World War I on the Allied side but collapsed: the February Revolution of 1917 ended Tsarist rule; the Bolshevik seizure of power in October 1917 created Soviet Russia. The RSFSR signed Brest-Litovsk, fought a savage civil war, and in 1922 became the core of the USSR. Under Stalin the USSR industrialised rapidly, suffered the Great Terror, and played a decisive role defeating Nazi Germany at enormous human cost (~27 million dead). The Soviet Union dissolved on 25 December 1991; the Russian Federation emerged as its primary successor state.

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