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Chapter 5. Nicholas Rzhevsky (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Modern Russian Culture (1998). Peter Gatrell, The Tsarist Economy, 1850–1917 (1986).
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Chapter 5
Ben Eklof, John Bushnell, and Larissa Sakharova (eds. ), Russia’s Great Reforms, 1855–1881 (1994).
Dominic Lieven, Nicholas II: Emperor of all the Russias (1993).
Hans Rogger, Russia in the Age of Modernisation and Revolution, 1881–1917 (1983).
Nicholas Rzhevsky (ed. ), The Cambridge Companion to Modern Russian Culture (1998).
Peter Gatrell, The Tsarist Economy, 1850–1917 (1986).
S. A. Smith, The Russian Revolution: A Very Short Introduction (2002) offers well what its title suggests.
The second half of Orlando Figes, A People’s Tragedy: The Russian Revolution, 1891–1924 (1996) provides a good longer narrative of 1917–24.
John L. H. Keep, The Russian Revolution: A Study in Mass Mobilization (1976) does well what its subtitle promises.
Chapter 6
For a general history of the Soviet Union, see Geoffrey Hosking, A History of the Soviet Union (1992); Ronald Suny, The Soviet Experiment: Russia, the USSR and the Successor States (1998); Stephen Lovell, The Soviet Union: A Very Short Introduction (2009).
Robert Service, Lenin: A Political Biography (3 vols, 1985–95) is the best biography of Lenin. Those who want a shorter account will find Adam Ulam, Lenin and the Bolsheviks (1969) still very useful.
Oleg V. Khlevniuk, Master of the House: Stalin and His Inner Circle (2009) is the best‑ informed account of Stalin’s terror.
Jö rg Baberowski, Der rote Terror: die Geschichte des Stalinismus (2003).
Sheila Fitzpatrick, Stalin’s Peasants: Resistance and Survival in the Russian Village after Collectivization (1994); and Everyday Stalinism: Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times: Soviet Russia in the 1930s (1999).
Alexander Werth, Russia at War, 1941–1945 (1964): lively reportage by a journalist on the Soviet home front.
John Barber and Mark Harrison, The Soviet Home Front, 1941–1945: A Social and Economic History of the USSR in World War II (1991).
Catherine Merridale, Ivan’s War: The Red Army, 1939–45 (2005), and her Night of Stone: Death and Memory in Russia (2000) both throw light on the personal ordeal of ordinary Russians, civilian and military.
Chapter 7
The postwar USSR has yet to receive full scholarly treatment, but John Keep, Last of the Empires: A History of the Soviet Union, 1945–1991 (1995), and Stephen Lovell, The Shadow of War: Russia and the USSR, 1941 to the Present (2010) are two excellent general studies.
On the most important leaders, see William Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era (2003), and Archie Brown, The Gorbachev Factor (2003).
John Dunlop, The Rise of Russia and the Fall of the Soviet Empire (1995).
Timothy J. Colton, Yeltsin: A Life (2008).
Lilia Shevtsova, Russia – Lost in Transition: The Yeltsin and Putin Years (2007).
Simon Pirani, Change in Putin’s Russia: Power, Money and People (2010).
Chronology
Principal grand princes and tsars
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Kiev
978–1015
Vladimir
1019–54
Iaroslav the Wise
1113–25
Vladimir Monomakh
Novgorod
1236–63
Alexander Nevskii
Moscow
c. 1276–1303
Daniil
1325–41
Ivan I (Kalita)
1359–89
Dmitrii Donskoi
1462–1505
Ivan III
1505–33
Vasilii III
1533–84
Ivan IV (the Terrible)
1584–98
Fedor I
1598–1605
Boris Godunov
1604–13
Time of Troubles
1613–45
Mikhail
1645–76
Aleksei
St Petersburg
1682–1725
(till 1696 jointly with Ivan V) Peter I (the Great)
1727–30
Peter II
1730–40
Anna
1741–61
Elizabeth
1761–2
Peter III
1762–96
Catherine II (the Great)
1796–1801
Paul
1801–25
Alexander I
1825–55
Nicholas I
1855–81
Alexander II
1881–94
Alexander III
1894–1917
Nicholas II
Principal Soviet leaders
1917–24
Vladimir Lenin (as Prime Minister)
1922–53
Joseph Stalin (as Party General Secretary)
1953–64
Nikita Khrushchev (as Party First Secretary)
1964–82
Leonid Brezhnev (as Party General Secretary)
1985–91
Mikhail Gorbachev (as Party General Secretary)
Main events
Kievan Rus accepts Christianity
Split between Byzantine and Roman churches
1237–42
Mongol armies conquer most of Rus
1240–2
Alexander Nevskii defeats Swedes and Teutonic Knights
Kiev Metropolitanate transferred to Moscow
Battle of Blue Waters
Battle of Kulikovo
1438–9
Council of Ferrara‑ Florence
Byzantine falls to the Ottoman Turks
Novgorod acknowledges Muscovite sovereignty
Muscovy ceases to acknowledge sovereignty of Golden Horde
1480s–90s
Golden Horde breaks up
Ivan IV is crowned Tsar
Sudebnik (Law Code)
Conquest and annexation of Kazan
Conquest and annexation of Astrakhan
Decree on Service
1558–82
Livonian War
1564–72
Creation of oprichnina
Crimean Tatars sack Moscow
Creation of Moscow Patriarchate
Zemskii sobor elects Mikhail Romanov Tsar
Dnieper Cossack rebellion against Poland
Ulozhenie (Law Code)
1652–8
Nikon as Patriarch
Annexation of Dnieper Cossack Hetmanate (Ukraine)
1666–7
Church Council anathematizes the Old Belief
1667–71
Rising of Stenka Razin
Establishment of new capital: St Petersburg
Establishment of permanent standing army
Victory over Sweden at Poltava
Abolition of Patriarchate
Annexation of Baltic provinces
Institution of Table of Ranks
Introduction of poll tax
Establishment of Russian Academy of Sciences
Empress Anna rejects ‘Conditions’
Foundation of Cadet Corps
Establishment of Moscow University
1756–63
Seven Years War
Emancipation of dvorianstvo from state service
1767–8
Law Code Commission
1768–74
War with Ottoman Empire
1772, 1793, 1795
Partitions of Poland
1773–5
Pugachev rising
Establishment of Jewish Pale of Settlement
Annexation of Georgia
1805–15
Wars against Napoleon
French invasion of Russia
Decembrist revolt
1830–1
Polish rising
Pushkin completes The Bronze Horseman
Publication of Gogol’s Dead Souls
1853–6
Crimean War
Capture of Shamil
Emancipation of serfs
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1863–4
Polish rising
1864–6
Publication of Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground and Crime and Punishment
1865–76
Conquest of Kokand, Khiva, and Bukhara
Publication of Tolstoy’s War and Peace
1873–4
Populists’ ‘going to the people’
1874, 1880
First performances of Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov and Khovanshchina
Introduction of universal male military service
1877–8
War against Ottoman Empire
Formation of Narodnaia volia
Assassination of Alexander II
Anti‑ Jewish May Laws
Formation of Social Democratic Workers’ Party
Imperial Manifesto on Finland
Formation of Socialist Revolutionary Party
SD Party splits into Bolsheviks and Mensheviks
Completion of Trans‑ Siberian Railway
1904–5
Russo‑ Japanese War
1905–6
First Russian Revolution
October 1905
October Manifesto
April 1906
Formation of State Duma
November 1906
Stolypin’s agrarian reform
June 1907
Revision of Duma electoral law
Assassination of Stolypin
First performance of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring
August 1914
Outbreak of First World War
Loss of Poland
February–March 1917
February Revolution; formation of Provisional Government and soviets
October 1917
October Revolution
January 1918
Dissolution of Constituent Assembly
March 1918
Treaty of Brest‑ Litovsk; Russia withdraws from the war
Formation of USSR
Stalin becomes General Secretary of the Communist Party
January 1924
Death of Lenin
Beginning of First Five Year Plan
Launch of dekulakization and collectivization of agriculture
Creation of Union of Soviet Writers
Introduction of internal passports and propiska
1932–4
Widespread famine
1937–8
Height of Stalin’s terror
August 1939
Nazi–Soviet Pact
September 1939
Red Army occupies eastern Poland (western Ukraine and Belorussia)
March–May 1940
Katyn mass murder of Poles
June 1940
Annexation of Baltic states
June 1941
Germany invades USSR
August 1942–February 1943
Battle of Stalingrad
Deportation of Caucasian and other peoples
May 1945
Germany surrenders to USSR
Formation of NATO
March 1953
Death of Stalin
Formation of Warsaw Pact
February 1956
20th Party Congress; Khrushchev’s ‘secret speech’
Publication of Solzhenitsyn’s A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
October 1964
Fall of Khrushchev; Brezhnev becomes party leader
Helsinki Final Act
March 1985
Gorbachev becomes General Secretary of CPSU
April 1986
Chernobyl nuclear explosion
Popular Fronts formed in Baltic and elsewhere; beginning of Armenian–Azerbaijani conflict
April 1989
Violent suppression of Tbilisi demonstrations
May 1989
Congress of People’s Deputies in Moscow
November 1989
Fall of Berlin Wall
March 1990
Non‑ Communist parties legalized
March 1990
Democratic Russia wins seats in RSFSR legislature
March 1990
Lithuania secedes from USSR (followed by Latvia and Estonia)
June 1990
Formation of Russian Communist Party
April 1991
Georgia secedes from USSR
June 1991
Yeltsin elected as President of Russia
August 1991
Emergency Committee coup
December 1991
Dissolution of USSR
Privatization law
September–October 1993
Conflict between Yeltsin and Russian parliament
December 1993
Creation of State Duma
December 1994
Russian army invades Chechnia
September 1999
Start of Second Chechen War
December 1999
Yeltsin resigns as President
March 2000
Putin is elected as President
October 2003
Arrest of Khodorkovsky
March 2008
Medvedev is elected as President
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