Russian Empire

State · 1721–1916 CE · at its largest around 1900 CE

Peter the Great's westward-looking empire built St Petersburg as a window on Europe and grew into a great power ruling serfs and many peoples. Its final century gave the world Pushkin, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Tchaikovsky and Mendeleev, even as autocracy and inequality pushed it toward revolution.

Its battles, in Battle View

Battle of Austerlitz (1805 CE)

On its lands while it lasted

Joseon (1392–1897 CE): Dynasty founded by Yi Seong-gye with its capital at Hanseong (Seoul); it ruled Korea for five centuries.
Tokugawa shogunate (1603–1868 CE): Military government based at Edo that brought over two centuries of peace to Japan.
Qing dynasty (1636–1912 CE): Hong Taiji proclaimed the Qing dynasty at Mukden; the Manchu dynasty ruled China from 1644 until 1912.
Peter the Great (1672 CE – 1725 CE): Tsar and first Emperor of Russia who modernised the state and army on western European lines, defeated Sweden and founded Saint Petersburg.
Catherine the Great (1729 CE – 1796 CE): German-born Empress of Russia from 1762 to 1796. She expanded Russia to the Black Sea and into partitioned Poland and corresponded with Enlightenment thinkers.
Katsushika Hokusai (1760 CE – 1849 CE): Japanese ukiyo-e painter and printmaker of the Edo period, best known for the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, which includes The Great Wave off Kanagawa.
Partitions of Poland (1772–1795 CE): In three partitions in 1772, 1793 and 1795, Russia, Prussia and Austria divided the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth among themselves, ending its independent existence for 123 years.
Napoleon’s invasion of Russia (1812 CE): Napoleon’s Grande Armée of over 600,000 crossed the Niemen in June 1812, fought at Borodino and occupied Moscow, but was forced into a winter retreat in which the great majority of the army was lost.
Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821 CE – 1881 CE): Russian novelist whose works, including Crime and Punishment (1866) and The Brothers Karamazov (1880), explore psychology, faith and morality. He spent four years in a Siberian prison camp for his part in a radical circle.
Dmitri Mendeleev (1834 CE – 1907 CE): Russian chemist in St Petersburg who in 1869 published a periodic table of the elements, leaving gaps for undiscovered elements whose properties he correctly predicted.
Perry Expedition (1853–1854 CE): US Commodore Matthew Perry's "black ships" forced Japan to open to foreign trade.
Vladimir Lenin (1870 CE – 1924 CE): Russian revolutionary who led the Bolsheviks to power in 1917 and headed the Soviet government until his death. He founded Marxism–Leninism.
Joseph Stalin (1878 CE – 1953 CE): Georgian-born dictator of the Soviet Union from the late 1920s until his death. He drove forced industrialisation and collectivisation, led the country to victory in World War II, and oversaw mass repression.
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881 CE – 1938 CE): Founder and first president of the Republic of Turkey, who led the War of Independence and carried out sweeping secularizing and westernizing reforms.
Mao Zedong (1893 CE – 1976 CE): Communist revolutionary who founded the People's Republic of China and led it until his death.