The early history of Russia is one of migrating peoples and ancient kingdoms. In fact, early Russia was not exactly "Russia," but a collection of cities that gradually coalesced into an empire. The early Russia from historical records derives its name as Kievan Rus which was formed by the Scandinavian people who came from Western Europe. Kievan Rus struggled for its existence by about 13th Century, but was decisively destroyed by the arrival of a new invader—the Mongols (or Tatars). Apart from the invasion of the Mongols an attempt to invade Russia was made by Sweden from the west.
For the next century or so, very little seems to have happened in Russia. Around the 14th century northwestern cities, especially Moscow, gradually gained more influence. By the latter part of the century, Moscow felt strong enough to challenge the Tatars directly. But it was only after one more century had passed, Russia became powerful enough to throw off Tatar rule for good. Later the Grand Duke Ivan III stated to consolidate most of Moscow’s rival cities. But it was under the reign of Ivan IV that Russia became a unified state.
After lot of instability and battles finally in 1613 Michael Romanov was unanimously elected as Tsar. The Romanov dynasty was to rule Russia for the next 304 years until the Russian Revolution brought an end to the Tsarist state. One of the greatest rulers among the Romanov dynasty was Peter the Great who introduced rapid changes in the economic and political life of Russians. Peter himself died in 1725, and he remains one of the most controversial figures in Russian history. Although he was deeply committed to making Russia a powerful new member of modern Europe, it is questionable whether his reforms resulted in significant improvements to the lives of his subjects.
Many of Peter's reforms failed to take root in Russia, and it was not until the reign of Catherine the Great that his desire to make Russia into a great European power was in fact achieved. Catherine the Great was the wife of Tsar Peter III who later on was crowned as the ruler due to the prevailing widespread support of Catherine and the complete failure of her husband Peter III. Catherine went on to become the most powerful sovereign in Europe. She continued Peter the Great’s reforms of the Russian state, further increasing central control over the provinces. When Catherine the Great died in 1796, she was succeeded by her son Paul I. Paul was succeeded by his son Alexander I who is remembered mostly for having been the ruler of Russia during Napoleon Bonaparte's epic Russian Campaign. The Russian campaign turned out to be fatal for Napoleon and the campaign ensured Napoleon's downfall and Russia's status as a leading power in post-Napoleonic Europe. Yet even as Russia emerged more powerful than ever from the Napoleonic era, its internal tensions began to increase.
Then came the revolution, the Tsar had become an autocratic ruler and mass support had considerably declined. To make matters worse the war with Japan and later on World War I also eroded the confidence and trust of the people in the monarchy. Along with this industrialization and the rise of the working class contributed to the formation of the social democrats - the radical Bolsheviks and the comparatively moderate Menshiviks. Bolsheviks gained increasing support from the ever more frustrated soviets. On October 25, 1917, led by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, they stormed the Winter Palace and deposed the Kerensky government.
It was during this time the Russian Avant-Garde reached its heights under the leadership of Lenin. His New Economic Policy, or NEP, brought about a period of relative prosperity, allowing the young Soviet government to consolidate its political position and rebuild the country's infrastructure. Lenin's death in 1924 was followed by an extended and extremely divisive struggle for power in the Communist Party. By the latter part of the decade, Joseph Stalin had emerged as the victor, and he immediately set the country on a much different course. By the end of the 1930s, the Soviet Union had become a country in which life was more strictly regulated than ever before. Experimentation had ended, and discipline was the rule of the day.
With the outbreak of the Second World War, the Soviet Union found itself unprepared for the conflict. Despite an overwhelming disadvantage in numbers and inferior weaponry, the Russian army succeeded in holding out against the enormous German army. By 1944 they had driven the Germans back to Poland, and on May 2, 1945, Berlin fell. As was the case with the Napoleonic Wars, the Soviet Union emerged from World War II considerably stronger than it had been before the war. Nonetheless, life in the country continued to suffer. Stalin remained in power until 1953, when he died of a cerebral hemorrhage. Almost immediately after the death of Stalin, many of the repressive policies that he had instituted were dismantled. Struggle for power continued after that and the next leader was Nikita Khruschev and after his forced retirement Leonid Brezhnev became the next incumbent. In March of 1985, when Mikhail Gorbachev became general secretary, the need for reforms was pressing.
Gorbachev's platform for a new Soviet Union was founded on two now-famous terms--glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring). Restructuring began in earnest, with a vigorous housecleaning of the bureaucracy and a significant investigation into corruption. For the first time in decades, the problems of the country became subjects for open public discussion. In 1990, the Soviet Union itself began to unravel. Its own constituent republics began to issue declarations of independence. Radical reform leaders emerged, including the new Moscow Party chief Boris Yeltsin. Gorbachev, caught between popular demands for more radical reform and party demands for the re-imposition of strict control, failed to satisfy either side. The following summer a failed coup attempt was made by the conservatives for a bid for power. Gorbachev was placed under house arrest but he was reinstated as the coup failed completely. Boris Yeltsin won the popular support and became the president after Soviet Union was voted out of existence, to be replaced by a Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). On December 25, Gorbachev resigned, and on midnight of December 31, the Soviet flag atop the Kremlin was replaced by the Russian tricolour.
On 12 June 1991 Boris Yeltsin was elected president of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic with 57% of the vote, becoming the first popularly elected president in Russian history. Yeltsin came to power on a wave of high expectations. But Yeltsin never recovered his popularity after a series of economic and political crises in Russia in the 1990s. But by the time he left office, Yeltsin was a deeply unpopular figure in Russia.
Just hours before the first day of 2000, Yeltsin made a surprise announcement of his resignation, leaving the presidency in the hands of Vladimir Putin. And now Vladimir Putin is the current Russian President. In 2004, he was re-elected for a second term, which expires in 2008. Under the Presidency of Putin Russia was resurrected from its economic chaos and now Russia is much more stable. But a lot more is to be done to achieve complete overall development.
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