Question | Answer |
Russia's historical roots go back to what years? | 600s |
In the 600s who settled along the waterways in the Northern European Plain? | Slav farmers, hunters, and fishers |
During the 800s who settled along the Slavs living near the Dneiper and Volga Rivers? | Scandinavian warriors called Varangians |
The Slavs organized Kievan Rus, What is it? | A loose union of city states |
What weakened Kievan Rus? | Fighting |
In Early 1200s who invaded Kievan Rus and the territories from their foothold Central Asia? | Mongols |
Many Slavs fled the Mongols invasions so where did they settle? | Along the Moskva River |
One of the settlements grew into what city? | Moscow |
What was Muscovy and what was it linked by? What did the surroundings do? | Center territory of Moscow linked by rivers to major trade routes and it's surrounding was good for farming and fur trapping |
Muscovy's Prince Ivan III did what? | Brought many Slav territories under it's control, thus earning the nickname The Great |
Ivan's expanded land came to be known as what? | Russia |
What did Ivan build in Moscow? | Kremlin and filled the cities with churches and palaces |
What is Kremlin back then and now? | A fortress then an executive headquarters |
1547 Ivan IV became what? | The first crowned Czar |
What did Ivan IV do? | Expanded realm's borders into non Slav Territories thus earning the nickname The Terrible |
What bad things happened after Ivan IV's reign? | Russia faced foreign invasion, economic decline, and social upheavel |
What came into power in 1613 | Romanov dynasty |
What happened to peasants in 1650? | Many became serfs |
What's a Serf? | Enslaved workforce bound to the land and under the control of nobility |
What happened to western Europe as Russia was struggling? | It became industrialized |
In late 1600s, Czar Peter I did what to Russia? | Modernize Russia |
What good things did Peter I do? | Enlarged Russia's territory, built a strong military, and developed trade with western Europe |
How did Peter I gain seaports? | Gained land along the Baltic Sea from Sweden |
What is St. Petersburg and it gave Russia what? | A capital carved out of the wilderness along the Gulf of Finland, and gave Russia a window to the West |
St. Petersburg became a major what? | Port since others were icebound |
During the 1700s Empress Catherine did what? | Continued to expand Russia's empire and gained a warm-water port on the Black Sea |
How did a gap form between the nobility and the serfs? | Russian nobility was adopting western European ways |
1891, what did Czar Alexander III do? | Expanded Russia into Siberia with the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railroad |
When the railroad was completed what did it open up? | Russia's interior to settlement |
Czar Alexander II's limited reforms such as freeing slaves in 1861 did what? | Made many former serfs move to the cities because of no education |
What did former serfs go through? | Poor conditions and meager wages of factory work |
New Russian people had to go through what? | Russification |
What is Russification? | Policy which encouraged people to speak Russian and follow Christianity |
What happens when you refuse Russification? | Persecution |
What lead to socialism in Russia? | Frustration and discontent |
What is socialism? | A belief that calls for greater economic equality in society |
What did German philosopher Karl Marx do? | Advocate public ownership of all land and a classless society with an equal sharing of wealth |
What broke out in the early 1900s? | Strikes and demonstrations |
In 1917, the hardships of WWI brought what? What did the people demand? | Larger numbers of workers and now soldiers into the streets demanding bread and freedom |
Czar Nicholas II abdictate his throne in 1917 bringing czarist rule to a what? | End |
What did the murder of the Royal family cause? | The emergence of communism |
The weak government in 1917 made it easy for what? | Bolsheviks to take over |
What are the Bolsheviks? | A revolutionary group led by Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov |
What is communism? | A philosophy based on Karl Marx's idea that called for the violent overthrow of the government and thecreation of a society led by workers |
By promising peace, land and bread the Bolsheviks did what? | Withdraw Russia from WWI, surrendering much land to Germany |
The Bolsheviks used their political control to control what? | Industry, direct food distribution, and establish an eight hour work day |
Who was fighting in the Civil War? | The Red Army and the White Army |
The Bolsheviks won the war in 1922 and established what? | Union of Soviet Socialist Republics or the Soviet Union |
The Soviets gradually regained what areas? | Ukraine, Belarus, and large parts of the Caucasus region and Central Asia |
What happened after Lenin's death in 1924? | Joseph Stalin became the leader of the Communist Party |
What did Stalin do to Russia? | Took control of farms and factories and turned the USSR into an industrial giant |
What did Stalin do to those who disagreed with him? | Eliminated |
What happened in 1939 with the Soviet Union giving control of countries? | The Nazi Soviet Nonaggression Pact |
What happens in 1941 drawing Russia into WWII? | Germany attacks the Soviet Union |
In 1945 with Germany defeated who did the USSR influence? | Eastern and southeastern Europe |
The USSR controlled what by war's end? | Eastern Europe |
By 1949 most countries became what? | Satellites |
What are satellites? | Countries controlled by the Soviet Union |
In 1961 Soviet astronaut Yury Gagarin did what? | Orbit the Earth |
How long did the United States and the Soviet Union engage in the Cold War? | Four decades |
What was the Cold War? | The struggle between two competing systems for world influence and power |
What did they fight about in the Cold War? | Communist and capitalist |
They built nuclear weapons for what reason? | Propaganda, threat of force, aid to developing countries |
What lead to the break up of the Soviet Union in 1991? | The weakening economy, along with great discrepancies between workers' wages and the privileges their leaders enjoyed |
In 1985 Mikhail Gorbachev a reform-minded official assumed what? | Power in the Soviet Union |
What did Mikhail institute? | Perestroika the policy of economic restructuring and glasnost the greater policy of political openness |
What did the satellites do in 1989? | Overthrow their Communist leaders |
How many new countries became part of the CIS out of 15? | 12 |
Who was elected the first president of the Russian Republic? | Boris Yeltsin |
Russia switched to what economy causing what to happen? | Market economy causing outdated factories to close and restructuring agriculture |
What did ethnic groups in the 1990s demand greater of? | Self rule |
What threatened the stability of Russia? | Separatist movements and ethnic conflict |
Who inherited the demand problem in the 1990s? | Vladimir Putin |
How did Putin stabilize the economy? | Instituting reforms in labor, banking, and private property and getting involved with NATO |
In 2004 reelections Putin seems to be stepping away from what? | Democracy |
Dmitry Medvedev put Putin as _____ ________ Allowing him to be heavily involved in the Russian government? | Prime Minister |