How did Russia become Russia? How did Russia become a single big country?

It is known that Yaroslav the Wise, giving his daughter Anna for the French king, gave her a dowry book on wooden plaques, which is believed to have survived to this day. In any case, copies of it were made from paper. It was called "The Book of Veles" and narrated about the times before the Rurik dynasty. It is assumed that by sending this book to Europe, Yaroslav wanted to tell the European civilization about the ancient history of Russia. According to the Veles book, in Russia for a long time there was a kind of Bohumir, who had five children, including the sons of Seva and Rus, from whom went the northerners and Rusichi. Perhaps this was the beginning of how Russia became Russia, as in this legend there is a man's name with the root "rus", which then became the basis for the name of the state "Rus."

In Russia there were associations of tribes and before Rurik

"The Book of Veles" repeatedly indicates that Russia as an association of Slavic (and, possibly, other) tribes existed from ancient times. In this literary work there are references to very ancient events, when the Proto-Russian tribes went to Egypt, lived in the Carpathian region, reached the territory of present China, etc. Therefore, it is possible to consider the question of how Russia became Russia, not from the time of Rurik, but from earlier times .

Nevertheless, modern history believes that it was this leader of the Varangian squadron who became the first to unite the Slavic tribes in the period of civil strifes and attacks of external enemies (in 862 AD). It is assumed that he was the grandson of the Novgorod prince (the son of a prince's daughter), who invited him to reign in Novgorod in connection with the difficult situation and his own old age. Therefore, the theory that Russia was created by the Scandinavians is considered not very wealthy. If you turn to the "Book of Veles", you can find an indication that the ancient authors did not consider Rurik Rusich, believed that he exercised his power violently. Perhaps the authors of the book belonged to the Slavic tribe, who was at odds with Novgorod, for whom Rurik's power, which is also believed to have been baptized according to Christian traditions, was undesirable.

How did Russia become a maritime power?

Initially, the Russian state was a set of settlements along the trade routes "from the Varangians to the Greeks," which helped control Rurik and his retinue. The centers of this quasi-state formation were Kiev and Novgorod. Approximately in 8-9 centuries of our era, the development of the territories of Central Russia (between the Volga and the Oka) began, which for several centuries were peripheral relative to Kievan Rus. After the Mongol conquests (in the 13th century) the importance of these lands increased, and here a new center appeared - Moscow, around which a new stage of consolidation of territories in the principality of Moscow began. Residents of this state education participated in the discovery of new lands, including the upper Kama, the shores of Pechora, the Northern Dvina, the White Sea. We can say that even at that time the Russian state was a sea power, however, in the water areas without active trading international routes.

The successes of John the Fourth (Grozny) in the annexation of territories

In 1380, the Moscow army defeated the Mongol-Tatars, and a hundred years later the Russian lands completely freed from the foreign yoke on the Ugra River . By this time, the number of Russian lands already included Rzhev, Tula, Nizhny Novgorod, Veliky Ustyug and others. That's how Russia became such a big country already in those days. Territorial successes of predecessors were strengthened by the next ruler of Rus - Ivan the Fourth (Grozny). He annexed the vast territories of the Kazan and Astrakhan khanates to the Moscow possessions. He also left a manuscript for descendants, in which, perhaps, for the first time in the Old Slavonic language, it was the name "Russia" that figured. This document is the first message of Ivan the Terrible addressed to Prince Andrew of Kurbsky, which was signed as "compiled in the reigning patronal city of Russia, Moscow, on July 4, 7072, from the summer of the universe." Perhaps this is how Russia became Russia in its name. Although it is worth noting that in the title of the second message of Grozny to the Kurbsky king appears as the sovereign, the Grand Duke of "All Russia", that is, there was both the name "Rus" and "Russia" in the course.

The largest state on the planet

In the future, the Russian state continued for several centuries mainly the growth of the territory. The Russian tsars managed to add the Pskov and Ryazan lands to the existing possessions before Ivan the Fourth. In the Lithuanian principality, the upper reaches of the Oka and Vyazma were selected and returned. At the beginning of the 16th century, the composition of Muscovy included the upper reaches of the Western Dvina and the entire basin of the Desna River, and it became the largest state of those times and is to this day. In the 80s of the 16th century, active development of Siberia began. There, the cities of Tomsk, Tobolsk, Tyumen and Mangazeya were founded, but the territories obtained in the Baltic States following the results of the Livonian War were lost by the end of the reign of the same Ivan the Terrible.

How did Russia become a big country? It should be noted that the development of most of the new lands was mostly peaceful, since the Siberian lands were inhabited relatively rarely, and the population there after the arrival of the Cossacks began to actively pass, for example, furs in exchange for goods of a higher level of civilization (weapons, ). But the history of our country is rich in military clashes during the development of predominantly western territories and the seizure of certain eastern countries. In the seventeenth century, Russia as a result of wars lost part of the land in the Smolensk and Chernihiv region, however, in the 50 years of the same century left-bank Ukraine and Zaporozhye. In the 1620s-50s an unprecedented leap took place in the development of Siberia - the Russians first came to the coast of the Yenisei, and then the Sea of Okhotsk. However, many are interested in the question of how Russia became an empire.

The emperor rules the empire

It is believed that this event occurred during the reign of Peter the Great, who assumed the title of emperor in 1721 at the request of the Senate, after the victory in the Northern War. Following the results of this military campaign, which lasted from 1700 to 1721, Karelia, Izhora, Estland and Livonia, the southern part of the Finnish lands to Vyborg, were incorporated into the Russian state, the city of St. Petersburg was founded. Peter the First established trade relations with European states and made his country a naval power, this time in a strategically important water area.

People of the Chukchi could not win - they joined themselves

After Russia became an empire, its territorial "appetites" only increased. For the period from 1723 to 1732 in its composition are the lands of the Caspian Sea. At the same time, the development of the Altai, the land along the Yaik River, begins. In the twenties of that century the peoples of the Chukchi voluntarily joined the Russian Empire (previously they could not be won three times by Russian Cossacks), then Kamchatka, the Kurile Islands. In the second half of the eighteenth century, as a result of the Russo-Turkish wars, the empire received the Azov Sea, the Crimea, the Black Sea Coast, and after the partition of the Commonwealth - Lithuania, Belarus, Courland and North-Western Ukraine. At the end of the century, part of Kazakhstan, Alaska and the Southern Altai are joining Russia.

The nineteenth century is the maximum territory

In the nineteenth century, Russia had both incremental and lossy territories. How did Russia become Russia today in view of those events? The "acquisitions" of that time include the annexation of Finland, Dagestan, Bessarabia, part of Poland, Western Georgia. Later, Armenia included part of the Russian lands, part of the territories of Azerbaijan and another "portion" of Kazakh lands (so-called Senior Jus). In the second half of the century, the Russian Empire reaches its maximum historical dimensions - it includes the North Caucasus, Central Asia, part of Xinjiang (temporarily, in the 60's). In addition, Moscow received a protectorate over the territory of present-day Tuva (Uryanghai land), was entrenched on the Amur, in Primorye, on Sakhalin. As compensation for the latter, Japan then received the Kuril Islands (Sakhalin passed to Japan again according to the results of the war of 1904-1905, but briefly by historical standards). In 1867, Alaska was lost in connection with the deal made with America.

In the twentieth century, the Russian Empire, which had arisen (and disintegrated later), the Soviet Union once again received, then lost territory. It is worth mentioning the loss of Ukrainian, Belarusian, Finnish, Polish, Bessarabian territories after the First World War and the receipt of the results of the Second World Kuril Islands, Southern Sakhalin, and the Kaliningrad Region. During the military operations of the middle of the century, the Republic of Tuva officially joined the USSR. And in 1991, after the separation of the former union republics, today's Russia has turned out.

Unified by lands and genes

How did Russia become a single big country? During the development of territories, various ethnic groups and peoples who lived on them (and who arrived in those places) entered into trade and military alliances, as well as marital relations, which led to the mixing of genes. Today, a fairly common genetic type in Russia is R1a 1a, which is widely distributed in Central Russia and South Siberia, which once again underscores the unity of peoples not only on a territorial but also on a genetic level.