Less than a week ago the Russian Federation ('Russia') launched a widespread invasion of its neighbor Ukraine. It's the largest land war in Europe since WWII. The West has largely united in economically sanctioning Vladimir Putin's Russia and supporting the thus-far impressively defiant Ukrainians led by Volodymyr Zelenskyy with aid and military supplies. Russia has not yet landed a knock-out blow but the outcome of this is still very much up in the air.
No surprise, but as a result all eyes are on eastern Europe. I'm intrigued in how we reached this point and might as well share what I'm learning. There will probably be a few posts on this stuff because we probably all need some refreshing. I know I do.
If we're looking at Russia and Ukraine we might as well go all the way back. What's the first thing you ask when looking at Russia on a map? I'm always blown away by its sheer size. Let's try to limit what we're talking about today to how it got so big.
First and foremost, Russia (and Asia as a whole) isn't quite as large as it appears on flat maps, the most common of which is the Mercator Projection. The closer you get to the poles the more skewed the map becomes, and Russia is very far north. According to this page Russia encompasses a little more than 17 million square kilometers (6.6 square miles) and is both the largest country in Europe, counting only the area west of the Ural Mountains, and Asia, counting only east of the Urals. It easily has the most land mass of any country on Earth but it's also not twice as large as Canada, China or the United States. It's barely twice as large as Brazil. This is not what you'd otherwise think when looking somewhere like Google Maps. Anyway, enough on that.
We'll start examining the background of Russia with the Mongols. Genghis Khan and his heirs established the largest empire in the history of the world, by area, during the 13th century. It spanned from the South China Sea to eastern Europe, including the territory of current day Ukraine, Belarus and much of eastern Russia. By 1300 the Mongol dominions were split up in several smaller Khanates. In the northwest, which included the land we care about here, the successor state was called the Golden Horde. This entity, which became Islamic in the early 14th century, held power for 100 years or so until it too broke up further, the remnants continually weakening. It was under these conditions, at first a Mongol vassal state, that the Grand Duchy of Moscow was founded and grew.
Ruled by the Rurik dynasty, a longstanding power in the region (called Rus'), the principality that can simply be referred to as 'Muscovy' was founded in 1263. Starting as only the area immediately around the city of Moscow (founded 1147), the family gradually grew its territory over the following 300 years to control most of what is today the European portion of Russia. Part of this was, for a time, working with the overseeing Mongols (referred to as the 'Tatars') to subdue rivals and part of this was internal consolidation of power in taking direct control over various smaller princes. Absolutism was a key aspect from the start. Eventually they overthrew the Tatars in 1480 to become independent and continued to grow. The rulers of Muscovy had previously reigned over the Kievan Rus', a large confederation lasting from 879-1240 that connected the eastern Slavic peoples. This group maintained a separate cultural identity under Mongol oversight and the Ruriks saw all those people and all that land as their property. After later cultivating a relationship with Byzantium before its collapse, Moscow became the foremost home of the Eastern Orthodox church. By the mid-16th century the Grand Duchy of Moscow displayed the hallmarks of Russian rule: absolute centralized power at the top with strong ethnic and religious ties at the bottom. And it already controlled a sizable amount of land west of the Urals.
In 1547 Ivan the Terrible declared the Tsardom of Russia and himself the Tsar of all Russia. As silly as it sounds, that's how it worked. If you were powerful enough you could declare yourself a king, and that's what he did. It was during the Tsardom, which lasted from 1547 to 1721, that the territory of Russia really expanded. But first came the Time of Troubles, which included war and occupation, famine and a succession crisis. In 1598 the Ruriks died out. Political stability wasn't achieved again until 1613 and the ascension of the Romanovs. Under Michael of Russia (1613-1645) the Tsardom colonized Asia with earnest. Here in the West we primarily think of colonization in places like the New World and Africa. While all that was happening Russia was staking its own claims. The largest gains were in Siberia, an utterly massive territory that largely came into the Tsardom during Michael's own reign. Though the distances were great, it could be taken quickly from sparse populations of indigenous peoples. This westward colonial expansion continued through the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries as Russia rounded out its territory in Asia and even leapt across the Bering Sea to conquer Alaska.
Russia didn't only move east, there were wars to fight and lands to take in Europe too. Peter the Great most notably fought a number of wars and turned Russia into a European great power. In 1686 he brought Kiev and much of current day Ukraine permanently into Russia. After war with Sweden he won territory on the Baltic Sea (including current day Estonia and Latvia), even moving the capital of the country that way, to St. Petersburg. In 1721 he declared the Russian Empire, himself the first Russian Emperor. Later in the 18th century Catherine the Great seized ports on the Black Sea and participated in multiple partitions of Poland. In 1809 Alexander I assumed control over the Grand Duchy of Finland after defeating Sweden and the Duchy of Warsaw after finally dispatching Napoleon.
Most of the 19th century saw Russia's attention turned south into new parts of Asia. They went into the Caucasus between the Black and Caspian Seas, taking over current day Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia. They pushed into central Asia, into current day Kazakstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and more. Expansion finally stopped with a loss in the Russo-Japanese War in 1905. Then the Russian Empire collapsed entirely in 1917, during WWI, due to the Russian Revolution. Soviet aggression in the 20th century certainly can't be removed from the history of Russia, but I think looking at 600+ years is enough for today and it's not like a pattern hadn't already been established.
Here are my takeaways. Russia has always been an aggressively expansionist state, no matter its form. As the Grand Duchy of Moscow the Ruriks wanted to reclaim old territory governed by the Kievan Rus' and rule all the Slavs. This started in the 1300s. Helped by the rotting shell of the Mongol Empire, they largely achieved this through a shared cultural identity and an absolute monarchy, but it wasn't enough. After that expansion was two pronged. In Asia they were a colonial empire, exploring and conquering Siberia and Alaska and various decaying remnants of the Mongols. In Europe they became a great power and by-and-large did very well in the game of politics and war. Taken altogether, it's, on one hand, hard not to be impressed by sheer amount of land and how the Russians acquired it. On the other it's impossible to ignore this all came from a continually bloodthirsty and thoroughly autocratic monarchy whose iron fist led directly to Soviet-style Communism. Ah, Russia.
Basically everything here came from this Wikipedia article:
This one even goes back further. https://youtu.be/qUgzqkCW6A4