Lesson plan
Week 1
Overview
Introduction
About Russia
Government
of the Tsars
Background
Alexander 1
Decembrist Revolt
Week 2
Week 3
Week 4
Week 5
Web Wiz
Background to the Romanovs
Who were the Romanovs?
The Romanovs ruled over Russia for over three hundred years. Their rule began in 1613 when a sixteen-year-old prince named Mikhail Rom was proclaimed Tsar and Autocrat of All the Russias. There were a number of notable Tsars before the nineteenth century. The two outstanding Tsars of pre-nineteenth century Russia were:
- Peter the Great: (1682 - 1725)
Peter realised that if Russia were to occupy an important position among Western nations, she would need to Westernise and modernise. With this in mind he:- began to establish Russia as a military power.
- expanded Russia's borders to the Baltic Sea to make trade with Europe possible moved the capital of Russia from Moscow to a position on the Baltic sea which he named St Petersburg, after himself. This was also to make communications and trade with Western Europe easier.
- forced the nobles to join a giant and cumbersome public service to carry out his reforms.
- Catherine the Great (1762 - 1796)
Catherine continued the expansion of Russia's borders to the Black Sea taking land from the Turks and seizing control of much of Poland and Siberia. In 1774, faced with serious peasant revolts against the government, she set about strengthening autocratic control over the peasants by granting regional landowners sweeping powers over them.
In the following lessons you'll learn how each Tsar tried to modernise Russia from a backward agricultural country to a modern industrial state. Also note after reforms were introduced there followed a period of repressive rule.
You can see a selective family tree of the House of Romanov by going to the link below:
http://www.departments.bucknell.edu/russian/facts/romanov.html
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Exercise 1.3: Use the family tree to do this matching exercise to make a timeline
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Brief notes on the Romanovs:
http://members.vip.fi/~flax/history/russia/romanovs/
Romanov dynasty notes with maps showing growth of Russian empire:
http://emuseum.mnsu.edu/history/russia/romanov.html