On Thursday, February 24th, Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine for what he deemed a “special military operation” to help Ukrainians achieve “true self-determination.” Putin’s belligerency immediately thrust Russia into the international spotlight, and the entire world anxiously watches as developments unfold by the second. This article looks into a timeline of Russia’s history, and hopefully, you can learn a little more about what historical events ultimately sparked Putin’s War.
"Citizens of Russia … It is our strength and our readiness to fight that are the bedrock of independence and sovereignty and provide the necessary foundation for building a reliable future for your home, your family, and your Motherland." - Vladimir Putin
Kievan Rus and Christianity
Most historians pinpoint Kievan Rus, formed in 862 CE, as history’s first official Russian state. Geographically, it spanned modern-day Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia (the latter two derive their names from Kievan Rus) and rapidly emerged as a feudalistic civilization of self-sufficient farms and rural villages. In 988, monarch Vladimir the Great proclaimed Orthodox Christianity as Kievan Rus’ official religion, which, along with a shared common language of Old East Slavic, helped unite the multi-ethnic federation of Norse, Slavic, Baltic, and Finnic tribes. Christianity also helped to establish relations with more powerfully dominant Christian peoples—to “buddy up” with the Byzantine Empire, if you will.
Golden Grievances
In 1237, horse-riding Mongolian invaders from the eastern steppes subdued Kievan Rus under the Golden Horde—also known as the Kipchak Khanate—and its khan. Unlike China and Persia, which the Mongols had entirely occupied, Kievan Rus was allowed significantly more autonomy. This was mostly because the Mongols dismissed Northern Europe as a frozen wasteland with little to offer except for coughing up periodic tribute payments. Of course, this isn’t to say that the invasion didn’t cause brutal destruction in Kievan Rus, because it most certainly did. The typical Mongol method of acquiring new lands (spreading fear, creating blockades, launching plague-ridden corpses to unleash disease over city walls, etc) held fast.
Moscow and its Bags of Money
Prior to Mongol occupation, Moscow was a rather insignificant trading outpost—far overshadowed by the then-capital city of Kiev. This underdog status was overturned by ruler Ivan the First (1328-1340), who did so primarily by staying in the Golden Horde’s good relations and thus preventing the infrastructural destruction other non-allied cities suffered during Mongol invasion. Ivan I actually charmed the khan so much that he was entrusted to be the primary tax collector for other Russian provinces. It was then that he gained his “Ivan the Moneybag” nickname, and fittingly so, seeing how such a role gave him tremendous sums that enabled Moscow’s rise to prominence.
Great Ivan and Equally Great Russia
Continuing the Moneybag legacy of culturing a powerful, independent Russian state was Ivan III. Yet unlike his Mongol-butt-kissing predecessor (who, and this is crucial to know, was not his grandfather), Ivan III was a vehement Mongol hater, refusing to pay tribute, forming a strong military, and even severing ties from the Pope. Then, 18 years after his 1462 ascension to the Grand Duchy of Moscow throne, Ivan’s Mongol hate-club sentiment culminated in successfully throwing off the yoke of Golden Horde dominion. Thus ended this not-so-golden Golden age, but history would show that the 243-year Mongol takeover was only a precursor to a future filled with even more foreign invasions.
Even before official independence, a common endonym (a name used by natives for a certain place) for Moscow was “Russia,” as was recorded by scribes. Regardless, it wasn’t until 1547 under Ivan the IV (who was actually Ivan III’s grandson, contrary to what the numbers suggest) that Moscow formally became Russia. Ivan IV had taken his royal blood to a whole different level, assumed the title of “Tsar of all Russia,” and officially turned Moscow into the “Great Russian Tsardom.” Most know Ivan IV as “Ivan the Terrible,” calling to his brutal and bloodthirsty methods of ruling. But, while life in Russia at this time wasn’t the greatest, there was glorious success in the substantial amounts of territorial acquisition made.
Romanov-ifying the Russian Empire
The longest dynastic rule in Russian history was of the Romanovs, spanning over three centuries from 1613 to 1918 (for perspective, the US has only been around for 245 years). Notably, the Treaty of Nystad ceded significant swathes of Swedish land to the Russian Tsardom in the 1720s after a Russian victory in the Great Northern War. Not only did Romanov ruler Peter the Great acquire places like modern-day Estonia and Latvia, he also adopted the Swedes’ “empire” coinage, turning the Tsardom of Russia into the “Russian Empire.”
Peter the Great was a very tall man, but one adverse to tall ceilings. He often requested to have cloth stretched above his head to cramp up the space if he deemed a room’s ceiling too high, and he even slept in a cupboard bed—a willing Harry Potter in 4 Privet Drive, if you will.
In December of 1812, (foolish, foolish) French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, still on a high from conquering what was nearly all of Europe at that point, attempted to invade Russia. Given the peak winter timing, the French were highly unprepared for the frigid Russian climate and basically froze to death, dousing what was once Napoleon’s on-fire undefeated streak with a cold shock of wintry loss.
Some fifty years later, Tsar Alexander II sold Alaska to the United States. Then, right at the turn of the century, the Revolution of 1905 transformed what was an absolute monarchy into a semi-constitutional monarchy, which, in about ten years, would prove to be Imperial Russia’s ultimate downfall.
Woes of the First World War
On the fateful day of July 28, 1914, Tsar Nicholas II declared war against Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire and entered Russia into World War I. Long story short, it was bad. Russian industries could not produce enough supplies for their nearly 1.5 million soldiers, and it was commonplace to enter battle untrained and fitted with decades outdated weapons—or even worse, unarmed and waiting for one of your own to fall to then use their weapons. Casualties, unsurprisingly, were high.
Life for citizens wasn’t much better. Store shelves were empty, inflation was uncontrollable, and strikes and protests became everyday spectacles. In March of 1917, strikers joined war-exhausted soldiers on the streets in the February Revolution (name courtesy of the Julian calendar). Three days later, Tsar Nicholas II abdicated the throne, putting an official end to Imperial Russia—the dynastic era—just four years short of two centuries. He was replaced by a Provisional Government whose public popularity rapidly soured due to their decision to keep Russia in World War I.
Anastasia Romanov, daughter of Nicholas II, is said to have survived the Romanov family’s execution in July of 1918. Since then, conspiracy theories are aplenty, with no small number of women posing as the lost Romanov princess.
Trumping Bougies with Bread
Soon after, Vladimir Lenin, former exile of Russia due to his communist-aligned ideologies, returned to the state with goals to destabilize the Provisional Government. His selling point to rally the masses? The phrase “peace, land, and bread,” which promised the removal of Russia from war, the redistribution of land to peasants, and the end of starvation. Lenin’s support for the commoner—the proletariat—over the elite bourgeoisie (where the word “bougie” comes from) only furthered his popularity. In a nearly bloodless coup during November of 1917, the October Revolution successfully toppled the Provisional Government, and less than half a year later, Lenin put an end to Russia’s WWI involvement with the Brest-Litovsk Treaty.
A Rule of Paranoia
After securing power via an unfair election, Lenin immediately set out to accomplish his primary goals of consolidating power, eradicating opposition, and nationalizing Russia’s manufacturing industry. The success of these Leninist policies is subjective, as while Lenin may have tooted his own horn, reality saw surges in famine and poverty. There was also a secret Cheka police created to silence political opposition and calm Lenin’s paranoia (because orchestrating mass executions under government police is clearly the best way to prevent assasination attempts). In 1922, Russia united with Ukraine, Belarus, and the Transcaucasus (Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan) to form America’s soon-to-be “coldest” opponent, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, aka the USSR.
A defamatory German poster propagandizing Lenin’s reign of brutality—the Red Terror—carried out by the Cheka.
Rule of Terror 2.0
Two years after the creation of the USSR, Lenin dies from a brain hemorrhage and allows Joseph Stalin to swoop into power. Like his predecessor, Stalin ruled in a totalitarian manner that capitalized on civilian terror, using secret police, print propaganda, forced labor camps, and civilian espionage programs to eliminate opponents. Nevertheless, many historians attribute Russia’s rise to global dominance to Stalin’s totalitarian policies.
Prior to World War II, Stalin signed the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact with Adolf Hitler, mutually agreeing to not take up arms against each other for the upcoming decade. Less than two years later, Germany invades the USSR in flagrant defiance of this pact, because, well, war is war. The frigid winter would once again prove to be Russia’s most potent and unfailing weapon, halting Hitler’s advances as they did Napoleon’s a century or so ago—but not before there was significant infrastructure and civilian decimation. For the rest of the war, the USSR partook in a fragile alliance built on a common enemy rather than mutual trust and ambivalence with the United States and Great Britain.
A World War II political cartoon depicting the ultimate Nazi Germany defeat at the Battle of Stalingrad against Russian forces. This battle marking a turning point in the war's eastern front that began to favor the Allies.
From Satellite Countries to Actual Satellites
Following World War II, Stalin established communist satellite countries in neighboring eastern Europe, breaking the Yalta treaty promise of allowing “free and unfettered elections” in states like Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary. Once again, history proves that political promises are really just pretty words. This, and mounting animosity that arose amidst WWII, bubbled into palpable tension of Soviet communism versus United State’s capitalism and democracy. From 1945 to 1990, the USSR and the US competed not just militarily, but culturally, economically, and politically for global dominance in the Cold War.
Example of De-Stalinization: USSR's Khrushchev administration renames the city Stalingrad as “Volgograd.”
Nikita Khrushchev assumed power in September of 1953, starting his term with a bang by openly denouncing Stalin’s actions and ushering in de-Stalinization policies. He also inaugurated the USSR's space program and with it the space age itself, overseeing the successful launch of Sputnik I as the first man-made satellite to orbit the planet. In August of 1961, the Berlin Wall was erected as a physical manifestation of the sharp divide between the Cold War’s two hostile world powers and served to prevent Eastern Berliners from fleeing into US-aligned West Berlin.
USSR’s Sputnik I launch success in 1957 became the driving factor for the ensuing Space Race between the United States.
Thawing Relations and Globalization
In 1991, the USSR collapsed and officially marked the end of the near half-century long Cold War, largely attributed to Soviet Premier Mikhael Gorbachev’s reforms of openness (glasnost) and economic restructuring (perestroika). Gradually, former satellite states regained autonomy and severed Stalin-era ties to the Russian state. Fifteen independent republics formed from the fracturing of the USSR, and Gorbachev was actually awarded the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize for his role in such. That same year just prior to the collapse of the USSR, the first McDonald’s—whose entire franchise is synonymous with Western capitalism—opened in Moscow’s Pushkin Square. And so marked another step to a world speaking the common language of Big Macs and grinning, highlighter-resembling clowns.
In March of 2022, McDonald’s, along with other food franchises Starbucks and Coca-Cola, suspended operations in Russia in response to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Modern Madness
As the grandson of Spiridon Putin, who was Lenin and Stalin’s personal cook, Vladimir Putin came into power in 1999. His initial two terms brought him immense popularity, yet his third presidential term, won in 2012, was speculated to have been wrought with electoral fraud.
Under Putin, previous USSR territories face the daunting prospect of being reintegrated into a 21st century’s resurrection of the former republic. Georgia was invaded in 2008, Crimea was annexed in 2014, and as of 2022, Ukraine faces a military and humanitarian crisis against its former domineerer.
Global protests spark (such as the one in London depicted above) in opposition of the invasion.
The entire world holds its breath at Putin’s efforts to restore “true Russian glory,” watching with unease and outrage, yet at the same time, fear at the potential for mutually assured destruction.
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