Expansion of Russia 1500–1800

The steppe and forest-steppe of Ukraine and southern Russia is good agricultural land, but it was traditionally held by pastoral nomads. Any state that could drive off the nomads and fill the land with tax-paying peasants would expand its power enormously. During the period 1500–1800, this region was taken under Russian control.

"The history of Russia is the history of a country being colonized....migration and colonization of the country have been fundamental facts of our history.." Vasily Klyuchevsky, Kurs russkoy istorii, I, 20–21.

In the absence of a good map, locations will be given as approximately so many kilometers directly south of Moscow, and then so many kilometers east or west of that line. Thus, Kiev is about 600 south and 500 west, while Perekop at the head of the Crimean peninsula is 1100s and 250w. For contrast, France is not quite 1,000 kilometers from north to south and Moscow is about 1,000 kilometers south of the White Sea. Since these numbers are estimates, they should not be cited or copied.

The Eurasian Steppe first appears in written history about 600 BC with the founding of Greek colonies along the north coast of the Black Sea. These cities traded Greek goods for Scythian grain. The Scythians were replaced as a ruling group by the Sarmatians, Goths, Avars, Petchenegs, Cumans and Khazars. At some point the dominant language changed from the Iranian language of the Scythians to Kipchak Turkic. About 860 Vikings entered what is now Russia and established trade routes to Persia and Byzantium. They adopted the local language and formed a state (Kievan Rus) which gradually broke up into a set of linked principalities. Around 1240 the whole area was conquered by the Mongols. Much of the Slavic population was driven north and west into the forested lands where they were relatively safe from Mongol raiding. As the Mongol Empire broke up, its western part became the Golden Horde with its capital on the lower Volga. These people adopted Islam about 1315. By 1500, the Golden Horde was in the process of breaking up.

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