A VISUAL history of 19th-century Russia (PICS)

1. Sergei Chudanov. ‘The Assassination of Paul I on the Night of March 11-12, 1801’, 2016

On the night of March 24 (according to the Gregorian Calendar), 1801, Emperor Paul I was assassinated in St. Petersburg as a result of a conspiracy. The monarch was hated for stripping the nobility of their privileges and subjecting them to corporal punishment. Breaking off the alliance with England and collaborating with Napoleon also did little to boost his popularity.

Paul's son, Alexander I, ascended the throne. It’s believed he knew about the conspiracy, but refused to entertain the idea of ​​regicide. The new ruler removed all key participants from the court, as some wrote, "out of a sense of disgust and revulsion that he felt at the mere sight of them".

2. Gioacchino Giuseppe Seragnielli. ‘Farewell of Napoleon I and Alexander I after the Peace of Tilsit, July 9, 1807’, 1810

Under Alexander I, Russia once again went to war against France. However, its participation in the anti-Napoleonic coalitions brought it nothing but defeats. Following the failure of the military campaign of 1807, the tsar was forced to seek reconciliation with Bonaparte. The monarchs met in Tilsit in East Prussia (now the city of Sovetsk, Kaliningrad Region).

Under the terms of the peace treaty, Russia joined the continental blockade of England and Paris supported its claims to Swedish Finland. However, the alliance with France and the severing of economic ties with London proved extremely disadvantageous for St. Petersburg. Disagreements between the countries steadily grew, ultimately leading to the invasion of Russia by Napoleon's ‘Grande Armée’ in 1812.

3. Adolph Northen. ‘Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow’, 1851

Having invaded Russia, Napoleon counted on a swift victory in a decisive battle and the conclusion of a favorable peace treaty. However, Alexander I categorically refused to negotiate. Even the French capture of Moscow did not change his position.

Ultimately, Russia became the graveyard not only of the ‘Grande Armée’, but of Bonaparte's entire empire. The Patriotic War of 1812 was followed by the Russian Army's Foreign Campaign and, in 1814, the tsar triumphantly entered Paris. Russia, Austria and Prussia formed the Holy Alliance, which maintained the new order in Europe for decades.

4. Vasily Timm. ‘The Life Guard Horse Regiment during the Uprising of December 14, 1825, on Senate Square’, 19th century

Many officers in the Russian army, having fought their way through Europe, had the opportunity to compare living standards abroad with those at home – and this comparison did not reflect well on Russia. A protest movement began to grow among the nobility and secret societies emerged whose stated goal was to abolish autocracy and serfdom, which they viewed as detrimental to the country.

On December 1, 1825, Alexander I died and his brother Nicholas was to ascend the throne. Conspirators decided to take advantage of this brief interregnum and staged uprisings, first in St. Petersburg and, a little later, in Ukraine. Both uprisings ended in failure. Some of the rebels were executed, others were exiled to hard labor in Siberia.

5. Adolphe Yvonn. ‘The Capture of Malakhov Kurgan by General MacMahon on September 8, 1855’, 1857 

In the mid-19th century, Russia embarked on an expansionist campaign in the Balkans, which ultimately led to a conflict with a coalition of Great Britain, France, the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Sardinia. The Crimean War (1853-1856) was fought in the Caucasus, the territories of modern-day Romania and Moldova, the White and Baltic Seas and the Far East, with the main confrontation taking place in Crimea. For almost a year, coalition forces laid siege to Sevastopol, the main base of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. Its fall in September 1855 sealed the outcome of the war.

Under the terms of the Treaty of Paris, the Russian Empire lost its territories at the mouth of the Danube and part of Southern Bessarabia and was deprived of the right to maintain a naval fleet in the Black Sea – this ban was lifted only in 1871.

6. Boris Kustodiev. ‘The Emancipation of the Peasants (Reading the Manifesto)’, 1907

The Crimean War clearly demonstrated Russia's technological and economic lag behind the West. The country needed reforms and it was precisely these reforms that Alexander II, who ascended the throne in 1855, set out to implement.

The first and most significant of these was the abolition of serfdom in 1861. Serfs, who constituted approximately 35 percent of the peasantry, gained personal freedom and civil rights and acquired the right to work as hired laborers or engage in commerce. The elimination of this relic of feudalism gave impetus to economic development. However, the land issue remained unresolved – the land remained in the hands of the landowners and the newly freed peasants were forced to rent or purchase it for enormous sums, which led to growing social tensions.

7. Pyotr Gruzinsky. ‘The Abandonment of the Aul by the Mountaineers’, 1872 

The annexation of the North Caucasus in the 19th century was a mixed blessing for Russia – some regions voluntarily submitted to the tsar's rule, while others had to be subdued by force. The series of military conflicts between Russian troops and the rebellious mountaineers is commonly referred to as the Caucasian War. It began with the Russian army's transition from isolated raids to the systematic capture of independent enclaves in 1817 and ended in the establishment of full control over the region and the exodus of some highlanders to the territory of the Ottoman Empire in 1864.

8. Emanuel Leutze. ‘Signing of the Alaska Purchase Treaty, March 30, 1867’, 1868

The first Russian settlements in Alaska and the Aleutian Islands appeared in the late 18th century. Fur – the "soft gold" of the era – was abundantly harvested there. At the same time, colonization of the region was extremely slow and limited. By the mid-19th century, the Russian population numbered only a few thousand, scattered across a vast territory. The Americans were constantly pressing from the south and the British from the northeast. Ultimately, the imperial leadership decided that it could not hold Alaska and the islands without a major war and, in 1867, it sold them to the United States.

9. Vasily Vereshchagin. ‘At the Fortress Wall. ‘Let Them Enter’’, 1871

In the mid-19th century, Russia and Great Britain began the ‘Great Game’ for control of Central Asia. They sought to oust one other from the region without resorting to open armed conflict. They employed diplomatic intrigues, espionage and bribery of local rulers, inciting them against their opponents.

Meanwhile, Russian troops steadily advanced steadily southward, subjugating local khanates and emirates, abolishing slavery and ending centuries-old strife among the local population. With their arrival at the border of Afghanistan, then under British protection, in 1884, the conquest of Central Asia was essentially complete.

10. Nikolai Dmitriev-Orenburgsky. ‘Capture of the Grivitsky Redoubt near Plevna’, 1877

In 1877, another war broke out between the Russian and Ottoman empires. Alexander II supported the Bulgarians, Serbs and Montenegrins who were waging a war against the Turks. The fighting took place in the Balkans and the Caucasus, with the key episode being the months-long siege of Plevna. After capturing the city, the Russians advanced rapidly toward Istanbul.

Facing imminent collapse, the Turks made major concessions, but the European powers intervened in the peace process. Thanks to their efforts, the creation of an independent Greater Bulgaria, friendly to Russia and with access to the Aegean Sea, never materialized; instead, a greatly reduced vassal principality of the Ottoman Empire was established.

11. Ilya Repin. ’Reception of Volost Elders by Alexander III in the Courtyard of the Petrovsky Palace’,1885 

On March 13, 1881, Alexander II was assassinated by the revolutionary organization ‘Narodnaya Volya’, (‘People's Will’) and his son, Alexander III, ascended the throne. He abandoned his father's liberal policies and set a course for strengthening autocratic power – his reign is often called the "golden age of Russian conservatism". Furthermore, under Alexander III, the country did not participate in any large-scale military conflicts, which is why he went down in history as a ‘Tsar-Peacemaker’.

See how artists depicted key events in Russian history during the Middle Ages, the 16th century, the 17th century and the 18th century.