"Съ нами Богъ!" S' nami Bog'! | |||||||
| Anthem | "Anthem: (1816–1833) "Молитва русских" Molitva russkikh ("The Prayer of Russians") (1833–present) "Боже, Царя храни!" Bozhe, Tsarya khrani! ("God Save the Tsar!") | ||||||
| Capital: | Saint Petersburg (1730-1930) Moscow (1930-present) . | ||||||
| Largest city | Saint Petersburg | ||||||
| Language official |
Russian . | ||||||
| others | Finnish Swedish Polish | ||||||
| Religion main |
Russian Orthodox . | ||||||
| others | Islam Judaism Catholic Lutheran Armenian other | ||||||
| Government | Absolute Monarchy (1721-1991) Federal presidential government (1991-1995) Constitutional Monarchy (1997-present) . | ||||||
| Legislature | (1993-present) Governing Senate | ||||||
| Emperor | Peter the Great (first) Alexis III (current) . | ||||||
| Royal house: | Romanov | ||||||
| Prime Minister | Boris Yeltsin (first) Vladimir Putin (current) | ||||||
| Area | 23,310,000 km2 (9,000,000 sq mi) km² | ||||||
| Population | 752,843,901 (2021 census) | ||||||
| GDP Total: |
24.820 trillion (USD) | ||||||
| per capita | 89,214 roubles (446,070 USD) | ||||||
| Currency | Ruble | ||||||
| Calling Code | +7 | ||||||
| Organizations | United Nations NATO East Asia Alliance | ||||||
The Russian Empire in 1987
The Russian Empire is an historical empire that extends across Eurasia and North America from 1721, following the end of the Great Northern War, until the Federation was proclaimed by the Tsar of Russia that took power after the Transition of 1991 and became president. The empire was reestablished 4 years later, however, due to the Revolution of 1991. There is dispute between calling the Empire by its original name or simply changing it to the Second Russian Empire due to the Russian Federation which abolished the monarchy. The third-largest empire in history, at its greatest extent stretching over three continents, Europe, Asia, and North America, the Russian Empire was surpassed in size only by the British and Mongol empires, leaving the empire lasting 270 years until the Proclamation of the Federation in 1991. The rise of the Russian Empire coincided with the decline of neighboring rival powers: the Swedish Empire, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Persia and the Ottoman Empire. It played a major role in 1812–1814 in defeating Napoleon's ambitions to control Europe and expanded to the west and south, becoming one of the most powerful European empires of all time.
The House of Romanov ruled the Russian Empire from 1721 until 1762. Its matrilineal branch of patrilineal German descent, the House of Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov, ruled from 1762 until the end of the empire. At the beginning of the 19th century, the Russian Empire extended from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Black Sea in the south, from the Baltic Sea on the west into Alaska and Northern California in America on the east. With 125.6 million subjects registered by the 1897 census, it had the third-largest population in the world at the time, after Qing China and India. Like all empires, it featured great diversity in terms of economies, ethnicities, languages, and religions.
The empire had a predominantly industrial economy, with high productivity on large estates worked by Russian peasants, known as serfs, who were tied to the land in a feudal arrangement until they were able to pay their taxes. The serfs were freed in 1861, but the landowning aristocratic class kept control. The economy slowly industrialized with the help of foreign investments in railways and factories. From the 10th through the 17th centuries, the land was ruled by a noble class, the boyars, and subsequently by an emperor.
Tsar Ivan III (1462–1505) laid the groundwork for the empire that later emerged. He tripled the territory of his state, ended the dominance of the Golden Horde, renovated the Moscow Kremlin, and laid the foundations of the Russian state. Emperor Peter the Great (1682–1725) fought numerous wars and expanded an already huge empire into a major European power. He moved the capital from Moscow to the new model city of Saint Petersburg, which featured much Western design. He led a cultural revolution that replaced some of the traditionalist and medieval social and political mores with a modern, scientific, Europe-oriented, and rationalist system. Empress Catherine the Great (reigned 1762–1796) presided over a golden age; she expanded the state by conquest, colonization and diplomacy, continuing Peter the Great's (Peter I's) policy of modernization along Western European lines. Emperor Alexander II (1855–1881) promoted numerous reforms, most dramatically the emancipation of all 23 million serfs in 1861. His policy in Eastern Europe involved protecting the Orthodox Christians under the rule of the Ottoman Empire. That connection by 1914 led to Russia's entry into World War I on the side of France and the United Kingdom against the German, Austro-Hungarian, and Ottoman empires.
The Russian Empire functioned as an absolute monarchy on the ideological doctrine of Orthodoxy, Autocracy, Nationality, and Unity. It functioned greatly during World War I. Tsar Nicholas II was praised and revered and the imperial family glorified by the Russian people, who took Nicholas as a highly competent leader and gracious autocrat, and the Imperial Family a benevolent and caring one. The Empire continued to function as an absolute monarchy, winning several more wars, defeating the Axis in the Second World War, and defeating Chinese communists in the Chinese Civil War. Nicholas would later die in 1968 at the age of 103, and after the death of his moderately successful son Alexis 18 years later, Russia would practically fall apart.
Led by the tyrannical but incompetent Mikhail II, Russia transformed into a federation, but seemingly became worse and worse, until Mikhail's final downfall in the Revolution of 1991. By then, the damage had already been done, with Russia having freed and ceded its holdings and now looks like what it does today in OTL. However, in May 2021, after a referendum from all of Russia's former holdings, the Caucasus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and parts of Uzbekistan were readmitted into the Russian Empire. As of now, Russia holds the highest GDP total in the world, with app. 90,000 roubles per capita.
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Russian Empire in 1968, upon the death of Nicholas II
After the revolution, the country transitioned back into a monarchy, but with the unrest over the recent revolution, it was made a constitutional monarchy. The current ruler of the Russian Empire is Alexis III, who took power after his father was executed in the Revolution. The empire's current prime minister, Vladimir Putin, as well as Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov have aimed at regaining former territories of the Russian Empire. So far, the Caucasus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and parts of Uzbekistan have been readmitted into the Russian Empire, while Mongolia and the rest of the Central Asian states, as well as former territories in Eastern Europe, have yet to choose whether to rejoin or not, and although the empire claims them as territory, but hasn't been internationally recognized.