History UsefulNotes / TsaristRussia

Russia was an autocratic state, which wasn't a nice thing if you disagreed with the government. They had a SecretPolice (the Okhranka) and the Orthodox Church chipped in with the help that most peasants were illiterate.

To add insult to injury, the later emperors Alexander III (a very conservative giant of a man, a reactionary and [[TheAlcoholic a roaring drunk]], though a shrewd and cautious ruler and a good diplomat) and his son Nicholas II--a weak and indecisive ruler, who managed to both constantly vary his policy (basically a [[OurPresidentsAreDifferent Tsar Focus Group]]) and a blithely unshakeable believer in his [[DivineRightOfKings divinely-granted authority as Tsar]][[note]]Incidentally, "Tsar" was his preferred title even though this was technically incorrect[[/note]] (as his "focus group" seemed to be composed exclusively of conservative upper nobility)--reversed many of these reforms. The fact that Alexander II had been thanked for his efforts by being blown to pieces probably had something to do with that. However it resulted in an impoverished country. Well, the economy was booming, but the political climate was stifling, the wealth distribution ''unbelievably'' skewed and the intellectual classes (''intelligentsiya'') widely believed the country to be a basket case ([[UsefulNotes/TheNewRussia sounds familiar?]])--which caused them to adopt a "the worse the better" attitude, and dive into the revolutionary ideas. A desire to take power away from the Tsar and his bureaucracy probably had something to do with radicalism too.

To add insult to injury, the later emperors Alexander III (a very conservative giant of a man, a reactionary and [[TheAlcoholic a roaring drunk]], though a shrewd and cautious ruler and a good diplomat) and his son Nicholas II--a weak and indecisive ruler, who managed to both constantly vary his policy (basically a [[OurPresidentsAreDifferent Tsar Focus Group]]) and an blithely unshakeable believer in his [[DivineRightOfKings divinely-granted authority as Tsar]][[note]]Incidentally, "Tsar" was his preferred title even though this was technically incorrect[[/note]] (as his "focus group" seemed to be composed exclusively of conservative upper nobility)--reversed many of these reforms. The fact that Alexander II had been thanked for his efforts by being blown to pieces probably had something to do with that. However it resulted in an impoverished country. Well, the economy was booming, but the political climate was stifling, the wealth distribution ''unbelievably'' skewed and the intellectual classes (''intelligentsiya'') widely believed the country to be a basket case ([[UsefulNotes/TheNewRussia sounds familiar?]])--which caused them to adopt a "the worse the better" attitude, and dive into the revolutionary ideas. A desire to take power away from the Tsar and his bureaucracy probably had something to do with radicalism too.

To add insult to injury, the later emperors Alexander III (a very conservative giant of a man, a reactionary and [[TheAlcoholic a roaring drunk]], though a shrewd and cautious ruler and a good diplomat) and his son Nicholas II--a weak and indecisive ruler, who constantly varied his policy and was basically a [[OurPresidentsAreDifferent Tsar Focus Group]]--reversed many of these reforms. The fact that Alexander II had been thanked for his efforts by being blown to pieces probably had something to do with that. However it resulted in an impoverished country. Well, the economy was booming, but the political climate was stifling, the wealth distribution ''unbelievably'' skewed and the intellectual classes (''intelligentsiya'') widely believed the country to be a basket case ([[UsefulNotes/TheNewRussia sounds familiar?]])--which caused them to adopt a "the worse the better" attitude, and dive into the revolutionary ideas. A desire to take power away from the Tsar and his bureaucracy probably had something to do with radicalism too.

Then there was the Time of Troubles -- a SuccessionCrisis-cum-CivilWar. Not only did Ivan the Terrible kill his son and crown prince in a fit of a blind rage, but his second son, the weak and simpleminded Feodor Ivanovich, was more interested in religion than in ruling the realm, and [[HeirClubForMen was childless]] to boot. The original Rurikid dynasty fell, and the Godunovs (relatives of Feodor's wife) took the throne. They didn't make it, and after an interregnum and a war with Poland, Romanovs (relatives of one of Ivan the Terrible's wives) became the tsars. In an interesting aside, during the Muscovite era, Russia was ruled by a double-decker aristocracy that consisted of two classes: the Boyars, who were the feudal rulers and councilors of the Tsar, and the Dvoryans, who served as military officers and civil servants, somewhat similar to the Japanese system where also existed two separate nobilities, based on the court aristocracy (''kazoku'') and the military class (''shizoku'').

A state (well, a micronation) was created in the XXI century by Russian monarchists under the name of "Russian Empire". It originally claimed the atoll Suwarrow and also claimed ownership of the entire Antarctic (justifiable, since the continent was first discovered by a Russian expedition). Later it renamed itself "The Sovereign State of the Imperial Throne", dropped its claims on the atoll and found a Romanov descendant (Karl Emich zu Leiningen, a German prince related to the Romanovs) as a monarch. The micronation now tries (unsuccessfully, [[VetinariJobSecurity because Putin]]) to promote restoration of the monarchy in UsefulNotes/TheNewRussia.

* Alexander Romanov from ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert2'' is a distant relative of Nicholas II--and is the Premier of the Soviet Union and the successor of Joseph Stalin. Following the events of Yuri's Revenge, he and the USSR either joins the Allies against Yuri (Allied campaign), or after the Soviets defeat Yuri on their own (Soviet campaign), uses the latter's advanced space technology to force the [[DayOfTheJackboot Allies to surrender]] and [[WagonTrainToTheStars} to spread communism over the planet, across the solar system, and beyond…]]

* Alexander Romanov from ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert2'' is a distant relative of Nicholas II--and is the Premier of the Soviet Union and the successor of Joseph Stalin. Following the events of Yuri's Revenge, he and the USSR either joins the Allies against Yuri (Allied campaign), or after the Soviets defeat Yuri on their own (Soviet campaign), uses the latter's advanced space technology to force the [[{{DayoftheJackboot}} Allies to surrender]] and [[{{WagonTraintotheStars}} to spread communism over the planet, across the solar system, and beyond…]]

* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'''s Vostroyan Firstborn regiments are based on tzarist armies, with lots of BlingOfWar, sabers, and big furry hats.

* Some scenes involving [[NationsAsPeople Russia/Ivan]] in ''Webcomic/AxisPowersHetalia'' are set during this period. Even under the Tsars, he's shown to be not ''quite'' all there in the head for the most part. On the other hand, his StartOfDarkness is also depicted as happening during the later years leading up to the Russian Revolution. More specifically, Bloody Sunday 1905.

After Peter's death, the Age of Palace Revolutions came into being. The succession law introduced by Peter allowed emperors to nominate a successor of their choice[[note]] He himself chose his widow, a former maid, who ascended the throne as Catherine I.[[/note]], which unintentionally encouraged ambitious princes and (especially) [[EverythingsBetterWithPrincesses princesses]] to seize the throne by force. Most of the rulers of Russia after Peter during the 18th century were [[TheHighQueen women]], culminating with UsefulNotes/CatherineTheGreat, who wasn't even Romanov by birth (she was a German princess and a Romanov by marriage--though, ironically, she was a ''Rurikid'' by a direct male succession). The Catherinian age is often seen as the golden age of Imperial Russia. After Catherine, her son Paul I, who had never forgiven his mother for the death of his father[[note]] in spite of persistent rumours that Paul was not actually fathered by Peter III, but one of Catherine's lovers[[/note]], introduced a new succession law that was very strict, ending the Palace Revolutions age.

* ''Film/TheScarletEmpress'' is a factionalized version of Catherine the Great's rise to power, with particular emphasis on her ReallyGetsAround nature.

* Catherine (Yekaterina) II, UsefulNotes/CatherineTheGreat, also known as The Semiramis of the North. Born Sophia of Anhalt-Zerbst, she was a German, Lutheran {{Princess}} who converted to the Orthodox Church and learned the Russian language upon her marriage to the future Peter III. She took the throne after a successful coup d'état staged with the help of the Imperial Guard and the murder of her husband, who according to the most popular theory was strangled by Count Alexey Orlov, brother of one of Catherine's lovers. Often described as "an enlightened despot", she massively expanded the Russian Empire, massively promoted Russian culture but squashed dissent. Catherine tends to be admired more abroad than at home, where many people prefer to refer to her as Catherine II rather than Catherine the Great. There are two main reasons for this: One, she was pals with prominent writers of the Enlightenment such as Diderot and Creator/{{Voltaire}}, who flattered her from afar, and two, although she paid lip-service to the idea of improving the lot of the serfs, she soon left them to the "mercies" of their lords and even took away their right to complain about their treatment. Rumors about her sex life persist as {{Urban Legend}}s, but do contain elements of truth.

AKA the Russian Empire and before that, Czarist Russia. ("Czar" or "Tsar" being a Slavic form of "Caesar", this title also existed in medieval Bulgaria and Serbia, but was most historically important in Russia) Massive in size (sometimes bigger than even the USSR was and at one time reaching as far as northern California) and lasted for about 400 years. Its history is divided into two parts: the Muscovite Tsardom period and the Imperial period.

The Muscovite Tsardom began under the 15th-century grand prince Ivan III "The Great" (who used the ''tsar'' title only occasionally) and was established fully under his grandson, Ivan IV "The Terrible", who was crowned as a Tsar from the very beginning. It was a convoluted, very conservative realm that considered itself a successor state to the UsefulNotes/ByzantineEmpire and by extension UsefulNotes/TheRomanEmpire.

Then there was the Time of Troubles--a SuccessionCrisis-cum-CivilWar. Not only did Ivan the Terrible kill his son and crown prince in a fit of a blind rage, but his second son, the weak and simpleminded Feodor Ivanovich, was more interested in religion than in ruling the realm, and [[HeirClubForMen was childless]] to boot. The original Rurikid dynasty fell, and the Godunovs (relatives of Feodor's wife) took the throne. They didn't make it, and after an interregnum and a war with Poland, Romanovs (relatives of one of Ivan the Terrible's wives) became the tsars. In an interesting aside, during the Muscovite era, Russia was ruled by a double-decker aristocracy that consisted of two classes: the Boyars, who were the feudal rulers and councilors of the Tsar, and the Dvoryans, who served as military officers and civil servants, somewhat similar to the Japanese system where also existed two separate nobilities, based on the court aristocracy (''kazoku'') and the military class (''shizoku'').

As the old regime got into costly wars against Japan (1905) and the Central Powers (1914-1917) massive revolts broke out, culminating in the overthrow of the Tsar and the UsefulNotes/RedOctober. And the rest is the matter of [[UsefulNotes/HistoryOfTheUSSR another]] [[UsefulNotes/SovietRussiaUkraineAndSoOn article]].

!!Tropes often associated with Tsarist Russia

* AllJewsAreAshkenazi: The Russian Empire had the highest population of Jews of any nation prior to the Holocaust and later the foundation of Israel. The only state that may have had more Jews was UsefulNotes/TheRomanEmpire. That being said, nearly all of them were Ashkenazi. Strangely, the Jews in Russia were somewhat of a recent phenomenon. While small communities had existed here or there before the 18th century, it was the Partitions of Poland in the mid and late 18th century that brought a large amount of Jews into the control of the Russian Empire. The Jews of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the heirs to an advanced society of high literary and urbanization never quite managed to find acceptance in the Russian Empire.
* BadassBeard: As the picture above shows, Russian nobles in the Muscovite period were extremely proud of their beards, which they regarded as symbolic of awesomeness. Peter the Great disagreed and banned them as part of his reforms although he was forced to allow priests to keep theirs so that they became Holy Beards instead.
* BigFancyHouse: The Tsars and Russian nobles in general were fans of this. Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg is the most famous example. Russia is still peppered with old crumbling manor houses and estates, some of which were repurposed by the Soviets as resorts.
* ButtMonkey: Russian peasants, and ironically, the military and royals during the reign of Nicholas II post-1905. Jews in the Russian Empire were even bigger Butt Monkeys, frequently subjected to both spontaneous pogroms and at times even instances where the Russian government would deliberately whip up antisemitic hysteria against its Jewish community (in times of trouble, the Russian government would drag out antisemitism as a cynical means of directing the people's ire away from the government and towards a readily-available scapegoat).
* ChristianityIsCatholic: Averted, the Russian Orthodox Church was the official state religion of the Russian Empire, and Catholics under Russian rule experienced anything from a sort of uneasy coexistence to outright persecution (as often happened after the Catholic Poles were brought into the Russian Empire).
* ChurchMilitant: The Oprichniks were the StateSec of Ivan the Terrible and had some paramilitary functions as well. They were all insane (and very well-armed) warrior monks from a fraternal order organized along the Russian Orthodox Church lines (but not exactly belonging to it).
* ConspicuousConsumption: A major problem with tsars, nobles, and cossacks. Especially considering that the Russian Empire's peasants were among the poorest in Europe.
* DressCode: Women of court, in the last couple centuries of this era, were required to wear certain clothes, to help show the distinctiveness of RussianFashion. Some women [[OfCorsetHurts were not silent about how uncomfortable it could be]].
* AGodAmI: Ivan IV (better known as Ivan The Terrible) believed he was the Archangel Michael reborn in mortal form.
* LowerClassLout: Russian peasants were extremely poor, even compared to other European peasants, and in fiction are often portrayed as brutes and easily-riled hicks. Or they're portrayed as horribly oppressed, sympathetic ButtMonkey figures.
** TheDungAges: Subverted, while Russia's lower class was destitute even by the standards of other European nations, Russians did bathe more than Western Europeans in the Middle Ages and Renaissance periods.
* HiddenBackupPrince: The two Pseudo-Demetriuses (see above) claimed to be this, as did [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yemelyan_Pugachev Yemelyan Pugachev]], who led the biggest popular uprising (1773-1775) during the reign of Empress Catherine II. He claimed that he was actually Peter III, who miraculously escaped the palace revolution staged by his consort, and thereby managed to increase his popular base. And in the 20th century [[DidAnastasiaSurvive a number of women pretended to be Princess Anastasia, the youngest daughter of Nicholas II]].
* ModernMajorGeneral: Russian military commanders during UsefulNotes/WorldWarI
* PimpedOutDress: Including a distinctive style with the cut of the sleeves and skirt.
* PrettyInMink: Fur-trimmed outfits were not unique to Russia, but it became part of the distinctive look.
* TheRemnant: The White Army during UsefulNotes/RedOctober is often portrayed as this to Tsarist Russia, the truth is very different, as the White Army was a coalition of monarchists, liberals (many of whom advocated democracy!), aristocrats and other wealthy figures, Cossacks, former Russian military officers (the grunts generally gravitated towards the Reds), and generally anyone who wasn't a communist, anarchist, or Ukranian nationalist. But despite the fact that hardline Tsarists were a minority among the Whites, they continued to enforce most of the law, discipline, customs etc of the dead Empire, which gives a legitimate reason to call them a remnant thereof (and gave the masses a legitimate reason to hate them, which led to their defeat).
** Ironically, a case could be made of the Reds also being TheRemnant, as after the first attempts at fighting with the untrained worker militias (the original Red Guards) failed quite spectacularly, UsefulNotes/LeonTrotsky, who was responsible for creating the Soviet military, had to resort to bringing the FormerRegimePersonnel aboard to help organize and train it. So, in the end, the new Red Army was essentially organized by the former Tsarist officers along the [[UsefulNotes/RussiansWithRifles former Imperial Army lines]]. The Reds, however, emphatically denied any succession, down to the InsistentTerminology (e.g., they rejected the word "officer" as too Tsarist and called their officers "commanders").
* SailorFuku: Nicholas II's son, Alexsei, was often wearing the male version in photographs, probably because of his young age.

* Catherine The Great appears in an episode of JackOfAllTrades(Series) (in line with the show's dubious record of historical accuracy, she appears despite it being set five years after her death and portrayed as a much younger woman.) The entire purpose of the episode seems to be to repeat all those nasty rumours about her having had sex with a horse.

* Mikhail Glinka's opera ''A Life for the Tsar'' (Ivan Susanin makes a heroic sacrifice to save Tsar Michael Romanov from a dastardly Polish attack at the end of the Time of Troubles).

* Nicholas II (Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov), aka Nicholas The Martyr, Bloody Nicholas, Saint Nicholas The Passion Bearer and the cousin of George V. Last Emperor of Russia. Presided over UsefulNotes/RomanovsAndRevolutions, was shot ([[TearJerker along with his family]]) and was later made a saint by the Russian Orthodox Church in 2000. He continued the trend of Alexander III of reversing Alexander II's liberal reforms, and was first humiliated by Russia's defeat in the Russo-Japanese War. However, his execution by revolutionaries has most colored his legacy, especially when compared to the Soviet rule. Though he is often compared favorably in the West to the Soviets, his rule was definitely not free of oppression and it saw some of the worst pogroms (race riots, mainly against Jews) in Russian history. Arguably the personification of WellDoneSonGuy, having been given very little preparation for ruling the country and always cowed by his much stronger father. Also known for [[UncannyFamilyResemblance looking like a twin brother to]] [[UsefulNotes/TheHouseOfWindsor his first cousin, King George V of England]].

Russia was an autocratic state, which wasn't a nice thing if you disagreed with the government. They had a SecretPolice (the Okhranka) and the Orthodox Church chipped in with the help that most peasants were illiterate, which brings us onto...

* Nicholas II (Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov), aka Nicholas The Martyr, Bloody Nicholas, Saint Nicholas The Passion Bearer and the cousin of George V. Last Emperor of Russia. Presided over UsefulNotes/RomanovsAndRevolutions, was shot ([[TearJerker along with his family]]) and was later made a saint by the Russian Orthodox Church in 2000, after the Soviet days were safely past. He continued the trend of Alexander III of reversing Alexander II's liberal reforms, and was first humiliated by Russia's defeat in the Russo-Japanese War. However, his execution by revolutionaries has most colored his legacy, especially when compared to the Soviet rule. Though he is often compared favorably in the West to the Soviets, his rule was definitely not free of oppression and it saw some of the worst pogroms (race riots, mainly against Jews) in Russian history. Arguably the personification of WellDoneSonGuy, having been given very little preparation for ruling the country and always cowed by his much stronger father. Also known for [[UncannyFamilyResemblance looking like a twin brother to]] [[UsefulNotes/TheHouseOfWindsor his first cousin, King George V of England]].

* UsefulNotes/{{Cossacks}}: Arguably the most famous aspect of Tsarist Russia and their military, though really a very tiny pecentage of the Russia's armies.

* TooDumbToLive: Nicholas II, while he was a good-intentioned ruler and well-meaning, he was weak, incompetent and easily engineered by the ultra-corrupt Imperial Court, and constantly made bad choices that doomed his empire. The only thing he did that is generally agreed upon as a good idea is the Trans-Siberian Railroad. The real Nicholas II wasn't the bloody tyrant that communists make him out to be, nor was he the holy saint that monarchists and the Russian Orthodox Church makes him out to be. He was a well-intentioned family man who was utterly incompetent and (probably) utterly stupid--his diaries read like that of a ValleyGirl, really (though there is a possibility that they are fake).

* Boris Godunov. The man who tried to found a new dynasty but failed. He was a good, shrewd ruler, and a kind one compared to Ivan the Terrible, but his reputation of a ManipulativeBastard didn't make the people like him, and famines of the worst kind happened during his reign. He also instituted [[IndenturedServitude the Enserfment of Russia]], the process by which peasants with rights of movement and work, had their rights taken away by them and forced to work on land.

* Nicholas II (Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov), aka Nicholas The Martyr, Bloody Nicholas, Saint Nicholas The Passion Bearer and the cousin of George V. Last Emperor of Russia. Presided over UsefulNotes/RomanovsAndRevolutions, was shot ([[TearJerker along with his family]]) and was later made a saint by the Russian Orthodox Church in 2000, after the Soviet days were safely past. He continued the trend of Alexander III of reversing Alexander II's liberal reforms, and was first humiliated by Russia's defeat in the Russo-Japanese War. However, his execution by revolutionaries has most colored his legacy, especially when compared to the Soviet rule. Though he is often compared favorably in the West to the Soviets, his rule was definitely not free of oppression and it saw some of the worst pogroms (race riots, mainly against Jews) in Russian history. Arguably the personification of WellDoneSonGuy, having been given very little preparation for ruling the country and always cowed by his much stronger father.

* Nicholas II (Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov), aka Nicholas The Martyr, Bloody Nicholas, Saint Nicholas The Passion Bearer and the cousin of George V. Last Emperor of Russia. Presided over RomanovsAndRevolutions, was shot ([[TearJerker along with his family]]) and was later made a saint by the Russian Orthodox Church in 2000, after the Soviet days were safely past. He continued the trend of Alexander III of reversing Alexander II's liberal reforms, and was first humiliated by Russia's defeat in the Russo-Japanese War. However, his execution by revolutionaries has most colored his legacy, especially when compared to the Soviet rule. Though he is often compared favorably in the West to the Soviets, his rule was definitely not free of oppression and it saw some of the worst pogroms (race riots, mainly against Jews) in Russian history. Arguably the personification of WellDoneSonGuy, having been given very little preparation for ruling the country and always cowed by his much stronger father.

* TheRemnant: The White Army during RedOctober is often portrayed as this to Tsarist Russia, the truth is very different, as the White Army was a coalition of monarchists, liberals (many of whom advocated democracy!), aristocrats and other wealthy figures, Cossacks, former Russian military officers (the grunts generally gravitated towards the Reds), and generally anyone who wasn't a communist, anarchist, or Ukranian nationalist. But despite the fact that hardline Tsarists were a minority among the Whites, they continued to enforce most of the law, discipline, customs etc of the dead Empire, which gives a legitimate reason to call them a remnant thereof (and gave the masses a legitimate reason to hate them, which led to their defeat).

Note that many Bolshevik and other revolutionaries were actually petty nobles and not urban commoners. Among those were the MoscowCentre founder Felix Dzerzhinsky and UsefulNotes/VladimirLenin himself[[note]]To put things into perspective, Dzerszhinsky came from impoverished Polish-Lithuanian nobility, while Lenin's father Ulyanov, was a school teacher and administrator who was ennobled by Alexander III when Lenin was twelve. Ilya Ulyanov's father Nikolay had been a freed serf.[[/note]]. The anarchist Peter Kropotkin was born a prince descended from the Rurikids. There is also a persistent theory that UsefulNotes/JosephStalin was a bastard son of the Polish-Russian noble and famous explorer Przhevalsky (as they show an uncanny likeness).

Several famous Russian noble houses were the Romanovs (before they got royal status), the Godunovs, the Shuiskys, the Miloslavskys, the Golitzines, the Obolenskys, the Gagarins (no, not [[UsefulNotes/YuriGagarin that one]]),[[note]]Though coming from a peasant family from one of their former estates, he's likely to descend from the princely family's ''serfs'', taking the family name of one's former landlord being the common practice[[/note]], the Ignatievs.

Several famous Russian noble houses were the Romanovs (before they got royal status), the Godunovs, the Shuiskys, the Miloslavskys, the Golitzines, the Obolenskys, the Gagarins (no, not [[UsefulNotes/YuriGagarin that one]]),[[note]]Though coming from a peasant family from one of their former estates, he's likely to descend from the princely family's ''serfs'', taking the family name of one's former landlord being the common practice[[/note]], the Ignatiev.