Russian Empire | History, Facts, Flag, Expansion, & Map (2024)

Russian Empire, historical empire founded on November 2 (October 22, Old Style), 1721, when the Russian Senate conferred the title of emperor (imperator) of all the Russias upon Peter I. The abdication of Nicholas II on March 15, 1917, marked the end of the empire and its ruling Romanov dynasty.

The empire had its genesis when the Russian nobility sought a new bloodline for its monarchy. They found it in Michael Romanov, a young boyar (nobleman), who was elected tsar in 1613. The early Romanovs were weak monarchs. Crowned at age 17, Michael shared the throne during the crucial years of his reign with his father, the patriarch Philaret. Michael’s son Alexis came to the throne in 1645 at age 16; he was much under the influence first of Boris Ivanovich Morozov and then of the patriarch Nikon. Fyodor III, a boy of just 14 at the time of his accession in 1676, also yielded much power to favourites. In spite of this, all three were popular tsars who left behind a good reputation among the people and whom the Slavophiles of the 19th century idealized as model Russian monarchs. Government during this period usually rested in the hands of individuals who for one reason or another exercised personal influence over the tsars. Popular dissatisfaction usually turned against these favourites rather than the tsar himself, such as during the urban uprisings (1648–50) that led to the exile of Morozov, and the great peasant rebellion (1670–71) led by the Cossack Stenka Razin.

In theory, the Russian monarchy was unlimited, and indeed there were no guarantees, either legal or economic, against the arbitrary power of the tsar. In practice, however, the degree of control he could exercise over the empire was effectively limited by the size of the country, the inadequacy of the administration, and a generally nonmodern conception of politics. As a consequence, the vast majority of the inhabitants rarely felt the heavy hand of the state, which limited its own authority to the maintenance of order and the collection of taxes. Some of the tsar’s ostensible subjects, such as the inhabitants of Siberia and the Cossacks, lived in completely autonomous communities, only nominally under the authority of the tsar.