Russia is the largest state in the world. It is almost twice as large as China or Canada. It is interesting to trace how Russia became so huge.
Colonization or development?
Recently, serious controversy has flared up around the expansion of Russia's borders throughout its centuries-old history. Was this expansion colonial or was it land development? If the first is true, then the very location of Russia, stretching across almost the entire Eurasian continent, created difficulties in determining where the metropolis ends and the colony begins.
Conventionally, Russian possessions in Alaska and California could be called colonies, but there was no typical feature of colonial policy - the enslavement of indigenous peoples.
Director of the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences Yuri Petrov notes that "the expansion of the territory of the Russian state and the annexation of other peoples" cannot be considered colonization, since this process was accompanied by "a merger of elites, unusual for classical colonial regimes."
Western historiography takes the opposite position on this issue. In particular, in the resolution of the US Congress "On enslaved nations", among other territories and states "enslaved" and "deprived of national independence" by Russia are Ukraine, Belarus, the Volga region, Cossackia and even North Korea.
Historian Konstantin Minyar-Beloruchev, far from idealizing Russia's "imperial policy" (Caucasian wars, conquest of Central Asia, Stalin's deportations) draws attention to much more comfortable conditions for national survival and development in the annexed lands, in contrast to the indigenous population of the United States.
Promotional video:
Three levels of ownership
Due to the geopolitical features in which the Old Russian state found itself, special conditions were created for the development of the Eurasian space. The populated west, south and harsh north left broad prospects for Russia only in the east. However, as history has shown, Russia's expansion was successful in all directions.
Minyar-Beloruchev proposed using a hierarchical approach to identifying the levels of possession of the Russian Empire. According to the historian, there are three such levels: first, the core of the state - the European part of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus; the second is the sparsely populated ("no-man's") Siberia and the Far East; the third - the traditional societies of the North Caucasus, Transcaucasia and Central Asia, as well as the Baltic states, Poland and Finland belonging to the "European home".
Border security
American political scientist George Friedman associates the process of Russia's expansion with its insecurity, in which it could rely only on its inhospitable climate and harsh natural conditions. The multidirectionality of the external threat has created a precedent for building an aggressive policy of the state. “Russian history is a chronicle of the agony of survival from one aggression to another,” the political scientist notes.
Friedman identifies three phases of Russia's forced expansion.
The first phase, which began under Ivan III, was the creation of "buffer" zones in the west and east, which would prevent external threats.
The second phase took effect under Ivan the Terrible and was more aggressive and risky. Having established itself on the northern spurs of the Caucasus, Russia defended itself from the countries of Asia Minor.
The third phase began with the reign of Peter I and related to the western route along which the enemy was now invading. Having strengthened its flanks in the Baltic and Black Seas, Russia, according to Fridman, could feel more secure.
State formation
Historians are unanimous that the impetus for expanding the borders of Russia, first of all, should be associated with the emergence of statehood during the reign of Ivan III, which overcame the time of difficult Russian-Horde relations and rivalry between appanage principalities.
The consolidation of the central government by Moscow and the "gathering of lands" created the conditions for the state to enter important trade routes, and with it the opportunity to develop its foreign policy.
With the accession to the throne of Ivan the Terrible, the process of the annexation of lands entered its active phase and was associated with the strengthening of the state and the desire to secure, first of all, its eastern borders. One after another, the heirs of the Golden Horde - the Kazan, Astrakhan and Siberian Khanates - are part of the Russian kingdom. This creates reliable outposts and the ability to move further east.
Access to the sea
The isolation from sea routes and, as a result, the lack of broad opportunities to develop the military and merchant fleet have become one of the most important reasons for Russia's desire to reach the ice-free ports of the Baltic and Black Seas, as well as the Pacific coast of the Far East.
Such a policy was outlined even under Ivan the Terrible, but it was destined to be fully realized only during the reign of Catherine II.
The successful access to seaports, according to the American historian Richard Pipes, was largely facilitated by the dense and convenient network of river routes, along which, even using primitive ships, it was possible to get from the Baltic to the Caspian without any problems.
Echo of the Time of Troubles
Researcher Vitaly Averyanov draws an interesting parallel: the intensification of expansion on the part of Russia arose after the end of the "times of troubles". So, according to the researcher, it was after the Troubles of 1598-1613, and this also happened after the most difficult period of the collapse of the empire at the beginning of the 20th century.
On the other hand, Averyanov sees in the intensification of expansion a kind of revenge for Russia's loss of part of its territories. The researcher notes that the rapid development of Siberia in the 17th century followed the loss of a number of western lands, in particular Smolensk, and access to the Gulf of Finland. Expeditions of Rebrov, Poyarkov, Dezhnev and Khabarov more than compensated for these losses, opening up new geographic and economic horizons for Russia.
The next "unparalleled geopolitical revenge" that Averyanov draws attention to occurred after the end of World War II, when the borders of the Baltic States, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova were restored, and additional territorial acquisitions were made in Eastern Europe at the expense of Finland, Prussia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and in Asia - at the expense of South Sakhalin, the Kuriles and Tuva.
It is interesting to note that the last territorial acquisitions of the Soviet Union, which established the extreme points of the state in the western and eastern directions, took place almost simultaneously: we are talking about Konigsberg (Kaliningrad) and South Sakhalin with the Kuril Islands.
Imperial appetites
A significant part of the peoples and countries that were part of the two superpowers - the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union - have uneasy relations with today's Russia.
Recently, researchers from the Eurasian Monitor Center analyzed 187 school textbooks from 11 post-Soviet states, including Latvia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan. The researchers' conclusion turned out to be predictable: in most school textbooks of the former Soviet republics, Russia is portrayed as a colonial empire that ruthlessly exploited the national periphery and oppressed its inhabitants.
The idea of colonial expansion is most clearly expressed in the historiography of the Central Asian countries. The authors of the textbooks emphasize that Russia used this region as a raw material base, from where silk, cotton, karakul and numerous mineral wealth were exported.
However, the denouncers of Russia's “imperial appetites” do not take into account the fact that ¾ of the economy of the Union republics was subsidized. As the Russian orientalist Alexei Vasiliev noted, "not a single metropolis - England, France, Portugal, Holland - has left such a developed economy in its colonies as Russia in Central Asia."