Russia is a lonely country with 14 land neighbors and 6 sea neighbors, looking around but there are few friends to talk to. Asians see Russia as a Western country and ignore it; Europeans see it as an outlier and stay away.
In 395 AD, the Roman Emperor Theodosius I divided the empire among his two sons and divided the east and west. The eldest son, Arcadius, became Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire, and the second son, Honorius, became Emperor of the Western Roman Empire. In 476 AD, the Western Roman Empire fell to the end of the Germanic invasion, but the name "Rome" survived until 1806 due to the later rule of the Holy Roman Empire. The Eastern Roman Empire lasted until 1453, when the Ottoman Turks captured the capital, Constantinople, and then officially came to an end.
The Attitude of the Roman Empire towards Christianity, after hundreds of years of repression and softness, recognition and protection, finally established the status of Christianity as the state religion. However, after the division of the Roman Empire, the Latin schools of Christianity and the Greek schools of the East split, and eventually the Eastern and Western Churches expelled each other in 1054, forming an East-West confrontation between the Orthodox Church centered in Constantinople and the Catholic Church centered on Rome. Orthodox means "Christian orthodoxy."
Russia's history originated in the vast steppes of Eastern Europe, where Russians, Belarusians and Ukrainians shared a common ancestor. In 882, a monarchy (Kievan Rus') was established with Kiev as its capital. In 988, realizing that religious belief was beneficial to the consolidation of feudalism, Vladimir chose Orthodox Church from the Byzantine Empire as the state religion from a menu of several religions, which was historically referred to as the "Baptism of Rus". In 1054, after yaroslav's death, Kievan Rus' split into a dozen principalities.
In 1206, Temujin unified the Mongol ministries and held a conference on the upper reaches of the Hurultai River, and was subsequently elected as the Great Khan of all Mongolia, with the honorific title of "Genghis Khan" and the national name of "Great Mongolia". In 1219, Genghis Khan launched a western expedition and conquered the Khwarazm Empire in Central Asia. In 1237, Genghis Khan's grandson Battus began an invasion of Kievan Rus' . At the end of 1240, the Mongols captured the city of Kiev and established the Golden Horde. Because of the large number of Chincha people living in the territory, it is also known as the Chincha Khanate.
The quietly developing Principality of Moscow
The Grand Duke of Kievan Rus, Yuri Dorguru, founded the city of Moscow in 1147, and at first it was just a humble little castle. Because of its location deep in the forest, Moscow was less affected by the Tatars (Mongols), so many Russians came here to escape the war. The People of the Muscovite Principality flourished and their wealth rolled in.
In 1325, Daniel inherited the 50,000-square-kilometer Muscovite Principality, known historically as Ivan I. Moscow citizens levied huge transit taxes every year, and the wealthy Ivan I flattered the Mongols with gold and silver treasures to please the ruling class of the Golden Horde. On the other hand, they took the opportunity to annex the lands of other provocative principalities and expand their sphere of influence. The Great Khan of the Golden Horde was satisfied, and in 1328 he was canonized Ivan I as "Grand Duke of Vladimir and All Rus'" and allowed him to administer the principalities on his behalf, collecting tribute and taxes. Peter, Archbishop of Ross, also left Vladimir for Moscow. Ivan I died in 1340, and during his reign he annexed hundreds of cities and villages. The economic and military power of the Muscovite Principality reached its peak. In 1347, the Black Death swept across the continent. The plague claimed the lives of 25 million Europeans, about 1/3 of Europe's population. The Golden Horde was also severely affected, and its power was declining.
After the fall of The Eastern Rome, the Islamic Ottoman Empire inherited only the geographical territory of Eastern Rome and did not continue its cultural traditions, while Russia, which shared the same faith as Eastern Rome, began to consider itself the orthodox successor of Eastern Rome and Orthodoxy. Nineteen years after the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire, Ivan III, Grand Duke of Moscow, married Sophia Paleorrog, niece of the last Emperor Constantine XI, in 1472 and inherited the double-headed eagle emblem of the Eastern Roman Empire as the coat of arms.
At the same time as the rise of the Muscovite Principality, the Golden Horde continued to decline due to internal strife, splitting into small khanates such as the Kazan Khanate, the Nogai Khanate, the Astrakhan Khanate, the Crimean Khanate, and the Siberian Khanate, while the Great Horde still had Sarai as its capital and considered itself the successor of the Golden Horde.
In 1480, Ivan III won the "Confrontation on the Ugra River" against the Mongol army, thus officially ending the 240-year rule of the Mongols over the Rus, at this time the Golden Horde had been in this land for 240 years, and the Russians during the Mongol Empire's rule, due to the trust of the Golden Horde, intermarried between the two sides, which made the Russians and Mongols have a constant and complicated relationship in blood. Therefore, there is a proverb in the West: "Peel off the skin of a Russian, and you will see the blood of the Mongols under the skin." During the reign of Ivan III, the Duchy of Yaroslavl, the Principality of Novgorod, the Principality of Perm, and the Principality of Tver were incorporated into the territory of the Principality of Moscow, promoting the formation of a unified Russian state.
Ivan III's grandson Ivan IV (Ivan the Terrible) further expanded the territory of the Muscovite Principality, and in 1547 he was crowned Tsar and concluded a unified Russian state, initially known as Tsarist Russia. The name "Tsar" derives from the roman emperor's name "Caesar". As the first Tsar, Ivan IV declared himself not only the heir to the Roman Empire, but also the heir to the Golden Horde, and in 1563 Ivan IV proclaimed himself "Monarch of All Siberia", demonstrating his ambitions for Siberia. During this period, Russia's territory was about 2.8 million square kilometers at its largest, and its territory expanded to the Ob River, volga, middle and lower don rivers, the North Barents Sea, the South to the Caspian Sea, becoming the largest country in Europe, and opening the door to Siberia.
Defensive and offensive
Russia is an easy country to attack and difficult to defend: geographically, the core of Russia is a plain centered on Moscow, and without mountains and seas to provide a barrier, the nascent Russia is full of difficulties. In the north were the Nordic countries that were constantly harassing and plundering (Sweden occupied seven cities headed by Novgorod), the west was not very friendly to the West Slavic compatriots (Poland occupied a large area of the Smolensk and the Dnieper Valley), and in the south faced with nomadic peoples who came and went (the Tartar cavalry of the Crimean Khanate entered the Russian hinterland for the first time to plunder), in the face of internal troubles, Russia had to cut off the land for forgiveness in exchange for respite; the historical Russian defensive weapon was its cold and strategic depth, The vast expanse of Siberia created a great deal of wealth and opportunities for Tsarist Russia, and Russian merchants made huge profits by exporting expensive furs and timber to Europe.
From the 13th century to the 15th century, it was a period of profound changes in European history, the Renaissance, the Age of Discovery, the bourgeois revolution, the commercial revolution were in full swing, and economic and social civilization was in full swing. In the golden hour of social development in Western Europe, russia was busy surviving in taxes due to the rule of the Golden Horde, and missed the perfect opportunity to develop in tandem with the West. So much so that European countries despise Russia from the bottom of their hearts, believing that it does not belong to European countries. Religion is also incompatible and heretical.
As a European country, the Russians in the Eastern European Plain have maintained the tradition of establishing a state based on agriculture for hundreds of years, serfs are the production machine of the state, and land is the source of all wealth, as long as the land is continuously expanded, the wealth will continue to gather in Russia. Little Russia wants to survive, to defeat all the regimes in the surrounding lands and take their land for itself, in order to have a real sense of security. The Russians' attachment to land stems from their own geopolitical security needs and is a direct embodiment of the pursuit of economic interests. Thus, after the Russians were freed from Mongol rule in the 15th century, the Russians continued to expand new settlements in the fertile southern Russian plains, in barren Siberia.
From Kievan Rus' to the Principality of Moscow, the country's bosses were descendants of the Nordic Rurik, so it was also called the Rurik Dynasty. In 1584, Ivan IV died of grief by killing the crown prince by mistake. Another of his sons, Fedor, ascended the throne. Cowardly, he died of illness in 1598 (childless), the Rurik dynasty ended, and Russia nominally became a masterless state. In 1613, representatives from all walks of life unanimously elected the Russian nobleman Mikhail I. Fedorovich. Romanov was tsar. This person is also related to the Rurik Dynasty, and his father is quite prestigious. Thus began the romanov dynasty's three-hundred-year rule over Russia.
The yellow color below shows the direction of Russia's expansion, and the red color shows the direction of the surrounding forces attacking Russia
From the mid-16th century to the end of the 17th century, Russia independently exercised foreign policy and colonial expansion, using Eastern-dominated diplomacy. Geographically, Russia is still a landlocked country, unable to compete for world hegemony, and pursues a policy of regional hegemony and colonization characterized by a "regional encroachment system". The conquest of the weak and small surrounding countries or peoples (such as Kazan, Astrakhan, Siberia, etc.) and the "completion of the incorporation of West Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, etc. into the territory of a unified Russian state."
If Russia is to become a world-class power like the capitalist countries of the West, it must have its own access to the sea. In order to obtain access to the sea, Russia fought many wars with Sweden and other Nordic countries, and finally obtained access to the sea along the Baltic Sea coast. But the Baltic Sea is an inland sea, surrounded by several countries, which are easily blockaded in wartime, and ports along the northern Arctic Ocean coast are difficult to navigate most of the time. The real need for safe access to oceanic ports stimulates Russia to continue its external expansion.
Beginning with Peter I in the 18th century, Russia dominated the diplomatic process. During this period, the rapid development and peak of the Russian serfdom economy was also the period of the establishment and heyday of the absolute absolute monarchy in Russia. The tsarist government's foreign policy and colonial expansion policy underwent a major change, towards European hegemony and world hegemony. Since the founding of Russia, almost every monarch, wise or foolish, has expanded his territory with almost crazy faith, accumulated hundreds of years of merit, and finally became a great empire.
Tsar and Emperor
The Soviet Union was born out of Russia. According to Lenin's vision, the USSR was an alliance of all Soviet republics, including the Russian Federation, and the very different sizes of the constituent states such as Russia and Belarus were equal in status. Since Russia is much larger than the sum of the other member states, when Lenin died, Stalin resumed the policy of "Great Russia" and vigorously promoted Russia's status, while weakening and suppressing non-Russian member states, depriving them of autonomy and gradually reducing them to Russia's "states", which gradually made the Soviet Union a large Russia.
When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Russia de facto lost more than 5 million square kilometers of land (not counting its sphere of influence), more than 70 million people, and a strong and complete industrial system. The Eastern Front collapsed overnight, and Russia was reduced to a second-tier power.
At the beginning of Russia's independence, President Yeltsin decided to adopt goodwill diplomacy that was one-sided with the United States and Western Europe, trying to accomplish the "dual goal" of returning to Europe politically and economically in a relatively short period of time. In January 1992, Yeltsin visited the United States, the first country Yeltsin had visited the West as president of Russia.
But Western countries have never understood how to "spare the bear and spare the bear." In the face of Russia, which lost half its life in "shock therapy", western countries have not opened up one side, but have promoted NATO and the European Union to continuously "expand eastward", and gradually encroached on Russia's strategic maneuver space. Under such circumstances, Russia is simply unable to rebuild its industrial system and has no time or energy to rebuild its industrial system, and it is even more difficult to restore the territory of the Soviet era, and it can only survive by selling out its resources.
Taking stock of Russia's history, we can see that the idea of the trinity of nation, state, and tsar is deeply ingrained throughout all Russian history. The influential scholar and writer of the 17th century, Simeon Borotsky, believed that the Tsar was the sun, the proud son of heaven, the father of all people, the Tsar represented the state, and the state was the Tsar. Although the imperial dynasty has become a fading flower, this political concept has stubbornly maintained to this day.
Stalin, in his time, was the ideal candidate for the "Tsar". The rapid industrialization of the Soviet Union in the Stalin era made the country raise its eyebrows in front of the West, and even expanded its territory in World War II, becoming one of the world's salvation countries and one of the poles of the bipolar world. This made Stalin the psychological "tsar" of the Russians, even though he brutally carried out the Great Purge.
The historical merits of Pujing to Russia are the restoration of national economic stability after a major collapse of the Russian nation caused by the shackles of the Soviet system for decades, relying on the remaining hard power of the Soviet Union, restoring Russia's image as a great power in geography and diplomacy, and even having the ability to expand its territory. In the spiritual world of Russians, Putin has been crowned "Tsar", if you have to choose a "coronation" time point, it is the moment when Russia decisively sent troops to swallow Crimea in the Ukraine crisis.
In the Caribbean crisis, when the United States wanted to deploy missiles in Turkey, the Soviet Union dared to deploy missiles in the backyard of the United States, Cuba. The Soviet Union dared to confront the West with real knives and guns. Russia can only take advantage of its disobedient little brother. Unlike China, China and the United States spend time on China's side; Russia and the United States consume time, and time is most likely to be spent on the United States side. To choose between national strategic security and economic interests, Putin will not hesitate to choose national security interests, even if the ruble collapses in the short term, the country is collectively hostile to the Western powers, and it is morally isolated internationally.
The character of a person or a nation has a lot to do with the environment, rather than being passively beaten in the future, it is better to take the initiative now, which is also a headache for western countries. Rabbits are anxious to bite people, let alone bears? In fact, the world is like this, only the strong can choose peace, and the weak often have no choice.