ABSTRACT
The Russian Empire at the time of the Revolution was a land of glaring contrasts. It was the largest land-empire in the world. From the heart of eastern Europe to the Pacific coast, and from the Arctic Ocean to the deserts of Central Asia and the Chinese borders, it sprawled – like the Soviet Union after it – over an area which covers roughly one-sixth of the earth’s total land surface. A mismatch of territories and population, however, meant that whereas more than two-thirds of the country lay east of the Ural mountains in the vast, frozen expanses of Siberia, the bulk of the population resided and worked in the European provinces of Russia, Ukraine, Byelorussia, Poland (which was then an integral part of the Empire) and the Caucasus. The first Russian ruler to style himself Emperor (as distinct from tsar) was Peter I (Peter the Great, r. 1696-1725). The realm which he inherited from his seventeenth-century Muscovite forebears was already of considerable dimensions across the Eurasian landmass, but it was his most enduring achievement to establish Russia’s presence as the dominant power in northern and eastern Europe as a result of his victory over Sweden in the Great Northern War (1700-21).
