Acquisitions through 1914 Boundary of Russian empire, 1914 R W A Y S W E D E N F I N Barents Sea St. Petersburg a e a l t i c S Warsaw Moscow Archangel AL M R U O U N T A I N Tobolsk R U S S I A N E M P I R E e Trans-Siberian Railroad Kiev V olga Irkutsk CRIMEA Bla c k S Astrakhan e a OTTOMAN EMPIRE C a s p i a n S e a Aral Sea Lake Balkhash Samarkand M A P 3 1 . 2 The Russian empire, 18011914. Note the sheer size of Russian territory in this period, and that the state included part of Europe, central Asia, and east Asia. Tehran PERSIA AFGHANISTAN C H I N A How would straddling so much space and so many cultures have affected the process of industrialization and nationalism in Russia? ben85646_Ch31_pp704-729.indd 712 ben85646_Ch31_pp704-729.indd 712 Lake Baikal 8/30/10 1:43 PM 8/30/10 1:43 PM L e n a L e n a

THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE UNDER PRESSURE Like the Ottoman empire, the Russian empire experienced battlefi eld reverses that laid bare the economic and technological disparity between Russia and western European powers. Determined to preserve Russias status as a great land power, the tsarist government embarked on a program of reform. The keystone of those efforts was the emancipation of the serfs. Social reform paved the way for government-sponsored industrialization, which began to transform Russian society during the last decades of the nineteenth century. Political liberalization did not accompany social and economic reform, because the tsars refused to yield their autocratic powers. The oppressive political environment sparked opposition movements that turned increasingly radical in the late nineteenth century. In the early twentieth century, domestic discontent reached crisis proportions and exploded in revolution. Military Defeat and Social Reform ALASKA (to U.S., 1867)

Yatutsk The nineteenth-century tsars ruled a multiethnic, multilingual, multicultural empire that stretched from Poland to the Pacifi c Ocean. Only about half the population spoke the Russian language or observed the Russian Orthodox faith. The Romanov tsars ruled their diverse and sprawling realm through an autocratic regime in which all initiative came from 180 Bering Sea ALEUTIAN ISLANDS (to U.S., 1867) K A Okhotsk M C Sea of Okhotsk H A T K A SAKHALIN ISLAND (to Japan, 1905) U t R L E A m u r MANCHURIA (Russian Occupied, 19001905) n S L A N , 1 8 7 5 ) D S 4 5 N Vladivostok JAPAN 165E Beijing K O Tokyo Port Arthur (Russian, 18981905) 3 0 N 150E 135E ben85646_Ch31_pp704-729.indd 713 ben85646_Ch31_pp704-729.indd 713

Chapter 31 Societies at Crossroads 713 the central administration. The tsars enjoyed the support of the Russian Orthodox church and a powerful class of nobles who owned most of the land and were exempt from taxes and military duty. Peasants made up the vast majority of the population, and most of them were serfs bound to the lands that they cultivated. Serfdom was almost as cruel and exploitative as slavery, but most landowners, including the state, considered it a guarantee of social stability.