HIST 260 - Rise/Fall of Tsarist Russia

A survey of the development of Russian social and political institutions from Peter the Great (1682-1724) to 1917. The course will explain the growth of the tsar’s authority, the origins and outlooks of Russia’s major social/gender groups (nobility, peasants, merchants, clergy, women, minorities, Cossacks) and the relations which grew up between the tsar and his society. The course will conclude with an appraisal of the breakdown of the relationship in 1917, and the tsarist legacy for Russia’s social and political institutions in the Soviet Union and beyond. Alternate years. (4 Credits)