Russia

William Gardener describes how Russia's stealthy advance across Siberia led to close relations with China in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

The arrival in 1833 of a Russian fleet signalled Russian control for several years of the Bosporus and of the Turkish Empire, writes Lansing Collins.

James Marshall-Cornwall describes a Tudor adventure, ultimately unsuccessful: Willoughby perished on the Kola peninsula; Chancellor reached Moscow and was received by Ivan the Terrible.

Gerald Morgan charts the life and times of a senior Russian diplomat in nineteenth century China and Turkey, who outwitted his opponents by charm and guile.

Rex Winsbury describes how the attempted Russian Revolution of 1905 was the prologue to greater events in 1917.

The first Doukhobors reached Canada in 1898 and their leader followed in 1902. George Woodcock describes how fanatical sects later arose in their New World settlements.

Across the Pacific, writes C.M. Yonge, from northern Japan to the Californian coastline, the relentless hunt for the sea-otter’s precious fur had international consequences.

Duchess by bigamy, but a Countess by marriage, Elizabeth Chudleigh found refuge from her marital troubles in St Petersburg, writes Anthony Cross.

George Woodcock describes the emergence of a heretical Orthodox sect in eighteenth-century Russia, and their eventual emigration to Canada.

In 1917, writes Jamie H. Cockfield, the American Ambassador’s valet reported on revolutionary events in Russia through letters to the family at home.