Russia

William Gardener describes how silks, tobacco and tea from China were exchanged across the deserts northwest of Peking for furs, cloth and leather from Asiatic Russia.

The calm and stability of the Tsar in 1881 meant no new dawn for Russia, but an era of Counter-Reform, writes W. Bruce Lincoln.

John R. Guy introduces the soldier, churchman, and Royalist Fellow of New College who served Russia and Sweden during Cromwell’s years of power, and who returned to post-Restoration Britain to become a prominent parson in the Church of Wales.

Rex Winsbury describes how, for two and a half years during the Russian Civil War, Trotsky’s headquarters were his mobile train.

The year 1913 marked a resurgence for the Russian empire as the Romanov dynasty celebrated its 300th anniversary and the economy boomed. Had it not been for the First World War the country’s fortunes might have taken a very different turn, says Charles Emmerson.

Ian Grey profiles Boris Godunov; Chief Minister after the death of Ivan the Terrible, and then himself Tsar, Boris served Russia during a most troubled period.

W. Bruce Lincoln describes how Enlightenment figures and themes drifted gradually westward, to the Russia of Peter the Great.

Throughout his long life, including his years in Russia, Ribeiro Sanches kept in touch with ‘Men of Reason’ in many European countries.

Lionel Kochan describes how ‘the game of kings’ found its apotheosis in the Soviet Union; the country of the proletariat.

Between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, writes J.H. Shennan, Russian merchants and explorers settled the eastern lands between the Urals and the Pacific.