OCR Y210 – Russia, 1645-1741

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This guide is for Cambridge OCR A Level History A, H505/Y210/01: Russia, 1645-1741. The one-hour paper carries 30 marks and 15 percent of the A level. Choose one of two questions and answer both parts.

• Part (a) is a 10-mark comparison of two named factors.
• Part (b) is a 20-mark analytical judgement.
• Both parts assess AO1. There are no sources or interpretations.

OCR divides the option into four topics: Russia from 1645 to 1698; Peter the Great’s reforms from 1698 to 1725; foreign relations from 1645 to 1725; and opposition and reaction from 1645 to 1741.

If this period is completely new

Begin with three ideas.

• A tsar was Russia’s monarch. The tsar claimed very extensive authority, but still depended on nobles, officials, soldiers, clergy and local communities to carry out orders.
• Muscovy is a useful name for the Russian state before Peter adopted the title emperor in 1721. It was already a large, expanding and culturally connected Eurasian state.
• Peter did not simply turn a backward country into a modern one. His changes strengthened the state for war, borrowed selectively from abroad and often increased the burdens placed on ordinary people.

Keep returning to one question: how did Russia become a stronger great power, and what political and social costs did that strength create?

The whole course in one story

When Alexis became tsar in 1645, Russia was a large land empire with a small urban population, limited transport and a government that depended heavily on noble service and peasant labour. The law code of 1649 strengthened central authority and completed important steps in binding peasants to landlords. Church reforms created a lasting religious schism. Trade and contact with foreigners grew, while war and expansion drew Russia further into Poland-Lithuania, Ukraine, Siberia and Asian diplomacy.

Alexis’s death opened a difficult dynastic transition. Feodor III attempted changes but died young. Peter and his half-brother Ivan were proclaimed joint tsars in 1682 under the regency of their sister Sophia. Streltsy troops helped shape the succession. Sophia and Prince Golitsyn pursued policy at home and abroad, but Peter displaced the regency in 1689. His Azov campaigns and Great Embassy showed both Russia’s existing ambitions and his determination to acquire foreign skills.

After returning in 1698, Peter accelerated change. He reorganised government, taxation, the army, navy, Church and elite service. Dress rules, beard taxes, a new calendar and St Petersburg advertised cultural transformation. Yet reform was not a single plan applied neatly from above. War drove many measures, implementation was uneven, and Peter strengthened autocracy and serfdom while borrowing Western techniques.

Foreign policy and domestic reform were inseparable. Peter’s early defeat at Narva in 1700 exposed military weakness. The long Great Northern War required recruitment, taxation, weapons production and administration. Victory at Poltava in 1709 broke the Swedish invasion, while the Treaty of Nystadt in 1721 confirmed Russian gains on the Baltic. Russia also fought the Ottoman Empire, lost Azov after the Pruth campaign, and expanded toward the Caspian. Peter proclaimed a Russian Empire, but great-power success rested on intense mobilisation.

Resistance took many forms. Stenka Razin’s revolt grew from frontier, Cossack and social grievances. Old Believers rejected Church reform. Streltsy opposition involved military interests and court politics. Mazeppa’s defection reflected Ukrainian political calculations, while Tsarevich Alexis became the focus of a dynastic crisis. These were not one movement against progress.

Peter died in 1725 without a secure succession. Catherine I, Peter II and Anna ruled through shifting court alliances, guards and powerful favourites. Historians once called Anna’s reign a “German period”, but foreign birth alone does not explain politics. Many Petrine institutions survived, yet repeated succession struggles exposed the personal and coercive foundations of the system. Ivan VI’s overthrow in 1741 provides the course endpoint.

Russia emerged stronger, more visible in European diplomacy and more capable of mobilising resources. That achievement was neither inevitable nor cost-free. It combined older Muscovite practices, selective borrowing, elite service, imperial expansion, war and intensified pressure on much of the population.

Anchor chronology

• 1645: Alexis becomes tsar.
• 1648: the Moscow uprising reveals urban and fiscal discontent.
• 1649: the Ulozhenie law code strengthens state authority and enserfment.
• 1652: Nikon becomes patriarch; Church reforms deepen religious conflict.
• 1654: the Pereiaslav agreement draws the Zaporozhian Cossacks and Russia together against Poland-Lithuania.
• 1667: the Truce of Andrusovo gives Russia important gains, including Left-Bank Ukraine.
• 1670-1671: Stenka Razin leads a major revolt.
• 1676: Alexis dies; Feodor III succeeds.
• 1682: Peter and Ivan become joint tsars; Sophia becomes regent.
• 1689: Peter’s supporters remove Sophia from power; Treaty of Nerchinsk settles a border with Qing China.
• 1695-1696: Azov campaigns; Russia captures Azov.
• 1697-1698: Peter travels on the Great Embassy.
• 1698: Streltsy revolt is crushed; Peter’s direct reforming phase accelerates.
• 1700: Russia is defeated by Sweden at Narva.
• 1703: St Petersburg is founded.
• 1709: Russia defeats Charles XII at Poltava.
• 1711: the Pruth campaign ends with Russia returning Azov to the Ottoman Empire.
• 1718: Tsarevich Alexis dies after trial and torture.
• 1721: Treaty of Nystadt; Peter takes the title emperor.
• 1722: Table of Ranks and succession decree.
• 1725: Peter dies; Catherine I succeeds.
• 1730: Anna becomes empress.
• 1740: Ivan VI succeeds as an infant.
• 1741: Elizabeth overthrows Ivan VI.

Topic 1: Russia 1645-1698

Russia under Alexis

Russia in 1645 was vast but difficult to govern. Most people lived from agriculture, towns were comparatively small and communication across the empire was slow. The tsar’s government issued orders through central offices called prikazy and relied on provincial governors, noble servicemen, clergy and local elites. This was not unlimited control. Authority depended on cooperation, information and the ability to collect resources.

The 1649 Ulozhenie responded partly to disorder in Moscow. It brought laws together, strengthened punishments and state authority, and removed time limits for recovering fugitive peasants. This deepened serfdom: many peasants became legally tied to estates and landlords. Nobles gained labour control in return for service, helping bind elite interest to the monarchy.

Alexis’s government encouraged foreign expertise, weapons production and trade. A Foreign Quarter developed in Moscow. Russia was therefore not sealed from Europe before Peter. However, foreign influence was selective and concentrated, and most rural lives changed slowly.

Church reform and schism

Patriarch Nikon tried to align Russian Orthodox rituals and books more closely with Greek practice. Changes such as the form of the sign of the cross may appear small, but worship, tradition and sacred authority were central to identity. Those who rejected the reforms became known as Old Believers.

The schism was both religious and political. The state supported official reform and persecuted dissent, so resistance to ritual change could become resistance to coercive authority. Nikon himself later lost influence, showing that even a powerful patriarch remained vulnerable to the tsar.

War, Cossacks and expansion

The Zaporozhian Cossack leader Bohdan Khmelnytsky sought Russian protection during revolt against Poland-Lithuania. The 1654 Pereiaslav agreement helped begin a long Russo-Polish war. The Truce of Andrusovo in 1667 brought Russia Smolensk and control of Left-Bank Ukraine; Kyiv initially came on temporary terms and was later retained.

Do not describe this simply as Ukraine “joining Russia”. Cossack leaders pursued their own aims, agreements were contested and borderland loyalties changed. Russian expansion involved negotiation, military force, local privilege and competing sovereignties.

From Feodor to Sophia and Peter

Feodor III ruled from 1676 to 1682. His government abolished mestnichestvo, a system in which aristocratic precedence could limit appointments. His death without an heir produced conflict between the Miloslavsky relatives of Ivan and the Naryshkin relatives of Peter.

The Streltsy were musketeer regiments with their own corporate grievances and political connections. Their rising in 1682 helped produce an unusual settlement: Ivan V and Peter I became joint tsars, with Sophia as regent. Sophia’s chief minister Golitsyn promoted some domestic change and led unsuccessful Crimean campaigns.

In 1689, conflict between Sophia’s court and Peter’s supporters ended the regency. Peter did not immediately rule every detail himself, but his position strengthened. The Azov campaigns of 1695-1696 demonstrated the need for naval power and better coordination. During the Great Embassy, Peter travelled through parts of Europe, recruited specialists and studied shipbuilding. The journey widened his knowledge; it did not create Russian contact with the West from nothing.

Check your understanding

• Why did the tsar depend on other groups despite claiming great authority?
• How did the 1649 law code connect noble service and serfdom?
• Why did ritual reform create political resistance?
• What makes Pereiaslav more complicated than a simple national union?
• How did the crisis of 1682 shape Peter’s path to power?

Topic 2: The reforms of Peter the Great, 1698-1725

Reform for service and war

Peter’s changes are often called westernisation or modernisation. These terms need care. Westernisation means adopting selected practices associated with European states and cultures. Modernisation suggests deeper changes in government, economy and society. Peter did both in some areas, but Russia did not become a modern industrial or equal society.

War supplied urgency. Peter required soldiers, ships, weapons, money and reliable orders. He introduced mass conscription, built a navy and expanded metallurgical production. These achievements increased military capacity but demanded labour, taxation and long service from the population.

Government and taxation

Peter replaced or reorganised many prikazy with colleges intended to divide responsibilities more clearly. He created a Senate to supervise government in his absence and divided territory into provinces. Municipal reforms attempted to organise urban government and tax collection.

Practice remained less orderly than official diagrams suggest. Offices overlapped, trained personnel were scarce, corruption persisted and local implementation varied. Peter frequently changed arrangements when they failed to meet wartime needs.

The household tax was replaced by a poll tax based on counted male “souls”. The 1719 census supported this system. It broadened and regularised extraction while strengthening official definitions of social status. Increased revenue helped sustain war, but collection imposed severe burdens and encouraged evasion.

Nobility and the Table of Ranks

The Table of Ranks, introduced in 1722, arranged military, civil and court service into fourteen grades. In principle, advancement depended more on service than ancient birth. Peter also required noble education and state employment.

This did not abolish noble privilege. The monarchy still depended on an elite, and noble control over serfs remained fundamental. Peter reshaped the service nobility while reinforcing the social order that supported it.

Church, culture and education

After Patriarch Adrian died, Peter left the patriarchate vacant. In 1721 the Holy Synod placed Church administration under a state-supervised body. Clergy retained spiritual importance, but institutional independence narrowed.

Peter changed the calendar, simplified the civil alphabet, promoted technical education and required elite dress associated with Western Europe. The beard tax made appearance a visible test of compliance. Women at court gained more public social roles, while elite culture changed much more rapidly than village society.

St Petersburg, founded on conquered Baltic territory, became a port, capital and symbol of the new imperial direction. Its construction depended on forced labour, taxation and enormous human cost. It represented both international ambition and coercive state power.

Economy, industry and agriculture

Government demand encouraged ironworks, textiles, shipyards and armaments. The Urals became a major metallurgical centre. Private entrepreneurs operated, but state orders, privileges and compulsory labour were crucial.

Agriculture remained the basis of the economy. Serfdom and taxation limited mobility, while noble estates and state needs shaped production. Industrial growth did not amount to an industrial revolution. Peter created stronger capacity in strategic sectors without transforming the living conditions of most subjects.

Check your understanding

• Why did war drive administrative and fiscal reform?
• How did the poll tax strengthen both revenue and social control?
• What changed, and what remained, under the Table of Ranks?
• Why does St Petersburg symbolise both achievement and coercion?
• Why should westernisation not be treated as complete modernisation?

Topic 3: Foreign relations, 1645-1725

Poland-Lithuania, Crimea and China

Under Alexis, relations with the Zaporozhian Cossacks pulled Russia into conflict with Poland-Lithuania. Gains under Andrusovo shifted power in eastern Europe, but governing contested borderlands required continued negotiation.

Sophia and Golitsyn joined European powers against the Ottoman Empire. Golitsyn’s Crimean expeditions failed because of distance, supply and steppe conditions. Peter’s capture of Azov later provided access toward the Black Sea, although Russia lacked secure dominance.

Expansion across Siberia brought Russian and Qing interests into contact. The Treaty of Nerchinsk in 1689 set a negotiated frontier and enabled trade. It shows that Russia’s foreign relations were Eurasian, not only European.

The Great Northern War

Peter allied with Denmark-Norway and Saxony-Poland against Sweden in 1700. Charles XII’s army defeated Russia heavily at Narva. Peter used the respite created by Swedish campaigning elsewhere to rebuild forces, improve artillery and take positions in Ingria and Livonia.

St Petersburg gave the Baltic project a physical centre. Swedish invasion in 1707-1709 stretched supply lines. Peter avoided a premature decisive battle, used scorched-earth tactics and concentrated forces. At Poltava in 1709, Russia defeated the Swedish army. Charles XII and Mazeppa escaped into Ottoman territory.

Poltava was a turning point, not the immediate end of war. Fighting continued until the Treaty of Nystadt in 1721. Russia gained Estonia, Livonia, Ingria and access to the Baltic. Military learning, resources, Swedish overextension and allied pressure all contributed; victory should not be credited to Peter’s personality alone.

Ottoman and Persian fronts

Russia’s position remained insecure in the south. During the Pruth campaign of 1711, Peter’s army was trapped by Ottoman forces and accepted terms that returned Azov. Baltic success therefore did not mean victory everywhere.

In 1722-1723, Peter campaigned around the Caspian during Safavid weakness and captured Derbent and Baku. These gains extended Russian influence but were difficult to hold and were later returned. Russia’s empire developed through multiple frontiers with different peoples, environments and diplomatic systems.

Why foreign success mattered

The Great Northern War changed Russia’s diplomatic position and justified the imperial title in 1721. Baltic ports improved access to trade and diplomacy. War also transformed domestic government because the state had to recruit, tax, produce and communicate on a greater scale.

The relationship worked both ways: reform helped Russia fight, while war forced reform. A strong answer explains this interaction rather than choosing one as the only cause.

Check your understanding

• Why were the Crimean campaigns difficult?
• What does Nerchinsk reveal about Russia’s wider world?
• Why did defeat at Narva not determine the war’s outcome?
• Which factors explain victory at Poltava and success by 1721?
• How did the Pruth failure qualify Russia’s great-power rise?

Topic 4: Opposition and reaction, 1645-1741

Stenka Razin and social revolt

Stenka Razin was a Don Cossack whose movement expanded into a major revolt in 1670-1671. Cossack independence, frontier tensions, taxation, landlord pressure and peasant flight all mattered. Rebels attacked officials and landlords and attracted varied groups along the Volga.

The revolt was crushed and Razin executed. It exposed social anger and the limits of control, but it did not offer a single coherent programme for replacing the state.

Old Believers and the Streltsy

Old Believers resisted official Church reform because they regarded older rites as true Orthodoxy. Communities responded through flight, secret worship, petition, martyrdom and sometimes mass self-immolation. Their persistence reveals the limits of coercing belief.

The Streltsy participated in the 1682 crisis and again revolted in 1698 while Peter was abroad. Their grievances included service conditions, displacement and court politics. Peter crushed the later rising with executions, torture and disbandment. Their destruction helped remove an independent military corporation, but it should not be reduced to a simple contest between modern and backward forces.

Mazeppa and Tsarevich Alexis

Ivan Mazeppa, hetman of the Cossack Hetmanate, had worked with Peter before joining Charles XII during the Swedish invasion. His decision involved autonomy, wartime calculation and dissatisfaction with Russian demands. After Poltava, Russian control over the Hetmanate tightened.

Tsarevich Alexis opposed aspects of his father’s expectations and became a possible focus for dissatisfied elites. He fled abroad, returned under promises and was tried. He died in 1718 after torture. The crisis joined family conflict to the problem of succession and the security of Petrine reform.

The extent of westernisation by 1725

By Peter’s death, elite dress, court life, military organisation, administration, education and Russia’s European diplomatic position had changed substantially. The navy and new capital were durable achievements.

Limits were equally important. Most people remained rural; literacy was restricted; administrative capacity was uneven; serfdom deepened; and cultural change was concentrated among elites. Westernisation was selective, state-directed and coercive rather than a complete social transformation.

Russia after Peter

Peter’s 1722 succession law allowed the ruler to name an heir, but he died without doing so. Guards and court alliances helped Catherine I succeed. The Supreme Privy Council gained influence, and Menshikov was powerful until his fall under Peter II.

When Peter II died in 1730, the council invited Anna to rule under “Conditions” limiting her authority. She rejected them with support from nobles who feared rule by a narrow oligarchy. Autocracy was restored. Anna relied on ministers and favourites, some foreign-born, while guards, nobles and established institutions continued to matter.

Calling the reign a “German period” can reproduce hostile contemporary and nationalist assumptions. The key issue is not ethnicity by itself but access to patronage, court faction and the operation of the Petrine service state.

Anna designated the infant Ivan VI as successor. A regency followed, but Elizabeth, Peter’s daughter, used guards support to seize power in 1741. The coup demonstrated succession instability, yet the state, army, service system and imperial ambitions created under Peter largely survived.

Check your understanding

• Why should Razin’s revolt not be explained by one grievance?
• How did Old Believer resistance differ from Streltsy opposition?
• Why were Mazeppa and Alexis political threats of different kinds?
• What evidence supports and limits the claim that Russia was westernised?
• What survived despite the succession crises of 1725-1741?

Key vocabulary

• Autocracy: a system in which the monarch claims supreme political authority.
• Boyar: member of Russia’s traditional high aristocracy.
• Cossack: member of a frontier military community; Cossack groups had distinct interests and cannot be treated as one nation or class.
• Enserfment: the process of legally binding peasants more tightly to land and landlords.
• Hetman: leader of a Cossack polity or army.
• Muscovy: the Russian state centred on Moscow before the formal Russian Empire.
• Old Believers: Orthodox Christians who rejected Nikon’s ritual reforms.
• Poll tax: a tax assessed per counted male person or “soul”.
• Prikaz: central government office in Muscovite Russia.
• Streltsy: musketeer regiments that also became politically influential corporate communities.
• Table of Ranks: Peter’s fourteen-grade hierarchy for military, civil and court service.
• Westernisation: selective adoption of practices associated with western and central Europe; not the same as complete modernisation.
• Zaporozhian Cossacks: Cossack communities centred beyond the Dnipro rapids whose leaders negotiated among neighbouring powers.

How to answer Part (a)

Part (a) asks you to compare two named factors. Use the same criteria for both: scale, timing, direct effect, durability and dependence on other factors. Compare throughout instead of writing two separate descriptions.

For example, if asked to compare military need and Peter’s personality as reasons for reform, test which explains the timing, range and implementation of change. Peter’s energy mattered, but military pressure helps explain why taxation, recruitment, industry and administration changed together.

A useful paragraph pattern is: make a comparative claim, give precise evidence for both factors, explain the difference, then connect it to the question.

How to answer Part (b)

Part (b) requires a supported judgement. Define the claim and time span, choose criteria, organise paragraphs around arguments rather than a ruler-by-ruler narrative, and test a serious alternative.

For a question about the success of reform, define success. You might consider military capacity, administrative reach, revenue, durability and effects on society. A reform can strengthen the state while harming many subjects; recognising that distinction improves judgement.

Use evidence from across the stated period. Explain interactions: war drove taxation; taxation supported armies; noble service depended on serf labour; cultural reform signalled authority but also provoked resistance.

Common traps

• Describing Muscovy as completely isolated or unchanging before Peter.
• Assuming the tsar’s claim to autocracy meant every order was effective.
• Treating serfdom as a side issue rather than part of state and noble power.
• Calling Old Believers irrational opponents of progress.
• Treating Peter’s reforms as one consistent master plan.
• Equating western dress with transformation of the whole population.
• Listing government bodies without judging implementation.
• Explaining victory over Sweden only through Peter’s leadership.
• Ignoring China, Poland-Lithuania, the Ottoman Empire or Persia.
• Treating all Cossacks as sharing one political aim.
• Combining Razin, the Streltsy, Mazeppa and Alexis into one opposition movement.
• Ending the story in 1725 when OCR requires developments to 1741.
• Repeating “German period” as a neutral description of Anna’s reign.

Can you simplify the central argument?

Russia became better able to fight wars and act as a great power because rulers extracted more service, money and labour, reorganised institutions and borrowed selected foreign methods. Those changes were real, but they relied on older Muscovite foundations and increased coercion. Different groups resisted for different reasons, and weak succession rules made politics unstable after Peter even though much of his state survived.

Now return to the four topics and ask where each part of that argument appears.

Take this further

Compare two interpretations.

1. Peter created a decisive break by building new institutions, a navy, a Baltic capital and a European great power.
2. Peter accelerated older developments, and his apparent modernisation depended on serfdom, coercion and imperfect institutions.

A strong judgement need not choose one completely. Decide which areas show rupture, which show continuity and whether the criteria should be state power or wider social transformation.

Final retrieval challenge

Explain this chain without notes:

1. Alexis strengthened law, noble service and enserfment while religious reform created schism.
2. War, western contact and dynastic crisis shaped Russia before Peter’s direct rule.
3. Peter used selective borrowing and coercive mobilisation to strengthen the service state.
4. The Great Northern War drove reform and transformed Russia’s Baltic position.
5. Resistance had religious, social, military, regional and dynastic causes.
6. Succession remained unstable after 1725, but much of the Petrine settlement endured to 1741.

What to do next

Learn the anchor chronology, then build four comparison grids: Alexis and Peter as state-builders; military and fiscal causes of reform; reasons for Russian success against Sweden; and the motives and significance of different opposition movements. Practise one Part (a) plan in 10 minutes and one Part (b) plan in 15 minutes.