1740–1 — Ivan VI, with Anna Leopoldovna as regent
1741–1801 — Age of Enlightenment
1741–61 — Reign of Elizabeth
1741–3 — Russo-Swedish War
1754 — Abolition of internal tariffs; establishment of Noble Bank
1755 — Moscow University established
1756–62 — Russian participation in Seven Years War
1760 — Nobles given right to exile serfs to Siberia
1761–2 — Reign of Peter III
1762 — Manifesto freeing the nobility from obligatory service (18 February)
1762–96 — Reign of Catherine II
1764 — Secularization of Church lands and peasants
1766 — Publication of ‘The Great Instruction’ by Catherine the Great
1767–8 — Legislative Assembly (Ulozhennaia komissiia) convened
1768–74 — Russo-Turkish War
1771 — Bubonic plague; Moscow riots
1772 — First Partition of Poland (July)
1774 — Treaty of Kuchuk-Kainardji with Turkey, recognizing Russian protectorate over Christians in the Ottoman Empire
1773–5 — Pugachev rebellion
1775 — Statute on Provincial Administration
1781–6 — Administrative absorption of Ukraine
1782 — Law on Provincial Police
1785 — Charter to the Nobility; Charter to the Towns
1787–92 — Russo-Turkish War
1790 — A. N. Radishchev’s Journey from St Petersburg to Moscow published
1793 — Second Partition of Poland
1794 — Odessa founded
1795 — Third and final partition of Poland
1796–1801 — Reign of Paul
1797 — Edict limiting corvée labour (barshchina) to three days per week; Law of Succession
1800–1855 — Pre-Reform Russia
1801–25 — Reign of Alexander I
1801 — Annexation of Georgia
1802 — Establishment of ministries
1804 — Educational reform; establishment of three additional universities; Pale of Settlement, restricting Jewish residency to the Western provinces
1804–7 — Russian participation in alliance against Napoleon
1807 — Peace of Tilsit
1807–11 — Speransky Reforms
1809 — Acquisition of Finland
1810 — State Council established
1812 — Napoleon invades Russia (June); Battle of Borodino; Moscow burnt (September); French retreat
1815 — Holy Alliance; establishment of Congress Poland
1816–19 — Landless emancipation of Baltic serfs
1819 — Establishment of St Petersburg University
1825 — Decembrist revolt
1825–55 — Reign of Nicholas I
1830 — Publication of The Complete Collection of Laws of the Russian Empire
1830–1 — Polish rebellion
1833 — First modern law code (Svod zakonov) published, taking effect in 1835
1836 — Publication of P. Ia. Chaadaev’s ‘Philosophical Letter’
1837–42 — State peasant reforms under P. D. Kiselev
1842–51 — Construction of first Russian railway line (St Petersburg-Moscow)
1847 — Exchange between N. Gogol and V. Belinskii
1849 — Petrashevskii circle
1853–6 — Crimean War
1855–1890 — Great Reforms and Counter-Reform
1855–81 — Reign of Alexander II
1856 — Peace of Paris, ending the Crimean War; Alexander’s speech to the nobility of Moscow, intimating the need to reform serfdom ‘from above’
1857 — Secret commission for serf reform established (1 January); Nazimov Rescript (20 November) inviting nobility to collaborate in reform; ‘Chief Committee on Peasant Affairs’ under Rostovtsev established to oversee emancipation
1859–60 — Noble deputations come to St Petersburg (August 1859; January 1860)
1861 — Emancipation Manifesto (19 February)
1862 — Publication of I. S. Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons
1863 — Polish Rebellion; publication of N. G. Chernyshevskii’s What Is to Be Done?; University Statute issued
1864 — Zemstvo (local self-government) established; judicial reform; elementary school reform
1865 — Censorship reform (‘Temporary Regulations’)
1865–85 — Conquest, absorption of Central Asia
1866 — Assassination attempt on Alexander II
1867–9 — Church reforms (abolition of caste in 1867; restructuring of seminary; reorganization of parishes in 1869)
1869 — Publication of P. Lavrov’s Historical Letters and L. Tolstoy’s War and Peace
1870 — City government reform
1872 — Russian publication of Karl Marx’s Das Kapital
1874 — Universal Military Training Act, culminating military reforms
1874 — Populist ‘going to the people’
1876–9 — Revolutionary populist organization, Land and Freedom
1877–8 — Russo-Turkish War
1878 — Peace of Berlin
1879 — Terrorist organization, People’s Will, established to combat autocracy
1879–80 — Publication of F. Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov
1879–81 — ‘Crisis of Autocracy’—terrorism, ‘dictatorship of the heart’
1881–94 — Reign of Alexander III
1881 — Temporary Regulations of 14 August 1881 (establishing ‘extraordinary’ police powers to combat revolutionary movement)
1881–2 — Pogroms
1882 — May laws (discriminating against Jews)
1882–4 — Counter-reform in censorship (1882), education (1884), Church (1884)
1882–6 — Reform acts to protect industrial labour
1884 — First Marxist organization, under G. Plekhanov, established abroad
1885 — Noble Land Bank established; abolition of poll-tax
1885–1900 — Russification in borderlands
1889 — New local state official, the ‘Land Captain’, established
1890–1914 — Revolutionary Russia
1890 — Zemstvo counter-reform (restricting autonomy and franchise)
1891–2 — Famine
1891–1904 — Construction of Trans-Siberian Railway
1892 — City government counter-reform (restricting autonomy and franchise)
1892–1903 — S. Iu. Witte as Minister of Finance
1894–1917 — Reign of Nicholas II
1895 — ‘Senseless dreams’ speech by Nicholas II
1896–7 — St Petersburg textile strikes; St Petersburg Union for the Liberation of Labour established
1897 — Gold standard; first modern census
1898 — Russian Social Democratic Workers’ Party founded
1899 — V. I. Lenin’s The Development of Capitalism in Russia published
1901–2 — Party of Social Revolutionaries (PSR) established
1902 — Peasant disorders in Poltava and Kharkov (March-April); Lenin’s What Is To Be Done? published
1903 — Union of Liberation (left-liberal organization) established; RSDWP splits into Bolshevik (under V. I. Lenin) and Menshevik (under Iu. Martov) factions; south Russian labour strikes (Rostov-on-the-Don and Odessa); Kishinev anti-Semitic pogroms
1904 — Corporal punishment abolished
1904–5 — Russo-Japanese War
1905–7 — Revolution of 1905
1905 — Bloody Sunday (9 January); October Manifesto (17 October) promising political reform and civil rights
1906 — First State Duma; Stolypin land reforms
1907 — Second State Duma; coup d’état of 3 June