1.
Boris Godunov
Boris Fyodorovich Godunov ruled the Tsardom of Russia as de facto regent from c.1585 to 1598 and as the first non-Rurikid tsar from 1598 to 1605. The end of his reign saw Russia descend into the Time of Troubles, Boris Godunov was the most noted member of an ancient, now extinct, Russian family of Tatar origin, which came from the Horde to Kostroma in the early 14th century. This legend is written in the annals dating from early 17th century and he was descended from the Tatar Prince Chet, who went from the Golden Horde to Russia and founded the Ipatiev Monastery in Kostroma. Boris was the son of Feodor Ivanovich Godunov Krivoy and his wife Stepanida Ivanovna and his older brother Vasily died young and without issue. Godunovs career began at the court of Ivan the Terrible and he is mentioned in 1570 for taking part in the Serpeisk campaign being an archer of the guard. The following year, he became an oprichnik – a member of Ivans personal guard, in 1570/1571, Godunov strengthened his position at court by his marriage to Maria Grigorievna Skuratova-Belskaya, the daughter of oprichniks head Malyuta Skuratov-Belskiy.
In 1580, the Tsar chose Boris Godunovs sister Irina Godunova to be the wife of his son and eventual heir. On this occasion, Godunov was promoted to the rank of Boyar, on 15 November 1581, he was present at the scene of the Tsars murder of his own eldest son, the crown prince Ivan. Godunov tried to intervene, but received blows from the Tsars sceptre, the elder Ivan immediately repented and Godunov rushed to get help for the Tsarevich, who died four days later. Upon his death, Ivan left the three-year-old Dmitry Ivanovich, from his seventh, since the Orthodox Church recognized legitimate only his first three marriages, and any offspring thereof, Dmitri had no claim to the throne. Still, taking no chances, shortly after Ivans death the Council had both Dmitri and his mother Maria Nagaya moved to Uglich, some 120 miles north of Moscow and it was there in 1591 that Dmitri died at the age of ten. An official commission headed by Vasili Shuiski was sent to determine the cause of death, the official verdict was that the boy had cut his throat during an epileptic seizure.
Ivans widow claimed that her son had been murdered by Godunovs agents, Godunovs guilt was never established and shortly thereafter Dmitris mother was forced to take the veil. Dmitry Ivanovich was laid to rest and promptly, though temporarily, when Nikita died in 1586, Boris had no serious rival for the regency. A conspiracy of other boyars and of Dionysius II, Metropolitan of Moscow, the attempt proved unsuccessful, and the conspirators were banished or sent to monasteries. After that, Godunov remained supreme in Russia and he corresponded with foreign princes as their equal and his policy was generally pacific and always prudent. In 1595, he recovered from Sweden some towns lost during the former reign, five years previously he had defeated a Tatar raid upon Moscow, for which he received the title of Konyushy, an obsolete dignity even higher than that of Boyar. He supported a faction in the Crimea and gave the emperor subsidies in his war against the sultan
2.
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of the Earths oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south and is bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, the Mariana Trench in the western North Pacific is the deepest point in the world, reaching a depth of 10,911 metres. Both the center of the Water Hemisphere and the Western Hemisphere are in the Pacific Ocean, the oceans current name was coined by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan during the Spanish circumnavigation of the world in 1521, as he encountered favourable winds on reaching the ocean. He called it Mar Pacífico, which in both Portuguese and Spanish means peaceful sea, important human migrations occurred in the Pacific in prehistoric times. Long-distance trade developed all along the coast from Mozambique to Japan and therefore knowledge, extended to the Indonesian islands but apparently not Australia. By at least 878 when there was a significant Islamic settlement in Canton much of trade was controlled by Arabs or Muslims.
In 219 BC Xu Fu sailed out into the Pacific searching for the elixir of immortality, from 1404 to 1433 Zheng He led expeditions into the Indian Ocean. The east side of the ocean was discovered by Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa in 1513 after his expedition crossed the Isthmus of Panama and he named it Mar del Sur because the ocean was to the south of the coast of the isthmus where he first observed the Pacific. Later, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan sailed the Pacific East to West on a Castilian expedition of world circumnavigation starting in 1519, Magellan called the ocean Pacífico because, after sailing through the stormy seas off Cape Horn, the expedition found calm waters. The ocean was often called the Sea of Magellan in his honor until the eighteenth century, sailing around and east of the Moluccas, between 1525 and 1527, Portuguese expeditions discovered the Caroline Islands, the Aru Islands, and Papua New Guinea. In 1542–43 the Portuguese reached Japan, in 1564, five Spanish ships consisting of 379 explorers crossed the ocean from Mexico led by Miguel López de Legazpi and sailed to the Philippines and Mariana Islands.
The Manila galleons operated for two and a half centuries linking Manila and Acapulco, in one of the longest trade routes in history, Spanish expeditions discovered Tuvalu, the Marquesas, the Cook Islands, the Solomon Islands, and the Admiralty Islands in the South Pacific. In the 16th and 17th century Spain considered the Pacific Ocean a Mare clausum—a sea closed to other naval powers, as the only known entrance from the Atlantic the Strait of Magellan was at times patrolled by fleets sent to prevent entrance of non-Spanish ships. On the western end of the Pacific Ocean the Dutch threatened the Spanish Philippines, Spain sent expeditions to the Pacific Northwest reaching Vancouver Island in southern Canada, and Alaska. The French explored and settled Polynesia, and the British made three voyages with James Cook to the South Pacific and Australia and the North American Pacific Northwest, one of the earliest voyages of scientific exploration was organized by Spain in the Malaspina Expedition of 1789–1794.
It sailed vast areas of the Pacific, from Cape Horn to Alaska and the Philippines, New Zealand and the South Pacific. Growing imperialism during the 19th century resulted in the occupation of much of Oceania by other European powers, and later, Japan, in Oceania, France got a leading position as imperial power after making Tahiti and New Caledonia protectorates in 1842 and 1853 respectively. After navy visits to Easter Island in 1875 and 1887, Chilean navy officer Policarpo Toro managed to negotiate an incorporation of the island into Chile with native Rapanui in 1888, by occupying Easter Island, Chile joined the imperial nations
3.
House of Romanov
The Romanovs achieved prominence as boyars of the Grand Duchy of Moscow, the Tsardom of Russia. In 1613, following years of interregnum, the zemsky sobor offered the Russian crown to Mikhail Romanov and he acceded to the throne as Michael I, becoming the first Tsar of Russia from the House of Romanov. His grandson Peter I established the Russian Empire and transformed the country into a continental power through a series of wars, the direct male line of the Romanovs came to an end when Elizabeth of Russia died in 1762. After an era of crisis, the House of Holstein-Gottorp, a cadet branch of the House of Oldenburg which reigned in Denmark, ascended the throne in 1762 with Peter III. All rulers from the middle of the 18th century to the revolution of 1917 were descended from that branch, though officially known as the House of Romanov, these descendants of the Romanov and Oldenburg dynasties are sometimes referred to as Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov. In early 1917 the Romanov dynasty had 65 members,18 of whom were killed by the Bolsheviks, the remaining 47 members went into exile abroad.
In 1924, Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich, the senior, surviving male-line descendant of Alexander II of Russia by primogeniture, since 1991, the succession to the former Russian throne has been in dispute, largely due to disagreements over the validity of dynasts marriages. Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna of Russia claims to hold the title of empress in pretense with her child, George Mikhailovich. There is a rival non-Romanov claim put forth by Prince Karl Emich of the House of Leiningen supported by the Monarchist Party, according to the Almanach de Gotha, the name of Russias ruling dynasty from the time of Peter III was Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov. However, the name Romanov and House of Romanov were often used in references to the Russian imperial family. The coat of arms of the Romanov boyars was included in legislation on the imperial dynasty, after the February Revolution all members of the imperial family were given the surname Romanov by special decree of the Provisional Government of Russia.
Their earliest common ancestor is one Andrei Kobyla, attested around 1347 as a boyar in the service of Semyon I of Moscow, generations assigned to Kobyla an illustrious pedigree. An 18th-century genealogy claimed that he was the son of the Prussian prince Glanda Kambila, one of the leaders of the Old Prussian rebellion of 1260–1274 against the Teutonic order was named Glande. His actual origin may have been less spectacular, not only is Kobyla Russian for mare, some of his relatives had as nicknames the terms for horses and other domestic animals, thus suggesting descent from one of the royal equerries. One of Kobylas sons, Feodor, a member of the boyar Duma of Dmitri Donskoi, was nicknamed Koshka and his descendants took the surname Koshkin, changed it to Zakharin, which family split into two branches, Zakharin-Yakovlev and Zakharin-Yuriev. During the reign of Ivan the Terrible, the family became known as Yakovlev. The family fortunes soared when Romans daughter, Anastasia Zakharyina, married Ivan IV, since her husband had assumed the title of tsar, which literally means Caesar, on 16 January 1547, she was crowned the very first tsaritsa of Russia.
Her mysterious death in 1560 changed Ivans character for the worse, suspecting the boyars of having poisoned his beloved, Tsar Ivan started a reign of terror against them
4.
Coronation of the Russian monarch
These elements remained, as Muscovy was transformed first into the Tsardom of Russia and into the Russian Empire, until the abolition of the monarchy in 1917. As the church and state were one in Imperial Russia, this service invested the Tsars with political legitimacy, however. It was equally perceived as conferring a genuine spiritual benefit that mystically wedded sovereign to subjects, as such, it was similar in purpose to other European coronation ceremonies from the medieval era. Even when the capital was located at St. Petersburg. The last coronation service in Russia was held on 26 May 1896 for Nicholas II and his wife Alexandra Feodorovna, the Russian Imperial regalia survived the subsequent Russian Revolution and the Communist period, and are currently on exhibit in a museum at the Kremlin Armoury. Starting with the reign of Ivan IV, the ruler of Russia was known as Tsar rather than Grand Prince and this continued until 1721, during the reign of Peter I, when the title was formally changed to Imperator.
However, the term Tsar remained the title for the Russian ruler despite the formal change of style, thus this article utilizes that term. In medieval Europe, the anointed Christian ruler was viewed as a persona, part priest and part layman. The Russian Orthodox Church considered the Tsar to be wedded to his subjects in the Orthodox coronation service and secular, church and state and government were all welded together by the coronation service in the person of the anointed Tsar—or so many Russians believed. Since the newly ascended sovereign was permitted all the privileges of rule immediately upon his accession, one or more years might be permitted to elapse between the initial accession of a Tsar and the ceremony itself. This allowed the court to finish its mourning for the new sovereigns predecessor, as in most European monarchies, the Tsars of Russia retained a sizable collection of Imperial regalia, some of which was used in their coronation ceremonies. Although Russian legend held that it had given to Vladimir Monomakh by the Byzantine emperor Constantine IX.
Peters wife, who succeeded him as Catherine I, was the first to wear this type of diadem. 72-carat red spinel from China, the crown was produced in a record two months and weighted only 2.3 kg. This crown was used in all coronations from Paul I to Nicholas II—although the latter tried to replace it with Monomakhs Crown for his ceremony. It survived the subsequent revolution, and is considered to be one of the treasures of the Romanov dynasty. The Silk Imperial Crown of Russia was a coronation gift of the Russian Empire at the coronation of Nicholas II. Nicholas II was the first and only monarch to be presented with such a coronation gift. It was not intended as ceremonial regalia, but as private Imperial property as a memento to his coronation event, a smaller crown, virtually identical in appearance and workmanship to the Great Imperial Crown, was manufactured for the crowning of the Tsars consort
5.
Zemsky Sobor
The zemsky sobor was the first Russian parliament of the feudal Estates type, in the 16th and 17th centuries. The term roughly means assembly of the land and it could be summoned either by tsar, or patriarch, or the Boyar Duma. The Holy Sobor of high Orthodox clergy, the first zemsky sobor was held by tsar Ivan the Terrible in 1549. During his reign he held a number of gatherings and they became a common tool used to enact major pieces of legislation or to decide controversial issues. Although the Sobors were primarily a tool used to rubberstamp decisions that Ivan had already made, sometimes initiative was taken by the lower nobility, for instance, the tsar was scandalized when the assembly of 1566 asked him to abolish the Oprichnina. When the Rurik Dynasty died out in 1598 it was a sobor that appointed Boris Godunov as the next tsar, another grand council, featuring even peasants, elected Mikhail Romanov to take the throne in 1613 after the Time of Troubles. During Mikhails reign, when the Romanov dynasty was still weak, once the Romanovs were firmly in power, the sobor gradually lost its power.
A major council assembled to ratify the Treaty of Pereyaslav in 1654 was the last for thirty years, the last sobors were held by the great Galitzine in 1682, to abolish the mestnichestvo, and in 1684, to ratify the Eternal Peace with Poland. Four years after the death of the last Russian tsar, on July 23,1922, dieterichs of the Far Eastern White Army convened the Zemsky Sobor of Amur region in Vladivostok. This sobor, calling to all Russian people to repent for the overthrow of the tsar, patriarch Tikhon was named as the honorary chairman of the sobor. Two months the Amur region fell to the Bolsheviks, Земские соборы The encyclopedia Brockhaus and Efron, Moscow,1993
6.
Cossacks
Cossacks are a group of predominantly East Slavic-speaking people who became known as members of democratic, self-governing, semi-military communities, predominantly located in Ukraine and in Russia. The origins of the first Cossacks are disputed, though the 1710 Constitution of Pylyp Orlyk claimed Khazar origin, the Zaporizhian Sich were a vassal people of Poland–Lithuania during feudal times. Under increasing pressure from the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, in the century the Sich declared an independent Cossack Hetmanate. Afterwards, the Treaty of Pereyaslav brought most of the Ukrainian Cossack state under Russian rule, the Sich with its lands became an autonomous region under the Russian-Polish protectorate. The Don Cossack Host, which had established by the 16th century. Together they began a systematic conquest and colonisation of lands in order to secure the borders on the Volga, the whole of Siberia, and the Yaik, Cossack communities had developed along the latter two rivers well before the arrival of the Don Cossacks.
By the 18th century, Cossack hosts in the Russian Empire occupied effective buffer zones on its borders, the expansionist ambitions of the Empire relied on ensuring the loyalty of Cossacks, which caused tension given their traditional exercise of freedom, democratic self-rule, and independence. By the end of the 18th century, Cossack nations had transformed into a special military estate. The government provided only firearms and supplies for them, Cossack service was considered the most rigorous one. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Tsarist regime used Cossacks extensively to perform police service and they served as border guards on national and internal ethnic borders. During the Russian Civil War and Kuban Cossacks were the first nations to open war against the Bolsheviks. By 1918, Cossacks declared the independence of their nations and formed the independent states, the Ukrainian State, the Don Republic. The Cossack troops formed the core of the anti-Bolshevik White Army. With the victory of the Red Army, the Cossack lands were subjected to Decossackization, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Cossacks made a systematic return to Russia.
Many took a part in Post-Soviet conflicts and Yugoslav Wars. In Russias 2010 Population Census, Cossacks have been recognized as an ethnicity, there are Cossack organizations in Russia, Ukraine and the United States. Max Vasmers etymological dictionary traces the name to the Old East Slavic word козакъ, the ethnonym Kazakh is from the same Turkic root. In written sources the name is first attested in Codex Cumanicus from the 13th century, in English, Cossack is first attested in 1590
7.
Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius
The Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius is the most important Russian monastery and the spiritual centre of the Russian Orthodox Church. The monastery is situated in the town of Sergiyev Posad, about 70 km to the north-east from Moscow by the leading to Yaroslavl. The monastery was founded in 1337 by one of the most venerated Russian saints, Sergius of Radonezh, early development of the monastic community is well documented in contemporary lives of Sergius and his disciples. In 1355, Sergius introduced a charter which required the construction of buildings, such as refectory, kitchen. This charter was a model for Sergius numerous followers who founded more than 400 cloisters all over Russia, including the celebrated Solovetsky and Simonov monasteries. St. Sergius supported Dmitri Donskoi in his struggle against the Tatars, at the outbreak of the battle, Peresvet died in a single combat against a Tatar bogatyr. The monastery was devastated by fire, when a Tatar unit raided the area in 1408, St. Sergius was declared patron saint of the Russian state in 1422.
The same year the first stone cathedral was built by a team of Serbian monks who had found refuge in the monastery after the Battle of Kosovo, the relics of St. Sergius still may be seen in this cathedral, dedicated to the Holy Trinity. The greatest icon painters of medieval Russia, Andrei Rublev and Daniil Chyorny, were summoned to decorate the cathedral with frescoes, Muscovite royals were baptized in this cathedral and held thanksgiving services here. In 1476, Ivan III invited several Pskovian masters to build the church of the Holy Spirit and this graceful structure is one of the few remaining examples of a Russian church topped with a belltower. The interior contains the earliest specimens of the use of glazed tiles for decoration, in the early 16th century, Vasily III added the Nikon annex and the Serapion tent, where several of Sergius disciples were interred. It took 26 years to construct the six-pillared Assumption Cathedral, which was commissioned by Ivan the Terrible in 1559, the cathedral is much larger than its model and namesake in the Moscow Kremlin.
The magnificent iconostasis of the 16th–18th centuries features Simon Ushakovs masterpiece, interior walls were painted with violet and blue frescoes by a team of Yaroslavl masters in 1684. The vault contains burials of Boris Godunov, his family and several 20th-century patriarchs, as the monastery grew into one of the wealthiest landowners in Russia, the woods where it had stood were cut over and a village sprang up near the monastery walls. It gradually developed into the town of Sergiyev Posad. The cloister itself was a centre of chronicle-writing and icon painting. A shell-hole in the gates is preserved as a reminder of Wladyslaw IVs abortive siege in 1618. By the end of the 17th century, when young Peter I twice found refuge within the monastery from his enemies and these include a small baroque palace of the patriarchs, noted for its luxurious interiors, and a royal palace, with its facades painted in checkerboard design
8.
Alexis of Russia
Aleksey Mikhailovich was the Russian Tsar during some of Russias most eventful decades in the mid-17th century. His reign saw wars with Poland and Sweden, schism in the Russian Orthodox Church, on the eve of his death in 1676, the Tsardom of Russia spanned almost 2,000,000,000 acres. Born in Moscow on 29 March 1629, the son of Tsar Michael and Eudoxia Streshneva and he was committed to the care of his tutor Boris Morozov, a shrewd boyar open to Western ideas. Morozovs pursued a foreign policy, securing a truce with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. His domestic policy aimed at relieving limiting the privileges of foreign traders and abolishing a useless, on 17 January 1648 Morozov procured the marriage of the tsar with Maria Miloslavskaya, himself marrying her sister, ten days later, both daughters of Ilya Danilovich Miloslavsky. Morozov was regarded as a corrupt self-seeking 17th-century boyar and accused of sorcery, in May 1648 Muscovites rose against his faction in the Salt Riot, and the young Tsar was compelled to dismiss them and exile Boris to the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery.
Four months later, Boris secretly returned to Moscow to regain some of his power, the popular discontent demonstrated by the riot was partially responsible for Alexis 1649 issuance of a new legal code, the Sobornoye Ulozhenie. Throughout his reign, Alexei faced rebellions across Russia, after resolving the 1648 Salt Riot Alexei faced rebellions in 1650 in the cities of Pskov and Great Novgorod. Alexei put down the Novgorod rebellion quickly, but was unable to subdue Pskov, the Metropolitan Nikon distinguished himself at Great Novgorod and in 1651 became the Tsars chief minister. As a result, angry Moscow residents revolted in the 1662 Copper Riot, in 1669, the Cossacks along the Don in southern Russia erupted in rebellion. The rebellion was led by Stenka Razin, a disaffected Don Cossack who had captured the Russian terminus of Astrakhan, from 1670 to 1671, Razin seized multiple towns along the Volga River. The turning point in his campaign was his failed siege of Simbirsk in October 1670, Razin was finally captured on the Don in April 1671, and was drawn and quartered in Moscow.
Safavid troops and allies accompanied the troops, in 1653 Alexis, initially thinking about sending the Zaporozhian Cossacks, eventually decided to send an embassy to Persia for a peaceful settlement of the conflict. In August 1653 courtier Prince Ivan Lobanov-Rostov and steward Ivan Komynin traveled from Astrakhan to Isfahan, shah Abbas II agreed to settle the conflict, stating that the conflict was initiated without his consent. In 1653 the weakness and disorder of Poland, which had just emerged from the Khmelnytsky Uprising, encouraged Alexei to attempt to annex from her rival the old Rus’ lands. On 1 October 1653 a national assembly met at Moscow to sanction the war and find the means of carrying it out, and in April 1654 the army was blessed by Nikon, who had been elected patriarch in 1652. The campaign of 1654 was a triumph, and scores of towns, including the important fortress of Smolensk. In the summer of 1655, the invasion by Charles X of Sweden for the moment swept the Polish state out of existence
9.
Dynasty
A dynasty is a sequence of rulers from the same family, usually in the context of a feudal or monarchical system but sometimes appearing in elective republics. The dynastic family or lineage may be known as a house, historians periodize the histories of many sovereign states, such as Ancient Egypt, the Carolingian Empire and Imperial China, using a framework of successive dynasties. As such, the dynasty may be used to delimit the era during which the family reigned and to describe events, trends. The word dynasty itself is often dropped from such adjectival references, until the 19th century, it was taken for granted that a legitimate function of a monarch was to aggrandize his dynasty, that is, to increase the territory and power of his family members. The longest-surviving dynasty in the world is the Imperial House of Japan, dynasties throughout the world have traditionally been reckoned patrilineally, such as under the Frankish Salic law. Succession through a daughter when permitted was considered to establish a new dynasty in her husbands ruling house, some states in Africa, determined descent matrilineally, while rulers have at other times adopted the name of their mothers dynasty when coming into her inheritance.
It is extended to unrelated people such as poets of the same school or various rosters of a single sports team. The word dynasty derives via Latin dynastia from Greek dynastéia, where it referred to power, dominion and it was the abstract noun of dynástēs, the agent noun of dynamis, power or ability, from dýnamai, to be able. A ruler in a dynasty is referred to as a dynast. For example, following his abdication, Edward VIII of the United Kingdom ceased to be a member of the House of Windsor. A dynastic marriage is one that complies with monarchical house law restrictions, the marriage of Willem-Alexander, Prince of Orange, to Máxima Zorreguieta in 2002 was dynastic, for example, and their eldest child is expected to inherit the Dutch crown eventually. But the marriage of his younger brother Prince Friso to Mabel Wisse Smit in 2003 lacked government support, thus Friso forfeited his place in the order of succession, lost his title as a Prince of the Netherlands, and left his children without dynastic rights.
In historical and monarchist references to formerly reigning families, a dynast is a member who would have had succession rights, were the monarchys rules still in force. Even since abolition of the Austrian monarchy and his descendants have not been considered the rightful pretenders by Austrian monarchists, nor have they claimed that position. The term dynast is sometimes used only to refer to descendants of a realms monarchs. The term can therefore describe overlapping but distinct sets of people, yet he is not a male-line member of the royal family, and is therefore not a dynast of the House of Windsor. Thus, in 1999 he requested and obtained permission from Elizabeth II to marry the Roman Catholic Princess Caroline of Monaco. Yet a clause of the English Act of Settlement 1701 remained in effect at that time and that exclusion, ceased to apply on 26 March 2015, with retroactive effect for those who had been dynasts prior to triggering it by marriage to a Catholic
10.
Cathedral of the Archangel
The Cathedral of the Archangel is a Russian Orthodox church dedicated to the Archangel Michael. It is located in Cathedral Square of the Moscow Kremlin in Russia between the Great Kremlin Palace and the Ivan the Great Bell Tower and it was the main necropolis of the Tsars of Russia until the relocation of the capital to St. Petersburg. It was constructed between 1505 and 1508 under the supervision of an Italian architect Aloisio the New on the spot of an older cathedral, an Italian, Lamberti Aloisio da Mantagnana was invited to Moscow, and ground was broken for a new cathedral on 21 May 1505. Ivan died in the autumn of the year, and was buried in the still unfinished building. Work on the cathedral was completed by the end of 1508, the new building incorporated many elements of the Italian Renaissance, and numerous of these details disappeared during repairs and restorations. The interior walls were not painted with frescoes until the 1560s, victories of the Russian military were celebrated in the Cathedral of the Archangel.
All Russian tsars and grand princes were buried within the cathedral until the time of Peter the Great, along with many empresses and princes of the blood, with the sole exception of Boris Godunov. After the royal necropolis was moved to Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg, only Tsar Peter II, there are 54 burials in the cathedral, with 46 ornamented whitestone tombstones and glazed cases made of bronze. Of note is the tomb of Tsarevich Demetrius, the son of Ivan the Terrible, was buried there in the early 17th century and was canonized, during the 1917 Russian Revolution, the cathedral was damaged during the fighting. Afterwards, it was closed by the Bolshevik regime, during the 1950s, along with the other surviving churches in the Moscow Kremlin, was preserved as a museum. A large portion of the treasures were either transferred to the Kremlin Armory Museum. After 1992, the building was returned to the Russian Orthodox Church, compared with the other two major Kremlin cathedrals, the Archangel Cathedral is substantially different in style, despite maintaining a traditional layout.
It echoes the layout of the Assumption Cathedral in its use of five domes (representing Jesus Christ, the interior of the cathedral, was largely constructed in a manner typical for Russian churches. The large iconostasis of the cathedral of the archangel,13 meters high, the icon of Archangel Michael, the oldest in the iconostasis, is believed to have been created for Princess Eudoxia, the wife of Dmitri Donskoi to the memory the victory in the Battle of Kulikovo. The wall frescoes date to the 16th and 17th centuries, some were painted by Yakov of Kazan, Stepan of Ryazan, Joseph Vladimirov and others between 1652 and 1666. The Moscow Kremlin, history of Russias unique monument, ASIN, B0010XM7BQ Home Page Satellite photo of the Cathedral of the Archangel
11.
Eastern Orthodox Church
The Eastern Orthodox Church teaches that it is the One, Holy and Apostolic Church established by Jesus Christ in his Great Commission to the apostles. It practices what it understands to be the original Christian faith, the Eastern Orthodox Church is a communion of autocephalous churches, each typically governed by a Holy Synod. It teaches that all bishops are equal by virtue of their ordination, prior to the Council of Chalcedon in AD451, the Eastern Orthodox had shared communion with the Oriental Orthodox churches, separating primarily over differences in Christology. Eastern Orthodoxy spread throughout the Roman and Eastern Roman Empires and beyond, playing a prominent role in European, Near Eastern and some African cultures. As a result, the term Greek Orthodox has sometimes used to describe all of Eastern Orthodoxy in general. However, the appellation Greek was never in use and was gradually abandoned by the non-Greek-speaking Eastern Orthodox churches. Its most prominent episcopal see is Constantinople, there are many in other parts of the world, formed through immigration and missionary activity.
The official name of the Eastern Orthodox Church is the Orthodox Catholic Church and it is the name by which the church refers to itself in its liturgical or canonical texts, in official publications, and in official contexts or administrative documents. Orthodox teachers refer to the Church as Catholic and this name and longer variants containing Catholic are recognized and referenced in other books and publications by secular or non-Orthodox writers. The common name of the Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, is a shortened practicality that helps to avoid confusions in casual use, for this reason, the eastern churches were sometimes identified as Greek, even before the great schism. After 1054, Greek Orthodox or Greek Catholic marked a church as being in communion with Constantinople and this identification with Greek, became increasingly confusing with time. Missionaries brought Orthodoxy to many regions without ethnic Greeks, where the Greek language was not spoken. Today, many of those same Roman churches remain, while a large number of Orthodox are not of Greek national origin.
Eastern, indicates the element in the Churchs origin and development, while Orthodox indicates the faith. While the Church continues officially to call itself Catholic, for reasons of universality, the first known use of the phrase the catholic church occurred in a letter written about 110 AD from one Greek church to another. Quote of St Ignatius to the Smyrnaeans, Wheresoever the bishop shall appear, there let the people be, even as where Jesus may be, almost from the very beginning, Christians referred to the Church as the One, Holy and Apostolic Church. The Orthodox Church claims that it is today the continuation and preservation of that same Church, a number of other Christian churches make a similar claim, the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican Communion, the Assyrian Church and the Oriental Orthodox Churches. The Church of England separated from the Roman Catholic Church, not directly from the Orthodox Church, the depth of this meaning in the Orthodox Church is registered first in its use of the word Orthodox itself, a union of Greek orthos and doxa
12.
Russian conquest of Siberia
Although outnumbered, the Russians pressured the various family-based tribes into changing their loyalties and establishing distant forts from which they conducted raids. To counter this, Kuchum Khan attempted to centralize his rule by imposing Islam on his subjects, the Russian conquest of Siberia began in July 1580 when some 540 Cossacks under Yermak Timofeyevich invaded the territory of the Voguls, subjects to Küçüm, the Khan of Siberia. They were accompanied by 300 Lithuanian and German slave laborers, whom the Stroganovs had purchased from the tsar, throughout 1581, this force traversed the territory known as Yugra and subdued Vogul and Ostyak towns. At this time, they captured a tax collector of Küçüm. Following a series of Tatar raids in retaliation against the Russian advance, Yermaks forces prepared for a campaign to take Qashliq, the force embarked in May 1582. After a three-day battle on the banks of the river Irtysh, Yermak was victorious against a force of Küçüm Khan. On 29 June, the Cossack forces were attacked by the Tatars, throughout September 1582, the Khan gathered his forces for a defence of Qashliq.
A horde of Siberian Tatars and Ostyaks massed at Mount Chyuvash to defend against invading Cossacks, on 1 October, a Cossack attempt to storm the Tatar fort at Mount Chyuvash was held off. On 23 October, the Cossacks attempted to storm the Tatar fort at Mount Chyuvash for a time when the Tatars counterattacked. More than a hundred Cossacks were killed, but their gunfire forced a Tatar retreat, the forces of the Khan retreated, and Yermak entered Qashliq on 26 October. Küçüm Khan retreated into the steppes and over the few years regrouped his forces. He suddenly attacked Yermak on 6 August 1584 in the dead of night, the remains of Yermaks forces under the command of Mescheryak retreated from Qashliq, destroying the city as they left. In 1586 the Russians returned, and after subduing the Khanty, the Tatar tribes that were submissive to Küçüm Khan suffered from several attacks by the Russians between 1584–1595, however, Küçüm Khan would not be caught. Finally, in August 1598 Küçüm Khan was defeated at the Battle of Urmin near the river Ob, in the course of the fight the Siberian royal family were captured by the Russians.
However, Küçüm Khan escaped yet again, the Russians took the family members of Küçüm Khan to Moscow and there they remained as hostages. The descendants of the family became known as the Princes Sibirsky. Despite his personal escape, the capture of his family ended the political and military activities of Küçüm Khan and he had been in contact with the tsar and had requested that a small region on the banks of the Irtysh River would be granted as his dominion. This was rejected by the tsar who proposed to Küçüm Khan that he come to Moscow, the old khan did not want to suffer from such contempt and preferred staying in his own lands to comforting himself in Moscow
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This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica. 18 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 359.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the 
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