The Entire History of Russia (Before It’s Erased)

The entire history of Russia, animated: from Viking traders on the rivers of Eastern Europe to Vladimir Putin and the war in Ukraine. In 40 minutes we cover more than 1,100 years: Rurik and Kyivan Rus, Princess Olga and the baptism of Vladimir, the Mongol invasion and the rise of Moscow, Ivan the Terrible, the Time of Troubles and the first Romanov tsar, then Peter the Great and Catherine the Great building an empire. Then the empire comes under strain: Napoleon's invasion of 1812, the end of serfdom in 1861, the 1905 revolution, Rasputin and the fall of the Romanovs. From there it's Lenin and the Russian Revolution, the famines and terror of Stalin's rule, World War II, Sputnik and Yuri Gagarin, Brezhnev's stagnation, Chernobyl, Gorbachev and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Yeltsin's chaotic 1990s, and Putin's Russia from Chechnya to Crimea and Ukraine. Through it all runs one pattern we call the Russian loop: chaos, then a strongman, then expansion, then rot, then collapse, and then it starts all over again. Why does Russia keep going around it, and can it ever break out? Chapters 0:00 Intro 1:23 Vikings on the Rivers 4:43 The Mongol Yoke 7:59 Ivan the Terrible 11:53 The Time of Troubles 14:57 Peter and Catherine 19:00 Empire Under Strain 24:23 Lenin and Stalin 30:04 Superpower to Collapse 34:17 Putin's Russia Next: The Entire History of Poland, the country that vanished from the map for 123 years. Subscribe to The Chronicler for the entire history of a new country every week. About this video Narration and illustrations are AI-generated, and the skits are comic re-enactments, not real quotes. The script was fact-checked against published sources: legends are labelled as legends, and where historians disagree, we give each side. Spotted a mistake? Tell us in the comments. Credits Maps: historical borders from the historical-basemaps project by A. Ourednik (GPL-3.0), Natural Earth, and NASA Blue Marble imagery. Historical art via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain: works by Ilya Repin, Viktor Vasnetsov, Alexander von Nothbeck, Rashid al-Din, Adolphe Yvon, Mikhail Nesterov, Mikhail Scotti, Godfrey Kneller, Pierre-Denis Martin, Nikolai Ge, Johann Baptist von Lampi, Louis Lejeune, Vladimir Makovsky, Ernst Sandau and William R. Shepherd; the Radziwiłł Chronicle and the Illustrated Chronicle of Ivan the Terrible; photographs from NASA, the US National Archives, the Library of Congress and Soviet-era sources. Leonid Brezhnev photo by Vladimir Musaelyan (CC0). Licensed CC BY, via Wikimedia Commons: St. Basil's Cathedral, Moscow, photo by Юрий Д.К. (file "St. Basil Cathedral, Moscow (3).jpg") Paul Delaroche, Portrait of Peter the Great, photo by Dguendel (file "Hamburg, Kunsthalle, Paul Delaroche, Bildnis Peter der Große.jpg") Lenin's Mausoleum, Moscow, photo by Юрий Д.К. (file "Moscow - Lenin Mausoleum.jpg") White House, Moscow, photo by Bergmann at Japanese Wikipedia (file "ベールイドーム.jpg"), CC BY 3.0 Vladimir Putin and Boris Yeltsin, 31 December 1999, Presidential Press and Information Office (files "Vladimir Putin 31 December 1999-3.jpg", "Boris Yeltsin 31 December 1999.jpg") Alexei Navalny, YouTube/Навальный LIVE (file "Navalny vs Pamfilova1 (cropped).jpg"), CC BY 3.0 Vladimir Putin, 2012, Russian Presidential Press and Information Office (file "Vladimir Putin - 2012.jpg") All CC BY 4.0 unless marked. Music: "Curse of the Scarab", "Dreamer", "Five Armies", "Hitman", "Long Note Four", "Peaceful Desolation", "Rites", "Sneaky Snitch", "Volatile Reaction". Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech), licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0. Sound effects: Kenney (CC0). Icons: Twemoji by Twitter/X and contributors, CC BY 4.0. #history #russianhistory #animatedhistory