Russian government victory
150-540: 1773 : 1774 : Pugachev's Rebellion ( Russian : Восстание Пугачёва , romanized : Vosstaniye Pugachyova ; also called the Peasants' War 1773–1775 or Cossack Rebellion ) of 1773–1775 was the principal revolt in a series of popular rebellions that took place in the Russian Empire after Catherine II seized power in 1762. It began as an organized insurrection of Yaik Cossacks headed by Yemelyan Pugachev ,
300-649: A constitutional referendum on whether to adopt Russian as a second official language. According to the Central Election Commission, 74.8% voted against, 24.9% voted for and the voter turnout was 71.1%. Starting in 2019, instruction in Russian will be gradually discontinued in private colleges and universities in Latvia, and in general instruction in Latvian public high schools. On 29 September 2022, Saeima passed in
450-510: A new education law which requires all schools to teach at least partially in Ukrainian, with provisions while allow indigenous languages and languages of national minorities to be used alongside the national language. The law faced criticism from officials in Russia and Hungary. The 2019 Law of Ukraine "On protecting the functioning of the Ukrainian language as the state language" gives priority to
600-472: A barrier between the workers and the government; they inhibited appeals to the state for improvement of conditions. Also, with the loss of Russia's competitive advantage on the world market, the production of the Ural mines and iron-smelting factories declined. This decline hit the workers the hardest because they had no other place to go or no other skill to market. There was enough material to support rebellion against
750-451: A boat to the military base of Kronstadt on Kotlin Island , hoping that the fleet remained loyal to him. However, the fleet's cannons opened fire on Peter's boat with two or three shots, and he was repulsed back to the shore, with the commandant declaring that he was no longer recognized as emperor and that Russia was ruled by Empress Catherine. The people of St. Petersburg, drawn to the shore by
900-630: A clear unified role in the rebellion, the Buddhist Kalmyks and Muslim Kazakhs , neighboring Turkic tribes in the steppe, were involved in a more fragmented way. The Kazakhs were nomadic herdsman like the Bashkirs, and were in constant struggle with neighboring indigenous groups and Russian settlers over land. Pugachev tried hard to get Kazakh leaders to commit to his cause, but leaders like Nur-Ali would not do so fully. Nur-Ali engaged in talks with both Pugachev's and Tsarist forces, helping each only when it
1050-587: A condition. The personality and activities of Peter III were long disregarded by historians and his figure was seen as purely negative, but in the 1990s, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union , a more unbiased approach appeared, noting a number of state merits of the emperor, who continued the policy of Peter the Great and contributed to the Enlightenment forming in Russian culture. His most notable reforms were
1200-461: A detachment, because there is not a single Tatar or Bashkir detachment, since they have all fled, and the starshins , who have dispersed to their homes, are presently departing for the Nagaybatskaya fortress." ( Dokumenty stavki E. I. Pugacheva, povstancheskikh vlastei i uchrezhdenii, 1773-1774. Moskva, Nauka , 1975. Document number 195. Author's translation) The concept of freedom was applied to
1350-591: A disaffected ex-lieutenant of the Imperial Russian Army , against a background of profound peasant unrest and war with the Ottoman Empire . After initial success, Pugachev assumed leadership of an alternative government in the name of the late Tsar Peter III and proclaimed an end to serfdom . This organized leadership presented a challenge to the imperial administration of Catherine II. The rebellion managed to consolidate support from various groups including
1500-530: A failure to appreciate its scale. However, the revolt was crushed towards the end of 1774 by General Michelsohn at Tsaritsyn . Pugachev was captured soon after and executed in Moscow in January 1775. Further reprisals against rebel areas were carried out by General Peter Panin . The events have generated many stories in legend and literature, most notably Pushkin 's historical novel The Captain's Daughter (1836). It
1650-399: A formula with V standing for the nucleus (vowel) and C for each consonant, the maximal structure can be described as follows: (C)(C)(C)(C)V(C)(C)(C)(C) Peter III of Russia Peter III Fyodorovich ( Russian : Пётр III Фёдорович , romanized : Pyotr III Fyodorovich ; 21 February [ O.S. 10 February] 1728 – 17 July [ O.S. 6 July] 1762)
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#17328549332841800-452: A frame of mind may also account for the strong urge to take revenge on the nobles and officials, on their modern and evil way of life. Pugachev's followers were particularly frightened by apparent economic and social changes. They wished to recapture the old ideals of service and community in a hierarchy ordained by God. They needed a palpable sense of direct relationship with the source of sovereign power. The Cossacks were most keenly aware of
1950-558: A hard or soft counterpart, and the distinction is a prominent feature of the language, which is usually shown in writing not by a change of the consonant but rather by changing the following vowel. Another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels . Stress , which is often unpredictable, is not normally indicated orthographically , though an optional acute accent may be used to mark stress – such as to distinguish between homographic words (e.g. замо́к [ zamók , 'lock'] and за́мок [ zámok , 'castle']), or to indicate
2100-478: A hot temper, and wrathfulness. The German historian Elena Palmer goes even further, portraying Peter III as a cultured, open-minded emperor who tried to introduce various courageous, even democratic reforms in 18th-century Russia. A monument for Peter III stands in Kiel, the city of his birth. After Peter succeeded to the Russian throne (5 January 1762 [ O.S. 25 December 1761]), he withdrew Russian forces from
2250-479: A language that "belongs to the European cultural space". The financing of Russian-language content by the state will cease, which the concept says create a "unified information space". However, one inevitable consequence would be the closure of public media broadcasts in Russian on LTV and Latvian Radio, as well as the closure of LSM's Russian-language service. In Lithuania , Russian has no official or legal status, but
2400-572: A lesser extent the languages to the south and the east: Uralic , Turkic , Persian , Arabic , and Hebrew . According to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California , Russian is classified as a level III language in terms of learning difficulty for native English speakers, requiring approximately 1,100 hours of immersion instruction to achieve intermediate fluency. Feudal divisions and conflicts created obstacles between
2550-607: A minority language under the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities . 30% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 2% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. In Azerbaijan , Russian has no official status, but is a lingua franca of the country. 26% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 5% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. In Georgia , Russian has no official status, but it
2700-505: A nationwide uprising and threaten the stability of Russia. In the spring of 1762, conspiring with her lover Grigory Orlov and others in the court and military, Catherine began plotting to overthrow her husband. At dawn on June 28, 1762, Catherine marched with a procession of civilian and military supporters to the Winter Palace, where she was proclaimed heir to the Russian throne by the archbishop of Novgorod. Peter tried to escape by taking
2850-550: A place in my government and will be designated to serve a glorious duty on my behalf. If there are those who forget their obligations to their natural ruler Peter III, and dare not carry out the command that my devoted troops are to receive weapons in their hands, then they will see for themselves my righteous anger, and will then be punished harshly. From the very beginning of the insurgency , Pugachev's generals carried out mass recruitment campaigns in Tatar and Bashkir settlements, with
3000-475: A pretender-liberator. As Peter III, he was seen as Christ-like and saintly because he had meekly accepted his dethronement by his evil wife Catherine II and her courtiers. He had not resisted his overthrow, but had left to wander the world. He had come to help the revolt, but he did not initiate it; according to popular myth, the Cossacks and the people did that. The popular mythology of Peter III linked Pugachev with
3150-516: A qualitatively new entity can be said to emerge—the general language of the working class... capitalism has the tendency of creating the general urban language of a given society. In 2010, there were 259.8 million speakers of Russian in the world: in Russia – 137.5 million, in the CIS and Baltic countries – 93.7 million, in Eastern Europe – 12.9 million, Western Europe – 7.3 million, Asia – 2.7 million, in
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#17328549332843300-493: A scarf. Nevertheless, he was later buried on 3 August 1762 [O.S. 23 July] in the Alexander Nevsky Monastery , Saint Petersburg. After his death, four pretenders to the throne, insisting that they were Peter (five if Šćepan Mali of Montenegro is included) came forth, supported by revolts among the people, who believed in a rumor that Peter had not died but had been secretly imprisoned by Catherine. The most famous
3450-711: A share. His most manly taste did not rise above the kind of military interest which has been defined as "corporal's mania," the passion for uniforms, pipeclay , buttons, the "tricks of parade and the froth of discipline." He detested the Russians, and surrounded himself with Holsteiners. There have been many attempts to revise the traditional characterization of Peter and his policies. The Russian historian A. S. Mylnikov views Peter III very differently: Many contradictory qualities existed in him: keen observation, zeal and sharp wit in his arguments and actions, incaution and lack of perspicuity in conversation, frankness, goodness, sarcasm,
3600-527: Is Belarusian, among ethnic Belarusians this share is 28.5%; the highest share of those who speak Belarusian at home is among ethnic Poles — 46.0%. In Estonia , Russian is spoken by 29.6% of the population, according to a 2011 estimate from the World Factbook, and is officially considered a foreign language. School education in the Russian language is a very contentious point in Estonian politics, and in 2022,
3750-475: Is a co-official language per article 5 of the Constitution of Kyrgyzstan . The 2009 census states that 482,200 people speak Russian as a native language, or 8.99% of the population. Additionally, 1,854,700 residents of Kyrgyzstan aged 15 and above fluently speak Russian as a second language, or 49.6% of the population in the age group. In Tajikistan , Russian is the language of inter-ethnic communication under
3900-401: Is a high degree of mutual intelligibility between Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian , and a moderate degree of it in all modern Slavic languages, at least at the conversational level. Russian is written using a Cyrillic alphabet. The Russian alphabet consists of 33 letters. The following table gives their forms, along with IPA values for each letter's typical sound: Older letters of
4050-544: Is a post-posed definite article -to , -ta , -te similar to that existing in Bulgarian and Macedonian. In the Southern Russian dialects , instances of unstressed /e/ and /a/ following palatalized consonants and preceding a stressed syllable are not reduced to [ɪ] (as occurs in the Moscow dialect), being instead pronounced [a] in such positions (e.g. несл и is pronounced [nʲaˈslʲi] , not [nʲɪsˈlʲi] ) – this
4200-647: Is an East Slavic language belonging to the Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family . It is one of the four extant East Slavic languages, and is the native language of the Russians . It was the de facto and de jure official language of the former Soviet Union . Russian has remained an official language of the Russian Federation , Belarus , Kazakhstan , Kyrgyzstan , and Tajikistan , and
4350-485: Is being used less frequently by Russian-speaking typists in favor of the extension of Unicode character encoding , which fully incorporates the Russian alphabet. Free programs are available offering this Unicode extension, which allow users to type Russian characters, even on Western 'QWERTY' keyboards. The Russian language was first introduced to computing after the M-1 , and MESM models were produced in 1951. According to
4500-613: Is called yakanye ( яканье ). Consonants include a fricative /ɣ/ , a semivowel /w⁓u̯/ and /x⁓xv⁓xw/ , whereas the Standard and Northern dialects have the consonants /ɡ/ , /v/ , and final /l/ and /f/ , respectively. The morphology features a palatalized final /tʲ/ in 3rd person forms of verbs (this is unpalatalized in the Standard and Northern dialects). During the Proto-Slavic (Common Slavic) times all Slavs spoke one mutually intelligible language or group of dialects. There
4650-563: Is more spoken than English. Sizable Russian-speaking communities also exist in North America, especially in large urban centers of the US and Canada, such as New York City , Philadelphia , Boston , Los Angeles , Nashville , San Francisco , Seattle , Spokane , Toronto , Calgary , Baltimore , Miami , Portland , Chicago , Denver , and Cleveland . In a number of locations they issue their own newspapers, and live in ethnic enclaves (especially
Pugachev's Rebellion - Misplaced Pages Continue
4800-549: Is not Peter III. By early September, the rebellion was crushed. Yemelyan Pugachev was betrayed by his own Cossacks when he tried to flee in mid-September 1774, and they delivered him to the authorities. He was beheaded and dismembered on 21 January 1775, in Moscow. After the revolt, Catherine cut Cossack privileges further and set up more garrisons across Russia. Provinces became more numerous, certain political powers were broken up and divided among various agencies, and elected officials were introduced. The popular interpretation of
4950-564: Is odd") – чу́дно ( chúdno – "this is marvellous"), молоде́ц ( molodéts – "well done!") – мо́лодец ( mólodets – "fine young man"), узна́ю ( uznáyu – "I shall learn it") – узнаю́ ( uznayú – "I recognize it"), отреза́ть ( otrezát – "to be cutting") – отре́зать ( otrézat – "to have cut"); to indicate the proper pronunciation of uncommon words, especially personal and family names, like афе́ра ( aféra , "scandal, affair"), гу́ру ( gúru , "guru"), Гарси́я ( García ), Оле́ша ( Olésha ), Фе́рми ( Fermi ), and to show which
5100-402: Is recognized as a minority language under the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities . Russian is the language of 9% of the population according to the World Factbook. Ethnologue cites Russian as the country's de facto working language. In China , Russian has no official status, but it is spoken by the small Russian communities in the northeastern Heilongjiang and
5250-569: Is sometimes considered to have played a significant role in the formation of modern Russian. Also, Russian has notable lexical similarities with Bulgarian due to a common Church Slavonic influence on both languages, but because of later interaction in the 19th and 20th centuries, Bulgarian grammar differs markedly from Russian. Over the course of centuries, the vocabulary and literary style of Russian have also been influenced by Western and Central European languages such as Greek, Latin , Polish , Dutch , German, French, Italian, and English, and to
5400-576: Is spoken by 14.2% of the population according to an undated estimate from the World Factbook. In 2005, Russian was the most widely taught foreign language in Mongolia, and was compulsory in Year 7 onward as a second foreign language in 2006. Around 1.5 million Israelis spoke Russian as of 2017. The Israeli press and websites regularly publish material in Russian and there are Russian newspapers, television stations, schools, and social media outlets based in
5550-659: Is still commonly used as a lingua franca in Ukraine , Moldova , the Caucasus , Central Asia , and to a lesser extent in the Baltic states and Israel . Russian has over 258 million total speakers worldwide. It is the most spoken native language in Europe , the most spoken Slavic language , as well as the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia . It is the world's seventh-most spoken language by number of native speakers , and
5700-518: Is the stressed word in a sentence, for example Ты́ съел печенье? ( Tý syel pechenye? – "Was it you who ate the cookie?") – Ты съе́л печенье? ( Ty syél pechenye? – "Did you eat the cookie?) – Ты съел пече́нье? ( Ty syel pechénye? "Was it the cookie you ate?"). Stress marks are mandatory in lexical dictionaries and books for children or Russian learners. The Russian syllable structure can be quite complex, with both initial and final consonant clusters of up to four consecutive sounds. Using
5850-400: The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica : Nature had made him mean, the smallpox had made him hideous, and his degraded habits made him loathsome. And Peter had all the sentiments of the worst kind of a small German prince of the time. He had the conviction that his princeship entitled him to disregard decency and the feelings of others. He planned brutal practical jokes, in which blows had always
6000-461: The 2011 Lithuanian census , Russian was the native language for 7.2% of the population. In Moldova , Russian was considered to be the language of interethnic communication under a Soviet-era law. On 21 January 2021, the Constitutional Court of Moldova declared the law unconstitutional and deprived Russian of the status of the language of interethnic communication. 50% of the population
6150-966: The Apollo–Soyuz mission, which first flew in 1975. In March 2013, Russian was found to be the second-most used language on websites after English. Russian was the language of 5.9% of all websites, slightly ahead of German and far behind English (54.7%). Russian was used not only on 89.8% of .ru sites, but also on 88.7% of sites with the former Soviet Union domain .su . Websites in former Soviet Union member states also used high levels of Russian: 79.0% in Ukraine, 86.9% in Belarus, 84.0% in Kazakhstan, 79.6% in Uzbekistan, 75.9% in Kyrgyzstan and 81.8% in Tajikistan. However, Russian
Pugachev's Rebellion - Misplaced Pages Continue
6300-413: The Constitution of Tajikistan and is permitted in official documentation. 28% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 7% used it as the main language with family, friends or at work. The World Factbook notes that Russian is widely used in government and business. In Turkmenistan , Russian lost its status as the official lingua franca in 1996. Among 12% of the population who grew up in
6450-539: The Peter and Paul Cathedral , where other tsars (Russian emperors) were buried. The legend of Peter is still talked about, especially in the town where he lived most of his life, formerly Oranienbaum, later Lomonosov , situated on the southern coast of the Gulf of Finland , 40 km west of St. Petersburg. Peter's palace is the only one of the famous palaces in the St. Petersburg area that
6600-608: The Seven Years' War and concluded a peace treaty (5 May [ O.S. 24 April] 1762) with Prussia (dubbed the "Second Miracle of the House of Brandenburg "). He gave up Russian conquests in Prussia and offered 12,000 troops to make an alliance with Frederick II of Prussia (19 June [ O.S. 8 June] 1762). Russia thus switched from an enemy of Prussia to an ally—Russian troops withdrew from Berlin and marched against
6750-575: The Ukrainian language in more than 30 spheres of public life: in particular in public administration , media, education, science, culture, advertising, services . The law does not regulate private communication. A poll conducted in March 2022 by RATING in the territory controlled by Ukraine found that 83% of the respondents believe that Ukrainian should be the only state language of Ukraine. This opinion dominates in all macro-regions, age and language groups. On
6900-694: The United States Census , in 2007 Russian was the primary language spoken in the homes of over 850,000 individuals living in the United States. Russian is one of the official languages (or has similar status and interpretation must be provided into Russian) of the following: The Russian language is also one of two official languages aboard the International Space Station – NASA astronauts who serve alongside Russian cosmonauts usually take Russian language courses. This practice goes back to
7050-645: The peasants , the Cossacks , and Old Believers priesthood. At one point, its administration claimed control over most of the territory between the Volga River and the Urals . One of the most significant events of the insurrection was the Battle of Kazan in July 1774. Government forces failed to respond effectively to the insurrection at first, partly due to logistical difficulties and
7200-580: The 14-year-old Peter was proclaimed King of Finland during the Russo-Swedish War (1741–1743) , when Russian troops held Finland. This proclamation was based on his succession rights to territories held by his childless great-uncle, the late Charles XII of Sweden , who also had been Grand Duke of Finland . About the same time, in October 1742, he was chosen by the Swedish parliament to become heir presumptive to
7350-457: The 18th century, which also added strain on the peasants. Frequent recurrence of crop failures, plagues and epidemics created economic and social instability. The most dramatic was the 1771 epidemic in Moscow , which brought to the surface all the unconscious and unfocused fears and panics of the populace. Each ruler altered the position of the Church, which created more pressure. Peter the Great gave
7500-508: The 20th century, Russian was a mandatory language taught in the schools of the members of the old Warsaw Pact and in other countries that used to be satellites of the USSR. According to the Eurobarometer 2005 survey, fluency in Russian remains fairly high (20–40%) in some countries, in particular former Warsaw Pact countries. In Armenia , Russian has no official status, but it is recognized as
7650-712: The Austrians. This dramatically shifted the balance of power in Europe, suddenly handing the delighted Frederick the initiative. Frederick recaptured southern Silesia (October 1762) and subsequently forced Austria to the negotiating table . As Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, Peter planned war against Denmark-Norway in order to restore parts of Schleswig to his Duchy. He focused on making alliances with Sweden and with Great Britain to ensure that they would not interfere on Denmark's behalf, while Russian forces gathered at Kolberg in Russian-occupied Pomerania . Alarmed at
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#17328549332847800-478: The Bashkirs the political autonomy and cultural independence they desired. The Bashkirs were crucial to Pugachev's rebellion. Some of the memorable leaders of the rebellion, like Salavat Yulaev were Bashkirs, and historian Alan Bodger argues that the rebellion might have died in the beginning stages were it not for the Bashkir's involvement. In spite of their integral role, Bashkirs fought for different reasons than many of
7950-465: The Belarusian society the Russian language prevails, so according to the 2019 census 6,718,557 people (71.4% of the total population) stated that they speak Russian at home, for ethnic Belarusians this share is 61.4%, for Russians — 97.2%, for Ukrainians — 89.0%, for Poles — 52.4%, and for Jews — 96.6%; 2,447,764 people (26.0% of the total population) stated that the language they usually speak at home
8100-406: The Church new obligations, while its administration assimilated to a department of the secular state. The Church's resources, or the means of collection, could not meet the new obligations and as a consequence, they heavily exploited and poorly administered their serfs. The unrest spurred constant revolt among Church serfs. Pugachev's image according to folk memory and contemporary legends was one of
8250-523: The City of Kungur . During the revolt the nomadic Kazakhs took the opportunity to raid the Russian settlements. Pugachev's troops suffered from a lack of food and gunpowder. Many fighters deserted, including one general who left the battle and took his entire unit with him. Cossack officers wrote in a report to their superior, Vasily Ivanovich Tornov, "For the sake of your eminence, we humbly request that our Nagaybatskaya Fortress be returned to us with or without
8400-408: The Cossacks and peasants, and sometimes their disparate objectives disrupted Pugachev's cause. There are accounts of Bashkirs, upset over their lost land, taking peasant land for themselves. Bashkirs also raided factories, showing their aggression towards Russian expansion and industrialization. Pugachev thought that these raids were ill-advised and not helpful towards his cause. While the Bashkirs had
8550-549: The Emancipation Manifesto of 1762 and the serf's expectations of further liberalizations had he continued as ruler. Pugachev offered freedom from the poll tax and the recruit-levy, which made him appear to follow in the same vein as the emperor he was impersonating. Pugachev attempted to reproduce the St. Petersburg bureaucracy. He established his own College of War with quite extensive powers and functions. He did not promise complete freedom from taxation and recruitment for
8700-646: The French general Count St. Germain in case the Russian–Danish freedom conference (scheduled for 1 July 1762 in Berlin under the patronage of Frederick II) failed to resolve the issue. However, shortly before the conference, Peter lost his throne (9 July [ O.S. 28 June] 1762) and the conference did not occur. The issue of Schleswig remained unresolved. Peter was accused of planning an unpatriotic war. While historically Peter's planned war against Denmark-Norway
8850-417: The Great and Catherine I . Peter's mother died shortly after his birth. In 1739, Peter's father died, and he became Duke of Holstein-Gottorp as Charles Peter Ulrich ( German : Karl Peter Ulrich ) at the age of 11. When Peter's maternal aunt Elizabeth became Empress of Russia , she brought Peter from Germany to Russia and proclaimed him her heir presumptive in the autumn of 1742. Previously in 1742,
9000-471: The Great and developed from the Moscow ( Middle or Central Russian ) dialect substratum under the influence of some of the previous century's Russian chancery language. Prior to the Bolshevik Revolution , the spoken form of the Russian language was that of the nobility and the urban bourgeoisie. Russian peasants, the great majority of the population, continued to speak in their own dialects. However,
9150-578: The Institute of Russian Language of the Russian Academy of Sciences, an optional acute accent ( знак ударения ) may, and sometimes should, be used to mark stress . For example, it is used to distinguish between otherwise identical words, especially when context does not make it obvious: замо́к ( zamók – "lock") – за́мок ( zámok – "castle"), сто́ящий ( stóyashchy – "worthwhile") – стоя́щий ( stoyáshchy – "standing"), чудно́ ( chudnó – "this
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#17328549332849300-516: The Kalmyk campaign led by II'ia Arapov which, though defeated, caused a total uproar and pushed the rebellion forward in the Stavropol region. By late 1774 the tide was turning, and the Russian army's victory at Tsaritsyn left 9,000-10,000 rebels dead. Russian General Panin's savage reprisals, after the capture of Penza , completed their discomfiture. By 21 August 1774, Don Cossacks recognize that Pugachev
9450-515: The Middle East and North Africa – 1.3 million, Sub-Saharan Africa – 0.1 million, Latin America – 0.2 million, U.S., Canada , Australia, and New Zealand – 4.1 million speakers. Therefore, the Russian language is the seventh-largest in the world by the number of speakers , after English, Mandarin, Hindi -Urdu, Spanish, French, Arabic, and Portuguese. Russian is one of the six official languages of
9600-550: The Pugachev Rebellion, these natives responded by assassinating Orthodox clergy members. Because the natives professed allegiance to Pugachev, the rebel leader had no choice but to implicitly condone their actions as part of his rebellion. The Tatars (from the Volga and Kama basin) were the indigenous group with the most complex political structure. They were most closely associated with Russian culture because they had lived within
9750-404: The Pugachev uprising. The Kalmyks' role in the rebellion was not unified either, but historians disagree about how to classify their actions. Historian Alan Bodger argues that the Kalmyks' role was minimal. They helped both sides in the conflict, but not in a way that changed the results. John T. Alexander argues that the Kalmyks were a significant factor in the rebel's initial victories. He cites
9900-807: The Russian alphabet include ⟨ ѣ ⟩ , which merged to ⟨ е ⟩ ( /je/ or /ʲe/ ); ⟨ і ⟩ and ⟨ ѵ ⟩ , which both merged to ⟨ и ⟩ ( /i/ ); ⟨ ѳ ⟩ , which merged to ⟨ ф ⟩ ( /f/ ); ⟨ ѫ ⟩ , which merged to ⟨ у ⟩ ( /u/ ); ⟨ ѭ ⟩ , which merged to ⟨ ю ⟩ ( /ju/ or /ʲu/ ); and ⟨ ѧ ⟩ and ⟨ ѩ ⟩ , which later were graphically reshaped into ⟨ я ⟩ and merged phonetically to /ja/ or /ʲa/ . While these older letters have been abandoned at one time or another, they may be used in this and related articles. The yers ⟨ ъ ⟩ and ⟨ ь ⟩ originally indicated
10050-449: The Russian army to stop, just as it was about to capture Konigsberg . Peter has been depicted on screen a number of times, almost always in films concerning his wife Catherine. He was portrayed by Rudolf Klein-Rogge in the 1927 film The Loves of Casanova , Douglas Fairbanks Jr. in the 1934 film The Rise of Catherine the Great and by Sam Jaffe in The Scarlet Empress the same year. In 1991 Reece Dinsdale portrayed him in
10200-458: The Russian principalities before and especially during Mongol rule. This strengthened dialectal differences, and for a while, prevented the emergence of a standardized national language. The formation of the unified and centralized Russian state in the 15th and 16th centuries, and the gradual re-emergence of a common political, economic, and cultural space created the need for a common standard language. The initial impulse for standardization came from
10350-454: The Russian throne, and it was made a criminal offence to omit them. Empress Elizabeth arranged for Peter to marry his second cousin, Sophia Augusta Frederica (later Catherine the Great ), daughter of Christian August, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst , and Princess Joanna Elisabeth of Holstein-Gottorp . Sophia formally converted to Russian Orthodoxy and took the name Ekaterina Alexeievna (i.e., Catherine). They married on 21 August 1745. The marriage
10500-505: The Russian troops concentrating near their borders, unable to find any allies to resist Russian aggression, and short of money to fund a war, the government of Denmark threatened in late June to invade the free city of Hamburg in northern Germany to force a loan from it. Peter considered this a casus belli and prepared for open warfare against Denmark. In June 1762, 40,000 Russian troops assembled in Pomerania under General Pyotr Rumyantsev , preparing to face 27,000 Danish troops under
10650-408: The Seven Years War , could offer more to aid his plans than alliance with either Austria or France. During his 186-day period of government, Peter III passed 220 new laws that he had developed and elaborated during his life as a crown prince. Writer Elena Palmer claims that his reforms were of a democratic nature and that he also proclaimed religious freedom. Peter III's economic policy reflected
10800-454: The Soviet era can speak Russian, other generations of citizens that do not have any knowledge of Russian. Primary and secondary education by Russian is almost non-existent. In Uzbekistan , Russian is the language of inter-ethnic communication. It has some official roles, being permitted in official documentation and is the lingua franca of the country and the language of the elite. Russian
10950-735: The Swedish throne. However, the Swedish parliament was unaware of the fact that he had also been proclaimed heir presumptive to the throne of Russia, and when their envoy arrived in Saint Petersburg in November, it was too late. Also in November, Peter converted to Eastern Orthodoxy under the name of Pyotr Feodorovich, and was created Grand Duke of Russia . The words "Grandson of Peter the Great" ( Russian : внук Петра Великого , romanized : vnuk Petra Velikogo ) were made an obligatory part of his official title, underscoring his dynastic claim to
11100-460: The United Nations. Education in Russian is still a popular choice for both Russian as a second language (RSL) and native speakers in Russia, and in many former Soviet republics. Russian is still seen as an important language for children to learn in most of the former Soviet republics. In Belarus , Russian is a second state language alongside Belarusian per the Constitution of Belarus . 77% of
11250-402: The Volga, and eastward into Siberia. Pugachev's groups were defeated in late March and early April 1774 by a second relief corps under General Bibikov , but Pugachev escaped to the southern Urals, Bashkiria , where he recruited new supporters. Then, the rebels attacked the city of Kazan, burning most of it on July 23, 1774. Though beaten three times at Kazan by tsarist troops, Pugachev escaped by
11400-502: The Volga, and gathered new forces as he went down the west bank of the river capturing main towns. On September 5, 1774, Pugachev failed to take Tsaritsyn and was defeated in the steppe below that town. His closest followers betrayed him to the authorities. After a prolonged interrogation, Pugachev was publicly executed in Moscow on 21 January [ O.S. 10 January] 1775. Pugachev's vague rhetoric inspired not only Cossacks and peasants to fight, but also indigenous tribes on
11550-464: The abolition of the secret police, exemption from compulsory military service and equalisation of all religions. He also put an end to the persecution of the Old Believers . Although he is mostly criticised for forming an alliance with Prussia (undoing Russian gains in the Seven Years' War ), his wife later continued his policy. After Peter III's death, many impostors thrived, pretending to be him,
11700-681: The appearance of Pugachev as Peter III and his successes, and they also helped him recruit his first followers among the Old Believer Cossack of the Iaik. The Iaik Cossack host was most directly and completely involved in the Pugachev revolt. Most of its members were Old Believers who had settled among the Iaik River. The Cossacks opposed the tide of rational modernization and the institutionalization of political authority. They regarded their relationship to
11850-486: The beginning. The classical view of Peter's character is mainly drawn out of the memoirs of his wife and successor. She described him as an "idiot" and as a "drunkard from Holstein", also describing her marriage with him with "there is nothing worse than having a child-husband"; even Peter's idol, Frederick the Great mentioned him by saying "he allowed himself to be dethroned like a child sent off to bed". This portrait of Peter can be found in most history books, including
12000-408: The blame for the spread of the insurrection must be laid on the local authorities in Russia. "They were lax, timid, and indecisive; their countermeasures were belated, futile, and lost lives needlessly." Catherine herself recognized this assessment. As Catherine said "I consider the weak conduct of civil and military officials in various localities to be as injurious to the public welfare as Pugachev and
12150-403: The broader sense of expanding the use of Russian alongside or in favour of other languages. The current standard form of Russian is generally regarded as the modern Russian literary language ( современный русский литературный язык – "sovremenny russky literaturny yazyk"). It arose at the beginning of the 18th century with the modernization reforms of the Russian state under the rule of Peter
12300-562: The country. There is an Israeli TV channel mainly broadcasting in Russian with Israel Plus . See also Russian language in Israel . Russian is also spoken as a second language by a small number of people in Afghanistan . In Vietnam , Russian has been added in the elementary curriculum along with Chinese and Japanese and were named as "first foreign languages" for Vietnamese students to learn, on equal footing with English. The Russian language
12450-550: The eastern frontier. These indigenous groups made up a comparatively small portion of those in revolt, but their role should not be underestimated. Each group had a distinct culture and history, which meant that their reasons for following Pugachev were different. The Mordovians , Mari , Udmurts , and Chuvash (from the Volga and Kama basin) for example, joined the revolt because they were upset by Russian attempts to convert them to Orthodoxy. These groups lived within Russia's borders, but held onto their language and culture. During
12600-565: The empire's borders since the 16th century. Many Tatars owned land or managed factories. As more integrated members of the Russian Empire, the Tatars rebelled in objection to the poll tax and their military and service obligations. The Tatars were closely associated with the Cossacks and were a crucial part of Pugachev's recruitment efforts. As a group, the Bashkirs had the most unified involvement in
12750-463: The empress from the peasantry. The peasants were also subject to an increase in indirect taxes due to the increase in the state's requirements. In addition, a strong inflationary trend resulted in higher prices on all goods. The peasants felt abandoned by the "modern" state. They were living in desperate circumstances and had no way to change their situation, having lost all possibilities for political redress. There were natural disasters in Russia during
12900-413: The factory and the industrial plant their local peasant dialects with their phonetics, grammar, and vocabulary, and the very process of recruiting workers from peasants and the mobility of the worker population generate another process: the liquidation of peasant inheritance by way of leveling the particulars of local dialects. On the ruins of peasant multilingual, in the context of developing heavy industry,
13050-451: The final reading amendments that state that all schools and kindergartens in the country are to transition to education in Latvian . From 2025, all children will be taught in Latvian only. On 28 September 2023, Latvian deputies approved The National Security Concept, according to which from 1 January 2026, all content created by Latvian public media (including LSM ) should be only in Latvian or
13200-617: The generation of immigrants who started arriving in the early 1960s). Only about 25% of them are ethnic Russians, however. Before the dissolution of the Soviet Union , the overwhelming majority of Russophones in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn in New York City were Russian-speaking Jews. Afterward, the influx from the countries of the former Soviet Union changed the statistics somewhat, with ethnic Russians and Ukrainians immigrating along with some more Russian Jews and Central Asians. According to
13350-480: The government bureaucracy for the lack of a reliable tool of communication in administrative, legal, and judicial affairs became an obvious practical problem. The earliest attempts at standardizing Russian were made based on the so-called Moscow official or chancery language, during the 15th to 17th centuries. Since then, the trend of language policy in Russia has been standardization in both the restricted sense of reducing dialectical barriers between ethnic Russians, and
13500-451: The instructions of recruiting one member from every or every other household and as many weapons as they could secure. He recruited not only Cossacks, but Russian peasants and factory workers, Tatars, Bashkirs, and Chuvash . Famous Bashkir hero Salawat Yulayev joined him. Pugachev's primary target for his campaign was not the people themselves, but their leaders. He recruited priests and mullahs to disseminate his decrees and read them to
13650-582: The insurgency was that Pugachev's men followed him out of the desire to free themselves from the oppression of Catherine's reign of law. However, there are documents from Pugachev's war college and eyewitness accounts that contradict this theory. While there were many who believed Pugachev to be Peter III and that he would emancipate them from Catherine's harsh taxes and policies of serfdom , there were many groups, particularly of Bashkir and Tatar ethnicity, whose loyalties were not so certain. In January 1774, for example, Bashkir and Tatar generals led an attack on
13800-418: The loss of their special status and direct contact with the czar and his government. The Imperial government endeavored to keep the matter of the rebellion strictly secret or, failing that, to portray it as a minor outbreak that would soon be quelled. The absence of an independent Russian press at the time, particularly in the provinces, meant that foreigners could read only what the government chose to print in
13950-412: The loud echoes of cannons, also armed themselves with sticks and stones to prevent him from returning to the capital city. Twenty four hours later, after learning that the senate, army, and fleet had sworn allegiance to Catherine, with the aid of two guards whom Peter had planned to discipline, he was arrested and forced to abdicate on 9 July [ O.S. 28 June] 1762. Shortly thereafter, he
14100-492: The masses as a way of lending them credence. Priests in particular were instrumental figures in carrying out Pugachev's propaganda campaigns. Pugachev was known to stage "heroic welcomes" whenever he entered a Russian village, in which he would be greeted by the masses as their sovereign. A few days before his arrival to a given city or village, messengers would be sent out to inform the priests and deacons in that town of his impending arrival. These messengers would request that
14250-464: The masses by the priests and mullahs. In these documents, he begged the masses to serve him faithfully. He promised to grant to those who followed his service land, salt, grain, and lowered taxes, and threatened punishment and death to those who didn't. For example, an excerpt from a ukase written in late 1773: From me, such reward and investiture will be with money and bread compensation and with promotions: and you, as well as your next of kin will have
14400-414: The militia. Pugachev envisioned the nobles returning to their previous status as the czar's servicemen on salary instead of estate and serf owners. He emphasized the peasants' freedom from the nobility. Pugachev still expected the peasants to continue their labor, but he granted them the freedom to work and own the land. They would also enjoy religious freedoms and Pugachev promised to restore the bond between
14550-551: The most famous of whom were Yemelyan Pugachev and the "Montenegerin Tsar Peter III" ( Stephan the Little ). Peter was born in Kiel , in the duchy of Holstein-Gottorp . His parents were Charles Frederick, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp , and Grand Duchess Anna Petrovna of Russia . Charles Frederick was a grandson of Charles XI of Sweden , and Anna was a daughter of the Russian monarchs Peter
14700-451: The movement in regard to being free from the nobility. A peasant was to be free to work and own the land he worked. Pugachev's followers idealized a static, simple society where a just ruler guaranteed the welfare of all within the framework of a universal obligation to the sovereign. The ruler ought to be a father to his people, his children; and power should be personal and direct, not institutionalized and mediated by land- or serf owner. Such
14850-516: The northwestern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region . Russian was also the main foreign language taught in school in China between 1949 and 1964. In Kazakhstan , Russian is not a state language, but according to article 7 of the Constitution of Kazakhstan its usage enjoys equal status to that of the Kazakh language in state and local administration. The 2009 census reported that 10,309,500 people, or 84.8% of
15000-515: The other hand, before the war, almost a quarter of Ukrainians were in favour of granting Russian the status of the state language, while after the beginning of Russia's invasion the support for the idea dropped to just 7%. In peacetime, the idea of raising the status of Russian was traditionally supported by residents of the south and east . But even in these regions, only a third of the respondents were in favour, and after Russia's full-scale invasion , their number dropped by almost half. According to
15150-455: The other three languages in the East Slavic branch. In many places in eastern and southern Ukraine and throughout Belarus, these languages are spoken interchangeably, and in certain areas traditional bilingualism resulted in language mixtures such as Surzhyk in eastern Ukraine and Trasianka in Belarus. An East Slavic Old Novgorod dialect , although it vanished during the 15th or 16th century,
15300-446: The parliament approved a bill to close up all Russian language schools and kindergartens by the school year. The transition to only Estonian language schools and kindergartens will start in the 2024-2025 school year. In Latvia , Russian is officially considered a foreign language. 55% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 26% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. On 18 February 2012, Latvia held
15450-403: The peasants and Cossacks and promised the serfs land of their own and freedom from their lords. There were various pressures on Russian serfs during the 18th century, which induced them to follow Pugachev. The peasantry in Russia were no longer bound to the land, but tied to their owner. The connecting links that had existed between the peasant community and the tsar, which had been diminishing,
15600-453: The peasants' speech was never systematically studied, as it was generally regarded by philologists as simply a source of folklore and an object of curiosity. This was acknowledged by the noted Russian dialectologist Nikolai Karinsky , who toward the end of his life wrote: "Scholars of Russian dialects mostly studied phonetics and morphology. Some scholars and collectors compiled local dictionaries. We have almost no studies of lexical material or
15750-414: The peasants; he granted only temporary relief. His perception of the state was one where soldiers took the role of Cossacks, meaning they were free, permanent, military servicemen. Pugachev placed all other military personnel into this category as well, even the nobles and officers who joined his ranks. All peasants were seen as servants of the state, they were to become state peasants and serve as Cossacks in
15900-455: The population aged 15 and above, could read and write well in Russian, and understand the spoken language. In October 2023, Kazakhstan drafted a media law aimed at increasing the use of the Kazakh language over Russian, the law stipulates that the share of the state language on television and radio should increase from 50% to 70%, at a rate of 5% per year, starting in 2025. In Kyrgyzstan , Russian
16050-418: The population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 67% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. According to the 2019 Belarusian census , out of 9,413,446 inhabitants of the country, 5,094,928 (54.1% of the total population) named Belarusian as their native language, with 61.2% of ethnic Belarusians and 54.5% of ethnic Poles declaring Belarusian as their native language. In everyday life in
16200-544: The priests bring out salt and water and ring the church bells to signify his coming. The priests would also be instructed to read Pugachev's manifestos during mass and sing prayers to the health of the Great Emperor Peter III . Most priests, although not all, complied with Pugachev's requests. One secret report of Catherine's College of War , for example, tells of one such priest, Zubarev, who recruited for Pugachev in Church under such orders. "[Zubarev], believing in
16350-475: The pronunciation of ultra-short or reduced /ŭ/ , /ĭ/ . Because of many technical restrictions in computing and also because of the unavailability of Cyrillic keyboards abroad, Russian is often transliterated using the Latin alphabet. For example, мороз ('frost') is transliterated moroz , and мышь ('mouse'), mysh or myš' . Once commonly used by the majority of those living outside Russia, transliteration
16500-466: The proper pronunciation of uncommon words or names. Russian is an East Slavic language of the wider Indo-European family . It is a descendant of Old East Slavic , a language used in Kievan Rus' , which was a loose conglomerate of East Slavic tribes from the late 9th to the mid-13th centuries. From the point of view of spoken language , its closest relatives are Ukrainian , Belarusian , and Rusyn ,
16650-513: The provinces. They were left weakly controlled and consequently, susceptible to outbreaks of peasant violence. The most crucial lesson Catherine II drew from the Pugachev rebellion, was the need for a firmer military grasp on all parts of the Empire, not just the external frontiers. For instance, when the governor of the Kazan Governorate called for assistance against the approaching Pugachev, there
16800-436: The rabble he has collected." The weakness could not have been entirely the fault of the officials. The local bureaucracy in Russia was too remote and too inefficient to adequately deal with even the most basic administrative matters. Pugachev's success in holding out against suppression for over a year proved to be a powerful incentive for future reforms. It made apparent to the government several problems with their treatment of
16950-454: The rebellion in mid-September 1773. He had a substantial force composed of Cossacks, Russian peasants, factory serfs, and non-Russians with which he overwhelmed several outposts along the Iaik and early in October went into the capital of the region, Orenburg. While besieging this fortress, the rebels destroyed one government relief expedition and spread the revolt northward into the Urals, westward to
17100-422: The rebellion. The Bashkirs were nomadic herdsman, angered by newly arrived Russian settlers who threatened their way of life. Russians built factories and mines, began farming on the Bashkir's former land, and tried to get the Bashkirs to abandon their nomadic life and become farmers too. When fighting broke out, Bashkir village leaders preached that involvement in the rebellion would end Russian colonialism, and give
17250-491: The respondents), while according to the 2002 census – 142.6 million people (99.2% of the respondents). In Ukraine , Russian is a significant minority language. According to estimates from Demoskop Weekly, in 2004 there were 14,400,000 native speakers of Russian in the country, and 29 million active speakers. 65% of the population was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 38% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. On 5 September 2017, Ukraine's Parliament passed
17400-541: The rights to the river Iaik (now the Ural River ) from source to sea, tax-free pasturage, free salt, twelve chetvi of corn and 12 roubles per Cossack per year. Pugachev found ready support among the odnodvortsy (single homesteaders). In the westernmost part of the region swept by the Pugachev rebellion, the right bank of the middle Volga , there were a number of odnodvortsy. These were descendants of petty military servicemen who had lost their military function and declined to
17550-417: The rising influence of Western capitalism and the merchant class or " Third Estate " that accompanied it. He established the first state bank in Russia, rejected the nobility's monopoly on trade and encouraged mercantilism by increasing grain exports and forbidding the import of sugar and other materials that could be found in Russia. Tsar Peter III was seen as a largely ineffective and unpopular ruler. He
17700-460: The ruler and the people, eradicating the role of the noble as the intermediary. Under the guise of Peter III , Pugachev built up his own bureaucracy and army, which copied that of Catherine. Some of his top commanders took on the pseudonyms of dukes and courtiers . Zarubin Chaika, Pugachev's top commander, for example, took the guise of Zakhar Chernyshev . The army Pugachev established, at least at
17850-635: The ruler as a special and personal one, based on their voluntary service obligations. In return, they expected the czar's protection of their religion, traditional social organization, and administrative autonomy. They followed the promises of Pugachev and raised the standard of revolt in the hope of recapturing their previous special relationship and securing the government's respect for their social and religious traditions. Factory workers supported Pugachev because their situation had worsened; many state-owned factories had been turned over to private owners, which intensified exploitation. These private owners stood as
18000-572: The slander-ridden decree of the villainous-imposter, brought by the villainous Ataman Loshkarev, read it publicly before the people in church. And when that ataman brought his band, consisting of 100 men, to their Baikalov village, then that Zubarev met them with a cross and with icons and chanted prayers in the Church; and then at the time of service, as well as after, evoked the name of the Emperor Peter III for suffrage." ( Pugachevshchina Vol. 2, Document 86. Author's translation) Pugachev's army
18150-489: The state and seeking support among the discontented, as yet unassimilated natives. Each group of people had problems with the state, which Pugachev focused on in order to gain their support. Non-Russians, such as the Bashkirs, followed Pugachev because they were promised their traditional ways of life, freedom of their lands, water and woods, their faith and laws, food, clothing, salaries, weapons and freedom from enserfment. Cossacks were similarly promised their old ways of life,
18300-523: The status of small, but free, peasants who tilled their own lands. Many of them were also Old Believers, and so felt particularly alienated from the state established by Peter the Great . They were hard-pressed by landowners from central provinces who were acquiring the land in their area and settling their serfs on it. These homesteaders pinned their hopes on the providential leader who promised to restore their former function and status. The network of Old Believer holy men and hermitages served to propagandize
18450-675: The survey carried out by RATING in August 2023 in the territory controlled by Ukraine and among the refugees, almost 60% of the polled usually speak Ukrainian at home, about 30% – Ukrainian and Russian, only 9% – Russian. Since March 2022, the use of Russian in everyday life has been noticeably decreasing. For 82% of respondents, Ukrainian is their mother tongue, and for 16%, Russian is their mother tongue. IDPs and refugees living abroad are more likely to use both languages for communication or speak Russian. Nevertheless, more than 70% of IDPs and refugees consider Ukrainian to be their native language. In
18600-459: The syntax of Russian dialects." After 1917, Marxist linguists had no interest in the multiplicity of peasant dialects and regarded their language as a relic of the rapidly disappearing past that was not worthy of scholarly attention. Nakhimovsky quotes the Soviet academicians A.M Ivanov and L.P Yakubinsky, writing in 1930: The language of peasants has a motley diversity inherited from feudalism. On its way to becoming proletariat peasantry brings to
18750-428: The system. By and large the factories supported Pugachev, some voluntarily continuing to produce artillery and ammunition for the rebels. In 1773 Pugachev's army attacked Samara and occupied it. His greatest victory came with the taking of Kazan , by which time his captured territory stretched from the Volga to the Ural mountains. Though fairly well-organized for a revolt at the time, Pugachev's main advantage early on
18900-533: The television series Young Catherine . La Tempesta (1958) depicts Yemelyan Pugachev's effort to force his recognition as Peter III and offers a critical view of Catherine the Great, with Van Heflin in the role of Pugachev and Viveca Lindfors as Catherine. He was also depicted as a cowardly, drunken wife-beater in the Japanese anime Le Chevalier D'Eon . He also appears in the 2014 TV series played by Aleksandr Yatsenko . A historically inaccurate version of him
19050-410: The turbulent areas; they were read on the public squares and from the parish pulpits. In the countryside local authorities were instructed to read them to gatherings of the people, who were then required to sign the decree. These government proclamations produced little positive effect. They actually added more confusion and even provoked unrest when the peasantry refused to believe or sign them. Much of
19200-555: The two official papers, or whatever news they could obtain from correspondents in the interior. (Alexander, 522) Russian government undertook to propagate in the foreign press its own version of events and directed its representatives abroad to play down the revolt. The Russian government favored the use of manifestos to communicate with the people of Russia. Catherine thought that exhortations to abandon him would excite popular antipathy for his cause and elicit divisions within rebel ranks. Her printed pronouncements were widely distributed in
19350-770: The two. Others divide the language into three groupings, Northern , Central (or Middle), and Southern , with Moscow lying in the Central region. The Northern Russian dialects and those spoken along the Volga River typically pronounce unstressed /o/ clearly, a phenomenon called okanye ( оканье ). Besides the absence of vowel reduction, some dialects have high or diphthongal /e⁓i̯ɛ/ in place of Proto-Slavic * ě and /o⁓u̯ɔ/ in stressed closed syllables (as in Ukrainian) instead of Standard Russian /e/ and /o/ , respectively. Another Northern dialectal morphological feature
19500-506: The use of the language has some presence in certain areas. A large part of the population, especially the older generations, can speak Russian as a foreign language. However, English has replaced Russian as lingua franca in Lithuania and around 80% of young people speak English as their first foreign language. In contrast to the other two Baltic states, Lithuania has a relatively small Russian-speaking minority (5.0% as of 2008). According to
19650-416: The very regional and local concerns of the people making up his armies. For example, after the very first attack on Yaitsk , he turned not towards the interior, but instead turned east towards Orenburg which for most Cossacks was the most direct symbol of Russian oppression. The heterogeneous population in Russia created special problems for the government, and it provided opportunities for those opposing
19800-566: The very top levels of command, also mimicked Catherine's. The organizational structure Pugachev set up for his top command was extraordinary, considering Pugachev defected as an ensign from Catherine's army. He built up his own War College and a fairly sophisticated intelligence network of messengers and spies. Even though Pugachev was illiterate, he recruited the help of local priests, mullahs , and starshins to write and disseminate his "royal decrees" or ukases in Russian and Tatar languages. These ukazy were copied, sent to villages and read to
19950-682: The world's ninth-most spoken language by total number of speakers . Russian is one of two official languages aboard the International Space Station , one of the six official languages of the United Nations , as well as the fourth most widely used language on the Internet . Russian is written using the Russian alphabet of the Cyrillic script ; it distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those without—the so-called "soft" and "hard" sounds. Almost every consonant has
20100-513: Was Emperor of Russia from 5 January 1762 until 9 July of the same year, when he was overthrown by his wife, Catherine II (the Great). He was born in the German city of Kiel as Charles Peter Ulrich of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp ( German : Karl Peter Ulrich von Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp ), the grandson of Peter the Great and great-grandson of Charles XI of Sweden . After a 186-day reign, Peter III
20250-555: Was a German-born prince of Prussia, and his loyalty to his native land over his inherited one earned him the ire of his people and his army. Peter had returned Russia’s conquered territories back to Prussia and withdrawn his forces from the Seven Years’ War, rendering all of Russia’s recent victories, and its sacrifices, pointless. Many in the Russian army, as well as Russian citizens and Empress Catherine herself, feared that if Peter continued his concessions to Prussia it would lead to
20400-451: Was advantageous for him. The Kazakhs mostly took advantage of the rebellion's chaos to take back land from Russian peasants and Bashkir and Kalmyk natives. Historian John T. Alexander argues that these raids, though not directly meant to help Pugachev, ultimately did help by adding to the chaos that the Imperial forces had to deal with. The early Volga German settlements were attacked during
20550-411: Was broken by the interposition of the serf owners; these private lords or agents of the Church or state who owned the land blocked serfs' access to the political authority. Many nobles returned to their estates after 1762 and imposed harsher rules on their peasants. The relationship between peasant and ruler was cut off most dramatically in the decree of 1767, which completely prohibited direct petitions to
20700-430: Was composed of a diverse mixture of disaffected peoples in southern Russian society, most notably Cossacks, Bashkirs , homesteaders, religious dissidents (such as Old Believers) and industrial serfs. Pugachev was very much in touch with the local population's needs and attitudes; he was a Don Cossack and encountered the same obstacles as his followers. It is noticeable that Pugachev's forces always took routes that reflected
20850-405: Was first introduced in North America when Russian explorers voyaged into Alaska and claimed it for Russia during the 18th century. Although most Russian colonists left after the United States bought the land in 1867, a handful stayed and preserved the Russian language in this region to this day, although only a few elderly speakers of this unique dialect are left. In Nikolaevsk, Alaska , Russian
21000-421: Was fluent in Russian in 2006, and 19% used it as the main language with family, friends, or at work. According to the 2014 Moldovan census , Russians accounted for 4.1% of Moldova's population, 9.4% of the population declared Russian as their native language, and 14.5% said they usually spoke Russian. According to the 2010 census in Russia , Russian language skills were indicated by 138 million people (99.4% of
21150-482: Was no force available to relieve him. The revolt did occur at a sensitive point in time for the Russian government because many of their soldiers and generals were already engaged in a difficult war on the southern borders with Ottoman Turkey. However, the professional army available outside the gates of Kazan to counter the Cossack-based army of Pugachev only consisted of 800 men. Russian language Russian
21300-462: Was not a happy one but produced one son, the future Emperor Paul I , and one daughter, Anna Petrovna (9 December, 1757– 8 March, 1759). Catherine later claimed in her private writings that Paul was not fathered by Peter; that, in fact, they had never consummated the marriage. During the sixteen years of their residence in Oranienbaum , Catherine took numerous lovers, while her husband did the same in
21450-517: Was not captured by the Germans during the Second World War . During the war, the building was a school and people say the ghost of Peter protected the children of Oranienbaum from getting hurt by bombs. Furthermore, it was near this town that the siege of Leningrad ended in January 1944. People say that Peter, after his death, stopped Hitler 's army near Leningrad, just as the living Peter had ordered
21600-399: Was overthrown in a palace coup d'état orchestrated by his wife and soon died under unclear circumstances. The official cause proposed by Catherine's new government was that he died due to hemorrhoids . However, this explanation was met with skepticism, both in Russia and abroad, with notable critics such as Voltaire and d'Alembert expressing doubt about the plausibility of death from such
21750-485: Was seen as a political failure, recent scholarship has portrayed it as part of a pragmatic plan to secure his Holstein-Gottorp duchy and to expand the common Holstein-Russian power northward and westwards. Peter believed gaining territory and influence in Denmark and Northern Germany was more useful to Russia than taking East Prussia . Equally, he thought that friendship with Prussia and with Britain, following its triumph in
21900-593: Was the Cossack Yemelyan Pugachev , who led what came to be known as Pugachev's Rebellion in 1774, which was ultimately crushed by Catherine's forces. In addition, Kondratii Selivanov , who led a castrating sect known as the Skoptsy , claimed to be both Jesus and Peter III. In December 1796, after succeeding Catherine, Peter's son, Emperor Paul I, who disliked his mother's behavior, arranged for Peter's remains to be exhumed and reburied with full honors in
22050-461: Was the lack of seriousness about Pugachev's rebellion. Catherine the Great regarded the troublesome Cossack as a joke and put a small bounty of about 500 rubles on his head. But by 1774, the threat was more seriously addressed; by November the bounty was over 28,000 rubles. The Russian general Michelson lost many men due to a lack of transportation and discipline among his troops, while Pugachev scored several important victories. Pugachev launched
22200-577: Was the largest peasant revolt in the history of the Russian Empire. As the Russian monarchy contributed to the degradation of the serfs , peasant anger ran high. Peter the Great ceded entire villages to favored nobles, while Catherine the Great confirmed the authority of the nobles over the serfs in return for the nobles' political cooperation. The unrest intensified as the 18th century wore on, with more than fifty peasant revolts occurring between 1762 and 1769. These culminated in Pugachev's Rebellion, when, between 1773 and 1775, Yemelyan Pugachev rallied
22350-402: Was the sixth-most used language on the top 1,000 sites, behind English, Chinese, French, German, and Japanese. Despite leveling after 1900, especially in matters of vocabulary and phonetics, a number of dialects still exist in Russia. Some linguists divide the dialects of Russian into two primary regional groupings, "Northern" and "Southern", with Moscow lying on the zone of transition between
22500-419: Was transported to Ropsha , where he later died. Much mystery surrounds his death. The official cause, after an autopsy, was a severe attack of hemorrhoidal colic and an apoplectic stroke, while others say he was assassinated. Other accounts state that after a midday meal, Peter's captors tried to suffocate him by using a mattress but he managed to escape. This then led his captors to strangle him to death with
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