By 1800 Russia had conquered
the Crimea, thus gaining the access to the Black Sea. By the
early nineteenth century it had completed the incorporation of
the whole of the Transcaucasian region, including the
Azerbaidjanian khanates, Georgia and Eastern Armenia. During the
Napoleonic Wars Finland and Bessarabia were seized. Russia
annexed Vladivostok on the Pacific coast by 1860 and the Kazakh
lands and Central Asia by 1885.
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By the
second half of the nineteenth Russian empire’s borders had assumed
their definitive contours. Russia had spread its authority over vast
territories, stretching from the Danube’s estuary and the Vistula in
the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east, from the Eurasian tundra
in the north to the borders of Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan and China
in the south. In its territory and population Russia was the biggest
world power. It had the area of 21.3 million square kilometers. Its
population, according to the general census of 1897, was 128 million
and reached 178 million by 1914. In 1917 the Bolsheviks inherited
from the tsars the world’s largest land mass and one of the most
populous countries.
Russia’s
continual expansion and, in particular, the incorporation of
territories which lagged behind in socio-economic development or
were culturally different conflicted with the country’s historic
goal of catching up with the advanced countries of the West. Only by
straining all its economic, demographic and military resources could
it sustain the status of a great power capable of playing an
influential role in the international arena and controlling the
numerous nationalities which populated its huge territory. The
territorial expansion therefore was a factor which did more to
constrain, rather than advance, the economic and socio-political
development of Russia.