The 10 Most Important Russian Tsars

​The Russian honorific "tsar"—sometimes spelled "czar"—derives from none other than Julius Caesar, who predated the Russian empire by 1,500 years. Equivalent to a king or an emperor, the Tsar was the autocratic, all-powerful ruler of Russia, an institution that lasted from the mid-16th to the early 20th centuries. Below, you'll find a list of the 10 most important Russian Tsars, ranging from the grouchy Ivan the Terrible to the doomed Nicholas II.

01

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Ivan the Terrible (1547-1584)

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The first undisputed Russian Tsar, Ivan the Terrible has gotten a bad rap: the modifier in his name, "grozny," is better translated into English as "formidable" or "awe-inspiring." It's true that Ivan did enough terrible things to merit the faulty translation—for example, he once beat his own son to death with his wooden scepter—but he also greatly expanded Russian territory by annexing territories like Astrakhan and Siberia, and established trade relations with England (in the course of which he pursued an extensive written correspondence with Elizabeth I, which you don't read about in many history books.) Most important for subsequent Russian history, Ivan brutally subjugated the most powerful nobles in his kingdom, the Boyars, and established the principle of absolute autocracy.

02

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Boris Godunov (1598-1605)

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A bodyguard and functionary of Ivan the Terrible, Boris Godunov became co-regent in 1584, after Ivan's death, and seized the throne in 1598 following the death of Ivan's son Feodor. Boris' seven-year rule adumbrated the western-looking policies of Peter the Great—he allowed young Russian nobles to seek their education elsewhere in Europe, imported teachers into his empire, and cozied up to the kingdoms of Scandinavia, hoping for peaceful access to the Baltic Sea. Less progressively, Boris made it illegal for Russian peasants to transfer their allegiance from one noble to another, thus cementing in place a key component of serfdom. After his death, Russia entered the euphemistically named "Time of Troubles," which witnessed civil war between opposing Boyar factions and open meddling in Russian affairs by the nearby kingdoms of Poland and Sweden.

03

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Michael I (1613-1645)

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 A rather colorless figure compared to Ivan the Terrible and Boris Godunov, Michael I is important for being the first Romanov Tsar—thus initiating a dynasty that ended 300 years later with revolutions of 1917. As a sign of how devastated Russia was after the "Time of Troubles," Michael had to wait weeks before a suitably intact palace could be located for him in Moscow; he soon got down to business, however, begetting 10 children with his wife Eudoxia (only four of whom lived into adulthood, enough, however, to perpetuate the Romanov dynasty). Otherwise, Michael I didn't make much of an imprint on history, ceding the day-to-day governance of his empire to a series of powerful counselors. Early in his reign, he did manage to come to terms with Sweden and Poland, thus giving his afflicted peasants some much-needed breathing room.

04

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Peter the Great (1682-1725)

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The grandson of Michael I, Peter the Great is best known for his ruthless attempts to "westernize" Russia and import the principles of the Enlightenment into what the rest of Europe still considered a backward and medieval country. He rearranged the Russian military and bureaucracy along western lines, required his officials to shave their beards and dress in western clothes, and undertook an 18-month-long "Grand Embassy" to western Europe in which he traveled incognito (though all the other crowned heads, at least, were well aware who he was, given that he was six feet eight inches tall!). Perhaps his most notable achievement was the crushing defeat of the Swedish army in the Battle of Poltava in 1709, which raised the esteem of the Russian military in western eyes and helped his empire secure its claim to the vast Ukraine territory.

05

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Elizabeth of Russia (1741-1762)

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The daughter of Peter the Great, Elizabeth of Russia seized power in 1741 in a bloodless coup—and went on to distinguish herself as the only Russian ruler never to execute even a single subject during her reign. This is not to say that Elizabeth had a retiring nature; during her 20 years on the throne, Russia became entangled in two major conflicts: the Seven Years' War and the War of the Austrian Succession. (The wars of the eighteenth century were extremely complex affairs, involving shifting alliances and intertwined royal bloodlines; suffice it to say that Elizabeth didn't much trust the burgeoning power of Prussia.) Domestically, Elizabeth was best known for establishing the University of Moscow and spending vast sums of money on various palaces; despite her profligacy, though, she still counts as one of the most popular Russian rulers of all time.

06

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Catherine the Great (1762-1796)

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The six-month interval between the death of Elizabeth of Russia and the accession of Catherine the Great witnessed the six-month reign of Catherine's husband, Peter III, who was assassinated thanks to his pro-Prussian policies. (Ironically, Catherine was herself a Prussian princess who had married into the Romanov dynasty.) During Catherine's reign, Russia greatly expanded its borders, absorbing the Crimea, partitioning Poland, annexing territories along the Black Sea, and settling the Alaskan territory that was later sold to the U.S.; Catherine also continued the westernization policies initiated by Peter the Great, at the same time (somewhat inconsistently) as she exploited the serfs, revoking their right to petition the imperial court. As so often happens with strong women rulers, Catherine the Great was the victim of malicious rumors during her lifetime; although she undoubtedly had a strong sex and took many lovers, she did not die after having intercourse with a horse!

07

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Alexander I (1801-1825)

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Alexander I had the misfortune of reigning during the Napoleonic Era, when the foreign affairs of Europe were twisted beyond recognition by the military invasions of the French dictator. During the first half of his reign, Alexander was flexible to the point of indecisiveness (aligning with, and then reacting against, the power of France); that all changed in 1812, when Napoleon's failed invasion of Russia gave Alexander what might today be called a "messiah complex." The Tsar formed a "holy alliance" with Austria and Prussia to counter the rise of liberalism and secularism, and even rolled back some of the domestic reforms from earlier in his reign (for example, he removed foreign teachers from Russian schools and instituted a more religious curriculum). Alexander also became increasingly paranoid and distrustful, in constant fear of poisoning and kidnapping; he died of natural causes in 1825, following complications from a cold.

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Nicholas I (1825-1855)

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One might reasonably claim that the Russian Revolution of 1917 had its roots in the reign of Nicholas I. Nicholas was the classic, hard-hearted Russian autocrat: he valued the military above all else, ruthlessly repressed dissent in the populace, and in the course of his reign managed to drive the Russian economy into the ground. Even still, Nicholas succeeded in keeping up appearances (at least to outsiders) until the Crimean War of 1853, when the much-vaunted Russian army was unmasked as poorly disciplined and technically backward, and it was revealed that there were less than 600 miles of railroad tracks in the entire country (compared to over 10,000 in the U.S.) Somewhat inconsistently given his conservative policies, Nicholas disapproved of serfdom, but stopped short of implementing any major reforms for fear of a backlash by the Russian aristocracy. He died in 1855 of natural causes, before he could appreciate the full extent of Russia's Crimean humiliation.

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Alexander II (1855-1881)

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It's a little-known fact, at least in the west, that Russia freed its serfs around the same time as U.S. president Abraham Lincoln helped free the slaves. The individual responsible was Tsar Alexander II, also known as Alexander the Liberator, who further embellished his liberal credentials by reforming the Russian penal code, investing in Russian universities, revoking some of the nobility's much-resented privileges, and selling Alaska to the U.S. (On the down side, he did respond to an 1863 uprising in Poland by simply annexing the country.) It's unclear to what extent Alexander's policies were proactive as opposed to reactive—the autocratic Russian government was under intense pressure from various revolutionaries, and had to give some ground to avert catastrophe. Unfortunately, as much ground as Alexander ceded, it wasn't enough: he was finally assassinated, after numerous unsuccessful attempts, in St. Petersburg in 1881.

10

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Nicholas II (1894-1917)

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The last Tsar of Russia, Nicholas II witnessed the assassination of his grandfather, Alexander II, at the impressionable age of 13—which does a lot to explain his ultra-conservative policies. From the perspective of the House of Romanov, Nicholas' reign was an unbroken series of disasters: the strange accession to power and influence of the unhinged Russian monk Rasputin; defeat in the Russo-Japanese War; the 1905 Revolution, which saw the creation of Russia's first-ever democratic body, the Duma; and finally the February and October Revolutions in 1917, in which the Tsar and his government were overthrown by a remarkably small group of Communists led by Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky. Less than a year later, during the Russian Civil War, the entire imperial family (including Nicholas' 13-year-old son and potential successor) was assassinated in the town of Yekaterinburg, bringing the Romanov dynasty to an irrevocable and bloody end.