History of Russia: From Peter the Great to Gorbachev

Overview

Explore 300 years of Russian transformation—from imperial expansion to Soviet collapse—in this 36-lecture course by a historian with firsthand Soviet experience.

Course No. 8380

Professor Steinberg reveals how tsars, revolutionaries, and reformers shaped Russia’s turbulent path through Westernization, revolution, and Cold War superpower status.

Course Content

Imperial Russia (1682-1917)

1. Peter the Great’s Westernization (31 min)
   • Modernizing Russia through war and reform

2. Catherine the Great’s Enlightenment (31 min)
   • Empire-building amid peasant revolts

3. Nicholas II’s Downfall (31 min)
   • The last tsar and 1905 Revolution

Revolution & Soviet Experiment (1917-1953)

• Lenin’s Bolshevik Coup (31 min)
  • How a fringe party seized power

5. Stalin’s Industrial Terror (32 min)
   • Five-Year Plans and the Gulag

6. WWII’s “Great Patriotic War” (31 min)
   • 27 million dead and Soviet triumph

Cold War to Collapse (1953-1991)

7. Khrushchev’s Thaw (31 min)
   • De-Stalinization and space race

8. Brezhnev’s Stagnation (31 min)
   • Dissidents and economic decay

9. Gorbachev’s Failed Reform (32 min)
   • How perestroika doomed the USSR