Can you beat them?
The Russian Empire Quiz
Ten questions on nearly four centuries of the tsars, from Ivan the Terrible's coronation to the fall of the Romanovs. Each answer comes with a short explanation.
- 10 questions
- About 3 minutes
- Medium
- Includes a map and a photo
About this quiz
For nearly four centuries the tsars ruled Russia and made it the largest country on Earth. The quiz follows them from Ivan the Terrible to Nicholas II: Peter the Great's reforms, the Cossack race across Siberia, Catherine the Great, Napoleon's march on Moscow, the freeing of the serfs, the sale of Alaska, Rasputin and the end of the dynasty.
It starts easy and sticks to famous names and events. Several questions check a well-known story against what the evidence shows, and the explanations add the details the popular version leaves out.
Topics in this quiz
CossacksNapoleon BonaparteRussian SerfdomGrigori RasputinNicholas II
Read up first
-
Blog
How Russia became the largest country on Earth
In 1300, Moscow was smaller than Portugal. Today Russia covers one-eighth of the world's land, most of it taken in four centuries of eastward expansion.
-
Encyclopedia
Cossacks
The armed frontier communities of the steppe who began as runaway free men and ended as the tsar's most reliable instrument of repression.
-
Encyclopedia
Russian Serfdom
The system of bonded labor that tied a third of Russians to the land as property, freed only in 1861 with a catch.
