The history of Russia begins with the Eastern Slavs. The first East Slavic state was Kievan Rus' which incorporated Christianity into their culture from the Byzantine Empire in 988. This implementation started the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the upcoming millennium. Kievan Rus' eventually disintegrated as a state, finally succumbing to Mongol invaders in the 1230s.
After the 13th century, the capital, Moscow gradually came to power. By the 18th century, the Grand Duchy of Moscow had become the huge Russian Empire, stretching from Poland all the way to the Pacific Ocean. "Expansion in the west sharpened Russia's awareness of its separation from much of the rest of Europe and shattered the isolation in which the initial stages of expansion had occurred. Successive regimes of the 19th century responded to such pressures with a combination of halfhearted reform and repression. Russian serfdom was abolished in 1861, but its abolition was achieved on terms unfavorable to the peasants and served to increase revolutionary pressure.
Between the abolition of serfdom and the beginning of World War I in 1914, the Stolypin reforms, the constitution of 1906 and State Duma introduced notable changes to the economy and politics of Russia, but the tsars were still not willing to relinquish autocratic rule, or share their power.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Russia
