common frog, (species Rana temporaria), largely terrestrial frog (family Ranidae), native to Europe, from Great Britain to central Russia. It is known in continental Europe as either grass frog or russet frog. The common frog is smooth-skinned, and adults are 7 to 10 cm (2.8 to 3.9 inches) long.

Franz Klammer: …competition from defending Olympic champion Bernhard Russi of Switzerland. Skiing close to last, Klammer gave one of the most thrilling performances in the history of the Olympic Games. Partway down the run he trailed Russi by a fraction of a second, but he skied with such wild abandon over the…

Mily Balakirev: …ultimately became the symphonic poem Russia; he spent summer holidays in the Caucasus, gathering themes and inspiration for his brilliant piano fantasy Islamey (1869) and his symphonic poem Tamara (1867–82); he published the works of composer Mikhail Glinka and visited Prague to produce them; and for a time (1867–69) he…

Richard Cobden: …Ireland, and America (1835) and Russia (1836)—in which he demanded a new approach to foreign policy, based not on attempts to maintain a balance of power but on the recognition of the prime necessity of promoting international economic expansion through the free movement of men and materials. He continued to…

Russia, country that stretches over a vast expanse of eastern Europe and northern Asia. Once the preeminent republic of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.; commonly known as the Soviet Union), Russia became an independent country after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December

Soviet Union, former northern Eurasian empire (1917/22–1991) stretching from the Baltic and Black seas to the Pacific Ocean and, in its final years, consisting of 15 Soviet Socialist Republics (S.S.R.’s): Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belorussia (now Belarus), Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kirgiziya (now

Tomáš Masaryk: Early life: In Russia and Europe (1913) he provided a critical survey of the Russian religious, intellectual, and social crises—the contradictions and confusions of the “Byzantine” retardation of Russian society by the Orthodox church and reactionary ideas.

Nikolay Yakovlevich Danilevsky: …and historical philosopher, author of Rossiya i Evropa (1869; “Russia and Europe”), who was the first to propound the philosophy of history as a series of distinct civilizations. According to him, Russia and the Slavs should remain indifferent to the West and concentrate on the development of political absolutism, their…

Nikolay Ivanovich Turgenev: In 1847 he published Russia and the Russians, regarded as one of the first comprehensive accounts of the development of Russian political thought.

Muscovy Company, body of English merchants trading with Russia. The company was formed in 1555 by the navigator and explorer Sebastian Cabot and various London merchants and was granted a monopoly of Anglo-Russian trade. It was the first English joint-stock company in which the capital remained

John le Carré: …story of a double agent; The Russia House (1989; film 1990); The Secret Pilgrim (1991); The Night Manager (1993; television miniseries 2016); and Our Game (1995), set after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

John le Carré: …agent; The Russia House (1989; film 1990); The Secret Pilgrim (1991); The Night Manager (1993; television miniseries 2016); and Our Game (1995), set after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Alex Salmond: … The Alex Salmond Show on RT (formerly Russia Today) television, the Russian-operated cable news channel that some observers in the West characterized as not only a propaganda outlet for Kremlin policy but also a tool for Russian intelligence operations. Criticism of Salmond’s presence on RT even came from SNP members,…

horizontally striped white-blue-red national flag. Its width-to-length ratio is 2 to 3.Tsar Peter I the Great had ambitious plans to transform Russia into a modern state. Building a Russian navy was part of that program, and he visited the Netherlands to learn about the most advanced shipbuilding

Russia: Prehistory and the rise of the Rus: …is now the territory of Russia since the 2nd millennium bce, but little is known about their ethnic identity, institutions, and activities. In ancient times, Greek and Iranian settlements appeared in the southernmost portions of what is now Ukraine. Trading empires of that era seem to have known and exploited…

Russia-Ukraine War, war between Russia and Ukraine that began in February 2014 with the covert invasion of the Ukrainian autonomous republic of Crimea by disguised Russian troops. The conflict expanded in April 2014 when Russians and local proxy forces seized territory in Ukraine’s Donbas region;

Belarus: Ethnic groups: Russians, many of whom migrated to the Belorussian S.S.R. in the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s, form the second largest ethnic group, accounting for roughly one-tenth of the population. Most of the remainder are Poles and Ukrainians, with much smaller numbers of Jews, Latvians, Lithuanians, and…

Wassily Kandinsky: Russian interlude: In 1921 he founded the Russian Academy of Artistic Sciences. But by then the Soviet government was veering from avant-garde art to Social Realism, and so, at the end of the year, he and his wife left Moscow for Berlin.

Russia: The 19th century: In the 1830s the Russian Academy of Arts (which had been founded in 1757) began sending Russian painters abroad for training. Among the most gifted of these were Aleksandr Ivanov and Karl Bryullov, both of whom were known for Romantic historical canvases. A truly national tradition of painting did…

Michael Ignatieff: …magazine pieces and later in The Russian Album (1987), a critically acclaimed family biography that covered five generations. Ignatieff next experimented with fiction, beginning with Aysa (1991), the story of a Russian expatriate during World War II, and Scar Tissue (1993), a semi-autobiographical tale of a man caring for his…

Cyrillic alphabet: The modern Cyrillic alphabets—Russian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, and Serbian—have been modified somewhat from the original, generally by the loss of some superfluous letters. Modern Russian has 32 letters (33, with inclusion of the soft sign—which is not, strictly speaking, a letter), Bulgarian 30, Serbian 30, and Ukrainian 32 (33).…

history of Central Asia: …19th-century explorers and geographers as Russian and Chinese Turkistan.

Russia: The Petrine state: …organization to a “European” professional army (as it developed in the course of the so-called military revolution of the 17th century) had been initiated during the reigns of Tsars Michael and Alexis. But it was Peter who gave it the full-fledged “modern” form it retained until the middle of the…

RAPP, association formed in the Soviet Union in 1928 out of various groups of proletarian writers who were dedicated to defining a truly proletarian literature and to eliminating writers whose works were not thoroughly imbued with Communist ideology. Under the leadership of Leopold Averbakh, RAPP

Roskosmos, Russian government organization founded in 1992 that is responsible for managing the Russian space program. Its headquarters are in Moscow. The head of Roskosmos is assisted by a board, a science and engineering council, and the heads of 11 departments. Roskomos is the descendant of the

Union of Evangelical Christian Baptists: …of Evangelical Christians and the Russian Baptist Union. The Baptists in Russia grew from religious revival movements that began in the 1860s and ’70s. In Ukraine, groups of Russians influenced by German Mennonite settlers gathered for Bible study and eventually adopted Baptist beliefs. In Georgia, German Baptists gained converts and…

St. Petersburg: The rise to splendour: Stasov, working in the Russian Baroque style, which combined clear-cut, even austere lines with richness of decoration and use of colour. To this period belong the Winter Palace, the Smolny Convent, and the Vorontsov and Stroganov palaces, among others; outside the city were built the summer palaces of Peterhof…

Russian Blue, breed of domestic cat noted for the quality of its short, plushlike coat. Characteristically a quiet and gentle cat, the Russian Blue is a solidly coloured, blue-gray cat with round, green eyes and soft, silky fur that resembles sealskin in texture. A fine-boned cat with long, slim

Russian Catholic church, an Eastern Catholic church of the Byzantine rite, in communion with Rome since the early 20th century. A small number of Orthodox Russians, influenced by Vladimir Solovyov, a philosopher and theologian, converted to Catholicism (c. 1900), retaining their rite. Just before

Russia: Finance: The Russian Central Bank (RCB), which took over the functions of the Soviet-era Gosbank, is exclusively responsible for regulating the country’s monetary system. The bank’s primary function is to protect and stabilize the ruble, which it attempts to do through its control of foreign exchange. Under…

Russian chant, monophonic, or unison, chant of the liturgy of the Russian Orthodox church. Musical manuscripts from the 11th to the 13th century suggest that, at first, chanting in Russia almost certainly followed Byzantine melodies, which were adapted to the accentual patterns of the Old Church

Dmitri Mendeleev: Activities outside the laboratory: …Russian Chemical Society (now the Mendeleev Russian Chemical Society) in 1868 and published most of his later papers in its journal. He was a prolific thinker and writer. His published works include 400 books and articles, and numerous unpublished manuscripts are kept to this day in the Dmitri Mendeleev Museum…

Eastern Orthodoxy: The Orthodox diaspora and missions: …and became known as the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR). It had no canonical relation with the official Orthodox patriarchates and churches until May 2007. That year, following reforms within both Russia and the Russian Orthodox Church in the wake of the fall of the Soviet Union, the…

Russian Civil War, (1918–20), conflict in which the Red Army successfully defended the newly formed Bolshevik government led by Vladimir I. Lenin against various Russian and interventionist anti-Bolshevik armies. Russia’s disastrous performance in World War I was one of the primary causes of the

Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), the major political party of Russia and the Soviet Union from the Russian Revolution of October 1917 to 1991. (Read Leon Trotsky’s 1926 Britannica essay on Lenin.) The Communist Party of the Soviet Union arose from the Bolshevik wing of the Russian Social

crash: The coarsest type is called Russian crash. Linen is generally used for the warp yarn, while linen, jute, or a mixture of linen and jute is used for the filler. Plain weave is normally employed, but twill is sometimes used.

desman: The tail of the Russian desman (Desmana moschata) is flattened horizontally and has scent glands at its base that exude a strong musky odour that envelops the animal. The Pyrenean desman (Galemys pyrenaicus) of western Europe has similar scent glands. It has a cylindrical tail, flat near its tip…

Amy Poehler: Producing and directing: …B! (2008–11), Broad City (2014–19), Russian Doll (2019–22), and Duncanville (2020–22) and the film Sisters (2015), which reunited her with Fey as well as fellow SNL alumnae Rachel Dratch and Maya Rudolph.

duck: Russian duck is a fine white linen canvas.

Russian Empire, historical empire founded on November 2 (October 22, Old Style), 1721, when the Russian Senate conferred the title of emperor (imperator) of all the Russias upon Peter I. The abdication of Nicholas II on March 15, 1917, marked the end of the empire and its ruling Romanov dynasty.

Roskosmos, Russian government organization founded in 1992 that is responsible for managing the Russian space program. Its headquarters are in Moscow. The head of Roskosmos is assisted by a board, a science and engineering council, and the heads of 11 departments. Roskomos is the descendant of the

Russia, country that stretches over a vast expanse of eastern Europe and northern Asia. Once the preeminent republic of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.; commonly known as the Soviet Union), Russia became an independent country after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December

figure skating: Regional and national: The Russian Figure Skating Federation is composed of more than 40 clubs, each with its own separate championships. The clubs are then split into several regions. To gain a berth at the Russian nationals, skaters must acquire a high number of competition points and finish in…

The Five, group of five Russian composers—César Cui, Aleksandr Borodin, Mily Balakirev, Modest Mussorgsky, and Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov—who in the 1860s banded together in an attempt to create a truly national school of Russian music, free of the stifling influence of Italian opera, German lieder,

Formalism, innovative 20th-century Russian school of literary criticism. It began in two groups: OPOYAZ, an acronym for Russian words meaning Society for the Study of Poetic Language, founded in 1916 at St. Petersburg (later Leningrad) and led by Viktor Shklovsky; and the Moscow Linguistic Circle,

Cubo-Futurism, Russian avant-garde art movement in the 1910s that emerged as an offshoot of European Futurism and Cubism. The term Cubo-Futurism was first used in 1913 by an art critic regarding the poetry of members of the Hylaea group (Russian Gileya), which included such writers as Velimir

Michael Frayn: …were The Tin Men (1965), The Russian Interpreter (1966), A Very Private Life (1968), The Trick of It (1989), Now You Know (1992), Headlong (1999), Spies (2002), and Skios (2012). My Father’s Fortune (2010) was a memoir.

Russian language, principal state and cultural language of Russia. Together with Ukrainian and Belarusian, the Russian language makes up the eastern branch of the Slavic family of languages. Russian is the primary language of the overwhelming majority of people in Russia and is also used as a

Russia: Social and political institutions: …code (1016), called the “Russian Law,” was one of the “Barbarian” law codes common throughout Germanic Europe. It dealt primarily with princely law—that is, with the fines to be imposed by the prince or his representative in the case of specified offenses.

Andrey Andreyevich Vlasov: The Russian Liberation Army, which he also headed, was composed of former Russian soldiers captured by the Germans. Near the end of the war, Vlasov’s 50,000 troops were allowed by their distrustful German sponsors to go into battle against the advancing Red Army. Most of them…

Russian literature, the body of written works produced in the Russian language, beginning with the Christianization of Kievan Rus in the late 10th century. The unusual shape of Russian literary history has been the source of numerous controversies. Three major and sudden breaks divide it into four

roller coaster: Origins in Europe: …of a ride called the Russian Mountains (Les Montagnes Russes). Small wheels were added to the sleds on this ride, a key modification that later persuaded some historians to credit it as the first wheeled coaster. Little attention was given to safety measures, yet, oddly enough, the injuries that passengers…

mulberry: Major species: …white mulberry are the cold-resistant Russian mulberry (M. alba, variety tatarica), introduced into western North America for shelterbelts and local timber use, and fruitless sorts such as the ‘Stribling’ and ‘Mapleleaf’ cultivars. The weeping mulberry (M. alba ‘Pendula’) is frequently used as a lawn tree.

fascism: Russia: The Russian National Unity (Russkoe Natsionalnoe Edinstvo; RNE), a paramilitary organization founded in 1990 by Aleksandr Barkashov, claimed to have an extensive network of local branches, but its electoral support was significantly less than that of the LDPR. Barkashov, a former commando in the Russian army,…

Russian oligarchs, tycoons who reaped enormous fortunes in the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. When the centrally planned economy of the then-Soviet Union crashed, a group of quick-thinking men picked up the pieces and turned them into vast private wealth. They also became politically active

oleaster, small deciduous tree of Eurasia, about 4.5 to 6 m (15 to 20 feet) high. It has smooth, dark brown branches that often bear spines and narrow, light green leaves that are silvery on the undersides from a covering of minute scales. The flowers are small, greenish, fragrant, and

Russian Orthodox Church, one of the largest autocephalous, or ecclesiastically independent, Eastern Orthodox churches in the world. Its membership is estimated at more than 90 million. For more on Orthodox beliefs and practices, see Eastern Orthodoxy. Christianity was apparently introduced into the

Eastern Orthodoxy: The Orthodox diaspora and missions: …and became known as the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR). It had no canonical relation with the official Orthodox patriarchates and churches until May 2007. That year, following reforms within both Russia and the Russian Orthodox Church in the wake of the fall of the Soviet Union, the…

Orthodox Church in America, ecclesiastically independent, or autocephalous, church of the Eastern Orthodox communion, recognized as such by its mother church in Russia; it adopted its present name on April 10, 1970. Established in 1794 in Alaska, then Russian territory, the Russian Orthodox mission

Nicholas II: Early life and reign: …an extremist right-wing organization, the Union of the Russian People, which sanctioned terrorist methods and disseminated anti-Semitic propaganda. Witte, whom he blamed for the October Manifesto, was soon dismissed, and the first two Dumas were prematurely dissolved as “insubordinate.”

Russian Plain, plain and series of broad river basins in eastern Europe (including western Russia). It extends over nearly 1,500,000 square miles (4,000,000 square km) and averages about 560 feet (170 meters) in height. The plain is subdivided into a number of distinct regions, including the Valday

Black Sea: Geology: …structural block known as the Russian (or East European) Platform, dating from at least 540 million years ago, appear in the northwest. A second, related platform has a deep cover of sedimentary rocks that were laid later. The deepwater depression, generally considered to be a vast structural downwarp, is an…

The Russian Primary Chronicle, medieval Kievan Rus historical work that gives a detailed account of the early history of the eastern Slavs to the second decade of the 12th century. The chronicle, compiled in Kiev about 1113, was based on materials taken from Byzantine chronicles, west and south

Russian Provisional Government, internationally recognized government of Russia from February to October (March to November, New Style) 1917. It was formed by the Duma after the collapse of the Romanov dynasty and was initially composed entirely of liberal ministers, with the exception of Aleksandr

Boris Berezovsky: …state airline, Aeroflot, and of Russian Public Television (ORT), Russia’s main television channel.

Russian Revolution, two revolutions in 1917, the first of which, in February (March, New Style), overthrew the imperial government and the second of which, in October (November), placed the Bolsheviks in power. (Read Leon Trotsky’s 1926 Britannica essay on Lenin.) Centuries of virtually unchecked

Russian Revolution of 1905, uprising that was instrumental in convincing Tsar Nicholas II to attempt the transformation of the Russian government from an autocracy into a constitutional monarchy. For several years before 1905 and especially after the humiliating Russo-Japanese War (1904–05),

Rosa Luxemburg: …her Die russische Revolution (1922; The Russian Revolution) chastised Lenin’s party on its agrarian and national self-determination stands and its dictatorial and terrorist methods. Luxemburg always remained a believer in democracy as opposed to Lenin’s democratic centralism. She was never able, however, to exercise a decisive influence on the new…

Russia, country that stretches over a vast expanse of eastern Europe and northern Asia. Once the preeminent republic of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.; commonly known as the Soviet Union), Russia became an independent country after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December

Russian Social-Democratic Workers’ Party, Marxist revolutionary party ancestral to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Founded in 1898 in Minsk, the Social-Democratic Party held that Russia could achieve socialism only after developing a bourgeois society with an urban proletariat. It rejected

Russia, country that stretches over a vast expanse of eastern Europe and northern Asia. Once the preeminent republic of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.; commonly known as the Soviet Union), Russia became an independent country after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December

Roskosmos, Russian government organization founded in 1992 that is responsible for managing the Russian space program. Its headquarters are in Moscow. The head of Roskosmos is assisted by a board, a science and engineering council, and the heads of 11 departments. Roskomos is the descendant of the

Russian State Library, national library of Russia, located in Moscow, notable for its extensive collection of early printed books and a collection of manuscripts that includes ancient Slavonic codices. Originally founded in 1862 as the library of the Rumyantsev Museum, it was reorganized after the

Russian State Museum, museum opened in St. Petersburg in 1898 as the central museum of Russian art and life. It is housed in the buildings of the former Mikhailovsky Palace, designed by Karl Ivanovich Rossi and built in 1819–25. The buildings were converted to a museum in 1896–97, and the museum

sturgeon: Distribution: The Russian sturgeon, A. guldenstadtii, is one of the most valuable species inhabiting the rivers of Russia and occurs eastward to Lake Baikal. It is about the same size as the common sturgeon and is found particularly in the rivers feeding the Black and Caspian seas.…

ITAR-TASS, (Russian: “Information Telegraph Agency of Russia–Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union”), Russian news agency formed in 1992 after the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. ITAR reports on domestic news, while TASS reports on world events, including news from the other countries of the

Novichok: …which includes the potent agent VR, as well as from chemicals in the G series, which includes the nerve agents sarin and soman. Novichok agents are sometimes also referred to as the A series.

vint, trick-taking card game, popular around the Baltic Sea, and a significant contributor to the development of bridge. It developed from a game called Siberia, played in St. Petersburg in the 1870s. This was a form of whist exhibiting the then novel feature that the dealer announced the trump

Borzoi, breed of large hound developed in Russia to pursue wolves. It is descended from the Arabian Greyhound and a collie-like Russian sheepdog. The Borzoi—formerly known as the Russian Wolfhound—is a graceful, strong, and swift dog. It is a member of the sighthound family, which consists of dogs

Bloody Sunday: …the legal organizations of workers—the Assembly of Russian Workingmen—broke out in St. Petersburg. The leader of the assembly, the priest Georgy Gapon, hoping to present the workers’ request for reforms directly to Emperor Nicholas II, arranged a mass demonstration. Having told the authorities of his plan, he led the workers—who…

Russian-American Company, Russian trading monopoly that established colonies in North America (primarily in California and Alaska) during the 19th century. The Northeastern Company, headed by the merchants Grigory I. Shelikov and Ivan I. Golikov, was organized in 1781 to establish colonies on the

Russia: Russification policies: After the Crimean War the Russian government made some attempt to introduce in Poland a new system acceptable to the Polish population. The leading figure on the Polish side was the nobleman Aleksander Wielopolski. His pro-Russian program proved unacceptable to the Poles. Tension…

The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming, American screwball comedy film, released in 1966, that parodies the fears of the Cold War. The film begins with a Soviet submarine accidentally running aground on a sandbank near a tiny New England town in the United States. A group of crewmen led

Russia: Russification policies: After the Crimean War the Russian government made some attempt to introduce in Poland a new system acceptable to the Polish population. The leading figure on the Polish side was the nobleman Aleksander Wielopolski. His pro-Russian program proved unacceptable to the Poles. Tension…

Rosa Luxemburg: …her Die russische Revolution (1922; The Russian Revolution) chastised Lenin’s party on its agrarian and national self-determination stands and its dictatorial and terrorist methods. Luxemburg always remained a believer in democracy as opposed to Lenin’s democratic centralism. She was never able, however, to exercise a decisive influence on the new…

Pavel Ivanovich Pestel: …political transformation of Russia, titled Russkaya Pravda (1824; “Russian Truth”), called for the execution of the imperial family, the emancipation of the serfs, the replacement of the tsarist autocracy by a republican form of government, and the allotment of land to the freed serfs.

Russian Plain, plain and series of broad river basins in eastern Europe (including western Russia). It extends over nearly 1,500,000 square miles (4,000,000 square km) and averages about 560 feet (170 meters) in height. The plain is subdivided into a number of distinct regions, including the Valday

Russian language, principal state and cultural language of Russia. Together with Ukrainian and Belarusian, the Russian language makes up the eastern branch of the Slavic family of languages. Russian is the primary language of the overwhelming majority of people in Russia and is also used as a

fascism: Russia: The Russian National Unity (Russkoe Natsionalnoe Edinstvo; RNE), a paramilitary organization founded in 1990 by Aleksandr Barkashov, claimed to have an extensive network of local branches, but its electoral support was significantly less than that of the LDPR. Barkashov, a former commando in the Russian army,…

Formalism, innovative 20th-century Russian school of literary criticism. It began in two groups: OPOYAZ, an acronym for Russian words meaning Society for the Study of Poetic Language, founded in 1916 at St. Petersburg (later Leningrad) and led by Viktor Shklovsky; and the Moscow Linguistic Circle,

Mikhail Grigoryevich Chernyayev: …of a conservative, nationalistic periodical, Russky Mir, in which he supported the Balkan Slavs’ rebellions and promoted Pan-Slavism, advocating Russia’s mission to free the Slavs from subservience to Turkey while spreading Russian culture and influence in the Balkans. When Serbia declared war on Turkey (1876), the Serbian government asked the…

Romanian literature: The national renaissance: Alecu Russo, another leader of 1848, enriched literature with a biblical prose poem, Cântarea României.

Patricia Russo is an American businesswoman who served as CEO of Lucent Technologies (later called Alcatel-Lucent) from 2002 to 2008. Russo had six siblings. She was active in sports and captained the cheerleading squad before graduating from Lawrence High School in 1969. In 1973 she earned a

Patricia Russo is an American businesswoman who served as CEO of Lucent Technologies (later called Alcatel-Lucent) from 2002 to 2008. Russo had six siblings. She was active in sports and captained the cheerleading squad before graduating from Lawrence High School in 1969. In 1973 she earned a

Helen Hunt: …based on a novel by Richard Russo. In 2007 Hunt directed her first feature-length film, Then She Found Me, a comedy-drama that she also cowrote, produced, and starred in.

Russo-Finnish War, (November 30, 1939–March 12, 1940), war waged by the Soviet Union against Finland at the beginning of World War II, following the conclusion of the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact (August 23, 1939). During the 1920s the Finnish government, wary of the threat posed by the Soviet

ʿAbbās Mīrzā: When war broke out between Russia and Iran in 1804, he was made commander of the Iranian expeditionary force of 30,000 men. The war (1804–13) resulted in the loss of most of Iran’s Georgian territory and showed ʿAbbās Mīrzā the necessity of reforming the Qājār military forces. He began sending…

Russo-Japanese War, (1904–05), military conflict in which a victorious Japan forced Russia to abandon its expansionist policy in East Asia, thereby becoming the first Asian power in modern times to defeat a European power. By the early 17th century, Russia had established its authority over all of

Russo-Polish War, (1919–20), military conflict between Soviet Russia and Poland. It was the result of the German defeat in World War I, Polish nationalism sparked by the re-creation of an independent Polish state, and the Bolsheviks’ determination to carry the gains they had achieved during the

Thirteen Years’ War, (1454–66), war between Poland and the Teutonic Knights that began as a revolt by the Prussian populace against their overlords, the Teutonic Knights, and was concluded by the Treaty of Toruń (Thorn; Oct. 19, 1466). In 1454 rebel Prussian groups petitioned Casimir IV of Poland