History of Russia Part 2

Epic History TV’s history of Russia continues! Emerging from the Time of Troubles, Russia fights back against foreign invaders, as Prince Pozharksy and Kuzma Minin liberate Moscow from Polish forces. Russia’s assembly, the Zemsky Sobor, turns to a 16 year old boy, Mikhail Romanov, for leadership. He and the early Romanovs oversee a turbulent period of war, reform and rebellion: all Russian peasants are made serfs by the terms of the Sobornoye Ulozheniye, while Patriarch Nikon’s religious reforms split the Russian Orthodox Church between Reformers and Old Believers. The Thirteen Years War (1654 – 67) against the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth brings Smolensk and Kiev under Russian control, as Cossack renegade (and folklore hero) Stenka Razin leads revolt in the south. In 1689, Peter the Great seizes power from his half-sister, Princess Regent Sofia. Peter is determined to make Russia a great European power, and travels to the Dutch Republic and England to study the latest developments i