Russian conquest of Siberia in the context of "Siberia"

The Tsardom of Russia, also known as the Tsardom of Moscow, was the centralized Russian state from the assumption of the title of tsar by Ivan IV in 1547 until the foundation of the Russian Empire by Peter the Great in 1721.

From 1550 to 1700, Russia grew by an average of 35,000 square kilometres (14,000 sq mi) per year. The period includes the upheavals of the transition from the Rurik to the Romanov dynasties, wars with the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Sweden, and the Ottoman Empire, and the Russian conquest of Siberia, to the reign of Peter the Great, who took power in 1689 and transformed the tsardom into an empire. During the Great Northern War, he implemented substantial reforms and proclaimed the Russian Empire after victory over Sweden in 1721.

The history of Russia begins with the histories of the East Slavs. The traditional start date of specifically Russian history is the establishment of the Rus' state in the north in the year 862, ruled by Varangians. In 882, Prince Oleg of Novgorod seized Kiev, uniting the northern and southern lands of the Eastern Slavs under one authority, moving the governance center to Kiev by the end of the 10th century, and maintaining northern and southern parts with significant autonomy from each other. The state adopted Christianity from the Byzantine Empire in 988, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine, Slavic and Scandinavian cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Kievan Rus' ultimately disintegrated as a state due to the Mongol invasions in 1237–1240. After the 13th century, Moscow emerged as a significant political and cultural force, driving the unification of Russian territories. By the end of the 15th century, many of the petty principalities around Moscow had been united with the Grand Duchy of Moscow, which took full control of its own sovereignty under Ivan the Great.

Ivan the Terrible transformed the Grand Duchy into the Tsardom of Russia in 1547. However, the death of Ivan's son Feodor I without issue in 1598 created a succession crisis and led Russia into a period of chaos and civil war known as the Time of Troubles, ending with the coronation of Michael Romanov as the first Tsar of the Romanov dynasty in 1613. During the rest of the seventeenth century, Russia completed the exploration and conquest of Siberia, claiming lands as far as the Pacific Ocean by the end of the century. Domestically, Russia faced numerous uprisings of the various ethnic groups under their control, as exemplified by the Cossack leader Stenka Razin, who led a revolt in 1670–1671. In 1721, in the wake of the Great Northern War, Tsar Peter the Great renamed the state as the Russian Empire; he is also noted for establishing St. Petersburg as the new capital of his Empire, and for his introducing Western European culture to Russia. In 1762, Russia came under the control of Catherine the Great, who continued the westernizing policies of Peter the Great, and ushered in the era of the Russian Enlightenment. Catherine's grandson, Alexander I, repulsed an invasion by the French Emperor Napoleon, leading Russia into the status of one of the great powers.

The Khanate of Sibir was a Muslim state located just east of the middle Ural Mountains. Its conquest by Yermak Timofeyevich in 1582 was the first event in the Russian conquest of Siberia.

The Khanate of Sibir (Siberian Tatar: Себер Ҡаннығы, romanized: Seber Qannïq; Russian: Сибирское царство, Сибирский юрт, romanized: Sibirskoye tsarstvo, Sibirsky yurt) was a Tatar state in western Siberia. It was founded at the end of the 15th century, following the break-up of the Golden Horde. Throughout its history, members of the Shaybanid and Taibugid dynasties often contested the rulership over the Khanate between each other; both of these competing tribes were direct patrilineal descendants of Genghis Khan through his eldest son Jochi and Jochi's fifth son Shayban (Shiban) (died 1266). The area of the Khanate had once formed an integral part of the Mongol Empire, and later came under the control of the White Horde, and under the Golden Horde from 1242 to 1468.

The Khanate of Sibir had an ethnically diverse population of Turkic peoples – Siberian Tatars and various Uralic peoples – including the Khanty, the Mansi, and the Selkup. The Sibir Khanate was the northernmost Muslim state in recorded history. Its defeat by Yermak Timofeyevich in 1582 marked the beginning of the Russian conquest of Siberia.

Russian imperialism refers to the political, economic, cultural, and military power or control exerted by Russia and its predecessor states, over other countries and territories. It includes the conquests of the Tsardom of Russia, the Russian Empire, the imperialism of the Soviet Union, and the neo-imperialism of the Russian Federation. Some postcolonial scholars have noted the lack of attention given to Russian and Soviet imperialism in the discipline.

After the Fall of Constantinople (1453), Moscow named itself the third Rome, following the Roman and Byzantine Empires. Beginning in the 1550s, Russia conquered, on average, territory the size of the Netherlands every year for 150 years. This included Siberia, Central Asia, the Caucasus and parts of Eastern Europe. Russia engaged in settler colonialism in these lands, and also founded colonies in North America, notably in present-day Alaska. At its height in the late 19th century, the Russian Empire covered about one-sixth of the world's landmass, making it the third-largest empire in history.

The Siberian fur trade is an exchange concerned with the gathering, buying and selling of valuable animal furs that originate from Siberia. The Siberian fur trade expanded from localized trade, and Siberian fur is now traded around the world. The Siberian fur trade had a significant impact on the development of Siberia through exploration and colonization. The fur trade also precipitated a decline in the number of fur-bearing animals and resulted in Siberia being conquered by Russia.

Siberia is a vast region spanning the northern part of the Asian continent and forming the Asiatic portion of Russia. As a result of the Russian conquest of Siberia (16th to 19th centuries) and of the subsequent population movements during the Soviet era (1917–1991), the modern-day demographics of Siberia is dominated by ethnic Russians (Siberiaks) and other Slavs. However, there remains a slowly increasing number of Indigenous groups, accounting for about 5% of the total Siberian population (about 1.6–1.8 million), some of which are closely genetically related to Indigenous peoples of the Americas.

Yermak Timofeyevich (Russian: Ермак Тимофеевич, IPA: [jɪrˈmak tʲɪmɐˈfʲejɪvʲɪt͡ɕ]; 1532 (supposedly) – August 5 or 6, 1585) was a Cossack ataman who started the Russian conquest of Siberia during the reign of the Russian Tsar Ivan the Terrible. He is today a hero in Russian folklore and myths.

Russian interests in the fur trade fueled their desire to expand east into Siberia. The Tatar Khanate of Kazan established by Ulugh Muhammad was the best entryway into Siberia. In 1552, Ivan the Terrible's modernized army toppled the khanate. After the takeover of Kazan, the tsar looked to the powerful and affluent Stroganov merchant family to spearhead the eastward expansion. In the late 1570s, the Stroganovs recruited Cossack fighters to invade Asia on behalf of the tsar. These Cossacks elected Yermak as the leader of their armed forces, and in 1582 Yermak set out with an army of 840 to attack the Khanate of Sibir.