The Imperial Russian Navy () operated as the navy of the Russian Tsardom and later the Russian Empire from 1696 to 1917. Formally established in 1696, it lasted until being dissolved in the wake of the February Revolution and the declaration of the Russian Republic in 1917. It developed from a smaller force that had existed prior to Tsar Peter the Great's founding of the modern Russian navy during the Second Azov campaign in 1696, and expanded in the second half of the 18th century (before the era of the Empress Elizabeth) reaching its peak strength by the early part of the 19th century, behind only the British and French fleets in terms of size.
The Imperial Navy drew its officers from the aristocracy of the Empire, who belonged to the state Russian Orthodox Church. Young aristocrats began to be trained for leadership at a national naval boarding school, the Naval Cadet Corps. From 1818 on, only officers of the Imperial Russian Navy were appointed to the position of Chief Manager of the Russian-American Company, based in Russian America (present-day Alaska) for colonization and fur-trade development. Although the early Imperial Navy initially employed paid foreign sailors, the government began to recruit native-born sailors as conscripts, drafted (as were men to serve in the army). Service in the navy was lifelong before the 1874 decree on conscription limited the service term to six years at most. Many naval commanders and recruits came from Imperial Russia's non-Russian lands with maritime traditions—Finland and (especially) the Baltic governorates.
The Russian Navy went into a period of decline due to the Empire's slow technical and economic development in the first half of the 19th century. It had a revival in the latter part of the century during the reign of Emperor Nicholas II (), but most of its Pacific Fleet (along with the Baltic Fleet sent to the Far East) was destroyed in the disastrous Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905. Nicholas II, who was a naval enthusiast, had a major role in both the build up of the navy before the war with Japan and the rebuilding of it in the decade after.
The navy had mixed experiences during the First World War, with the Germans generally gaining the upper hand in the Baltic Sea, while the Russians took control of the Black Sea. The Russian Baltic Fleet mostly stayed on the defensive, but the Black Sea Fleet's attacks on Ottoman merchant shipping nearly cut off the coal supply to Constantinople and threatened the Ottoman Empire's ability to stay in the war. The Russian Revolution marked the end of the Imperial Navy; the Russian Provisional Government carried out reforms to the navy and its command structure, including the removal of imperial references from its rank insignia. Its officers had mostly aligned with the emperor, and the sailors split to fight on either side during the Russian Civil War of 1917–1922. The Soviet Navy, established as the Red Fleet in 1918 after the Revolution, took over the available surviving ships that did not evacuate from Crimea.
Strategically, the Imperial Russian Navy faced two overarching issues: the use of ice-free ports and open access to the high seas. Saint Petersburg and the other Baltic ports, as well as Vladivostok, could not operate in winter, hence the push for Russia to establish naval facilities on the Black Sea coast and (eventually) at Murmansk. And even substantial naval forces in the Baltic Sea remained confined by the lack of free access to the Atlantic via the Øresund, just as the Black Sea Fleet could not always rely on passage through the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles. As a result, separate naval groupings developed in relative isolation in the Baltic, the Black Sea, the Russian Far East and the Arctic.
Background
Under Tsar Mikhail I (Mikhail Fyodorovich Romanov), the first three-masted ships built within Russia were finished in 1636. Danish shipbuilders from Holstein built it in Balakhna according to contemporary European design. The ship was christened Frederick; during its maiden voyage on the Caspian Sea, the ship sailed into a heavy storm and was lost at sea.
During the Russo–Swedish War, 1656–1658, Russian forces seized the Swedish fortresses of Dünaburg and Kokenhusen on the Western Dvina. They renamed the former as Borisoglebsk and the latter as Tsarevich-Dmitriyev. A boyar named Afanasy Ordin-Nashchokin founded a shipyard at Tsarevich-Dmitriev fortress and began constructing vessels to sail in the Baltic Sea. In 1661, however, Russia lost this and other captured territories by the Peace of Cardis. Russia agreed to surrender to Sweden all captured territories, and it ordered all vessels constructed at Tsarevich-Dmitriev to be destroyed.
Boyar Ordin-Nashchokin turned his attention to the Volga River and Caspian Sea. With the Tsar's approval, the boyar brought Dutch shipbuilding experts to the town of Dedinovo near the confluence of the Oka and Volga rivers. Shipbuilding commenced in the winter of 1667. Within two years, four vessels had been completed: one 22-gun galley, christened Орёл ("Oryol" = "Eagle"), and three smaller ships. Орёл was Russia's first own three-masted, European-designed sailing ship. It was captured in Astrakhan by rebellious Cossacks led by Stepan Razin. The Cossacks ransacked Орёл and abandoned it, half-submerged, in an estuary of the Volga.
During much of the 17th century, independent Russian merchants and Cossacks, using koch boats, sailed across the White Sea, exploring the rivers Lena, Kolyma and Indigirka, and founding settlements in the region of the upper Amur. The most celebrated Russian explorer was Semyon Dezhnev who, in 1648, sailed along the entire northern expanse of present-day Russia by way of the Arctic Ocean. Rounding the Chukotsk Peninsula, Dezhnev passed through the Bering Sea and sailed into the Pacific Ocean.
Reign of Peter the Great
Peter the Great established the modern Russian Navy. During the Second Azov campaign of 1696 against Turkey, the Russians for the first time used 2 warships, 4 fireships, 23 galleys and 1300 strugs, built on the Voronezh River. After the occupation of the Azov fortress, the Boyar Duma looked into Peter's report of this military campaign. It passed a decree on October 20, 1696, to commence construction of a navy. This date is considered the official founding of the Imperial Russian Navy.
During the Great Northern War of 1700–1721, the Russians built the Baltic Fleet. The construction of the oared fleet (galley fleet) took place in 1702–1704 at several shipyards (estuaries of the rivers Syas, Luga and Olonka). In order to defend the conquered coastline and attack enemy's maritime communications in the Baltic Sea, the Russians created a sailing fleet from ships built in Russia and others imported from abroad.
From 1703 to 1723, the main naval base of the Baltic Fleet was located in Saint Petersburg and then in Kronstadt. Bases were also created in Reval (Tallinn) and in Vyborg after it was ceded by Sweden after Russo-Swedish War (1741–1743). Vladimirsky Prikaz was the first organization in charge of shipbuilding. Later on, these functions were transferred to the Admiralteyskiy Prikaz (admiralty in St. Petersburg).
In 1745 the Russian Navy had 130 sailing vessels, including 36 ships of the line, 9 frigates, 3 shnyavas (шнява — a light two-mast ship used for reconnaissance and messenger services), 5 bombardier ships, and 77 auxiliary vessels. The oared fleet consisted of 396 vessels, including 253 galleys and semi-galleys (called скампавеи, or ; a light high-speed galley) and 143 brigantines. The ships were being constructed at 24 shipyards, including the ones in Voronezh, Kazan, Pereyaslavl, Arkhangelsk, Olonets, Petersburg and Astrakhan.
The naval officers came from dvoryane (noblemen, aristocrats who belonged to the state Russian Orthodox Church). The regular sailors were conscripts, drafted into military service. The service in the navy was lifelong. Children of noblemen were educated for naval service at the School for Mathematical and Navigational Sciences, which had been founded in 1701 in Moscow's Sukharev Tower. Students were often sent abroad for training in foreign fleets. The Navy also hired foreign nationals, with significant naval experience, to serve in the Russian Navy, such as the Norwegian-Dutch Cornelius Cruys, the Greek Ivan Botsis, or the Scotsman Thomas Gordon. In 1718, the Admiralty Board (Адмиралтейств-коллегия) was established as the highest naval authority in Russia.
The organizational principles of the Russian Navy, educational and training methods for preparing future staff, and methods for conducting military action were all summarized in the Naval Charter (1720), written by Peter I himself.Устав морской (Naval Regulations), Санкт Петербург, 1763 Peter the Great, Feodor Apraksin, Alexey Senyavin, Naum Senyavin, Admiral Mikhail Golitsyn and others are generally credited for the development of the Russian art of naval warfare. The main principles of naval warfare were further developed by Grigory Spiridov, Feodor Ushakov, and Dmitry Senyavin.
Between 1688 and 1725, a period spanning most of Peter's reign, some 1,260 seagoing vessels were built in Russian shipyards for the Imperial Russian Navy. Fleets were launched successively on the White Sea, the Sea of Azov (with access to the Black Sea), the Baltic Sea, and the Caspian Sea (Russo-Persian War of 17221723). In 1700, the majority of sailors in the Imperial Russian Navy were foreigners at the start of the Great Northern War. But by 1721, at the end of the same war, the navy had 7,215 native-born sailors.
In 1734, during the War of the Polish Succession, the Russian fleet engaged the French Navy for the first time and proved successful in deciding the Siege of Danzig in Russia's favor. The Russian victory ensured that their claimant, August III, ascended to the Polish throne.
18th century
In the second half of the 18th century, the Russian Navy was built up to support the government's foreign policy. The nation conducted the Russo-Turkish wars for supremacy in the Black Sea. For the first time, Russia sent its squadrons from the Baltic Sea to distant theaters of operations (see Archipelago expeditions of the Russian Navy).
During the Russo-Turkish War of 1768–1774, Admiral Spiridov's squadron sailed from the Baltic to the Mediterranean and gained supremacy in the Aegean Sea by destroying the Turkish fleet in the Battle of Chesma in 1770. While the Russians attempted to foment and support a revolt against the Ottomans in Greece, the Russian fleet was unable to provide sufficient land forces in support and the revolt was crushed.
In 1771, the Russian army conquered the coasts of the Kerch Strait and fortresses of Kerch and Yenikale.
After having advanced to the Danube, the Russians formed the Danube Military Flotilla for the purpose of guarding the Danube estuary. In 1771 they were guests to the Republic of Ragusa.Ruđer Bošković, p. 54, Željko Brnetić, Školska knjiga, 1990. The Beluga caviar from the Danube was famous, and merchants from the Republic of Ragusa dominated the import-export business in Serbia with the Habsburg monarchy.Serbien und Montenegro: Raum und Bevölkerung, Geschichte, Sprache und Literatur, Kultur, Politik, Gesellschaft, Wirtschaft, Recht, p. 152, Walter Lukan, Ljubinka Trgovcevic, Dragan Vukcevic, Walter Lukan, Ljubinka Trgovcevic, Dragan Vukcevic,