In brief: "19th century Rissian" means 19th-century Russian — "Rissian" is simply a frequent misspelling. It was the century of the war against Napoleon (1812), the emancipation of the serfs (1861), Pushkin, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and Tchaikovsky, the samovar tea table, the Russian Revival style in architecture — and the first cat show appearance of the Russian Blue cat (1875).
If you arrived here searching for "19th century Rissian" culture, dress or "Rissian Blue", this page covers the real Russian Empire between 1801 and 1900. Our explanation of the word Rissian covers the spelling question; below we focus on history, daily life and the arts.
The Tsars of the 19th Century
- Alexander I (1801–1825) – led Russia through the Napoleonic Wars.
- Nicholas I (1825–1855) – began his reign by crushing the Decembrist revolt of December 1825, when liberal-minded officers demanded constitutional reform; his reign ended during the Crimean War (1853–1856).
- Alexander II (1855–1881) – the "Tsar-Liberator", who abolished serfdom and reformed the courts, army and local government. He was assassinated in St Petersburg in 1881.
- Alexander III (1881–1894) – a conservative ruler whose reign saw rapid railway building, including the start of the Trans-Siberian Railway in 1891.
- Nicholas II (from 1894) – the last emperor, whose reign ended with the revolutions of 1917.
1812: Napoleon's Invasion
In June 1812 Napoleon invaded Russia with one of the largest armies Europe had ever seen. The Russian army under Mikhail Kutuzov fought the bloody Battle of Borodino in September, then withdrew; the French entered Moscow, which was soon engulfed by fire. With no peace offer from Alexander I and winter approaching, Napoleon retreated, and his army was almost destroyed by cold, hunger and constant attacks. Russian troops entered Paris in 1814. The victory — remembered as the Patriotic War of 1812 — became a defining national memory: it inspired Tolstoy's War and Peace, Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture and the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow.
1861: The Emancipation of the Serfs
For centuries most Russian peasants were serfs, bound to the land and to landowners (or to the state). On 3 March 1861 (19 February in the old calendar), Alexander II signed the Emancipation Manifesto, freeing privately owned serfs — over 20 million people. Freedom came with heavy conditions: peasants had to pay for their allotted land through "redemption payments" over decades, and village communes (mir) kept much control over their lives. Even so, 1861 was a turning point that reshaped the countryside, sent many people to work in growing cities and factories, and fuelled debate among writers and reformers for the rest of the century.
The Golden Age of Russian Literature
The 19th century is often called the Golden Age of Russian literature:
- Alexander Pushkin (1799–1837) – poet and author of the verse novel Eugene Onegin; he effectively created the modern Russian literary language. He died after a duel.
- Mikhail Lermontov – poet and author of A Hero of Our Time (1840).
- Nikolai Gogol – The Government Inspector and Dead Souls (1842).
- Ivan Turgenev – Fathers and Sons (1862), which popularized the word "nihilist".
- Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) – War and Peace (published 1865–1869) and Anna Karenina (1870s).
- Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821–1881) – Crime and Punishment (1866) and The Brothers Karamazov (1880).
- Anton Chekhov – short stories and, at the end of the century, plays such as The Seagull (1896).
Many idioms from this literature are still used every day; see our posts on Russian poetry and Russian idioms.
Music and Painting
Mikhail Glinka's opera A Life for the Tsar (1836) is usually seen as the start of a distinctly Russian classical music. In the 1860s a circle of composers nicknamed "The Mighty Handful" — Balakirev, Cui, Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov and Borodin — drew on folk song and Russian history. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840–1893) became the best-known Russian composer in the world, with the ballets Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker, the opera Eugene Onegin and the 1812 Overture. Folk songs were collected and arranged in this period too — more in our Russian folk music post.
In painting, a group of realists known as the Peredvizhniki ("Wanderers"), formed in 1870, took exhibitions around the country and painted ordinary Russian life; Ilya Repin's Barge Haulers on the Volga is the famous example. The merchant Pavel Tretyakov collected Russian art from the 1850s, forming what became Moscow's Tretyakov Gallery.
The Russian Revival Style
From the 1830s architects began turning away from purely European neoclassicism toward a "Russian style" inspired by medieval churches: onion domes, tent roofs, decorative brickwork and colourful tiles. Famous examples include the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow (built 1839–1883 to commemorate 1812), the red-brick State Historical Museum on Red Square, and the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood in St Petersburg, built on the site of Alexander II's assassination. The same revival reached the decorative arts: artists' colonies such as Abramtsevo, near Moscow, revived folk crafts, and the first matryoshka nesting dolls were made in the 1890s.
19th Century "Rissian Blue": Gzhel, Porcelain and the Cat
People searching for "19th century Rissian Blue" usually have one of two things in mind:
Blue-and-white ceramics
The villages around Gzhel, south-east of Moscow, had been a pottery centre for centuries, and in the 18th and 19th centuries their workshops produced majolica, faience and, increasingly, porcelain. Cobalt blue painted on a white ground became the look most associated with Gzhel, and the style was consciously revived and standardized in the 20th century. Fine porcelain was also made at the Imperial Porcelain Factory in St Petersburg (founded in 1744) and by large private manufacturers. Our guides to Russian blue and what "Rissian Blue" means explain the colour and the ceramics.
The Russian Blue cat
The Russian Blue cat's recorded history also begins in the 19th century. The breed is reputed to come from the port of Arkhangelsk on the White Sea — hence its old name, the "Archangel Cat" — and sailors are said to have brought such cats to Britain. A Russian Blue was shown at the Crystal Palace in London in 1875, one of the earliest cat shows. For years these cats competed alongside other blue shorthairs before being recognized as a separate breed in the early 20th century. Read the full story in our Russian Blue cat guide.
Dress and Fashion
Clothing in 19th-century Russia depended heavily on class. The nobility dressed in the latest Paris fashions, and French was widely spoken at court and in aristocratic homes (a detail Tolstoy uses in War and Peace). Merchants mixed European and traditional clothing. Peasant women wore a sarafan over a linen blouse, with a headscarf or, on festive days, a kokoshnik headdress; men wore a belted kosovorotka shirt, and bast-fibre shoes (lapti) were common in the countryside. In winter, sheepskin coats and fur hats were essential — the ancestors of today's ushanka, covered in our Russian hat guide. Nicholas I even introduced a court dress for ladies with Russian-style elements such as a kokoshnik-like headdress, a sign of growing interest in national costume.
Food: From Peasant Kasha to Beef Stroganoff
Peasant food rested on rye bread, cabbage soup (shchi), buckwheat kasha, root vegetables, mushrooms, pickles and kvass, with meat reserved for holidays and many fasting days set by the Orthodox calendar. Wealthy households ate far more elaborately, often cooked by French chefs. Several things we now think of as classic Russian food date from this century:
- Service à la russe – serving dishes one after another rather than all at once. This "Russian service" became fashionable in France and then across Europe during the 19th century.
- Olivier salad – created in the 1860s by Lucien Olivier, chef of the Hermitage restaurant in Moscow; a much-changed version is now the classic New Year salad.
- Beef Stroganoff – one of the earliest known recipes appears in a later-19th-century edition of Elena Molokhovets's hugely popular cookbook A Gift to Young Housewives (first published in 1861).
For today's dishes, see our Russian food guide.
Tea and the Samovar
Tea came to Russia overland from China, much of it via the border trading town of Kyakhta. Expensive at first, it spread from the nobility to merchants and, over the 19th century, to townspeople and peasants alike. The samovar — a metal urn that keeps water hot for hours — became the centre of the table, with the city of Tula the best-known centre of samovar making. Strong tea concentrate (zavarka) was brewed in a small teapot on top and diluted with hot water to taste, and tea was drunk with sugar, jam or lemon, often from glasses in metal holders. Our posts on the Russian tea tradition and Russian drinks go further.
Why the 19th Century Still Matters
Much of what the world thinks of as "Russian" — the great novels, Tchaikovsky's ballets, onion-domed revival architecture, matryoshka dolls, tea from a samovar, even the Russian Blue cat — took shape or became famous in this century. For the bigger picture of Russian traditions and holidays today, continue with our guide to Russian culture.
Frequently Asked Questions
What happened in Russia in the 19th century?
Russia defeated Napoleon's invasion in 1812, fought the Crimean War (1853-1856), abolished serfdom in 1861 under Alexander II, began industrializing and building railways, and produced world-famous writers and composers such as Pushkin, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and Tchaikovsky.
When were Russian serfs freed?
Alexander II's Emancipation Manifesto of 1861 freed the serfs owned by private landowners. Peasants still had to make redemption payments for their land for decades afterwards.
What does 19th century Rissian Blue mean?
It usually refers either to the Russian Blue cat, which was shown at London's Crystal Palace in 1875, or to Russian blue-and-white ceramics such as Gzhel. Rissian is a common misspelling of Russian.
What did people wear in 19th-century Russia?
Nobles followed Paris fashion, while peasant women wore the sarafan with a headscarf or kokoshnik and men wore the belted kosovorotka shirt, with fur hats and sheepskin coats in winter.