Nicholas I assumed the throne of Russia in 1825, but in order to do so, he had to first crush the Decembrist Revolt in St. Petersburg. The Decembrist Revolt occurred when a group of army officers and nobles in Russia’s capital supported the claim of Constantine, Nicholas’ younger brother, believing he would be more likely to implement social and political reforms. When Nicholas I defeated this rebellion, he instituted a reactionary policy of “Autocracy, orthodoxy, nationalism” that would reemerge at various points in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as the rallying cry of the Tsarist regime. It was vehemently applied after the assassination of Alexander II in 1881.

In 1989, the Congress of People’s Deputies replaced the Soviet legislature as the dominant governing body of Russia. It lasted for less than two years and served as the primary Russian government during the short-lived Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). It guided Russia, politically, during the transition from the Soviet Union to the independent Russian state.

The Serfs were a group of people that were essentially slaves; however, they did not technically belong to any person, but were bonded to a particular plot of land, which was owned by a person. Thus giving that person the right to do whatever they wanted with the Serfs on their land.

The Boyars were the Russian noble class. They were a relatively small group that ruled over the day to day operations of the vast expanses of Russia for the Czar.

农奴,本质上,仆人或平民class. Often a serf would serve under a baron or lord who managed a fief (an area of land assigned to that lord by the king for management and protection). Serfs could be farmers, tradesmen, or servants to the gentry (nobility). Being a servant was the highest rank that could be achieved by a serf, unless one could conduct themselves well in battle and earn a knighthood.

The druids were an integral part of early Briton pagan religious practice. They were both healers and in their own way, preachers. While the Druids did use stone sites like Stonehenge for their religious practices, opposed to popular belief the Druids are not responsible for Stonehenge's creation.

Thanes, sometimes called earls, were the noble/ruling class before the establishment of one king in Britain with a house of lords underneath him. While Earls was as one of the answers it was not the correct popular name for them at the time. Thanes were only called earls in one area of early Britain, called Kent.