#theres definitely a lot of good russia content out there but i havent really gone looking for it

[urmomsstuntdouble]

Congrats on 100, can you do a Headcanon on Imperial!Russia?

ahh sorry this took me so long! i’ve been a little busy and i had to do some research, so that’s why. im not the most familiar with this period of history or russia as a character, but i hope it’s not so bad!

The first thing that I thought of when I got this ask was what effects does imperialism have on the empire in hetalia? Imperialism isn’t very heavily explored in canon, although it is portrayed as being a somewhat negative thing- Both for the empire and the other nations they interact with. I think imperialism in hetalia causes a lot of trauma for everyone involved, although it would be worse for the empire if they are a contiguous land empire, like Russia. All the adjustments that come from ethnic Russians moving into new territory (forcibly or not), and of the Russification of central Asia and Siberia were painful. as it resulted in a lot of conflicts between the Russians and the indigenous peoples of those lands, who were now tasked with assimilating. Assimilation is of course painful for those who are forced to go through it, but also for the nations who are being assimilated to anyway (I sort of talked about this before regarding America, if you’d like deeper thoughts, because it’s kind of complex and i dont want to just make this post be about what imperialism does to a bitch) 

Religion was deeply important to him, and often caused a lot of emotional distress, specifically where Lithuania (who i hc as being Jewish) is concerned. The golden age of the Russian empire featured a lot of very antisemitic laws- Specifically under Catherine the Great, who’s often credited with being like. The woman who modernized/westernized Russia. Anyway, i think his relationship with Lithuania was really difficult for him to deal with, because Lithuania couldn’t just be okay with the treatment of their people (and religion), and that made it hard for them to be okay being around Russia. However, Russia considered them to be close friends, which was just sort of painful for both parties. (side note a fic that i think really encapsulates the dynamic between russia and lithuania during the russian empire would be this fic by @still-intrepid)

Though not all of Russia’s trauma stems from the empire years, it contributed pretty heavily and the longevity of the empire, followed immediately by WW1, a communist revolution, and the Soviet Union meant that he never really had time to process a lot of the things that happened to him/a lot of his issues that originated during the Russian Empire. 

I think one of these issues is that he is Russia, and represents all Russians, and could possibly be used as a tool by possible insurgents to be like. Their figurehead or whatever. The government was naturally untrusting of him, which is part of why he’s so friendly to everyone he meets. He can’t come across as unsympathetic to a person he’s interacting with, lest they assume bad about him and send him to Siberia or something along those lines. 

This was when his drinking started to become a problem, mostly in the form of spiked tea. 

Though he really likes vodka as a drink tea is just as near and dear to his heart

The Napoleonic Wars were really traumatic for him because of all the slash and burning done by Russian troops. Though he fought in those wars, he was really not a fan of how they had to burn all those villages and crops down. 

Samovar is a good word. Ivan loves samovars. 

I think this period would also be a time when Ivan had a big growth spurt- I think he’s around 2 meters tall, but a lot of that didn’t come until the 18th and 19th centuries, because that’s when Russia really emerged onto the world stage and became the enormous (3rd largest empire in world history, 2nd largest land empire) country that it is today. 

Ivan’s weight today is more evenly split between muscle and fat, but during the empire, I think he had much less fat on his body, and was a bit muscular but not as much as what he has today. This is both because of the conquest of new lands and absolute rule, as well as that around 95% of the population was made of starving peasants, which. I think is enough to make Ivan a bit skinny, but not skin and bones, as he still had to do a lot of manual labor. 

He made a lot of enemies during this period, and yeah the Baltics were some of them, but there were even more enemies to be made in Central Asia during the Great Game. Most of the stan countries (but Afghanistan and Kazakhstan in particular) still hold resentment for this. 

During the Russo-Japanese War, there was a lot of pressure on Russia to win- people were beginning to lose faith in the monarchy, and it was sort of seen as a war that Russia needed to win in order to keep the peasants from hating the government- like a military victory they needed in order to unify the country. When Japan won, Ivan was subjected to a lot of hatred both from his bosses and his people, each believing that he was on the other’s side

idk if you consider the Soviet Union to be part of Russian imperialism (I personally would argue that it was but idk if everyone thinks that or if that’s what you mean when you say imperial russia) so i’m not really going to touch on that but if you want soviet headcanons i have vague machinations

ok i think that’s it? honestly i kind of struggled with this because i don’t have the best grasp on Russia’s character, although I do think he’s very interesting. i hope that all this was neat, and once again I’m sorry for how long it took me to write! 

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