Russia: history to 1922

The first states on the territory of what was to become the Russian Empire arose in Transcaucasia (for example, Urartu) and Central Asia (for example, Khorezm and Sogdiana) in the 9th–6th centuries BC. Constantly threatened by their stronger neighbours, the Assyrians and Persians, and periodically subdued by them as well as by conquerors from more distant lands (such as Alexander the Great and the Romans), the early Transcaucasian and Central Asian states nevertheless succeeded in evolving distinct cultural and political traditions, which they passed on to their successors in late antiquity and in the Middle Ages. See also Armenia and Georgia.