Peter the Great’s rule, from 1696 until his death in 1725, was a great turning point in Russia when, by virtue of Peter’s reforms, a strong trend of European influence developed, gradually replacing the earlier influence of Byzantium and the Tartars.  Catherine, wife of Peter III (Peter the Great’s grandson), succeeded him in 1762.  She had been an obscure German princess but eventually proved to be one of Russia’s most successful leaders and, by the end of her reign in 1796 was called Catherine the Great.  Catherine continued westernizing Russia, introduced French culture into Russia and greatly improved education of the Russian nobility.  She extended Russian territorial gains through additional conquest,, making Imperial Russia one of the great European powers.  In early wars with the Turks, Russia gained a firm foothold on the Black Sea for the first time.  During the Napoleonic wars Russia used the power of its winters to bleed Napoleon white and Russia became the leading player in the coalition between Austria, Prussia, Great Britain and Russia which led to Napoleon’s final defeat at Waterloo in 1815.

​  The death of Alexander I in 1825 brought Tsar Nikolas I, one of Russia’s most reactionary Tsars, to the throne.  Nikolas persecuted large segments of his population, suppressed publications, forbade foreign travel and generally tried to eliminate progressive thinking and reverse the westernization of Russia.  However, Alexander II (1855-1881), Nikolas’ son, reigned principally as a reformer freeing the serfs, providing allotments of land establishing local legislatures and reforming the legal system.  Unfortunately, revolutionary pressure continued to build and in 1881 Alexander II was killed by a terrorist bomb in the center of St. Petersburg. This generated a new era of repression lasting through the reigns of Russia’s last two Romanovs, Alexander III (1881-1894) and Nikolas II (1894-1917).

​  As the Ottoman Empire was breaking up, France, Great Britain and Russia all had interests in its territories.  The rivalries among these countries reached its climax in the Crimean War (1853-1856) where Russia fought an alliance consisting of France, Great Britain Sardinia and Turkey.  The Russians sued for peace in 1856 giving up Bessarabia (part of present day Romania ).  Twenty years later Russia again went to war with the Turks attempting to regain Bessarabia and, although they defeated the Turks (see M1866 Turkish Winchester  and M1872 Turkish Peabody-Martini ), British and Austrian forces interceded forcing Russia to give up most of its gains.

​  Failing to make any gains in Europe, during the late 1800s Russia turned toward the east, expanding Russian territory during this period and eventually bringing Russia and Japan into intense competition, and eventual war in 1905.

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  In the early 1860s virtually all of the nation-states of European were engaged in massive small-arms rearmament programs.  The Russian experience in the Crimean War (1853-1856) had set the stage by bringing into sharp relief the dire military disadvantages to be faced any nation bearing arms from an earlier generation.  This conflict was soon followed by the closely watched destructiveness of the American Civil War (1861-1865) coupled with the Second Schleswig War (1864) fought between the combined forces of Prussia and Austria allied against Denmark for control of the Schleswig (or South Jutland) region between modern day Northern Germany and southern Denmark.  The Second Schleswig War was over in 8 months, during which the muzzleloader forces of the Danish Kingdom were decisively outmatched by the breechloader (Dryse) armed Prussians.  None of this was lost on the Russians, who set about to completely remake their arms manufacturing and procurement systems from an essentially feudal one powered primarily by small-scale serf labor building rifles by hand, to a modern, centralized, mass-production system building rifles extensively by machine.  The Berdan would be their first foray into this new world.

  The American Civil War had seen the first introduction, wide-spread deployment and military use of small arms utilizing breechloading metallic cartridges, and the results left no doubt as to the future of arms.  European military representatives in America during the war, including Russian officers, returned with a variety of examples of new systems.  Even before the conclusion of the Civil War, the Russians had dispatched Colonel Alexander P. Gorlov (1830-1905), an artillery engineer, to study the US arms industry.  Gorlov’s first foray to America resulted in a highly influential Russian report, coupled with sample rifles and machinery to enable Russia to first begin manufacturing metallic cartridges.  This action sealed Russia’s decision to adopt metallic cartridges as its small arms ammunition standard and conversions of existing patterns to metallic cartridge breechloaders was quickly undertaken.  But it was fully acknowledged that the conversions were only interim measures.  A newly made, dedicated cartridge rifle was still needed.  And ultimately Russia was committed to being able to manufacture it at home.