Monarchs of Russia

This list of the monarchs of Russia will not necessarily agree with all other sources' lists, because scholars disagree on when the loose confederation of eastern Slav princes under a Grand Prince really became a somewhat united Russia. (And because civil wars caused several rulers to have the throne for only a few months.) I'm starting with the earliest Grand Princes; some lists start almost 700 years later with Ivan the Terrible. Also, many of these monarchs' names can be rendered into English several different ways (the same ruler being called Fedor, Fyodor, Feodor and Theodore in different works, for example) -- I'm putting common alternate spellings in parentheses.

Kievan Rus

• 862-879 - Rurik (Hrorekr)
• 879-913 - Oleg (Helgi)
• 913-945 - Igor (Ingvar)
• 945-964 - Olga (Helga), regent
• 945-972 - Sviatoslav I (Svyiatoslav)
• 973-980 - Yaropolk I (Iaropolk)
• 980-1015 - Vladimir I "the Saint"
• 1015-1019 - Sviatopolk I "the Damned" (Svyatopolk)
• 1019-1054 - Yaroslav I "the Wise" (Iaroslav)
• 1054-1068 - Izyaslav I (Yziaslav)
• 1068 - Vseslav
• 1068 - 1073 - Izyaslav I (again)
• 1073-1076 - Sviatoslav II (Svyiatoslav)
• 1077-1078 - Izyaslav I (again)
• 1078-1093 - Vsevolod (Vsyevolod)
• 1093-1113 - Sviatopolk II (Svyatopolk)
• 1113-1125 - Vladimir II Monomakh
• 1125-1132 - Mstislav I
• 1132-1139 - Yaropolk II (Iaropolk)
• 1139-1167 - Vyacheslav
• 1139-1146 - Vsevolod II (Vsyevolod)
• 1146 - Igor II
• 1146-1154 - Izyaslav II (Yziaslav)
• 1154-1167 - Rostislav
• 1149-1157 - Yuri I Dolgoruky (Yury, George)
• 1167-1169 - Mstislav II
• 1169-1174 - Andrei I Bogolyubsky
• 1176-1212 - Vsevolod III "Big Nest"
• 1212-1238 - Yuri II (Yury, George)

Mongol-Tatar Yoke, 1240-1480

• 1238-1246 - Yaroslav II (Iaroslav)
• 1247-1248 - Sviatoslav III (Svyatoslav)
• 1249-1252 - Andrei II
• 1252-1263 - Alexander "Nevsky" (Aleksandr Nevski)
• 1263-1271 - Yaroslav III (Iaroslav)
• 1271-1276 - Vasily (Vasilii, Basil)
• 1276-1281 - Dmitry I (Dmitri, Demetrius)
• 1281-1283 - Andrei III
• 1283-1294 - Dmitry I (Dmitri, Demetrius) again
• 1294-1303 - Andrei III again
• 1304-1319 - Mikhail (Michael)
• 1322-1325 - Dmitry II (Dmitrii)
• 1325-1327 - Alexander (Aleksandr)

Grand Princes of Moscow

• 1277-1303 - Daniel (Daniil)
• 1319-1322 - Yuri III (Yury, George)
• 1328-1341 - Ivan I "Moneybags"
• 1341-1353 - Simeon "the Proud" (Semyon)
• 1353-1359 - Ivan II "the Meek"
• 1359-1389 - Dmitry III Donskoi (Dmitri, Demetrius)
• 1389-1425 - Vasily I (Vasilii, Basil)
• 1425-1461 - Vasily II "the Dark" (Vasilii, Basil)
• 1462-1505 - Ivan III "the Great"
• 1505-1533 - Vasily III (Vasilii, Basil)
• 1533-1584 - Ivan IV "the Terrible"
• 1584-1598 - Fyodor I (Fedor, Feodor, Theodore)
• 1598-1605 - Boris Gudenov (Godunov) "Lord Protector"

Time of Troubles

• 1605 - Fyodor II (Fedor, Feodor, Theodore)
• 1605-1606 - False Dmitry I (Demetrius)
• 1606-1610 - Vasiliy IV (Vasilii, Basil)
• 1610-1613 - Wladislav, (Vladislaw, Ladislaus), not crowned
• 1613-1645 - Mikhail Romanov (Michael)

The Romanovs

• 1645-1676 - Alexei (Aleksey, Alexis)
• 1676-1682 - Fyodor III (Feodor, Fedor, Theodore)
• 1682-1689 - Sophia, regent
• 1682-1696 - Ivan V Senior co-tsar with Peter I
• 1682-1725 - Peter I "the Great" (Petr)
• 1725-1727 - Catherine I (Ekaterina)
• 1727-1730 - Peter II (Petr)
• 1730-1740 - Anna (Anne)
• 1740-1741 - Ivan VI
• 1741-1762 - Elizabeth (Elizaveta)
• 1762 - Peter III (Petr)
• 1762-1796 - Catherine II "the Great" (Ekaterina)
• 1796-1801 - Paul (Pavel)
• 1801-1825 - Alexander I (Aleksandr)
• 1825-1855 - Nicholas I (Nikolai)
• 1855-1881 - Alexander II "Emancipator" (Aleksandr)
• 1881-1894 - Alexander III " Peacemaker" (Aleksandr)
• 1894-1917 - Nicholas II (Nikolai)
• 1917 - Mikhail II (sort of; he abdicated the day after Nicholas abdicated in his favor, and many lists don't include him)

Major sources:"Chronology of Russia" at http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~stephan/Rulers/chron.russia.html;
"A History of Russia," 6th edition, by Nicholas Riasanovsky, 2000.
"Rulers of Russia" at http://members.nbci.com/rushistory/rulers/rusruler.htm
"Michael II of Russia" http://www.fact-index.com/m/mi/michael_ii_of_russia.html

Since using a positivist Communist philosophy to justify totalitarian rule is pretty much the same as justifying that rule by Divine Right, we might as well list the strongmen of the Soviet Union in this node. Although paramount power passed through various offices during the Soviet Union's existence, the top man was usually "General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union".

• 1917-1924 Vladimir Ulianov, aka "Lenin"
• 1924-1926 Troika of
• Grigory Yevseyevich Zinovyev,
• Lev Borisovich Rosenfeld, aka "Lev Kamenev", and
• Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili (aka Joseph Stalin).
• 1926-1953 Stalin
• 1953 Georgy Maximilianovich Malenkov.
• 1953-1964 Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (with his pawn, Mikhail Bulganin, as premier).
• 1964-1982 Leonid Ilich Brezhnev (although Mikhail Suslov was often the power behind the throne).
• 1983-1984 Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov.
• 1984-1985 Konstantin Ustinovich Chernenko.
• 1985-1991 Mikhail Gorbachev.

On December 25, 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as General Secretary and President, and the Soviet Union ceased to exist.  Power devolved onto the (somewhat) democratically elected presidents of the Russian Federation.

• 1991-1999 Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin
• 2000-? Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin

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Thanks to www.brittanica.com for the patronymics and dates, and the knowledge about Bulganin (I had thought he had been General Secretary for a while).