History 440: Alexander II, “Tsar Liberator”

Alexander II, r. 1855-1881• Born April 1818• Eldest son of Nicholas I• Tutor: Vasily Zhukovsky:

founder of Russian Romanticism

• Kindness, warmth, humane• Toured Europe and 20

provinces• Potential not anticipated.• Adhered to no particular set

of ideas, neither a radical or a reactionary

Coronation26 August/7 September 1856

• Ended the war, then celebration.

• Count von Moltke’s account: ritual, riches, ceremony.

• “Behind the troops stood the bearded populace, with heads uncovered, close together, but without crowding.”

• Queen mother• Church’s role

Causes of the Great Reforms• Crimean War, 1853-1856– Humiliating defeat on “Russian” soil– Defeat greatly undermined Romanovs’ legitimacy.– Exposed army’s problems, especially recruitment

“non-system” and poor quality of soldiers.– technological inadequacies:

• Railroad• telegraph (dispatches took 7.5 days to Piter)

• Symptoms of a larger, key problem: serfdom• Emergence of “enlightened” bureaucracy• Earlier reform attempts

Emancipation of serfs, 1861• 1857: Polish nobles of Lithuania

complained.• 1858: Alexander called for

committees to “improve the condition of peasants.”

• Two proposals: with or without land

• 3 March 1861: Emancipation Manifesto– 23 million serfs emancipated– Got the worse half of the land– Had to pay for it over 49 years– Strengthened and empowered the

village commune “mir” or “obshchina” – in charge of land redistribution.

1861 manifesto proclaimed• Bezdna uprising, April

1861: • Kazan province• 5000 peasants• Up to 91 killed• 350 wounded

• Black Repartition (Chornyi peredel)

Other Great Reforms1864: Judicial reform• New penal code• Simplified and liberalized

court system:– Equality before the law– Public hearings– Trial by jury– Professional legal advocate

for all parties

• Abolished death penalty

Other Great Reforms1864: Local Government reform• Zemstvo: local self-government,

five curia:– large landed proprietors– small landowners, clergy in

their capacity of landed proprietors

– wealthier townsmen– less wealthy urban classes;– delegates of the peasants,

elected by the volosts• Not democracy (nobles were 74%

of members, but 1.3% of population)

• But greater representation.

Other Great Reforms1874: Military reform:• universal military

conscription• army reserve• military district system• building of strategic

railways• Better military

education of officer corps