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The Age of Reform and the Nihilists
1855-1881
Alexander II
• 29 April 1818–13 March 1881
• Reigned from 3 March 1855 until his assassination in 1881
• Grand Duke of Finland and King of Poland
Marriage 16 April 1841
Princess Marie of Hesse,
thereafter known in Russia
as Maria Alexandrovna
Alexander’s Reign
Crimean War (1853–1856)
Britain and France invade Crimea
The Nihilists
The Nihilist Arrested
Positivism: the influence of sciene
• Begins in the 1840s as a response to the ills of society undergoing industrial revolution
• Karl Marx: economics• August Comte: philosophy• Taine: race, milieu and moment as defining
features of art• Darwin: evolution• Positivism = the application of scientific
method to society and social problems
Nihilist movement
• Nihilists espoused the ideas of social progress• Term becomes current with Turgenev’s
Fathers and Sons (1862) where the hero Bazarov declares himself a nihilist
• Medical training; denies emotions, religion, sentiment
• Unsuccessful relationship, then gets sick and dies
Nikolai Chernyshevsky (1828-1889)
• Arrested in 1862• Writes What is to be done? (pub. 1863) in
Saints Peter and Paul Fortress in St Petersburg• Revolutionary theme of women’s liberation,
free love• Revolutionary hero leads ascetic life• Book highly influential on Lenin
Chernyshevsky’s program
• Overthrow of Tsarist regime• Class warfare, revolution• Atheism• Communism• Women’s liberation• Free relations between sexes• Creation of sewing circles to save girls from
prostitution
Populism and terror
• Narodnik movement of 1860s and 1870s • 1874 Young people went out into the countryside to
propagate revolution among the peasants• Movement suppressed by the police, replaced by Narodnaya
volya – terrorist organization• Group suppressed after Alexander’s assassination, replaced
by other groups including the Socialist Revolutionaries (SR)• 1887 Lenin’s brother Aleksandr Ulianov hanged after attempt
on life of Alexander III
Mihály Zichy, Coronation of Tsar Alexander II and the Empress Maria Alexandrovna
• Coronation – September 7, 1856
• Great national debate in wake of defeat
• Serfdom• Law reform• Industrial development
begins, especially railways
The Tsar-Liberator
Emancipation of the serfs
• 3 March 1861• Emancipation
Manifesto was signed and published
• Peasants set free, but had to compensate landowners
Other Reforms
• Local Self-Government (Zemstvo) for the rural districts (1864) and the large towns (1870)
•Army and navy reorganization (1874)
•Reforms in education
Suppression of national movements
• January Uprising in Poland (1863-1864)
• Martial Law in Lithuania• Polish-Lithuanian territories
were excluded from liberal policies
• 1876 Ems ukaz banning Ukrainian languagePolonia (1864) by Jan Matejko
Assassination attempts
• April 4, 1866 by Dmitry Karakozov
• 20 April, 1879 by Alexander Solovyov
• December 1879• 5 February 1880
Assassination 13 March (1 March Old Style), 1881
The Church of the Saviour on the Blood