History 304: Alexander II,

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History 304 Alexander II, Tsar Liberator
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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

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Coronation26 August/7 September 1856

• Ended the war, then celebration.
• Count von Moltkes account ritual, riches,
  ceremony.
• Behind the troops stood the bearded populace,
  with heads uncovered, close together, but without
  crowding.
• Churchs role

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Causes of the Great Reforms

• Crimean War, 1853-1856
• Humiliating defeat on Russian soil
• Defeat greatly undermined Romanovs legitimacy.
• Exposed armys 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

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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.

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1861 manifesto proclaimed

• Bezdna uprising, April 1861
• Kazan province
• Anton Petrov
• 5000-10,000 peasants
• 75 villages
• Up to 91 killed
• 350 wounded
• Black Repartition (Chornyi peredel)

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Other Great Reforms

• 1864 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

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Other Great Reforms

• 1864 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.

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Other Great Reforms

• 1874 Military reform
• universal military conscription
• army reserve
• military district system
• building of strategic railways
• Better military education of officer corps