ALEXANDER II, THE EMANCIPATOR TSAR
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By Lyubov Tsarevskaya
One of the most important developments in the 19th century Russia was the
emancipation of serfs in 1861. It was an act of will of Emperor Alexander
II, which won him the title of the Emancipator Tsar.
On February 18th, 1855 Russian Emperor Nicholas I died following a brief
disease. He had ruled Russia with a rod of iron for 30 years. When already
on his deathbed, he told his eldest son and heir apparent Alexander: “My
team is not in  good
order”. The new Emperor Alexander II had indeed inherited piles of problems,
the worst of which was the need to fight against France and Britain. The
two western nations hated the idea of a stronger Russian influence on the
developments in the Balkans and this country’s efforts to assist its Slav
brothers in ridding themselves from the Turkish yoke. So they went to war
against Russia by launching a powerful naval attack in the Crimea.
The war-exhausted Russia was unable to fight on a par with the French and
British and had to conclude a humiliating peace treaty. Although Russia’s
impressive military action in future nullified the treaty effect.
The Crimean War both drained Russia’s economic might and laid bare the
shortcomings in the state and military governance. Emperor Alexander II
was faced with the need to carry out reforms. These became his life-work
given that no reform was possible in Russia without the Monarch’s approval
due to the specifics of the state system and Russia’s way of life.
But what was he like, the man who was to shoulder reforms of fundamental
importance to Russia?
Alexander II was born on April 17th, 1818, and from his very first days
was respected as a future monarch, since he was the eldest in his generation
of Grand Dukes. He was trained the best way possible to meet the requirements
of the fate that awaited him. Alexander II had received excellent education.
Foreign diplomats pointed out that he was cordial, cheerful and good-looking.
When the French writer Theofil Gautier saw the Emperor for the first time
at a ball party, he wrote the following about him:
“Alexander wore an elegant army uniform that set off his neatly flexible
figure. His features were astonishingly regular, in fact so much so that
they seemed to have been cut by a sculptor. His mouth was so finely shaped
it resembled one in a Greek sculpture…”
Another Frenchman, diplomat Maurice Paleologue, added the following touches
to the Emperor’s portrait:
“Alexander was distinguished by nobleness, magnanimity, courage, subtlety
of mind, gracious living, in short he was a gentleman to the marrow. To
crown it all, he was a good company and an excellent story-teller, full
of humour and joviality”.
His father, Tsar Nicholas I, put it into his mind that autocracy was unshakable
in Russia. When Nicholas learned that the French King Charles X had abdicated
for fear of revolution, he told Alexander:
“My son! Time will come when you replace me as Sovereign. Don’t you ever
forget that a Monarch in his high office, on receiving the sceptre and
sword from the Providence, must never flee from rebellion… The head of
a monarchial government disgraces himself by yielding, even if a tiny bit,
to rebels’ demands! It is his duty to use force to second his own and his
predecessors’ rights. It is his duty to fall when defending his throne,
on the very steps of his throne.”
Alexander II learnt well the lessons taught by his father. Yet, when he
took the crown at a mature age of 36, fully versed in ways to run a state,
he mitigated some of the existing laws. The Emperor abolished press censorship,
authorized a free issuance of foreign travel passports, announced an amnesty
to those who had attempted on the life of his father, Nicholas I. Then
he carefully got down to the main reform of his reign, the one that was
long overdue and a drag on Russia’s economic development, namely the emancipation
of peasants from serfdom.
He saw that the landed gentry were nervous about likely peasant uprisings
and told them that it was better to order the abolition of serfdom by his
edict than eventually lose control of the situation and have serfdom abolished
by riotous crowds. Alexander II urged the nobility to think over the best
way to carry out that important reform.
He prompted the gentry to think hard. The Main Committee on the Peasant
Issue was set up in 1858. Two years later the draft reform to emancipate
the peasants from serfdom was ready and put to a popular vote. When submitted
to the State Council for approval, the draft sparked off a bitter disagreement,
and it was only because the Emperor put his foot down on the issue that
the Council approved the draft reform. On February 19th, 1861 Alexander
II signed the historic manifesto for the emancipation of peasants from
the centuries-old serfdom and granted them the right to buy out plots of
land from their landowners.
23 million Russian peasants regained their long wished-for freedom. According
to Alexander II, that was the best day of his life.
The reform proved to be one of paramount importance for the future of Russia.
Along with personal liberty peasants received plots of land with the right
to buy them out within 49 years, and were also granted civil rights, namely
the right to choose their place or residence, the right to trade, to open
factories, engage in artisan production.
The abolition of serfdom entailed a spate of other reforms that affected
almost all social aspects. It equalized the legal status of all estates,
as well as their education and conscription rights. The reform gave
a powerful incentive to Russia’s economic and cultural development.
Meanwhile, society was extremely excited by profound change and would not
settle down. Life democratization brought about unprecedented personal
liberty, which gave rise to mental ferment and a wish to take that liberty
to extremes. Some intellectuals began to repudiate the existing way of
life and thought they were free to ignore laws. They were called “nihilists”.
Having read a lot of books on socialism, they made it their life-work to
disseminate socialist ideas in Russia. Revolutionary organizations cropped
up in different cities, seeking a change in the government system and the
introduction of a constitution.
But as Alexander II carried out his transformations, he was not about to
replace autocracy with an elective system of government. He was convinced
that the absolute monarchy was the best form of government in Russia. When
asked if a constitution and liberal institutions could be introduced into
Russia, Alexander II said:
“The people throughout Russia see their Monarch as God’s messenger, a paternal
and omnipotent master. This feeling is almost as deep as religious beliefs
and inseparable from personal dependence on me, and I think I am right.
If I were to forgo the feeling of power that stems from my crown, I would
have a breach in the halo that the nation is in possession of. It is impossible
to remove the deep respect that the Russian people have from of old by
virtue of the fact that it is an inbred feeling, the feeling that the people
encompass their Tsar’s throne with. I would seek no compensation for reducing
the degree of government masterfulness if only I wanted to make representatives
of the nobility or the nation at large part of the Government. God knows
where we may find ourselves in the case of peasants and landowners if the
Tsar fails to wield sufficient authority to crucially affect the events”.
The Emperor thought that Russia had not yet matured to have a constitution.
This related not so much to the lower orders, as to the people of quality
who “had not yet reached the degree of education that is required for representative
government.”
As he was carried away by reforms, the Sovereign failed to see the fearful
dangers that began to face him personally and the nation at large. The
shot fired by revolutionary Dmitry Karakozov, who attempted on the life
of the Emperor on April 4th, 1866 was the first harbinger of the tragic
end that befell the Tsar 15 years later.
The attempt on his life prompted Alexander II to order a curtailment of
the reforms that he had been making Herculean efforts to implement in the
previous decade. Repressions against revolutionaries were intensified.
Alexander II gave up legislation in favour of attaining Empire-scale
objectives, specifically gaining new territories, mostly in the south and
the east, and also settling border conflicts.
The Russian troops had finally conquered the Caucasus. The mountaineer
leader Shamil had surrendered and was brought to Russia.
Following a period of ineffective resistance to the Russian troops the
small Central Asian khanates of Kokand, Khiva and Bukhara, located on the
trade route from Russia to China, incorporated into Russia.
In the Far East China ceded to Russia the right bank of the Amur river
and the entire Ussuri territory.
The reign of Alexander II is also known for the establishment of friendly
relations with the United States. During the US Civil War Russia sent a
squadron to America, and the Russian warships’ calls at the ports of Boston,
New  York
and Philadelphia became a display of open support for the Union. The US
Congress reciprocated, in view of Karakozov’s attempt on the Russian Emperor’s
life, by adopting a resolution to welcome the Russian Tsar. It was Alexander’s
striving for consolidating the two great powers’ alliance that prompted
him to sell Alaska to the United States.
In 1875 a popular uprising broke out in the Slav-populated Bosnia and Herzegovina,
and also in Bulgaria, which were all Turkish-dominated. Turks quelled the
uprising with extreme brutality. Emperor Alexander II demanded an immediate
end to the carnage of Christians. Other European countries also interfered
in the developments in the Balkans. In the long run Russia declared war
on Turkey in 1877, a war for the liberation of its Slav brothers from the
Ottoman yoke. The war boosted patriotic sentiment in Russia and ended in
the defeat of Turkey.
The war pushed revolutionary activities in Russia to the background, but
once fighting was over, the revolutionaries were quick to re-emerge from
the shadows. The Emperor and top-ranking Russian officials were attempted
on in a continual chain of attacks.
Alexander II was known to be in the habit of personally ordering his Guards
to their posts, at the Mikhailov riding-academy on Sundays. And he invariably
followed the same route on his way home. He put off the event several times,
when told that yet another attempt was about to be made. He also put it
off on the fatal day of March 1st, 1881, and it was chance circumstances
that made him change his mind. “If the Lord wishes to call me, the Emperor
used to say, I am ready”. 
When the Royal carriage was moving along the Catherine Canal Embankment,
a bomb was hurled under it. The  carriage
was demolished, and Alexander, keeping a stiff upper lip, emerged from
the wreckage to find out if anyone of his guards had been injured. The
casualties were two Cossacks and a boy from the nearby bakery. “What have
you done, you, madman?” he asked a young tow-head, who’d already been seized
by his grenadiers. Then he bent down to the dying child to make the sign
of the cross over him and walked back to what remained of his carriage.
At this moment another terrorist threw a bomb at him. The bleeding Emperor
was rushed to the Palace, where he died several hours later.
That was the tragic end of the life and reign of Alexander II, the Emancipator
Tsar, the Reformer Tsar who took Russia to another stage in its history.
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Illustrations:
V.Kelner. “March 1, 1881. Assassination of Emperor Alexander II”, Lenizdat,
Leningrad, 1991
N.Orlova. “History of Russia. Tsars and Emperors”, Bely Gorod, Moscow,
2001
03/31/2005
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