Alexander II of Russia

I

Introduction

Alexander II of Russia (1818-1881), Emperor (tsar) of Russia (1855-1881). He was responsible for the emancipation of the serfs and other important reforms that modernized and Westernized Russia's institutions.

II

Early Career

Alexander, born on April 29 (April 17 according to the Old Style, or Julian, calendar then in use in Russia), 1818, was the eldest son of Emperor Nicholas I and the nephew of Alexander I. Although as a boy he received the type of military training favoured by his father, he was also influenced by his tutor, the liberal poet Vasily Andreyevich Zhukovsky, and was instructed in Russian law by the reforming statesman Mikhail Mikhailovich Speransky. As heir to the throne, Alexander acquired extensive experience of government and travelled widely both within the Russian Empire and in Europe. In 1841 he married a princess of Hesse-Darmstadt, who took the name Mariya Aleksandrovna in Russia; they had eight children. After Mariya's death in 1880 Alexander entered into a morganatic marriage (a marriage with a member of a lower social class) with Princess Catherine Dolgorukaya, who had been his mistress for many years and had borne him four children; she was given the title of Princess Yurevskaya on her marriage.

III

Domestic Reform

Alexander came to the throne during the Crimean War, in which Britain and France were allied with Turkey against Russia. The war was brought to an end by the Treaty of Paris in 1856. Russia's defeat in the Crimea reflected the weaknesses of an army recruited largely from peasant serfs, and provided an impetus for the implementation of wide-ranging reforms. The Act of Emancipation of the serfs was issued on February 19, 1861, the tsar himself having played a major role in overcoming the opposition of the noble landowners. The most important of Alexander's other “great reforms” were those of the judicial system and of local government, which were introduced in 1864, and based on Western models. The tsar's initial reforming impulses were tempered by a wave of peasant protests against the terms of the Emancipation, and by a nationalist uprising in Russian Poland in 1863. Revolutionary socialists in Russia itself were dissatisfied with the reforms, and in April 1866 the student Dmitry Karakozov made an attempt on Alexander's life. The following year a Pole named Berezowsky tried to kill the tsar in Paris. Reforms continued after these attacks, but the second half of Alexander's reign was more conservative than the first, and the powers of the police were considerably strengthened.

IV

Foreign Policy

After the Crimean War, Russian foreign policy was primarily directed towards expansion in the Caucasus, Central Asia, and the Far East, where significant territorial gains were made. At the same time, Alexander disposed of Russia's possessions in North America, with the sale of Alaska to the United States in 1867. In 1877 Russia again went to war with Turkey, following unsuccessful Serbian and Montenegrin action in support of insurgents in the Turkish provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Russian intervention was encouraged by a “Pan-Slav” movement of conservative nationalists who believed that it was Russia's mission to liberate her fellow Slavs in the Balkans, especially the Orthodox Christians, from foreign overlordship. Although Alexander himself had little sympathy with Slav nationalist movements, which threatened the integrity of his own empire as much as those of Turkey (see Ottoman Empire) and Austria-Hungary, war was declared in April 1877. Russia achieved military victory in January 1878, but the terms of the Treaty of San Stefano of March 1878, which were very favourable to Russian interests in the Balkans, were largely negated by the Treaty of Berlin (see Congress of Berlin) in July 1878, as a result of diplomatic pressure by the other European powers.

In 1879 the terrorist organization Narodnaya Volya (“People's Will”) gained the ascendancy in the Russian revolutionary movement and began to plan the assassination of the tsar. Alexander survived several attempts on his life, but on March 13 (March 1, Old Style), 1881, a group of conspirators succeeded in killing him by throwing bombs at his carriage as he returned to the Winter Palace in St Petersburg after inspecting a military parade. On the morning of the day of his death Alexander had approved a proposal from Count Mikhail Loris-Melikov, the minister of the interior, that representatives from the elected local government bodies should be involved in the preliminary discussion of legislation—an idea the tsar had previously rejected on more than one occasion. This proposal was shelved by his son and successor, Alexander III.