Russia
Alexander II, the Liberator - Emperor: 2 March 1855 – 13 March 1881
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Crowned Imperial Monogram of Alexander II.
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II Nikolaevich) Aleksandr  (Alexander (Russian: Александр II Николаевич, Aleksandr II  Nikolaevich) (29 April [O.S.  17 April] 1818, Moscow – 13 March [O.S.  1 March] 1881, Saint Petersburg ), also known as Alexander the Liberator (Russian: Александр Освободитель, Aleksandr  Osvoboditel') was the Emperor , or Czar , of the Russian Empire from 3 March 1855 until his assassination in 1881. He was also the Grand Duke of Finland and the King of Poland .

Born in 1818, he was the eldest son of Nicholas I of Russia and Charlotte of Prussia , daughter of Frederick William III of Prussia and Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz . His early life gave little indication of his  ultimate potential; until the time of his accession in 1855, aged 37, few  imagined that he would be known to posterity as a leader able to implement the  most challenging reforms undertaken in Russia since the reign of Peter the Great .

In the period of his life as heir  apparent , the intellectual atmosphere of St. Petersburg was unfavourable to any kind of changes, freedom of thought and all private initiative being, as far as possible,  suppressed vigorously. Personal and official censorship   was rife; criticism of the authorities was regarded as a serious offense. Some  26 years after he had the opportunity of implementing changes he would, however,  be assassinated in public by Narodnaya Volya terrorist organization.

His education as a future Tsar was carried out under the  supervision of the liberal romantic poet and gifted translator Vasily Zhukovsky ,  grasping a smattering of a great many subjects, and feeling exposure to the  chief modern European languages . His alleged lack of interest in military affairs detected by  later historians could be only his reflection on the results on his own family  and on the whole spirit of the country by the unsavoury Crimean  War . Unusually for the time, the young Alexander was taken on a six-month  tour of Russia, visiting 20 provinces in the country. He also visited many  prominent Western European countries.

Reign

Alexander II succeeded to the throne upon the death of his  father in 1855. The first year of his reign was devoted to the prosecution of  the Crimean War , and after the fall of Sevastopol   to negotiations for peace, led by his trusted counselor, Prince Gorchakov . It was widely thought that the country had been exhausted  and humiliated by the war. Encouraged by public opinion he began a period of  radical reforms, including an attempt to not to depend on a landed aristocracy  controlling the poor, to develop Russia's natural resources and to thoroughly  reform all branches of the administration.

Autocratic power was now in the hands of someone with some  sort of flexible thought, sufficient prudence and practicality.

However, the growth of a  revolutionary movement to the "left" of the educated classes led to an  abrupt end to Alexander's changes when he was assassinated in 1881. It is  notable that after Alexander became tsar in 1855, he maintained a generally  liberal course at the helm while being a target for numerous assassination  attempts (1866, 1873, 1880).

Emancipation of the serfs

limited liability companiess. Plans were formed for building a great network  of railways —partly for the purpose of developing the natural resources of the  country, and partly for the purpose of increasing its power for defense and  attack.

The existence of serfdom was  tackled boldly taking advantage of a petition presented by the Polish landed proprietors of the Lithuanian   provinces, and hoping that their relations with the serfs might be regulated in  a more satisfactory way (meaning in a way more satisfactory for the  proprietors), he authorized the formation of committees "for ameliorating the  condition of the peasants," and laid down the principles on which the  amelioration was to be effected.

This step was followed by one still more significant. Without  consulting his ordinary advisers, Alexander ordered the Minister of the Interior  to send a circular to the provincial governors of European Russia , containing a copy of the instructions forwarded to the governor-general of Lithuania, praising the supposed generous, patriotic  intentions of the Lithuanian landed proprietors, and suggesting that perhaps the  landed proprietors of other provinces might express a similar desire. The hint  was taken: in all provinces where serfdom existed, emancipation committees were  formed.

But the emancipation was not merely a humanitarian question  capable of being solved instantaneously by imperial ukase . It  contained very complicated problems, deeply affecting the economic, social and  political future of the nation.

Alexander had to choose between the different measures  recommended to him. Should the serfs become agricultural labourers dependent  economically and administratively on the landlords, or should they be  transformed into a class of independent communal proprietors?

The emperor gave his support to the latter project, and the  Russian peasantry became one of the last groups of peasants in Europe to shake  off serfdom.

The architects of the emancipation manifesto were Alexander's  brother Konstantin , Yakov Rostovtsev , and Nikolay Milyutin .

On 3 March 1861 , 6 years after his accession, the  emancipation law was signed and published.

Other reforms

Army   and navy   reorganisation and rearmament was initiated in response to the overwhelming  defeat suffered by Russia in the Crimean War, and an awareness of military  advances being implemented in other European countries. The changes included  universal military conscription, the creation of an army reserve and the  military district system (still in use a century later), the building of  strategic railways, and an emphasis on military education of the officer corps.

A new judicial administration based on the French model  (1864); a new penal code   and a greatly simplified system of civil and criminal procedure .

An elaborate scheme of local self-government (Zemstvo)  for the rural districts (1864) and the large towns (1870), with elective  assemblies possessing a restricted right of taxation , and a new rural and municipal police under  the direction of the Minister of the Interior .

Alexander II would be the second monarch (after King Louis I of Portugal ) to abolish capital punishment , a penalty which is still legal (although not practised)  in Russia.

However, the workers wanted better working conditions;  persecuted national minorities, "integrated" only in the last 50 or 60 years or  so, wanted freedom.

When radicals began to resort to the formation of secret societies and to revolutionary agitation, Alexander II felt  constrained to adopt severe repressive measures.

The idea that some moderate liberal reforms, in an attempt to  quell the revolutionary agitation, will do, and the creation of special  commissions as proven by an ukase he  delivered would not do either. The Marxist idea of countries being liberated  from capitalism and soviets of workers united for the World Revolution, but respecting their own  national characteristics, was clearly out of place within the Russian land  aggregation processes of the 17th, 18th and 19th Centuries.

Marriages and children

During his bachelor days, Alexander made a state visit to  England in 1838. Just a year older than the young Queen Victoria , Alexander's approaches to her were indeed short-lived.  Victoria married her German cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg in February 1840. On 16 April 1841, aged 23,  Tsarevitch Alexander married Princess Marie of Hesse in St Petersburg, thereafter known in Russia as Maria Alexandrovna .

(Marie was the legal daughter of Ludwig II, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine and Princess Wilhelmina of Baden , although some gossiping questioned whether the  Grand Duke Ludwig or Wilhelmina's lover, Baron August von Senarclens de Grancy , was her biological father.   Alexander was aware of the question of her paternity ).

The marriage produced six sons and two daughters:

• Grand Duchess Alexandra Alexandrovna (30 August 1842 – 10 July 1849),  nicknamed Lina, died of infant  meningitis in St. Petersburg at the age of six

• Tsarevich Nicholas Alexandrovich (20 September 1843 – 24 April 1865),  engaged to Dagmar of Denmark (Maria Feodorovna)

• Tsar Alexander III (10 March 1845 – 1 November 1894), married 1866, Dagmar of Denmark (Maria Feodorovna) , had issue

• Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich (22 April 1847 – 17 February 1909),  married 1874, Marie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (Maria Pavlovna) , had issue

• Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich (14 January 1850 – 14 November 1908),  had (presumably illegitimate) issue

• Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna (17 October 1853 – 20 October 1920)  married 1874, Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha , had issue

• Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich (29 April 1857 – 4 February 1905),  married 1884, Elisabeth of Hesse (Elizabeth Feodorovna)

• Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich (3 October 1860 – 24 January 1919),  married 1889, Alexandra of Greece and Denmark (Alexandra Georgievna) , had issue;  second marriage 1902, Olga Karnovich , had issue

Alexander had many mistresses during his marriage and  fathered 7 known illegitimate children. These included:

• Antoinette Bayer (20 June 1856 – 24 January 1948) with  his mistress Wilhelmine Bayer

• Michael-Bogdan Oginski (10 October 1848 – 25 March 1909)  with mistress Countess Olga Kalinovskya (1818–1854)

• Joseph Raboxicz

• Charlotte Henriette Sophie Jansen( 15 November 1844 –  July 1915) with mistress Sophie Charlotte Dorothea Von Behse (1828–1886)

On 6 July 1880, less than a month after Tsarina Maria's death  on 8 June, Alexander formed a morganatic marriage with his mistress Princess Catherine Dolgorukov , with whom he already had four children:

• George Alexandrovich Romanov Yurievsky (12 May 1872 – 13  September 1913). Married Countess Alexandra Zarnekau and had issue. They  later divorced.

• Olga Alexandrovna Romanov Yurievsky (7 November 1874 – 10  August 1925). Married Count Georg Nikolaus of Nassau, Count of Merenberg .

• Boris Alexandrovich Yurievsky (23 February 1876 – 11  April 1876).

• Catherine Alexandrovna Romanov Yurievsky (9 September  1878 – 22 December 1959) Her first husband was the 23rd Prince Alexander Alexandrovich Bariatinski , (1870–1910) the son of the 22nd  Prince Alexander Vladimirovich Bariatinski , (1848–1909). Her second husband,  later divorced, was Prince Serge Obolensky , (1890–1978).

Suppression  of separatist movements

At the beginning of his reign, Alexander expressed the famous  statement "No dreams" addressed for Poles, populating Congress Poland , Western Ukraine , Lithuania , Livonia and Belarus . The  result was the January Uprising of 1863–1864 that was suppressed after eighteen months of  fighting.

Hundreds of Poles were executed, and thousands were deported  to Siberia .  The price for suppression was Russian support for Prussian-united Germany . Twenty years later, Germany became the major enemy  of Russia on the continent.

All territories of the former Poland-Lithuania were excluded from liberal policies introduced by  Alexander. The martial  law in Lithuania, introduced in 1863, lasted for the next 40 years. Native  languages, Lithuanian , Ukrainian and Belarusian were completely banned from printed texts, see a , e.g., Ems Ukase . The Polish language was banned in both oral and written form from all provinces  except Congress Kingdom , where it was allowed in private conversations only.

Rewarding loyalty and encouraging Finnish nationalism within Russia

In 1863 Alexander II re-established the Diet of Finland and initiated several reforms increasing Finland's autonomy  from Russia including establishment of its own currency ,  the Markka . Liberation of enterprise led to increased foreign investment and industrial development.

Finally, the elevation of Finnish from a language of the common people to a national language equal to Swedish opened opportunities for a larger proportion of the society.  Alexander II is still regarded as "The Good Tsar" in Finland.

These reforms could be seen as results of a genuine belief  that reforms were easier to test in an underpopulated, homogeneous country, than  the in whole of Russia. They may also be seen as a reward for the loyalty of its  relatively western-oriented population during the Crimean war and during the Polish uprising . Encouraging Finnish nationalism and language can also be seen as an attempt to dilute ties with  Sweden.

Assassination attempts

In 1866, there was an attempt on the tsar's life in St. Petersburg by Dmitry Karakozov . To commemorate his narrow escape from death (which he  himself referred to only as "the event of 4 April 1866"), a number of churches  and chapels were built in many Russian cities. Viktor Hartmann , a Russian architect, even sketched a design of a monumental  gate (planned, never built) to commemorate the event. Modest Mussorgsky later wrote his Pictures at an Exhibition ; the last movement of which, "The Great Gate of  Kiev", is based on Hartmann's sketches.

On the morning of 20 April 1879, Alexander II was briskly  walking towards the Square of the Guards Staff and faced Alexander Soloviev , a 33-year-old former student. Having seen a menacing  revolver in his hands, the Tsar fled. Soloviev fired five times but missed, and  was sentenced to death and hanged on 28 May.

The student acted on his own, but other revolutionaries were  keen to murder Alexander. In December 1879, the Narodnaya Volya (People's Will), a radical revolutionary group which hoped  to ignite a social revolution , organized an explosion on the railway from Livadia to Moscow, but they missed the tsar's train.

On the evening of 5 February 1880 Stephan Khalturin , also from Narodnaya Volya, set off a charge under the  dining room of the Winter Palace , right in the resting room of the guards a story below. Being  late for dinner, the tsar was unharmed; although 11 other people were killed and  30 wounded. The dining room floor was also heavily damaged.

Assassination

After the last assassination attempt in February 1880, Count Loris-Melikov was appointed the head of the Supreme Executive  Commission and given extraordinary powers to fight the revolutionaries. Loris-Melikov's  proposals called for some form of parliamentary body, and the Emperor seemed to  agree; these plans were never realized.

On 13 March (1 March Old Style Date ), 1881, Alexander fell victim to an assassination plot.

As he was known to do every Sunday for many years, the tsar  went to the Manezh to review the Life Guards. He traveled both to and from the  Manezh in a closed carriage accompanied by six Cossacks   with a seventh sitting on the coachman's left. The tsar's carriage was followed  by two sleighs carrying, among others, the chief of police and the chief of the  tsar's guards. The route, as always, was via the Catherine Canal and over the Pevchesky Bridge .

The street was flanked by narrow sidewalks for the public. A  young member of the Narodnaya Volya (People's Will) movement, Nikolai Rysakov , was carrying a small white package wrapped in a  handkerchief.

"After a moment's hesitation I threw the bomb. I sent it  under the horses' hooves in the supposition that it would blow up under the  carriage...The explosion knocked me into the fence."

The explosion, while killing one of the Cossacks   and seriously wounding the driver and people on the sidewalk, had only damaged  the bulletproof carriage, a gift from Napoleon III of France. The tsar emerged  shaken but unhurt. Rysakov was captured almost immediately. Police Chief Dvorzhitsky heard Rysakov shout out to someone else in the gathering crowd.  The surrounding guards and the Cossacks urged the tsar to leave the area at once  rather than being shown the site of the explosion. A second young member of the Narodnaya Volya , Ignacy Hryniewiecki , standing by the canal  fence, raised both arms and threw something at the tsar's feet. He was alleged  to have shouted, "It is too early to thank God".  Dvorzhitsky was later to write:

"I was deafened by the new explosion, burned, wounded and  thrown to the ground. Suddenly, amid the smoke and snowy fog, I heard His  Majesty's weak voice cry, 'Help!' Gathering what strength I had, I jumped up  and rushed to the tsar. His Majesty was half-lying, half-sitting, leaning on  his right arm. Thinking he was merely wounded heavily, I tried to lift him  but the tsar's legs were shattered, and the blood poured out of them. Twenty  people, with wounds of varying degree, lay on the sidewalk and on the  street. Some managed to stand, others to crawl, still others tried to get  out from beneath bodies that had fallen on them. Through the snow, debris,  and blood you could see fragments of clothing, epaulets, sabers, and bloody  chunks of human flesh."

Later it was learned there was a third bomber in the crowd. Ivan Emelyanov stood ready, clutching a briefcase containing a bomb that  would be used if the other two bombers failed.

Alexander was carried by sleigh to the Winter Palace to his study where ironically, twenty years before almost to  the date, he had signed the Emancipation Edict freeing the serfs. Alexander was bleeding to death, with  his legs torn away, his stomach ripped open, and his face mutilated.  Members of the Romanov family came rushing to the scene.

The dying tsar was given Communion   and Extreme Unction . When the attending physician, Dr. S. P. Botkin , asked how long it would be, replied, "Up to fifteen  minutes"  At 3:30 that day the standard of Alexander II was lowered for the last time.

The assassination caused a great setback for the reform  movement. One of Alexander II's last ideas was to draft plans for an elected  parliament, or Duma ,  which were completed the day before he died but not yet released to the Russian  people. The first action Alexander III took after his coronation was to tear up  those plans. A Duma   would not come into fruition until 1905, by Alexander II's grandson, Nicholas II , who commissioned the Duma following heavy pressure on the  monarchy by the Russian Revolution of 1905 .

A second consequence of the assassination was anti-Jewish pogroms and legislation . Though only one Jew was involved in the assassination  conspiracy, over 200 Jews who had nothing to do with the murder of Alexander II  were beaten to death in these pogroms.

A third consequence of the assassination was that suppression  of civil liberties in Russia and police brutality burst back in full force after experiencing some restraint  under the reign of Alexander II. Alexander II's murder and subsequent death was  witnessed firsthand by his son, Alexander III , and his grandson, Nicholas II , both future Tsars, who vowed not to have the same fate befall  them. Both used the Okhrana to arrest protestors and uproot suspected rebel  groups, creating further suppression of personal freedom for the Russian people.