Alexander II was the 15th Romanov to rule over Russia. He came to power in February 1855 after his father, Nicholas I died of pneumonia, and is often thought of as a liberator due to his involvement in the emancipation of the serfs.
Life as the tsarevich
As the tsarevich, his father had well prepared him for his role. teaching him the value of duty and giving him a well-rounded education; he was tutored by a poet named Zhukovsky. Despite this training, he quite often remarked that he did not feel prepared for his role or that he couldn’t live up to his father.
1837 – Accompanied by Zhukovsky, he travelled round 29 different russian provinces, including siberia where he met exiled prisoners, which no other royal family member had done before. This trip was in the aim of bonding with his people, which really set the precedent for the rest of his reign. Out of all the tsars in the given time period, he was undoubtedly the most ‘for the people’, and he believed that the peoples’ opinion was still important even under autocratic rule.
1839 – He travelled around Europe and gained knowledge of more Western ideas and traditions and encountered the woman he then went on to marry.
Marriage and family life
During his tour of Europe, Alexander II encountered Princess Marie of Hesse and by Rhine and, although his parents did not initially approve due to doubts about Marie’s paternity, they came around and in 1840 the engagement between the two was officially announced. In December of 1840, Marie was officially welcomed into the Russian Orthodox Church, taking the name Maria Alexandrovna. On the 16th of April 1841, the Alexander and Marie were married in St Petersburg.
Over the course of their marriage they had eight children, six boys and two girls. The eldest Nicholas was prepared to be the next tsar. He was found a bride, Princess Dagmar of Denmark, however he died of meningitis in 1865, which devastated Alexander. Their second oldest son, Alexander III was then prepared to be the next tsar and did then marry his late brother’s fiancee. Over time Alexander II grew estranged from Alexander III and eventually alienated from each other. Despite this, Alexander III was still outraged over his fathers later death.
The main reason for the alienation between Alexander and many of his children was due to his affair with Catherine Dolgorukova. The pair had three surviving children. After the death of Maria Alexandrovna, Alexander II married Catherine in a ceremony which actually violated the Orthodox custom of waiting at least 40 days after the death of a previous spouse.
Alexander II as the Tsar
Alexander was rather unlike any tsar that came before him in that, as previously mentioned, he cared about the people’s opinion of him. He was also a rather enlightened individual with a humane perspective on life and who knew that Russia needed to become part of the modern world – however, he was still a firm believer in autocracy and did intend to preserve the best parts of the old systems. Despite this commitment to autocracy, he did continue to appoint more liberal-minded people to roles of authority in order to usher in reforms.
Emancipation of the Serfs – In 1861, Alexander issues a reform called, fittingly, the ‘Emancipation Reform of 1861’, which declared the abolition of serfdom on both private estates and of the domestic household serfs. This reform gave more than 23 million people their own liberty and the same rights as all other citizens. They could marry who they wanted without having to gain another’s permission, they could own property, or even own a business. The Emancipation Reform announced that the former serfs would also be allowed to buy their land from the landlords. However, it was not all light and joy and instant fixing of a systemic problem; there would be a two year transitionary period in which the serfs carried on living as serfs. They were also required to make annual payments, called ‘Redemption Payments’ for the new land which would continue over 49 years (a long time to be indebted to someone) and the peasants wouldn’t technically own the land until all the debts were payed off. Furthermore, the nobility were still involved in the policing of the peasants and the other landowners were compensated for the loss of land.
Why did he emancipate the serfs?
There were several good reasons for emancipating the serfs:
The first reason was Alexander’s aforementioned desire to catch Russia up to the rest of modern Europe, who had moved past the feudal serfdom centuries ago.
The was also the moral case for emancipation – many members of the royal family dating all the way back to Catherine the Great had considered that serfdom was ethically wrong. In fact, Alexander’s own father Nicholas had damned serfdom as ‘evil, palpable and obvious to all’.
Then there was the risk of revolt. After staying in power for so many years, the Romanovs had become adapt at placating the people just enough to not get overthrown. Alexander knew that, if he did not change the system from the top of it, the peasants would eventually force change, far more violently. from the bottom upwards.
What were the consequences of emancipating the serfs?
Overall, no one was particularly happy. The peasants felt that they had been promised something more than what they had gotten (49 years of payments) – in fact, in 1861 there were over 1,000 disturbances. This encouraged resentment amongst the peasants, which was similarly matched by the nobility. Nobles were upset because they had only been compensated over the loss of the land, and not over the loss of the serfs’ labour – many nobles did not want to adjust to having to hire labour to work their lands and instead either rented it out to others and became absent landlords, or they just sold off the land entirely. I believe that, while it was a necessary reform, it was never going to be entirely and whole-heartedly embraced.
Other reforms – In 1864, Alexander II created Zemstovs (local councils) to run some very specific aspects of local governments. They were in control of things like roads and schools in more rural areas. They appointed professionals like teachers and doctors and eventually were extended in 1870 to take in towns too. However, the electoral system still favoured nobles. From 1864 to 1865, Alexander made some reforms to the judicial system too. He created separate peasants courts, allowed the courts to be opened to the press and the public, and he, overall, simplified the court systems. From 1861 to 1881, Alexander reformed the military. He introduced universal conscription for all classes of people over the age of 21, military service was reduced from 25 years to 15 years, the training require to be an officer was entirely overhauled and now required things like better education, he modernised weaponry like riffles and artillery, and he also reduced corporal punishment. Education was also reformed. In the early 1860s Zemstovs took over the running of many rural schools, universities were given more control over what they taught, they actually built many more schools, and secondary schools were given permission to teach classical or modern subjects. However, after 1866, universities were then given less freedoms again, and the Ministry of Education took some of the control away from the Zemstovs. Also in the early 1860s censorship was somewhat relaxed – books, newspapers etc were allowed to print with less oversight, and newspapers could actually report on government issues.
The death of Alexander
Alexander II faced a fairly brutal, and somewhat stupid death. On the 1st of March 1881he was travelling home to the Winter Palace in St Petersburg when a member of a terrorist group called the People’s Will threw an explosive at him. Luckily Alexander was in an ironclad coach and survived then initial bomb. Stupidly, he then got out of the carriage inn what was believed to be an attempt to reason with the attackers. They threw a second bomb at him and he was hit. He insisted on being taken to the Winter Palace where he then succumbed to his injuries.
His death had a profound effect on his eldest living son Alexander III who, upon seeing how his father died after a rule of reform, decided to take his own tenure as tsar in a very different direction.