from the
Red Porch during his coronation on 26 August/7 September 1856 at the
Dormition Cathedral of the
Moscow Kremlin, painting by
Mihály Zichy. The painting depicts the moment when the Emperor crowned the Empress. The death of his father gave Alexander a diplomatic headache, for his father was engaged in open warfare in the southwest of his empire. On 15 January 1856, the new tsar took Russia out of the
Crimean War on the very unfavourable terms of the
Treaty of Paris (1856), which included the loss of the
Black Sea Fleet, and the provision that the
Black Sea was to be a demilitarized zone similar to a contemporaneous region of the
Baltic Sea. This gave him room to breathe and pursue an ambitious plan of domestic reforms.
Reforms Encouraged by public opinion, Alexander began a period of radical reforms, including an attempt not to depend on landed aristocracy controlling the poor, an effort to develop Russia's natural resources, and to reform all branches of the administration.
Boris Chicherin (1828–1904) was a political philosopher who believed that Russia needed a strong, authoritative government by Alexander to make the reforms possible. He praised Alexander for the range of his fundamental reforms, arguing that the tsar was:
Emancipation of the serfs Alexander II succeeded to the throne upon the death of his father in 1855. As Tsesarevich, he had been an enthusiastic supporter of his father's reactionary policies. That is, he always obeyed the autocratic ruler. But now he was the autocratic ruler himself, and fully intended to rule according to what he thought best. He rejected any moves to set up a parliamentary system that would curb his powers. He inherited a large mess that had been wrought by his father's fear of progress during his reign. Many of the other royal families of Europe had also disliked Nicholas I, which extended to distrust of the
Romanov dynasty itself. Even so, there was no one more prepared to bring the country around than Alexander II. 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 counsellor, Prince
Alexander Gorchakov. The country had been exhausted and humiliated by the war. Bribe-taking, theft and corruption were rampant. reading the Emancipation Manifesto, an 1873 painting by
Grigory Myasoyedov The Emancipation Reform of 1861 abolished
serfdom on private estates throughout the Russian Empire. By this edict more than 23 million people received their liberty. Serfs gained the full rights of free citizens, including rights to marry without having to gain consent, to own property, and to own a business. The measure was the first and most important of the liberal reforms made by Alexander II. Polish
landed proprietors of the Lithuanian provinces presented a petition hoping that their relations with the serfs might be regulated in a way more satisfactory for the proprietors. Alexander II 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. Without consulting his ordinary advisers, Alexander ordered the Minister of the Interior to send a circular to the provincial governors of
European Russia (
serfdom was rare in other parts) 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. , 1864 Emancipation was not a simple goal capable of being achieved instantaneously by imperial decree. It contained complicated problems, deeply affecting the economic, social, and political future of the nation. Alexander had to choose between the different measures recommended to him and decide, if the serfs would become agricultural laborers dependent economically and administratively on the landlords, or if the serfs would 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, six years after his accession, the emancipation law was signed and published.
Additional reforms for
Russian Alaska in 1867 A host of new reforms followed in diverse areas. The tsar appointed
Dmitry Milyutin to carry out significant reforms in the Russian armed forces. Further important changes were made concerning industry and commerce, and the new freedom thus afforded produced a large number of
limited liability companies. Plans were formed for building a great network of railways, partly to develop the natural resources of the country, and partly to increase its power for defense and attack. Military reforms included universal
conscription, introduced for all social classes on 1 January 1874. Prior to the new regulation, as of 1861, conscription was compulsorily enforced only for the peasantry. Conscription had been 25 years for serfs who were drafted by their landowners, which was widely considered to be a life sentence. Other military reforms included extending the reserve forces and the military district system, which split the Russian states into 15 military districts, a system still in use over a hundred years later. The building of strategic railways and an emphasis on the military education of the officer corps comprised further reforms.
Corporal punishment in the military and branding of soldiers as punishment were banned. The bulk of important military reforms were enacted as a result of the poor showing in the Crimean War. A new judicial administration (1864), based on the French model, introduced security of tenure. A new
penal code and
a greatly simplified system of civil and criminal procedure also came into operation. Reorganisation of the judiciary occurred to include trial in open court, with judges appointed for life, a jury system, and the creation of justices of the peace to deal with minor offences at local level. Legal historian Sir
Henry Maine credited Alexander II with the first great attempt since the time of
Grotius to codify and humanise the usages of war. , on a hunting trip together, 1872 Alexander's bureaucracy instituted 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. Under Alexander's rules
Jews could not own land, and were restricted in travel. However special taxes on Jews were eliminated and those who graduated from secondary school were permitted to live outside the
Pale of Settlement, and became eligible for state employment. Large numbers of educated Jews moved as soon as possible to Moscow, Saint Petersburg, and other major cities. The
Alaska colony was losing money, and would be impossible to defend in wartime against Britain, so in 1867 Russia
sold Alaska to the United States for $7.2 million (equivalent to $ million in ). The Russian administrators, soldiers, settlers, and some of the priests returned home. Others stayed to minister to their native parishioners, who remain members of the
Russian Orthodox Church into the 21st century.
Reaction after 1866 at its height in 1866 Alexander maintained a generally liberal course. Radicals complained he did not go far enough, and he became a target for numerous assassination plots. He survived attempts that took place in 1866, 1879, and 1880. Finally , assassins organized by the
Narodnaya Volya (People's Will) party killed him with a bomb. The Emperor had earlier in the day signed the
Loris-Melikov constitution, which would have created two legislative commissions made up of indirectly elected representatives, had it not been repealed by his reactionary successor
Alexander III. An attempted assassination in 1866 started a more conservative period that lasted until his death. Under Minister of Education
Dmitry Tolstoy, liberal university courses and subjects that encouraged critical thinking were replaced by a more traditional curriculum, and from 1871 onwards only students from
gymnasiums could progress to university. this was abandoned. However, in 1856, at the beginning of his reign, Alexander made a memorable speech to the deputies of the Polish nobility who inhabited
Congress Poland, Western
Ukraine,
Lithuania,
Livonia, and
Belarus, in which he warned against further concessions with the words, "Gentlemen, let us have no dreams!" This served as a warning to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The territories of the former
Poland-Lithuania were excluded from liberal policies introduced by Alexander. 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 of suppression was Russian support for the
unification of Germany. The
martial law in Lithuania, introduced in 1863, lasted for the next 40 years. Native languages,
Ukrainian, and
Belarusian, were completely banned from printed texts, the
Ems Ukase being an example. The authorities banned use of the Latin script for writing Lithuanian. The
Polish language was banned in both oral and written form from all provinces except
Congress Poland, where it was allowed in private conversations only.
Nikolay Milyutin was installed as governor and he decided that the best response to the January Uprising was to make reforms regarding the peasants. He devised a program which involved the emancipation of the peasantry at the expense of the nationalist landowners and the expulsion of
Roman Catholic priests from schools.
Emancipation of the Polish peasantry from their
serf-like status took place in 1864, on more generous terms than the emancipation of Russian peasants in 1861.
Encouraging Finnish nationalism "The Liberator" at the
Senate Square in Helsinki, by sculptor
Walter Runeberg. It was erected in 1894, when Finland was still a Russian grand duchy. In 1863, Alexander II re-convened the
Diet of Finland and initiated several reforms increasing Finland's autonomy within the Russian Empire, including establishment of its own currency, the
Finnish markka. Liberation of business led to increased
foreign investment and industrial development. Finland also got its first
railways, separately established under Finnish administration. 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 Finnish society. Alexander II is still regarded as "The Good Tsar" in Finland. During the
American Civil War (1861–1865), Russia supported the
Union, largely due to the view that the U.S. served as a counterbalance to their geopolitical rival,
Great Britain. In 1863, the
Russian Navy's
Baltic and
Pacific fleets wintered in the American ports of New York and San Francisco, respectively. in the centre of
Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria The
Treaty of Paris of 1856 stood until 1871, when Prussia defeated France in the
Franco-Prussian War. During his reign,
Napoleon III, eager for the support of the United Kingdom, had opposed Russia over the
Eastern Question. France abandoned its opposition to Russia after the establishment of the
French Third Republic. Encouraged by the new attitude of French diplomacy and supported by the German Chancellor
Otto von Bismarck, Russia renounced the Black Sea clauses of the Paris treaty agreed to in 1856. As the United Kingdom with Austria could not enforce the clauses, Russia once again established a
fleet in the Black Sea. France, after the Franco-Prussian War and the loss of
Alsace–Lorraine, was fervently hostile to Germany and maintained friendly relations with Russia. In the
Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878) the states of
Romania,
Serbia, and
Montenegro gained international recognition of their independence while
Bulgaria and
Eastern Rumelia achieved their autonomy from direct Ottoman rule. Russia took over
Southern Bessarabia, lost in 1856.
End of the Caucasian War surrendered to Count Baryatinsky on 25 August 1859. The
Russo-Circassian War (1763–1864) concluded as a Russian victory during Alexander II's rule. Just before the conclusion of the war the Russian Army, under the emperor's order, implemented the mass-killings and extermination of
Circassian "mountaineers" in the
Circassian genocide, which would be often referred to as "cleansing" and "genocide" in several historic dialogues. In 1857,
Dmitry Milyutin first published the idea of
mass expulsions of Circassian natives. Milyutin argued that the goal was not to simply move them so that their land could be settled by productive farmers, but rather that "eliminating the Circassians was to be an end in itself – to cleanse the land of hostile elements". Tsar Alexander II endorsed the plans. and it was mostly completed by 1867. Only a small percentage accepted surrender and resettlement within the
Russian Empire. The remaining Circassian populations who refused to surrender were thus variously dispersed, resettled, or killed
en masse.
Liberation of Bulgaria In April 1876, the
Bulgarian population in the Balkans rebelled against
Ottoman rule. The Ottoman authorities suppressed the
April Uprising, causing a general outcry throughout Europe. Some of the most prominent intellectuals and politicians on the Continent, most notably
Victor Hugo and
William Gladstone, sought to raise awareness about the atrocities that the Turks imposed on the Bulgarian population. To solve this new crisis in the "Eastern question" a
Constantinople Conference was convened by the Great Powers in Constantinople at the end of the year. The participants in the Conference failed to reach a final agreement. After the failure of the Constantinople Conference, at the beginning of 1877, Emperor Alexander II started diplomatic preparations with the other Great Powers to secure their neutrality in case of a war between Russia and the Ottomans. Alexander II considered such agreements paramount in avoiding the possibility of causing his country a disaster similar to the Crimean War. 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 (which was never built) to commemorate the event.
Modest Mussorgsky later wrote his piano suite
Pictures at an Exhibition, the last movement of which, "The Great Gate of Kiev", is based on Hartmann's sketches. During the
1867 World's Fair in Paris, Polish immigrant
Antoni Berezowski attacked the carriage containing Alexander, his two sons and
Napoleon III. His self-modified double-barreled pistol misfired and struck the horse of an escorting cavalryman. On the morning of 20 April 1879, Alexander 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 Emperor fled in a zigzag pattern. Soloviev fired five times but missed; he was sentenced to death and hanged on 28 May. The student acted on his own, but other revolutionaries were keen to murder Alexander. However, dinner had been delayed by the late arrival of the tsar's nephew, the
Prince of Bulgaria, so the tsar and his family were not in the dining room at the time of the explosion and were unharmed. ==Assassination==