An enlightened monarch? Emperor Alexander II ruled imperial Russia with a moderate hand during the 19th century. He liberated the serfs and built railroads. He was about to create a constitutional monarchy, when a bomb killed him.

A Modernizing Monarch

When Alexander II took power, Russia was an agricultural nation that had been controlled by autocratic tsars who trumpeted Slavic cultural superiority, feared liberal revolutions, and preserved the feudal injustices of serfdom. Alexander became the great modernizer of Russia, walking a delicate line between preserving Russia's Slavic identity and enabling its people to benefit from Western advancements.

For centuries, Russian tsars desired maritime access to the Mediterranean Sea. France, Britain, and the Ottoman Empire feared that such expansion would jeopardize their interests in the region. The conflict came to a head with the Crimean War of 1853-1856. Roughly 300,000 Russians died in the fierce fighting that resulted in a Russian military loss.

 

The Charge of the Light Brigade

Russia's poor military performance in the war, especially its inability to utilize rail links to mobilize troops, left a lasting impression on Alexander, who signed the Peace of Paris in 1856.

With the emancipation of the serfs, Tsar Alexander II helped forge a new idea of a Russian citizen. The Emancipation of the Serfs in Russia is one work in a series entitled The Slav Epic that was painted in the early 20th century by Alphonse Mucha.

Alexander the Emancipator

On February 19, 1861, Alexander signed the Edict of Emancipation, which abolished serfdom. The Russian state confiscated millions of acres of land from the nobility and gave them limited compensation. The nobility lost over one-third of its land, much of it going to former serfs, who became landowners through the mir, a village community practicing collective agriculture. Mirs and their members ultimately paid compensation through the redemption tax, which hindered development.

Serfdom ended largely due to the efforts of Russian abolitionists and of Alexander, the "Tsar liberator." According to the Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy, "We owe the Emancipation to the Emperor [Alexander] alone."

Leo Tolstoy is among the greatest writers of all time. His epic novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina have been read by millions of people. Although he was born into the nobility, Tolstoy ardently supported serf emancipation.

Imperial Russia's Shining Era

Alexander's economic reforms included the expansion of Russia's railroad system, which at the time of the Crimean War consisted of only 650 miles of tracks. It was American money and engineering that between 1842 and 1851 had built Russia's first rail line linking St. Petersburg and Moscow. New railroads soon linked Russia with western Europe, which facilitated the sale of Russian grain and oil, as well as the importation of Western goods, capital, and ideas.

The reign of Alexander II was marked by a flourishing cultural life. Despite the advances of the peasants and working class, the splendor of the imperial court remained unsurpassed in eastern Europe and soon caused much resentment among the Russian people.

Other key reforms of Alexander's regime included legal changes, such as the establishment of trial by jury, and educational improvements, which finally allowed women access to secondary education. Although Alexander did not offer consistent support for the arts, it was during his rule that great writerssuch as Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Ivan Turgenev wrote their masterpieces.

Russian intellectuals sharpened their Slavic identities on the iron and steel of Alexander's modernization. Poles and Finns chafed at Russian control. Writers and artists espoused anti-Western attitudes. Marxists protested industrial work conditions. Nihilists, terrorists, and anarchists called for the abolition of the state and the assassination of its leaders. On March 13, 1881, in the midst of this instability, Alexander II died at the hands of a Polish terrorist, thus ending a quarter century of rule that helped bring Russia into the modern age.

Alexander's liberalization of Russian society had its limits. Secret police forces and state censorship inhibited political organization. Corruption precluded the efficient operation of state bureaucracies. Russian authorities continued to exile dissenters to Siberia. These practices increased under Alexander III.

By the end of the 19th century, Russia lagged behind many of its European contemporaries. Liberal reform had barely advanced, and in industry Russia trailed Britain, France, and Germany. Although most Russian citizens were loyal to the Russian nation, the people were internally divided along class and ideological lines. The resulting social and political unrest eventually ended tsarist rule.