Alexander the Second and the Title Tsar Liberator
In the 19th Century, Russia had no zemstva, very little education, industry and railway building, a biased judicial system and very few freed peasants. Czar Alexander II, who succeeded Nicolas I in 1855, went some ways to remedying these deficiencies through a series of reforms. Alexander II 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 this reason he was known to some as the ‘ Czar Liberator’. However, indeed he was a liberator in name only.
Alexander II initiated substantial reforms in education, the government, the
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For the educational reform, the Czar adopted a more liberal education. Censorship was relaxed, the universities were given freedom and independence, and more Western ideas were introduced to scholars and students. People were more open-minded and became to demand more under these ‘liberal’ reforms.
Though Czar Alexander II returned to reactionary rule when an attempt was made to assassinate him in the 1860s, he did turn once more to reform in 1880. He made plans to set up a General Commission which would include representatives from the Zemstva. This would not be a parliament but would be a ‘consultative voice’ when the Czar required it. But this was an attempt towards a parliamentary government.
Superficially, Czar Alexander II seemed to be so liberate from his series of reform. Yet, notwithstanding these measures, it would be wrong, as is sometimes done, to describe Alexander II as a liberal. He was in fact a firm upholder of autocratic principles, sincerely convinced both of his duty to maintain the God-given autocratic power he had inherited and of Russia's unreadiness for constitutional or representative government.
For the emancipation of serfs, it was actually essential more than out of the Czar’s willingness. The bulk of the Russian population, about 80%, were the peasants and serfs. Alexander II recognised that emancipation was vital. Freed
In 356 B.C.E., a boy named Alexander was born. He grew up to be a great child, with his dad being the king of Macedonia,but, when Alexander was very young, his father had been assassinated so he had to inherit the power (BGE) . By that time, his father had taken over Greece and was planning on going east to conquer Persia, which Alexander had taken over as the new king. After many rough wars, Alexander had finally taken over Persia, and was known as Alexander the Great (BGE, Doc A). Even after Alexander had taken over Persia, he kept pushing all the way east until his army had to tell him to stop. So, was Alexander as excellent as people say? Alexander was excellent because he had leadership, courage, and had many remarkable achievements over his time. By these measures, Alexander was great because of his military strategies, his strive to spread Greek culture,
Taking control of autocratic Russia in 1855, Alexander II was the successor to his father Tsar Nicolas I having been trained his entire life to take on the role. During his reign as Tsar, Alexander passed many reforms all of which varied in political, social and economic stance. His most famous reform was deemed to be that of the emancipation of the Serfs, gaining him the title ‘Tsar Liberator’ as many believed that his effort to free those who had be bound by slavery, made him a hero. However some question whether he truly deserved this title as many reforms became reactional and many initially liberating reforms were revoked in order to ensure the security of the autocracy. As
When he came into power (Probably also with the help and guidance of Pobedonostev) he got rid of and restricted a lot of power that the zemstva had. He kept them so it made the people think that they had some form of power and influence but they didn’t really have that influence they thought they had. He knew that this was kind of working because the people didn’t coplain as much, they knew that they had the opportunity to do something about it and so decided that they were happy with what they had as it was a giant leap up from nothing anyway. He made Land Captains (as they were known) the most important members of each zemstva area and these people had the most power and say as they reported directly to the minister of the interior. They made sure that nothing went over the top or in any way threatened the Tsar. This is proof that the Zemstva lost power to what Alexander II had gave them so that the Tsar was stronger all due to Alexander III reversing the reform, to a reasonable extent.
To Modernization of Russia began when Catherine the Great and Peter the Great came power in the 17th century. Peter The Great had the responsible and Peter the Great had developed a civil service which helped and had
Tsar Alexander II and III while father and son had very different ambitions as Tsar and different view for the future of the empire. Alexander III succeeded to his father’s throne in 1894. His reign is looked upon by most historians as a time of repression that saw the undoing of many of the reforms carried out by his father. Certainly that was a time of great economic and social change but these had led, in the West of the nation, great pressure on political system. However Alexander was deeply suspicious of the direction in which his father had taken Russia and the internal reforms that he instituted were designed to correct what he saw as the too-liberal tendencies of his father's reign.
His father, Alexander II had allowed reformers to be present in the government. This allowed instability and opposition at times when Russia was not in its better stages. Revolts and rebellions has plagued Russian History and opposed the Tsars in the past. From this, Alexander III wanted to keep reformers out of the Government in an attempt to reduce opposition and keep stability. He was somewhat successful, there were fewer rebellions against the Tsar and stability was in order
Intentions of Alexander II and the Failure of the Emancipation of the Serfs In the 19th century it was estimated that about 50 per cent of the 40,000,000 peasants in Russia were serfs, who worked on the land and were owned by the Russian nobility, the Tsar and religious foundations. This had been true for centuries; in 1861, however, this was all changed when Tsar Alexander II emancipated the serfs and gave them freedom from ownership. Alexander's decision was based on many reasons, and did not have the desired consequences, for the serfs at least. Therefore, it is possible to question Alexander's motives for such large reform, which this essay will do and will also look at why the emancipation,
This was achieved with the emancipation of the serfs. Still without a middle class, the government played a strong role in the early decisions with industrialization. The tsar during this time, Alexander II, had a great railroad network created that allowed for more efficient use of Russia’s plentiful natural resources.
The last Tsar Nicholas II ascended the throne in 1894 and was faced with a country that was trying to free itself from its autocratic regime. The serfs had recently been emancipated, the industry and economy was just starting to develop and opposition to the Tsar was building up. Russia was still behind Europe in terms of the political regime, the social conditions and the economy. Nicholas II who was a weak and very influenced by his mother and his wife had to deal with Russia’s troubles during his reign. In order to ascertain how successfully Russia dealt with its problems by 1914, this essay will examine the October Manifesto and the split of the opposition, how the Tsar became more reactionary after the 1905 revolution, Stolypin’s
The October Manifesto 1905 gained the Tsar back some of his support by promising reform; however the Tsar failed to abide by his promises and did not satisfactorily address the problems of Russia. To ensure his long-term survival the Tsar needed to address the problems that had caused the 1905 revolution. The action of Nicholas II to introduce reform saved his position in the throne s, though not for long as he took the wrong approach and chose to please some groups in Russian society and ignored the demands of others. Some changes were made that did temporarily satisfy his people such as the creation of a duma and the cancellation of the redemption payments. The creation of a duma meant the Tsar now had to delegate authority to parliament and could no longer consider himself an autocrat, however although it may of appeared that the Tsar now did not have ‘absolute’ power he didn’t really give the duma much power at all and he restricted their influence on the Russian government.
Alexander the Great is without doubt one of the greatest military leaders of history. Not only did Alexander of Macedon conquer enormous areas of the known world but also he demonstrated dynamic leadership and masterful strategy on a large scale and tactics on the battlefield. During his life, he ruled the largest empire the world had ever seen, which stretched from ancient Greece to India. The son of King Phillip II of Macedon, Alexander was educated by the philosopher Aristotle and first led Macedonian troops at age 18. Many times Alexander was worshipped as a god in some of the countries he ruled. He had a huge impact on world history spreading the seeds of western culture and philosophy across the world and has legends and stories
There are many leaders in the world, but a great ruler is passionate, honorable and one who can inspire even in the most hopeless circumstances. Alexander the Great was a great ruler. Alexander the Great was a ruler that was not only inspiring, but he was fearless, smart, bold and courageous. Alexander the Great inspired his soldiers to crave more. He has inspired people since the day he started ruling. What is inspirational about Alexander the Great is that he inspired his troops to the point that they did not question him when they were outnumbered three to one in a battle, they trusted him with their lives and were willing to die for him (Alexander the Great: man behind the legend).
Alexander II and Alexander III were both Tsars of Russia and they both believed in the divine will to rule the people. However Alexander II is said to be more liberal than Alexander III though they were both conservative in one way or the other in their social and economic policies because they both wanted to remain with the power over the people. Alexander II was more relaxed in his polices ‘’Great Reformer’’ and Alexander III was more strict ‘’great reactionary’’. After the defeat in the Crimean defeat Alexander II introduced very many reforms in Russia because he had seen how backward Russia was and how all the other
“Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority” (Acton Institute 1). Alexander the Great was and absolute ruler that had both influence and authority; he abused both which is why many of his subjects followed him out of fear and not loyalty. Rulers are defined by how they use their power, the decisions’ they make; and how those decisions will affect the people. In my essay, I will analyze two viewpoints’ made by two professors and their viewpoints about Alexander III and whether or not he was deserving of the title “The Great”.
The Prime minister, Lvov, was a wealthy landowner, who favored an immediate constitutional monarchy and ultimately a republic. Lvov was the outstanding personality in the Provisional Government. The most famous of the moderate socialists was Aleksndr Kerensky, the minister of justice. The collapse of the tsarist regime thus left in its wake two centers of political authority: (1) the traditional politicians of the Provisional Government, who had little control over the people, and (2) the democratically elected soviets, which exercised more political power owing to support from the great majority of workers and soldiers. This system of dual power proved to be unstable.