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Essay on Did Alexander II deserve the title Tsar Liberator?

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Did Alexander II deserve the title “Tsar Liberator”?
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 …show more content…

A majority of people that chose to accept freedom believing it would give them better opportunities in life soon realised that life as a free person wasn’t as positive as they initially thought.
Here it is clear that in the space of a year, people were already starting to question the nature of the freedom they had been granted and thus in turn the title that they had given to their leader. Alexander was becoming less of a liberator and more of a subjugator as Serfs had nowhere to go and no choice but to stay under the control of the autocracy.

Other social reforms introduced by Alexander were however more positive, allowing women into schools in 1863 and relaxing censorship in 1865 meant that many more people were getting access to education and information. Socially this was a big change; however the argument still stands as to whether this was liberating the people or simply giving them the impression of a more free society when in fact they had no choice but to conform to the autocratic rules. At this point however the multitude of social reforms that were actually beneficial to people all across Russia seem to outweigh the negative outlook.

Among others, Alexander II also introduced many political reforms resulting in greater

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