19 th Century Russia… Fathers & Sons

The Romanovs  First came to the throne in 1613  Ruled Russia until 1917

Catherine the Great ( r )  Was German; married Peter III  Peter was deposed in a military coup  Catherine was an “enlightened monarch” who corresponded with Voltaire  Life of peasants & serfs worsened during her reign  Rights & privileges were restored to the gentry in the provinces; they gained property rights & more control over serfs  Serfdom itself expanded through giving gifts of land and the people on the land

 Also a patron of the arts  Worked to improve education, but price of schools kept poorer people illiterate Assumption Cathedral

Pugachev’s Rebellion  Part of a series of peasant revolts  Pugachev promised serfs freedom & their own land  After his defeat & death, Catherine strengthened control of Russian govt over the serfs

What’s in a Name? Constantine Pavlovich Alexander Pavlovich (r ) Alexander I Nicholas P avolvich (r ) Nicholas I

Nicholas I ascended the throne  Alexander I died; Constantine & Nicholas debated who would be next Tsar  In the meantime… Decembrist Revolt (1825) some thought Constantine Pavlovich would be a more liberal tsar  Some of the soldiers in the army had been part of the occupation of France after the defeat of Napoleon  They brought home Enlightenment ideas  They wanted a constitutional monarchy and reform

Nicholas I as Tsar… Autocratic Tsar of All the Russias  Change is BAD!  Motto was “autocracy, orthodoxy & nationality”  Policy was Russification  Believed that liberating serfs would cause nobles not to support the tsar  The Orthodox Church was an arm of the secular government… controlled schools & universities  The Orthodox religion provided the basis for morality, education & intellectual life

 Nicholas I strengthened secret police  Increased censorship  He suppressed a rebellion in Poland in 1830  Helped Austria defeat revolutions in 1848  Became involved in the Crimean War in 1852  Two ways of thinking about how to improve Russia emerged… Slavophiles and Westerners

Fathers & Sons… Alexander Nikolaevich (r ) Alexander II Alexander Alexandrovich (r ) Alexander III Nicholas Alexandrovich (r ) Nicholas II

When Alexander II became Tsar in 1855…  Approximately 2/3 of Russians were Orthodox.  Had 1/10 of the railroad track as Great Britain.  Had 650 miles of track; first railroad line built from St. Petersburg to Moscow.  Approximately 4/5 of Russians were illiterate peasants  Approximately 45% of Russians were serfs

 Nine of ten Russians lived in the countryside.  It took 3 Russian peasants to produce as much as 1 English farmer.  The gentry class was less than 2% of the population… most intellectuals came from this class.  Serfs/peasants spoke Russian.  Gentry spoke French… many did not know or understand Russian… in school, classes were in French except for Russian language class.

 St. Petersburg was very unsanitary with a lack of sewage system and clean water… deaths outnumbered births.  Intellectuals debated whether Russia was part of European civilization (Westerners) or was Russia a unique and superior civilization (Slavophiles)?  Some intellectuals believed they knew better than the tsar how to run the government; political reform was a major topic

Alexander II is most famous for… Emancipation of the Serfs (1861)  Government consulted the nobility about how to go about freeing the serfs  Alexander II believed the serfs needed to be freed by the government (defeat in Crimean War)  Owners received redemption certificates when their serfs were sent to the military  The land allotments freed serfs received was small and of inferior quality  Many freed serfs became tenant farmers  The traditional right to timber & firewood was eliminated

 Freed serfs had to pay the government redemption payments over a period of 49 years  The government used the money to compensate nobles for the loss of the serfs’ labor and of land

Additional Reforms…  Zemstovs—elected local governments, but elected on a tiered system; nobles dominated; only in ethnically Russian areas  Judicial (1864)—gave independence to the courts; the separate military, church and peasant courts continued to exist  Trial by jury and right to a lawyer were part of the reforms  Judicial reforms were not applied in all parts of the Russian empire, such as Poland

 Military… in 1874 adult male draft was introduced to replace serf/peasant armies… serfs had been required to serve 25 years!  The goal was to create a professional army similar to the armies of Britain & France  Level of education determined the length of service  No primary education… 6 years... Service included literacy classes  If completed primary school… 4 years  If completed secondary school… 2 years  With a university education… 6 months

Reactions to reform…  Populist Movements… based on the peasants; middle class & upper class young people would go to the countryside to try to educate peasants. Generally peasants were suspicious of the outsiders  Land & Liberty… more radical and some in the group favored terrorism & assassination; the group split into the more radical People’s Will and the populist Black Repartition

Assassination of Alexander II  There were about 8 different assassination attempts  Some said Alexander went too far with reform, others said not far enough  Some were unhappy that Alexander was not willing to allow the government to have a constitution

One of the conspirators… Sophia Perovskaya Site of the assassination: Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood

The Son… Alexander III  End of reforms  Secret police… Okhrana founded originally to protect the tsar’s family; expanded to hunting down all revolutionaries  Okhrana had offices in several countries, such as in Paris, France  Policy of Russification; allowed pogroms against Jews (watch Fiddler on the Roof)  Restricted the power of the zemstovs  Increased censorship… reversed other reforms  Revolutionary activities increased

Russian Empire… early 20 th Century

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