Alexander III Alexandrovich (February 26 (March 10), 1845, Anichkov Palace, St. Petersburg - October 20 (November 1), 1894, Livadia Palace, Crimea) - Emperor of All Russia, Tsar of Poland and Grand Duke of Finland from March 1 (13), 1881 . Son of Emperor Alexander II and grandson of Nicholas I; father of the last Russian monarch Nicholas II.
Alexander III is a significant figure in the history of Russia. During his reign, no Russian blood was shed in Europe. Alexander III ensured long years of calm for Russia. For his peace-loving policy, he entered Russian history as a "tsar-peacemaker."
He adhered to conservative-protective views and pursued a policy of counter-reforms, as well as Russification of the national outskirts.
He was the second child in the family of Alexander II and Maria Alexandrovna Romanov. According to the rules of succession to the throne, Alexander was not prepared for the role of the ruler of the Russian Empire. The throne was to take the elder brother - Nicholas. Alexander, not at all envious of his brother, did not feel the slightest jealousy, watching how Nicholas was being prepared for the throne. Nikolai was a diligent student, and Alexander was overcome by boredom in the classroom.
The teachers of Alexander III were such distinguished people as the historians Solovyov, Grott, the remarkable military tactician Dragomirov, and Konstantin Pobedonostsev. It was the latter who had a great influence on Alexander III, largely determining the priorities of the domestic and foreign policy of the Russian emperor. It was Pobedonostsev who brought up in Alexander III a true Russian patriot and Slavophile. Little Sasha was more attracted not by study, but by physical activity. The future emperor loved horseback riding and gymnastics. Even before he came of age, Alexander Alexandrovich showed remarkable strength, easily lifted weights and easily bent horseshoes. He did not like secular entertainment, he preferred to spend his free time on improving riding skills and developing physical strength. The brothers joked, they say, - "Sasha is the Hercules of our family." Alexander loved the Gatchina Palace, and loved to spend time there, spending his days walking in the park, thinking about the day ahead.
In 1855 Nicholas was proclaimed Tsarevich. Sasha was glad for his brother, and even more so that he himself would not have to be emperor. However, fate nevertheless prepared the Russian throne for Alexander Alexandrovich. Nicholas's health deteriorated. The Tsarevich suffered from rheumatism from a bruised spine, and later he also contracted tuberculosis. In 1865 Nikolai died. Alexander Alexandrovich Romanov was proclaimed the new heir to the throne. It is worth noting that Nicholas had a bride - the Danish princess Dagmar. They say that the dying Nikolai took the hands of Dagmar and Alexander with one hand, as if urging two close people not to be separated after his death.
In 1866, Alexander III set off on a trip to Europe. His path lies in Copenhagen, where he wooed his brother's bride. Dagmar and Alexander became close when they cared for the sick Nikolai together. Their engagement took place on June 17 in Copenhagen. On October 13, Dagmar converted to Orthodoxy and became known as Maria Fedorovna Romanova, and on that day the young people got engaged.
Alexander III and Maria Fedorovna Romanov lived a happy family life. Their family is a true role model. Alexander Alexandrovich was a real, exemplary family man. The Russian Emperor loved his wife very much. After the wedding, they settled in the Anichkov Palace. The couple was happy and raised three sons and two daughters. The first-born of the imperial couple was the son Nikolai. Alexander loved all his children very much, but the second son, Mishka, enjoyed special paternal love.
The high morality of the emperor gave him the right to ask her from the courtiers. Under Alexander III, the Russian autocrat fell into disgrace for adultery. Alexander Alexandrovich was modest in everyday life, did not like idleness. Witte, the Minister of Finance of the Russian Empire, witnessed how the emperor's valet darned worn things for him.
The emperor loved pictures. The Emperor even had his own collection, which by 1894 consisted of 130 works by various artists. On his initiative, a Russian museum was opened in St. Petersburg. He had great respect for the work of Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky. Alexander Romanov also liked the artist Alexei Bogolyubov, with whom the emperor had a good relationship. The emperor provided all kinds of support to young and talented cultural figures, museums, theaters and universities were opened under his patronage. Alexander adhered to truly Christian postulates, and in every possible way protected the Orthodox faith, tirelessly defending its interests.
Alexander III ascended the Russian throne after the assassination of Alexander II by revolutionaries - terrorists. It happened on March 2, 1881. For the first time, peasants were sworn in to the emperor, along with the rest of the population. In domestic policy, Alexander III embarked on the path of counter-reforms. The new Russian emperor was distinguished by conservative views.
During his reign, the Russian Empire achieved great success. Russia was a strong, developing country with which all European powers sought friendship. In Europe, there were always some political movements. And then one day, a minister came to Alexander, who was fishing, talking about affairs in Europe. He asked the emperor to somehow react. To which Alexander replied - "Europe can wait until the Russian Tsar catches fish." Alexander Alexandrovich really could afford such statements, because Russia was on the rise, and its army was the most powerful in the world. Nevertheless, the international situation obliged Russia to find a reliable ally. In 1891, friendly relations between Russia and France began to take shape, which ended with the signing of an alliance agreement.
According to the historian P. A. Zaionchkovsky, “Alexander III was quite modest in his personal life. He did not like lies, he was a good family man, he was hardworking ", working on state affairs often until 1-2 o'clock in the morning. “Alexander III had a certain system of views... To protect the purity of the ‘faith of the fathers’, the inviolability of the principle of autocracy and to develop the Russian people... - these are the main tasks that the new monarch set for himself... in some foreign policy issues, he discovered and probably common sense ».
As S. Yu. Witte wrote, “Emperor Alexander III had an absolutely outstanding nobility and purity of heart, purity of morals and thoughts. As a family man, he was an exemplary family man; as a boss and owner - he was an exemplary boss and an exemplary owner ... he was a good owner not because of a sense of self-interest, but because of a sense of duty. Not only in the royal family, but also among dignitaries, I never met that feeling of respect for the state ruble, for the state penny, which the Emperor possessed ... He knew how to inspire confidence abroad, on the one hand, that He would not act unfair to anyone, does not want any captures; everyone was calm that He would not start any adventure ... The Emperor Alexander III never disagreed with the word. What he said was felt by him, and he never deviated from what he said ... Emperor Alexander III was an extremely courageous man ”.
The emperor was a passionate collector, second only to Catherine II in this respect. Gatchina Castle literally turned into a storehouse of priceless treasures. Acquisitions of Alexander - paintings, art objects, carpets and the like - no longer fit in the galleries of the Winter Palace, Anichkov and other palaces. The extensive collection of paintings, graphics, decorative and applied arts, sculptures collected by Alexander III was transferred after his death to the Russian Museum established by the Russian Emperor Nicholas II in memory of his parent.
Alexander was fond of hunting and fishing. Often in the summer the royal family went to the Finnish skerries. Belovezhskaya Pushcha was the Emperor's favorite hunting ground. Sometimes the imperial family, instead of relaxing in the skerries, went to Poland to the Principality of Loviche, and there they enthusiastically indulged in hunting amusements, especially deer hunting, and most often ended their vacation with a trip to Denmark, to Bernstorf Castle - Dagmara's ancestral castle, where they often gathered from all over Europe her crowned relatives.
For all his outward severity in relation to his loved ones, he invariably remained a devoted family man and a loving father. Not only never in his life did he touch children with a finger, but he did not offend them with a harsh word.
On October 17, 1888, an attempt was made on Alexander III and the entire royal family. The terrorists derailed the train in which the emperor was. Seven wagons were broken, many victims. The king and his family remained alive by the will of fate. At the time of the explosion, they were in the restaurant car. During the explosion, the roof of the car with the royal family collapsed, and Alexander literally held it on himself until help arrived. After some time, he began to complain of back pain. During the examination, it turned out that the king had kidney problems. In the winter of 1894, Alexander caught a bad cold, and soon the emperor became very ill while hunting, and was diagnosed with acute nephritis. Doctors sent the emperor to the Crimea, where on November 20, 1894, Alexander III died.
Alexander III left a big mark in the history of Russia. After his death, the following lines were written in one of the French newspapers: - "He leaves Russia, greater than he received it."
Wife: Dagmar of Denmark (Maria Feodorovna) (November 14, 1847 - October 13, 1928), daughter of the Danish King Christian IX.
Children:
1. Nikolai Alexandrovich (later Emperor Nicholas II) (May 6, 1868 - July 17, 1918, Yekaterinburg);
2. Alexander Alexandrovich (May 26, 1869 - April 20, 1870, St. Petersburg);
3. Georgy Alexandrovich (April 27, 1871 - June 28, 1899, Abastumani);
4. Ksenia Alexandrovna (March 25, 1875 - April 20, 1960, London);
5. Mikhail Alexandrovich (November 22, 1878 - June 13, 1918, Perm);
6. Olga Alexandrovna (June 1, 1882 - November 24, 1960, Toronto).
CHAPTER ONE
Manifesto on the accession of the sovereign to the throne. - Evaluation of the reign of Emperor Alexander III (V. O. Klyuchevsky, K. P. Pobedonostsev). - General situation in 1894 - Russian Empire. - Royal authority. - Bureaucracy. – Tendencies of the ruling circles: “demophilic” and “aristocratic”. - Foreign policy and the Franco-Russian alliance. - Army. - Fleet. - Local government. – Finland. – Press and censorship. - Mildness of laws and courts.
The role of Alexander III in Russian history
“God Almighty was pleased in his inscrutable ways to interrupt the precious life of our dearly beloved Parent, Sovereign Emperor Alexander Alexandrovich. A serious illness did not succumb to either treatment or the fertile climate of the Crimea, and on October 20, He died in Livadia, surrounded by His August Family, in the arms of Her Imperial Majesty the Empress and Ours.
Our grief cannot be expressed in words, but every Russian heart will understand it, and We believe that there will be no place in Our vast State where hot tears would not be shed for the Sovereign, who untimely departed into eternity and left his native land, which He loved with all His might. Russian soul and on whose well-being He placed all His thoughts, sparing neither His health nor life. And not only in Russia, but far beyond its borders, they will never cease to honor the memory of the Tsar, who personified unshakable truth and peace, never violated in all His reign.
With these words, the manifesto begins, announcing to Russia the accession of Emperor Nicholas II to the ancestral throne.
The reign of Emperor Alexander III, who received the title of Tsar-Peacemaker, did not abound with external events, but it left a deep imprint on Russian and world life. During these thirteen years, many knots were tied - both in foreign and domestic policy - to untie or cut which happened to his son and successor, Emperor Nicholas II Alexandrovich.
Both friends and enemies of imperial Russia equally recognize that Emperor Alexander III significantly increased the international weight of the Russian Empire, and within its borders he confirmed and exalted the importance of autocratic tsarist power. He led the Russian state ship in a different course than his father. He did not believe that the reforms of the 60s and 70s were an unconditional blessing, but tried to introduce into them those amendments that, in his opinion, were necessary for the internal balance of Russia.
After the epoch of great reforms, after the war of 1877-1878, after this enormous exertion of Russian forces in the interests of the Balkan Slavs, Russia, in any case, needed a respite. It was necessary to master, to “digest” the changes that had taken place.
Estimates of the reign of Alexander III
In the Imperial Society of Russian History and Antiquities at Moscow University, a well-known Russian historian, prof. V. O. Klyuchevsky, in his speech in memory of Emperor Alexander III, a week after his death, said:
“During the reign of Emperor Alexander III, before the eyes of one generation, we peacefully carried out a number of deep reforms in our state system in the spirit of Christian rules, therefore, in the spirit of European principles - such reforms that cost Western Europe centuries and often stormy efforts, - and this Europe continued to see in us representatives of Mongolian inertia, some kind of imposed adoptives of the cultural world ...
13 years of the reign of Emperor Alexander III have passed, and the more hastily the hand of death hurried to close His eyes, the wider and more amazed the eyes of Europe were opened to the world significance of this short reign. Finally, even the stones cried out, the organs of European public opinion spoke the truth about Russia, and spoke the more sincerely, the more unusual it was for them to say this. It turned out, according to these confessions, that European civilization had insufficiently and carelessly secured peaceful development for itself, for its own safety it was placed on a powder magazine, that a burning wick approached this dangerous defensive warehouse more than once from different sides, and each time the caring and patient hand of the Russian Tsar quietly and cautiously took him away… Europe recognized that the Tsar of the Russian people was the sovereign of the international world, and by this recognition confirmed the historical vocation of Russia, for in Russia, according to its political organization, the will of the Tsar expresses the thought of His people, and the will of the people becomes the thought of its Tsar. Europe recognized that the country, which it considered a threat to its civilization, stood and stands on its guard, understands, appreciates and protects its foundations no worse than its creators; it recognized Russia as an organically indispensable part of its cultural composition, a vital, natural member of the family of its peoples...
Science will give Emperor Alexander III a proper place not only in the history of Russia and all of Europe, but also in Russian historiography, will say that He won a victory in the area where these victories are most difficult to get, defeated the prejudice of peoples and thereby contributed to their rapprochement, conquered the public conscience in the name of peace and truth, increased the amount of goodness in the moral circulation of mankind, encouraged and uplifted Russian historical thought, Russian national self-consciousness, and did all this so quietly and silently that only now, when He is no longer there, Europe understands what He was for her."
If Professor Klyuchevsky, a Russian intellectual and rather a “Westernizer”, dwells more on the foreign policy of Emperor Alexander III and, apparently, hints at a rapprochement with France, the closest collaborator of the late monarch, K.P. Pobedonostsev:
“Everyone knew that he would not yield to the Russian, the history of bequeathed interest either on the Polish or on other outskirts of the foreign element, that he deeply kept in his soul one faith and love for the Orthodox Church with the people; finally, that he, together with the people, believes in the unshakable significance of autocratic power in Russia and will not allow for it, in the specter of freedom, a disastrous confusion of languages and opinions.
At a meeting of the French Senate, its chairman, Challmel-Lacour, said in his speech (November 5, 1894) that the Russian people are experiencing “sorrow for the loss of a ruler, immensely devoted to his future, his greatness, his security; The Russian nation, under the just and peaceful rule of its emperor, enjoyed security, this highest good of society and an instrument of true greatness.
Most of the French press spoke about the deceased Russian tsar in the same tone: “He leaves Russia greater than he received it,” wrote the Journal des Debats; a “Revue des deux Mondes” echoed the words of V. O. Klyuchevsky: “This grief was also our grief; for us it has acquired a national character; but almost the same feelings were experienced by other nations ... Europe felt that it was losing an arbiter who had always been guided by the idea of justice.
International position at the end of the reign of Alexander III
1894 - like the 80s and 90s in general. - refers to that long period of "calm before the storm", the longest period without major wars in modern and medieval history. This time left its mark on all those who grew up in these quiet years. By the end of the 19th century, the growth of material well-being and foreign education proceeded with increasing acceleration. Technique went from invention to invention, science from discovery to discovery. Railroads, steamboats have already made it possible to "travel around the world in 80 days"; Following the telegraph wires, strands of telephone wires were already stretched all over the world. Electric lighting quickly replaced gas lighting. But in 1894, the clumsy first automobiles could not yet compete with elegant carriages and carriages; "live photography" was still in the stage of preliminary experiments; steerable balloons were only a dream; Heavier-than-air machines have never been heard of before. Radio had not been invented, and radium had not yet been discovered ...
In almost all states, the same political process was observed: the growth of the influence of parliament, the expansion of suffrage, the transfer of power to more left-wing circles. Against this trend, which at that time seemed to be a spontaneous course of "historical progress", no one in the West, in essence, waged a real struggle. The Conservatives, themselves gradually shedding and “lefting”, were content with the fact that at times they slowed down the pace of this development - 1894 in most countries just found such a slowdown.
In France, after the assassination of President Carnot and a number of senseless anarchist assassinations, up to the bomb in the Chamber of Deputies and the notorious Panama scandal, which marked the beginning of the 90s. in this country, there has been just a slight shift to the right. The president was Casimir Perier, a right-wing republican inclined to expand presidential power; ruled by the Dupuy ministry, based on a moderate majority. But "moderates" already at that time were considered those who in the 70s were on the extreme left of the National Assembly; just shortly before that - around 1890 - under the influence of the advice of Pope Leo XIII, a significant part of the French Catholics went over to the ranks of the Republicans.
In Germany, after the resignation of Bismarck, the influence of the Reichstag increased significantly; Social Democracy, gradually conquering all the big cities, became the largest German party. The Conservatives, for their part, relying on the Prussian Landtag, waged a stubborn struggle against the economic policy of Wilhelm II. For lack of energy in the fight against the socialists, Chancellor Caprivi was replaced in October 1894 by the aged Prince Hohenlohe; but no appreciable change of course resulted from this.
In England, in 1894, the Liberals were defeated on the Irish question, and Lord Rosebery's "intermediate" ministry was in power, which soon gave way to Lord Salisbury's cabinet, which relied on conservatives and unionist liberals (opponents of Irish self-government). These Unionists, led by Chamberlain, played such a prominent role in the government majority that soon the name of the Unionists in general supplanted the name of the Conservatives for twenty years altogether. Unlike Germany, the British labor movement was not yet political in nature, and the powerful trade unions, already staging very impressive strikes, were content for the time being with economic and professional achievements - meeting in this more support from the conservatives than from the liberals. These correlations explain the phrase of a prominent English figure of that time: “We are all now socialists” ...
In Austria and Hungary, parliamentary rule was more pronounced than in Germany: cabinets that did not have a majority had to resign. On the other hand, the parliament itself opposed the expansion of suffrage: the ruling parties were afraid of losing power. By the time of the death of Emperor Alexander III in Vienna, the short-lived ministry of Prince. Windischgrätz, which relied on very heterogeneous elements: German liberals, Poles and clerics.
In Italy, after a period of domination by the left headed by Giolitti, after a scandal over the appointment of the stealing director of the Tanlongo bank to the Senate, at the beginning of 1894 the old politician Crispi, one of the authors of the Triple Alliance, came to power again, in the special Italian parliamentary conditions, playing a role conservative.
Although the Second International had already been founded in 1889 and socialist ideas were becoming more widespread in Europe, by 1894 the socialists were not yet a serious political force in any country except Germany (where in 1893 they had already held 44 deputies ). But the parliamentary system in many small states - Belgium, the Scandinavian, Balkan countries - has received an even more straightforward application than that of the great powers. In addition to Russia, only Turkey and Montenegro from European countries did not have parliaments at that time.
The era of calm was at the same time the era of armed peace. All the great powers, followed by the smaller ones, increased and improved their armaments. Europe, as V. O. Klyuchevsky put it, “fitted itself on a powder magazine for its own safety.” Universal conscription was carried out in all the major states of Europe, except for insular England. The technology of war did not lag behind the technology of peace in its development.
Mutual distrust between states was great. The triple alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy seemed to be the most powerful combination of powers. But even its participants did not fully rely on each other. Until 1890, Germany still considered it necessary to "play it safe" by means of a secret treaty with Russia - and Bismarck saw a fatal mistake in the fact that Emperor Wilhelm II did not renew this treaty - and France entered into negotiations with Italy more than once, trying to tear it away from the Triple union. England was in "splendid solitude". France hid the unhealed wound of its defeat in 1870-1871. and was ready to join any enemy of Germany. The thirst for revenge was clearly manifested in the late 80s. the success of boulangism.
The division of Africa was broadly completed by 1890, at least on the coast. Entrepreneurial colonialists rushed from everywhere to the interior of the mainland, where there were still unexplored areas, to be the first to raise the flag of their country and secure "no one's lands" for it. Only in the middle reaches of the Nile did the British still block the path of the Mahdists, Muslim fanatics, who in 1885 defeated and killed the English General Gordon during the capture of Khartoum. And mountainous Abyssinia, on which the Italians began their campaign, prepared an unexpectedly powerful rebuff for them.
All these were just islands - Africa, like Australia and America before, became the property of the white race. Until the end of the 19th century, the prevailing belief was that Asia would suffer the same fate. England and Russia were already watching each other through a thin barrier of still weak independent states, Persia, Afghanistan, semi-independent Tibet. The closest thing came to a war for the entire reign of Emperor Alexander III, when in 1885 General Komarov defeated the Afghans near Kushka: the British vigilantly watched the "gates to India"! However, the acute conflict was resolved by an agreement in 1887.
But in the Far East, where back in the 1850s. The Russians occupied the Ussuri Territory, which belonged to China, without a fight, and the slumbering peoples were just beginning to stir. When Emperor Alexander III was dying, cannons rattled on the shores of the Yellow Sea: small Japan, having mastered European technology, won its first victories over huge, but still motionless China.
Russia towards the end of the reign of Alexander III
Portrait of Alexander III. Artist A. Sokolov, 1883
In this world, the Russian Empire, with its area of twenty million square miles, with a population of 125 million people, occupied a prominent position. Since the Seven Years' War, and especially since 1812, Russia's military power has been highly valued in Western Europe. The Crimean War showed the limits of this power, but at the same time confirmed its strength. Since then, the era of reforms, including in the military sphere, has created new conditions for the development of Russian power.
Russia at that time began to be seriously studied. A. Leroy-Beaulieu in French, Sir D. Mackenzie-Wallace in English published large studies on Russia in the 1870s-1880s. The structure of the Russian Empire was very different from Western European conditions, but foreigners then already began to understand that we were talking about dissimilar, and not about "backward" state forms.
“The Russian Empire is governed on the exact basis of laws emanating from the Highest Authority. The emperor is an autocratic and unlimited monarch,” said the Russian fundamental laws. The tsar had full legislative and executive powers. This did not mean arbitrariness: all essential questions had exact answers in the laws, which were subject to execution until there was a repeal. In the field of civil rights, the Russian tsarist government generally avoided a sharp break, took into account the legal skills of the population and acquired rights, and left in operation on the territory of the empire both the Napoleonic Code (in the Kingdom of Poland), and the Lithuanian Statute (in the Poltava and Chernigov provinces), and Magdeburg law (in the Baltic region), and customary law among the peasants, and all kinds of local laws and customs in the Caucasus, Siberia, and Central Asia.
But the right to legislate was indivisibly vested in the king. There was a State Council of high dignitaries appointed there by the sovereign; he discussed draft laws; but the king could agree, at his discretion, with the opinion of the majority and with the opinion of the minority - or reject both. Usually, special commissions and meetings were formed to hold important events; but they had, of course, only a preparatory value.
In the field of executive fullness of royal power was also unlimited. Louis XIV, after the death of Cardinal Mazarin, declared that he wanted to be his own first minister from now on. But all Russian monarchs were in the same position. Russia did not know the position of the first minister. The title of chancellor, sometimes assigned to the minister of foreign affairs (the last chancellor was His Serene Highness Prince A. M. Gorchakov, who died in 1883), gave him the rank of the 1st class according to the table of ranks, but did not mean any supremacy over other ministers. There was a Committee of Ministers, it had a permanent chairman (in 1894, the former Minister of Finance, N. Kh. Bunge, also consisted of it). But this Committee was, in essence, only a kind of interdepartmental meeting.
All ministers and heads of separate units had their own independent report with the sovereign. The sovereign was also directly subordinate to the governor-general, as well as the mayors of both capitals.
This did not mean that the sovereign was involved in all the details of managing individual departments (although, for example, Emperor Alexander III was “his own foreign minister”, to whom all “incoming” and “outgoing” reports were reported; N.K. Girs was, as it were, his "comrade minister"). Individual ministers sometimes had great power and the opportunity for broad initiative. But they had them because and so far the sovereign trusted them.
To carry out the plans coming from above, Russia also had a large staff of officials. Emperor Nicholas I once dropped the ironic phrase that Russia is ruled by 30,000 head clerks. Complaints about the "bureaucracy", about the "mediastinum" were very common in Russian society. It was customary to scold officials, to grumble at them. Abroad, there was an idea of almost total bribery of Russian officials. He was often judged by the satires of Gogol or Shchedrin; but a caricature, even a successful one, cannot be considered a portrait. In some departments, for example, in the police, low salaries did contribute to a fairly wide distribution of bribes. Others, such as, for example, the Ministry of Finance or the judicial department after the reform of 1864, enjoyed, on the contrary, a reputation for high honesty. It must be admitted, however, that one of the traits that made Russia related to the eastern countries was the condescending everyday attitude towards many acts of dubious honesty; the fight against this phenomenon was psychologically difficult. Some sections of the population, such as engineers, enjoyed an even worse reputation than officials - quite often, of course, undeserved.
But the top government was free from this disease. Cases where ministers or other representatives of the authorities were involved in abuses were the rarest sensational exceptions.
Be that as it may, the Russian administration, even in its most imperfect parts, carried out, despite the difficult conditions, the task assigned to it. The tsarist government had at its disposal an obedient and well-organized state apparatus adapted to the diverse needs of the Russian Empire. This apparatus was created over the centuries - from Moscow orders - and in many ways has reached a high level of perfection.
But the Russian tsar was not only the head of state: he was at the same time the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, which occupied a leading position in the country. This, of course, did not mean that the tsar had the right to touch upon church dogmas; the conciliar structure of the Orthodox Church ruled out such an understanding of the rights of the tsar. But at the suggestion of the Holy Synod, the highest church college, the appointment of bishops was made by the king; and the replenishment of the composition of the Synod itself depended (in the same order) on him. The chief prosecutor of the Synod was the link between church and state. This position was occupied by K. P. Pobedonostsev, a man of outstanding mind and strong will, a teacher of two emperors, Alexander III and Nicholas II, for more than a quarter of a century.
During the reign of Emperor Alexander III, the following main tendencies of power appeared: not an indiscriminately negative, but in any case a critical attitude towards what was called "progress", and the desire to give Russia more internal unity by asserting the primacy of the Russian elements of the country. In addition, two currents were simultaneously manifested, far from being similar, but, as it were, complementing each other. One that aims at defending the weak from the strong, preferring the broad masses of the people to those who have separated from them, with some leveling inclinations, in terms of our time, could be called "demophilic" or Christian-social. This is a trend whose representatives were, along with others, the Minister of Justice Manasein (who retired in 1894) and K.P. Pobedonostsev, who wrote that "nobles, like the people, are subject to curbing." Another trend, which found its expression in the Minister of the Interior, Count. D. A. Tolstoy, sought to strengthen the ruling classes, to establish a certain hierarchy in the state. The first trend, by the way, ardently defended the peasant community as a kind of Russian form of solving the social problem.
The Russification policy met with more sympathy from the “demophile” trend. On the contrary, a prominent representative of the second trend, the famous writer K. N. Leontiev, published in 1888 the pamphlet “National Policy as an Instrument of the World Revolution” (in subsequent editions the word “national” was replaced by “tribal”), arguing that “the movement of modern political nationalism is nothing else than the spread of cosmopolitan democratization, modified only in methods.
Of the prominent right-wing publicists of that time, M.N. V. P. Meshchersky.
Emperor Alexander III himself, with his deeply Russian mindset, did not sympathize with the Russification extremes and expressively wrote to K. P. Pobedonostsev (in 1886): “There are gentlemen who think that they are only Russians, and no one else. Do they already imagine that I am a German or a Chukhonian? It is easy for them with their farcical patriotism when they are not responsible for anything. I won’t let Russia be offended.”
Foreign policy results of the reign of Alexander III
In foreign policy, the reign of Emperor Alexander III brought great changes. That affinity with Germany, or rather with Prussia, which remained a common feature of Russian policy since Catherine the Great and runs like a red thread through the reigns of Alexander I, Nicholas I, and especially Alexander II, has been replaced by a noticeable cooling. It would hardly be correct, as is sometimes done, to attribute this development of events to the anti-German sentiments of Empress Maria Feodorovna, a Danish princess who married the Russian heir shortly after the Danish-Prussian war of 1864! It can only be said that the political complications this time were not mitigated, as in previous reigns, by personal good relations and family ties of the dynasties. The reasons were, of course, predominantly political.
Although Bismarck considered it possible to combine the Tripartite Alliance with friendly relations with Russia, the Austro-German-Italian alliance was, of course, at the heart of the chill between old friends. The Berlin Congress left bitterness in Russian public opinion. Anti-German notes began to sound at the top. The sharp speech of Gen. Skobeleva against the Germans; Katkov in Moskovskie Vedomosti waged a campaign against them. By the mid-1980s, the tension began to be felt more strongly; The German seven-year military budget (“septennat”) was caused by the deterioration of relations with Russia. The German government closed the Berlin market for Russian securities.
Emperor Alexander III, like Bismarck, was seriously worried about this aggravation, and in 1887 he was imprisoned - for a three-year term - the so-called. reinsurance agreement. It was a secret Russo-German agreement under which both countries promised each other benevolent neutrality in the event that a third country attacked one of them. This agreement was an essential reservation to the act of the Triple Alliance. It meant that Germany would not support any anti-Russian action by Austria. Legally, these treaties were compatible, since the Triple Alliance also provided only support in the event that one of its participants was attacked (which gave Italy the opportunity in 1914 to declare neutrality without violating the union treaty).
But this reinsurance treaty was not renewed in 1890. Negotiations about it coincided with the moment of Bismarck's resignation. His successor, Gen. Caprivi, with military straightforwardness, pointed out to Wilhelm II that this treaty seemed disloyal to Austria. For his part, Emperor Alexander III, who had sympathy for Bismarck, did not seek to get involved with the new rulers of Germany.
After that, in the 90s, it came to the Russian-German customs war, which ended with a trade agreement on March 20, 1894, concluded with the close participation of the Minister of Finance S. Yu. Witte. This treaty gave Russia - for a ten-year period - significant advantages.
Relations with Austria-Hungary had nothing to spoil: from the time when Austria, saved from the Hungarian revolution by Emperor Nicholas I, “surprised the world with ingratitude” during the Crimean War, Russia and Austria also clashed on the entire front of the Balkans, like Russia and England all over Asia.
England at that time still continued to see in the Russian Empire its main enemy and competitor, "a huge glacier hanging over India," as Lord Beaconsfield (Disraeli) put it in the English Parliament.
In the Balkans, Russia experienced in the 80s. the worst disappointments. The liberation war of 1877-1878, which cost Russia so much blood and such financial upheavals, did not bear immediate fruit. Austria actually took possession of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Russia was forced to admit this in order to avoid a new war. In Serbia, the Obrenović dynasty, represented by King Milan, was in power, clearly gravitating towards Austria. About Bulgaria, even Bismarck caustically responded in his memoirs: "The liberated peoples are not grateful, but pretentious." There it came to the persecution of Russophile elements. The replacement of Prince Alexander of Battenberg, who became the head of anti-Russian movements, by Ferdinand of Coburg did not improve Russian-Bulgarian relations. Only in 1894, Stambulov, the main inspirer of the Russophobic policy, had to resign. The only country with which Russia did not even have diplomatic relations for many years was Bulgaria, so recently resurrected by Russian weapons from a long state non-existence!
Romania was allied with Austria and Germany, offended by the fact that in 1878 Russia regained a small piece of Bessarabia taken from it in the Crimean War. Although Romania received in the form of compensation the entire Dobruja with the port of Constanta, she preferred to get closer to the opponents of Russian policy in the Balkans.
When Emperor Alexander III proclaimed his famous toast to "the only true friend of Russia, Prince Nicholas of Montenegro", this, in essence, corresponded to reality. The power of Russia was so great that she did not feel threatened in this loneliness. But after the termination of the reinsurance agreement, during a sharp deterioration in Russian-German economic relations, Emperor Alexander III took certain steps to rapprochement with France.
The republican system, state disbelief, and such recent phenomena at that time as the Panama scandal, could not dispose the Russian tsar, the keeper of conservative and religious principles, to France. Many considered therefore the Franco-Russian agreement excluded. The solemn reception of the sailors of the French squadron in Kronstadt, when the Russian Tsar listened to the Marseillaise with his head uncovered, showed that sympathies or antipathies for the internal order of France are not decisive for Emperor Alexander III. Few, however, thought that since 1892 a secret defensive alliance had been concluded between Russia and France, supplemented by a military convention indicating how many troops both sides were obliged to put up in case of war with Germany. This treaty was at that time so secret that neither the ministers (of course, except for two or three senior officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the military department) knew about it, nor even the heir to the throne himself.
French society has long been eager to formalize this union, but the tsar made it a condition for the strictest secrecy, fearing that confidence in Russian support could give rise to militant moods in France, revive the thirst for revenge, and the government, due to the peculiarities of the democratic system, would not be able to resist the pressure of public opinion. .
Russian army and navy towards the end of the reign of Alexander III
The Russian Empire at that time had the largest peacetime army in the world. Its 22 corps, not counting the Cossacks and irregular units, reached a strength of up to 900,000 people. With a four-year term of military service, the annual conscription of recruits gave in the early 90s. three times as many people as the army needed. This not only made it possible to make a strict selection for physical fitness, but also made it possible to provide wide benefits for marital status. The only sons, older brothers, who took care of the younger ones, teachers, doctors, etc., were exempted from active military service and directly enlisted in the militia of the second category, to which mobilization could only reach the very last turn. In Russia, only 31 percent of the draftees each year were enrolled in the army, while in France 76 percent.
For the armament of the army, mainly state-owned factories worked; Russia did not have those "cannon dealers" who enjoy such an unflattering reputation in the West.
For the training of officers, there were 37 secondary and 15 higher military educational institutions, in which 14,000-15,000 people studied.
All the lower ranks who served in the ranks of the army received, in addition, a well-known education. The illiterate were taught to read and write, and all were given some of the basic beginnings of a general education.
The Russian fleet, which had been in decline since the Crimean War, revived and rebuilt during the reign of Emperor Alexander III. 114 new warships were launched, including 17 battleships and 10 armored cruisers. The displacement of the fleet reached 300,000 tons - the Russian fleet ranked third (after England and France) in a number of world fleets. Its weak side, however, was that the Black Sea Fleet - about a third of the Russian naval forces - was locked up in the Black Sea under international treaties and was not able to take part in the struggle that would have arisen in other seas.
Local self-government in Russia towards the end of the reign of Alexander III
Russia had no imperial representative institutions; Emperor Alexander III, in the words of K. P. Pobedonostsev, believed “in the unshakable significance of autocratic power in Russia” and did not allow for it “in the specter of freedom, a disastrous mixture of languages and opinions.” But from the previous reign, the bodies of local self-government, zemstvos and cities remained as a legacy; and since the time of Catherine II, there was a class self-government in the person of noble assemblies, provincial and district (petty-bourgeois councils and other self-government bodies of townspeople gradually lost all real significance).
Zemstvo self-governments were introduced (in 1864) in 34 (out of 50) provinces of European Russia, that is, they spread to more than half of the population of the empire. They were elected by three groups of the population: peasants, private landowners and townspeople; the number of seats was distributed among the groups according to the amount of taxes they paid. In 1890, a law was passed that strengthened the role of the nobility in the zemstvos. In general, private owners, as a more educated element of the village, played a leading role in most provinces; but there were also predominantly peasant zemstvos (Vyatka, Perm, for example). The Russian zemstvos had a broader scope of activity than local self-government bodies in France now have. Medical and veterinary care, public education, road maintenance, statistics, insurance business, agronomy, cooperation, etc. - such was the scope of the zemstvos.
City governments (dumas) were elected by homeowners. Dumas elected city councils with the mayor at the head. The scope of their competence within the cities was in general the same as that of the zemstvos in relation to the countryside.
Reception of volost foremen by Alexander III. Painting by I. Repin, 1885-1886
Finally, the village also had its own peasant self-government, in which all adult peasants and the wives of absent husbands took part. "Peace" resolved local issues and elected representatives to the volost gathering. The elders (chairmen) and the clerks (secretaries) who were with them led these primary cells of peasant self-government.
In general, by the end of the reign of Emperor Alexander III, with a state budget of 1,200,000,000 rubles, local budgets administered by elected institutions amounted to about 200 million, of which about 60 million a year fell to zemstvos and cities. Of this amount, the zemstvos spent about a third on medical care and about one-sixth on public education.
Noble assemblies, created by Catherine the Great, consisted of all hereditary nobles of each province (or county), and only those nobles who had landed property in a given area could participate in the meetings. Provincial noble assemblies were, in fact, the only public bodies in which questions of general policy were sometimes discussed on a legal basis. Noble assemblies in the form of addresses addressed to the Highest Name more than once came up with political resolutions. In addition, the scope of their competence was very limited, and they played a certain role only due to their connection with the zemstvos (the local marshal of the nobility was ex officio the chairman of the provincial or district zemstvo assembly).
The importance of the nobility in the country at that time was already noticeably on the wane. In the early 1890s, contrary to popular beliefs in the West, at 49 lips. Of the 381 million acres of land in European Russia, only 55 million belonged to the nobility, while in Siberia, Central Asia and the Caucasus there was almost no noble land ownership at all (only in the provinces of the Kingdom of Poland, the nobility owned 44 percent of the land).
In local governments, as everywhere where the elective principle operates, there were, of course, their own groupings, their right and left. There were liberal zemstvos and conservative zemstvos. But real parties did not come from this. At that time, there were no significant illegal groups after the collapse of Narodnaya Volya, although some revolutionary publications were published abroad. Thus, the London Foundation for Illegal Press (S. Stepnyak, N. Tchaikovsky, L. Shishko, etc.) in a report for 1893 reported that in a year they distributed 20,407 copies of illegal brochures and books - 2,360 of them in Russia, which is not a large number per 125 million population ...
The Grand Duchy of Finland was in a special position. There was a constitution, bestowed by Alexander I. The Finnish Seim, consisting of representatives of the four estates (nobles, clergy, townspeople and peasants), convened every five years, and under Emperor Alexander III he even received (in 1885) the right to legislative initiative. The local government was the senate, appointed by the emperor, and communication with the general imperial administration was provided through the minister-secretary of state for Finnish affairs.
Censorship of newspapers and books
In the absence of representative institutions, there was no organized political activity in Russia, and attempts to create party groups were immediately thwarted by police measures. The press was under the watchful eye of the authorities. Some large newspapers, however, were published without prior censorship - in order to speed up the publication - and therefore bore the risk of subsequent reprisals. Usually two "warnings" were made to the newspaper, and on the third its publication was suspended. But at the same time, the newspapers remained independent: within certain limits, subject to some external restraint, they could, and often carried, views that were very hostile to the government. Most of the big newspapers and magazines were deliberately oppositional. The government only put up external barriers to the expression of views hostile to it, and did not try to influence the content of the press.
It can be said that the Russian government had neither the inclination nor the ability to self-promotion. Its achievements and successes often remained in the shadows, while failures and weaknesses were diligently painted with imaginary objectivity on the pages of the Russian temporary press, and spread abroad by Russian political emigrants, creating largely false ideas about Russia.
Church censorship was the most strict in relation to books. Less severe than the Vatican with its "index", it at the same time had the opportunity not only to put banned books on the lists, but also to actually stop their distribution. So, under the ban were anti-church writings gr. L. N. Tolstoy, "The Life of Jesus" by Renan; when translating from Heine, for example, passages containing mockery of religion were excluded. But in general - especially if we take into account that censorship in different periods acted with varying degrees of severity, and books that were once allowed were rarely withdrawn from circulation - books forbidden to the Russian "legal" reader constituted an insignificant fraction of world literature. Of the major Russian writers, only Herzen was banned.
Russian laws and court by the end of the reign of Alexander III
In a country that was considered abroad "the kingdom of the whip, chains and exile to Siberia", in fact, very soft and humane laws were in force. Russia was the only country where the death penalty was abolished altogether (since the time of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna) for all crimes tried by general courts. She remained only in the military courts and for the highest state crimes. For the 19th century the number of those executed (if we exclude both Polish uprisings and violations of military discipline) was not even a hundred people in a hundred years. During the reign of Emperor Alexander III, in addition to the participants in the regicide on March 1, only a few people who attempted to kill the emperor were executed (one of them, by the way, was just A. Ulyanov - Lenin's brother).
Administrative exile, on the basis of the law on the provision of enhanced security, was applied quite widely to all types of anti-government agitation. There were various degrees of exile: to Siberia, to the northern provinces (“places not so remote,” as it was usually called), sometimes simply to provincial cities. Those deported who did not have their own means were given a state allowance for life. In places of exile, special colonies of people united by a common destiny were formed; often these colonies of exiles became the cells of future revolutionary work, creating connections and acquaintances, contributing to "enslavement" in hostility to the existing order. Those who were considered the most dangerous were placed in the Shlisselburg fortress on an island in the upper reaches of the Neva.
The Russian court, based on the judicial statutes of 1864, has stood at a high level since that time; "Gogol types" in the judicial world have receded into the realm of legends. Careful attitude towards the defendants, the broadest provision of the rights of the defense, the selective composition of judges - all this was a matter of just pride for the Russian people and corresponded to the mood of society. The judicial statutes were one of the few laws that society not only respected, but was also ready to jealously defend against the government when it considered it necessary to make reservations and amendments to the liberal law for a more successful fight against crimes.
There were no zemstvos: in 12 western provinces, where non-Russian elements prevailed among the landowners; in the sparsely populated Arkhangelsk and Astrakhan provinces; in the Region of the Don Army, and in the Orenburg province. with their Cossack institutions.
The nobility in Russia did not constitute a closed caste; the rights of hereditary nobility were acquired by everyone who reached the rank of VIII class but the table of ranks (collegiate assessor, captain, captain).
©Fotodom.ru/REX
“Science will give the Sovereign Emperor a proper place not only in the history of Russia and all of Europe, but also in Russian historiography, will say that he won in the area where it is most difficult to achieve victory, defeated the prejudice of peoples and thereby contributed to their rapprochement, conquered the public conscience in the name of peace and truth, increased the amount of good in the moral circulation of mankind, sharpened and raised Russian historical thought, Russian national consciousness, and did all this so quietly and silently that only now, when he is no longer there, Europe understands what he was for her. .
Vasily Osipovich Klyuchevsky
During the sacrament of anointing, which took place on October 12, 1866 in the Great Cathedral of the Savior Not Made by Hands (Great Church) of the Winter Palace, Danish Princess Marie Sophie Frederikke Dagmar received a new name - Maria Feodorovna and a new title - Grand Duchess. “There is intelligence and character in facial expression,” wrote a contemporary of the future Russian Empress. - Beautiful poems. Vyazemsky is a match for that dear Dagmar, whose name he rightly calls a sweet word. Ivan Sergeevich Aksakov echoes him: “The image of Dagmara, a 16-year-old girl, combining tenderness and energy, acted especially gracefully and sympathetically. She absolutely captivated everyone with her childish simplicity of heart and the naturalness of all her spiritual movements. Alas, the clever and beautiful woman outlived all four of her sons.
Thirteen and a half years of the reign of Alexander III were extremely calm. Russia did not wage wars. For this, the sovereign received the official title of Tsar-Peacemaker. Although under him 114 new warships were launched, including 17 battleships and 10 armored cruisers. After the rampage of terrorists under his father Alexander II and before the revolutionary turmoil that swept away his son Nicholas II, the reign of Alexander Alexandrovich seemed to be lost in the annals of history. Although it was he who became one of the initiators of the creation in May 1866 of the Imperial Russian Historical Society and its honorary chairman. The last public execution of the "People's Volunteers" and terrorists, the perpetrators of the assassination attempt on Alexander II, took place under Alexander III. There were 4 sons and 2 daughters in his family.
Alexander Alexandrovich - the Russian Grand Duke, the second child and son, did not live even a year. He died in April 1870, 10 days after the birth of Volodya Ulyanov in Simbirsk. It is unlikely that the fate of the "angel Alexander" would have been happier than that of his elder brother Nikolai Alexandrovich. Grand Duke Georgy Alexandrovich, the third child and son, died of tuberculosis at the age of 28 in the summer of 1899. In the Memoirs of Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich Romanov, when it comes to the three sons (Nicholas, George and Mikhail) of Alexander III, it is written: “George was the most gifted of all three, but he died too young to have time to develop his brilliant abilities.”
The fate of the eldest in the family of Emperor Alexander, the last Russian Tsar Nikolai Alexandrovich, is the most tragic. Tragic is the fate of his entire family and tragic is the fate of all of Russia.
Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich Romanov recalled that the youngest son of Alexander III, Mikhail Alexandrovich, “charmed everyone with the captivating simplicity of his manners. A favorite of family, fellow soldiers, and countless friends, he had a methodical mind and would have been promoted to any position had he not entered into his morganatic marriage. This happened when the Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich had already reached maturity, and put the Sovereign in a very difficult position. The emperor wished his brother complete happiness, but, as the Head of the Imperial Family, he had to follow the prescriptions of the Basic Laws. Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich married Mrs. Wulfert (the divorced wife of Captain Wulfert) in Vienna and settled in London. Thus, for many years preceding the war, Mikhail Alexandrovich was separated from his brother and, because of this, had nothing to do with management affairs. Shot in 1918
Protopresbyter Georgy Shavelsky left the following entry about the last Grand Duchess and the youngest in the Tsar’s family: “Among all the persons of the imperial family, Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna was distinguished by her extraordinary simplicity, accessibility, and democracy. In his estate of the Voronezh province. she completely undressed: she walked around the village huts, nursed peasant children, etc. In St. Petersburg, she often walked, drove simple cabs, and she loved to talk with the latter very much. She died the same year as her older sister Xenia.
Ksenia Alexandrovna was her mother's favorite, and outwardly she looked like her "dear Mama." Prince Felix Feliksovich Yusupov later wrote about Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna: “The greatest dignity - personal charm - she inherited from her mother, Empress Maria Feodorovna. The look of her marvelous eyes penetrated into the soul, her grace, kindness and modesty conquered everyone.
Alexander III, Emperor of All Russia, second son of Emperor Alexander II and Empress Maria Alexandrovna. Born on February 26, 1845. After the untimely death of his elder brother, Tsarevich Nikolai Alexandrovich, on April 12, 1865, he was proclaimed heir to the throne; On October 28, 1866, he married the daughter of the Danish king Christian IX, Princess Sophia-Frederika-Dagmara, who was named Maria Feodorovna during holy chrismation. While still heir, Alexander took part in public affairs, as commander of the guards corps, ataman of all Cossack troops, a member of the State Council. In the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-78 he commanded a separate Ruschuk detachment and successfully made a trip to Osman-Bazaar, Razgrad and Eski-Juma. In 1877 he took an active part in the creation of a voluntary fleet.
Emperor Alexander III (1881-1894)
During the reign of Emperor Alexander III, important measures were taken in the field of the national economy, carried out mainly by the Minister of Finance N. X. Bunge: in 1882 redemption payments were lowered, the poll tax was abolished, a peasant bank was factory inspection, the life of chinsheviks and some other categories of rural inhabitants is arranged. Even earlier, in 1881, and then in 1884, favorable conditions were established for the peasants to rent state lands; On June 15, 1882, a tax on inheritances and gifts was established, in 1885 additional fees were introduced from commercial and industrial enterprises, and a tax on money capital was established, and these financial reforms were to serve for the gradual introduction of an income tax in our country. Subsequently, the most important facts in the financial policy of the state are: the achievement of a fairly stable balance between income and expenditure, the large-scale conversion of public debts; to increase the funds of the treasury, two new excises were established - on matches and kerosene, an apartment tax was introduced, in addition, in the form of an experiment, a drinking monopoly was introduced in the eastern provinces.
Russian tsars. Alexander III
Of the individual legislative acts of an economic nature, the regulation of the resettlement movement of peasants to the lands beyond the Urals (a forerunner of the resettlement policy of P. A. Stolypin) and the law on the inalienability of allotment lands are of particular importance. In the customs policy of the state, there was a significant increase in protectionism, which reached its apogee in the tariff of 1891, but then was somewhat softened by trade agreements with France and Germany; an agreement with the latter country was concluded in 1894 after a stubborn and very sharp customs war. In railway policy, it is especially important to subordinate the tariff business to government control, to increase the redemption to the treasury of the railways and to open work on the construction of Great Siberian Way.
A very prominent place in domestic politics was occupied by the care of the nobility, on strengthening its significance in state and public life. To maintain noble land ownership, a state noble bank was established in 1885. In order to create more favorable conditions for large land ownership, it was published in 1886. Regulations on hiring for rural work. The Regulations on zemstvo district chiefs of 1889 and the new Regulations on zemstvo institutions of 1890 gave the nobility a pre-eminent position in local government . Zemstvo chiefs, elected from local hereditary nobles, were supposed to be "close to the people, a firm government authority", combining "trusteeship over the village inhabitants with concerns for the completion of peasant affairs and with the duty to protect deanery and public order, security and the rights of private people in rural areas. In accordance with these tasks, the zemstvo chiefs were given, along with extensive administrative powers, judicial power. With the introduction of zemstvo chiefs, the institute of magistrates was abolished in most of the country.
The general judicial institutions and the procedure for judicial proceedings have also undergone changes: the jurisdiction of the jury has been limited in favor of a court with the participation of estate representatives, the procedure for electing jurors has been changed, the principles of irremovability and independence of judges have been significantly limited, and some significant exceptions have been made to the general rule of publicity of the trial.
On March 1, 1881, Emperor Alexander II Nikolaevich died at the hands of the Narodnaya Volya, and his second son Alexander ascended the throne. At first he was preparing for a military career, because. the heir to power was his elder brother Nikolai, but in 1865 he died.
In 1868, during a severe crop failure, Alexander Alexandrovich was appointed chairman of the committee for the collection and distribution of benefits to the starving. When he was before accession to the throne, he was the ataman of the Cossack troops, chancellor of the University of Helsingfors. In 1877 he took part in the Russian-Turkish war as a detachment commander.
The historical portrait of Alexander III was more like a mighty Russian peasant than the sovereign of the empire. He possessed heroic strength, but did not differ in mental abilities. Despite this characteristic, Alexander III was very fond of theater, music, painting, and studied Russian history.
In 1866 he married the Danish princess Dagmar, in Orthodoxy Maria Feodorovna. She was smart, educated, and in many ways complemented her husband. Alexander and Maria Feodorovna had 5 children.
Domestic policy of Alexander III
The beginning of the reign of Alexander III fell on the period of the struggle of two parties: the liberal (desiring the reforms initiated by Alexander II) and the monarchist. Alexander III abolished the idea of the constitutionality of Russia and set a course for strengthening the autocracy.
On August 14, 1881, the government adopted a special law "Regulations on Measures to Protect State Order and Public Peace." To combat unrest and terror, states of emergency were introduced, punitive measures were used, and in 1882 the secret police appeared.
Alexander III believed that all the troubles in the country come from the freethinking of subjects and the excessive education of the lower class, which was caused by his father's reforms. Therefore, he began a policy of counter-reforms.
Universities were considered the main center of terror. The new university charter of 1884 sharply limited their autonomy, student associations and student courts were banned, access to education for representatives of the lower classes and Jews was limited, and strict censorship was introduced in the country.
changes in the Zemstvo reform under Alexander III:
In April 1881, the Manifesto on the independence of the autocracy was published, compiled by K.M. Pobedonostsev. The rights of the zemstvos were severely curtailed, and their work was taken under the strict control of the governors. Merchants and officials sat in the city dumas, and only wealthy local nobles sat in the zemstvos. Peasants lost the right to participate in elections.
Changes in judicial reform under Alexander III:
In 1890, a new regulation on zemstvos was adopted. Judges became dependent on the authorities, the competence of the jury was reduced, the world courts were practically eliminated.
Changes in the peasant reform under Alexander III:
The poll tax and communal land tenure were abolished, and compulsory redemption of land was introduced, but redemption payments were reduced. In 1882, the Peasants' Bank was established, designed to issue loans to peasants for the purchase of land and private property.
Changes in the military reform under Alexander III:
The defense capability of border districts and fortresses was strengthened.
Alexander III knew the importance of army reserves, so infantry battalions were created, reserve regiments were formed. A cavalry division was created, capable of fighting both on horseback and on foot.
To conduct combat in mountainous areas, batteries of mountain artillery were created, mortar regiments, siege artillery battalions were formed. A special railway brigade was created to deliver troops and army reserves.
In 1892, mine river companies, serf telegraphs, aeronautic detachments, and military pigeon houses appeared.
Military gymnasiums were transformed into cadet corps, for the first time non-commissioned officer training battalions were created, which trained junior commanders.
A new three-line rifle was adopted, a smokeless type of gunpowder was invented. The military uniform has been changed to a more comfortable one. The order of appointment to command positions in the army was changed: only by seniority.
Social policy of Alexander III
"Russia for the Russians" is the emperor's favorite slogan. Only the Orthodox Church is considered truly Russian, all other religions were officially defined as "non-denominational confessions."
The policy of anti-Semitism was officially proclaimed, and the persecution of Jews began.
Foreign policy of Alexander III
The reign of Emperor Alexander III was the most peaceful. Only once did Russian troops clash with Afghan troops on the Kushka River. Alexander III protected his country from wars, and also helped to extinguish hostility between other countries, for which he received the nickname "Peacemaker".
Economic policy of Alexander III
Under Alexander III, cities, factories and plants grew, domestic and foreign trade grew, the length of railways increased, and the construction of the great Siberian Railway began. In order to develop new lands, peasant families were resettled in Siberia and Central Asia.
In the late 1980s, the state budget deficit was overcome, and revenues exceeded expenditures.
The results of the reign of Alexander III
Emperor Alexander III was called "the most Russian Tsar." He defended the Russian population with all his might, especially on the outskirts, which contributed to the strengthening of state unity.
As a result of the measures taken in Russia, a rapid industrial boom took place, the exchange rate of the Russian ruble grew and strengthened, and the well-being of the population improved.
Alexander III and his counter-reforms provided Russia with a peaceful and calm era without wars and internal unrest, but also engendered in the Russians a revolutionary spirit that would break out under his son Nicholas II.
