• Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias Alexander II the Liberator, 1818

   

Born in Moscow, he was the eldest son of Nicholas I of Russia and Charlotte of Prussia, daughter of Frederick William III of Prussia and Louise of Mecklenburg - Strelitz. His early life gave little indication of his ultimate potential; until the time of his accession in 1855, aged 37, few imagined that he would be known to posterity as a leader able to implement the most challenging reforms undertaken in Russia since the reign of Peter the Great.

In the period of his life as heir apparent, the intellectual atmosphere of Saint Petersburg was unfavorable to any kind of change: freedom of thought and all forms of private initiative were being suppressed vigorously. Personal and official censorship was rife; criticism of the authorities was regarded as a serious offense. Some 26 years afterward, he had the opportunity of implementing changes; he would, however, be assassinated in public by the Narodnaya Volya (People's Will) terrorist organization.

His education as a future emperor was carried out under the supervision of the liberal romantic poet and gifted translator Vasily Zhukovsky, grasping a smattering of a great many subjects and becoming familiar with the chief modern European languages. His alleged lack of interest in military affairs detected by later historians was his reflection on the results on his own family and on the effect on the whole country of the unsavory Crimean War. Unusually for the time, the young Alexander was taken on a six month tour of Russia, visiting 20 provinces in the country. He also visited many prominent Western European countries. As Tsarevich, Alexander became the first Romanov heir to visit Siberia.

Alexander II succeeded to the throne upon the death of his father in 1855. The first year of his reign was devoted to the prosecution of the Crimean War and, after the fall of Sevastopol, to negotiations for peace, led by his trusted counselor Prince Gorchakov. The country had been exhausted and humiliated by the war. Bribe taking, theft and corruption were everywhere. Encouraged by public opinion he began a period of radical reforms, including an attempt to not depend on a landed aristocracy controlling the poor, a move to developing Russia's natural resources and to reform all branches of the administration. In 1867 he sold Alaska to the United States for $7 million (equivalent to roughly $200 million in current dollars) after recognizing the great difficulty of defending it against Great Britain or the former British colony of Canada.
After Alexander became emperor in 1855, he maintained a generally liberal course. Despite this, he was a target for numerous assassination attempts (1866, 1879, 1880). On 13 March [O.S. 1 March] 1881 members of the Narodnaya Volya (People's Will) party killed him with a bomb. The Emperor had earlier in the day signed the Loris - Melikov constitution which would have created two legislative commissions made up of indirectly elected representatives, had it not been repealed by his reactionary successor Alexander III.

Soon after the conclusion of peace, important changes were made in legislation concerning industry and commerce, and the new freedom thus afforded produced a large number of limited liability companies. Plans were formed for building a great network of railways, partly for the purpose of developing the natural resources of the country, and partly for the purpose of increasing its power for defense and attack.

The existence of serfdom was tackled boldly, taking advantage of a petition presented by the Polish landed proprietors of the Lithuanian provinces and, hoping that their relations with the serfs might be regulated in a more satisfactory way (meaning in a way more satisfactory for the proprietors), he authorized the formation of committees "for ameliorating the condition of the peasants", and laid down the principles on which the amelioration was to be effected.

This step was followed by one still more significant. Without consulting his ordinary advisers, Alexander ordered the Minister of the Interior to send a circular to the provincial governors of European Russia (serfdom was rare in other parts), containing a copy of the instructions forwarded to the governor general of Lithuania, praising the supposed generous, patriotic intentions of the Lithuanian landed proprietors, and suggesting that perhaps the landed proprietors of other provinces might express a similar desire. The hint was taken: in all provinces where serfdom existed, emancipation committees were formed.

The emancipation was not merely a humanitarian question capable of being solved instantaneously by imperial ukase. It contained very complicated problems, deeply affecting the economic, social and political future of the nation.

Alexander had to choose between the different measures recommended to him and decide if the serfs would become agricultural laborers dependent economically and administratively on the landlords or if the serfs would be transformed into a class of independent communal proprietors.

The emperor gave his support to the latter project, and the Russian peasantry became one of the last groups of peasants in Europe to shake off serfdom.

The architects of the emancipation manifesto were Alexander's brother Konstantin, Yakov Rostovtsev, and Nikolay Milyutin.

On 3 March 1861, 6 years after his accession, the emancipation law was signed and published.

In response to the overwhelming defeat (1856) suffered by Russia in the Crimean War, and to an awareness of military advances implemented in other European countries, the Russian government re-organized the army and navy and re-armed them. The changes included universal military conscription, introduced on 1 January 1874. Now sons of all the "estates", rich and poor, had to serve in the military. Other military reforms involved setting up an army reserve and the military district system (still in use a century later), the building of strategic railways, and an emphasis on the military education of the officer corps. Corporal punishment in the military and branding of soldiers as punishment were banned.

A new judicial administration (1864), based on the French model, introduced security of tenure. A new penal code and a greatly simplified system of civil and criminal procedure also came into operation. Reorganization of Judiciary, to include trial in open court, with judges appointed for life, a jury system and the creation of justices of the peace to deal with minor offenses at local level.

Alexander's bureaucracy instituted an elaborate scheme of local self - government (zemstvo) for the rural districts (1864) and the large towns (1870), with elective assemblies possessing a restricted right of taxation, and a new rural and municipal police under the direction of the Minister of the Interior.

During his bachelor days, Alexander made a state visit to England in 1838. Just a year older than the young Queen Victoria, Alexander's approaches to her were indeed short lived. Victoria married her German cousin, Albert of Saxe - Coburg in February 1840. On 16 April 1841, aged 23, Tsarevitch Alexander married Princess Marie of Hesse in St Petersburg, thereafter known in Russia as Maria Alexandrovna.

(Marie was the legal daughter of Ludwig II, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine and Princess Wilhelmina of Baden, although some gossiping questioned whether the Grand Duke Ludwig or Wilhelmina's lover, Baron August von Senarclens de Grancy, was her biological father. Alexander was aware of the question of her paternity.)

The marriage produced six sons and two daughters:

• Grand Duchess Alexandra Alexandrovna (30 August 1842 – 10 July 1849), nicknamed Lina, died of infant meningitis in St. Petersburg at the age of six
• Tsarevich Nicholas Alexandrovich (20 September 1843 – 24 April 1865), engaged to Dagmar of Denmark (Maria Feodorovna)
• Emperor Alexander III (10 March 1845 – 1 November 1894), married 1866, Dagmar of Denmark (Maria Feodorovna), had issue
• Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich (22 April 1847 – 17 February 1909), married 1874, Marie of Mecklenburg - Schwerin (Maria Pavlovna), had issue
• Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich (14 January 1850 – 14 November 1908), had (presumably illegitimate) issue
• Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna (17 October 1853 – 20 October 1920) married 1874, Alfred, Duke of Saxe - Coburg and Gotha, had issue
• Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich (29 April 1857 – 4 February 1905), married 1884, Elisabeth of Hesse (Elizabeth Feodorovna)
• Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich (3 October 1860 – 24 January 1919), married 1889, Alexandra of Greece and Denmark (Alexandra Georgievna), had issue; second marriage 1902, Olga Karnovich, had issue

Alexander had many mistresses during his marriage and fathered seven known illegitimate children. These included:

• Charlotte Henriette Sophie Jansen (15 November 1844 – July 1915) with mistress Sophie Charlotte Dorothea Von Behse (1828 – 1886)
• Joseph Raboxicz
• Michael - Bogdan Oginski (10 October 1848 – 25 March 1909) with mistress Countess Olga Kalinovskya (1818 – 1854)
• Antoinette Bayer (20 June 1856 – 24 January 1948) with his mistress Wilhelmine Bayer

On 6 July 1880, less than a month after Empress Maria's death on 8 June, Alexander formed a morganatic marriage with his mistress Princess Catherine Dolgorukov, with whom he already had four children:

• George Alexandrovich Romanov Yurievsky (12 May 1872 – 13 September 1913). Married Countess Alexandra Zarnekau and had issue. They later divorced.
• Olga Alexandrovna Yurievskaya (7 November 1874 – 10 August 1925). Married Count Georg Nikolaus of Nassau, Count of Merenberg.
• Boris Alexandrovich Yurievsky (23 February 1876 – 11 April 1876).
• Catherine Alexandrovna Yurievskaya (9 September 1878 – 22 December 1959) Her first husband was the 23rd Prince Alexander Alexandrovich Bariatinski, (1870 – 1910) the son of the 22nd Prince Alexander Vladimirovich Bariatinski, (1848 – 1909). Her second husband, later divorced, was Prince Serge Obolensky, (1890 – 1978).

At the beginning of his reign, Alexander expressed the famous statement "No dreams" addressed to the Poles who inhabited Congress Poland, Western Ukraine, Lithuania, Livonia and Belarus. The result was the January Uprising of 1863 – 1864 that was suppressed after eighteen months of fighting.

Hundreds of Poles were executed, and thousands were deported to Siberia. The price for suppression was Russian support for the unification of Germany. Years later, Germany and Russia became enemies.

All territories of the former Poland - Lithuania were excluded from liberal policies introduced by Alexander. The martial law in Lithuania, introduced in 1863, lasted for the next 40 years. Native languages, Lithuanian, Ukrainian and Belarusian were completely banned from printed texts, the Ems Ukase being an example. The Polish language was banned in both oral and written form from all provinces except Congress Poland, where it was allowed in private conversations only.

In 1863, Alexander II re-established the Diet of Finland and initiated several reforms increasing Finland's autonomy from Russia including establishment of its own currency, the markka. Liberation of business led to increased foreign investment and industrial development.

Finally, the elevation of Finnish from a language of the common people to a national language equal to Swedish opened opportunities for a larger proportion of the society. Alexander II is still regarded as "The Good Tsar" in Finland.

These reforms could be seen as results of a genuine belief that reforms were easier to test in an underpopulated, homogeneous country, than in the whole of Russia. They may also be seen as a reward for the loyalty of its relatively western oriented population during the Crimean War and during the Polish uprising. Encouraging Finnish nationalism and language can also be seen as an attempt to dilute ties with Sweden.

It was during Alexander II's rule that the Russian - Caucasian War reached its climax. Just before the conclusion of the war with a victory on Russia's side, the Russian Army, under the emperor's order, sought to eliminate the mountaineers in what would be often referred to as "cleansing" in several historic dialogues.

In 1866, there was an attempt on the emperor's life in St. Petersburg by Dmitry Karakozov. To commemorate his narrow escape from death (which he himself referred to only as "the event of 4 April 1866"), a number of churches and chapels were built in many Russian cities. Viktor Hartmann, a Russian architect, even sketched a design of a monumental gate (which was never built) to commemorate the event. Modest Mussorgsky later wrote his Pictures at an Exhibition; the last movement of which, "The Great Gate of Kiev", is based on Hartmann's sketches.

On the morning of 20 April 1879, Alexander was briskly walking towards the Square of the Guards Staff and faced Alexander Soloviev, a 33 year old former student. Having seen a menacing revolver in his hands, the Emperor fled in a zigzag pattern. Soloviev fired five times but missed. He was hanged on 28 May, after being sentenced to death.

The student acted on his own, but other revolutionaries were keen to murder Alexander. In December 1879, the Narodnaya Volya (People's Will), a radical revolutionary group which hoped to ignite a social revolution, organized an explosion on the railway from Livadia to Moscow, but they missed the emperor's train.

On the evening of 5 February 1880 Stephan Khalturin, also from Narodnaya Volya, set off a charge under the dining room of the Winter Palace, right in the resting room of the guards a storey below. Being late for dinner, the emperor was unharmed; although 11 other people were killed and 30 wounded.

After the last assassination attempt in February 1880, Count Loris - Melikov was appointed the head of the Supreme Executive Commission and given extraordinary powers to fight the revolutionaries. Loris - Melikov's proposals called for some form of parliamentary body, and the Emperor seemed to agree; these plans were never realized.

On 13 March (1 March Old Style Date), 1881, Alexander fell victim to an assassination plot in Saint Petersburg.

As he was known to do every Sunday for many years, the emperor went to the Mikhailovsky Manège for the military roll call. He traveled both to and from the Manège in a closed carriage accompanied by six Cossacks with a seventh sitting on the coachman's left. The emperor's carriage was followed by two sleighs carrying, among others, the chief of police and the chief of the emperor's guards. The route, as always, was via the Catherine Canal and over the Pevchesky Bridge.

The street was flanked by narrow sidewalks for the public. A young member of the Narodnaya Volya ("People's Will") movement, Nikolai Rysakov, was carrying a small white package wrapped in a handkerchief.

"After a moment's hesitation I threw the bomb. I sent it under the horses' hooves in the supposition that it would blow up under the carriage... The explosion knocked me into the fence."

The explosion, while killing one of the Cossacks and seriously wounding the driver and people on the sidewalk, had only damaged the bulletproof carriage, a gift from Napoleon III of France. The emperor emerged shaken but unhurt. Rysakov was captured almost immediately. Police Chief Dvorzhitsky heard Rysakov shout out to someone else in the gathering crowd. The surrounding guards and the Cossacks urged the emperor to leave the area at once rather than being shown the site of the explosion.

Nevertheless, a second young member of the Narodnaya Volya, Ignaty Grinevitsky, standing by the canal fence, raised both arms and threw something at the emperor's feet. He was alleged to have shouted, "It is too early to thank God". Dvorzhitsky was later to write:

"I was deafened by the new explosion, burned, wounded and thrown to the ground. Suddenly, amid the smoke and snowy fog, I heard His Majesty's weak voice cry, 'Help!' Gathering what strength I had, I jumped up and rushed to the emperor. His Majesty was half - lying, half - sitting, leaning on his right arm. Thinking he was merely wounded heavily, I tried to lift him but the czar's legs were shattered, and the blood poured out of them. Twenty people, with wounds of varying degree, lay on the sidewalk and on the street. Some managed to stand, others to crawl, still others tried to get out from beneath bodies that had fallen on them. Through the snow, debris, and blood you could see fragments of clothing, epaulets, sabers, and bloody chunks of human flesh."

Later it was learned there was a third bomber in the crowd. Ivan Emelyanov stood ready, clutching a briefcase containing a bomb that would be used if the other two bombers failed.

Alexander was carried by sleigh to the Winter Palace to his study where ironically, twenty years before almost to the day, he had signed the Emancipation Edict freeing the serfs. Alexander was bleeding to death, with his legs torn away, his stomach ripped open, and his face mutilated. Members of the Romanov family came rushing to the scene.

The dying emperor was given Communion and Extreme Unction. When the attending physician, Sergey Botkin, was asked how long it would be, he replied, "Up to fifteen minutes." At 3:30 that day the standard (Alexander's personal flag) of Alexander II was lowered for the last time.

The assassination caused a great setback for the reform movement. One of Alexander II's last ideas was to draft plans for an elected parliament, or Duma, which were completed the day before he died but not yet released to the Russian people. In a matter of 48 hours, Alexander II planned to release his plan for the duma to the Russian people. Had he lived, Russia might have followed a path to constitutional monarchy instead of the long road of oppression that defined his successor's reign. The first action Alexander III took after his coronation was to tear up those plans. A Duma would not come into fruition until 1905, when Alexander II's grandson, Nicholas II, commissioned the Duma following extreme pressure on the monarchy as a result of the Russian Revolution of 1905.

A second consequence of the assassination was anti - Jewish pogroms and legislation.

A third consequence of the assassination was that suppression of civil liberties in Russia and police brutality burst back in full force after experiencing some restraint under the reign of Alexander II. Alexander II's murder and subsequent death was witnessed first hand by his son, Alexander III, and his grandson, Nicholas II, both future emperors, who vowed not to have the same fate befall them. Both used the Okhrana to arrest protestors and uproot suspected rebel groups, creating further suppression of personal freedom for the Russian people.

Finally, the assassination inspired anarchists to advocate "'propaganda by deed' — the use of a spectacular act of violence to incite revolution."

A favorite dog of Alexander II was an Irish Setter named Milord. Contemporaries wrote that Milord was a Black Setter, but now it is understood to have been a Red Setter with black color on the tips of its hair - which gave the dog a black color with a red nuance.

Milord was given to emperor Alexander by a Polish landowner, and was said not to be pure bred. Evidently that fact did not upset Alexander, as it was said that he never parted from the dog - not even for a second.

Many citizens of Saint Petersburg came to know the figure of the emperor - a tall stately man, who frequently walked with his Setter along the lattice of the Summer Garden. Milord was likely the most famous animal in the Russian Empire at that time.

The personal doctor of the emperor Alexander II supposedly also owned an Irish Setter, and when she had a litter, one puppy was given to Russian author Leo Tolstoy - who raised the dog at his estate, Yasnaya Polyana.

Alexander II appears prominently in the opening two chapters of Jules Verne's Michael Strogoff (published in 1876 during Alexander's own lifetime). The Emperor sets the book's plot in motion and sends its eponymous protagonist on the dangerous and vital mission which would occupy the rest of the book. Verne presents Alexander II in a highly positive light, as an enlightened yet firm monarch, dealing confidently and decisively with a rebellion. Alexander's liberalism shows in a dialogue with the chief of police, who says "There was a time, sire, when NONE returned from Siberia", to be immediately rebuked by the Emperor who answers: "Well, whilst I live, Siberia is and shall be a country whence men CAN return."

In The Tiger in the Well, Philip Pullman refers to the assassination — though he never names Alexander — and to the pogroms that followed. The anti - Jewish attacks play an important role in the novel's plot.

Oscar Wilde's first play Vera; or, The Nihilists, written in 1880 - Alexander II's last year - features Russian revolutionaries who seek to assassinate a reform minded Emperor (and who, in the play, ultimately fail in their plot). Though Wilde's fictional Emperor differs from the actual Alexander, contemporary events in Russia - as published in the British press of the time - clearly influenced Wilde.

Mark Twain describes a short visit with Alexander II in Chapter 37 of The Innocents Abroad, describing him as “very tall and spare, and a determined - looking man, though a very pleasant - looking one nevertheless. It is easy to see that he is kind and affectionate. There is something very noble in his expression when his cap is off. However Mark Twain discovers Alexander II's desire to gain control of North America”