Alexander II

Question 1

Emancipation of the serfs

Answer 1

1861- peasants allowed to own land, 49 year redemption payments, tied to Mir, 490 outbreaks

Question 2

Local government reform

Answer 2

1864- nobles no longer in charge, first representative political system for Russia, Zemstva (countryside) health, roads, agriculture, education, famine relief, but provincial governors could reverse zemstva’s decision.

Question 3

Military reforms

Answer 3

1862-74: Milyutin reduced conscription from 25 to 15 years, promotion by merit, better training, flogging abolished. But officers remained aristocratic, issues with supply and uneducated troops.

Question 4

Legal reforms

Answer 4

1864- magistrates, district and regional courts created, fair trials, freedom of speech in the courts, right to representation. But special courts for political prisoners and jury not universally enforced.

Question 5

Educational reforms by Golovnin

Answer 5

1863- reduced church control, science and history taught, university efforts: more freedom, more accessible to the less wealthy, more secondary and primary schools, 1864 women included, numbers doubled to 800,000 during 1860s

Question 6

Censorship reform

Answer 6

1863- press allowed to discuss government policy, monitored foreign publications were allowed.

Question 7

Assassination attempt on AII

Answer 7

April 1866

Question 8

Shuvalov Era

Answer 8

1866-74: chief of police, supported rule by decree, tightened censorship, banned student processions and cooperatives, brought reactionary conservatives into office

Question 9

Dissent 1873-7

Answer 9

The tsar couldn’t satisfy the expectations he’d aroused. Opposing literature emerged eg Chenyshevsky’s ‘what is to be done’ 1862 arguing for political reform

Question 10

Arrest of populists

Answer 10

1874: 1,611 populists arrested after revolutionary activity, sent to Siberia.

Question 11

Tolstoy

Answer 11

1866- he blamed universities for spread of revolutionary ideas, replace science and history with maths, Latin, Greek and church history, restored censorship in 1873

Question 12

Liberator?

Answer 12

Educated, reforms, liberal ministers, vast breadth and impact of reforms, modernised and restored Russia, treated minorities fairly, Reutern liberal trade

Question 13

Reutern’s liberal trade policies

Answer 13

Tariffs lowered until 1877, railways increased 2,220 to 14,200 miles, workforce expanded 900,000 to 1.3 mil

Question 14

Treated minorities fairly

Answer 14

Finns given their own currency and diet, removed some restrictions on Jews and allowed some to settle outside the pale

Question 15

Disappointing liberal?

Answer 15

Motivated by desire to benefit army and nobles, inconsistent, ineffective and incomplete reforms, destabilised regime, refused to end autocracy, reaction after 1866

Question 16

Army failures

Answer 16

Bloody and drawn out war in Russo-Turkish war 1877-8, defeated by Japan in 1905 and Germany in 1914-17.

Question 17

Motives for reform?

Answer 17

Human desire, Crimea, moral, economic, preserve the system