Alexander III Flashcards
In August 1881 Alexander introduced a new hard-line conservative approached called …?
The Safeguard System (a series of governmental instructions that amounted to two stages of a state of emergency - giving the governors-general and police extraordinary powers).
The lower Reinforced Safeguard allowed governors-general and police chiefs to do what?
- arrest suspects and imprison them for 3 months
- close down and fine the local press
The higher Extraordinary Safeguard allowed governors-general and police to do what?
- close down the Zemstva and local Duma and arrest any officials in state service (below a certain rank).
Who were the Land Captains have?
Appointed in 1889 they were delegates of the governors-general. They consisted of men from the noble ranks.
What powers did Land Captains have?
Land Captains could interfere with local government. They could override elections to the Zemstva and village assemblies and overturn local decisions in court. They were made responsible for enforcing government orders in their areas and basically reinforcing autocratic control.
Which system is historian Richard Charques referring to in his quote: “no single act of government in the reign of Alexander II stirred the Russian peasant to more bitter resentment?”
Land Captains
- Charques is arguing that by re-instating the dominance of the nobility and removing the autonomy of the peasants that a state of ‘semi-serfdom’ was created.
Which tutor and later minister had the most influence over Alexander III’s decisions?
Pobedonostsev
What is the name of the policy that aimed to create a single Russian national identity and became the key policy that would provide greater strength and cohesion within the empire?
Russification
Define ‘pogrom’
Pogrom (or ‘little thunder’): Organized violence, looting, burnings and murders of Jews, most commonly in the Pale of Settlement (the belt of territory in Poland, Ukraine and south-western Russia where Jewish settlement was permitted and most of Russia’s Jews lived).
In what years was the greatest famine in Russia?
1891-2
Which Minister of Finance said “we must go hungry, but export”?
Ivan Vyshnegradsky
Minister of Finance 1887-92
What desired effect did raising import duties to 33% in Russia?
- the Russian budget achieved a surplus in 1892
What factors created the worst famine in Russian history?
- Vyshnegradsky’s export drive, over population and poor weather.
What measures were introduced by the Minister of Education Delyanov to control universities?
- in 1884 they were deprived of their independence as the Chancellors, deans and professors had to be approved by Minister of Education.
- universities had to undergo government inspection.
In what way was the Orthodox Church an ‘arm of the government’?
- it was used in the battle against liberalism
- Orthodox priests were made official state servants (1893)
- priests had to read out imperial decrees and manifestos to their congregations.
