Alexander the Second and the Title Tsar Liberator

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Alexander the Second and the Title Tsar Liberator

In the 19th Century, Russia had no zemstva, very little education,

industry and railway building, a biased judicial system and very few

freed peasants. Czar Alexander II, who succeeded Nicolas I in 1855,

went some ways to remedying these deficiencies through a series of

reforms. Alexander II became the great modernizer of Russia, walking a

delicate line between preserving Russia's Slavic identity and enabling

its people to benefit from Western advancements. For this reason he

was known to some as the ‘ Czar Liberator’. However, indeed he was a

liberator in name only.

Alexander II initiated substantial reforms in education, the

government, the judiciary and the military. In 1861, he proclaimed the

emancipation of about 20 million privately held serfs. It has been

described as "the greatest social movement since the French

Revolution" and constituted a major step in the freeing of labour in

Russia. Yet at the same time, it helped to undermine the already

shaken economic foundations of Russia's landowning class. The Czar

abolished a Russia tradition, the serfdom, which symbolizing class

struggle and feudalism. This was a very great step forward in the

modernisation of Russia.

Reforms of local government were closely followed emancipation. Russia,

for the first time, was given a judicial system that in important

respects could stand comparison with those of Western countries. In

1864, most local government in the European part of Russia was

organized into provincial and districts Zemstva, which were made up of

representatives of all classes and were responsible for local schools,

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...tion i.e. the secret

police set up by Nicolas I, with more arrests, imprisonment and exile

to Siberia. Czar Alexander II became even more conservative.

To conclude, the keynote of these reforms — and there were many lesser

ones affecting various aspects of Russian life — was the modernization

of Russia, its release from feudalism, and acceptance of Western

culture and technology. Their aim and results were the reduction of

class privilege, humanitarian progress, and economic development.

However, Alexander II was not a whole-hearted reformer. He used the

reforms to consolidate the Czardom, instead of catering the needs of

people, this could be clearly revealed by the abolition of serfdom,

returned of the reactionary rule and no any further serious reform.

Therefore, Alexander II could hardly called ‘Czar Liberator’.

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