The coronation of Emperor Alexander II and Empress Maria Alexandrovna on 26 August/7 September 1856 at the Dormition Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin. Painting by Mihály Zichy.
Gallery of Alexander II
1860
Alexander II
Gallery of Alexander II
1863
Alexander II of Russia
Gallery of Alexander II
1864
Emperor Alexander II and his favorite dog Milord.
Gallery of Alexander II
1865
Portrait of Emperor Alexander II wearing the greatcoat and cap of the Imperial Horse-Guards Regiment.
Gallery of Alexander II
1877
Alexander II and his guard during the siege of Plevna.
Gallery of Alexander II
1881
Alexander II
Gallery of Alexander II
Alexander II
Gallery of Alexander II
Russian Empire
Alexander II of Russia in his office.
Achievements
Membership
Awards
Order of St. Vladimir
The Order of St. Vladimir that Alexander II received on January 1, 1846.
Order of St. Alexander Nevsky
The Order of St. Alexander Nevsky that Alexander II received on April 29, 1818.
Order of St. Andrew
The Order of St. Andrew that Alexander II received on April 29, 1818.
Order of the White Eagle
The Order of the White Eagle that Alexander II received on July 12, 1829.
Order of Saint Anna
The Order of Saint Anna that Alexander II received on April 29, 1818.
Order of St. George, 4th Class
The Order of St. George, 4th Class, that Alexander II received on November 10, 1850.
Order of St. Stanislaus
The Order of St. Stanislaus that Alexander II received on June 11, 1865.
Order of Saint Stephen
The Order of Saint Stephen that Alexander II was awarded in 1839.
Order of St. George, 1st Class
The Order of St. George, 1st Class, that Alexander II received on November 26, 1869.
Order of the Southern Cross
The Order of the Southern Cross that Alexander II received on May 15, 1845.
The coronation of Emperor Alexander II and Empress Maria Alexandrovna on 26 August/7 September 1856 at the Dormition Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin. Painting by Mihály Zichy.
The Monument to the Tsar Liberator in Sofia commemorates Alexander II's decisive role in the Liberation of Bulgaria from Ottoman rule during the Russo-Turkish War.
Alexander II, a Russian ruler, was the Emperor of Russia from 1855 to 1881. He carried out one of the well-known reforms known as the emancipation of Russia's serfs.
Background
Alexander II was born on April 29, 1818, in Moscow Kremlin, Moscow, Moscow Governorate, Russian Empire (now Moscow, Russia). He was a son of Nicholas I of Russia and Alexandra Feodorovna. Alexander II also had three brothers and three sisters.
Education
Alexander's education, unlike that of his father, prepared him for his eventual role as tsar from an early age. From the age of six, he was taught by Captain K. K. Merder, the head of a Moscow military school. Alexander also received instruction from Vasily Zhukovsky, the famous poet, who crafted a plan for education that stressed virtue and enlightenment. Alexander spoke Russian, German, French, English, and Polish. He acquired a knowledge of military arts, finance, and diplomacy.
In 1837, Alexander was taken on a six-month tour of Russia. He visited 20 provinces in the country and also visited many prominent Western European countries. Alexander became the first Romanov heir to visit Siberia.
Career
Alexander II had experience in government before he acceded to the throne. He held various military commands and was a member of the state council and of the committee of the ministers. During Nicholas's absence Alexander acted as his deputy. Nicholas I included his son in the frequent parades, military spectacles, and other symbolic aspects central to his political system. Alexander loved these events and he took pleasure in participating in the numerous exercises held by Nicholas I. In 1846, Nicholas named Alexander chairman of the Secret Committee on Peasant Affairs, where the tsarevich demonstrated support of the existing sociopolitical order.
Alexander II of Russia inherited the throne after his father's death, on February 19, 1855, and was formally crowned the Russian Emperor on August 26, 1856 in Moscow. Between these two dates Alexander grappled with the ongoing Crimean War. Soon Alexander II modernized the military and the entire political system. Alexander began to concentrate on his role as emperor during the late 1860s and 1870s. In particular, he engaged in empire building and eventually warfare. He oversaw the Russian conquest of Central Asia that brought Turkestan, Tashkent, Samarkand, Khiva, and Kokand under Russian control. Between 1861 and 1874, Alexander II implemented a set of reforms that reshaped Russian society.
With the introduction of various reforms and the resultant freedom of expression during the reign of Alexander II of Russia, people started to come out in the open with their opinions, demanding more reforms. Opposition was intensified by the government's treatment of non-Russian nationalities in the growing empire. During Alexander II's reign, Russia expanded its empire in central Asia, bringing significant numbers of Muslims into the Russian state. In 1863 a rebellion in the Polish provinces of the empire was put down with great force by the Russian regime, and in Ukraine action was taken to stem the growth of separatist tendencies. The waning power of the Ottoman Empire encouraged Alexander II to test Russia's strength in the Balkans. After claims of Turkish ill-treatment of the Serbs and Bulgars, Russia declared war on Turkey in 1877, setting off the last of the Russo-Turkish Wars. Russia was victorious and at San Stefano imposed a peace treaty on Turkey that was extremely favorable to Russia.
Alexander II's last years were a time of turmoil. One of the radical groups, Land and Liberty, emerged from the Russian universities and instigated the peasantry for a violent revolution. Dmitry Karakazov, a member of this group, made a failed assassination attempt on the emperor's life at the gates of the Summer Garden in St. Petersburg in 1866. There were many more failed attempts to end the tsar's life. On March 13, 1881, Alexander was driving through St. Petersburg when a terrorist threw a bomb at his carriage. Alexander II was critically injured and died a few hours later in the Winter Palace with his family around him.
After Alexander II succeeded to the throne he started to carry out reforms that affected the entire political system. One of such reforms was emancipation of Russia's serfs. Before he became czar, Alexander was not sympathetic to emancipation. He changed his mind because of Russia's technological and military backwardness in the Crimean War and because he believed that the liberation of the serfs was the only way to prevent a peasant uprising. In 1861, an emancipation law was eventually formulated and proclaimed. This law has been called the greatest single legislative act in history. After that the statute of 1864 created provincial and district assemblies, which handled local finances, education, scientific agriculture, medical care, and maintenance of the roads.
During Alexander's reign other reforms were initiated. The cities were granted municipal assemblies with functions similar to those of the provincial assemblies. Besides, the Russian judicial system and legal procedures were reformed. For the first time in Russian history, juries were permitted, cases were debated publicly and orally, all classes were made equal before the law, and the court system was completely overhauled. Alexander II appointed Dmitry Milyutin as the Minister of War who carried out sweeping military reforms including compulsory 6-year military service for all males aged 21, including nobles.
After the introduction of conscription in the Russian Army, Poland, which was under Alexander's reign, saw spontaneous revolt by youths which later received support from high-ranking Polish-Lithuanian officers and politicians. In order to eliminate the threat of guerrilla war, many of them were publicly executed, and many others were deported to Siberia. As a result Poland lost its separate constitution and became incorporated directly into Russia, which resulted in a 40-year-long period of martial law starting in 1863, and the exclusion of native languages in almost all forms. At the same time, in 1863, Alexander II re-established the Diet of Finland and initiated several reforms that increased Finland's autonomy from Russia, including establishment of Finland's own currency, the Markka, and finally the elevation of Finnish from a language for simple people to a national language equal to Swedish.
When the orthodox Bulgarian subjects on the Balkans rebelled against Ottoman rule in 1875, Alexander, sensing a rise of support for them, started diplomatic negotiations with other nations, securing their neutral stance if war commences. After the Ottomans killed nearly thirty thousand Bulgarians, he declared war upon the Ottoman Empire and eventually defeated the Turkish forces on March 3, 1878, signing the Treaty of San Stefano. In the following Congress of Berlin, Bulgaria emerged as an independent state for the first time since 1396. Alexander II once again reinforced his image as Tsar Liberator.
Views
Quotations:
"It is better to abolish serfdom from above than to wait for it to abolish itself from below."
Personality
Alexander II of Russia owned an Irish Setter dog named Milord, which not only often accompanied him while walking in the Summer Garden, but also made into a painting by Sergei Lvovich Levitsky in 1870. The favorite pet of the emperor was considered the most famous animal in Russia at the time.
Alexander II also liked to smoke a hookah pipe. During his reign, the court had Arab hookah makers among its specialist staff. The Tsar used Persian tobacco and, to all appearances, liked his hookahs very strong and copious; every six months he ordered three puds of tobacco, which comes to more than 250 grams a day.
Quotes from others about the person
Mark Twain: "He is 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."
Connections
During his travels to European countries in his early years, Alexander II of Russia fell in love with Princess Marie from the small German state of Hesse-Darmstadt. They were married on April 16, 1841 in Saint Petersburg, following which she became known as Maria Alexandrovna. The marriage produced six sons and two daughters.
Alexander II is said to have developed an interest in the 16-year-old Princess Catherine Dolgorukov after she was sent to the Smolny Institute for Noble Maidens in Saint Petersburg following her father's death. She later became lady-in-waiting to Empress Maria, who was suffering from tuberculosis, and Alexander married her on July 18, 1880, within a month of Maria's death. Even before marriage, they had three children, and she later gave birth to another child that died in infancy.
Father:
Nicholas I
Mother:
Alexandra Feodorovna
Brother:
Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich
Brother:
Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich
Brother:
Grand Duke Michael Nikolaevich
Sister:
Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna
Sister:
Olga Nikolaevna of Russia
Sister:
Grand Duchess Alexandra Nikolaevna
late wife:
Maria Alexandrovna
Son:
Nicholas Alexandrovich
Son:
Alexander III
Son:
Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich
Son:
Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich
Son:
Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich
Son:
Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich
Daughter:
Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna
Daughter:
Grand Duchess Alexandra Alexandrovna
Wife:
Catherine Dolgorukova
Son:
Prince George Alexandrovich Yuryevsky
Daughter:
Princess Catherine Alexandrovna Yurievskaya
Daughter:
Olga Yurievskaya
Son:
Boris Alexandrovich Yurievsky
References
Alexander II: The Last Great Tsar
Alexander's life proves the timeless lesson that in Russia, it is dangerous to start reforms, but even more dangerous to stop them. It also shows that the traps and dangers encountered in today's war on terrorists were there from the start.
Alexander II and the Modernization of Russia
This work tells the story of the reforming Tsar who modernized Russia after her defeat in the Crimean War. Few spheres of Russian life were untouched by his reforms. In the face of bitter opposition, he liberated millions of serfs and secured their endowment with land. He reformed the Russian courts, created institutions of local self-government, and promoted railway construction and economic development.