The Age of Reform and the Nihilists

1855-1881

Alexander II

• 29 April 1818–13 March 1881

• Reigned from 3 March 1855 until his assassination in 1881

• Grand Duke of Finland and King of Poland

Marriage 16 April 1841

Princess Marie of Hesse,

thereafter known in Russia

as Maria Alexandrovna

 

Alexander’s Reign

Crimean War (1853–1856)

Britain and France invade Crimea

The Nihilists

The Nihilist Arrested

Positivism: the influence of sciene

• Begins in the 1840s as a response to the ills of society undergoing industrial revolution

• Karl Marx: economics• August Comte: philosophy• Taine: race, milieu and moment as defining

features of art• Darwin: evolution• Positivism = the application of scientific

method to society and social problems

Nihilist movement

• Nihilists espoused the ideas of social progress• Term becomes current with Turgenev’s

Fathers and Sons (1862) where the hero Bazarov declares himself a nihilist

• Medical training; denies emotions, religion, sentiment

• Unsuccessful relationship, then gets sick and dies

Nikolai Chernyshevsky (1828-1889)

• Arrested in 1862• Writes What is to be done? (pub. 1863) in

Saints Peter and Paul Fortress in St Petersburg• Revolutionary theme of women’s liberation,

free love• Revolutionary hero leads ascetic life• Book highly influential on Lenin

Chernyshevsky’s program

• Overthrow of Tsarist regime• Class warfare, revolution• Atheism• Communism• Women’s liberation• Free relations between sexes• Creation of sewing circles to save girls from

prostitution

Populism and terror

• Narodnik movement of 1860s and 1870s • 1874 Young people went out into the countryside to

propagate revolution among the peasants• Movement suppressed by the police, replaced by Narodnaya

volya – terrorist organization• Group suppressed after Alexander’s assassination, replaced

by other groups including the Socialist Revolutionaries (SR)• 1887 Lenin’s brother Aleksandr Ulianov hanged after attempt

on life of Alexander III

Mihály Zichy, Coronation of Tsar Alexander II and the Empress Maria Alexandrovna

• Coronation – September 7, 1856

• Great national debate in wake of defeat

• Serfdom• Law reform• Industrial development

begins, especially railways

The Tsar-Liberator

Emancipation of the serfs

• 3 March 1861• Emancipation

Manifesto was signed and published

• Peasants set free, but had to compensate landowners

Other Reforms

• Local Self-Government (Zemstvo) for the rural districts (1864) and the large towns (1870)

•Army and navy reorganization (1874)

•Reforms in education

Suppression of national movements

• January Uprising in Poland (1863-1864)

• Martial Law in Lithuania• Polish-Lithuanian territories

were excluded from liberal policies

• 1876 Ems ukaz banning Ukrainian languagePolonia (1864) by Jan Matejko

Assassination attempts

• April 4, 1866 by Dmitry Karakozov

• 20 April, 1879 by Alexander Solovyov

• December 1879• 5 February 1880

Assassination 13 March (1 March Old Style), 1881

The Church of the Saviour on the Blood