Write about Tsar Alexander II as a reformer.essay type question
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Answer and Explanation:
Between 1861 and 1874, Alexander II, Tsar of Russia (r. 1855–1881), decreed major reforms of Russia's social, judicial, educational, financial, administrative, and military systems. His program came to be known as the Great Reforms. These acts liberated roughly 40 percent of the population from bondage, created an independent judicial system, introduced self-governing councils in towns and rural areas, eased censorship, transformed military service, strengthened banking, and granted more autonomy to universities. Alexander II accomplished this program in a mere thirteen years with the assistance of his brother Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich, reform-minded bureaucrats, and conservative state servitors who placed loyalty to the tsar above their policy preferences.
The Great Reforms introduced a period of rapid social and economic development that was unrivaled in Russian history, save for the rule of Peter the Great (r. 1682–1725). Several key principles shaped the reforms: liberation of peasants from centuries of personal bondage, legality as an antidote to arbitrariness and caprice in judicial and administrative systems, greater openness (glasnost) in official and civil affairs, and civic engagement of all members of society. The overall goals were to accelerate economic development and restore Russia's military dominance as a Great Power after its sobering defeat in the Crimean War (1853–1856). That defeat forced recognition that Russia's bonded and illiterate soldiers, with their outdated weapons and tactics, were no match for the soldiers western European powers put in the field with the benefits of the Industrial Revolution behind them.
Great reforms timeline
1855: Alexander II becomes tsar of the Russian
Empire 1856: Russia concedes defeat in the Crimean War
1861: Emancipation of proprietary/seigniorial serfs and establishment of volost courts
1862: State Treasury created; state budget hence forth published
1863: Emancipation of appanage peasants; univer sity statute; abolition of dehumanizing corporal punishments in military
1864: Zemstvo statute; judicial reform
1865: Temporary regulations on censorship
1866: Emancipation of state peasants; creation of State Bank
1874: Universal military service statute
Causes
Historians have long debated the causes for the Great Reforms. Marxist historians of the former Soviet Union identified economic crisis in the serf economy and increasing peasant disorders before 1861 as proofs of the "crisis of feudalism" and the rising political consciousness of the working masses. Other late Soviet historians, such as Peter A. Zaionchkovsky and V. A. Fedorov, and most Western scholars argued that the serf economy was not in decline, although it had little potential for dynamic growth, and that the "rebellions" were rarely mass actions, but often individual acts of passive resistance. Intellectual historians have pointed to the rise of abolitionist and reform sentiments among critics of serfdom and state corruption. The first criticisms dated to the late eighteenth century, when such works as Alexander Radishchev's A Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow (1790) appeared, pointing not only to serfdom's abuses but also judicial and administrative corruption. Such writers as Ivan Turgenev (1818–1883) and painters as Alexei Venetsianov (1780–1847) also depicted Russia's bonded peasants in a sympathetic light, stressing their human dignity. Defeat in the Crimean War, however, proved decisive in moving Alexander II and such leading figures as Peter Valuev, minister of the interior, to initiate fundamental changes.
Emancipation of the serfs
The cornerstone of the Great Reforms was the emancipation of Russia's peasants. They fell into three groups. The proprietary or seigniorial serfs were the property of individual landowners and lived in conditions of virtual slavery; Alexander II proclaimed their liberation from personal bondage on 3 March (19 February, old style) 1861. The appanage peasants lived on the personal properties of the Romanov family; Alexander II granted them personal freedom in 1863. They received land allotments in 1863 and were placed on forty-nine-year redemption payments in 1865. The state peasants lived on state lands under state administrators; they received freedom in 1866.
Answer:
Alexander II's 'great reforms' stand out as among the most significant events in nineteenth century Russian history. Alexander became known as the 'Tsar Liberator' because he abolished serfdom in 1861. ... This article will demonstrate that the reforms were a direct response to Russia's defeat in the Crimean War.
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