01
On March 1, 1881, a luxurious carriage sped down the streets of St. Petersburg. Sitting on the bus was Alexander II, the Tsar of the Russian Empire at the time. He is preparing to convene a meeting, reorganize the State Council, and sign new decrees to advance the reform process of Russia's constitutional monarchy.
Suddenly, a violent explosion sounded next to the Tsar's carriage, and the coachman and the guards fell to the ground. Alexander II did not panic, but despite his dissuasion, he went to examine the guards' wounds. When the Tsar got out of the car, another bomb flew toward him and exploded under his feet, and the Tsar was momentarily blurred with blood and flesh, and his legs were blown away. Although he was sent to the hospital for treatment in time, because of his serious injuries, he ended his life at the age of 63 on the same day.
This is the famous assassination of Alexander II in Russian history, why did anyone assassinate the Tsar? What kind of monarch was Alexander II? In the history of the Romanov dynasty, there were two great reformers, one was the household name Peter the Great, and the other was the assassinated Alexander II.
He was the eldest son of Nicholas I, who grew up under the meticulous nurturing of the famous scholar Zhukovsky. As a teenager, Alexander was already proficient in theology, mathematics, physics, geography, history, politics, economics, law and other disciplines, and mastered four foreign languages, including English, French, German and Polish. Among the successive tsars, his cultural quality was extremely high.
But when Alexander II ascended the throne in 1855, he inherited a mess. At that time, Russia was defeated by the Anglo-French army in the Crimean War, and after the Congress of Vienna, the invincible Tsarist Russia lost control of the European continent. Moreover, the contradictions in Russia and the reality of backwardness of the system have also been completely exposed.
With remarkable insight, Alexander II began a drastic reform of the Russian Empire and became an important thrust of Russia's modernization. The Tsar first solved the problem of serfdom, when the Russian Empire still practiced feudal serfdom, not only low productivity, but also many serfs were also brutally exploited by nobles and landlords. From Gogol's book "Dead Souls", we can see the miserable life of the Russian serfs at that time.
02
Alexander II believed that for a country to develop, it was necessary to change this backward relations of production. In 1857, he established the General Committee for Peasant Affairs and began preparations for the abolition of serfdom. He hoped to achieve reform in a gentle manner, through the method of patient persuasion of the nobility. "I look forward to the extent to which the brainy lords of the many territories themselves intend to improve the fate of their own peasants," he said. ”
However, the reform was inevitably opposed by the nobles and landlords, but Alexander II was unmoved and insisted on abolishing serfdom. In early 1861, Alexander II formally issued the Emancipation Decree, abolishing serfdom. According to the records, the decree has two main core contents, "one is to announce the abolition of serfdom, all serfs are given personal freedom, including the right to move, marry, change occupation, own property, and conclude contracts; the other is to stipulate that all land is owned by the landlord, and the peasants must redeem a small piece of land in accordance with the regulations, the ransom amount is two or three times the actual price of the land, the peasants pay a part, the rest is paid by the government in the form of paid bonds, and the peasants must pay off the principal and interest within 49 years." ”
After the abolition of serfdom, tens of millions of serfs finally gained personal freedom and land. Moreover, the productive forces of the Russian Empire were liberated and the overall national strength was enhanced. Alexander II's campaign to liberate serfs was comparable to the great cause of the simultaneous US President Abraham Lincoln in liberating black slaves. They all set free the enslaved and gave a great impetus to the development of the country.
After solving the problem of serfdom, Alexander II continued to carry out in-depth reforms of the Russian Empire. In November 1864, he began judicial reforms, introducing a jury system and changing the number of trials of all cases nationwide to a trial system. More importantly, the defendant's status, whether noble or low, was given the right to hire a lawyer. Thus abolishing all the privileges of the old nobility and promoting fairness and justice in Russian society.
In order to catch up with the Western powers, Alexander II began to vigorously promote industrialization throughout the country, especially the construction of railways. At that time, Russia's railway length was only 965 kilometers, but by the time of his assassination, it had grown to 22,525 kilometers. The convenience of transportation greatly promoted the development of the Russian economy and rapidly changed the backward appearance.
In addition, Alexander II also carried out reforms in the fields of culture, education, medical care, charity, etc., which greatly enriched the development of Russian culture and promoted the arrival of the "Silver Age" in Russia.
In foreign relations, Alexander II took advantage of the Franco-Prussian War to abrogate the Treaty of Paris signed in the Crimean War, abolishing the unequal terms imposed on Russia, thus restoring the prestige of the great powers. Russia also expanded during this period, annexing the Caucasus, conquering Central Asia, and defeating the Ottoman Empire.
Of course, for China, Alexander II was definitely a greedy villain, he forced the Manchu Qing to sign the "Treaty of Yaohun", "Sino-Russian Beijing Treaty" and "Sino-Russian Survey of the Northwest Boundary" three unequal treaties, plundered 1.5 million square kilometers of land from our country, so that our country completely lost the sea of Japan, the harm to our country is immeasurable.
03
Although Alexander II's reforms were fruitful, it was inevitable that some social problems would arise. At that time, some radical populist groups, including the Popular Opinion Party, grew up using the relaxed environment of reform.
The Public Opinion Party believes in the heroic view of history to the extreme, believing that ordinary people are "gangsters" and have their value only under the leadership of a small number of heroes. They preach the idea that heroes change history and think of themselves as Superman. They believed that the Tsar's rule must be overthrown in order to deepen the reforms in Russia, and soon they had thousands of followers.
The PSP believed that the reform of the state could be changed by any means necessary for "noble ends" and that only by assassinating the Tsar could the reform of the state be changed. So Gliniewitz and others plotted a plan to assassinate Alexander II, and it was successful.
It was only the assassination of the Tsar that did not accelerate Russia's reforms. The Popular Opinion Party was brutally suppressed by Tsarist Russia and soon collapsed. Even more tragically, alexander II's reforms came to an abrupt end with his assassination, and alexander III and Nicholas II failed to carry out further reforms, so the Russian Empire eventually came to an end and the Tsar's family was exterminated.
If Alexander II had not been assassinated and signed a constitutional monarchy, perhaps the fate of the Russian Empire and the Romanov family would have been different. But history is so strange that an enlightened, brilliant reformer was thus ended by a group of angry youths, and the trajectory of Russia's development was changed.
Planner: Fish and Sheep History Producer: Fish Boy
Author: Drum Wave Hermit Production: Eat hard disk bar, developed mosquitoes
The copyright of this work belongs to the "Fish and Sheep History", and may not be reproduced without authorization, and infringement will be investigated. Welcome to forward the circle of friends.