Alexander II, he liberated the villeins
from their serfdom.
Alexander II, b. Apr. 17, 1818, d. Mar. 1, 1881, emperor of
Russia, emancipated the serfs by a proclamation of Feb. 19, 1861,
and ushered in an era of reform. The changes included an overhaul
of justice and the courts, a tempering of censorship, aut onomy
for the universities, elected assemblies at the local and provincial
levels, and universal military conscription. Alexander succeeded
his father, Nicholas I, on Feb. 19, 1855, during the dark days
of the Crimean war. The humiliating loss of that war and the national
weaknesses it revealed undoubtedly played some role in Alexander's
subsequent reform activity. Even so, a personal conviction that
Russia had to modernize may have been at least as important.
As an individual, Alexander II somewhat resembled his uncle
Alexander I.. Handsome, charming, and sentimental, he was also
irresolute and often was persuaded by the last person to have
his ear. Following attempts upon his life, beginning in 1866,
he lived in fear and closed himself off to all except a few favorites.
Their inf luence gave a reactionary temper to the latter half
of his reign. An assassin-a member of the People's Will, an extremist
offshoot of the Narodniki (populist movement) -- finally succeeded
in killing Alexander the same day that he signed a manifesto t
hat would have created a national consultative assembly. The tragedy
of Alexander's violent death was compounded by the failure of
his successor, Alexander III, to implement this progressive act,
thereby ending the moderate reforms that might have helped Russia
avoid the revolutions of the 20th century.
