Alexander+II

Nick Evans


 * Freeing of the Serfs**
 * Emancipation Proclamation 1863
 * reasons for:
 * failing and corrupt system
 * unable to compete with foreign agriculture
 * uneducated serfs=trouble with weapons of war
 * failure of serf army in Crimean War
 * peasant revolts against landowners
 * Problems
 * peasants=poor and without land
 * expected to pay installments to the state to make up for the lost land of the former owners
 * mir
 * village commune responsible for payments
 * in charge of peasant land
 * conservative, didn't allow serfs to leave land
 * serfs not free but instead poor and powerless
 * Zemstvos/other Reforms**
 * local assemblies for self-government
 * provide public services (education, famine relief, construction)
 * levy taxes
 * bureaucrats afraid of self govt stopped them
 * representatives elected by all townspeople
 * property-based
 * poorer at a disadvantage, not represented well
 * Other successes in local court systems to provide equal law
 * Other Problems/Conclusion**
 * Reformers wanted faster change, conservatives feared undermining if Russian ideals
 * radical movements grew in reaction to reforms
 * Alexander Herzen
 * believed the peasantry could self govern
 * Populism=students and intellectuals that followed
 * Violence grew out of it
 * Assassination of Tsar 1881