Alexander II of Russia
Alexander II of Russia was the Emperor of
Russia from 2 March 1855 until his assassination
in 1881. He was also the King of Poland and
the Grand Prince of Finland.
Alexander was the most successful Russian
reformer since Peter the Great. His most important
achievement was the emancipation of serfs
in 1861, for which he became known as Alexander
the Liberator (Russian: Алекса́ндр
Освободитель, Aleksandr Osvoboditel').
The tsar was responsible for numerous other
reforms including reorganizing the judicial
system, setting up elected local judges, abolishing
capital punishment, promoting local self-government
through the zemstvo system, imposing universal
military service, ending some of the privileges
of the nobility, and promoting the universities.
His brutal secret police sent thousands of
dissidents into exile in Siberia.
In foreign policy, Alexander sold Alaska to
the United States in 1867, fearing the remote
colony would fall into British hands if there
was another war. He sought peace, moved away
from bellicose France when Napoleon III fell
in 1871, and in 1872 joined with Germany and
Austria in the League of the Three Emperors
that stabilized the European situation. Despite
his otherwise pacifistic foreign policy, he
fought a brief war with Turkey in 1877–78,
pursued further expansion into Siberia and
the Caucasus, and conquered Turkestan. Although
disappointed by the results of the Congress
of Berlin in 1878, Alexander abided by that
agreement. Among his greatest domestic challenges
was an uprising in Poland in 1863, to which
he responded by stripping that land of its
separate Constitution and incorporating it
directly into Russia. Alexander was proposing
additional parliamentary reforms to counter
the rise of nascent revolutionary and anarchistic
movements when he was assassinated.
Early life
Born in Moscow, he was the eldest son of Nicholas
I of Russia and Charlotte of Prussia, daughter
of Frederick William III of Prussia and Louise
of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. His early life gave
little indication of his ultimate potential;
until the time of his accession in 1855, aged
37, few imagined that he would be known to
posterity as a leader able to implement the
most challenging reforms undertaken in Russia
since the reign of Peter the Great.
In the period of his life as heir apparent,
the intellectual atmosphere of Saint Petersburg
was unfavourable to any kind of change: freedom
of thought and all forms of private initiative
were being suppressed vigorously. Personal
and official censorship was rife; criticism
of the authorities was regarded as a serious
offence. Some 26 years afterward, he had the
opportunity of implementing changes; he would,
however, be assassinated in public by the
Narodnaya Volya (People's Will) terrorist
organisation.
His education as a future emperor was carried
out under the supervision of the liberal romantic
poet and gifted translator Vasily Zhukovsky,
grasping a smattering of a great many subjects
and becoming familiar with the chief modern
European languages. His alleged lack of interest
in military affairs detected by later historians
was his reflection on the results on his own
family and on the effect on the whole country
of the unsavoury Crimean War. Unusually for
the time, the young Alexander was taken on
a six-month tour of Russia, visiting 20 provinces
in the country. He also visited many prominent
Western European countries. As Tsarevich,
Alexander became the first Romanov heir to
visit Siberia.
Reign
Alexander II succeeded to the throne upon
the death of his father in 1855. The first
year of his reign was devoted to the prosecution
of the Crimean War and, after the fall of
Sevastopol, to negotiations for peace, led
by his trusted counsellor Prince Gorchakov.
The country had been exhausted and humiliated
by the war. Bribe-taking, theft and corruption
were everywhere. Encouraged by public opinion
he began a period of radical reforms, including
an attempt to not depend on a landed aristocracy
controlling the poor, a move to developing
Russia's natural resources and to reform all
branches of the administration. In 1867 he
sold Alaska to the United States for $7 million
(equivalent to roughly $200 million in current
dollars) after recognising the great difficulty
of defending it against the United Kingdom
or the former British colony of Canada.
After Alexander became emperor in 1855, he
maintained a generally liberal course. Despite
this, he was a target for numerous assassination
attempts (1866, 1879, 1880). On 13 March  1881,
members of the Narodnaya Volya (People's Will)
party killed him with a bomb. The Emperor
had earlier in the day signed the Loris-Melikov
constitution which would have created two
legislative commissions made up of indirectly
elected representatives, had it not been repealed
by his reactionary successor Alexander III.
Emancipation of the serfs
Soon after the conclusion of peace, important
changes were made in legislation concerning
industry and commerce, and the new freedom
thus afforded produced a large number of limited
liability companies. Plans were formed for
building a great network of railways, partly
for the purpose of developing the natural
resources of the country, and partly for the
purpose of increasing its power for defense
and attack.
The existence of serfdom was tackled boldly,
taking advantage of a petition presented by
the Polish landed proprietors of the Lithuanian
provinces and, hoping that their relations
with the serfs might be regulated in a more
satisfactory way (meaning in a way more satisfactory
for the proprietors), he authorized the formation
of committees "for ameliorating the condition
of the peasants," and laid down the principles
on which the amelioration was to be effected.
This step was followed by one still more significant.
Without consulting his ordinary advisers,
Alexander ordered the Minister of the Interior
to send a circular to the provincial governors
of European Russia (serfdom was rare in other
parts), containing a copy of the instructions
forwarded to the Governor-General of Lithuania,
praising the supposed generous, patriotic
intentions of the Lithuanian landed proprietors,
and suggesting that perhaps the landed proprietors
of other provinces might express a similar
desire. The hint was taken: in all provinces
where serfdom existed, emancipation committees
were formed.
The emancipation was not merely a humanitarian
question capable of being solved instantaneously
by imperial ukase. It contained very complicated
problems, deeply affecting the economic, social
and political future of the nation.
Alexander had to choose between the different
measures recommended to him and decide if
the serfs would become agricultural laborers
dependent economically and administratively
on the landlords or if the serfs would be
transformed into a class of independent communal
proprietors.
The emperor gave his support to the latter
project, and the Russian peasantry became
one of the last groups of peasants in Europe
to shake off serfdom.
The architects of the emancipation manifesto
were Alexander's brother Konstantin, Yakov
Rostovtsev, and Nikolay Milyutin.
On 3 March 1861, 6 years after his accession,
the emancipation law was signed and published.
Other reforms
In response to the overwhelming defeat (1856)
suffered by Russia in the Crimean War, and
to an awareness of military advances implemented
in other European countries, the Russian government
reorganized the army and navy and re-armed
them. The changes included universal military
conscription, introduced on 1 January 1874.
Now, sons of all the "estates," rich and poor,
had to serve in the military. Other military
reforms involved setting up an army reserve
and the military district system (still in
use a century later), the building of strategic
railways, and an emphasis on the military
education of the officer corps. Corporal punishment
in the military and branding of soldiers as
punishment were banned.
A new judicial administration (1864), based
on the French model, introduced security of
tenure. A new penal code and a greatly simplified
system of civil and criminal procedure also
came into operation. Reorganisation of Judiciary,
to include trial in open court, with judges
appointed for life, a jury system and the
creation of justices of the peace to deal
with minor offences at local level.
Alexander's bureaucracy instituted an elaborate
scheme of local self-government (zemstvo)
for the rural districts (1864) and the large
towns (1870), with elective assemblies possessing
a restricted right of taxation, and a new
rural and municipal police under the direction
of the Minister of the Interior.
Suppression of separatist movements
In 1856, at the beginning of his reign, Alexander
had made a memorable speech to the deputies
of the Polish nobility who inhabited Congress
Poland, Western Ukraine, Lithuania, Livonia
and Belarus, in which he admonished, "Gentlemen,
let us have no dreams!" The result was the
January Uprising of 1863–1864 that was suppressed
after eighteen months of fighting. Hundreds
of Poles were executed, and thousands were
deported to Siberia. The price for suppression
was Russian support for the unification of
Germany. Years later, Germany and Russia became
enemies.
All territories of the former Poland-Lithuania
were excluded from liberal policies introduced
by Alexander. The martial law in Lithuania,
introduced in 1863, lasted for the next 40
years. Native languages, Lithuanian, Ukrainian
and Belarusian were completely banned from
printed texts, the Ems Ukase being an example.
The Polish language was banned in both oral
and written form from all provinces except
Congress Poland, where it was allowed in private
conversations only.
Encouraging Finnish nationalism
In 1863, Alexander II re-convened the Diet
of Finland and initiated several reforms increasing
Finland's autonomy from Russia including establishment
of its own currency, the markka. Liberation
of business led to increased foreign investment
and industrial development. Finland also got
its first railways, separately established
under Finnish administration.
Finally, the elevation of Finnish from a language
of the common people to a national language
equal to Swedish opened opportunities for
a larger proportion of the society. Alexander
II is still regarded as "The Good Tsar" in
Finland.
These reforms could be seen as results of
a genuine belief that reforms were easier
to test in an underpopulated, homogeneous
country, than in the whole of Russia. They
may also be seen as a reward for the loyalty
of its relatively western-oriented population
during the Crimean War and during the Polish
uprising. Encouraging Finnish nationalism
and language can also be seen as an attempt
to dilute ties with Sweden.
Rule during the Caucasian War
It was during Alexander II's rule that the
Caucasian War reached its climax. Just before
the conclusion of the war with a victory on
Russia's side, the Russian Army, under the
emperor's order, sought to eliminate the Circassian
"mountaineers" in what would be often referred
to as "cleansing" in several historic dialogues.
The ethnic cleansing of the Circassians by
the Russian army under the direction of Alexander
II meets the modern international legal definition
of genocide.
Liberation of Bulgaria
In April 1876 the Bulgarian population on
the Balkans rebelled against Ottoman rule.
The April Uprising was suppressed brutally
and drowned in blood, causing a general outcry
throughout Europe. Some of the most prominent
intellectuals and politicians on the Continent,
most notably Victor Hugo and William Gladstone,
sought to raise awareness about the atrocities
that the Turks imposed on the Bulgarian population.
To solve this new crisis in the "Eastern question"
a special conference was convened in Constantinople
at the end of the year. The participants in
the Conference failed to reach a final agreement.
After the failure of the Constantinople Conference,
at the beginning of 1877 Emperor Alexander
II started diplomatic preparations with the
other Great Powers to secure their neutrality
in case there was a war between Russia and
the Ottomans. Alexander II considered such
agreements paramount in avoiding the possibility
of placing his country in a second disaster,
similar to the Crimean War. The Russian Emperor
was successful in his diplomatic endeavours.
Having secured agreement to non-involvement
by the other Great Powers, on 17 April 1877
Russia declared war upon the Ottoman Empire.
The Russians were successful against the Turks
and the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878 ended
with the signing of the preliminary peace
Treaty of San Stefano on 19 February (3 March
N.S.) 1878. The treaty and the subsequent
Congress of Berlin secured the emergence of
an independent Bulgarian state for the first
time since 1396, and the tsar's nephew, Prince
Alexander of Battenberg, was elected as the
Bulgarians' first ruler. For his social reforms
in Russia and his role in the liberation of
Bulgaria, Alexander II became known in Bulgaria
as the "Tsar-Liberator of Russians and Bulgarians".
A monument to Alexander II was erected in
1907 in Sofia in the "National Assembly" square,
opposite to the Parliament building. The monument
underwent a complete reconstruction in 2012,
funded by the Sofia Municipality and some
Russian foundations. The inscription on the
monument reads in Old-Bulgarian style: "To
the Tsar-Liberator from grateful Bulgaria".
There is a museum dedicated to Alexander in
the Bulgarian city of Pleven.
Assassination attempts
In 1866, there was an attempt on the emperor's
life in St. Petersburg by Dmitry Karakozov.
To commemorate his narrow escape from death
(which he himself referred to only as "the
event of 4 April 1866"), a number of churches
and chapels were built in many Russian cities.
Viktor Hartmann, a Russian architect, even
sketched a design of a monumental gate (which
was never built) to commemorate the event.
Modest Mussorgsky later wrote his Pictures
at an Exhibition; the last movement of which,
"The Great Gate of Kiev", is based on Hartmann's
sketches.
During the 1867 World Fair Polish immigrant
Antoni Berezowski attacked the carriage with
Alexander, his two sons and Napoleon III.
His self-modified, double-barreled pistol
misfired and only a horse of an escorting
cavalryman was hit.
On the morning of 20 April 1879, Alexander
was briskly walking towards the Square of
the Guards Staff and faced Alexander Soloviev,
a 33-year-old former student. Having seen
a menacing revolver in his hands, the Emperor
fled in a zigzag pattern. Soloviev fired five
times but missed. He was hanged on 28 May,
after being sentenced to death.
The student acted on his own, but other revolutionaries
were keen to murder Alexander. In December
1879, the Narodnaya Volya (People's Will),
a radical revolutionary group which hoped
to ignite a social revolution, organised an
explosion on the railway from Livadia to Moscow,
but they missed the emperor's train.
On the evening of 5 February 1880 Stephan
Khalturin, also from Narodnaya Volya, set
off a charge under the dining room of the
Winter Palace, right in the resting room of
the guards a storey below, killing 11 people
and wounding 30 others. However, dinner was
delayed by the late arrival of the tsar's
nephew, the Prince of Bulgaria, so the tsar
and his family were not in the dining room
at the time of the explosion and were unharmed.
Family life
By his empress consort, Tsarina Maria Alexandrovna,
Alexander II had eight children, seven of
whom survived into adulthood. He particularly
put his hope in his eldest son, Tsarevich
Nicholas. In 1864, Alexander II found Nicholas
a bride, Princess Dagmar of Denmark, second
daughter of King Christian IX and Queen Louise
of Denmark and younger sister to Alexandra,
Princess of Wales and King George I of Greece.
However, in 1865, during the engagement, Nicholas
died and the tsar's younger brother, Grand
Duke Alexander, not only inherited his brother's
position of tsarevich, but also his fiancee
and the couple married in November 1866, with
Dagmar converting to Orthodoxy and taking
the name Maria Feodorovna. In time, political
differences, and other disagreements, led
to estrangement between the two Alexanders.
Amongst his children, he remained particularly
close with his second, and only surviving
daughter, Grand Duchess Marie Alexandrovna.
In 1873, a quarrel broke out between the courts
of Queen Victoria and Alexander II, when Victoria's
second son, Prince Alfred, made it known that
he wished to marry the Grand Duchess. The
tsar objected to the queen's request to have
his daughter come to England in order to meet
her, and after the January 1874 wedding in
St. Petersburg, the tsar insisted that his
daughter be granted precedence over the Princess
of Wales, which the queen rebuffed. Later
that year, after attending the engagement
ceremonies of his second surviving son, Vladimir,
to Marie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin in Berlin,
Alexander II, with his third son, Alexei,
accompanying him, made a visit to England.
While not a state visit, but simply a trip
to see his daughter, he was nevertheless partook
in receptions at Buckingham Palace and Marlborough
House, inspected the artillery at the Royal
Arsenal in Woolwich, reviewed troops at Aldershot
and met both Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli
and leader of the opposition, William Gladstone.
Disraeli observed of the tsar that "his mien
and manners are gracious and graceful, but
the expression of his countenance, which I
could now very closely examine, is sad. Whether
it is satiety, or the loneliness of despotism,
or fear of a violent death, I know not, but
it was a visage of, I should think, habitual
mournfulness."
At home, Tsarina Marie Alexandrovna was suffering
from tuberculosis and was spending increasing
time abroad. In 1866, Alexander II took a
mistress, Catherine Dolgorukya, with whom
he would father three surviving children.
The affair, in the face of the tsarina's declining
health, served to alienate the rest of his
adult children, save his son Alexei, and his
daughter, who, like Alexander II's brothers,
believed that the tsar was beyond criticism,
from him. In 1880, however, following threats
on Catherine's life, the tsar moved his mistress
and their children into the Winter Palace,
installing them in rooms directly above the
apartments of his ailing wife. When Grand
Duchess Marie Alexandrovna made a visit in
May 1880, being warned that her mother was
dying, she was horrified to learn of his father's
mistress' living arrangements and confronted
her father. Shocked by the loss of support
from his daughter, he quietly retreated to
Gatchina Palace for military reviews. The
quarrel, however, evidently, jolted his conscience
enough to lead him to return to St. Petersburg
each morning to ask after his wife's health.
The tsarina, however, had not much longer
to live, dying on 8 June 1880. Less than a
month later, on 6 July, Alexander II and Catherine
were married in a secret ceremony at Tsarskoe
Selo. The action scandalized both his family
and the court, as well as violated Orthodox
custom, which required a forty-day minimum
period between the death of a spouse and the
remarriage of a surviving spouse, and was
condemned in foreign courts. Alexander also
bestowed on Catherine the title of Princess
Yurievskaya and legitimized their children.
Assassination
After the last assassination attempt in February
1880, Count Loris-Melikov was appointed the
head of the Supreme Executive Commission and
given extraordinary powers to fight the revolutionaries.
Loris-Melikov's proposals called for some
form of parliamentary body, and the Emperor
seemed to agree; these plans were never realised.
On 13 March (1 March Old Style Date), 1881,
Alexander fell victim to an assassination
plot in Saint Petersburg.
As he was known to do every Sunday for many
years, the emperor went to the Mikhailovsky
Manège for the military roll call. He travelled
both to and from the Manège in a closed carriage
accompanied by five Cossacks and Frank (Franciszek)
Joseph Jackowski, a Polish noble, with a sixth
Cossack sitting on the coachman's left. The
emperor's carriage was followed by two sleighs
carrying, among others, the chief of police
and the chief of the emperor's guards. The
route, as always, was via the Catherine Canal
and over the Pevchesky Bridge.
The street was flanked by narrow pavements
for the public. A young member of the Narodnaya
Volya ("People's Will") movement, Nikolai
Rysakov, was carrying a small white package
wrapped in a handkerchief.
The explosion, while killing one of the Cossacks
and seriously wounding the driver and people
on the sidewalk, had only damaged the bulletproof
carriage, a gift from Napoleon III of France.
The emperor emerged shaken but unhurt. Rysakov
was captured almost immediately. Police Chief
Dvorzhitsky heard Rysakov shout out to someone
else in the gathering crowd. The surrounding
guards and the Cossacks urged the emperor
to leave the area at once rather than being
shown the site of the explosion.
Nevertheless, a second young member of the
Narodnaya Volya, Ignacy Hryniewiecki, standing
by the canal fence, raised both arms and threw
something at the emperor's feet. He was alleged
to have shouted, "It is too early to thank
God". Dvorzhitsky was later to write:
Later it was learned there was a third bomber
in the crowd. Ivan Emelyanov stood ready,
clutching a briefcase containing a bomb that
would be used if the other two bombers failed.
Alexander was carried by sleigh to the Winter
Palace to his study where, twenty years before
almost to the day, he had signed the Emancipation
Edict freeing the serfs. Alexander was bleeding
to death, with his legs torn away, his stomach
ripped open, and his face mutilated. Members
of the Romanov family came rushing to the
scene.
The dying emperor was given Communion and
Last Rites. When the attending physician,
Sergey Botkin, was asked how long it would
be, he replied, "Up to fifteen minutes." At
3:30 that day the standard (Alexander's personal
flag) of Alexander II was lowered for the
last time.
Aftermath
Alexander II's death caused a great setback
for the reform movement. One of his last ideas
was to draft plans for an elected parliament,
or Duma, which were completed the day before
he died but not yet released to the Russian
people. In a matter of 48 hours, Alexander
II planned to release his plan for the duma
to the Russian people. Had he lived, Russia
might have followed a path to constitutional
monarchy instead of the long road of oppression
that defined his successor's reign. The first
action Alexander III took after his coronation
was to tear up those plans. A Duma would not
come into fruition until 1905, when Alexander
II's grandson, Nicholas II, commissioned the
Duma following extreme pressure on the monarchy
as a result of the Russian Revolution of 1905.
The assassination triggered major suppression
of civil liberties in Russia, and police brutality
burst back in full force after experiencing
some restraint under the reign of Alexander
II, whose murder and subsequent death was
witnessed first-hand by his son, Alexander
III, and his grandson, Nicholas II, both future
emperors who vowed not to have the same fate
befall them. Both of them used the Okhrana
to arrest protestors and uproot suspected
rebel groups, creating further suppression
of personal freedom for the Russian people.
A series of anti-Jewish pogroms and legislation
were yet another result.
Finally, the tsar's assassination also inspired
anarchists to advocate "'propaganda by deed'—the
use of a spectacular act of violence to incite
revolution."
With construction starting in 1883, the Church
of the Savior on Blood was built on the site
of Alexander's assassination and dedicated
in his memory.
Marriages and children
First marriage
During his bachelor days, Alexander made a
state visit to England in 1838. Just a year
older than the young Queen Victoria, Alexander's
approaches to her were indeed short-lived.
Victoria married her German cousin, Albert
of Saxe-Coburg in February 1840. On 16 April
1841, aged 23, Tsarevitch Alexander married
Princess Marie of Hesse in St Petersburg,
thereafter known in Russia as Maria Alexandrovna.
(Marie was the legal daughter of Ludwig II,
Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine and Princess
Wilhelmina of Baden, although some gossiping
questioned whether the Grand Duke Ludwig or
Wilhelmina's lover, Baron August von Senarclens
de Grancy, was her biological father. Alexander
was aware of the question of her paternity.)
The marriage produced six sons and two daughters:
Grand Duchess Alexandra Alexandrovna (30 August
1842 – 10 July 1849), nicknamed Lina, died
of infant meningitis in St. Petersburg at
the age of six
Tsarevich Nicholas Alexandrovich (20 September
1843 – 24 April 1865), engaged to Dagmar
of Denmark (Maria Feodorovna)
Emperor Alexander III (10 March 1845 – 1
November 1894), married 1866, Dagmar of Denmark,
had issue
Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich (22 April
1847 – 17 February 1909), married 1874,
Marie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, had issue
Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich (14 January
1850 – 14 November 1908), had (presumably
illegitimate) issue
Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna (17 October
1853 – 20 October 1920) married 1874, Alfred,
Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, had issue
Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich (11 May 1857
– 17 February 1905), married 1884, Elisabeth
of Hesse (Elizabeth Feodorovna)
Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich (3 October 1860
– 24 January 1919), married 1889, Alexandra
of Greece and Denmark (Alexandra Georgievna),
had issue; second marriage 1902, Olga Karnovich,
had issue
Empress Maria Alexandrovna died of tuberculosis
on 6 June 1880, at the age of fifty-five.
Mistresses
Alexander had many mistresses during his marriage
and fathered seven known illegitimate children.
These included:
Charlotte Henriette Sophie Jansen (15 November
1844 – July 1915) with mistress Sophie Charlotte
Dorothea Von Behse (1828–1886)
Joseph Raboxicz
Michael-Bogdan Oginski (10 October 1848 – 25
March 1909) with mistress Countess Olga Kalinovskya
(1818–1854)
Antoinette Bayer (20 June 1856 – 24 January
1948) with his mistress Wilhelmine Bayer
On 6 July 1880, less than a month after Empress
Maria's death, Alexander formed a morganatic
marriage with his mistress Princess Catherine
Dolgorukov, with whom he already had four
children:
George Alexandrovich Romanov Yurievsky (12
May 1872 – 13 September 1913). Married Countess
Alexandra Zarnekau and had issue. They later
divorced.
Olga Alexandrovna Yurievskaya (7 November
1873 – 10 August 1925). Married Count Georg
Nikolaus of Nassau, Count of Merenberg.
Boris Alexandrovich Yurievsky (23 February
1876 – 11 April 1876).
Catherine Alexandrovna Yurievskaya (9 September
1878 – 22 December 1959) Her first husband
was the 23rd Prince Alexander Alexandrovich
Bariatinski, (1870–1910) the son of the
22nd Prince Alexander Vladimirovich Bariatinski,
(1848–1909). Her second husband, later divorced,
was Prince Serge Obolensky, (1890–1978).
Alexander II's dog, Milord
A favourite dog of Alexander II was an Irish
Setter named Milord. Contemporaries wrote
that Milord was a Black Setter, but now it
is understood to have been a Red Setter with
black color on the tips of its hair – which
gave the dog a black color with a red nuance.
Many citizens of Saint Petersburg came to
know the figure of the emperor – a tall
stately man, who frequently walked with his
Setter along the lattice of the Summer Garden.
Milord was likely the most famous animal in
the Russian Empire at that time.
In fiction
Alexander II appears prominently in the opening
two chapters of Jules Verne's Michael Strogoff
(published in 1876 during Alexander's own
lifetime). The Emperor sets the book's plot
in motion and sends its eponymous protagonist
on the dangerous and vital mission which would
occupy the rest of the book. Verne presents
Alexander II in a highly positive light, as
an enlightened yet firm monarch, dealing confidently
and decisively with a rebellion. Alexander's
liberalism shows in a dialogue with the chief
of police, who says "There was a time, sire,
when NONE returned from Siberia", to be immediately
rebuked by the Emperor who answers: "Well,
whilst I live, Siberia is and shall be a country
whence men CAN return."
The film The Magnificent Sinner depicts a
highly fictionalized account of the Tsar's
romance with the woman who became his second
wife.
In The Tiger in the Well, Philip Pullman refers
to the assassination – though he never names
Alexander – and to the pogroms that followed.
The anti-Jewish attacks play an important
role in the novel's plot. Andrew Williams's
historical thriller, To Kill A Tsar, tells
the story of The People's Will revolutionaries
and the assassination through the eyes of
an Anglo-Russian doctor living in St Petersburg.
Oscar Wilde's first play Vera; or, The Nihilists,
written in 1880 – Alexander II's last year
– features Russian revolutionaries who seek
to assassinate a reform-minded Emperor (and
who, in the play, ultimately fail in their
plot). Though Wilde's fictional Emperor differs
from the actual Alexander, contemporary events
in Russia – as published in the British
press of the time – clearly influenced Wilde.
In nonfiction
Mark Twain describes a short visit with Alexander
II in Chapter 37 of The Innocents Abroad,
describing him as "very tall and spare, and
a determined-looking man, though a very pleasant-looking
one nevertheless. It is easy to see that he
is kind and affectionate. There is something
very noble in his expression when his cap
is off."
Titles, styles and arms
Titles and styles
29 April 1818 – 1 December 1825: His Imperial
Highness Grand Duke Alexander Nikolaevich
of Russia
1 December 1825 – 2 March 1855: His Imperial
Highness The Tsarevich of Russia
2 March 1855 – 13 March 1881: His Imperial
Majesty The Emperor and Autocrat of All the
Russias
Arms
Ancestors
