Alexander II

The Emanicipation of the Serfs (1861)
By Alexander II and Prince Kropotkin
Background:
Alexander II (1818-1881) became emperor of Russia upon the death of his father, Nicholas I.  Unlike his rigidly conservative father, Alexander was determined to use his autocratic power to reform Russia.  He instituted a series of educational and administrative reforms and worked to simplify the legal system.   Convinced of the importance of economic modernization, Alexander encouraged the building of railroads.  He also did much to improve Russia’s inadequate banking system.  He was most famous, however, for his decision to free the serfs.  Bound to their land and masters, Russian serfs were little better than slaves.  Convinced that serfdom stood in the way of economic advance and relying upon his God-given authority as emperor, Alexander abolished the institution.  Hailed as the “Tsar Liberator” and beloved by his people, Alexander ironically was assassinated by terrorists demanding even greater social reforms. 
In a speech before the State Council in 1861, Alexander confronted reluctant aristocrats with the inevitability of his decision.  Prince Peter Kropotkin (1842-1921) was one of the young nobles who had a firsthand view of the impact of the emancipation.  In his later years, kropotkin was a famous revolutionary and anarchist, but in 1861 he was a student in the exclusive Corps of Pages, a school for the sons of the aristocracy.  In his memoirs he gave an eyewitness account of the events following the tsar’s proclamation.

 

Czar Alexander’s Address in the State Council
January 28, 1861

 

Editor's note: Although serfdom, which bound agricultural workers to particular landlords all their lives, is associated with medieval feudalism, it continued in Eastern Europe until the 19th century.  Eventually ideas on liberty, sometimes referred to as classical liberalism, did reach Eastern Europe.  Here Czar Alexander II announced the abolition of serfdom in Russia.

The matter of the liberation of the serfs, which has been submitted for the consideration of the State Council, I consider to be a vital question for Russia, upon which will depend the development of her strength and power.  I am sure that all of you, gentlemen, are just as convinced as I am of the benefits and necessity of this measure.  I have another conviction, which is that this matter cannot be postponed; therefore I demand that the State Council finish with it in the first half of February so that it can be announced before the start of work in the fields;…I repeat – and this is my absolute will – that this matter should be finished right away.

             For four years now it has dragged on and has been arousing various fears and anticipations among both the estate owners and the peasants.  Any further delay could be disastrous to the state.  I cannot help being surprised and happy, and I am sure all of you are happy, at the trust and calm shown by our good people in this matter.  Although the apprehensions of the nobility are to a certain extent understandable, for the closest and material interests of each are involved, notwithstanding all this, I have not forgotten and shall never forget that the approach to the matter was made on the initiative of the nobility itself, and I am happy to be able to be a witness to this before posterity.  In my private conversations with the guberniia marshals of the nobility, and during my travels about Russia, when receiving the nobility, I did not conceal the trend of my thoughts and opinions on the question that occupies us all and said everywhere that this transformation cannot take place without certain sacrifices on their part and that all my efforts consist in making these sacrifices as little weighty and burdensome as possible for the nobility.  I hope, gentlemen, that on inspection of the drafts presented to the State Council, you will assure yourselves that all that can be done for the protection of the interests of the nobility has been done; if on the other hand you find it necessary in any way to alter or to add to the presented work, then I am ready to receive your comments; but I ask you only not to forget that the basis of the whole work must be the improvement of the life of the peasants – and improvement not in words alone or on paper but in actual fact.

             Before proceeding to a detailed examination of this draft itself, I would like to trace briefly the historical background of this affair.  You are acquainted with the origin of serfdom.  Formerly it did not exist among us; this law was established by autocratic power and only autocratic power can abolish it, and that is my sincere will.

             My predecessors felt all the evils of serfdom and continually endeavored, if not to destroy it completely, to work toward the gradual elimination of the arbitrary power of the estate owners…

            My late father [Nicholas I] was continuously occupied with the thought of freeing the serfs.  Sympathizing completely with this thought, already in 1856, before the coronation, while in Moscow I called the attention of the leaders of the nobility of the Moscow guberniia to the necessity of them to occupy themselves with improving the life of the serfs, adding that serfdom could not continue forever and that it would therefore be better if the transformation took place from above rather than from below…

            The Editorial Commissions worked for a year and seven months and, notwithstanding all the reproaches, perhaps partly just, to which the commissions were exposed, they finished their work conscientiously and presented it to the Main Committee.  The Main Committee, under the chairmanship of my brother [Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich], toiled with indefatigable energy and zeal.  I consider it my duty to thank all the members of the committee, especially my brother, for their conscientious labors in this matter.

            There may be various views on the draft presented, and I am willing to listen to all the different opinions.  But I have the right to demand one thing from you: that you, putting aside all personal interests, act not like estate owners but like imperial statesmen invested with my trust.  Approaching this important matter I have not concealed from myself all those difficulties that awaited us and I do not conceal them now; but, firmly believing in the grace of God and being convinced of the sacredness of this matter, I trust that God will not abandon us but will bless us to finish it for the future prosperity of our beloved fatherland.

From: George Vernadsky, Ralph T. Fisher, Jr., Alan D. Ferguson, Andrew Lossky and Sergei Pushkarev ed., A Source Book for Russian History From Early Times to 1917 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972), III, pp. 599-600.

 

Kropotkin’s Memoir
We went to the parade; and when all the military performances were over, Alexander II, remaining on horseback, loudly called out, "The officers to me!" They gathered round him, and he began, in a loud voice, a speech about the great event of the day.

"The officers....the representatives of the nobility in the army" - these scraps of sentences reached our ears - "an end has been put to centuries of injustice...I expect sacrifices from the nobility...the loyal nobility will gather round the throne"...and so on. Enthusiastic hurrahs resounded amongst the officers as he ended.

We ran rather than marched back on our way to the corps, -- hurrying to be in time for the Italian opera, of which the last performance in the season was to be given that afternoon; some manifestation was sure to take place then. Our military attire was flung off with great haste, and several of us dashed, lightfooted, to the sixth-story gallery. The house was crowded.

During the first entr'acte the smoking-room of the opera filled with excited young men, who all talked to one another, whether acquainted or not. We planned at once to return to the hall, and to sing, with the whole public in a mass choir, the hymn "God Save the Tsar."

However, sounds of music reached our ears, and we all hurried back to the hall. The band of the opera was already playing the hymn, which was drowned immediately in enthusiastic hurrahs coming from all parts of the hall. I saw Bavéri, the conductor of the band, waving his stick, but not a sound could be heard from the powerful band. Then Bavéri stopped, but the hurrahs continued. I saw the stick waved again in the air; I saw the fiddle-bows moving, and musicians blowing the brass instruments, but again the sound of voices overwhelmed the band. Bavéri began conducting the hymn once more, and it was only by the end of that third repetition that isolated sounds of the brass instruments pierced through the clamor of human voices.

The same enthusiasm was in the streets. Crowds of peasants and educated men stood in front of the palace, shouting hurrahs, and the Tsar could not appear without being followed by demonstrative crowds running after his carriage. Hérzen was right when, two years later, as Alexander was drowning the Polish insurrection in blood, and "Muravióoff the Hanger" was strangling it on the scaffold, he wrote, "Alexander Nikoláevich, why did you not die on that day? Your name would have been transmitted in history as that of a hero."

Where were the uprisings which had been predicted by the champions of slavery? Conditions more indefinite than those which had been created by the Polozhénie (the emancipation law) could not have been invented. If anything could have provoked revolts, it was precisely the perplexing vagueness of the conditions created by the new law. And yet, except in two places where there were insurrections, and a very few other spots were small disturbances entirely due to misunderstandings and immediately appeased took place, Russia remained quiet, -- more quiet than ever. With their usual good sense, the peasants had understood that serfdom was done away with, that "freedom had come," and they accepted the conditions imposed upon them, although these conditions were very heavy.

I was in Nikólskoye in August, 1861, and again in the summer of 1862, and I was struck with the quiet, intelligent way in which the peasants had accepted the new conditions. They knew perfectly well how difficult it would be to pay the redemption tax for the land, which was in reality an indemnity to the nobles in lieu of the obligations of serfdom. But they so much valued the abolition of their personal enslavement that they accepted the ruinous charges - not without murmuring, but as a hard necessity - the moment that personal freedom was obtained. For the first months they kept two holidays a week, saying that it was a sin to work on Friday; but when the summer came they resumed work with even more energy than before.

I was in Nikólskoye in August, 1861, and again in the summer of 1862, and I was struck with the quiet, intelligent way in which the peasants had accepted the new conditions. They knew perfectly well how difficult it would be to pay the redemption tax for the land, which was in reality an indemnity to the nobles in lieu of the obligations of serfdom. But they so much valued the abolition of their personal enslavement that they accepted the ruinous charges - not without murmuring, but as a hard necessity - the moment that personal freedom was obtained. For the first months they kept two holidays a week, saying that it was a sin to work on Friday; but when the summer came they resumed work with even more energy than before.

When I saw our Nikólskoye peasants, fifteen months after the liberation, I could not but admire them. Their inborn good nature and softness remained with them, but all traces of servility had disappeared. They talked to their masters as equals talk to equals, as if they never had stood in different relations. Besides, such men came out from among them as could make a stand for their rights.

Questions:

Judging from the tsar’s speech to his council, what sort of generalizations might you make about the monarch’s power in the Russian state?

What appears to be the chief obstacle in the way of liberating the serfs?  How does Alexander handle this problem?

 

How was the tsar’s act received in Saint Petersburg?

What was the reaction of the peasants to their liberation?