Russia in 1855

• Mid-19th century Russia was large but economically underdeveloped.
• The ratio of villagers to town dwellers was 11:1.
• 85% of the population were illiterate peasants.
• Serfs belonged to village communes, also known as Mirs.
• Serfs could be owned privately or by the state.
• Serfs paid their master through rent and labour and their masters could buy, sell and beat their serfs.
• Russia was ruled as an empire in 1855 and was run by an autocratic Tsar.
• The Tsar was head of the Russian Orthodox Church.
• The Tsar was believed to have possessed semi-divine powers.
• Edicts were laws passed by the Tsar and the Tsar could choose his own advisers.
• Alexander II became Tsar in March 1855 when Russia was involved in the Crimean War.
• Russia had been fighting Britain, France and Turkey in the Crimean War since 1853.
• Russia lost the Battles of Balaclava and Inkerman in 1854.
• Russia lost Sevastopol in August 1855 which was a major naval base.
• Russia's final defeat in 1856 highlighted its reliance of serf armies and conscripts and its economic backwardness.
• 45% of Russia's expenditure was spent on the army which suffered from incompetent officers, humiliation and an increase in serf uprisings.
• Prior to serf emancipation, Alexander II had travelled the empire, served on his father's Council of State and led a serfdom committee.
• Alexander II believed serf emancipation would curb tensions and stimulate the economy.
• Alexander II's family and bureaucrats such as Nicholas and Dmitri Milyutin believed in the idea of serf emancipation.
• Alexander II had political, economic, moral and intellectual motives behind his reforms.
• Nobility debt was occurred because nobles shunned business and relied on serfs.
• Declining incomes was caused by a growing serf population and inadequate agriculture with masters having to get a mortgage and sell serfs as security for loans.
• An inability to move to town factories and internal demands for goods being low were economic motives to end serfdom.
• Mirs preventing experimentation and rural poverty leading to a state debt of 54 million roubles prevented reform.
• Westernisers believed that Russia should abandon serfdom.
• Slavophiles believed that serfdom should be reformed and that Russia should stay as a traditional peasant society.
• Intellectuals believed that people were treated like animals.
• Nihilists believed in sweeping all tradition.
• John Gooding said that Russia in the mid-19th century was "more backwards than at the beginning of the century".