Alexander III

• Education


  1. Chancellors, deans, professors appointed based on 'religion, moral, and patriotic orientation'

  2. Closed university for women

  3. Abolished separate uni courts

  4. Uni life closely supervised

  5. Students forbidden from being in groups of 5

  6. Lower class restricted to primary education

  7. Primary education controlled by orthodox church

  8. 1897 first census - only 21% literate
• Policing

  1. 1881-1884 led by Vyacheslav von Plehve

  2. 1884 onwards by Pyotr Durnovo

  3. Numbers of police increased

  4. New branches increased in criminal investigation department

  5. Recruited spies and counterspies

  6. Agent’s provocateurs used

  7. Okhrana formed to combat left-wing and revolutionary ideas

  8. Police agents had total power to impose sanctions on suspects

  9. No right to legal representation

  10. Immense power over suspects' lives
• Loris Melikov reforms abandoned
• Reforming ministers reigned
• Character

  • Tall, broad-shouldered, powerfully built
  • Assertive and dominant
  • Extremely strong - unbent horseshoes and tore apart stacks of cards
  • Uncouth - lacked manners
  • Admired the orthodox lifestyle and loyalty of the Cossacks
  • Modelled his reign on Muscovy
  • Influenced by his grandfather training
  • Enjoyed military parades and simple meals
  • Limited in intellect
  • Diligent, honest, sincere
  • Strong-willed, determined, ruthless
  • Second eldest, lived under his brother's shadow
  • Married his brother's wife
  • Valued family and loved his children
  • Enjoyed horse play and impractical jokes
  • Disliked immoral behaviour and sanctioned family members who indulged in it
  • Two uncles who set up households with ballet dancers
• Censorship

  1. 1882 temporary regulations enforced

  2. Newspapers closed

  3. Publishers and editors had a life ban

  4. All media must be approved

  5. Libraries, bookstores, reading rooms had limited stock

  6. Russification and censorship enforced in art, theatre, culture
• Ideology

  • Uncompromising authoritarian and Conservative approach
  • Known as the reactionary Tsar
  • Likely due to succeeding his father after his assassination by liberals
  • Last few years of his reign in turmoil
  • 13 years of peace and stability
  • Conservative nationalists in the ascendancy
  • Western intellectuals unwelcome
  • Reverted to autocracy and orthodoxy
  • Slavophile
  • Manifesto of Unshaken Autocracy
• Local Government

  1. State appointed office of 'Land Captain' in 1889

  2. Override elections to the zemstvo and disregard their decisions

  3. Responsible for law enforcement and gov in countryside

  4. Could ignore and overturn judicial procedure

  5. 1890 - reduced peasants' power in election and put zemstva under central gov

  6. Efforts turn away from politics

  7. Focused on education, health, local transport, engineering projects

  8. June 1892, similar in towns

  9. Electorate reduced to property owners of certain value

  10. Mayors and council members become state employees

  11. Controlled by central government

  12. Intended to have a more efficient method of tax collection
• Ukraine

  • "Brotherhood of Saints Cyril and Methodius" Secret group creating awareness of differences between Ukrainian Slavs and Russian counterparts
  • 1883 limited use of Ukrainian language
  • 1884 all theatres in 5 provinces closed
• Russification


  Enforcing Russian culture on non-Russian ethnic minorities in the Russian Empire
• Pobedonovstev: 'The instinct of nationality serves as a disintegrating force<|>The times are terrible, Your Majesty. It is now or never if you wish to save Russia and yourself. Do not believe the siren voices urging you to yield to so-called public opinion! For God’s sake, Your Majesty, do not believe them-do not continue with the liberal reforms'
• Baltic States (Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia)


  • Loyal German-speakers aggressive russification too
  • 1885-9 saw increase of Russian in state offices, schools, police, and judicial system
  • German University of Dopar became 'Iurev University' (1889-93)
• Poland

  • 1830s rebellion
  • 1885 - Polish National Bank closed
  • Schools spoke Russian except in Polish Language and Religious Studies
  • Polish Literature translated and studied in Russian
  • Administration set up to block independence
• Jewish Population

  • A.III was antisemitic on religious grounds, ministers encouraged it
  • Since 1736 most of the 5mil Jews in Russia confined to West, Pale of Settlement
  • Pobedonovstev's inflammatory slogans: 'Beat the Yids - save Russia'
  • RW press said Jews caused assassination of A. II. Fear of Jews in opposition movements
  • Number of antisemitic legislation 1882-94
  • Pogroms = riot to massacre Jews
  • Broke out April 1881, Ukraine, Cause unknown
  • Possible cause is lucrative railway contract involving Jew
  • Most likely were encouraged by Okhrana, using assassination of A.II
  • Authorities were slow to act and did little to prevent violence
  • 'Holy League' organization, supported by P, coordinated first attacks
  • This was banned 1882
  • Spread to 16 major cities and Western Europe
  • Many Jews willingly left or were forcefully expelled
• Effects of Russification

  • Russian is the only official language
  • Others were banned or suppressed
  • Russian orthodoxy takes over Catholicism
  • Less legal autonomy for previously independent parts of the empire
• Finland

  • 1840s Finnish language pressure group, local language newspapers
  • 1892 - parliament (diet) reorganized to weaken influence
  • Russian language increasingly demanded
  • Independent postal service abolished
  • Currency replaced with Russian coinage
• 26 million hectares of land was peasant-owned
• Trans-Siberian railway

  Allowed them to engage in trade
• Baltics


  Parts of the Baltics, the landowners had access to the western markets and developed capitalist farms with wage-labourers
• Productivity increased after Vyshnegradsky’s export drive
• Land banks were set up for peasants and nobles to buy and sell more land
• Kulaks

  Peasants who were wealthier than others and owned land
• Huge sugar-beet farms in Western Ukraine
• Western Siberia, cereal, dairy, and livestock
• Interest rates kept deliberately low
• Negatives of agricultural development

  • The Mir perpetuated grain requisitions, high taxes, and traditional farming methods.
  • The loans for land caused more debt.
  • 1891-2 famine showed that the main problem remained – that the peasants did not have enough land to be prosperous.
  • Many farms were still inefficient.
  • Less land owned than previously farmed.

  Increased population meant land was distributed into smaller, inefficient units.
• Areas like Siberia

  Had railways such as the Trans-Siberian railway
• Due to the size of Russia, it was impossible for the land quality not to vary
• Peasants in areas such as the Black Earth region


  More likely to prosper in comparison to peasants that owned malnourished land
• The Black Earth region

  Full of nutrients that allowed peasants to grow in surplus and sell their crops
• Areas of the empire that are nearer to western trade routes


  Able to develop capitalist farms with wage-labourers and trade with the west
• Land Hunger

  • The term ‘land hunger’ refers to one’s desire to acquire more land.
  • The former serfs believed that they were the rightful owners to the land they worked on, and felt that they were betrayed by the government, who gave the nobles ¼ of the land individually, leaving them with the more barren areas.
  • The tradition of dividing land amongst children also made land acquisition difficult, as the land gets divided smaller and smaller.
• Some peasants made their own clothing, tools, etc.
• Many would work in the city for ½ year and then help in the farms at the busy times of the year during the harvest
• Peasants and farmers made their own clothing, tools, etc.
• After the emancipation of the serfs, not all former serfs stayed on the farms
• This led to the establishment of an urban working class
• Only the Kulaks had successful yield because they were in the Black Earth region, which was known for its nutritious, fertile land
• This led many former serfs to move to the cities and buy produce rather than growing it
• Many former serfs decided to migrate to the bigger cities to work in factories