Crimean War + Emancipation of the serfs

• The Crimean War provoked the Ottoman Turks by Russia sending troops, leading to the Ottomans declaring war on Russia
• Russia sunk a large part of the Turkish fleet in the Black Sea
• The British and French had trading interests in the Black Sea and didn't want Russia dominating it, so they sent 60,000 men to attack Sebastopol
• Russia had around 1 million troops available to defend Sebastopol, but were defeated at Balaclava and Inkerman, leading to Sebastopol falling in 1855
• The Treaty of Paris in 1856 highlighted issues with Russia's transport, military leadership, technology, and naval capabilities compared to the British and French
• Alexander II came to the throne in 1855, replacing Nicholas I, providing an opportunity for reform
• Alexander II faced issues like peasant revolts and demands for reform from the intelligentsia
• Alexander II wanted to reform but didn't want to weaken autocracy, unlike reforms in the West
• Emancipation of the Serfs

  Freeing 51 million serfs, a form of slavery where they were property of landowners or the state
• Emancipation of the Serfs

  • Privately owned serfs received freedom after 2 years of obligation
  • Serfs received their house and small plot of land, but landowners kept better land
  • Serfs had to pay redemption payments over 49 years at 6% interest
  • Serfs remained in the Mir, a peasant commune that controlled land allocation and farming
• Emancipation of the Serfs

  • Transformed the legal position of Russians, but peasant disturbances continued
  • Stimulated business and industry as some nobles invested, and a new class of enterprising peasants (kulaks) emerged
  • But the system was twisted by landowners to benefit themselves, leaving many peasants still very poor
• The government payments to landowners often just went to pay off their debts, rather than being invested
• Some nobles who did not benefit from emancipation became embittered and moved to the towns, taking their resentment with them
• Russia's doing really badly in a Crimean War against the British and the French
• Alexander the second becomes aware that Russia is really really backwards
• Russia has got 51 million people living as serfs, they're essentially slaves owned by the government or by private landowners
• They are given their freedom but they have to pay Redemption payments back over the next forty nine years and there's a six percent interest charge
• The landlord's cheated to see this system so they took the best land, they gave small amounts of land not the best lands of the serfs
• The serfs were controlled by the MIR which was the local peasant commune run by the elders and by the Veloster was a system that had law courts, it was a burden looked after several mirrors
• The cool actually were wealthy pay peasants emerged and they did really well but there was not the boost productivity and industrialization that they could have been
• Emancipation didn't quite achieve everything it should have