Assassination of Tsar Alexander II
The eldest son of Emperor Nicholas I, Alexander was born in Moscow on the 17th of April, 1818.
Educated by legions of private tutors, Alexander also was forced to endure rigorous military training which his father felt was crucial to the development of strength and character.
In 1841, he married Princess Marie of Hesse & By Rhine.
After her conversion to Orthodoxy, Marie became known as Maria Alexandrovna.
After the death of his father, Alexander ascended the throne on the 19th of February 1855.
Alexander came to the throne in the midst of the Crimean War.
Late in 1856, Alexander signed the Treaty of Paris, which brought the ill-fated War to a swift conclusion.
After the end of the war, Alexander acknowledged that the serf-based economy could no longer support Russia’s needs.
The landowning nobility objected to this idea.
They were certain that the abolition of serfdom would undermine their primary sources of income.
Though Alexander understood the devastating effects the abolition of serfdom would have on the fortunes of the rich ~ he is reported to have addressed a group of Moscow nobles by saying:
“It is better to abolish serfdom from above, than to wait for the time when it will begin to abolish itself from below.”
In 1861 Alexander issued the “Emancipation Manifesto” which proposed 17 legislative acts that would abolish serfdom within the Russian Empire.
Individual serfdom would be eliminated, and all peasants would be allowed to purchase land from their landlords.
However, in some regions it took peasants nearly 20 years to obtain their land.
Many were forced to pay more than the land was worth and others were given inadequate amounts for their needs.
The most important foreign policy achievement of his reign was the successful war of 1877-8 against the Ottoman Empire, resulting in the liberation of Bulgaria.
Alexander’s reforms generally did not satisfy the liberals and radicals who wanted a parliamentary democracy, and the freedom of expression that was enjoyed in the United States and some other European nations.
Alexander displayed a marked passion for helping orphans and children, and made personal wards of many of the children orphaned by the Crimean and Ottoman Wars.
One of these, Catherine Dolgorukaya, captured the Tsar’s particular attention.
Princess Dolgoruky, a beautiful descendant of one of Russia’s oldest families ultimately became the tsar’s mistress.
The children of this morganatic union carried the title Prince and Princess Yurievsky.
Some dissidents preferred a policy of terrorism to obtain reform, and on 14th April, 1879, Alexander Soloviev, a former schoolteacher, tried to kill Alexander.
His attempt failed and he was ex3cuted the following month.
The following month terrorists used nitroglycerine to attempt to destroy the Tsar’s train.
However, the terrorist miscalculated and it destroyed another train instead.
An attempt the blow up the Kamenny Bridge in St. Petersburg as the Tsar was passing over it was also unsuccessful.
In 1880, a mine was placed in the basement of the Winter Palace under the dining-room.
The mine went off at half-past six at the time that the assassins had calculated Alexander would be having his dinner.
However, his main guest, Prince Alexander of Battenburg, had arrived late and dinner was delayed and the dining-room was empty.
Alexander was unharmed but sixty-seven people were killed or badly wounded by the explosion.
On 13th March 1881, Alexander was traveling in a closed carriage, from Mikhailovsky Palace to the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg.
An armed Cossack sat with the coach-driver and another six Cossacks followed on horseback.
Behind them came a group of police officers in sledges.
Members of the Narodnaya Volya Movement (“People’s Will”) were waiting for him.
On a street corner near the Catherine Canal, Sophia Perovskaya gave the signal to Nikolai Rysakov and Timofei Mikhailov to throw their bombs at the Tsar’s carriage…..
The bombs missed the carriage and instead landed amongst the Cossacks.
The Tsar was unhurt but insisted on getting out of the carriage to check the condition of the injured men.
While he was standing with the wounded Cossacks another terrorist, Ignatei Grinevitski, threw his bomb.
The explosion was so great that Grinevitski was killed from the bomb blast.
Police Chief Dvorzhitzky, was travelling with the Tsar.
This is his account of the incident ~
“Suddenly, amid the smoke and snowy fog, I heard His Majesty’s weak voice cry, ‘Help!’
Gathering what strength I had, I jumped up and rushed to the emperor.
His Majesty was half-lying, half-sitting, leaning on his right arm. Thinking he was merely wounded heavily, I tried to lift him but the czar’s legs were shattered, and the blood poured out of them.
Twenty people, with wounds of varying degree, lay on the sidewalk and on the street.
Some managed to stand, others to crawl, still others tried to get out from beneath bodies that had fallen on them.
Through the snow, debris, and blood you could see fragments of clothing, epaulets, sabres, and bloody chunks of human flesh”
Tsar Alexander was carried by sleigh to his study in the Winter Palace.
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.
At 3:30 that day, the standard of Alexander II, was lowered for the last time.
The tsar was dead.
The Tsar was buried at The St. Peter & Paul Fortress, Saint Petersburg, Russia.
On the site where Alexander was killed, the Church of the Saviour on Blood, was erected, in his memory.
