Prologue: Period of Decline, 1825-1881.
Hello to you all on this second day of the new year. I present to you the beginning of my newest (hopefully) non-ASB TL.
The Russian Century
Prologue: Period of Decline, 1825-1881.
At the dawn of the nineteenth century, Russia devastatingly defeated Napoleon and became known as the saviour of Europe. It joined the Holy Alliance with Prussia and Austria, which dominated continental Europe and was intended to restrain liberalism and secularism in the wake of the devastating French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. It became de facto defunct after the death of Tsar Alexander I in 1825, but Russia continued to play a leading role in continental affairs.
Although the Russian Empire remained a great power, thanks to its role in defeating Napoleonic France, its retention of serfdom limited any significant degree of economic progress. As Western European growth accelerated during the Industrial Revolution, Russia began to lag ever farther behind, creating new technological, economic, military and administrative weaknesses for the Empire seeking to play a role as a great power. Russia’s status as a great power obfuscated the inefficiency of its government, the isolation of its people, and its economic and social backwardness. Following the defeat of Napoleon, Alexander I had been ready to discuss constitutional reforms, but though a few were introduced, no major changes were undertaken.
The liberal Alexander I was replaced by his younger brother Nicholas I (1825-1855), who at the beginning of his reign was confronted with an uprising. The background of this revolt lay in the Napoleonic Wars, when a number of well-educated Russian officers travelled in Europe in the course of military campaigns, where their exposure to Western liberalism of encouraged them to seek change on their return to the autocratically ruled Russian Empire. The result was the Decembrist Revolt (December 1825), which was the work of a small circle of liberal nobles and army officers who wanted to install Nicholas' brother Constantine as a constitutional monarch. The revolt was easily crushed, but it caused Nicholas to turn away from the modernization program begun by Peter the Great and champion the doctrine of Orthodoxy, Autocracy and Nationality instead.
In order to repress further revolts, censorship was intensified, including the constant surveillance of schools and universities. Textbooks were strictly regulated by the government. Police spies were planted everywhere. Would-be revolutionaries were sent off to Siberia – under Nicholas I hundreds of thousands were sent here. The retaliation for the revolt made "December Fourteenth" a day long remembered by later revolutionary movements.
Revolutionary groupings did not just include movements demanding political change, but there were also separatist groups as Russia was a multi-ethnic country in which ethnic Russians constituted only about half of the population. Poland rose up in 1830-’31 and 1863-’64, to which Alexander II responded by annexing the Kingdom of Poland directly and excluding it from his liberal reforms. Martial law in Lithuania, introduced in 1863, lasted for the next 40 years. Native languages, Lithuanian, Ukrainian, and Belorussian, were completely banned from printed texts, the Ems Ukase being an example. The Polish language was banned in both oral and written form from all provinces except Congress Poland, where it was allowed in private conversations only. Besides that, Russia also waged wars of conquest in Siberia, the Caucasus in Central Asia, suppressing Islam in their new territories (such as the Circassian Genocide). Russia was indeed a prison of peoples.
The question of Russia’s direction had been gaining attention ever since Peter the Great’s program of modernization. Some favoured imitating Western Europe while others were against this and called for a return to the traditions of the past. The latter path was advocated by Slavophiles, who held the “decadent” West in contempt. The Slavophiles were opponents of bureaucracy, who preferred the collectivism of the medieval Russian mir over the West’s individualism. More extreme social doctrines were elaborated by such Russian radicals on the left, such as Alexander Herzen, Mikhail Bakunin, and Pyotr Kropotkin.
Russia’s backwardness became evident during the Crimean War. Russia expected that in exchange for supplying the troops to be the policeman of Europe during the Revolutions of 1848, it should have a free hand in dealing with the decaying Ottoman Empire – the “sick man of Europe.” In 1853 Russia invaded Ottoman-controlled areas leading to the Crimean War as Britain and France came to the rescue of the Ottomans. After a gruelling war fought largely in Crimea, with very high death rates from disease, the allies won.
The long term damage was significant. The demilitarization of the Black Sea was a major blow to Russia, which was no longer able to protect its vulnerable southern coastal frontier against anyone. The destruction of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, Sevastopol and other naval docks was a humiliation. The defeat discredited the armed forces and highlighted the need to modernize the countries defences as well as the building of railways, industrialization, sound finances etcetera. The image of being the biggest, richest and most powerful in the world had suddenly been shattered. The Crimean disaster had exposed the shortcomings of every institution in Russia – not just the corruption and incompetence of the military command, the technological backwardness of the army and navy, or the inadequate roads and lack of railways the accounted for the chronic problems of supply, but the poor condition and illiteracy of the serfs who made up the armed forces, the inability of the serf economy to sustain a state of war against industrial powers, and the failures of autocracy itself.
When Alexander II succeeded his father Nicholas I as Tsar in 1855, he recognized the need for reform. He became known as the Liberator for the emancipation of the serfs, but also the many other reforms he passed: including reorganizing the judicial system, setting up elected local judges, abolishing corporal punishment, promoting local self-government through the zemstvo system, imposing universal military service, ending some privileges of the nobility, and promoting university education. Up until 1881, the 1866 emancipation reform was his greatest change (even though the peasants had to repay the crown for essentially buying out the landlords for 49 years at a 6% interest).
Alexander pivoted towards foreign policy and sold Alaska to the United States in 1867, fearing the remote colony would fall into British hands if there were another war. He sought peace, moved away from bellicose France when Napoleon III fell in 1871, and in 1872 joined with Germany and Austria in the League of the Three Emperors that stabilized the European situation. Despite his otherwise pacifist foreign policy, he fought a brief successful war with the Ottoman Empire in 1877-’78, leading to the independence of the Bulgaria, Montenegro, Serbia and Romania. A European conference mediating the peace talks between Russia and the Turks, however, produced rather disappointing results for Russia. Yes, in 1878 it didn’t seem the twentieth century would shape up to be the Russian century. However, a new reform in 1881, by far Alexander II’s most significant reform, was soon to be passed.
The Russian Century
Prologue: Period of Decline, 1825-1881.
At the dawn of the nineteenth century, Russia devastatingly defeated Napoleon and became known as the saviour of Europe. It joined the Holy Alliance with Prussia and Austria, which dominated continental Europe and was intended to restrain liberalism and secularism in the wake of the devastating French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. It became de facto defunct after the death of Tsar Alexander I in 1825, but Russia continued to play a leading role in continental affairs.
Although the Russian Empire remained a great power, thanks to its role in defeating Napoleonic France, its retention of serfdom limited any significant degree of economic progress. As Western European growth accelerated during the Industrial Revolution, Russia began to lag ever farther behind, creating new technological, economic, military and administrative weaknesses for the Empire seeking to play a role as a great power. Russia’s status as a great power obfuscated the inefficiency of its government, the isolation of its people, and its economic and social backwardness. Following the defeat of Napoleon, Alexander I had been ready to discuss constitutional reforms, but though a few were introduced, no major changes were undertaken.
The liberal Alexander I was replaced by his younger brother Nicholas I (1825-1855), who at the beginning of his reign was confronted with an uprising. The background of this revolt lay in the Napoleonic Wars, when a number of well-educated Russian officers travelled in Europe in the course of military campaigns, where their exposure to Western liberalism of encouraged them to seek change on their return to the autocratically ruled Russian Empire. The result was the Decembrist Revolt (December 1825), which was the work of a small circle of liberal nobles and army officers who wanted to install Nicholas' brother Constantine as a constitutional monarch. The revolt was easily crushed, but it caused Nicholas to turn away from the modernization program begun by Peter the Great and champion the doctrine of Orthodoxy, Autocracy and Nationality instead.
In order to repress further revolts, censorship was intensified, including the constant surveillance of schools and universities. Textbooks were strictly regulated by the government. Police spies were planted everywhere. Would-be revolutionaries were sent off to Siberia – under Nicholas I hundreds of thousands were sent here. The retaliation for the revolt made "December Fourteenth" a day long remembered by later revolutionary movements.
Revolutionary groupings did not just include movements demanding political change, but there were also separatist groups as Russia was a multi-ethnic country in which ethnic Russians constituted only about half of the population. Poland rose up in 1830-’31 and 1863-’64, to which Alexander II responded by annexing the Kingdom of Poland directly and excluding it from his liberal reforms. Martial law in Lithuania, introduced in 1863, lasted for the next 40 years. Native languages, Lithuanian, Ukrainian, and Belorussian, were completely banned from printed texts, the Ems Ukase being an example. The Polish language was banned in both oral and written form from all provinces except Congress Poland, where it was allowed in private conversations only. Besides that, Russia also waged wars of conquest in Siberia, the Caucasus in Central Asia, suppressing Islam in their new territories (such as the Circassian Genocide). Russia was indeed a prison of peoples.
The question of Russia’s direction had been gaining attention ever since Peter the Great’s program of modernization. Some favoured imitating Western Europe while others were against this and called for a return to the traditions of the past. The latter path was advocated by Slavophiles, who held the “decadent” West in contempt. The Slavophiles were opponents of bureaucracy, who preferred the collectivism of the medieval Russian mir over the West’s individualism. More extreme social doctrines were elaborated by such Russian radicals on the left, such as Alexander Herzen, Mikhail Bakunin, and Pyotr Kropotkin.
Russia’s backwardness became evident during the Crimean War. Russia expected that in exchange for supplying the troops to be the policeman of Europe during the Revolutions of 1848, it should have a free hand in dealing with the decaying Ottoman Empire – the “sick man of Europe.” In 1853 Russia invaded Ottoman-controlled areas leading to the Crimean War as Britain and France came to the rescue of the Ottomans. After a gruelling war fought largely in Crimea, with very high death rates from disease, the allies won.
The long term damage was significant. The demilitarization of the Black Sea was a major blow to Russia, which was no longer able to protect its vulnerable southern coastal frontier against anyone. The destruction of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, Sevastopol and other naval docks was a humiliation. The defeat discredited the armed forces and highlighted the need to modernize the countries defences as well as the building of railways, industrialization, sound finances etcetera. The image of being the biggest, richest and most powerful in the world had suddenly been shattered. The Crimean disaster had exposed the shortcomings of every institution in Russia – not just the corruption and incompetence of the military command, the technological backwardness of the army and navy, or the inadequate roads and lack of railways the accounted for the chronic problems of supply, but the poor condition and illiteracy of the serfs who made up the armed forces, the inability of the serf economy to sustain a state of war against industrial powers, and the failures of autocracy itself.
When Alexander II succeeded his father Nicholas I as Tsar in 1855, he recognized the need for reform. He became known as the Liberator for the emancipation of the serfs, but also the many other reforms he passed: including reorganizing the judicial system, setting up elected local judges, abolishing corporal punishment, promoting local self-government through the zemstvo system, imposing universal military service, ending some privileges of the nobility, and promoting university education. Up until 1881, the 1866 emancipation reform was his greatest change (even though the peasants had to repay the crown for essentially buying out the landlords for 49 years at a 6% interest).
Alexander pivoted towards foreign policy and sold Alaska to the United States in 1867, fearing the remote colony would fall into British hands if there were another war. He sought peace, moved away from bellicose France when Napoleon III fell in 1871, and in 1872 joined with Germany and Austria in the League of the Three Emperors that stabilized the European situation. Despite his otherwise pacifist foreign policy, he fought a brief successful war with the Ottoman Empire in 1877-’78, leading to the independence of the Bulgaria, Montenegro, Serbia and Romania. A European conference mediating the peace talks between Russia and the Turks, however, produced rather disappointing results for Russia. Yes, in 1878 it didn’t seem the twentieth century would shape up to be the Russian century. However, a new reform in 1881, by far Alexander II’s most significant reform, was soon to be passed.
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