Alexander III became a kind of exception from the Romanov dynasty and managed to earn the title of Peacemaker during his lifetime. But the time of his reign of the country was not so cloudless, and the thirteen years that he spent on the royal throne still cause heated debate among historians.
Alexander III - the history of accession to the throne
Alexander was the second child in the family, and the royal throne was not intended for him, he did not receive a proper education in his youth, but only mastered the basics of military engineering, which was traditional for Russian princes. But after the death of his brother Nicholas and the announcement of Alexander III as Tsarevich, he had to master world history and the history of the Russian land, literature, jurisprudence, the basics of economics and foreign policy.
Prior to his accession to the Russian throne, Alexander went from the ataman of the Cossacks and a member of the State Chamber of Ministers to the commander of a detachment in the Russian-Turkish war. After the assassination of his father, in March 1881, Alexander III became the emperor of a great power. The first years of his reign he had to spend in Gatchina, under heavy guard, since the discontent of the Narodnaya Volya terrorists did not subside for several more years.
Reformer or Peacemaker?
Alexander III began his rule of the country during the period of confrontation between the two parties and in order to bring this struggle to naught, he had to strengthen the position of the autocracy, decisively canceling his father's idea of the constitutionality of the country. And by the end of the first year of his reign, he managed to end the riots, develop a network of secret police, and not without punitive measures. Alexander considered universities to be the main centers for the development of terrorism, and by 1884 he almost completely got rid of their autonomy, introduced complete bans on student associations and their monopoly, blocked access to education for the lower classes and Jews.
Fundamental changes began in the zemstvos as well. The peasants were deprived of the right to vote, and only representatives of the merchants and nobility were now sitting in state institutions. In addition, Alexander abolished communal land tenure and ordered the peasants to buy out their allotments, for which the so-called peasant banks were created.
The peacekeeping merit of this monarch consisted in strengthening the borders of the state, creating a more powerful army with a reserve stock and in minimizing Western influence on Russia. At the same time, he managed to exclude any bloodshed for the entire period of his rule by the state. Moreover, he helped to extinguish military conflicts in other countries, which is why Alexander III was called a peacemaker.
Results of the monarchy of Alexander III
Alexander III earned not only the title of peacemaker, but also the title of the Russian tsar himself. Of all the Russian rulers of those times, only he defended the interests of the Russian people, tried with all his might to restore the prestige and authority of the Russian Orthodox Church, attached great importance to the development of industry and agriculture, and cared about the welfare of his people. And only he managed to achieve such great results in all areas of economics and politics.
But along with these changes, a revolutionary spirit crept into the minds of the Russian people. Alexander's son, Nicholas II, did not want to continue the development of the country to the extent and at the pace set by his father, which served as an impetus for the development of discontent and the popularization of the communist doctrine in the country.
