and privileges such as are enjoyed by no other peasantry in
Europe. In the numerous other questions submitted to him be{sic}
began by consulting carefully the conflicting authorities, and
while leaning as a rule rather to the side of those who were
known as ``Liberals,'' he never went so far as they desired,
and always sought some middle course by which conflicting
interests might be reconciled. On the 3rd of March 1861,
the sixth anniversary of his accession, the emancipation law
was signed and published. Other reforms followed in quick
succession during the next five or six years: army and navy
organization, a new judicial administration on the French
model, a new penal code and a greatly simplified system of
civil and criminal procedure, an elaborate scheme of local
self-government for the rural districts and the large towns, with
elective assemhljes possessing a restricted right of taxation,
and a new rural and municipal police under the direction of
the minister of the interior. These new institutions were
incomparably better than the old ones which they replaced, but
they did not work such miracles as inexperienced enthusiasts
expected. Comparisons were made, not with the past, but with
an ideal state of things which never existed in Russia or
elsewhere. Hence arose a general feeling of disappointment,
which acted on different natures in different ways. Some of
the enthusiasts sank into a sceptical, reactionary frame of
mind; while others, with deeper convictions or capable of more
lasting excitement, attributed the failure to the fact that
only half- measures and compromises had been adopted by the
government. Thus appeared in the educated classes two extreme
groups: on the one hand, the discontented Conservatives,
who recommended a return to a more severe disciplinarian
regime; and on the other, the discontented Radicals, who
would have been satisfied with nothing less than the adoption
of a throughgoing socialistic programme. Between the two
extremes stood the discontented Moderates, who indulged freely
in grumbling without knowing how the unsatisfactory state of
things was to be remedied. For some years the emperor, with
his sound common-sense and dislike of exaggeration, held the
balance fairly between the two extremes; but long years of
uninterrupted labour, anxiety and disappointment weakened his
zeal for reform, and when radicalism assumed more and more
the form of secret societies and revolutionary agitation,
he felt constrained to adopt severe repressive measures.
Nihilism.
The revolutionary agitation was of a very peculiar kind.
It was confined to a section of the educated classes,
and emanated from the universities and higher technical
schools. At the beginning of the reform period there had been
enthusiasm for scientific as opposed to classical education.
Russia required, it was said, not classical scholars, but
practical, scientific men, capable of developing her natural
resources. The government, in accordance with this view,
had encouraged scientific studies until it discovered to
its astonishment that there was some mysterious connexion
between natural science and revolutionary tendencies. Many
of the young men and women, who were supposed to be qualifying
as specialists in the various spheres of industrial and
commercial enterprise, were in reality devoting their time
to considering how human society in general, and Russian
society in particular, could be reconstructed in accordance
with the latest physiological, biological and sociological
principles. Some of these young people wished to put their
crude notions immediately into practice, and as their desire
to make gigantic socialist experiments naturally alarmed the
government, their activity was opposed by the police. Many
of them were arrested and imprisoned or exiled to distant
provinces, but the revolutionary work was continued with
unabated zeal. Thus arose a struggle between the youthful,
hot-headed partisans of revolutionary physical science and
the zealous official guardians of political order--a struggle
which has made the strange term Nihilism (q.v.) a familiar
word not only in Russia but also in western Europe. The
movement gradually assumed the form of terrorism, and aimed
at the assassination of prominent officials, and even of
the emperor himself, and the natural result was that the
reactionary tendencies of the government were strengthened.
Foreign policy.
In foreign policy Alexander II. showed the same qualities of
character as in internal affairs, ever trying prudently to
steer a middle course. When he came to the throne a peace
policy was imposed on him by circumstances. The Crimean War
was still going on, but as there was no doubt as to the final
issue, and the country was showing symptoms of exhaustion,
he concluded peace with the allies as soon as he thought the
national honour had been satisfied. Prince Gorchakov could
then declare to Europe, ``La Russie ne boude pas elle
se recueille''; and for fifteen years he avoided foreign
complications, so that the internal strength of the country
might be developed, while the national pride and ambition
received a certain satisfaction by the expansion of Russian
influence and domination in Asia. Twice, indeed, during that
period the chancellor ran the risk of provoking war. The
first occasion was in 1863, when the Western powers seemed
inclined to interfere in the Polish question, and the Russian
chancery declared categorically that no interference would be
tolerated. The second occasion was during the Franco-German
War of 1870-71, when the cabinet of St Petersburg boldly
declared that it considered itself no longer bound by the Black
Sea clause of the treaty of Paris. On both these occasions
hostilities were averted. Not so on the next occasion, when
Russia abandoned her attitude of recueillement. When the
Eastern question was raised in 1875 by the insurrection of
Herzegovina, Alexander II. had no intention or wish to
provoke a great European war. No doubt he was waiting for
an opportunity of recovering the portion of Bessarabia which
had been ceded by the treaty of Paris, and he perceived
in the disturbed state of Eastern Europe a possibility of
obtaining the desired rectification of frontier, but he hoped
to effect his purpose by diplomatic means in conjunction with
Austria. At the same time he was anxious to obtain for the
Christians of Turkey some amelioration of their condition,
and to give thereby some satisfaction to his own subjects.
As autocratic ruler of the nation which had long considered
itself the defender of the Eastern Orthodox faith and the
protector of the Slav nationalities, he could not remain
inactive at such a crisis, and he gradually allowed himself
to drift into a position from which he could not retreat
without obtaining some tangible result. Supposing that the
Porte would yield to diplomatic pressure and menace so far as
to make some reasonable concessions, he delivered his famous
Moscow speech, in which he declared that if Europe would not
secure a better position for the oppressed Slavs he would act
alone. The diplomatic pressure failed and war became
inevitable. During the campaign he displayed the same
perseverance and the same moderation that he had shown in the
emancipation of the serfs. To those who began to despair of
success, and advised him to conclude peace on almost any
terms so as to avoid greater disasters, he turned a deaf
ear, and brought the campaign to a successful conclusion;
but when his more headstrong advisers urged him to insist
on terms which would probably have produced a conflict with
Great Britain and Austria, he resolved, after some hesitation,
to make the requisite concessions. In this resolution he
was influenced by the discovery that he could not rely on
the expected support of Germany, and the discovery made
him waver in his devotion to the German alliance, which had
been the main pivot of his foreign policy; but his personal
attachment to the emperor William prevented him from adopting
a hostile attitude towards the empire he had helped to create.
The patriotic excitement produced by the war did not weaken
the revolutionary agitation. The struggle between the
Terrorists and the police authorities became more and more
intense, and attempts at assassination became more and more
frequent. Alexander II. succumbed by degrees to the mental
depression produced originally by the disappointments
which he experienced in his home and foreign policy; and in
1880, when he had reigned twenty-five years, he entrusted
to Count Loris-Melikov a large share of the executive
power. In that year the empress died, and a few weeks
afterwards he married secretly a Princess Dolgoruki, with
whom he had already entertained intimate relations for some
years. Early in 1881, on the advice of Count Loris-Melikov,
he determined to try the effect of some moderate liberal
reforms on the revolutionary agitation, and for this purpose
he caused a ukaz to be prepared creating special commissions,
composed of high officials and private personages who should
prepare reforms in various branches of the administration.
On the very day on which this ukaz was signed--13th of March
1881--he fell a victim to a Nihilist plot. When driving in
one of the central streets of St Petersburg, near the Winter
Palace, he was mortally wounded by the explosion of some
small bombs and died a few hours afterwards. (D. M. W.)
ALEXANDER III. (1845-1894), emperor of Russia, second
son of Alexander II., was born on the 10th of March 1845.
In natural disposition he bore little resemblance to his
soft-hearted, liberal minded father, and still less to his
refined, philosophic, sentimental, chivalrous, yet cunning
grand-uncle Alexander I., who coveted the title of ``the
first gentleman of Europe.'' With high culture, exquisite
refinement and studied elegance he had no sympathy and never
affected to have any. Indeed, he rather gloried in the idea
of being of the same rough texture as the great majority of
his subjects. His straightforward, abrupt manner savoured
sometimes of gruffness, while his direct, unadorned method
of expressing himself harmonized well with his rough-hewn,
immobile features and somewhat sluggish movements. His
education was not fitted to soften these peculiarities.
During the first twenty years of his life he had no prospect
of succeeding to the throne, because he had an elder brother,
Nicholas, who seemed of a fairly robust constitution. Even
when this elder brother showed symptoms of delicate health
it was believed that his life might be indefinitely prolonged
by proper care and attention, and precautions had been taken
for the succession by his betrothal with Princess Dagmar of
Denmark. Under these circumstances the greatest solicitude
was devoted to the education of Nicholas as cesarevich,
whereas Alexander received only the perfunctory and inadequate
training of an ordinary grand- duke of that period, which
did not go much beyond primary and secondary instruction,
practical acquaintance with French, English and German, and
a certain amount of drill. When he became heir-apparent by
the death of his elder brother in 1865, he began to study
the principles of law and administration under Professor
Pobedonostsef, who did not succeed in awakening in his pupil
a love of abstract studies or prolonged intellectual exertion,
but who influenced the character of his reign by instilling
into his mind the belief that zeal for Eastern Orthodoxy ought,
as an essential factor of Russian patriotism, to be specially
