Tsar alexander ii early life

The reign of Alexander II is marked by contrasts; while Alexander II was known as the "Tsar-Liberator" for his emancipation of the Russian serfs, he also reigned over one of the most repressive periods in Russian history and faced numerous attempts on his life, ultimately resulting in his assassination. His personal life exhibited a similar dichotomy, as he was an unprecedented benefactor to children and orphans, yet humiliated his own wife and family by installing his mistress (and later morganatic wife) and their children in rooms in the Winter Palace above his family's own quarters.

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 a Hessian princess, who, after her conversion to Orthodoxy became known as Maria Alexandrovna.

After the death of his father, he ascended the throne on the 19th of February 1855, and was crowned in the Dormition Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin on the 26th of August, 1856. Alexander II came to the throne in the midst of the Crimean War, a devastating military conflict for Russia, in which troops were decimated, and the shortcomings of the Russian military clearly evidenced. 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 would no longer support Russia's needs to compete with nations such as Britain and France. The landowning nobility objected to this idea, and 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 t

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Alexander Nikolayevich Romanov was the emperor of Russia from 2 March 1855 to 13 March 1881. He was born on 17 April 1818 in the Moscow Kremlin, Russia. He was the eldest son of Tsar Nicholas I of Russia and Charlotte of Prussia. During his reign, he was also the Grand Duke of Finland and the King of Congress in Poland. He was best known for his emancipation of the Russian serfs, earning him the name ‘Tsar Liberator’. He ruled over one of the most restrictive eras in Russian history and endured multiple assassination attempts, resulting in his death on 13 March 1881, aged 62.

Early Life

• Alexander II was the eldest son of Tsar Nicholas I of Russia and Charlotte of Prussia. His uncle, Alexander I, emperor from 1801 to 1809, died without any successors. Next in line for the throne was his younger brother, Konstantin Pavlovich, who refused his right to be the king. At that point, Alexander’s father, the youngest brother, assumed the throne, making Alexander II an heir to the throne.
• After his father became emperor, Alexander gained the Slavic title ‘Tsarevich’, which was given to the sons of emperors.
• Alexander II was taught and schooled by many tutors. He was also put through severe military training, which his father believed was critical for his strength and character growth. He was taught and supervised by the famous Vasily Andreyevich Zhukovsky, a broad-minded poet and a well-known translator who taught him European languages.
• In 1837, Alexander took a six-month tour of Russia and visited twenty countries. He also visited many eminent Western European countries, including Siberia, making him the first Romanov successor to visit the country.
• During his tour of Russia, he met the expatriate poet Alexander Ivanovich Herzen, the father of ‘Russian Socialism’ and one of the initiators of agrarian populism. Herzen was also the one who influenced Alexander II to eradic

Alexander II (born Alexander Nikolaevich Romanov; April 29, 1818 – March 13, 1881) was a nineteenth-century Russian emperor. Under his rule, Russia moved towards reform, most notably in the abolition of serfdom. However, his assassination cut these efforts short.

Early Life

Alexander was born in Moscow in 1818 as the first son and heir of Tsar Nicholas I and his wife Charlotte, a Prussian princess. His parents’ marriage was, luckily (and somewhat unusually) for a purely political union, a happy one, and Alexander had six siblings who survived childhood. From birth, Alexander was given the title of Tsesarevich, which was traditionally given to the heir to the Russian throne. (The similar-sounding title tsarevich applied to any sons of a tsar, including non-Russians, and ceased being used by Romanov rulers in 1797).

The upbringing and early education of Alexander was not one that seemed conducive to create a great reformer. Indeed, the opposite, if anything, was true. At the time, the court and political atmosphere was intensely conservative under his father’s authoritarian rule. Dissent from any corner, regardless of rank, was severely punishable. Even Alexander, who was the darling of his family and of all Russia, would have had to be careful.

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When Alexander II ascended to the throne in 1855, Russia, weakened by an ignominious defeat in the Crimean War, was in such a state of crisis that the new emperor had to introduce reforms on such a massive scale that they were comparable to the grandiose reforms of his famed ancestor, Peter the Great. In order to carry out these reforms across the country, peace was required. Thus, in 1856, the Treaty of Paris was signed, which in many points was not profitable for Russia, but which gave the country a much-needed peaceful respite. The main domestic issue to be faced was one on which the government and the elite were not unanimous: peasant reform. Nonetheless, Alexander II agreed to the plan in which peasants were able to buy their personal freedom from landowners, and in this way he freed the peasants and abolished serfdom.

The Crimean War had brought to light shortcomings in the organization of the Russian Army, and Alexander also undertook a reform of the military, as a result of which conscription was introduced in Russia. His judicial reform had an enormous positive effect on society, and for the first time trial by jury was introduced in Russia. Substantial new powers were transferred to local governments over the course of the rural and urban reforms. The varied achievements of Alexander II have gone down in Russian history as the "Great Reforms."

After recovering from the disastrous effects of the Crimean War, Russia again began to actively partic