The war did not settle the relations of the powers in eastern Europe. It did awaken the new Russian emperor Alexander II (who succeeded Nicholas I in March 1855) to the need to overcome Russia's backwardness in order to compete successfully with the other European powers. A further result of the war was that Austria, having sided with Great Britain and France, lost the support of Russia in central European affairs. Austria became dependent on Britain and France, which failed to support that country, leading to the Austrian defeats in 1859 and 1866 that, in turn, led to the unification of Italy and Germany.
Emancipation Manifesto
▪ Russia [1861]
(March 3 [Feb. 19, Old Style], 1861), manifesto issued by the Russian emperor Alexander II that accompanied 17 legislative acts that freed the serfs of the Russian Empire. (The acts were collectively called Statutes Concerning Peasants Leaving Serf Dependence, or Polozheniya o Krestyanakh Vykhodyashchikh iz Krepostnoy Zavisimosty.)
Defeat in the Crimean War, a perceptible change in public opinion, and the increasing number and violence of peasant revolts had shown Alexander, who became tsar during the war, that only a thorough reform of Russia's antiquated social structure would put the nation on an equal footing with the Western powers. The abolition of serfdom, he decided, was the first priority. In April 1856, in a speech to a group of noblemen, he revealed his intention. The following January he appointed a secret committee to investigate the problems. When the committee, composed primarily of conservative landowners, failed to draw pertinent conclusions, Alexander publicly authorized the formation of provincial committees of noblemen to formulate plans for emancipating the serfs (December 1857).
By the end of 1859 the committees had sent their proposals to the “editorial commissions,” which evaluated them and drafted the preliminary statutes for emancipation (October 1860). These were revised by the Chief Committee (formerly the secret committee) and by the State Council (January 1861) and were signed by the tsar on Feb. 19, 1861, and published on March 5. The final edict, or ukase, was a compromise between the plans of the liberals, the conservatives, the government bureaucrats, and the landed nobility. It fully satisfied no one, particularly the group directly involved: the peasants.
According to the act, the serfs were immediately granted personal liberties and promised land. But the process by which they were to acquire the land was slow, complex, and expensive. They were required to serve their landlords while inventories of all the land were taken, land allotments calculated, and payment calculated, since, legally, the land belonged to the landlord. Peasants, with the government loans, had to “redeem” their land allotments from the landlords and make “redemption payments” to the government for the next 49 years.
By 1881 about 85 percent of the peasants had received their land; redemption was then made compulsory. The land allotments were adequate to support the families living on them and to yield enough for them to meet their redemption payments. But the large population growth that occurred in Russia between emancipation and the Revolution of 1905 made it increasingly difficult for the former serfs to get by economically.
Emancipation had been intended to cure Russia's most basic social weakness, the backwardness and want into which serfdom cast the nation's peasantry. In fact, though an important class of well-to-do peasants did emerge in time, most remained poor and land-hungry, crushed by huge redemption payments. It was not until the revolutionary year of 1905 that the government terminated these payments. By then, the peasant loyalty that the emancipation was intended to create could no longer be achieved.
zemstvo
▪ Russian government
organ of rural self-government in the Russian Empire and Ukraine; established in 1864 to provide social and economic services, it became a significant liberal influence within imperial Russia. Zemstvos existed on two levels, the uyezd (canton) and the province; the uyezd assemblies, composed of delegates representing the individual landed proprietors and the peasant village communes, elected the provincial assemblies. Each assembly appointed an executive board and hired professional experts to carry out its functions.
Generally dominated by the nobility, the zemstvos suffered after 1890 from legislation that restricted their authority, from insufficient revenue, and from administrative controls of a hostile bureaucracy. Nevertheless, they expanded the network of elementary schools, constructed roads, provided health care, and instructed the peasantry in agricultural techniques. From the late 1890s onward they also agitated for constitutional reform and, through a union organized by the zemstvos and their professional employees, stimulated revolutionary activity in 1904–05 and 1917. Reorganized on a democratic basis in 1917, the zemstvos were abolished after the Bolshevik party came to power later that year.
The term zemstvo also referred to a 16th-century institution for tax collection.
Milyutin, Dmitry Alekseyevich, Count
▪ Russian war minister
born June 28 [July 10, New Style], 1816, Moscow, Russia
died Jan. 25 [Feb. 7], 1912, Simeiz, near Yalta, Crimea, Russian Empire
Russian military officer and statesman who, as minister of war (1861–81), was responsible for the introduction of important military reforms in Russia.
Graduated from the Nicholas Military Academy in 1836, Milyutin served in the Caucasus (1838–45) and then became a professor at the academy. In 1856 Milyutin returned to active duty. In 1860 he entered the Ministry of War as deputy minister and became minister of war the following year. Milyutin reorganized the system of military education for both officers and regular troops; among other innovations, he made elementary education available to all draftees. In 1874 he introduced universal compulsory military service into Russia, compelling all Russian males at 20 years of age, except those who qualified for specific exemptions, to serve in the army; he also reduced the term of active service from 25 years to 6. In addition, Milyutin introduced the reserve system.
Despite the success of his reforms, which was demonstrated by Russia's victory over the Ottoman Empire in the Russo-Turkish War (Russo-Turkish wars) of 1877–78, Milyutin acquired many powerful enemies, especially among those who resented his reduction of the nobles' privileges within the military establishment. He chose to retire (May 1881) soon after Alexander III ascended the Russian throne.
Shuvalov, Pyotr Andreyevich, Count
▪ Russian diplomat
(Graf)
born June 15 [June 27, New Style], 1827, St. Petersburg, Russia
died March 10 [March 22], 1889, St. Petersburg
diplomat and political-police director who became one of Alexander II's (Alexander II) advisers and used his extensive power to oppose the enactment of liberal reforms in Russia.
Having entered the Russian army in 1845, Shuvalov served in the Crimean War (1853–56) and began his diplomatic career as a member of the Russian delegation to the Paris peace conference of 1856. The following year he was put in charge of the St. Petersburg police. His success there brought him the post of director of political police in the Ministry of the Interior (1860–61). There he became known as an opponent of the emancipation of the serfs. In 1866 he became chief of staff of the gendarmerie corps and head of the political police, or “3rd section” of the imperial chancery. While serving in this capacity he became a close adviser to Alexander II and used his influence to retard the carrying out of existing reforms and to appoint persons of reactionary views to important positions. Sent to London on a special diplomatic mission in 1873, Shuvalov was appointed ambassador to London in 1874 and served there effectively until 1879, when, because of his involvement in Russia's diplomatic failure following the Russo-Turkish War (1877–78), he was recalled and forced to retire.