Alexander III

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ALEXANDER III

ALEXANDER III (1845–1894; ruled 1881–1894), emperor of Russia.

Alexander III reigned as Russian tsar at a time of great change for the country. He ascended to the throne in 1881 after terrorists assassinated his father, Tsar Alexander II, and died before the age of fifty, leaving the country to his son, Nicholas II, the last Russian tsar, in 1894. The thirteen years of Alexander III's reign were characterized by political reaction, in particular an almost complete crushing of the Russian revolutionary movement. Alexander also pursued policies of "Russification," that is, enhancing the role of Russian culture and the Russian central government throughout the diverse multinational Russian Empire. At the same time, it was during his reign that Russia began to industrialize rapidly, a process that would continue after his death. Alexander's reign was thus one of contradictions, of reactionary policies and the growth of the Russian economy, of a major famine in 1891 and the growth of Russian cities.

Born in 1845, the second son of Alexander II, Alexander never expected to become tsar. Physically he was a bear of a man, big, square-built, with an impressive beard. Despite his aristocratic bloodlines, Alexander preferred family life to court ceremonies, simple fare to fancy dishes, and Russian vodka to French wines. While no intellectual, the future tsar held firm beliefs in family, religion, and Russia. Alexander feared that the reforms of his father's reign had gone too far—and when radicals succeeded in killing his father, his conservative views were only strengthened.

Profoundly shocked by his father's assassination, Alexander III rapidly changed political course away from his father's semiliberal concessions. His was a policy of strict and consistent conservatism, aiming to limit the role of the public in governance, and striking hard at any sign of political radicalism. His father's assassins were hunted down and executed, including one young woman. The reforms in local government introduced by his father in cities and rural areas were scaled back, limiting participation to more well-to-do elements and favoring the nobility.

Alexander III's reign is remembered as a dark one for non-Russians. During the spring and summer of 1881, anti-Jewish attacks or pogroms broke out in the southwest (Ukrainian) provinces of the empire. While scholarship since the 1970s has shown that the government did not sponsor or encourage these pogroms, Alexander's open anti-Semitism did not reassure Russia's Jewish community. Alexander once famously remarked, "When they beat the Jews, one's heart rejoices." He then added, "It cannot, however, be allowed." During Alexander's reign, a massive immigration wave of Jews from the Russian Empire began, especially to the United States and Britain.

Alexander felt no more affection for Poles or Germans than for Jews. In Russia's Polish provinces (including the city of Warsaw), government policy restricted the teaching of Polish and required bilingual (Polish and Russian) signs for shops and restaurants. In the empire's Baltic provinces, Alexander abolished many of the privileges of the German nobility, who had long ruled over Estonian and Latvian peasants. The German-language University of Dorpat (now Tartu, Estonia) was transformed into the Russian University of Yurev in 1893. Ironically, Alexander III's policies to weaken the German upper class in the Baltic area helped to strengthen Estonian and Latvian national movements there, though this was certainly not his intention.

Alexander III's reign also saw a major upswing in Russian industrialization. In the late 1880s and early 1890s Russia began to industrialize rapidly, with large industrial plants rising up in and around St. Petersburg, Moscow, Warsaw, and other areas. Under Alexander's gruff but brilliant minister of finance, Sergei Witte, Russia managed to secure foreign loans that propelled industrialization forward. Witte's policies also enabled Russia to go on the gold standard in 1897, enabling further economic growth.

In foreign policy, too, Alexander III's reign saw a major shift. For all his conservatism, Alexander hated militarism, particularly its German variety, perhaps in part because of the influence of his Danish-born wife. The growth of Germany's industrial and military might was of great concern for Russia. In 1893 Alexander signed a military convention with France, astonishing his contemporaries. The most conservative state in Europe thereby became a military ally of the liberal French Republic. The reason was clear: both France and Russia feared Germany and hoped that by banding together they would reduce the chance of German military aggression. This fateful alliance would be one of the many factors that brought all of Europe into war in August 1914.

See alsoAlexander II; Nicholas II; Russia; Witte, Sergei.