Perceptions of Alexander III in Modern Russia

I was out of the country for a bit, attending the annual conference of the British Association of Slavic and East European Studies (BASEES), after which I was mysteriously locked out of WordPress for a while. However, I am now back in, and thought it would be good to post here my BASEES conference paper, as it is unlikely to be published anywhere else. So here it is:

Perceptions of Alexander III in Modern Russia

Presentation to BASEES Conference, April 2024

It is probably fair to say that Emperor Alexander III of Russia does not have a very good reputation in the English speaking world. In Russia, though, the emperor has been rehabilitated in the post-Soviet era. In November 2017, for instance, Russian president Vladimir Putin unveiled a statue of Alexander III in Crimea, commenting that “The reign of Alexander III was called the age of national revival, a true uplift of Russian art, painting, literature, music, education and science, the time of returning to our roots and historical heritage.”

= Monument to the Peacemaker Tsar Alexander III =

In December 2023, Putin then attended the launch of the Russian navy’s latest ballistic missile submarine, the Emperor Alexander III. Alexander is in official favour.

 For this paper, I have decided to look at how historians have represented Alexander in the past 20 or so years. Alexander hasn’t received much attention from English-speaking historians – there is in fact not a single English language biography of Alexander other than one published in the year of his death in 1894 and a privately published one that isn’t available in any library anywhere. In Russia, by contrast, a huge number of works related to Alexander have been produced in recent years. The earliest one I have examined for the purpose of this talk is a biography by Alexander Bokhanov. This was originally published in 1998, but the copy I have is a sixth edition, published in 2019, indicating that there is still a lot of interest in this book.

Next are a couple of biographies by Olga Barkovets and Alexander Krylov-Tolstikovich, the first of which was produced in 2001 and the second in 2007, the latter being a slightly bigger version of the former.

Then there are further biographies by Alexander Miasnikov and I. E. Dronov from 2016, S. V. Ilyin from 2019, Nina Boiko from 2022, and V. A. Grechukhin from 2023. That’s eight biographies in about 25 years, and five in just the last 10 years. On top of that, there are a bunch of other books, for instance Tocheny and Tochenaia’s Russian Autocrats: Alexander III, Lenin, Stalin, and there are also a number of source books which publish documents about Alexander dating from his life. These include the 900 page long collection Alexander III: Pro et Contra and several volumes of correspondence between Alexander and Prince V. P. Meshchersky.

So what do these books tell us?

The first thing to note that is that for the most part, the authors of these books do not engage much with other scholarly literature, and references to English language are notable for their almost total absence. In so far as Russian historians do address previous literature it is largely to critique it for having either a communist or a liberal bias and for being too negative. The person who has the most to say on this topic is Bokhanov, who writes that ‘Russian historiography has canonized biased assessments, in which for almost a hundred years the Westernist worldview has been dominant. In accordance with this worldview, Russia is a realm of darkness, ignorance, barbarism, and “Asiaticism,” and if there was anything bright and advanced in Russia, it was only due to the influence of the “progressive West.”’ Bokhanov complains that “Liberal dogmatic terror is merciless and uncompromising. Anyone who looks at the Russian World, at Russia without contempt, who respects the history of his Native Home, the deeds of his ancestors, and who does not consider Russia’s past to be the history of a “dark kingdom,” is immediately qualified as a “monarchist” and a “reactionary.” The “Russian Europeans” forgave (and still forgive) Peter the Great everything: unthinkable debauchery, the murder of his own son, unbelievable cruelty, insane military adventures, robbery and extermination of his own people … They always praised him for “cutting a window to Europe.” Alexander III, however, was not forgiven or forgotten precisely because he was anti-Western. For his liberal slanderers, this “original sin” was enough.  … The Russian Monarch was portrayed as narrow-minded, if not just plain stupid.”

While most of Alexander’s other biographers don’t say this quite so openly, they pretty much share this attitude and adopt an overwhelmingly positive attitude toward him, both on a personal and a political level. It’s worth noting, incidentally, that the personal tends to dominate over the political in these biographies. Most spend at least half their time discussing Alexander’s life prior to becoming emperor, and even when describing his time as ruler tend not to devote a lot of attention to his role in what one might call policy issues. As a result, in most cases one learns a lot about Alexander, his upbringing, habits, and family, but not always very much about his impact on major political decisions. And generally, they paint quite a positive picture of Alexander as a person, showing him as a hard working, dedicated, modest family man, who eschewed the extravagance and scandal of other Romanovs. Thus Barkovets and Krylov-Tolstikovich note that “Alexander III invariably strove to set a personal example of behavior that he considered right for each of his subjects. His ethical norms of behavior, his entire worldview proceeded from a deep religiosity. It is unlikely that any of Alexander’s twelve predecessors on the Russian imperial throne was such a pious and sincere believer. His faith – pure and free of dogmatism – explained both the God-chosen nature of the Russian autocracy and the special Russian path that it should follow.”

This last point reflects the main point that many of Alexander’s biographies consider his defining and indeed most endearing trait – his Russianness. Alexander is portrayed as Russian through and through, to the extent of being the first Russian emperor to wear a beard. Thus Boiko quotes Ivan Turgenev as saying that Alexander was “Russian and only Russian. Only a tiny drop of Russian blood flowed in his veins, but he merged himself with his people to such an extent that everything about him – his language, his habits, his manners, even his physiognomy was marked with the defining characteristics of his race.”

This Russianness is seen also as extending into Alexander’s policies as Emperor, which are positively assessed in contrast to what are seen as the failures of his father, Alexander II, whose policies are portrayed as a rather ill-judged effort to half-heartedly implant alien Western institutions into Russia. This is said to have contributed to the rise in terrorism that eventually led to the assassination of Alexander II. By contrast, the firm hand exerted by Alexander III is described as having brought Russian back from brink of collapse. Thus in a preface to Miasnikov’s biography, Bishop Tikhon, writes that Alexander “took over a country that was in a terrible moral, economic and political condition, when Russia was wracked by revolutionary terror. But he handed over to his successor a country that was fully pacified and enjoying its heyday, advancing towards a future that to many seemed cloudless and happy.”

Similarly, Dronov begins his biography with a quote from the émigré conservative writer Ivan Solonevich, saying that “I would give 150 Provisional Governments for one Alexander III. In my opinion, Alexander III was a true progressive, not Kerensky or Miliukov. For it is progress when you have quiet, confidence, flourishing, and growth. And it is reaction when there is hunger, brutality, collapse, and defeat.” Dronov then follows this up with a quote from the revolutionary turned conservative Lev Tikhomirov, saying that “Under Alexander II, Russia was such a humiliated country that nobody could possibly be proud of being Russian. Under Alexander III, the situation was reversed, and Russia began to take on the form of a great national force.”

Let us therefore now move on to examine the means by which this alleged transformation is said to have taken place.

Alexander’s first achievement is said to have been that he restored order. As Bokhanov writes, “During Alexander III’s reign, the social political situation in Russia stabilized.” His various biographers admit that this was achieved by repressive means, including the actions of the secret service, censorship, and the elimination of university autonomy. But they consider this a necessary evil, and in any case not actually that repressive. Several of the biographers mention that only 17 people were executed during Alexander’s reign, all of whom were guilty of either murdering or attempting to murder the emperor or his father. They also mention that Alexander personally commuted several death sentences, and that by comparison with later communist rule, the repression of his reign was really very mild.

In addition, they all are at pains to point out that even with increased censorship, Alexander’s reign saw a significant growth in the number of publications in Russia, with even liberal publications such as Vestnik Evropy being allowed to appear. Alexander was, they point out, a strong supporter of the arts, and even leant his support to those who might in some respects have been deemed subversive. For instance, Alexander intervened to prevent Tolstoy’s novel The Kreutzer Sonata from being banned, and supported the Peredvizhniki artists.  Alexander’s reign, we are told, saw a flourishing of Russian culture, associated with names such as Tolstoy, Chekhov, and Tchaikovsky. Several authors mention the large-scale expansion of education under Alexander III, with a huge increase in the number of schools, and the creation of Tomsk university and the higher women’s courses. Thus Barkovets and Krylov-Tolstikovich conclude that “It was in the reign of Alexander III that Russia first became one of the recognized centres of world culture.”

 Another important step in restoring order was what are often called the “counter-reforms.” Most of Alexander’s biographers don’t devote a lot of attention to these, but those who do are supportive of his policies. Ilyin, for instance, comments that many of the institutions set up under Alexander II didn’t work very well. The Justice of the Peace (JP) courts, for instance, were very slow moving, and cases could take years to be resolved. In addition, he notes, “In disputes between peasants and landlords, the Justices of the Peace more often than not sided with the latter.” Ilyin cites the poet Fet, who served for a decade as a JP, saying that “From my bitter experience I long ago came to the conclusion about the complete unsuitability of these institutions in village life.” By contrast, Ilyin remarks, the land captains established under Alexander III provided immediate justice and were much closer to and more accessible to the peasantry.

Similarly, Boiko remarks that “the land captains helped bring order to peasant life … And above all, combatted the unconscious spirit of anarchy among the peasants.” And Dronov claims that “the establishment of the land captains decided the problem of establishing a strong, effective and operative power in the localities, while the peasantry accepted very positively the appearance of a personal, concrete, representative of the authorities, allowing for rapid justice in accordance with conscience not the law, instead of the personless mechanism of formal judicial procedures.”

Dronov notes that the counter reforms met with strong resistance from liberals within the bureaucracy, and praises Alexander for standing up to what he considers a fifth column. According to Dronov, Alexander “understood that the “external” West – the West that exists beyond Russia’s borders – is not Russia’s most dangerous enemy; that there exists also a far more dangerous “internal West” that consists of forces within Russia who identify ideologically with the West, Western values, and the Western way of life.”

 Of all Alexander’s biographers, Dronov is by far the most virulent in his anti-Westernism and anti-liberalism. He comments that “Even when very young, Alexander hated liberals, not because he was opposed to freedom, but because, by a strange law of nature, it was precisely among liberals that one found the largest number of people who hated Russia and kowtowed to the West.”

 Dronov’s nationalism comes out very strongly in his discussion of Alexander’s nationality policies, writing that the emperor “understood the decisive significance of the national question, and what a powerful weapon regional separatism was for destroying Russia. He saw how hostile forces were igniting national divisions within Russia.” Dronov is not alone, in supporting Alexander’s nationality policies, as these gain the almost universal endorsement his biographers. Again and again they tell us that the Russian state did not discriminate against any national group in the empire. Indeed, many national minorities enjoyed autonomy and privileges that Russians did not. And this, they say, was the real problem, for it was precisely Russians who suffered discrimination.

As for Alexander, he was allegedly free of ethnic and religious prejudice. But he could not tolerate the discrimination faced by Russians, in particular at the hand of Baltic German nobles. Thus Bokhanov writes that “While we must recognize Alexander’s nationalistic inclinations, we must also note that they never reached the level of chauvinism. No repressions of other peoples, no persecution of their culture or beliefs, was ever undertaken at the initiative of the monarch, solely because they were not Russian. However, the Tsar could not and would not tolerate discrimination against Russians.” Likewise Barkovets and Krylov-Tolstikovich remark that “Carrying out the policy of Russification, the government in no way pursued chauvinistic goals. Its task consisted solely of bringing archaic local administration in line with general state norms, and defending the rights and interests of the Russian and Orthodox population against the self-rule of the German landlord-clerical authorities.”

Where things become a little trickier for the biographers is when they confront the issue anti-Jewish measures taken by Alexander’s government. Some of them respond by mentioning this only in passing and glossing over entirely Alexander’s role in the matter. Ilyin goes a bit further and admits that Alexander said some things that were regrettable, but he concludes that they didn’t amount to much, making the rather odd argument that “No few of Alexander III’s resolutions [on the issue of Jews] have been preserved and they have greatly harmed his reputation … Nonetheless, it would be a mistake to call him an anti-Semite as is sometime done. Contemporary reference books define anti-Semitism as a form of racism. But the emperor’s antipathy to Jews had nothing to do with race, but derived from his naïve, childish belief in the letter of holy tradition.” As I say, it’s a rather odd argument.

Even more disturbing is Dronov’s take on the matter. Dronov’s book is by far the most detailed of Alexander’s biographies, but also by far the most tendentious. It provides a huge amount of detail proving beyond reasonable doubt that Alexander was indeed anti-Semitic. In this sense, it is a much more useful book than other biographies. But Dronov doesn’t seem to find anything wrong with Alexander’s anti-Semitism. Indeed, he makes what one can only call anti-Semitic remarks of his own. For instance, he writes that “The dominant influence of foreigners (that is, Jews and Poles) in the alliance of the liberal-constitutionalists and revolutionaries was an entirely natural phenomenon. Liberal bourgeois ideology was a product of Talmudic ethics and Catholic religious doctrine, contradicting Orthodoxy and rejecting Christ in favour of the law of Moses. … Jews and Poles were the largest element in the Russian empire who were nationally and religiously incompatible with Russian Orthodox tradition.” Moving onto economic policy, Dronov also comments that “Alexander III could not but understand that freeing Russia from the yoke of German bankers and acquiring new, more favourable, loans from France, was only a relative success. The financial market in Paris, just as much as in Berlin, was dominated by Jews, and Russia ran the risk of jumping out of the frying pan into the fire.”

For Dronov, Alexander’s economic policy were a huge success, greatly boosting not only industrial production but also the standard of living of the vast bulk of the population. The roots of this success, according to Dronov, lay precisely in Alexander’s willingness to adopt protectionist policies and to pursue a more autarkic model of development, free of the control of foreign financiers. He writes: ‘In the 13 years of his reign, production rose more than twice … with no inflation. … He built the Trans-Siberian Railway and didn’t order a single nail from abroad. All the rails, all the wagons, and all the engines were built only in Russian factories. He built a new fleet, and all the ships were constructed in Russian wharfs. … Under Alexander III, Russia became truly Russian and for the Russians.”

 Other authors are not quite so nationalistic but concur with the positive assessment of Alexander’s economic policy. All of them note that Alexander inherited a government deeply in debt with a large budget deficit, but that by the end of his reign the government was running a budget surplus. All of them similarly note the significant rise in industrial production under Alexander, a substantial expansion of Russia’s railways, the establishment of the Peasant Bank, and the passing of factory legislation designed to protect workers from excessive exploitation. Barkovets and Krylov-Tolstikovich, for instance, write that “Alexander III inherited a desolate economy. The country was in a deep economic crisis. Its finances were in a deplorable state. … The financial and economic reforms undertaken by Alexander III opened up new, previously hidden, sources of wealth, and increased the population’s incomes.”

The final aspect of Alexander’s reign that receives a lot of coverage is foreign policy. All his biographers praise him for earning the title ‘Tsar peacemaker’ by not fighting a single war. In the late 1870s, Russia had barely managed to defeat Turkey in the war of 1877-78, and under Western pressure had then had to surrender many of its gains. After this humiliation, Alexander III is described as restoring Russia’s international prestige. Though some foreign policy failures are noted, particularly relating to Bulgaria, Alexander is considered to have been a highly successful foreign policy leader. Ilyin, for instance, concludes that “Alexander III did not make any serious mistakes in the diplomatic field. And while there were certain individual errors and failures, even    such a master of diplomatic intrigue as Bismarck had those too.”

While noting that Alexander brought peace, his biographers are all point out that he did so not by surrendering Russia’s interests to the West, but rather by standing up for Russia’s interests from a position of strength, investing heavily in the Russian army and fleet. Several mention the famous statement that may or may not have been uttered by Alexander, that “Russia has only two allies, its army and its fleet. At the first opportunity, all the others will take up arms against us.” Generally, people only quote the first half of this statement, putting the stress on the need for a strong military, but interestingly Alexander’s biographers always provide the full quote and put the emphasis more on the second half, i.e. on the charge that Russia’s allies will always betray it, and thus that Western countries are not to be trusted. Thus Miasnikov states that “The bitter experience of the nineteenth century taught the tsar that every time that Russia participated in the wars of any European coalition that it would come deeply to regret it.” And Bokhanov concludes that, “Alexander III was the first Romanov emperor not to be blinded by a “love of Europe.” The emperor never forgot how the goodwill and generosity of his predecessors had been cynically abused by our so-called “friends” and how our “faithful allies” had cheated us, betrayed us, and often simply made fools of us.”

The books mentioned in this presentation vary greatly in their length, quality, and style. Still, they do all end up telling much the same story. The basic message is that Alexander III inherited a country in political and economic chaos, with low international prestige, and a weak military, but thereafter restored order, boosted the economy, and made Russia great again, putting Russia’s interests ahead of those of other countries and relying on native Russian values and institutions rather than artificially imported Western ones. There is, I think, a strong contemporary political subtext to this narrative. In this sense, the portrayals of Alexander discussed in this paper are very much a product of their time.