Alexander II of Russia facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Alexander II |
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Emperor of Russia | |||||
Reign | 2 March 1855 – 13 March 1881 | ||||
Coronation | 7 September 1856 | ||||
Predecessor | Nicholas I | ||||
Successor | Alexander III | ||||
Born | Moscow Kremlin, Moscow, Moscow Governorate, Russian Empire |
29 April 1818||||
Died | 13 March 1881 Winter Palace, St. Petersburg, Russian Empire |
(aged 62)||||
Burial | Peter and Paul Cathedral, St. Petersburg, Russian Empire | ||||
Consort | |||||
Issue among others... |
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House | Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov | ||||
Father | Nicholas I of Russia | ||||
Mother | Charlotte of Prussia | ||||
Religion | Russian Orthodox | ||||
Signature | ![]() |
Alexander II (29 April 1818 – 13 March 1881) was the Emperor of Russia from 2 March 1855 until his assassination on 13 March 1881. He was also the King of Poland and the Grand Duke of Finland.
Alexander's most significant reform as Emperor was emancipation of Russia's serfs in 1861, for which he is known as Alexander the Liberator. The tsar was responsible for other reforms, including reorganising the judicial system, setting up elected local judges, abolishing corporal punishment, promoting local self-government through the zemstvo system, imposing universal military service, ending some privileges of the nobility, and promoting university education. After an assassination attempt in 1866, Alexander adopted a somewhat more reactionary stance until his death.
Alexander pivoted towards foreign policy and sold Alaska to the United States in 1867, fearing the remote colony would fall into British hands if there were another war. He sought peace, moved away from bellicose France when Napoleon III fell in 1871, and in 1872 joined with Germany and Austria in the League of the Three Emperors that stabilized the European situation. Despite his otherwise pacifist foreign policy, he fought a brief war with the Ottoman Empire in 1877–78, pursued further expansion into Siberia and the Caucasus, and conquered Turkestan. Although disappointed by the results of the Congress of Berlin in 1878, Alexander abided by that agreement. Among his greatest domestic challenges was an uprising in Poland in 1863, to which he responded by stripping that land of its separate constitution and incorporating it directly into Russia. Alexander was proposing additional parliamentary reforms to counter the rise of nascent revolutionary and anarchistic movements when he was assassinated in 1881.
Images for kids
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The coronation of Emperor Alexander II and Empress Maria Alexandrovna on 26 August/7 September 1856 at the Dormition Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin, painting by Mihály Zichy. The painting depicts the moment when the Emperor crowned the Empress.
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Leaving church in Pskov, 1864
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The US$7.2 million check used to pay for Russian Alaska in 1867
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Alexander II with his uncle, German Emperor William I on a hunting trip together, 1872
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The Monument to the Tsar Liberator in the centre of Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria
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In 1877, Russian general Iosif Gurko liberated Veliko Tarnovo, ending the 480-year rule of the Ottoman Empire.
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Emperor Alexander II and his wife, Empress Maria, with their son, the future Alexander III by Sergei Lvovich Levitsky 1870
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The Monument to the Tsar Liberator in Sofia commemorates Alexander II's decisive role in the Liberation of Bulgaria from Ottoman rule during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78.