Alexander III of Russia



Emperor of Russia (1881-1894)

full name Alexander Alexandrovich byname Alexander the Peace-Maker

Born: March 10 (Old Style February 26), 1845, Saint Petersburg Died: November 1 (Old style October 20), 1894, Livadiya, Crimea

Son of Alexander II of Russia and Princess Marie of Hesse and by Rhine. Alexander had little prospect of succeeding to the throne, because he had an elder brother, Nicholas. Alexander became heir apparent by the sudden death of his elder brother in 1865. On his deathbed, Alexander's elder brother Nicholas is said to have expressed the wish that his engaged bride, Princess Dagmar of Denmark, should marry his successor. This wish was swiftly realized, when on November 9, 1866 in the Imperial Chapel of the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg, the Tsarevich married the Princess of Denmark. Alexander began to study the principles of law and administration under Konstantin Pobedonostsev, who taught him to fear the freedom of speech and to hate democracy. He succeeded his father after his assassination by the Narodnaya Volya, a Nihilist terrorist organization, in March 13, 1881. He revived the maxim of “Autocracy, Orthodoxy, and Respect to the People” of Nicholas I. His political ideal was a nation containing only one nationality, one language, one religion and one form of administration. Under his rule, revolutionaries were hunted down and a policy called Russification was carried out throughout the empire.

Following the advice of his political advisor Konstantin Pobedonostsev, Alexander III decided to adopt the opposite of the policies of his father. He also canceled the ukaz, policy creating a number of consultative commissions, before it was published. Other liberal policies of his father were also cancelled. He let it be very clearly understood that he had no intention of limiting the autocratic power that he had inherited from his ancestors. In foreign affairs he was emphatically a man of peace, that earned him the title the Peace-Maker. He avoided an open rupture with Germany, and even revived for a time the Three Emperors' Alliance.

It was only in the last years of Alexander’s reign, when Mikhail Katkov had acquired a certain influence over him. Alexander then adopted a more hostile attitude towards the cabinet of Berlin and even keeping a large number of troops near the German frontier, and establishing close relations with France. The Narodnaya Volya planned the murder of Tsar Alexander III. Though unsuccessful, among the conspirators captured was one Aleksandr Ulyanov, who was sentenced to death and hanged on May 5, 1887. Alexander Ulyanov was the brother of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, who would be known later as Lenin. The Emperor also survived the Borki train disaster of 1888. At the moment of the crash the royal family was in the dining car. Its roof collapsed in the crash, and Alexander held the remains of the roof on his shoulders as the children fled outdoors. But he died of nephritis (inflammation of the kidney) caused by the trauma suffered at Borki.