150th Anniversary of freedom for the Serfs

[mendeleyev]

A special edition of the Mendeleyev Journal today celebrates the anniversary of the Emancipation Reform of 1861 in Russia (Крестьянская реформа 1861 года.). This was the first and most important of political and individual rights reforms enacted during the reign of Alexander II of Russia.

The 1861 Emancipation Manifesto proclaimed the emancipation of serfs on private estates and domestic slaves. By this edict more than twenty-three million people were granted liberty. Serfs were granted the full rights of free citizens, including the rights to marry without having to gain consent, to own property and to own a business.

Because of the large number of Saint Petersburg photographs and a video detailing the Saints Peter and Paul Fortress, the Mariinksy Palace, the Saints Peter and Paul Cathedral and the tombs of Alexander and other Romanov royality that have been compiled as part of this report, I'll link you to the Mendeleyev Journal.

[JR]

If memory seves me correctly the serf's new freedoms were still extremely limited thru legal machinations. It also caused a whole slew of new problems. The Russians have certainly endured...a strong people.

[mendeleyev]

Yes, they sure are. I just returned from 2 back to back trips in a compacted span so that is why I didn't see your reply earlier.

JR, I'm thinking of a particular book which you might enjoy: Alexander II, The Last Great Tsar was penned by the very capable Russian historian Edvard Radzinsky and translated into English in 2005. While very scholarly, it is also an easy and fascinating read--hard to put down even at over 460 pages in hardback. Included are the usual maps and charts/family trees, but the stories and explanations of the political context combined with palace customs and intrigue are what supercharge this book.

Radzinsky calls Alexander II as "Russia's Lincoln" in his role of changing the lives of the Serfs. Alexander's untimely death marked a retreat in thinking that would last for a long time but eventually the seeds planted by this great Tsar (who routinely slept on a canvas cot in the outer kitchen whenever his soldiers were away from their homes at battle) and the seeds of freedom almost took root in the hard Russian permafrost save for the revolution of 1917.

Radzinsky says that Alexander, like many other reformers, failed to understand that "starting reforms in Russia is always dangerous, but it is much more dangerous to stop them."

[erudite]

Recently I saw a documentary about Czarist Russia and it mentioned that the army was composed of conscripts from the serfs of the land almost entirely in the enlisted ranks.  The men were conscripted and sent to serve for something like 25 years without any chance of being demobilized.  It was considered a "death sentence" by the family and friends when young men were conscripted.  This act led to Alexander II changing term to 6 years with several more in "reserves".

Someone more knowledgeable about this than me can probably clarify this information better.  

Here is a great succinct web link about the "Great Reformer and Liberator" Alexander II telling about the after effects and consequences of his liberation.

http://www.inforefuge.com/reformation-by-the-tsar-liberator

[mendeleyev]

That was a helpful link, Erudite.

After the Crimean War, which he inherited, Alexander used Russia's defeat to began reforming the military and extended the draft to include not only serfs but all of Russia's sons no matter what class. That system of universal military conscription basically remains intact to this day.

Up thru WWI Russia was one of the last country's to modernize battlefront medicine. It was common for families to be responsible for care of the wounded and not that unusual for female and older male family members to be camped not from the battlefront in order to care for their wounded sons. While moderization of battlefield medicine began in WWI, only in WWII did Russia fully implement modern medicine to the battlefield and with it the universal policy of removal of the wounded via ambulance train back to Russia's interior.

You can see hints of this in the movie Dr Zhivago. The main character, Yuri Zhivago, was a army doctor at the WWI battlefront but many of his battlefield assistants and nurses were volunteer family members. If you recall, Lara his love had been serving as a nurse while searching for her husband Antipov.

The principles of evacuation from the trenches to advanced dressing stations, roles of the battalion medical officers, field ambulances, casualty clearing stations, stationary hospitals, ambulance trains and hospital ships were adapted by Russia in mid/late WWI from the allied British models. Not that none of those had been in existence previously, but nowhere near the standard of the civilized world up to that time in history.