1861 Emperor ALEXANDER II the LIBERATOR Antique Russian 2 Kopeks Coin i55150

Item: i55150

 Authentic Coin of:

Russia

1861 EM Copper 2 Kopeks 29mm (9.36 grams) Ekaterinburg mint
Reference: Y# 4a.1
Royal coat of arms, the crowned imperial double eagle holding scepter and orb.
* 2 * КОПѢЙКИ 1861 E.M.; all within wreath.

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Authenticity.

II Nikolaevich) Aleksandr 
(Alexander (Russian:

Александр II Николаевич, Aleksandr II 
Nikolaevich) (29 April [O.S. 

17 April] 1818, Moscow – 13 March [O.S. 

1 March] 1881,

Saint Petersburg

), also known as Alexander the Liberator (Russian:

Александр Освободитель, Aleksandr 
Osvoboditel’) was the

Emperor

, or

Czar

, of the

Russian Empire

from 3 March 1855 until his

assassination

in 1881. He was also the

Grand Duke of Finland

and the

King of Poland

.

//

Born in 1818, he was the eldest son of

Nicholas I of Russia

and

Charlotte of Prussia

, daughter of

Frederick William III of Prussia

and

Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz

. His early life gave little indication of his 

ultimate potential; until the time of his accession in 1855, aged 37, few 

imagined that he would be known to posterity as a leader able to implement the 

most challenging reforms undertaken in Russia since the reign of

Peter the Great

.

In the period of his life as

heir 

apparent
, the intellectual atmosphere of

St. Petersburg

was unfavourable to any kind of changes,

freedom of thought

and all private initiative being, as far as possible, 

suppressed vigorously. Personal and official

censorship
 

was rife; criticism of the authorities was regarded as a serious offense. Some 

26 years after he had the opportunity of implementing changes he would, however, 

be assassinated in public by

Narodnaya Volya

terrorist organization.

His education as a future Tsar was carried out under the 

supervision of the liberal romantic poet and gifted translator

Vasily Zhukovsky

, 

grasping a smattering of a great many subjects, and feeling exposure to the 

chief modern European

languages

. His alleged lack of interest in military affairs detected by 

later historians could be only his reflection on the results on his own family 

and on the whole spirit of the country by the unsavoury

Crimean 

War
. Unusually for the time, the young Alexander was taken on a six-month 

tour of Russia, visiting 20 provinces in the country. He also visited many 

prominent Western European countries.

Reign

Alexander II succeeded to the throne upon the death of his 

father in 1855. The first year of his reign was devoted to the prosecution of 

the Crimean War

, and after the fall of

Sevastopol
 

to negotiations for peace, led by his trusted counselor,

Prince Gorchakov

. It was widely thought that the country had been exhausted 

and humiliated by the war. Encouraged by public opinion he began a period of 

radical reforms, including an attempt to not to depend on a landed aristocracy 

controlling the poor, to develop Russia’s natural resources and to thoroughly 

reform all branches of the administration.

Autocratic power was now in the hands of someone with some 

sort of flexible thought, sufficient prudence and practicality.

However, the growth of a 

revolutionary movement

to the “left” of the educated classes led to an 

abrupt end to Alexander’s changes when he was assassinated in 1881. It is 

notable that after Alexander became tsar in 1855, he maintained a generally 

liberal course at the helm while being a target for numerous assassination 

attempts (1866, 1873, 1880).

Emancipation of the serfs

limited liability companiess. Plans were formed for building a great network 

of

railways

—partly for the purpose of developing the natural resources of the 

country, and partly for the purpose of increasing its power for defense and 

attack.

The existence of

serfdom
was 

tackled boldly taking advantage of a petition presented by the Polish

landed proprietors

of the

Lithuanian
 

provinces, and hoping that their relations with the serfs might be regulated in 

a more satisfactory way (meaning in a way more satisfactory for the 

proprietors), he authorized the formation of committees “for ameliorating the 

condition of the peasants,” and laid down the principles on which the 

amelioration was to be effected.

This step was followed by one still more significant. Without 

consulting his ordinary advisers, Alexander ordered the Minister of the Interior 

to send a circular to the provincial governors of

European Russia

, containing a copy of the instructions forwarded to the

governor-general

of Lithuania, praising the supposed generous, patriotic 

intentions of the Lithuanian landed proprietors, and suggesting that perhaps the 

landed proprietors of other provinces might express a similar desire. The hint 

was taken: in all provinces where serfdom existed, emancipation committees were 

formed.

But the emancipation was not merely a humanitarian question 

capable of being solved instantaneously by imperial

ukase
. It 

contained very complicated problems, deeply affecting the economic, social and 

political future of the nation.

Alexander had to choose between the different measures 

recommended to him. Should the serfs become agricultural labourers dependent 

economically and administratively on the landlords, or should they be 

transformed into a class of independent communal proprietors?

The emperor gave his support to the latter project, and the 

Russian peasantry became one of the last groups of peasants in Europe to shake 

off serfdom.

The architects of the emancipation manifesto were Alexander’s 

brother

Konstantin

,

Yakov Rostovtsev

, and

Nikolay Milyutin

.

On 3 March 1861 , 6 years after his accession, the 

emancipation law was signed and published.

Other reforms

Army
 

and navy
 

reorganisation and rearmament was initiated in response to the overwhelming 

defeat suffered by Russia in the Crimean War, and an awareness of military 

advances being implemented in other European countries. The changes included 

universal military conscription, the creation of an army reserve and the 

military district system (still in use a century later), the building of 

strategic railways, and an emphasis on military education of the officer corps.

A new judicial administration based on the French model 

(1864); a new

penal code
 

and

a greatly simplified system of civil and criminal procedure

.

An elaborate scheme of local self-government (Zemstvo) 

for the rural districts (1864) and the large towns (1870), with elective 

assemblies possessing a restricted right of

taxation

, and a new rural and municipal

police
under 

the direction of the

Minister of the Interior

.

Alexander II would be the second monarch (after King

Louis I of Portugal

) to abolish

capital punishment

, a penalty which is still legal (although not practised) 

in Russia.

However, the workers wanted better working conditions; 

persecuted national minorities, “integrated” only in the last 50 or 60 years or 

so, wanted freedom.

When radicals began to resort to the formation of

secret societies

and to revolutionary agitation, Alexander II felt 

constrained to adopt severe repressive measures.

The idea that some moderate liberal reforms, in an attempt to 

quell the revolutionary agitation, will do, and the creation of special 

commissions as proven by an

ukase
he 

delivered would not do either. The Marxist idea of countries being liberated 

from capitalism and

soviets

of workers united for the World Revolution, but respecting their own 

national characteristics, was clearly out of place within the Russian land 

aggregation processes of the 17th, 18th and 19th Centuries.

Marriages and children

During his bachelor days, Alexander made a state visit to 

England in 1838. Just a year older than the young

Queen Victoria

, Alexander’s approaches to her were indeed short-lived. 

Victoria married her German cousin, Prince

Albert of Saxe-Coburg

in February 1840. On 16 April 1841, aged 23, 

Tsarevitch Alexander married

Princess Marie of Hesse

in St Petersburg, thereafter known in Russia as

Maria Alexandrovna

.

(Marie was the legal daughter of

Ludwig II, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine

and

Princess Wilhelmina of Baden

, although some gossiping questioned whether the 

Grand Duke Ludwig or Wilhelmina’s lover,

Baron August von Senarclens de Grancy

, was her biological father.  

Alexander was aware of the question of her

paternity
).

The marriage produced six sons and two daughters:

• Grand Duchess Alexandra Alexandrovna

  (30 August 1842 – 10 July 1849), 

  nicknamed Lina, died of

  infant 

  meningitis
  in

  St. Petersburg

  at the age of six

• Tsarevich Nicholas Alexandrovich

  (20 September 1843 – 24 April 1865), 

  engaged to

  Dagmar of Denmark (Maria Feodorovna)

• Tsar Alexander III

  (10 March 1845 – 1 November 1894), married 1866,

  Dagmar of Denmark (Maria Feodorovna)

  , had issue

• Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich

  (22 April 1847 – 17 February 1909), 

  married 1874,

  Marie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (Maria Pavlovna)

  , had issue

• Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich

  (14 January 1850 – 14 November 1908), 

  had (presumably illegitimate) issue

• Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna

  (17 October 1853 – 20 October 1920) 

  married 1874,

  Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha

  , had issue

• Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich

  (29 April 1857 – 4 February 1905), 

  married 1884,

  Elisabeth of Hesse (Elizabeth Feodorovna)

• Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich

  (3 October 1860 – 24 January 1919), 

  married 1889,

  Alexandra of Greece and Denmark (Alexandra Georgievna)

  , had issue; 

  second marriage 1902,

  Olga Karnovich

  , had issue

Alexander had many mistresses during his marriage and 

fathered 7 known illegitimate children. These included:

• Antoinette Bayer (20 June 1856 – 24 January 1948) with 

  his mistress Wilhelmine Bayer

• Michael-Bogdan Oginski (10 October 1848 – 25 March 1909) 

  with mistress Countess Olga Kalinovskya (1818–1854)

• Joseph Raboxicz

• Charlotte Henriette Sophie Jansen( 15 November 1844 – 

  July 1915) with mistress Sophie Charlotte Dorothea Von Behse (1828–1886)

On 6 July 1880, less than a month after Tsarina Maria’s death 

on 8 June, Alexander formed a

morganatic marriage

with his mistress Princess

Catherine Dolgorukov

, with whom he already had four children:

• George Alexandrovich Romanov Yurievsky (12 May 1872 – 13 

  September 1913). Married Countess Alexandra Zarnekau and had issue. They 

  later divorced.

• Olga Alexandrovna Romanov Yurievsky (7 November 1874 – 10 

  August 1925). Married Count Georg Nikolaus of Nassau,

  Count of Merenberg

  .

• Boris Alexandrovich Yurievsky (23 February 1876 – 11 

  April 1876).

• Catherine Alexandrovna Romanov Yurievsky (9 September 

  1878 – 22 December 1959) Her first husband was the 23rd Prince

  Alexander Alexandrovich Bariatinski

  , (1870–1910) the son of the 22nd 

  Prince

  Alexander Vladimirovich Bariatinski

  , (1848–1909). Her second husband, 

  later divorced, was Prince

  Serge Obolensky

  , (1890–1978).

Suppression 

of separatist movements

At the beginning of his reign, Alexander expressed the famous 

statement “No dreams” addressed for Poles, populating

Congress Poland

, Western

Ukraine
,

Lithuania
,

Livonia
and

Belarus
. The 

result was the

January Uprising

of 1863–1864 that was suppressed after eighteen months of 

fighting.

Hundreds of Poles were executed, and thousands were deported 

to Siberia
. 

The price for suppression was Russian support for

Prussian-united Germany

. Twenty years later, Germany became the major enemy 

of Russia on the continent.

All territories of the former

Poland-Lithuania

were excluded from liberal policies introduced by 

Alexander. The

martial 

law
in Lithuania, introduced in 1863, lasted for the next 40 years. Native 

languages,

Lithuanian

,

Ukrainian

and

Belarusian

were completely banned from printed texts, see a , e.g.,

Ems Ukase

. The

Polish language

was banned in both oral and written form from all provinces 

except

Congress Kingdom

, where it was allowed in private conversations only.

Rewarding loyalty and encouraging Finnish nationalism within Russia

In 1863 Alexander II re-established the

Diet of Finland

and initiated several reforms increasing Finland’s autonomy 

from Russia including establishment of its own

currency
, 

the

. Liberation of enterprise led to increased

foreign investment

and industrial development.

Finally, the elevation of

Finnish

from a language of the common people to a

national language

equal to

Swedish

opened opportunities for a larger proportion of the society. 

Alexander II is still regarded as “The Good Tsar” in Finland.

These reforms could be seen as results of a genuine belief 

that reforms were easier to test in an underpopulated, homogeneous country, than 

the in whole of Russia. They may also be seen as a reward for the loyalty of its 

relatively western-oriented population during the

Crimean war

and during the

Polish uprising

. Encouraging Finnish

nationalism

and language can also be seen as an attempt to dilute ties with 

Sweden.

Assassination attempts

In 1866, there was an attempt on the tsar’s life in

St. Petersburg

by

Dmitry Karakozov

. To commemorate his narrow escape from death (which he 

himself referred to only as “the event of 4 April 1866”), a number of churches 

and chapels were built in many Russian cities.

Viktor Hartmann

, a Russian architect, even sketched a design of a monumental 

gate (planned, never built) to commemorate the event.

Modest Mussorgsky

later wrote his

Pictures at an Exhibition

; the last movement of which, “The Great Gate of 

Kiev”, is based on Hartmann’s sketches.

On the morning of 20 April 1879, Alexander II was briskly 

walking towards the Square of the Guards Staff and faced

Alexander Soloviev

, a 33-year-old former student. Having seen a menacing 

revolver in his hands, the Tsar fled. Soloviev fired five times but missed, and 

was sentenced to death and hanged on 28 May.

The student acted on his own, but other revolutionaries were 

keen to murder Alexander. In December 1879, the

Narodnaya Volya

(People’s Will), a radical revolutionary group which hoped 

to ignite a

social revolution

, organized an explosion on the railway from

Livadia

to Moscow, but they missed the tsar’s train.

On the evening of 5 February 1880

Stephan Khalturin

, also from Narodnaya Volya, set off a charge under the 

dining room of the

Winter Palace

, right in the resting room of the guards a story below. Being 

late for dinner, the tsar was unharmed; although 11 other people were killed and 

30 wounded. The dining room floor was also heavily damaged.

Assassination

After the last assassination attempt in February 1880,

Count Loris-Melikov

was appointed the head of the Supreme Executive 

Commission and given extraordinary powers to fight the revolutionaries. Loris-Melikov’s 

proposals called for some form of parliamentary body, and the Emperor seemed to 

agree; these plans were never realized.

On 13 March (1 March

Old Style Date

), 1881, Alexander fell victim to an

assassination

plot.

As he was known to do every Sunday for many years, the tsar 

went to the Manezh to review the Life Guards. He traveled both to and from the 

Manezh in a closed carriage accompanied by six

Cossacks
 

with a seventh sitting on the coachman’s left. The tsar’s carriage was followed 

by two sleighs carrying, among others, the chief of police and the chief of the 

tsar’s guards. The route, as always, was via the

Catherine Canal

and over the

Pevchesky Bridge

.

The street was flanked by narrow sidewalks for the public. A 

young member of the

(People’s Will) movement,

Nikolai Rysakov

, was carrying a small white package wrapped in a 

handkerchief.

“After a moment’s hesitation I threw the bomb. I sent it 

under the horses’ hooves in the supposition that it would blow up under the 

carriage…The explosion knocked me into the fence.”

The explosion, while killing one of the

Cossacks
 

and seriously wounding the driver and people on the sidewalk, had only damaged 

the bulletproof carriage, a gift from Napoleon III of France. The tsar emerged 

shaken but unhurt. Rysakov was captured almost immediately. Police Chief

Dvorzhitsky

heard Rysakov shout out to someone else in the gathering crowd. 

The surrounding guards and the Cossacks urged the tsar to leave the area at once 

rather than being shown the site of the explosion. A second young member of the

,

Ignacy Hryniewiecki

, standing by the canal 
fence, raised both arms and threw something at the tsar’s feet. He was alleged 
to have shouted, “It is too early to thank God”. 

Dvorzhitsky was later to write:

“I was deafened by the new explosion, burned, wounded and 

thrown to the ground. Suddenly, amid the smoke and snowy fog, I heard His 

Majesty’s weak voice cry, ‘Help!’ Gathering what strength I had, I jumped up 

and rushed to the tsar. His Majesty was half-lying, half-sitting, leaning on 

his right arm. Thinking he was merely wounded heavily, I tried to lift him 

but the tsar’s legs were shattered, and the blood poured out of them. Twenty 

people, with wounds of varying degree, lay on the sidewalk and on the 

street. Some managed to stand, others to crawl, still others tried to get 

out from beneath bodies that had fallen on them. Through the snow, debris, 

and blood you could see fragments of clothing, epaulets, sabers, and bloody 

chunks of human flesh.”

Later it was learned there was a third bomber in the crowd.

Ivan Emelyanov

stood ready, clutching a briefcase containing a bomb that 

would be used if the other two bombers failed.

Alexander was carried by sleigh to the

Winter Palace

to his study where ironically, twenty years before almost to 

the date, he had signed the

Emancipation Edict

freeing the serfs. Alexander was bleeding to death, with 

his legs torn away, his stomach ripped open, and his face mutilated. 

Members of the

Romanov family

came rushing to the scene.

The dying tsar was given

Communion
 

and

Extreme Unction

. When the attending physician,

Dr. S. P. Botkin

, asked how long it would be, replied, “Up to fifteen 

minutes” 

At 3:30 that day the standard of Alexander II was lowered for the last time.

The assassination caused a great setback for the reform 

movement. One of Alexander II’s last ideas was to draft plans for an elected 

parliament, or Duma
, 

which were completed the day before he died but not yet released to the Russian 

people. The first action Alexander III took after his coronation was to tear up 

those plans. A Duma
 

would not come into fruition until 1905, by Alexander II’s grandson,

Nicholas II

, who commissioned the Duma following heavy pressure on the 

monarchy by the

Russian Revolution of 1905

.

A second consequence of the assassination was anti-Jewish

pogroms

and legislation

. Though only one Jew was involved in the assassination 

conspiracy, over 200 Jews who had nothing to do with the murder of Alexander II 

were beaten to death in these pogroms.

A third consequence of the assassination was that suppression 

of civil liberties in Russia and

police brutality

burst back in full force after experiencing some restraint 

under the reign of Alexander II. Alexander II’s murder and subsequent death was 

witnessed firsthand by his son,

Alexander III

, and his grandson,

Nicholas II

, both future Tsars, who vowed not to have the same fate befall 

them. Both used the Okhrana to arrest protestors and uproot suspected rebel 

groups, creating further suppression of personal freedom for the Russian people.