Summary

Edvard Radzinsky is justly famous as both a biographer and a dramatist, and he brings both skills to bear in this vivid, page-turning, rich portrait of one of the greatest of all Romanovs. Alexander II was Russia's Lincoln -- he freed the serfs, promised a new, more liberal state for everyone, yet was brought down by a determined group of terrorist anarchists who tried to kill him six times before finally, fatefully, succeeding. His story proves the timeless lesson that in Russia, it is dangerous to start reforms, but even more dangerous to stop them. It also shows that the traps and dangers encountered in today's war on terrorists were there 150 years ago.

Author Biography

Edvard Radzinsky is the author of the bestselling The Last Tsar, Stalin, and The Rasputin File. He is one of Russia's most celebrated playwrights. He lives in Moscow, where he is also an award-winning television personality.

Introduction

Prelude

PART I: GRAND DUKE

The Harsh Fate of Heritage

(21)

Heir to the Throne

(15)

His Father's Empire

(8)

How to Bring Up a Caesar

(56)

PART II: EMPEROR

The Great Time

103

(49)

An Awakened Russia

152

(14)

Anni Horibiles

166

(21)

Love

187

(18)

PART III: UNDERGROUND RUSSIA

The Birth of Terror

205

(26)

The Lonely Palace Cliff

231

(8)

A Hollywood Story

239

(11)

Unprecedented in History

250

(37)

War on Terror

287

(17)

The Mysterious and Great EC

304

(51)

PART IV: THE RETURN OF THE TSAR LIBERATOR

Fox Tail and Wolf Jaw

355

(49)

Death of the Tsar

404

(19)

Postlude

423

(6)

Selected Bibliography

429

(12)

Index

441

Supplemental Materials

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Excerpts

Introducion

This may be the most important era in the thousand-year existence of Russia.

-- Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich

Diary, January 1, 1861

If we perish, there will be others.

-- Terrorist Andrei Zhelyabov

The history of Tsar Alexander II is paradoxical. Alexander II dreamed of bringing Russia into the circle of European states, leading the country toward a European constitution. He gave the eternal Russian pendulum that swings between West and East a definite push to the West. Yet this Westernizing tsar is little known in the West.

Nevertheless, Alexander II was the greatest reformer tsar since Peter the Great. The Russian Lincoln, he put an end to a thousand years of Russian slavery by emancipating the serfs.

He did more than free 23 million Russian slaves; he reformed Russian life by changing the justice system, the army, and the very form of government. He was the father of the first Russian perestroika, which brought about a great spiritual awakening. "The Thaw"..."The Great Icebreaker"..."The Russian Renaissance" were some of the terms for Alexander's reign used by the press. Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Turgenev, and Mendeleyev only begin the list of stars in the galaxy of famous writers and scientists who created their masterworks in the days of Alexander II.

"This may be the most important era in the thousand-year existence of Russia," wrote the tsar's brother, Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich, in his diary.

"What a novel his life makes!" wrote a contemporary. His turbulent life encompassed everything from great reforms, to victorious wars, to the sexual exploits of a royal Don Juan, to his final, great love. Yet this hot blood in Russia's leader, echoed in that of his country, flowed dangerously. Once Alexander quickened Russia's pulse, he could not contain its circulation.

Like all reformers who followed him, including Mikhail Gorbachev, he failed to understand this basic truth: "Starting reforms in Russia is dangerous, but it is much more dangerous to stop them."

The young radicals, the children of his perestroika, decided to hasten Russian history. The great tsar was forced to see the bitterest change: His Russia became the home of terrorism, a terrorism previously unparalleled in scope and bloodshed in Europe.

Bombs and gunshots exploded all over the country. Tsarist officials were killed. Alexander II survived six attempts on his life. The terrorists managed to blow up his Winter Palace. The tsar saw the blood of dead and wounded victims in his own home.

For the first time the fate of the country was decided not only in the magnificent royal palace but in the impoverished hidden apartments of the terrorists.

Underground Russia, with its secret life and bloody exploits, is an important character in this book.

"Our work is destruction, a terrible, total, universal and ruthless destruction" proclaimed one of the fathers of Russian terrorism. "The revolutionary is a doomed man. He has no interests, no work, no feelings, no ties, no property, not even a name. Everything is consumed by the single, exclusive interest, the sole thought, the sole passion: revolution. Poison, dagger, and noose -- the Revolution sanctifies everything."

The Russian terrorism of Alexander II's reign remarkably presaged the terrorism of our day. The words and slogans that agitated the long-buried and decomposed Russian terrorists can be read in newspaper articles today.

"The basic lesson of history is that people do not learn from history," is a trite but -- alas -- true aphorism.

Alexander II had to learn to fight against a previously unknown evil (the "new barbarians," as he called them). The tsar declared a war on terror, for the first but not the last time in history.

His war broke off in March 1881.

Excerpted from Alexander II: The Last Great Tsar by Edvard Radzinsky
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