A History of Modern Europe - From the Renaissance to the Present

592 Ch. 1 5 • Liberal Challenges To Restoration Europe

of destitute serfs bound to the lands of their lords. Most Russian nobles

feared that any reform would threaten their prerogatives. Early in his reign
in 1803, the tsar gave permission to the nobles to free their serfs but few
chose to do so.

However, Tsar Alexander I became increasingly reactionary. In 1809, he

rejected a proposed constitution. Conservative elements regained power and

introduced coercive measures. Universities and schools were closely moni­

tored to root out liberals; study abroad was banned; and censorship was

applied with ruthless efficiency. At the same time, he continued the aggres­

sive policies of Peter the Great and Catherine the Great in the late seven­

teenth and eighteenth centuries, expanding the empire by adding Georgia at

the expense of the Turks.

But liberal reform had advocates in Russia, including some young nobles

who had been educated in Western Europe (before foreign study was pro­

hibited) and a handful of army officers who had lived in France during the

allied military occupation after Napoleons fall. They were bitterly disap­

pointed by Alexander Ts reactionary turn. By 1820, two loosely linked con­

spiratorial “unions,” as they were called, had been formed. The educated

nobles of the Northern Union hoped that Russia might evolve toward British

constitutionalism. The military officers of the Southern Union had a more

radical goal: to kill the tsar and establish a republic.

Tsar Alexanders sudden death in December 1825 seemed to offer the con­

spirators their chance. The tsar had two brothers. Constantine, the eldest,

had quietly yielded his succession to the throne in favor of his younger, more

Decembrists gathering in December 1825 at Senate Square in Saint Petersburg.