Tsar Alexander II's assassination

In Our Time

BBC

History

4.6 • 9.2K Ratings

🗓️ 6 January 2005

⏱️ 42 minutes

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Summary

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the assassination of Tsar Alexander II. On 1st March 1881, the Russian Tsar, Alexander II, was travelling through the snow to the Winter Palace in St Petersburg. An armed Cossack sat with the coach driver, another six Cossacks followed on horseback and behind them came a group of police officers in sledges. It was the day that the Tsar, known for his liberal reforms, had signed a document granting the first ever constitution to the Russian people.But his journey was being watched by a group of radicals called 'Narodnaya Volya' or 'The People's Will'. On a street corner near the Catherine Canal, they hurled the first of their bombs to halt the Tsar's iron-clad coach. When Alexander ignored advice and ventured out onto the snow to comfort his dying Cossacks, he was killed by another bomber who took his own life in the blast.Why did they kill the reforming Tsar? What was the political climate that inspired such extreme acts? And could this have been the moment that the Russian state started an inexorable march towards revolution?With Orlando Figes, Professor of History at Birkbeck College, University of London; Dominic Lieven, Professor of Russian Government, London School of Economics; Catriona Kelly, Professor of Russian, Oxford University.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Thanks for downloading the Inartime podcast. For more details about Inartime and for our terms of use
0:05.4	Please go to bbc.co.uk forward slash radio for I hope you enjoy the program
0:11.0	Hello on the 1st of March 1881 the Russian Tsar Alexander the 2nd was traveling through the snow to the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg
0:18.6	An armed Kossak sat with the coach driver another six Kossaks followed on horseback and behind them came a group of police officers in
0:25.9	Sledges it was a day that Tsar known for his liberal reforms had signed a document
0:31.0	Granting the first ever Constitution of the Russian people
0:34.2	But his journey was being watched by a group of radicals called Narodnia-Valaya or the people's will on a street corner near the
0:41.6	Catherine Canal
0:42.3	They hurled the first of their bombs to halt the Tsar's ironclad coach when Alexander ignored advice and ventured out into the snow to
0:49.3	Comfort his dying Kossaks he was killed by another bomber who took his own life in the blast
0:54.1	But why did they kill the reform in Tsar?
0:57.1	What was the political climate that inspired such extreme acts and could march 1881 have been the moment that the Russian state started an
1:04.9	inexorable march towards revolution
1:07.1	We need to discuss the assassination of Tsar Alexander the 2nd is a land of fighters professor of history at Birkbeck College
1:13.1	University of London
1:14.1	Kachevna Kelly professor in Russian at Oxford University and Dominic Levine professor of Russian government at the London School of Economics
1:21.1	Orlando he was famous
1:22.9	Sarang on the second was famous for his manchipation of the service. He was even given the title Tsar Liberator
1:28.7	the root of his
1:30.4	Feeling for the necessity for reform can go back to the Crimean war
1:34.6	Can you tell us why that had such an impact on him and with the impact of Alan Russia?
1:39.3	Well the war was a huge shock for Russia
	...

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