Austria-Hungary; Russian Empire (serfdom abolished 1861)

Late Modern Era / 19th Century · ~1800 – 1914

Austria-Hungary and the Russian Empire were the two great multinational land empires of eastern and central Europe in the nineteenth century. The Habsburg lands, centred on Vienna, held Germans, Hungarians, Czechs, Poles, Croats, Italians, Romanians and many other peoples. After defeat by Prussia in 1866 they were reorganised in 1867 as the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary, with Franz Joseph as emperor of Austria and king of Hungary. The Russian Empire, ruled from St Petersburg by the Romanov tsars, stretched from Poland to the Pacific.

Both states struggled to modernise while holding diverse populations together. In Russia the defeat in the Crimean War led Alexander II to abolish serfdom in 1861, freeing millions of peasants on terms that left many in debt and tied to village communes. Nationalism, industrial change and pressure from rivals shaped both empires until 1914, when a crisis in the Balkans pulled them into the First World War, and both collapsed by 1918.

Things happened, and the rest is history

The Congress of Vienna and the Habsburg order
Event
What happened
From 1814 to 1815 the Congress of Vienna meets to remake Europe after Napoleon. Austria, under the foreign minister Klemens von Metternich, takes a leading role, regains territory in northern Italy and joins the German Confederation as its presiding state. Russia, under Alexander I, receives most of the Duchy of Warsaw as Congress Poland.
The rest is history
The settlement gave both empires a central place in the conservative order of the following decades. Austria and Russia, with Prussia, backed monarchical rule against liberal and national movements. This system lasted until the upheavals of 1848, and it left Habsburg rulers with many peoples to govern and Russia with a large Polish population.
Sources
1. BookSchroeder, Paul W. The Transformation of European Politics 1763-1848. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994.
2. BookSked, Alan. The Decline and Fall of the Habsburg Empire 1815-1918. London: Longman, 1989.
The Decembrist revolt of 1825
Event
What happened
When Alexander I dies in late 1825, confusion over the succession leaves the throne briefly uncertain. On 14 December, a group of liberal-minded army officers leads about three thousand soldiers onto Senate Square in St Petersburg to oppose the accession of Nicholas I. Troops loyal to Nicholas fire on them and the revolt is crushed the same day.
The rest is history
Five leaders were hanged in 1826 and many others were exiled to Siberia. Nicholas I ruled for thirty years as a strict autocrat, with a secret police, the Third Section, and tight censorship. The Decembrists became a lasting symbol for later Russian reformers and revolutionaries.
Sources
1. BookMazour, Anatole G. The First Russian Revolution, 1825: The Decembrist Movement. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1937.
2. BookRiasanovsky, Nicholas V. Nicholas I and Official Nationality in Russia, 1825-1855. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1959.
The Crimean War and the push for reform
Event
What happened
From 1853 Russia fights the Ottoman Empire, and in 1854 Britain and France join the Ottomans. Allied forces besiege Sevastopol, which falls in September 1855. The Treaty of Paris in 1856 ends the war and bars Russia from keeping a navy in the Black Sea.
The rest is history
The defeat exposed the weakness of Russia's army, roads and finances. Alexander II, who became tsar in 1855, and many officials concluded that serfdom held the country back. Historians widely see the war as a main spur to the Great Reforms. Austria's refusal to support Russia also ended the old friendship between the two courts.
Sources
1. BookFiges, Orlando. The Crimean War: A History. London: Metropolitan Books, 2010.
2. BookLincoln, W. Bruce. The Great Reforms: Autocracy, Bureaucracy, and the Politics of Change in Imperial Russia. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1990.
The emancipation of the serfs, 1861
Event
What happened
On 19 February 1861 (3 March in the modern calendar) Alexander II signs the Emancipation Manifesto. Serfs gain personal freedom, and landowners must give them allotments of land. Peasants repay the state, which compensates the landlords, through redemption payments spread over decades.
The rest is history
Roughly twenty million or more serfs were affected. Many peasants thought the terms unfair, since allotments were often small and payments heavy, and they remained bound to village communes. Unrest followed, and the debts were only cut in 1881 and cancelled in 1907. The reform was followed by new local councils (zemstvos) in 1864 and judicial reform the same year.
Sources
1. PrimaryManifesto of Alexander II on the abolition of serfdom. Imperial Russian decree, 19 February 1861 (Old Style).
2. BookMoon, David. The Abolition of Serfdom in Russia 1762-1907. Harlow: Longman, 2001.
3. BookEmmons, Terence. The Russian Landed Gentry and the Peasant Emancipation of 1861. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968.
Habsburg defeat in 1866 and the Compromise of 1867
Event
What happened
In 1859 Austria loses Lombardy to France and Piedmont. In 1866 Prussia defeats Austria at Königgrätz (Sadowa) in the Austro-Prussian War, and Austria is shut out of German affairs. In 1867 Emperor Franz Joseph and Hungarian leaders, notably Ferenc Deák and Gyula Andrássy, agree the Ausgleich, or Compromise.
The rest is history
The Compromise created Austria-Hungary, two states with separate governments and parliaments under one monarch, with shared foreign affairs, defence and finance. Franz Joseph was crowned king of Hungary in Budapest in June 1867. Hungarian elites gained self-rule, but Czechs, Slovaks, Croats and others felt left out, and this tension lasted until 1918.
Sources
1. BookJudson, Pieter M. The Habsburg Empire: A New History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016.
2. BookSked, Alan. The Decline and Fall of the Habsburg Empire 1815-1918. London: Longman, 1989.
The Polish uprising of 1863
Event
What happened
In January 1863 Poles in Russian-ruled Congress Poland rise against a planned military conscription aimed at young men. Insurgents fight a guerrilla war against Russian forces for about eighteen months. The uprising is defeated by 1864.
The rest is history
Russia responded with executions, deportations to Siberia and confiscation of estates. Congress Poland lost its remaining separate institutions and was pushed toward Russian administration and language. The rising also showed that tsarist reform had limits where national demands were concerned.
Sources
1. BookKieniewicz, Stefan. The Emancipation of the Polish Peasantry. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969.
2. BookWandycz, Piotr S. The Lands of Partitioned Poland, 1795-1918. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1974.
The Congress of Berlin and the Balkans, 1878
Event
What happened
After Russia defeats the Ottoman Empire in 1877 to 1878, the Treaty of San Stefano creates a large Bulgaria. Britain and Austria-Hungary object, and the powers meet at the Congress of Berlin in June and July 1878. The congress reduces Bulgaria and authorises Austria-Hungary to occupy Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The rest is history
Russia felt cheated of its gains and relations with Austria-Hungary cooled. In 1879 Austria-Hungary signed an alliance with Germany. Austria-Hungary formally annexed Bosnia in 1908, which angered Serbia and Russia and fed the tensions behind the crisis of 1914.
Sources
1. PrimaryTreaty of Berlin. Treaty between the great powers and the Ottoman Empire, 13 July 1878.
2. BookTaylor, A. J. P. The Struggle for Mastery in Europe 1848-1918. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1954.
The assassination of Alexander II, 1881
Event
What happened
On 13 March 1881 (1 March Old Style) members of the revolutionary group People's Will throw bombs at Alexander II's carriage in St Petersburg. The tsar is mortally wounded and dies within hours. He had reportedly approved plans for a consultative body that same day.
The rest is history
His son Alexander III turned to repression and strengthened the police. The government later promoted Russification in the borderlands and sharpened restrictions on Jews, and pogroms broke out in 1881 and 1882. The killing ended the era of the Great Reforms.
Sources
1. BookRadzinsky, Edvard. Alexander II: The Last Great Tsar. New York: Free Press, 2005.
2. BookVenturi, Franco. Roots of Revolution. New York: Knopf, 1960.
The Tsar Liberator and the peasant's goodwill
Popular belief
The legend
Many Russian peasants are said to have believed that the tsar had granted them true freedom and full land, and that the nobles and officials had hidden or altered his real decree. In this telling, the good tsar was betrayed by wicked landlords.
The rest is history
The belief in a hidden true will was real. Peasants in 1861 gathered in villages to hear the manifesto read and in some places rose in protest, as at Bezdna in Kazan province in April 1861, where troops killed many villagers. Historians see this as part of a long tradition of faith in a just tsar and distrust of the nobles. The tsar himself shared in the terms set by the landowning elite, which left peasants paying for land they felt was already theirs.
Sources
1. BookField, Daniel. Rebels in the Name of the Tsar. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1976.
2. BookMoon, David. The Russian Peasantry 1600-1930. London: Longman, 1999.
Potemkin villages
Popular belief
The legend
Grigory Potemkin is said to have built fake villages along the Dnieper in 1787 so Catherine II would think the newly won lands were prosperous. The painted fronts were supposedly moved overnight ahead of her journey.
The rest is history
The phrase is still used for any false show. Historians such as Simon Sebag Montefiore find that the story mostly grew from gossip by foreign diplomats and Potemkin's enemies, with some real staging for the occasion. Potemkin did found towns and a fleet in the new south, including Kherson and Sevastopol. The tale concerns the previous century but shaped how outsiders saw Russian government throughout the 1800s.
Sources
1. BookMontefiore, Simon Sebag. Prince of Princes: The Life of Potemkin. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2000.
The Habsburg empire as a doomed prison of nations
Popular belief
The legend
It is often said that Austria-Hungary was an artificial 'prison of nations' that was bound to fall apart because its peoples all wanted independence.
The rest is history
Historians now find the picture too simple. Before 1914 most national movements in the empire sought more autonomy, language rights and schools rather than separate states. Many people stayed loyal to the dynasty, and Franz Joseph's long reign, from 1848 to 1916, was a unifying symbol. The empire collapsed in October and November 1918 under the strain of military defeat, food shortages and the Allied recognition of national claims.
Sources
1. BookJudson, Pieter M. The Habsburg Empire: A New History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016.
2. BookDeak, John. Forging a Multinational State: State Making in Imperial Austria from the Enlightenment to the First World War. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2015.
Alexander I and the hermit Fyodor Kuzmich
Folk tale
The legend
Alexander I did not die in Taganrog in 1825, the story goes, but faked his death and became a wandering holy man in Siberia named Fyodor Kuzmich. The hermit lived until 1864 and was said to have noble bearing and knowledge of court life.
The rest is history
Alexander really died at Taganrog on 1 December 1825, and the sudden death in a distant town fed rumours. The Siberian hermit Fyodor Kuzmich was a real man who died in Tomsk in 1864, and the legend grew around him. Later examinations of handwriting and records found no good evidence that he was the tsar. The story shows how much people wanted a mystery around the ruler whose death led to the Decembrist crisis.
Sources
1. BookTroyat, Henri. Alexander of Russia: Napoleon's Conqueror. New York: Dutton, 1982.

← Back to the outline

Things happened, and the rest is history

The Congress of Vienna and the Habsburg order

The Decembrist revolt of 1825

The Crimean War and the push for reform

The emancipation of the serfs, 1861

Habsburg defeat in 1866 and the Compromise of 1867

The Polish uprising of 1863

The Congress of Berlin and the Balkans, 1878

The assassination of Alexander II, 1881

The Tsar Liberator and the peasant's goodwill

Potemkin villages

The Habsburg empire as a doomed prison of nations

Alexander I and the hermit Fyodor Kuzmich