Astria-Hungary and Russian Empires - 19th Century

1. UNIT 6 – PART II
UNIT 6 (PART II)
AGING EMPIRES IN EASTERN EUROPEAGING EMPIRES IN EASTERN EUROPE
While nationalism triumphed in Italy an Germany, in the east the aging Austrian, Russian and Ottoman
empires remained authoritarian. Even in these empires, demands for liberal reforms were heard but imperial
rulers enacted harsh measures in order to strength their power.
1. THE EMPIRE OF AUSTRIA-HUNGARY
As a direct consecuence of 1848 revolution, the Prince Metternich was forced to resign, and Emperor
Ferdinand abdicated. The throne went to his young nephew, Francis Joseph I. Francis Joseph I had a long and
unestable empire:
- In 1848 Hungarian rebelled against Austrian rule and asked for their independence; thanks to Czar
Nicholas' troops, Francis Joseph could crush the revolt and Austrian took control over Hungary again.
- In 1859 Austria lost the province of Lombardy to Italy. Seven years later, in 1866, the Austrian emperor
was forced to grant Hungary a constitution. However, it was impossible to stamp out nationalism in that
multienthnic empire.

2. UNIT 6 – PART II
2. THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE
The Romanov dynasty in Russia also struggled with liberal demands. By 1800s the Russian Empire was
the largest and most diverse empire in Europe. In these vast lands lived a great number of ethnic groups,
including Poles, Ukranians, Finns, Jews, Estonians, Uzbeks, Chechens, Tadzhiks and others.
The Russian czar ruled over the empire as a supreme autocrat. When Czar Alexander I died in 1825, many
officers who had been fought against Napoleon, asked the new emperor to finish the autocracy and for new
liberal politics. All these army officers were near the Czar's Winter Palace in St. Petesburg on his first day as an
emperor. Nicholas I decided to crush the revolt and he ordered to massacre the people gathered. Right after,
he imposed a strict censorship and organized a secret police force to spy on suspected revolutionary groups.
After Nichola's death, his son Alexander II came to the throne. He freeded the serfs in 1861 and
reorganized local government. He provided land to village communes, which distributed it to peasants
according to their needs. However, the peasants had to pay for the land.
Despite these reforms, a radical movements sprang forth against the czar. Some intellectuals became
nihilist: they believed that traditional, social and economic institutions had to be destroyed in order to build a
new Russia; other, the populist, wanted to rebuild society along the lines of communal peasant villages. Both,
nihilist and populist sometimes resorted to terrorism, and in 1881 a populist assassinated Alexander II.
His succesor Alexander III was convinced that his father's reforms had been a mistake. He intensified
the Russian secret police and he executed or exiled to Siberia his opponents. He also persecuted Jews with

3. UNIT 6 – PART II
progroms.
By the early 1900s Russia was in turmoil. Peasants and students were angry, and the Russo-Japanese
War over territory in East Asia was a detonate for new protest. In January 1905 a huge group of unarmed
workers converged upon St. Peterburg's Winter Palace to present the czar with a petition for reforms. Imperial
troops fired on the crowd, killing at least 70 people. This massacre, was called Bloody Sunday or Revolution of
1905. Throughout the summer there were strikes, peasant uprising and military revolts. Finally, czar Nicholas
issued the October Manifesto, creating a constitutional monarchy, but two years later he began to chip away at
the rights he had granted and discontent continued to grow.