Discussions about Russian History > Imperial Russian History

Was the Tsar loved after 1905?

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EL KAISER:
Hi! Well, my doubt:
Historically, the russian peasantry has always have a father-son relationship with the tsar, whom they saw as "their father" and as apointed by god. In many pages/posts on the internet i've read that one of the reasons the Tsar survived the 1905 revolution was because, despite bloody sunday, the majority of peasants (wich were the 80 % of the population) still held this view of the Tsar as their divine father, and so they did't revolt against him (note that they held that view in such a modern period like 1905). My question is: In the period from 1908 (when order was restablished) to 1914 (when WW1 began) was the peasantry still supportive to the Tsar? Did still some of them view the tsar as their "father" or the truly legitimate leader, etc.? Please note I'M NOT talking about people in general (workers, middle classes, aristocracy) but about the PEASANTRY. I want to know this because no matter how much i search i cannot really comprenhend if the tsar was still loved by the peasants in 1914 or if he wasn't!
Thank you!

Превед:
It's little use to wonder or debate whether the peasants "loved the Tsar". My impression is that the Russian peasants, most of whom were illiterate untill the Revolution, revered the Tsar as God's representative on earth. (With all the superstition that involved.) They regarded the Tsar as their батьушка, bat'ushka, little father, el papi, supposed to protect them against their landlords, which they regarded as cruel, unjust, greedy and corrupt. The Tsar represented their hope of justice in this world. When the peasants suffered injustice or cruelty from their landlords, the authorities or capitalists they usually blamed the landlords / nobility, the Tsars corrupt underlings, the Jews (often employed as agents of the landlords or grain merchants) etc., believing / hoping that "if only the Tsar knew" he would correct these injustices and punish his corrupt servants.

With more and more peasants commuting between industrial work in the cities and seasonal work in their rural villages more and more radical ideas and a more nuanced picture of the true role played by the Tsar in the increasingly capitalist and less and less feudal society of Russia spread to the peasants.

The peasants had always believed that all the land was theirs, but that the landlords had stolen it together with the imposition of serfdom in the 16th and 17th centuries. The Tsar represented their hope that the land one day would revert back to them. When serfdom was abolished without all the land being redistributed and peasants were allowed to quit the village commune (the mir), those peasants who came out unfavourably with no or little land would probably regard the Tsar as having broken his promise.

TimM:
Those poor sods.  They hoped the revolution would make things better.  Instead it ushered in a horror much worse than any Tsar.

Nearly a century later, the Russian people are still reeking a bitter harvest from the events of 1917-18.

Kalafrana:
Certainly in the 18th century and earlier there was a view among the peasantry that the Tsar was always just; therefore an unjust ruler could not be a true Tsar. This was one of the factors in the success of the impostor Pugachev, and, earlier, the various False Dimitris (though they had Polish backing in addition).

A rather similar philosophy applied in medieval England. A king who ruled oppressively was led astray be his evil counsellors, and all would be well if the evil counsellors were removed. Note that the leaders of the Peasants' Revolt sought to treat directly with the young Richard II, and it was Richard himself who prevented a bloodbath by announcing that he was'your captain and your leader'.

Ann

edubs31:
If you believe the Tsar was held favorably with an overwhelming majority of peasants in 1905, why would his popularity have declined in the ensuing years? If anything it stands to reason that having brought some measure of stability to back Russia over the 1908-1914 time period would only have increased his popularity.

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