Alexander III Manifesto of April 29, 1881 |
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Submitting to the will of Providence and the Law on the inheritance of Sovereignty, We assume this burden in a terrible hour of universal popular grief and terror, averring before the countenance of the Most High that, imparting this Authority to Us in so difficult and troublesome a time, He will not withhold his All-powerful help from us. We also aver that the fervid prayers of the pious people, which is celebrated in all the world for its love and devotion to its Sovereigns, will draw Divine blessing down upon Us and upon the labor of governing that lies before Us.
Our
father reposing in God, having assumed from God the Autocratic power for the benefit of
the people in his stewardship, remained faithful even unto death. It was not so much by stern orders as by goodness
and kindness, which are also attributes of power, that He carried out the greatest
undertaking of His reign--the emancipation of the enserfed peasants. In this he was able to elicit the cooperation of
the noble [serf-] holders themselves, who always quick to the summons of the good and
honorable. He established Justice in the
Realm and, having made his subjects without exception free for all time, He summoned them
to take charge of local administration and public works.
May His memory be blessed through the ages!.
The
base and wicked murder of a Russian Sovereign by unworthy monsters from the people, done
in the very midst of that faithful people, who were ready to lay down their lives for
Him--this is a terrible and shameful matter, unheard of in Russia, which has darkened Our
entire land with grief and terror. But in the
midst of Our great grief, the voice of God orders Us courageously to undertake, in
deference to Divine intention, the task of ruling, with faith in the strength and
rightness [istina] of autocratic power. We are summoned to reaffirm that Power and
preserve it for the benefit of the people from any encroachment.
Courage
to the hearts, now overcome by confusion and terror, of our faithful subjects, who all
love the Fatherland and have from generation to generation been devoted to the Hereditary
Tsarist Power! Under its shelter and in
unbroken union with it, Our land has more than once experienced great tumults and passed,
with faith in the God who ordains its fate, through grievous experiences and misfortunes
and on to new power and glory.
Dedicating
ourself to Our great Service, we appeal to Our faithful subjects to serve Us and the State
truly and faithfully, so that the foul treason which shames the Russian land may be
uprooted, faith and morality be reaffirmed, children be reared rightly, falsehood and
spoliation be exterminated, and order and justice be imparted to the activities of the
institutions given to Russia by her Benefactor, Our Beloved Father.
Alexander
St.
Petersburg, 29 April 1881 Translated by Daniel Field |