Which Tsar? #2 Trivia Quiz

Answer: Alexander II

The Finns regard Alexander II as "The Good Tsar" and erected a monument to him in Helsinki's Senate Square commemorating his re-opening their national legislative Diet in 1863. He also permitted them the exercise of their national culture and language. A man of great contradictions, Alexander II in the same year also enacted the infamous, anti-semitic May Laws of 1863.

Answer: Alexander III

The plot to assassinate Alexander III by The Peoples' Will (Narodnaya Volya) in 1887 was foiled, and the conspirators, including Lenin's brother, were hanged. The Peoples' Will was a Russian organization comprised of revolutionaries and nihilists with a large faction dedicated to terrorism.

By the turn of the century, they had re-constructed into the Socialist Revolutionary Party, and the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party (RSDLP) was formed in opposition to the SRP's terrorism strategy. At the RSDLP convention in 1903, it split into Mensheviks and Bolsheviks.

In 1917, after the February/March revolution in Russia which gave rise to the Provisional (Kerensky) Government, Lenin returned from hiding in Switzerland on a German-sponsored train, to seize power and lead the Bolshevik Revolution.

Answer: Nicholas II

Nicholas II was Tsar during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05. His armies had remained in Manchuria after the Boxer Rebellion and expanded into parts of Korea and along the Yellow Sea in an effort to secure a warm water port with access to the Pacific Ocean.

After years of negotiations between the two countries, Japanese launched an attack on Port Arthur in 1904, resoundingly humiliating and defeating a poorly-prepared Russia.

Answer: Nicholas I

Alexander I died unexpectedly and mysteriously in November 1825. His brother, Constantine Pavlovich, was next in line but abdicated to his younger brother, Nicholas. Nicholas I installed Constantine as Governor or Viceroy of Poland with authority over military matters and to maintain control over the Polish-Lithuanian territories. Constantine was considered a brutal, despotic tyrant by the Polish people, including the Polish military which he attempted to lead.

His attempt to quell the Warsaw insurgency of 1829 failed miserably.

He died shortly thereafter, and before his brother's Russian armies could put down the uprising.

Answer: Alexander II

Alexander II did indeed emancipate the Russian serfs in 1861. However, the monument to him in Sofia proclaims him "The Tsar Liberator," for his liberation of Bulgaria from the Ottomans during the campaign of 1877-78. It was erected between 1901-03, and remains today across the street from a modern Radisson Hotel and the National Assembly of Bulgaria.

Answer: Nicholas I

Nicholas became engaged to the young Princess Charlotte upon a visit to the former Prussian royal family in Berlin. Charlotte, who took the Russian name of Alexandra Feodorovna upon converting to Orthodoxy and marrying Nicholas I, produced ten children, including the heir to the throne, the Tsarevich Alexander (II). Nicholas I died on the eve of Russia's defeat in the Crimean War and Alexander II ascended the throne.

Answer: Alexander I

Alexander I ruled Russia during the Napoleonic Wars of the early 19th century. In the early years of the Wars, Alexander greatly admired and supported Napoleon, believing in his idealism and "liberalism." When Napoleon invaded Russia and laid siege to Moscow and the Kremlin in 1812, Alexander's growing disillusionment turned to rage.

He refused to surrender Moscow, and forced Napoleon to retreat across the harsh Russian winter terrain. The French army was decimated by starvation and hypothermia and, after the allies invaded France in 1814 Napoleon was exiled to Elba, only to escape and muster another campaign. Alexander formed an alliance with Prussia, Austria, Spain, Sweden, and Britain.

In 1815, the British General Wellington and the Prussian army defeated Napoleon at Waterloo, whereupon Napoleon was exiled to his final destiny at St.

Helena --far from land and from which there would be no escape.

Answer: Alexander III

It is reported that Alexander III's older brother, Nicholas, asked Alexander to marry his fiance as he lay dying. Alexander III and Dagmar (Maria Feodorovna) had a happy marriage and especially enjoyed vacationing with their children in Scandanavia, including Denmark and the coast of Finland. The marriage produced six children, including the Last Romanov Tsar, Nicholas II.

Answer: Nicholas I

Nicholas I declared himself Emperor after his older brother, Constantine, abdicated shortly after the death of the eldest brother, Alexander I, in November 1825. In December, a few thousand led by military guards staged an uprising at Senate Square.

The revolt quickly spread to the North with an attempt to capture the Winter Palace by another militarist-led group. Nicholas I successfully put down the revolt, sent many into exile, and had some hanged for treason. Nonetheless, the Decembrists became the symbolic keystone and harbinger of the revolutionary movements engulfing Russia in the second half of the 19th century.

Moreover, some leading Russian literati, such as Pushkin and Tolstoy, would use the Decembrist events to depict the brutality of Tsarist Russia and the appalling hardships of exile in Siberia.

Answer: Alexander II

Alexander II denied his Polish subjects the benefits of his reforms and freedoms granted many territories. He forbade them the use of their language and national culture and placed Warsaw and Lithuania under martial law which lasted 50 years. His merciless suppression of the Polish-Lithuanian January Uprising of 1863-64 resulted in the burning of numerous towns and villages, the murders and executions of thousands of Poles, and the imprisonment of many thousands more in Siberia.

He also imposed punitive taxation policies upon the rebellious Poles.