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# Klyuchevsky on the global significance of Alexander III's reign in a speech of 28 October 1894
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/proshlo-13-let-tsarstvovaniia-imperatora-aleksandra-iii-i-chem-toroplivee-ruka-smerti-speshila-zakryt-ego-glaza-tem-shire-i-izumlennee-raskryvalis-glaza-evropy-na-mirovoe-znachenie-etog/
- Published: 2022-03-28T07:10:18.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-02T18:57:40.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Archive, Books, Monarchies, Society

"Thirteen years of the reign of Emperor Alexander III have passed, and the more hurriedly the hand of death hastened to close His eyes, the wider and more astonished grew the eyes of Europe to the world significance of this brief reign. At last even the stones cried out: the organs of European public opinion began to speak the truth about Russia, and to speak it the more sincerely, the less accustomed they were to saying it. It appeared, by these admissions, that European civilisation had secured its peaceful development insufficiently and imprudently, that for its own safety it had set itself down upon a powder magazine, that a burning fuse had more than once approached this perilous defensive store from various sides, and that each time the careful and patient hand of the Russian Tsar had quietly and cautiously drawn it away. Then the historical consciousness of Europe made one of those great efforts that have more than once raised it in moments of weakness, and in which is revealed its strength, nurtured by rigorous scholarly knowledge and conscientious thought: its capacity, when it meets the truth, to cast off its age-old prejudices.

Europe acknowledged that the Tsar of the Russian people was also a sovereign of international peace and order, and by this acknowledgement it confirmed the historical vocation of Russia, for in Russia, by her political organisation, the will of the Tsar expresses the thought of his people, and the will of the people becomes the thought of its Tsar. Europe confessed that the country which she had considered a threat to her civilisation had stood and still stands on guard over it, understands, values and protects its foundations no worse than its creators; she recognised Russia as an organically necessary part of her cultural composition, a blood and native member of the family of her nations. This acknowledgement burst of itself, involuntarily, from the soul of European society under the impression of the news of the last moments of the departed Emperor's life, and will not die away with his last breath: the October days of the Livadia sufferings1 were for western Europe days of moral rapprochement with Europe of the East, and, escorting the coffin of the Russian Tsar to the grave, she for the first time mourns in him her own European sovereign.

Who knows, perhaps this acknowledgement will give a new direction to the whole course of Europe's international life. In any case, the path of Russian historical thought becomes smoother and brighter".

Klyuchevsky V.O. In memory of the Sovereign Emperor Alexander III, who has reposed in God. Extract from a speech delivered at a session of the Imperial Society of Russian History and Antiquities at Moscow University on 28 October 1894.