The Russian Empire Hugh Seton Summary

Examining textbooks printed prior to 1991 helps to define the differences that arose in theories of the causes, process, and outcomes of the reforms. Hugh Seton-Watson’s textbook The Russian Empire 1801-1917 published in 1967 devotes a chapter to the topic of the reforms. He argues that one of the problems that determined the reforms’ outcome was Alexander II’s own conflicting philosophies and the contradictory liberal and conservative influences that surrounded him. Therefore the reforms did not go fare enough because of these conflicting influences on the state’s design of the reforms. He theorizes that this is why “the 1861 settlement was no solution to the peasant question: it created more problems than it solved, and difficulties piled