Why Peasant Letters to the Tsars Led to Tragedies
On that Bloody Sunday in 1905, the stunned priest Gapon shouted, “There is no more God! A tragedy has occurred, which could have been prevented if the tradition of writing petitions to the Russian Tsar had been preserved. It was the absence of such a tradition that became the harbinger of radical changes in Russian history.
Priest Gapon on the Bloody Day of 1905
What Happened in 1905
At the very beginning of the 20th century, Russian peasants appealed to the ruler en masse for the first time, which took the form of a popular demonstration. In 1905, 100,000 people, residents and guests of St. Petersburg, marched to the Tsar’s Palace, led by the priest Gapon.
People went to the Tsar with a demand for universal equality of workers, because this was a long-standing tradition of the Russian people. In response, the imperial police began to brutally shoot people from the assembled crowd, while thousands of ordinary people fell dead.
The Moment Before the Massacre
Good, Bad Boyars
For many centuries, monarchical regimes in Europe were maintained by faith in God, which was actively promoted by the Christian churches. It was the churches that convinced the illiterate peasants that the Lord Himself had given the tsar the right to rule over the people.
This conviction was reinforced by another conviction: the magnanimity of the monarch. If the common people noted that they were wrong or oppressed, they blamed the boyars and aristocrats, but not the ruler.
For a long time, the common people did not dare to express their dissatisfaction with the monarch himself. For the Russian people, this fact is reflected in the well-known saying: “The Tsar is good, but the boyars are bad.”
If the king had known of all the injustices and humiliations committed by his subjects, he would have immediately removed them. With these thoughts in mind, a crowd of 100,000 ordinary people came to the Winter Palace in 1905, but in the end, their gullibility was the result of a tragic event – “Bloody Sunday”.
Pop Gapon, January 9, 1905 – Harbinger of the Revolution
Debunking the Myth
Nicholas II, during whose reign this event took place, no matter what the defenders of the monarchy say later, was known among the people for his cruelty and mismanagement. However, he was simply not present at this bloody incident.
Later, in his memoirs, the emperor called this incident a “painful day.” But the people in the crowd who were fired upon were not aware of the absence of the ruler. Therefore, they took the fact of the shooting as an order of the tsar, which further disassured them of his favor.
The mass shooting was the tragic event that debunked the popular myth of the “good tsar.” This was a real prelude to the First Russian Revolution.
The Shooting of Peasant Demonstrators in 1905
Petitions and petitions
In the 1700s, only the upper strata of society were allowed to appeal directly to the tsar. The poor, on the other hand, could only interact with the local administration by writing petitions, which was one of the reasons for the expression “boyars are bad.”
To regain his shuddering legitimacy after Bloody Sunday, Nicholas II expanded the possibilities of writing peasant letters.
Until the 18th century, letters to the Tsar were called petitions, and they could be written by absolutely anyone and set forth any problem in them. The petitioners created the impression of a kind of “direct line” of communication with the tsar and more than once prevented popular uprisings.
From the 18th century, the tradition of petitioning directly to the tsar was abolished. Now only wealthy boyars could appeal directly to him. But the peasants’ faith in the kindness of the Tsar and in the fact that they had to turn directly to him to solve their problems remained.
A month after the events of Bloody Sunday, Nicholas II ordered to submit petitions in his name to any subordinate and on any problem. Since then, the ruler has received a variety of appeals, all of which are a vivid reflection of the people’s discontent of that time. Most of the peasants at that time did not know how to read and write, so these appeals were usually written at general assemblies of the people.
A shot from the film “Ivan Vasilyevich Changes His Profession” – the promised was never received
People’s Letters and the Revolution
Many peasant letters to Nicholas II eventually came to contain implicit threats against the monarchy. The poor began to fight for their rights, declaring that they were ready to use weapons if their demands were not met. These popular appeals opposed the ruler and were clear harbingers of radical changes to come.
People came up with the idea of a new impact on the monarchy
The peasants were ready for a new uprising, more global than the mass march of 1905. In fact, all of the above events were harbingers of the Russian Revolution that took place in 1917. Because the peasants did not live to see the fulfillment of the tsar’s promises, as usual.
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