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 Alexander
II came to the throne better prepared than any other
nineteenth-century Russian emperor. He was
a balanced, dutiful, hard-working man of essential goodwill.
In 1861 he abolished the servitude of the Russian peasants,
known as serfdom, in a decree that, although not wholly
satisfying to either the nobles or the peasants, was probably
the most statesmanlike possible at the time. Although at
the beginning the peasants faced many difficulties in the
new economic situation, within forty years they owned about
50% of Russian arable land – a better record than
that of most countries that had instituted similar land
reforms. If one
looks only at the rubles struck during the quarter-century
of Alexander II’s reign, it would be easy to think
that this period was fiscally and numismatically a stagnant
time. In fact, there was a great deal of activity. The
decades of the 1860’s and 1870’s saw half a
dozen foreign and private Russian efforts to take over
part of the empire’s coinage system, with French,
German and Belgian offers to produce nickel subsidiary
coins. The Paris Mint struck a substantial quantity of
subsidiary Russian coins in 1861, using hubs from St. Petersburg.
Copper coinage was reorganized in 1867, and in 1876 the
Ekaterinburg mint, which had been in operation for 150
years, was closed down. The St. Petersburg Mint took up
the slack and expanded its production correspondingly. |
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Ruble
from 1859, commemorating the unveiling of a statue of
Alexander’s father on
horseback, Nicholas I, in St. Petersburg, June 25, 1859.
Collection of Coins and Medals
Yale University Art Gallery
Gift of Rev. William H. Owen
2001.87.243 |
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Two pieces from 1861, the year
that Alexander II decreed the abolition of serfdom,
an act by which
he became known as the “Czar-Liberator”.
The first coin is a 2 kopecks piece.
Collection of Coins and Medals
Yale University Art Gallery
2001.87.256
The
second coin, 1 kopeck, shows the other side, with the
inscription “A
II”, for Alexander II.
Collection
of Coins and Medals
Yale University Art Gallery
Gift of Rev. William H. Owen
2001.87.323 |
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5
kopecks coin of 1867 from St. Petersburg. Only 44 pieces
of this specific type of coin from 1867 were struck.
Portrayed is the Imperial double-eagle.
Collection
of Coins and Medals
Yale University Art Gallery
2001.87.255 |
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Faberge
gold piece, announcing the opening of a Faberge store
in St. Petersburg, 1875.
Collection
of Coins and Medals
Yale University Art Gallery
2001.87.336 |
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copper kopecks: |
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5
kopecks (1874)
Collection
of Coins and Medals
Yale University Art Gallery
2001.87.321 View
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3
kopecks (1867)
Collection
of Coins and Medals
Yale University Art Gallery
Gift of: Eugene Schuyler
2001.87.322 View
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2
kopecks (1867)
Collection
of Coins and Medals
Yale University Art Gallery
Gift of Rev. William H. Owen
2001.87.324 View
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1
kopeck (1867)
Collection
of Coins and Medals
Yale University Art Gallery
Gift of Rev. William H. Owen
2001.87.323 View
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½ kopeck
Collection
of Coins and Medals
Yale University Art Gallery
Gift of Rev. William H. Owen
2001.87.325 View
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½ kopeck
Collection
of Coins and Medals
Yale University Art Gallery
Gift of Eugene Schuyler
2001.87.326 View
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¼ kopeck
Collection
of Coins and Medals
Yale University Art Gallery
Gift of Rev. William H. Owen
2001.87.261 View
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¼ kopeck
Collection
of Coins and Medals
Yale University Art Gallery
Gift of Eugene Schuyler
2001.87.327 View
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