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Alexander II's most important reform was the emancipation of the serfs and the ending of that system. Although "serfdom" itself was abolished, the former serfs were not simply given the land they had been working for the benefit of the owners of that land. Some of those lands were taken from the owners and put together in communal sites called mirs run by the village. The government paid the landowners but made the mirs repay the government over 49 years. This effectively bound the now free serfs to the mir instead of the owners.

Alexander also Westernized the Russian judicial system, gave more freedom to the universities and allowed some local self-government through elected councils called 'zemstvos.'

He was assassinated in 1881.

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10y ago

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