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Sergey Witte
Count Sergei Yulyevich Witte (; ), also known as Sergius Witte, was a Russian statesman who served as the first prime minister of the Russian Empire, replacing the tsar as head of the government. Neither a liberal nor a conservative, he attracted foreign capital to boost Russia's industrialization. Witte's strategy was to avoid the danger of wars. Witte served under the last two emperors of Russia, Alexander III () and Nicholas II ().Harcave, Sidney. (2004)''Count Sergei Witte and the Twilight of Imperial Russia: A Biography,'' p. xiii./ref> During the Russo-Turkish War (1877–78), he had risen to a position in which he controlled all the traffic passing to the front along the lines of the Odessa Railways. As finance minister from 1892 to 1903, Witte presided over extensive industrialization and achieved government monopoly control over an expanded system of railroad lines. Following months of civil unrest and outbreaks of violence in what became known as the 1905 Russian R ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nicholas II Of Russia
Nicholas II or Nikolai II Alexandrovich Romanov; spelled in pre-revolutionary script. ( 186817 July 1918), known in the Russian Orthodox Church as Saint Nicholas the Passion-Bearer,. was the last Emperor of Russia, King of Congress Poland and Grand Duke of Finland, ruling from 1 November 1894 until his abdication on 15 March 1917. During his reign, Nicholas gave support to the economic and political reforms promoted by his prime ministers, Sergei Witte and Pyotr Stolypin. He advocated modernization based on foreign loans and close ties with France, but resisted giving the new parliament (the Duma) major roles. Ultimately, progress was undermined by Nicholas's commitment to autocratic rule, strong aristocratic opposition and defeats sustained by the Russian military in the Russo-Japanese War and World War I. By March 1917, public support for Nicholas had collapsed and he was forced to abdicate the throne, thereby ending the Romanov dynasty's 304-year rule of Russia (1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
