The Seagull Study Guide (12MB) - Goodman Theatre

months there have been heard in some assemblies of
the zemstvos the voices of those who have indulged in
a senseless dream that the zemstvos be called upon
to participate in the government of the country. I want
everyone to know that I will devote all my strength to
maintain, for the good of the whole nation, the principle
of absolute autocracy, as firmly and as strongly as did my
late lamented father.”
Advancing Russia’s industrial, economic and military
status proved difficult for Nicholas II. Russia’s population
started growing rapidly after 1890, and the areas
with the greatest population increases were generally
villages, on the outskirts of mainstream Russia. Many
families were still privy to the “communal” ownership
of land, and the redistribution of land following the
abolishment of serfdom meant the larger a family
grew, the more land its members would be given.
This encouraged families to have more sons, since
making farms more efficient would not necessarily yield
individual gain. All the while, the state needed to pay
the immense debt left from the Crimean War, while
also allocating capital to invest in industrial and military
enterprises. To do so, the monarchy expected families
to produce more agricultural goods for export (thus
increasing state revenue), to pay extremely high taxes
(to further support industrialization) and to consume
less per family (allowing more to be exported) to pay
off the remaining debt and still have enough to finance
industrialization and the military. The result was a worn,
hungry and poor peasantry and working force.
Unrest became palpable in 1903, as revolutionary
meetings began. By 1904, The Moscow City Duma (a
collection of homeowners, taxpayers and merchants
with certain advisory and governing rights) passed a
resolution calling for an elected legislature, freedom
of the press and freedom of religion. Nicholas II made
some attempts to meet the demands of this group’s
resolution, but he was still attached to autocracy.
December 1904 saw the strike of a major railway plant
in St. Petersburg, with coinciding sympathetic strikes
across the city. On January 22nd, 1905, a group of
300,000 unarmed protesters descended upon the
Winter Palace to deliver a petition to the czar outlining
their needs. The protesters were met by the fire of the
Imperial Guard, causing hundreds of deaths and injuries.
The massacre was referred to as “Blood Sunday,” a
name that would, sadly, be used again later to describe a
massacre in Ireland’s political history.
The Tsar’s soldiers shooting at demonstrators at the Winter Palace.
Image Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
After Bloody Sunday, anger from the public grew, causing
additional strikes. Nicholas II agreed to allow more
municipal representation in government and created
“The State Duma of the Russian Empire.” The limitations
on power granted in this document, however, were
infuriating, and the public only grew angrier. Fearing
more strikes and hoping to prevent another massacre,
Nicholas II begrudgingly signed the October Manifesto in
fall 1905; the manifesto supported civil rights, political
parties, wider suffrage and an elected legislative body.
Though many were satisfied, more radical parties called
for an armed overthrow of the government. Terrorism
and strikes, quelled by police and military intervention,
continued into 1906. All of this only led to increased
imprisonment and execution of the laboring class, as
well as the extended unrest of the citizenry.
Chekhov, who was born in 1860 and passed away in
1904, lived through an extremely tumultuous time in
Russian history. The ground had only begun to rumble,
though. After Chekhov’s death, unrest continued
not just through 1906, but through 1917, when the
czarist autocracy was completely overthrown and the
communist Soviet Union was formed.
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