Hugh Seton-Watson on Alexander III of Russia

“He was a direct, honest, and unimaginative man who usually treated well the ministers whom he had himself chosen, backed them up when they needed it, and was liked and respected by those around him. He did his best to manage the increasingly complex business of government. ... His best was not good enough, but this did not become clear until after his death, for his reign of thirteen years was marked by peace and outward stability.”

“Alexander was more sympathetic than any of his predecessors to Russian nationalism and to Pan-Slavism. ... Wishing to strengthen Russia as a Great Power, Alexander III favoured industrial development, in this respect showing himself a man of the modern age. He was strongly opposed to representative or parliamentary institutions, but he liked to think of himself as closely bound to the simple Russian peasant masses who, he believed, had no more use for European legalistic inventions than he had. There was thus an element of populism in his conservatism. ... Alexander III...was a true Russian. He knew his people. He would not sacrifice the truly Russian principle of autocracy, or subordinate the interests of Russia to those of Poland or of any other people of the borderlands.”