Manifesto on Unshakable Autocracy

The Manifesto on Unshakable Autocracy was issued by Tsar Alexander III of Russia on April 29, 1881 (O.S.), about two months after the assassination of his father, Alexander II of Russia. Influenced by, if not written by, Konstantin Pobedonostsev, the Procurator of the Holy Synod, the manifesto rejected the more liberal reforms of his father (and some of his father's ministers) in favor of "unshakable autocracy" which had been given to the tsars as a sacred duty from God. The document summed up Alexander's counter reform policies.