Chapter 27 vocab

CHAPTER 27
22 words

Holy Alliance (642)
Alliance among Russia, Prussia, and Austria in defense of religion and the established order; formed at Congress of Vienna by most conservative monarchies of Europe.

Decembrist uprising (643)
Political revolt in Russia in 1825; led by middle-level army officers who advocated reforms; put down by Tsar Nicholas I.

Crimean War (645)
Fought between 1854 and 1856; began as Russian attempt to attack Ottoman Empire; Russia opposed by France and Britain as well; resulted in Russian defeat in the face of Western industrial technology; led to Russian reforms under Tsar Alexander II.

emancipation of the serfs (645)
Tsar Alexander II ended rigorous serfdom in Russia in 1861; serfs obtained no political rights; required to stay in villages until they could repay aristocracy for land.

zemstvoes (646)
Local political councils created as part of reforms of Tsar Alexander II (1860s); gave some Russians, particularly middle-class professionals, some experience in governments; councils had no impact on national policy.

trans-Siberian railroad (648)
Constructed in 1870s to connect European Russia with the Pacific; completed by the end of the 1880s; brought Russia into a more active Asian role.

Sergei Witte (648)
Russian minister of finance from 1892 to 1903; economic modernizer responsible for high tariffs, improved banking system; encouraged Western investors to build factories in Russia.

intelligentsia (649)
Russian term denoting articulate intellectuals as a class; 19^th-century group bent on radical change in Russian political and social system; often wished to maintain a Russian culture distinct from that of the West.

anarchists (649)
Political groups that sought the abolition of all formal government; particularly prevalent in Russia; opposed tsarist autocracy; eventually became a terrorist movement responsible for assassination of Alexander II in 1881.

Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (650)
Better known as Lenin; most active Russian Marxist leader; insisted on importance of disciplined revolutionary cells; leader of Bolshevik Revolution of 1917.

Bolsheviks (650)
Literally, the majority party; the most radical branch of the Russian Marxist movement; led by V.I. Lenin and dedicated to his concept of social revolution; actually a minority in the Russian Marxist political scheme until its triumph in the 1917 revolution.

Russo-Japanese War (651)
War between Japan and Russia (1904-1905) over territory in Manchuria; Japan defeated the Russians, largely because of its naval power; Japan annexed Korea in 1910 as a result of military dominance.

duma (651)
National parliament created in Russia in the aftermath of the Revolution of 1905; progressively stripped of power during the reign of Tsar Nicholas II; failed to forestall further revolution.

Stolypin reforms (651)
Reforms introduced by the Russian interior minister Piotyr Stolypin intended to placate the peasantry in the aftermath of the Revolution of 1905; included reduction in redemption payments, attempt to create market-oriented peasantry.

kulaks (651)
Agricultural entrepreneurs who utilized the Stolypin and later NEP reforms to increase agricultural production and buy additional land.

terakoya (652)
Commoner schools founded during the Tokugawa Shogunate in Japan to teach reading, writing, and the rudiments of Confucianism; resulted in high literacy rate, approaching 40 percent, of Japanese males.

Dutch Studies (652)
Group of Japanese scholars interested in implications of Western science and technology beginning in the 18^th century; urged freer exchange with West; based studies on few Dutch texts available in Japan.

Matthew Perry (653)
American commodore who visited Edo Bay with American fleet in 1853; insisted on opening ports to American trade on threat of naval bombardment; won rights for American trade with Japan in 1854.

Diet (656)
Japanese parliament established as part of the new constitution of 1889; part of Meiji reforms; could pass laws and approve budgets; able to advise government, but not to control it.

zaibatsu (657)
Huge industrial combines created in Japan in the 1890s as part of the process of industrialization.

Sino-Japanese War (659)
War fought between Japan and Qing China between 1894 and 1895; resulted in Japanese victory; frustrated Japanese imperial aims because of Western insistence that Japan withdraw from Liaodong peninsula.

yellow peril (660)
Western term for perceived threat of Japanese imperialism around 1900s; met by increased Western imperialism in region.


Etc. notes:
Forgive the odd spacing between vocab words in this post; it was screwed up before and then I screwed it up more with my tinkering.

It's not exactly a secret, but I think sometimes Mr. Allen can't count. He becomes vexed at times. Support him as only a brother/sister in Christ can. ;)