Ironically, by the late 19th and early 20th century some of the most prominent objects of Russification were peoples who had shown consistent loyalty to the empire and now found themselves confronted by government policies that aimed to curtail the rights and privileges of their culture and nationality. The Germans of the Baltic provinces were deprived of their university, and their ancient secondary schools were Russified. The Latvians and Estonians did not object to action by the government against the Germans, whom they had reason to dislike as landowners and rich burghers, but the prospect of the German language being replaced by the Russian had no attraction for them, and they strongly resented the pressure to abandon their Lutheran faith for Orthodoxy. The attempt to abolish many aspects of Finnish autonomy united the Finns in opposition to St. Petersburg in the 1890s. In 1904 the son of a Finnish senator assassinated the Russian governor-general, and passive resistance to Russian policies was almost universal. Effective and widespread passive resistance also occurred among the traditionally Russophile Armenians (Armenian) of the Caucasus when the Russian authorities began to interfere with the organization of the Armenian church and to close the schools maintained from its funds.
Of the Muslim peoples of the empire, those who suffered most from Russification were the most economically and culturally advanced, the Tatars (Tatar) of the Volga valley. Attempts by the Orthodox church to convert Muslims and the rivalry between Muslims and Orthodox to convert small national groups of Finno-Ugrian speech who were still pagans caused growing mutual hostility. By the end of the century the Tatars had developed a substantial merchant class and the beginnings of a national intelligentsia. Modern schools, maintained by merchants' funds, were creating a new Tatar educated elite that was increasingly receptive to modern democratic ideas. In Central Asia (Central Asia, history of), on the other hand, modern influences had barely made themselves felt, and there was no Russification. In those newly conquered lands, Russian colonial administration was paternalistic and limited: like the methods of “indirect rule” in the British and French empires, it made no systematic attempt to change old ways.
The position of the Jews (Jew) was hardest of all. As a result of their history and religious traditions, as well as of centuries of social and economic discrimination, the Jews were overwhelmingly concentrated in commercial and intellectual professions. They were thus prominent both as businessmen and as political radicals, hateful to the bureaucrats as socialists and to the lower classes as capitalists. The pogroms (pogrom), or anti-Jewish riots, which broke out in various localities in the months after the assassination of Alexander II, effectively ended any dreams for assimilation and “enlightenment” on the western European pattern for Russia's Jewish community. At this time there also arose the oft-repeated accusation that anti-Semitic excesses were planned and staged by the authorities, not only in Ukraine in 1881 but also in Kishinev in 1903 and throughout the Jewish Pale of Settlement in 1905. The view of government-sponsored pogroms has not, however, been corroborated by documental evidence. Indeed, the officials in St. Petersburg were too concerned with maintaining order to organize pogroms that might pose a direct threat to that order. However, some local government officials were certainly at least remiss in their duties in protecting Jewish lives and properties and at worse in cahoots with the anti-Semitic rioters. The most important result of the 1881 pogrom wave was the promulgation in May 1882 of the notorious “temporary rules,” which further restricted Jewish rights and remained in effect to the very end of the Russian Empire. By the turn of the century the terms Jews and revolutionaries had come to be synonymous for some officials.
Foreign policy
During the second half of the 19th century, Russian foreign policy gave about equal emphasis to the Balkans and East Asia. The friendship with Germany and Austria weakened, and in the 1890s the Triple Alliance of Germany,Austria-Hungary, and Italy stood face to face with a Dual Alliance of France and Russia.
The demilitarization of the Black Sea coast that had resulted from the Crimean War was ended by the London Conference of 1871, which allowed Russia to rebuild its naval forces. In 1876 the Serbo-Turkish War produced an outburst of Pan-Slav feeling in Russia. Partly under its influence, but mainly in pursuit of traditional strategic aims, Russia declared war on Turkey (Russo-Turkish wars) in April 1877. After overpowering heavy Turkish resistance at the fortress of Pleven (Pleven, Siege of) in Bulgaria, the Russian forces advanced almost to Istanbul. By the Treaty of San Stefano (San Stefano, Treaty of) of March 1878 the Turks accepted the creation of a large independent Bulgarian state. Fearing that this would be a Russian vassal, giving Russia mastery over all the Balkans and the straits, Britain and Austria-Hungary opposed the treaty. At the international Congress of Berlin (Berlin, Congress of), held in June 1878, Russia had to accept a much smaller Bulgaria. This was regarded by Russian public opinion as a bitter humiliation, for which the German chancellor Otto von Bismarck (Bismarck, Otto von) was blamed. In 1885–87 a new international crisis was caused by Russian interference in Bulgarian affairs, with Britain and Austria-Hungary again opposing Russia. Once more, Russia suffered a political reverse. In the 1890s, despite the pro-Russian sentiment of many Serbs and Bulgarians, neither country's government was much subject to Russian influence. In the crises that arose in connection with the Turkish Armenians and over Crete and Macedonia, Russian policy was extremely cautious and on the whole tended to support the Turkish government. In 1897 an Austro-Russian agreement was made on spheres of influence in the Balkans.
The attempt of Bismarck to restore Russo-German friendship through the Reinsurance Treaty of 1887, with a view to an ultimate restoration of the alliance of Russia, Germany, and Austria, did not survive Bismarck's fall from power in 1890. The Russian government, alarmed by indications of a closer cooperation between the Triple Alliance and Britain and by some signs of a pro-Polish attitude in Berlin, reluctantly turned toward France. The French needed an ally against both Germany and Britain; the Russians needed French capital, in the form both of loans to the Russian government and of investment in Russian industry. The Franco-Russian alliance was signed in August 1891 and was supplemented by a military convention. Essentially, the alliance was directed against Germany, for it was only in a war with Germany that each could help the other. Later, however, there were to be plans in case war with Britain broke out.