Chapter 31 Prologue: The New Beginning

December the 1st, 1922, Ruthenia Empire. In St. Petersburg, the beginning of the winter season has begun over the country.

Alexander stood behind the window, watching as the chilling winds whipped the snowflakes around, congealing the ground of the palace.

His office is protected by a gentle flame burning in the fireplace.

In the warmth of that shelter, Alexander was holding a pen, playing it in his hand.

It spun fluidly in his hand, as a thought came into mind.

“It’s beginning,”

The first day of December is the important day for the whole Ruthenia Empire as the newly elected officials took office in the Imperial Council he created to appease the mass.

He is scheduled to make a speech, officially recognizing a new legislative branch of the Ruthenia’s government, whose function is to introduce new reforms in pursuit of the betterment of the populace.

A knock on the door reverberated inside his room. He casually glanced over his shoulder and saw Rolan.

“Sir, the car is ready,” Rolan announced.

“Very well,”

Alexander grabbed his black trench coat hanging on his chair and put it on as he leaves.

He pushed open the door and walk outside.

The guards were waiting for him as he walked down the imposing stairs from the palace’s second floor.

As Alexander stepped onto the ground, the guards fell into a formation and quietly escorted him to the car.

The guards opened the door for him, and Alexander sat down on the leather seat.

The car gently drive to the appointed place, while Alexander closed his eyes, daydreamed, and hoped what he had done in the last four months will have a good outcome.

…

Alexander stood behind the podium, behind him was a throne for a king. They call it speech from the throne.

He looked at the people in front of him and saw the entire Imperial Councils, 600 elected officials to be exact, all eagerly looking at him, the new emperor who changed the social fabric of the Ruthenia Empire.

The people across the vast territory of the Empire were also keen to listen to the new emperor’s speech, congregating on radios, temporarily halting their work to hear breaking news of their country.

Alexander breathed deeply as he prepare for his speech. There was no script nor teleprompter. So every word that will come out of his mouth is purely from his heart and mind.

Normally, this speech would be like a walk in the park for him. He attended hundreds of conferences attended by thousands of people, but the pressure compared to here is different, because he is not addressing them as a CEO of a company, he is the king of a country with over 160 million people listening.

‘Let’s start.’

“The care for the welfare of the fatherland, which is entrusted to me by Almighty Providence, has prompted me to summon the elected representatives of the people to assist in our legislative tasks. I welcome you, those best people whom I commanded my beloved subjects to choose from among themselves, with an ardent faith in Ruthenia’s brilliant future.

Difficult and complicated tasks await you. I believe that you are inspired and united by love for your country. I will protect the new institutions which I have granted my people in the firm conviction that you will devote all your strength to selfless service to the fatherland; to the clarification of the needs of the peasantry which is so close to my heart; and to the promotion of popular enlightenment and the national wellbeing, remembering that for spiritual greatness and prosperity of the state we need not freedom alone, but order based on law.

My fervent desire to see my people happy and to pass on to my son a strong, prosperous and enlightened state would then be fulfilled.

May the Lord bless the labors which I shall undertake in union with the Imperial Council, and may this day henceforth be known as the day of Ruthenia’s moral renewal, the day of the renaissance of her best forces.

Set about the work with which I have charged you with reverence, and justify the faith which the Emperor and the people have placed in you.

May God be with us in our labors. May the Lord help me and you.”

A round of applause rang inside the hall as Alexander walked back to the chair and sit down. Upon taking his seat, a man in his middle fifties, with plump, and blonde hair walked over to the podium. He is the Chairman of the Imperial Council. His name is Ludmil Mikhailov, a member of the Constitutional Democratic Party.

As the elected chairman of the Imperial Council, Ludmil is also obliged to make a speech about the establishment of the Imperial Council.

Ludmil began. “Your Imperial Majesty. In your speech to the Imperial Council, you were pleased to affirm your intention to protect the new institutions. This solemn promise of a monarch to his people is a firm guarantee that our legislative system will grow steadily, developing in accordance with strict constitutional principles.

The Imperial Council, for its part, will strive to improve the principles of popular government and will submit for Your Majesty’s confirmation a bill establishing a popular legislature founded on the principle of universal suffrage, according to the unanimously expressed will of the people.

Your Majesty’s call to unity in working for the good of the fatherland finds a lively response in the hearts of all members of the Imperial Council. We have members from all classes and all peoples of Ruthenia, and we are united by a common fervent desire to renew Ruthenia and to create a state system founded on firm guarantees for civil liberties and on the peaceful coexistence of all classes and all nationalities.

The Imperial Council feels obliged to point out, however, that the conditions in which the country is living are such as to frustrate any truly fruitful work directed to the rejuvenation of the country’s strengths. The country has concluded that the arbitrariness of the administrative officials who separate the Emperor from the people is the fundamental shortcoming in national life.

With a united voice, the country has loudly declared that the renewal of national life is possible only on the basis of freedom, the right of independent popular action, popular participation in the legislative power, and popular control over the executive power.

In Your Majesty’s speech of August 1st, 1905. Your Majesty was pleased to proclaim from the height of the Throne a firm resolve to build Ruthenia’s future on the basis of these very principles. The entire people met this news with a unanimous cry of joy. Yet the first days of freedom were clouded by severe trials. The persons responsible are all those who still deny the people access to the Emperor and violate the principles of the October Manifesto. They have covered the country with the shame of unjust executions, pogroms, firing squad shootings, and imprisonments…

Now, as to urgent legislation: The Imperial Council, fulfilling the duties with which the people have charged it, considers it urgently necessary to agree upon precise laws guaranteeing personal immunity, freedom of conscience, freedom of speech and the press, freedom of union and assembly, and freedom to strike.

No reform of social relationships is feasible without precise guarantees and strict enforcement of these rights, which were promised to us on August the first. The Imperial Council likewise considers it necessary to secure the right for citizens to petition the popular legislature.

The Imperial Council holds firmly to the conviction that neither freedom nor order founded on the right can be strong or lasting without strict observance of the principle of the equality of all citizens before the law, without exception. The Imperial Council will therefore work out bills for the full equalization of all citizens and for the abolition of all restrictions and privileges accruing to anyone by reason of class, nationality, religion, or sex.

The Imperial Council will also strive to emancipate the country from the administrative tutelage which obstructs her path, leaving limitations on civic freedoms to the independent judicial power alone.

The Imperial Council considers the use of the death penalty intolerable, even by judicial sentence. Capital punishment ought never to be meted out in any circumstances. The Imperial Council considers itself entitled to speak for the entire people in expressing the unanimous desire to see the day when capital punishment is abolished forever…

These are the demands of the popular conscience, which are impossible to deny and whose fulfillment cannot be delayed. Sire, the Imperial Council awaits from you a full political amnesty, as a first guarantee of the mutual understanding and mutual agreement between the Emperor and the people.

At the end of the speech, Alexander closed his eyes, deeply contemplating something. Then, he nodded.

A jubilating smile swept across the chairman’s face as he saw the acknowledgment of the Imperial Council. To this day forth, the date of December the 1st will become a national holiday, ushering in a new era of the Ruthenia Empire.

While seating on the throne, Alexander smirked inwardly as his first plan of strengthening his country has been fulfilled.

To protect his new life given by Alexander is to protect the country he whereby ruled. Now that the Imperial Council is established, he can now move on to step 2.

Modernization plan.

Alexander imagined himself heralding a new age of advanced technology, more advanced than those existing now. His brain is the key to the success, containing a stupendous amount of knowledge.

‘I am the man who holds two million years’ worth of human culmination. It’s time for it to be realized…This is going to be exhilarating.’