The message reads, in part:
“The signing of this manifesto was a turning point in nineteenth-century Russian history, the start of the great reforms of the 1860s-1870s: local self-government, urban, judicial, military, financial, and other reforms. The emancipation of the serfs launched Russia’s transition from agrarian to industrial development and gave the impetus for developing private initiative and enterprise.
I am sure that the scholars and publicists, public and political figures taking part in the conference will make a comprehensive analysis of these transformations’ substance and impact, and give an objective assessment of the part this reform played in the Russia’s political and socio-economic development in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.”