Russian Emperor Nicholas I (Nikolai Pavlovich Romanov) was born on June 25 (July 6), 1796 in Tsarskoe Selo. He was the third of five sons of Emperor Paul I and Empress Maria Feodorovna. He grew up separately from his older brothers Alexander and Konstantin, who were born almost 20 years earlier. Since Alexander was considered the heir, and Konstantin was his successor, the younger brothers (Nicholas and Mikhail) were not prepared for the throne and no attention was paid to their education in this regard. Immediately after his birth, Grand Duke Nikolai Pavlovich was enrolled in military service. On November 7, 1796, he was already a colonel, chief of the Life Guards Horse Regiment. On May 28, 1800, the boy was appointed chief of the Life Guards of the Izmailovsky Regiment, and from then on he wore only the Izmailovsky uniform. From childhood, Nikolai’s education and upbringing was purely domestic with a military bias. Two years after the tragic death of his father, in 1803, the German general M.I. became the teacher of Grand Duke Nikolai Pavlovich. Lamzdorf is a stern, cruel man and, according to his contemporaries, did not possess any of the abilities necessary for an educator. Since childhood, Nikolai Pavlovich’s character was not pleasant. His teachers insisted that he was rude and cruel, and showed no success in his studies, with the exception of drawing. To eradicate the shortcomings of his character, Lamsdorff directed all his efforts to break the will of his pupil, going against his inclinations. The teacher put constant moral pressure on the child and even used corporal punishment of the future emperor “in significant doses.” He constantly threatened his pet for disobedience, punished him with rods, beat him with a ruler and gun ramrods, and sometimes beat him almost senseless. But Nikolai grew up stubborn and independent. Nikolai later recalled his upbringing with mixed feelings, and considered his education absolutely unsatisfactory.
Nikolai early discovered an addiction to military exercises and an aversion to “reasoning”, to “abstract” sciences, which he retained throughout his life. In his memoirs, he wrote: “The military sciences alone interested me passionately; in them alone I found consolation and a pleasant activity.” According to him, he “listened poorly to the lectures of the best professors on jurisprudence, philosophy, political economy and other sciences; nothing remained of them in his head.” The Grand Duke did not like “soporific lectures,” boring social and legal theories. But with great interest he studied military affairs - artillery, fortification, tactics and other military sciences. Most of all, he loved engineering - his future military specialty. "We are engineers!" - Nikolai liked to repeat often. And it was not for nothing that Emperor Alexander I subsequently placed his younger brother at the head of the Russian engineering department, an assignment the Grand Duke completed brilliantly.
In 1817, Nicholas married the eldest daughter of the Prussian king Frederick William II, Princess Charlotte Caroline Frederica-Louise (1798-1860), who took the name Alexandra Feodorovna. From this marriage seven children were born, including the future Emperor Alexander II. For six years, until December 1825, Nicholas lived a happy family life, not taking part in state affairs, and Alexander I kept him far from him. Eyewitnesses noted that Nikolai was an attentive family man during these years, and with those around him he was not at all the unpleasant pedant that he was in the service. And it is not surprising, because here he was surrounded by highly educated people - the educators of his children, including a poet.
On July 3, 1817, Nikolai was appointed inspector general for engineering and chief of the Life Guards Sapper Battalion. Since June 25, 1818, he has been the commander of the brigade of the 1st Guards Division (the brigade included the Life Guards Izmailovsky and Jaeger regiments). In the summer of 1819, Emperor Alexander I first told Nicholas that he intended to soon renounce the throne in his favor, since the next of the brothers (by seniority), Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich, then governor of the Kingdom of Poland, also did not want to reign. In 1822, Constantine confirmed his abdication in writing, and in 1823, Emperor Alexander I signed a Manifesto declaring Grand Duke Nikolai Pavlovich heir to the throne. But the Manifesto was secret, it was not published and therefore had no force. And Alexander I behaved very strangely towards his brother, as if he did not want to reveal the secrets of the royal craft. He not only did not take measures to prepare Nicholas for the affairs of government, but did not even include him in the State Council and other higher state institutions, so the entire course of state affairs passed by him, and the future emperor served as an ordinary general.
Military training made Nikolai an excellent soldier, stern and pedantic. He was not a coward and showed personal courage on more than one occasion. During his reign, many military educational institutions were opened. Nikolai's passion for the army remained throughout his life. According to the description of his contemporaries, he was “a soldier by vocation, a soldier by education, by appearance and by nature.” The main commander of the notorious Third Department, chief of gendarmes A.X. Benkendorf, whom Nikolai Pavlovich trusted infinitely, wrote that “the Tsar’s entertainment with his troops, by his own admission, is his only and true pleasure.”
Realizing the responsibility that had fallen upon him, Nikolai began to prepare for governing the state and began reading relevant literature to supplement his education. But still, he did not receive proper training and skills for state affairs and ascended the throne unprepared, either theoretically or practically. Meanwhile, all documents confirming Nicholas’s legal right to inherit the throne were kept in deep secrecy. Outwardly, nothing changed - Nicholas was still not allowed to participate in state affairs, and even his military career developed very sluggishly. At the beginning of 1825, he was only the commander of the 1st Guards Division. He also could not boast of popularity; the guards did not like him for his severity, which reached the point of petty pickiness, and his disdainful attitude towards officers; he also could not gain respect due to the lack of combat experience and passion for combat training. The soldiers considered Nicholas cruel and arrogant.
On November 27, 1825, in St. Petersburg, news was received from Taganrog about the sudden death of Emperor Alexander I. St. Petersburg Governor General Count M.A. Miloradovich insisted on taking the oath to Emperor Constantine as the legal heir, since no one knew about his abdication. Nicholas, fearing a protest from the guards officers, swore allegiance first, and high-ranking generals and the guard followed his example. The Senate, troops and population were also immediately sworn in to Emperor Constantine I. Nikolai Pavlovich persuaded the members of the State Council to swear allegiance to Constantine. But the Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich himself, the governor in Poland, reaffirmed his refusal to inherit and swore allegiance to his brother Nicholas in Warsaw, and swore the entire Kingdom of Poland to him. At the same time, he did not go to St. Petersburg, but confirmed his abdication in letters to Nicholas and his mother, the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna. Nicholas insisted that Constantine take the throne, but on December 6, 1825, he received a letter from his brother with a new decisive refusal. While there was correspondence between Nicholas and Constantine, there was a virtual interregnum that lasted 22 days. The guards officers took advantage of this to agitate against Nicholas’s accession to the throne, claiming that Constantine had not renounced and that one must be faithful to the oath to him.
Only on December 12 (24), 1825, Nicholas decided to declare himself emperor. On the evening of December 13, the State Council swore allegiance to Emperor Nicholas I, and on the morning of December 14, other highest state institutions took the oath. On the same day, Nicholas issued a manifesto on his accession to the throne, indicating that the de jure beginning of his reign was considered the death of Alexander I on November 19 (December 1), 1825. The very first day of Nicholas's reign was marked by tragic events on Senate Square in St. Petersburg, where there was an uprising of several military units led by members of a secret society, later known as the "Decembrists." On the day of the promulgation of the Manifesto on the accession to the throne of Nicholas I (December 14), when the guard was supposed to take the oath to him, the Moscow Life Guards, the Life Guards Grenadier Regiments and the Guards Fleet Crew who refused to swear allegiance to Nikolai Pavlovich gathered on Senate Square with weapons in their hands. Nikolai Pavlovich personally supervised the suppression of the uprising, although he was not confident of success. On December 12, he received news of the discovery of a conspiracy in the Southern Army in Ukraine and was aware that in these two or three days his fate would be decided - to be the Emperor of Russia or to be deposed. “On the fourteenth,” he wrote to P.M. Volkonsky, “I will be sovereign or dead.” Nicholas's fate hung in the balance, but he managed to suppress the uprising, showing determination and ruthlessness. He repeatedly tried to enter into negotiations with the rebels in order to convince them to obey the law. But, seeing the futility of persuasion, during which Governor-General Count Miloradovich was mortally wounded and the commander of the Grenadier Regiment, Colonel Sturler, was killed, he ordered artillery fire to be opened on the rebels. Order in the capital was restored.
Russia swore allegiance to Nicholas I. The revolt was suppressed, the court sentenced 36 people to death, but the sovereign pardoned most of them, and on July 13, 1826, only five were executed: Pestel, Ryleev, Kakhovsky, Bestuzhev-Ryumin and Sergei Muravyov-Apostol. The Decembrist uprising left a deep mark on the emperor’s soul and instilled in him a fear of any manifestations of free-thinking. He was firmly convinced that he had saved Russia from imminent destruction. After the suppression of the rebellion, Nicholas I strengthened the military-bureaucratic apparatus, centralized the administrative system, established the political police (Third Department of His Imperial Majesty's Own Chancellery), and established strict censorship.
On August 22 (September 3), 1826, the coronation of Nicholas I, who became the 11th All-Russian Emperor, took place in Moscow in the Assumption Cathedral of the Kremlin. The accession of the young emperor to the throne gave rise to hopes in society for an improvement in the situation after the gloomy last decade of the reign of Emperor Alexander I. Sympathy for the new monarch was expressed by A.S., who returned from exile in September 1826. Pushkin. A close relationship was established between the sovereign and Pushkin, although sometimes somewhat burdensome for the poet, for the emperor, having relieved the poet of general censorship, assumed the rights of his personal censor. But in other cases, Nicholas I defended Pushkin from the attacks of ill-wishers. Moreover, before meeting Pushkin, somewhat indifferent to poetry, Nikolai Pavlovich, carefully reading the works of Alexander Sergeevich, began to appreciate the poetic word. And after the tragic death of Pushkin, the emperor took upon himself financial concerns about his family - he assigned a pension to his widow and children, paid the poet’s debt obligations, but tried in every possible way to limit public performances in his memory.
Nicholas I understood the need for reforms, but always sharply opposed even the thought of possible revolutionary changes. At the end of the Decembrist affair, in the Manifesto of July 13, 1826, Nicholas I condemned “bold dreams, always destructive,” but declared his intention to gradually improve “domestic institutions.” On December 6, 1826, he created a Secret Committee to prepare important government reforms based on projects preserved in the office of the late Emperor Alexander I. Speaking about the need for reforms of the social system and the government apparatus, he intended to carry them out with the help of government officials under his direct command, without the participation of social forces. This is due to the fact that after the Decembrist uprising, Nicholas I became convinced that he had no one to count on; the nobility was not such a reliable support for the tsar. The emperor was inclined to believe that the cause of the Decembrists was a class-based noble movement that embraced all circles of the nobility, and began to doubt their devotion to the throne. To directly manage such matters, the emperor began to create special departments of his office. Therefore, His Imperial Majesty's own office was turned by him into the most important government institution. All the matters that Nikolai considered the most important passed through her. At the same time, the State Council, the Senate and other central institutions began to be pushed into the background.
The strengthening and centralization of the bureaucratic apparatus reached unprecedented proportions under Nicholas I. Expenses for officials and the army absorbed almost all government funds. Barracks rules prevailed in all institutions, gymnasiums, and universities. For the slightest disobedience, officials were sent to the guardhouse, students became soldiers. Everything must be subject to discipline. There must be a system in everything. This method of government seemed to him the height of perfection: “I look at human life only as a service, since everyone serves.” At the same time, Nicholas I understood that there must be a law that would justify the unlimited power of the monarch and give it the appearance of legality. Therefore, one of the subjects of his special concern was the improvement of the judicial system and legal proceedings. To strengthen and streamline state power, Nicholas I ordered the codification of laws. For this purpose, in 1826, the Second Department of His Imperial Majesty’s Own Chancellery was created to codify Russian legislation, and direct execution was entrusted to M.M. Speransky. Thanks to his energy and the work carried out under his leadership, in 1830-1832, 45 volumes of the Complete Collection of Laws of the Russian Empire were published, starting with the Council Code of 1649 and ending in 1825, and 6 volumes of laws adopted under Nicholas I from 1825 to 1830 year. Then, at the direction of the Tsar, existing laws are selected, classified and published in 15 volumes of the new Code of Laws of the Russian Empire, approved and approved by the State Council and the Tsar and put into effect on January 1, 1835.
In an effort to turn the Russian bureaucracy into an uncomplaining executor of his will, the tsar began to introduce barracks elements into administrative affairs. He even “didn’t perceive a woman’s charm without a uniform,” his contemporaries joked. The civilian branches of the administration, together with the corresponding educational institutions (departments of land surveying, forestry, communications, mining, engineering) received a military organization that absorbed a lot of strength and energy without the slightest benefit to the substance of the matter. Criminal proceedings in many types of cases also came under the jurisdiction of military courts. The country was dominated by a system of corporal punishment, the necessity of which was convinced by the emperor. He remembered the ramrod of his teacher Lamsdorf and, apparently, thought that if he, the sovereign, had already been subjected to beatings, then there was no reason to avoid them when punishing mere mortals, especially peasants and soldiers. They did not spare schoolchildren, colleges, gymnasiums, even students and officials. Going “on the right” has become an everyday phenomenon in Russian reality. Even the death penalty was replaced by driving the guilty several times through a gauntlet of a thousand people. It is no coincidence that Nicholas I had the nickname “Palkin”.
Nikolai did his best to suppress the slightest manifestations of freethinking. In 1826, a censorship statute was issued, nicknamed “cast iron” by his contemporaries. It was forbidden to print almost anything that had any political overtones. In 1828, another censorship statute was issued, somewhat softening the previous one. A new increase in censorship was associated with the European revolutions of 1848. Created in the first year of the reign of Nicholas I, the notorious Third Department became the highest body of political police. The head of this department and the gendarme corps, General A.X. Benckendorff made daily reports to the emperor and accompanied him on all his trips. The functions of this department were extremely broad. He was entrusted with monitoring foreigners and suspicious persons, schismatics, places of exile and imprisonment, collecting information about all incidents, cases of disobedience to authorities, conducting cases of robberies and counterfeiters, monitoring officials to prevent abuse of power, etc. But the main thing was control over the “direction of minds”, i.e. monitoring of anti-serfdom and anti-autocratic sentiments in society, expulsion of suspected persons, police statistics, theatrical censorship. Nicholas I brutally persecuted Jews, Old Believers, and sectarians. Many leading people in Russia were subjected to persecution and repression. The victims of Nikolaev's tyranny were A.S. Pushkin, M.Yu. Lermontov, A.I. Herzen, N.P. Ogarev, P.Ya. Chaadaev, N.A. Polevoy and others. Ryleev was hanged, Griboedov was killed in Tehran, Belinsky was killed, thirty-five years old, by hunger and poverty. Polezhaev died in a military hospital after eight years of forced military service. Baratynsky died after 12 years of exile, Bestuzhev died in the Caucasus, very young, after Siberian hard labor. By order of Nicholas I, the magazines "European", "Moscow Telegraph", and "Telescope" were closed.
Emperor Nicholas I was a staunch opponent of serfdom. From the very beginning of his reign, he conscientiously tried to resolve the issue of its abolition, creating several secret committees on the peasant issue, but in 1842 he came to the conclusion: “There is no doubt that serfdom in its current situation is an evil for us, tangible and obvious to everyone.” , but touching him now would be an even more disastrous thing.” He approved the beginning of the reform of the state village, and in the 1840s he issued a number of decrees that expanded the personal and property rights of serfs. But he never decided on a complete peasant reform, believing that Russia was not yet ready for this.
In all his foreign policy, Emperor Nikolai Pavlovich was forced to fulfill the treaties signed during the previous reign. The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Count, an Austrian on his father's side, did not like Russians, but admired the Germans; the interests of Russia were alien to him. First of all, Nicholas declared his intention to “put an end to the Eastern Question,” which consisted of the struggle with Turkey for possession of the Black Sea coast and ultimately for the Bosphorus and Dardanelles, as well as for the liberation of the Balkan peoples from the Turkish yoke. Victorious military operations (1828-1829) against Turkish troops made it possible to significantly weaken Turkey and annex a number of territories to Russia on the Black Sea coast, in Transcaucasia, and strengthen the Black Sea Fleet. In 1829, General Dibich took Andrianopol, and Count Paskevich took Kars and Erzurum. The independence of Greece and the autonomy of Serbia, Moldavia and Wallachia were proclaimed. But in 1830, a bloody uprising began in Poland, which, although it was suppressed by the same generals, greatly weakened the results of the Turkish War. The Polish uprising, as well as the European revolutions of 1848, again forced the postponement of the emancipation of the peasants.
In October 1853, war began again against Turkey. Starting this war after the suppression of revolutions in Europe in 1848-1849, the emperor believed that he had the authority of the “gendarme of Europe.” He counted on some kind of “gratitude” for this from other monarchs, as well as on the supposedly powerful military-political force of Russia, and thought that now he could begin to resolve the “Eastern Question” without fear. In reality, tsarism found itself in political isolation. Nicholas I was unable to prevent the emergence of a powerful anti-Russian coalition consisting of England, France and other powers. During this war, the famous Battle of Sinop of Admiral Nakhimov took place, and soon, having defeated the Turkish army and navy in several battles, Russia could have won an impressive victory, but... liberal Europe could not allow such a triumph for the Orthodox sovereign. As soon as the successful military operations of Russian troops against Turkey began, England and France immediately took its side, and later the Kingdom of Sardinia joined them. Even seemingly close allies Austria and Prussia adopted an unfriendly policy towards Russia. Nicholas I was forced to withdraw troops from the Transdanubian territories and found himself alone against hostile Europe. England and France landed troops in Crimea and besieged Sevastopol. In the siege, which lasted 11 months, admirals Kornilov, Nakhimov and Istomin died. Since the spring of 1854, the war, although later called the Crimean War, was in fact of a global nature, because the largest states participated in it, and military operations were carried out all over the world - in the Crimea, the Caucasus, in Europe, in the Barents Sea and even in Kamchatka . The fighting in Crimea and the defense of Sevastopol became an example of the highest heroism of the Russian people.
The defeat in the Crimean War dealt a severe blow to the entire foreign policy system of Nicholas I, who was convinced that his position as a European and Asian ruler was a fiction. Russia's Middle Eastern positions were collapsing; its international prestige fell sharply. The country was forced to agree to the shameful Treaty of Paris (March 1856), according to which the Black Sea was declared neutral, the empire was deprived of the opportunity to have a navy here and build military structures on its shores, and also ceded significant territories and its influence in the Balkans and in Armenia to favor of Turkey, which canceled out all the efforts of Nicholas in the “eastern question”.
Nikolai's death was completely unexpected. He was a 58-year-old man of enormous stature, who defiantly despised all effeminacy and slept on a camp bed under an overcoat. He ruled Russia for 30 years, and it was as if he had no intention of stopping. True, people close to Nicholas I knew how shocked he was by his defeats in the Crimean War. “No matter how hard His Majesty tried to overcome himself, to hide his inner torment,” writes V. Panaev (director of the Emperor’s office), “it began to be revealed by the gloominess of his gaze, pallor, even some kind of darkening of his face and the thinness of his whole body. In this state of his health, the slightest cold could develop a dangerous disease in him.” And so it happened. Not wanting to refuse Count Kleinmichel's request to be seated by his daughter's father, the sovereign went to the wedding, despite the severe frost, wearing a Horse Guards uniform with elk trousers and silk stockings. This evening was the beginning of his illness: he caught a cold. When he returned, he did not complain about anything, but spent the night without sleep, and spent the next two nights restlessly. Neither in the city nor at court did they pay attention to the sovereign’s illness; they said that he had a cold, was unwell, but was not lying down. The Emperor did not express concerns about his health, so he forbade the printing of bulletins about his illness.
On February 12, 1855, a courier brought news of the defeat near Yevpatoria to the palace. Those close to him recalled how on sleepless nights the king “bowed to the ground” and “cryed like a child.” Herzen would later note that Nicholas had “Evpatoria in his lungs.” In the last hours of his life, the tsar did not even want to know the news from Crimea contained in the letter of his younger sons Mikhail and Nikolai. He just asked: “Are they healthy? Everything else doesn’t concern me...” Having been ill for 5 days, the emperor got stronger and went to the Mikhailovsky Manege to inspect the troops. When he returned, he felt worse: his cough and shortness of breath increased. But the next day, Nicholas I again went to Manege to inspect the Preobrazhensky and Semenovsky reserve regiments. On February 11, he could no longer get out of bed. From the records of the Chamber-Fourier journals it is clear that from February 10 to 15, the emperor’s illness waxed and waned. “His Highness slept little on the night of the 14th of February, the fever almost stopped.” February 15: “His Master spent the night a little better, although yesterday there was excitement. Pulse today is satisfactory. Cough: sputum eruption is not strong.” February 16: “Yesterday, after feverish movement, accompanied by rheumatic pain under the right shoulder, His Lordship slept that night, but not so calmly. No headache, no fever.” A strange picture emerged: at the beginning of February 1855, Nikolai caught a cold, but nothing special, judging by official publications. According to the diaries of court events, it is clear that on February 12-17, Nicholas’s health did not worsen, but rather improved; in any case, there was no concern. At the same time, the tsar did not accept reports and, obviously, “secluded himself” in a difficult state of mind. These days, from February 12 to 17, physically healthy, he is experiencing a psychological crisis, physical malaise is replaced by mental breakdown, which is an unusual state for Nikolai, who was proud of his equanimity.
Suddenly, on the night of February 17-18, Nicholas I suddenly became worse. He began to experience paralysis. The emperor's eldest son, Alexander, was summoned to his father on the night of February 18, spent some time alone with him and left the office in tears. Before his death, Nicholas asked to be dressed in a uniform, and when saying goodbye to his eldest grandson (the future Tsar Alexander III), he said: “Learn to die.” A few hours later, on February 18 (March 2), 1855, at the height of the war, Nikolai died suddenly, according to the most common version - from transient pneumonia. However, there is a version that he committed suicide by drinking poison due to defeats in the Crimean War. What caused the paralysis? This remains a mystery. If the emperor committed suicide, who gave him the poison? Two physicians took turns at the bedside of the sick emperor: Dr. Carell and Dr. Mandt. In memoirs and historical literature, suspicion falls on Dr. Mandt, although at the beginning of the development of paralysis he was not present under Nikolai. There were enough publications about the emperor’s suicide at that time. "The Bell" in 1859 ("Letters of a Russian Man") reported that Nicholas I poisoned himself with the help of Mandt. The version of the suicidal poisoning of the monarch is confirmed by the memoirs of diplomat A. Pelikan and Colonel of the General Staff, adjutant of the Tsarevich I.F. Savitsky. The version of poisoning is also supported by the fact that anatomist Wenzel Gruber, who embalmed the body of the deceased emperor, was imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress for drawing up a report on the autopsy of the body of Nicholas I and publishing it in Germany, finding it interesting from a forensic point of view.
By the morning of February 18, 1855, rapid decomposition of the body began. Yellow, blue, and purple spots appeared on the face of the deceased. The lips were parted, sparse teeth were visible. The cramped features of his face indicated that the emperor was dying in great agony. In the morning, the sovereign heir Alexander was horrified to see his father so disfigured, and called two doctors - Zdekaner and Myanovsky - professors of the Medical-Surgical Academy, ordered them to remove all signs of poisoning in any way in order to present the body in proper form four days later for a general farewell according to tradition and protocol. Two scientists called in, in order to hide the real cause of death, literally repainted, retouched the face, properly processed and placed the body in a coffin.
The last will of Nicholas I was a ban on the autopsy and embalming of his body; he feared that the autopsy would reveal the secret of his death, which he wanted to take to the grave. His reign began with a tragedy (the manifesto of July 13, 1826, announcing the verdict on the Decembrists) and ended in disaster. He did not survive the Crimean disaster; it remained in the memory of posterity as one of the darkest periods of Russian history.
Meanwhile, there was still no official announcement of the death of the autocrat. On February 18, 1855, “Bulletin No. 1” appeared in the newspapers about the state of the tsar’s health: “His Majesty fell ill with a fever... On February 13, His Majesty did not deign to have access to the liturgy.” In additions to the same newspapers, printed “at the last hour,” there is “Bulletin No. 2”: “His Majesty’s fever intensified by the evening of February 17th.” The next day, February 19, “Bulletin No. 3” appeared about the intensification of the disease, “which makes His Majesty’s condition dangerous.” Then "Bulletin No. 4" reported "a paralytic condition of the lungs threatening His Majesty." On the 20th no new news appeared, and on February 21 a manifesto about the death of the emperor was published. Before the funeral service was celebrated in the churches, rumors spread that the sudden death was suicide. Student Nikolai Dobrolyubov in the handwritten newspaper “Rumors” noted: “Rumors spread that the tsar was poisoned... This rumor made a different impression: some were happy, others were surprised, others said that it should be so - it served him right, the swindler. But it was especially remarkable “How strongly this opinion has become accepted among the people, who believe that the Russian Tsar cannot die naturally, that none of them died by natural causes.” All the details of Nicholas's last days immediately became a state secret - and therefore became even more ambiguous. The authorities, fighting rumors, distributed many, even too many brochures about how the king “passed away peacefully,” saying goodbye to his family and blessing his subjects. Since they did not believe the official news, after hearing the manifesto about death “after the flu,” many recalled that the strangled man died “from an apoplexy,” and the broken skull of Peter III was masked by “hemorrhoidal colic.” As soon as the funeral was announced not in two months, as was usually done, but in six weeks, thousands of people decided that it was not without reason...
All aristocratic salons were closed before the life physician Mandt: suspicion, if not of regicide, then of regicide! Contemporaries testify that Mandt was afraid to go out into the street, because “... the people, perhaps, would have torn him apart, but no more than to have fun in a legitimate way, without fear that guns would suddenly be pointed at the crowd of loyal subjects and sprayed with grapeshot.” "(Dobrolyubov). Soon Mandt was forced to flee abroad, as he told about the last minutes of the great ruler, saying that Nicholas, after the defeat at Evpatoria, forced him to give the emperor poison. Many condemned Mandt for yielding to the emperor's demands. It was found that Mandt, as a doctor, was obliged to sacrifice his position, even his life, rather than fulfill the will of the patient and bring him poison. But in life no one would have dared to refuse Nikolai his demand. Yes, such a refusal would lead to an even greater scandal. The autocratic emperor would have achieved his goal without Mandt’s help: he would have found a different way to commit suicide and, perhaps, a more noticeable one.
On March 24, 1855, Count D.N.’s book was published. Bludov (manager of the II Department) "The last hours of the life of Emperor Nicholas the First." The book excluded the possibility of the emperor's suicide "as a worthy member of the Church of Christ." The official cause of death of Nicholas I was published. “This precious life was put to an end by a cold, which at first seemed insignificant, but, unfortunately, was combined with other causes of disorder, which had long been hidden in a constitution that was only apparently strong, but in fact shocked, even exhausted by the labors of extraordinary activity, worries and sorrows."
During the reign of Nicholas I, many important events took place that were not of national importance, but the results of which we still use today. The first Tsarskoye Selo railway in Russia was built (1837), and then the Nikolaev railway St. Petersburg - Moscow (train traffic began in 1851). During the reign of Nicholas I, the first official anthem of the Russian Empire was born, which became one of the symbols of the Nicholas era. The author of the text of the hymn “God Save the Tsar” was the poet V.A. Zhukovsky, composer A.F. Lviv. The anthem was first performed in Moscow, at the Bolshoi Theater on December 11, 1833. Under him, uniform programs, textbooks, grades (from 1 to 5), and uniforms were introduced in Russian schools.
For thirty years, Emperor Nicholas I ruled Russia, significantly expanding its territory, annexing vast areas in the Caucasus, Central Asia and the Far East. In these 30 years, Russia has become the most powerful world power. Nicholas I was a true Russian Tsar. Many contemporaries testify to the emperor’s love “for everything Russian.” It was under Nicholas I that the imperial court became accustomed to speaking Russian (“even with women!” the diary of Countess A.D. Bludova says admiringly, which, according to Bludova herself, was “a hitherto unheard of thing”). For the first time, the emperor introduced his favorite Cossack uniform for men, and folk dress for women. Being one of the most religious sovereigns in the entire history of Russia, Nicholas I attached religious meaning to all the actions that he had to take. Nicholas perceived his imperial duty as serving God, Russia and the Russian people. He elevated this principle of service to an absolute and did not imagine his life outside of it. This is how the famous formula was born, perhaps one of the most famous in the history of Russia, expressing the ideal of the true structure of the earthly existence of Russia - Orthodoxy, Autocracy, Nationality. A little later, this formula became the basis of the so-called theory of official nationality. And in Russian hearts it received another meaning: “For God, the Tsar and the Fatherland!”
Russia is a powerful and happy power in itself; it should never be a threat to other neighboring states or to Europe. But she must occupy an impressive defensive position, capable of making any attack on her impossible.
Secret societies of nobles arose in the Russian Empire, aiming to change the existing order. The unexpected death of the emperor in the city of Taganrog in November 1825 became the catalyst that intensified the activities of the rebels. And the reason for the speech was the unclear situation with the succession to the throne.
The deceased sovereign had 3 brothers: Konstantin, Nikolai and Mikhail. Constantine was to inherit the rights to the Crown. However, back in 1823, he renounced the throne. No one knew about this except Alexander I. Therefore, after his death, Constantine was proclaimed emperor. But he did not accept that throne, and did not sign an official renunciation. A difficult situation has arisen in the country, since the entire empire has already sworn allegiance to Constantine.
Portrait of Emperor Nicholas I
Unknown artist
The next oldest brother, Nicholas, took the throne, which was announced on December 13, 1825 in the Manifesto. Now the country had to swear allegiance to another sovereign in a new way. Members of a secret society in St. Petersburg decided to take advantage of this. They decided not to swear allegiance to Nicholas and force the Senate to announce the fall of the autocracy.
On the morning of December 14, the rebel regiments entered Senate Square. This rebellion went down in history as the Decembrist uprising. But it was extremely poorly organized, and the organizers showed no decisiveness and clumsily coordinated their actions.
At first, the new emperor also hesitated. He was young, inexperienced and hesitated for a long time. Only in the evening Senate Square was surrounded by troops loyal to the sovereign. The rebellion was suppressed by artillery fire. The main rebels, numbering 5 people, were subsequently hanged, and more than a hundred were sent into exile in Siberia.
Thus, with the suppression of the rebellion, Emperor Nicholas I (1796-1855) began to reign. The years of his reign lasted from 1825 to 1855. Contemporaries called this period the era of stagnation and reaction, and A. I. Herzen described the new sovereign as follows: “When Nicholas ascended the throne, he was 29 years old, but he was already a soulless person. call him an autocratic forwarder whose main task was not to be even 1 minute late for the divorce.”
Nicholas I with his wife Alexandra Fedorovna
Nicholas I was born in the year of the death of his grandmother Catherine II. He was not particularly diligent in his studies. He married in 1817 the daughter of the Prussian king, Friederike Louise Charlotte Wilhelmina of Prussia. After converting to Orthodoxy, the bride received the name Alexandra Feodorovna (1798-1860). Subsequently, the wife bore the emperor seven children.
Among his family, the sovereign was an easy-going and good-natured person. The children loved him, and he could always find a common language with them. Overall, the marriage turned out to be extremely successful. The wife was a sweet, kind and God-fearing woman. She spent a lot of time on charity. True, she had poor health, since St. Petersburg, with its damp climate, did not have the best effect on her.
Years of reign of Nicholas I (1825-1855)
The years of the reign of Emperor Nicholas I were marked by the prevention of any possible anti-state protests. He sincerely strived to do many good deeds for Russia, but did not know how to start this. He was not prepared for the role of an autocrat, so he did not receive a comprehensive education, did not like to read, and very early became addicted to drill, rifle techniques and stepping.
Outwardly handsome and tall, he became neither a great commander nor a great reformer. The pinnacle of his military leadership talents were parades on the Field of Mars and military maneuvers near Krasnoe Selo. Of course, the sovereign understood that the Russian Empire needed reforms, but most of all he was afraid of harming the autocracy and landownership.
However, this ruler can be called humane. During the entire 30 years of his reign, only 5 Decembrists were executed. There were no more executions in the Russian Empire. This cannot be said about other rulers, during whose times people were executed in thousands and hundreds. At the same time, a secret service was created to carry out political investigation. She got the name Third department of personal office. It was headed by A. K. Benkendorf.
One of the most important tasks was the fight against corruption. Under Emperor Nicholas I, regular audits began to be carried out at all levels. The trial of embezzled officials has become a common occurrence. At least 2 thousand people were tried every year. At the same time, the sovereign was quite objective about the fight against corrupt officials. He claimed that among high-ranking officials he was the only one who did not steal.
Silver ruble depicting Nicholas I and his family: wife and seven children
Any changes in foreign policy were denied. The revolutionary movement in Europe was perceived by the All-Russian autocrat as a personal insult. This is where his nicknames came from: “the gendarme of Europe” and “the tamer of revolutions.” Russia regularly interfered in the affairs of other nations. She sent a large army to Hungary to suppress the Hungarian revolution in 1849, and brutally dealt with the Polish uprising of 1830-1831.
During the reign of the autocrat, the Russian Empire took part in the Caucasian War of 1817-1864, the Russian-Persian War of 1826-1828, and the Russian-Turkish War of 1828-1829. But the most important was the Crimean War of 1853-1856. Emperor Nicholas I himself considered it the main event of his life.
The Crimean War began with hostilities with Turkey. In 1853, the Turks suffered a crushing defeat in the naval battle of Sinop. After this, the French and British came to their aid. In 1854, they landed a strong landing in the Crimea, defeated the Russian army and besieged the city of Sevastopol. He bravely defended himself for almost a whole year, but eventually surrendered to the Allied forces.
Defense of Sevastopol during the Crimean War
Death of the Emperor
Emperor Nicholas I died on February 18, 1855 at the age of 58 in the Winter Palace of St. Petersburg. The cause of death was pneumonia. The Emperor, suffering from the flu, attended the parade, which aggravated the cold. Before his death, he said goodbye to his wife, children, grandchildren, blessed them and bequeathed them to be friends with each other.
There is a version that the All-Russian autocrat was deeply worried about the defeat of Russia in the Crimean War, and therefore took poison. However, most historians are of the opinion that this version is false and implausible. Contemporaries characterized Nicholas I as a deeply religious man, and the Orthodox Church always equated suicide with a terrible sin. Therefore, there is no doubt that the sovereign died from illness, but not from poison. The autocrat was buried in the Peter and Paul Cathedral, and his son Alexander II ascended the throne.
Leonid Druzhnikov
The personality of Emperor Nicholas I is very controversial. Thirty years of rule are a series of paradoxical phenomena:
- unprecedented cultural flourishing and manic censorship;
- total political control and prosperity of corruption;
- the rise of industrial production and economic backwardness from European countries;
- control over the army and its powerlessness.
The statements of contemporaries and real historical facts also cause a lot of contradictions, so it is difficult to objectively assess
Childhood of Nicholas I
Nikolai Pavlovich was born on June 25, 1796 and became the third son of the imperial Romanov couple. Very little Nikolai was raised by Baroness Charlotte Karlovna von Lieven, to whom he became very attached and adopted from her some character traits, such as strength of character, perseverance, heroism, and openness. It was then that his passion for military affairs already manifested itself. Nikolai loved watching military parades, divorces, and playing with military toys. And already at the age of three he put on his first military uniform of the Life Guards Horse Regiment.
He suffered his very first shock at the age of four, when his father, Emperor Pavel Petrovich, died. Since then, the responsibility of raising the heirs fell on the shoulders of the widow Maria Feodorovna.
Mentor of Nikolai Pavlovich
Lieutenant General Matvey Ivanovich Lamzdorf, the former director of the gentry (first) cadet corps under Emperor Paul, was appointed Nikolai's mentor from 1801 and over the next seventeen years. Lamzdorf did not have the slightest idea about the methods of educating royalty - future rulers - and about any educational activities in general. His appointment was justified by the desire of Empress Maria Feodorovna to protect her sons from getting carried away with military affairs, and this was Lamzdorf’s main goal. But instead of interesting the princes in other activities, he went against all their wishes. For example, accompanying the young princes on their trip to France in 1814, where they were eager to participate in military operations against Napoleon, Lamzdorf deliberately drove them very slowly, and the princes arrived in Paris when the battle was already over. Due to incorrectly chosen tactics, Lamzdorf’s educational activities did not achieve their goal. When Nicholas I got married, Lamzdorf was relieved of his duties as a mentor.
Hobbies
The Grand Duke diligently and passionately studied all the intricacies of military science. In 1812, he was eager to go to war with Napoleon, but his mother did not let him. In addition, the future emperor was interested in engineering, fortification, and architecture. But Nikolai did not like the humanities and was careless about their study. Subsequently, he greatly regretted this and even tried to fill in the gaps in his training. But he never managed to do this.
Nikolai Pavlovich was fond of painting, played the flute, and loved opera and ballet. He had good artistic taste.
The future emperor had a beautiful appearance. Nicholas 1 is 205 cm tall, thin, broad-shouldered. The face is slightly elongated, the eyes are blue, and there is always a stern look. Nikolai had excellent physical fitness and good health.
Marriage
The elder brother Alexander I, having visited Silesia in 1813, chose a bride for Nicholas - the daughter of the King of Prussia, Charlotte. This marriage was supposed to strengthen Russian-Prussian relations in the fight against Napoleon, but unexpectedly for everyone, the young people sincerely fell in love with each other. On July 1, 1817 they got married. Charlotte of Prussia in Orthodoxy became Alexandra Feodorovna. The marriage turned out to be happy and had many children. The Empress bore Nicholas seven children.
After the wedding, Nicholas 1, whose biography and interesting facts are presented to your attention in the article, began to command a guards division, and also took up the duties of inspector general for engineering.
While doing what he loved, the Grand Duke took his responsibilities very seriously. He opened company and battalion schools under the engineering troops. In 1819, the Main Engineering School (now the Nikolaev Engineering Academy) was founded. Thanks to his excellent memory for faces, which allows him to remember even ordinary soldiers, Nikolai won respect in the army.
Death of Alexander 1
In 1820, Alexander announced to Nicholas and his wife that Konstantin Pavlovich, the next heir to the throne, intended to renounce his right due to childlessness, divorce and remarriage, and Nicholas should become the next emperor. In this regard, Alexander signed a manifesto approving the abdication of Konstantin Pavlovich and the appointment of Nikolai Pavlovich as heir to the throne. Alexander, as if sensing his imminent death, bequeathed the document to be read out immediately after his death. On November 19, 1825, Alexander I died. Nicholas, despite the manifesto, was the first to swear allegiance to Prince Constantine. It was a very noble and honest act. After a period of uncertainty, when Constantine did not officially abdicate the throne, but also refused to take the oath. The growth of Nicholas 1 was rapid. He decided to become the next emperor.
Bloody start to reign
On December 14, on the day of the oath of Nicholas I, an uprising (called the Decembrist uprising) was organized, aimed at overthrowing the autocracy. The uprising was suppressed, the surviving participants were sent into exile, and five were executed. The emperor's first impulse was to pardon everyone, but the fear of a palace coup forced him to organize a trial to the fullest extent of the law. And yet Nikolai acted generously with those who wanted to kill him and his entire family. There are even confirmed facts that the wives of the Decembrists received monetary compensation, and children born in Siberia could study in the best educational institutions at the expense of the state.
This event influenced the course of the further reign of Nicholas 1. All his activities were aimed at preserving autocracy.
Domestic policy
The reign of Nicholas 1 began when he was 29 years old. Accuracy and exactingness, responsibility, struggle for justice, combined with high efficiency were the striking qualities of the emperor. His character was influenced by his years in the army. He led a rather ascetic lifestyle: he slept on a hard bed, covered with an overcoat, observed moderation in food, did not drink alcohol and did not smoke. Nikolai worked 18 hours a day. He was very demanding, first of all, of himself. He considered the preservation of autocracy his duty, and all his political activities served this goal.
Russia under Nicholas 1 underwent the following changes:
- Centralization of power and creation of a bureaucratic management apparatus. The emperor only wanted order, control and accountability, but in essence it turned out that the number of official posts increased significantly and along with them the number and size of bribes increased. Nikolai himself understood this and told his eldest son that in Russia only the two of them did not steal.
- The solution to the issue of serfs. Thanks to a series of reforms, the number of serfs decreased significantly (from 58% to 35% over approximately 45 years), and they acquired rights, the protection of which was controlled by the state. The complete abolition of serfdom did not happen, but the reform served as a starting point in this matter. Also at this time, an education system for peasants began to take shape.
- The emperor paid special attention to order in the army. Contemporaries criticized him for paying too close attention to the troops, while he was of little interest to the morale of the army. Frequent checks, inspections, and punishments for the slightest mistakes distracted soldiers from their main tasks and made them weak. But was it really so? During the reign of Emperor Nicholas 1, Russia fought with Persia and Turkey in 1826-1829, and in Crimea in 1853-1856. Russia won the wars with Persia and Turkey. The Crimean War led to Russia's loss of influence in the Balkans. But historians cite the reason for the defeat of the Russians as the economic backwardness of Russia compared to the enemy, including the existence of serfdom. But a comparison of human losses in the Crimean War with other similar wars shows that they are less. This proves that the army under the leadership of Nicholas I was powerful and highly organized.
Economic development
Emperor Nicholas 1 inherited a Russia deprived of industry. All production items were imported. By the end of the reign of Nicholas 1, economic growth was noticeable. Many types of production necessary for the country already existed in Russia. Under his leadership, the construction of paved roads and railways began. In connection with the development of railway transport, the machine-building industry, including car-building, began to develop. An interesting fact is that Nicholas I decided to build wider railways (1524 mm) than in European countries (1435 mm) in order to make it difficult for the enemy to move around the country in case of war. And it was very wise. It was this trick that prevented the Germans from supplying full ammunition during their attack on Moscow in 1941.
In connection with growing industrialization, intensive urban growth began. During the reign of Emperor Nicholas I, the urban population more than doubled. Thanks to the engineering education received in his youth, Nikolai 1 Romanov oversaw the construction of all major facilities in St. Petersburg. His idea was not to exceed the height of the Winter Palace cornice for all buildings in the city. As a result, St. Petersburg became one of the most beautiful cities in the world.
Under Nicholas 1, growth in the educational sphere was also noticeable. Many educational institutions were opened. These include the famous Kiev University and St. Petersburg Institute of Technology, military and naval academies, a number of schools, etc.
The rise of culture
The 19th century was a real flowering of literary creativity. Pushkin and Lermontov, Tyutchev, Ostrovsky, Turgenev, Derzhavin and other writers and poets of this era were incredibly talented. At the same time, Nicholas 1 Romanov introduced the most severe censorship, reaching the point of absurdity. Therefore, literary geniuses periodically experienced persecution.
Foreign policy
Foreign policy during the reign of Nicholas I included two main directions:
- Return to the principles of the Holy Alliance, suppression of revolutions and any revolutionary ideas in Europe.
- Strengthening influence in the Balkans for free navigation in and Bosporus.
These factors became the cause of the Russian-Turkish, Russian-Persian and Crimean wars. The defeat in the Crimean War led to the loss of all previously won positions in the Black Sea and the Balkans and provoked an industrial crisis in Russia.
Death of the Emperor
Nicholas 1 died on March 2, 1855 (58 years old) from pneumonia. He was buried in the Cathedral of the Peter and Paul Fortress.
And finally...
The reign of Nicholas I undoubtedly left a tangible mark on both the economy and cultural life of Russia, however, it did not lead to any epochal changes in the country. The following factors forced the emperor to slow down progress and follow the conservative principles of autocracy:
- moral unpreparedness to govern the country;
- lack of education;
- fear of overthrow due to the events of December 14;
- a feeling of loneliness (conspiracies against father Paul, brother Alexander, abdication of the throne by brother Constantine).
Therefore, none of the subjects regretted the death of the emperor. Contemporaries more often condemned the personal characteristics of Nicholas 1, he was criticized as a politician and as a person, but historical facts speak of the emperor as a noble man who completely devoted himself to serving Russia.
The reign of Nicholas 1 lasted from December 14, 1825 to February 1855. This emperor has an amazing fate, but it is noteworthy that the beginning and end of his reign are characterized by important political events in the country. Thus, Nicholas’s rise to power was marked by the Decembrist uprising, and the death of the emperor occurred during the days of the defense of Sevastopol.
Beginning of reign
Speaking about the personality of Nicholas 1, it is important to understand that initially no one prepared this man for the role of Emperor of Russia. This was the third son of Paul 1 (Alexander - the eldest, Konstantin - the middle and Nikolai - the youngest). Alexander the First died on December 1, 1825, leaving no heir. Therefore, according to the laws of that time, power came to the middle son of Paul 1 - Constantine. And on December 1, the Russian government swore allegiance to him. Nicholas himself also took the oath of allegiance. The problem was that Constantine was married to a woman of no noble family, lived in Poland and did not aspire to the throne. Therefore, he transferred authority to manage to Nicholas the First. Nevertheless, 2 weeks passed between these events, during which Russia was virtually without power.
It is necessary to note the main features of the reign of Nicholas 1, which were characteristic of his character traits:
- Military education. It is known that Nikolai poorly mastered any science except military science. His teachers were military men and almost everyone around him were former military personnel. It is in this that one must look for the origins of the fact that Nicholas 1 said “In Russia everyone must serve,” as well as his love for the uniform, which he forced everyone, without exception, in the country to wear.
- Decembrist revolt. The first day of power of the new emperor was marked by a major uprising. This showed the main threat that liberal ideas posed to Russia. Therefore, the main task of his reign was precisely the fight against the revolution.
- Lack of communication with Western countries. If we consider the history of Russia, starting from the era of Peter the Great, then foreign languages were always spoken at court: Dutch, English, French, German. Nicholas 1 stopped this. Now all conversations were conducted exclusively in Russian, people wore traditional Russian clothes, and traditional Russian values and traditions were promoted.
Many history textbooks say that the Nicholas era was characterized by reactionary rule. Nevertheless, governing the country in those conditions was very difficult, since all of Europe was literally mired in revolutions, the focus of which could shift towards Russia. And this had to be fought. The second important point is the need to resolve the peasant issue, where the emperor himself advocated the abolition of serfdom.
Changes within the country
Nicholas 1 was a military man, so his reign was associated with attempts to transfer army orders and customs to everyday life and government of the country.
There is clear order and subordination in the army. The laws apply here and there are no contradictions. Everything here is clear and understandable: some command, others obey. And all this to achieve a single goal. This is why I feel so comfortable among these people.
Nicholas the First
This phrase best emphasizes what the emperor saw in order. And it was precisely this order that he sought to introduce into all government bodies. First of all, in the Nicholas era there was a strengthening of police and bureaucratic power. According to the emperor, this was necessary to fight the revolution.
On July 3, 1826, the III Department was created, which performed the functions of the highest police. In fact, this body kept order in the country. This fact is interesting because it significantly expands the powers of ordinary police officers, giving them almost unlimited power. The third department consisted of about 6,000 people, which was a huge number at that time. They studied the public mood, observed foreign citizens and organizations in Russia, collected statistics, checked all private letters, and so on. During the second stage of the emperor's reign, Section 3 further expanded its powers, creating a network of agents to work abroad.
Systematization of laws
Even in the era of Alexander, attempts to systematize laws began in Russia. This was extremely necessary, since there were a huge number of laws, many of them contradicted each other, many were only in a handwritten version in the archive, and the laws had been in force since 1649. Therefore, before the Nicholas era, judges were no longer guided by the letter of the law, but rather by general orders and worldview. To solve this problem, Nicholas 1 decided to turn to Speransky, who was given the authority to systematize the laws of the Russian Empire.
Speransky proposed carrying out all the work in three stages:
- Collect in chronological order all the laws issued from 1649 until the end of the reign of Alexander 1.
- Publish a set of laws currently in force in the empire. This is not about changes in laws, but about considering which of the old laws can be repealed and which cannot.
- The creation of a new “Code”, which was supposed to amend the current legislation in accordance with the current needs of the state.
Nicholas 1 was a terrible opponent of innovation (the only exception was the army). Therefore, he allowed the first two stages to take place and categorically prohibited the third.
The work of the commission began in 1828, and in 1832 the 15-volume Code of Laws of the Russian Empire was published. It was the codification of laws during the reign of Nicholas 1 that played a huge role in the formation of Russian absolutism. In fact, the country has not changed radically, but has received real structures for quality management.
Policy regarding education and enlightenment
Nicholas believed that the events of December 14, 1825 were connected with the educational system that was built under Alexander. Therefore, one of the first orders of the emperor in his post happened on August 18, 1827, in which Nicholas demanded that the charters of all educational institutions in the country be revised. As a result of this revision, any peasants were prohibited from entering higher educational institutions, philosophy as a science was abolished, and supervision of private educational institutions was strengthened. This work was supervised by Shishkov, who holds the position of Minister of Public Education. Nicholas 1 absolutely trusted this man, since their basic views converged. At the same time, it is enough to consider just one phrase from Shishkov to understand what the essence was behind the education system of that time.
Sciences are like salt. They are useful and can only be enjoyed if given in moderation. People should be taught only the kind of literacy that corresponds to their position in society. Educating all people without exception will undoubtedly do more harm than good.
A.S. Shishkov
The result of this stage of government is the creation of 3 types of educational institutions:
- For the lower classes, single-class education was introduced, based on parish schools. People were taught only 4 operations of arithmetic (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division), reading, writing, and the laws of God.
- For the middle classes (merchants, townspeople, and so on) three-year education. Additional subjects included geometry, geography and history.
- For the upper classes, seven-year education was introduced, the receipt of which guaranteed the right to enter universities.
The solution to the peasant question
Nicholas 1 often said that the main task of his reign was the abolition of serfdom. However, he was unable to directly solve this problem. It is important to understand here that the emperor was faced with his own elite, who were categorically against this. The issue of the abolition of serfdom was extremely complex and extremely acute. One only has to look at the peasant uprisings of the 19th century to understand that they occurred literally every decade, and their strength increased each time. Here, for example, is what the head of the third department said.
Serfdom is a powder charge under the building of the Russian Empire.
OH. Benckendorf
Nicholas the First himself also understood the significance of this problem.
It is better to start changes on your own, gradually, carefully. We need to start at least with something, because otherwise, we will wait for changes to come from the people themselves.
Nikolay 1
A secret committee was created to solve peasant problems. In total, in the Nicholas era, 9 secret committees met on this issue. The greatest changes affected exclusively the state peasants, and these changes were superficial and insignificant. The main problem of giving peasants their own land and the right to work for themselves has not been resolved. In total, during the reign and work of 9 secret committees, the following problems of the peasants were resolved:
- Peasants were forbidden to sell
- It was forbidden to separate families
- Peasants were allowed to buy real estate
- It was forbidden to send old people to Siberia
In total, during the reign of Nicholas 1, about 100 decrees were adopted that related to the solution of the peasant issue. It is here that one must look for the basis that led to the events of 1861 and the abolition of serfdom.
Relations with other countries
Emperor Nicholas 1 sacredly honored the “Holy Alliance,” an agreement signed by Alexander 1 on Russian assistance to countries where uprisings began. Russia was the European gendarme. In essence, the implementation of the “Holy Alliance” did not give Russia anything. The Russians solved the problems of the Europeans and returned home with nothing. In July 1830, the Russian army was preparing to march to France, where the revolution took place, but events in Poland disrupted this campaign. A major uprising broke out in Poland, led by Czartoryski. Nicholas 1 appointed Count Paskevich as commander of the army for the campaign against Poland, who defeated the Polish troops in September 1831. The uprising was suppressed, and the autonomy of Poland itself became almost formal.
In the period from 1826 – 1828. During the reign of Nicholas I, Russia was drawn into a war with Iran. Her reasons were that Iran was dissatisfied with the peace of 1813 when they lost part of their territory. Therefore, Iran decided to take advantage of the uprising in Russia to regain what it had lost. The war began suddenly for Russia, however, by the end of 1826, Russian troops completely expelled the Iranians from their territory, and in 1827 the Russian army went on the offensive. Iran was defeated, the existence of the country was under threat. The Russian army cleared its way to Tehran. In 1828, Iran offered peace. Russia received the khanates of Nakhichevan and Yerevan. Iran also pledged to pay Russia 20 million rubles. The war was successful for Russia; access to the Caspian Sea was won.
As soon as the war with Iran ended, the war with Turkey began. The Ottoman Empire, like Iran, wanted to take advantage of the visible weakness of Russia and regain some of the previously lost lands. As a result, the Russian-Turkish War began in 1828. It lasted until September 2, 1829, when the Treaty of Adrianople was signed. The Turks suffered a brutal defeat that cost them their position in the Balkans. In fact, with this war, Emperor Nicholas 1 achieved diplomatic submission to the Ottoman Empire.
In 1849, Europe was in revolutionary flames. Emperor Nicholas 1, fulfilling the allied dog, in 1849 sent an army to Hungary, where within a few weeks the Russian army unconditionally defeated the revolutionary forces of Hungary and Austria.
Emperor Nicholas 1 paid great attention to the fight against revolutionaries, keeping in mind the events of 1825. For this purpose, he created a special office, which was subordinate only to the emperor and conducted only activities against revolutionaries. Despite all the efforts of the emperor, revolutionary circles in Russia were actively developing.
The reign of Nicholas 1 ended in 1855, when Russia was drawn into a new war, the Crimean War, which ended sadly for our state. This war ended after the death of Nicholas, when the country was ruled by his son, Alexander 2.
Emperor of Russia Nicholas I
Emperor Nicholas I ruled Russia from 1825 to 1855. His activities are contradictory. On the one hand, he was an opponent of the liberal reforms that were the goal of the Decembrist movement, he implanted a conservative and bureaucratic way of action in Russia, created new repressive government bodies, tightened censorship, and abolished the freedoms of universities. On the other hand, under Nikolai, under the leadership of M. Speransky, work was completed on drawing up a new legislative code, a Ministry of State Property was created, whose activities were aimed at changing the situation of state peasants, secret commissions developed projects for the abolition of serfdom, there was an increase in industry, mainly light industry, along with With the bureaucracy and nobility, a new class of people began to emerge - the intelligentsia. During the time of Nicholas, Russian literature reached its peak: Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol, Nekrasov, Tyutchev, GoncharovYears of reign of Nicholas I 1825 - 1855
Nicholas set himself the task of not changing anything, not introducing anything new in the foundations, but only maintaining the existing order, filling in the gaps, repairing revealed dilapidations with the help of practical legislation, and doing all this without any participation from society, even with the suppression of social independence, by government means alone; but he did not remove from the queue those burning questions that had been raised during the previous reign, and, it seems, he understood their burning importance even more than his predecessor. So, a conservative and bureaucratic mode of action is the characteristic of the new reign; to support what exists with the help of officials - this is another way to describe this character. (V. O. Klyuchevsky “Course of Russian History”)
Brief biography of Nicholas I
- 1796, June 25 - birthday of Grand Duke Nikolai Pavlovich, the future Emperor Nicholas I.
- 1802 - beginning of systematic education
Nikolai was raised somehow, not at all according to Rousseau’s program, like his older brothers Alexander and Konstantin. He prepared himself for a very modest military career; he was not initiated into issues of higher politics, and was not allowed to participate in serious state affairs. Until the age of 18, he did not even have specific official occupations; only this year he was appointed director of the engineering corps and given his command of one guards brigade, therefore two regiments
- 1814, February 22 - acquaintance with the Prussian Princess Charlotte.
- 1816, May 9 - August 26 - educational trip around Russia.
- 1816, September 13 - 1817, April 27 - educational trip to Europe.
- 1817, July 1 - marriage to Princess Charlotte (named Alexandra Fedorovna at baptism into Orthodoxy).
- 1818, April 17 - birth of the first-born Alexander (future emperor)
- 1819, July 13 - Alexander I informed Nicholas that the throne would eventually pass to him due to Constantine’s reluctance to reign
- 1819, August 18 - birth of daughter Maria
- 1822, September 11 - birth of daughter Olga
- 1823, August 16 - secret manifesto of Alexander I, declaring Nicholas heir to the throne
- 1825, June 24 - birth of daughter Alexandra
- 1825, November 27 - Nicholas received news of the death of Alexander I in Taganrog on November 19
- 1825, December 12 - Nicholas signed the Manifesto on his accession to the throne
- 1825, December 14 - in St. Petersburg
- 1826, August 22 - coronation in Moscow
- 1827, September 21 - birth of son Konstantin
- 1829, May 12 - coronation in Warsaw as Polish constitutional monarch
- 1830, August - the beginning of the cholera epidemic in Central Russia
- 1830, September 29 - Nikolai arrived in cholera-ridden Moscow
- 1831, June 23 - Nicholas calmed the cholera riot on Sennaya Square in St. Petersburg
In the summer of 1831 in St. Petersburg, at the height of the cholera epidemic, rumors arose among the townspeople that the disease was brought in by foreign doctors who were spreading the infection in order to plague the Russian people. This madness reached its climax when a huge excited crowd found itself on Sennaya Square, where there was a temporary cholera hospital.
Having rushed inside, people broke glass in the windows, broke furniture, drove out hospital servants and beat local doctors to death. There is a legend that the crowd was calmed down by Nicholas, who reproached them with the words “It is a shame for the Russian people, having forgotten the faith of their fathers, to imitate the riot of the French and Poles.”
- 1831, August 8 - birth of son Nicholas
- 1832, October 25 - birth of son Mikhail
- 1843, September 8 - the birth of the first grandson of Nikolai Alexandrovich, the future heir to the throne.
- 1844, July 29 - death of his beloved daughter Alexandra
- 1855, February 18 - death of Emperor Nicholas I in the Winter Palace
Domestic policy of Nicholas I. Briefly
- In domestic policy, Nikolai was guided by the idea of “arranging private public relations so that a new state order could then be built on them” (Klyuchevsky). His main concern was the creation of a bureaucratic apparatus that would become the basis of the throne as opposed to the nobility, which lost its trust after December 14, 1825. As a result, the number of bureaucrats increased manifold, as well as the number of clerical cases.
At the beginning of his reign, the emperor was horrified to learn that he had carried out 2,800 thousand cases in all official places in the Department of Justice alone. In 1842, the Minister of Justice presented a report to the sovereign, which stated that in all official places of the empire, another 33 million cases, which were set out on at least 33 million written sheets, had not been cleared. (Klyuchevsky)
Directing the most important matters himself, entering into their consideration, the Emperor created His Majesty’s Own Office, with five departments, reflecting the range of affairs that the Emperor directly wanted to manage.
The first department prepared papers for the report to the emperor and monitored the execution of the highest commands; the second department was engaged in the codification of laws and was under control until his death in 1839; the third department was entrusted with the affairs of the high police under the control of the chief of gendarmes; the fourth department managed charitable educational institutions, the fifth department was created to prepare a new order of management and state property
Working for several years, this committee developed projects for the transformation of both central and provincial institutions, prepared a draft of a new law on estates, which envisaged improving the life of serfs. The law on estates was submitted to the State Council and approved by it, but was not promulgated due to the fact that the revolutionary movements of 1830 in the West instilled fear of any reform. Over time, only some of the measures from the projects of the “Committee of December 6, 1826” were implemented in the form of separate laws. But on the whole, the committee’s work remained without any success, and the reform designed by it did not
Under Nicholas I, cadet corps and military and naval academies, the Construction School in St. Petersburg, and the Survey Institute in Moscow were established; several women's institutes. The Main Pedagogical Institute for training teachers was reopened. Boarding houses with a gymnasium course were founded for the sons of nobles. The situation in male gymnasiums has been improved
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Orthodoxy - without love for the faith of their ancestors, the people will perish
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Autocracy - The main condition for the political existence of Russia
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Nationality - preserving the integrity of folk traditions
According to it, the management of universities passed to the trustees of educational districts subordinate to the Ministry of Public Education. The Council of Professors lost its independence in educational and scientific affairs. Rectors and deans began to be elected not annually, but for a four-year term. Rectors continued to be approved by the emperor, and deans by the minister; professor - trustee
Under the influence of the Ministry, “chambers” of state property began to operate in the provinces. They were in charge of state lands, forests and other property; they also observed the state peasants. These peasants were organized into special rural societies (of which there were almost 6,000); A volost was formed from several such rural communities. Both rural societies and volosts enjoyed self-government, had their own “assemblies”, elected “heads” and “elders” to manage volost and rural affairs, and special judges for the court.
The self-government of state-owned peasants subsequently served as a model for privately owned peasants in liberating them from serfdom. But Kiselev did not limit himself to concerns about the self-government of peasants. The Ministry of State Property carried out a number of measures to improve the economic life of the peasantry subordinate to it: the peasants were taught the best methods of farming and were provided with grain in lean years; those with little land were given land; started schools; gave tax benefits, etc.
— a fixed exchange rate for the silver ruble was introduced
— the circulation of endless banknotes that appeared in Russia from nowhere was destroyed
— a gold reserve of the treasury was created, which did not exist before
— the ruble exchange rate has become strong, the ruble has become a hard currency throughout Europe,
- So, during the reign of Nicholas the following were produced:
— arrangement of departments of “His Majesty’s own Office”;
— publication of the Code of Laws;
— financial reform
— measures to improve the life of peasants
— measures in the field of public education
Foreign policy of Nicholas I
Two directions of diplomacy of Nicholas I: the disintegration of Turkey for the sake of Russia's inheritance of the straits and its possessions in the Balkans; fight against any manifestations of revolution in Europe
The foreign policy of Nicholas the First, like any policy, was characterized by unprincipledness. On the one hand, the emperor strictly adhered to the principles of legitimism, always and in everything supporting the official authorities of states against dissidents: he broke off relations with France after the revolution of 1830, harshly suppressed the Polish liberation uprising, and took the side of Austria in its affairs with the rebellious Hungary
In 1833, an agreement was reached between Russia, Austria and Prussia, which entailed continuous Russian intervention in European affairs with the goal of “maintaining power wherever it exists, strengthening it where it weakens, and defending it where it is openly attacked.” »
On the other hand, when it seemed profitable, Nicholas launched a war against Turkey, protecting the Greek rebels, although he considered them rebels
Russian wars during the reign of Nicholas I
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War with Persia (1826-1828)
Ended with the Turkmanchay Peace Treaty, which confirmed the terms of the Gulistan Peace Treaty of 1813 (the annexation of Georgia and Dagestan to Russia) and recorded and recognized the transition to Russia of part of the Caspian coast and Eastern Armenia
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War with Turkey (1828-1829)
It ended with the Peace of Adrianople, according to which most of the eastern coast of the Black Sea and the Danube Delta, the Kartli-Kakheti Kingdom, Imereti, Mingrelia, Guria, the Erivan and Nakhichevan Khanates, Moldavia and Wallachia passed to Russia, Serbia was granted autonomy in the presence of Russian troops there
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Suppression of the Polish uprising (1830-1831)
As a result, the rights of the Kingdom of Poland were significantly curtailed, and the Kingdom of Poland became an indivisible part of the Russian state. The previously existing elements of Polish statehood (the Sejm, a separate Polish army, etc.) were abolished.
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Khiva campaign (1838-1840)
An attack by a detachment of the Separate Orenburg Corps of the Russian Army on the Khiva Khanate in order to stop the Khivan raids on Russian lands, freeing Russian prisoners in the Khiva Khanate, ensuring safe trade and exploring the Aral Sea. The campaign ended in failure
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2nd Khiva campaign (1847-1848)
Russia continued to pursue a policy of advancing deeper into Central Asia. In 1847-1848, Colonel Erofeev’s detachment occupied the Khiva fortifications of Dzhak-Khoja and Khoja-Niaz.
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War with Hungary (1849)
Military intervention in the Austro-Hungarian conflict. Suppression of the Hungarian liberation movement by the army of General Paskevich. Hungary remained part of the Austrian Empire
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