Lifetime of Nicholas 1. Nicholas the First: reign

This monument on St. Isaac's Square is so good that it has survived all the disasters of the past era. The Emperor, in the uniform of a guard officer, sits on a horse, which can be said to be dancing, rising on its hind legs and having no other support. It is unclear what makes her float in the air. Note that this unshakable instability does not bother the rider at all - he is cool and solemn. As Bryusov wrote,

Maintaining strict calm,

Intoxicated with strength and greatness,

Rules the restrained gallop of the horse.

This made the Bolsheviks’ project to replace the crown bearer with the “hero of the revolution” Budyonny ridiculous. In general, the monument caused them a lot of trouble. On the one hand, hatred of Nicholas the First forced the issue of overthrowing his equestrian statue in the center of Petrograd-Leningrad to be raised every now and then. On the other hand, the brilliant creation of Peter Klodt could not be touched without being branded as vandals.

I am inclined to be very critical of the reign of Emperor Nicholas I, which can hardly be called happy. It began with the Decembrist rebellion and ended with the defeat of Russia in the Crimean War. Entire libraries have been written about the dominance of the bureaucracy, spitzrutens, embezzlement during this reign. Much of this is true. The half-German-half-Russian system created by Peter the Great had already become quite worn out under Nicholas, but Nicholas was brought up by it. Without recognizing her in his soul, the king was forced to fight with himself all his life and, it seemed, was defeated.

Is it so?

hurray!”, wrote L. Kopelev, “some knelt down, women cried... “Our angel... God save you!”” Among others, this shocked Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol, who noted that readiness, risking life, to be with one’s people - “a trait that hardly any of the crown bearers showed.” In July of the following year, cholera reached extreme levels already in St. Petersburg, where up to five hundred people died a day. Rumors began to spread that the doctors were to blame for everything, contaminating the bread and water. Riots occurred and several doctors were killed. One day a huge crowd gathered on Sennaya Square. Having learned about this, the sovereign, accompanied by several people, rushed there. Entering the middle of the crowd, he, thanks to his height, visible from everywhere, called people to conscience and ended his speech with a thunderous roar: On knees! Ask the Almighty for forgiveness! Thousands of citizens, as one, fell to their knees. Almost a quarter of an hour ago these people were choking with rage, but suddenly everything became quiet and the words of prayer began to sound. On the way back, the king took off his outer clothing and burned it in the field so as not to infect his family and retinue. “Why are you telling all these fables!” - exclaims the reader who has managed to read a lot about the abuses of officials in the era of Nikolai Pavlovich. Alas, this happened too. Abuse In the mornings, the king prayed for a long time, kneeling, and never missed Sunday services. He slept on a narrow camp bed, on which a thin mattress was placed, and covered with an old officer's overcoat. The level of his personal consumption was slightly higher than that of Gogol’s Akaki Akakievich. Immediately after the coronation, food expenses for the royal family were reduced from 1,500 rubles a day to 25. Cutlets with mashed potatoes, cabbage soup, porridge, usually buckwheat - this is his traditional diet. More than three dishes were not allowed to be served. One day the head waiter could not resist and placed the most delicate trout dish in front of the king. “What is this - the fourth course? Eat it yourself,” the sovereign frowned. He rarely had dinner - he limited himself to tea. But embezzlement under Nicholas I did not decrease at all; many even thought it had increased. This is all the more amazing since the sovereign waged a thirty-year cruel war against this disaster. It should be noted the energy of provincial prosecutors: trials of embezzlers and bribe-takers have become commonplace. Thus, in 1853, 2,540 officials were on trial. It couldn't be any other way. The fight against the coming revolution forced the rules of the internal life of the empire to be tightened. However, the more zealously they fought against corruption, the more it spread. Later, the famous monarchist Ivan Solonevich tried to explain this phenomenon in relation to the Stalin era: “The more theft there was, the stronger the control apparatus should be. But the larger the control apparatus, the more theft: controllers also love herring.” The Marquis de Custine wrote well about these “herring lovers.” He was an enemy of Russia and understood little about it, but he still made one diagnosis correctly: “Russia is ruled by a class of officials... and often ruled against the will of the monarch... From the depths of their offices, these invisible despots, these pygmy tyrants oppress with impunity country. And, paradoxically, the All-Russian autocrat often notes that his power has limits. This limit is set for him by bureaucracy - a terrible force, because its abuse is called love of order.” Only the inspiration of the people can save the Fatherland in difficult moments, but the inspiration is sober and responsible. Otherwise, it degenerates into unrest and rebellion, putting the country on the brink of destruction. The Decembrist uprising poisoned the reign of Nikolai Pavlovich - a man by nature alien to any harshness. He is considered some kind of manic adherent of order. But order was a means, not an end, for the king. At the same time, his lack of managerial talent had dire consequences. The maid of honor Anna Fedorovna Tyutcheva testified that the emperor “spent 18 hours a day at work, worked until late at night, got up at dawn... did not sacrifice anything for pleasure and everything for the sake of duty and took on more labor and worries than the last day laborer from his subjects. He sincerely believed that he was able to see everything with his own eyes, regulate everything according to his own understanding, and transform everything with his own will.” As a result, “he only piled up a pile of colossal abuses around his uncontrolled power, all the more harmful because from the outside they were covered up by official legality, and neither public opinion nor private initiative had either the right to point out them or the opportunity to fight them.” The officials became remarkably adept at imitating their activities and deceived the sovereign at every step. As an intelligent person, he understood that something was wrong, but he could not change anything, he only laughed bitterly at the futility of many of his efforts. One day, while on the road, the emperor's carriage overturned. Nikolai Pavlovich, having broken his collarbone and left arm, walked seventeen miles to Chembar, one of the towns in the Penza province. Having barely recovered, he went to look at the local officials. They dressed in new uniforms and lined up according to seniority of ranks, with swords, and held triangular hats in their hands extended at the seams. Nicholas examined them, not without surprise, and said to the governor: I not only saw them all, but even know them very well! He was amazed: Excuse me, Your Majesty, but where could you see them? In a very funny comedy called "The Inspector General". To be fair, let’s say that in the United States of that era, embezzlement and bribery were no less widespread. But if in Russia this evil was more or less eradicated at the end of the 19th century, in America it flourished for several more decades. The difference was that American officials did not have such influence over the life of the country. The first after God From this bleak picture one can imagine that complete stagnation reigned in the economic life of the country under Nikolai Pavlovich. But no - it was during his reign that the industrial revolution took place, the number of enterprises and workers doubled, and the efficiency of their labor tripled. Serf labor in industry was prohibited. The volume of engineering production increased 33 times from 1830 to 1860. The first thousand miles of railway were laid, and for the first time in the history of Russia, construction of a paved highway began. "God punishes the proud" After forty years, the emperor’s health began to fail more and more. His legs hurt and became swollen, and in the spring of 1847 he began to experience severe dizziness. At the same time, it seemed that the sovereign’s illnesses were somehow inexplicably transmitted to the entire country. Two disasters darkened the last years of Nikolai Pavlovich's reign. The first of them - defeat in the Crimean War - was not long in coming. What was the source of the disaster? The fact is that the sovereign, following his older brother Alexander Pavlovich, perceived Russia as part of the European community of states, and the strongest militarily and the most mature ideologically. The idea was that only an unbreakable union of monarchies could resist revolution in Europe. The emperor was ready to intervene in European affairs at any moment. Of course, this caused general irritation, and they began to look at Russia as a cure more dangerous than the disease itself. It cannot be said that Nikolai Pavlovich exaggerated the danger of revolutionary sentiments in Europe. It was like a boiler, where the steam pressure was constantly increasing. But instead of learning to regulate it, Russia energetically plugged all the holes. This couldn't go on forever. On February 21, 1848, on Maslenitsa, a dispatch was received in St. Petersburg that a revolution had begun in France. After reading it, the shocked sovereign appeared at a ball in the Anichkov Palace. At the height of the fun, he entered the hall with a quick step, with papers in his hands, “uttering exclamations incomprehensible to the listeners about the coup in France and the flight of the king.” Most of all, the tsar feared that the example of the French would be followed in Germany. The idea was born to send a 300,000-strong army to the Rhine to eradicate the revolutionary infection. It was not without difficulty that the king was dissuaded from this. On March 14, a Manifesto followed, which expressed concern about “rebellion and anarchy spreading everywhere with impudence” and “insolence threatening Russia in its madness.” They expressed readiness to defend the honor of the Russian name and the inviolability of Russia's borders. It was the most important document of that era. Russia challenged the world revolution, theomachism and nihilism. The best people in the country greeted the Manifesto with enthusiasm, and the people started talking about the upcoming fight against the Antichrist. This is how F.I. Tyutchev responded to this event: “For a long time in Europe there have been only two real forces, two true powers: the Revolution and Russia. They have now come face to face, and tomorrow, perhaps, they will fight. There can be no contracts or transactions between one and the other. What is life for one is death for another. The entire political and religious future of mankind depends for many centuries on the outcome of the struggle that ensued between them, the greatest struggle the world has ever seen.” The greater the tragedy that darkened the position of the Russian Empire were the false steps that followed the Manifesto. We are talking about Hungarian events. For decades, the Hungarians dreamed of getting rid of Austrian rule, having suffered a lot from it. In 1848 they rebelled - 190 thousand people took up arms. By the spring of 1849, the Hungarians had learned to beat the Austrians, and the collapse of the Habsburg Empire became inevitable. But at that moment Russian troops came to the aid of Austria. The invasion of the Russian army was not only a military blow for the Hungarians, but also a moral one. After all, they dreamed that it would be the Russians who would free them, and they had every reason to hope for this. The Hungarians knew better than anyone how Austria treated its great eastern neighbor. Their military leader Gyorgy Klapka once exclaimed in a conversation with a Russian parliamentarian: “Emperor Nicholas destroyed us, but why? Do you really believe in Austria's gratitude? You saved her from complete destruction, and they will pay you for it; Believe me, we know them and are unable to believe a single word they say..." These were the bitter words of a man who understood perfectly well what he was saying. The Russian army saved Austria many times, but the country, which called itself the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation, had colossal ambitions, fueled by papal Rome. The help of the Orthodox insulted her all the more because Austria could not do without it. And, of course, at the first opportunity, Austria went over to the side of our enemies. This happened in 1854, after the attack of England and France on Russia. Instead of helping the savior, the Austrians began to threaten her with war. As a result, many Russian units had to be left to block the Danube. These were the troops that were so lacking in Crimea... The suppression of the Hungarian uprising became one of the saddest pages of our history. In Europe, the view of Russia as a police country has finally become firmly established. Russian Field Marshal Osten-Sacken said bitter words in despair: “The Emperor has become very proud. “What I did to Hungary awaits all of Europe,” he told me. I am sure that this campaign will destroy him... You will see that it will not be in vain. God punishes the proud." But it seems that it was not a matter of pride at all. Metropolitan Platon of Kiev, mourning Russian intervention in the Hungarian events (“after all, without this there would have been no Crimean War”), added that only the sovereign’s honesty was to blame. He did not know how to break his promises, even to such an addressee as Austria, whose ingratitude was well known. In any case, we defeated ourselves in Hungary. Death of the Emperor The misfortune for Emperor Nicholas was that he found the time of the collapse of his hopes. This was the cause of his death, which can hardly be called natural. Rather, it was death. He fell along with his sailors and soldiers, Kornilov and Nakhimov, because the tsar’s heart in the last year of his life was in Sevastopol, and not in St. Petersburg. There were many formal reasons for war. England feared that Russia might enter the Mediterranean; France hoped, with the help of war, to return to the ranks of the great powers. As a result, the British, French and Turkish armies landed in the Crimea as “advanced detachments of civilization.” Among the reasons that led us to defeat was terrible corruption: even regiment commanders sometimes did not hesitate to rob soldiers - what can we say about the rest... The appointment of Prince Menshikov as commander was extremely unsuccessful. When Saint Innocent of Kherson with the image of the Kasperovskaya Mother of God arrived at the location of our army retreating to Sevastopol, he said, turning to Menshikov: “Behold, the Queen of Heaven is coming to liberate and protect Sevastopol.” “You bothered the Queen of Heaven in vain, we can manage without Her,” answered the unlucky commander. How could he achieve victory without having the slightest spiritual connection with the army? Meanwhile, this was a man invested with the sovereign’s trust. To complete the picture, let's say that St. Innocent was under special suspicion. Officials called him a democrat because, like the sovereign, he defended the need to liberate the peasants. Once they asked: “They say, Eminence, you preach communism?” The Bishop calmly responded to this: “I never preached ‘take,’ but I always preached ‘give’.” The English fleet appeared near Kronstadt. The emperor looked at him for a long time through the chimney from the window of his palace in Alexandria. Changes in his appearance began to appear in the fall of 1854. He lost sleep and lost weight. At night I walked through the halls, waiting for news from Crimea. The news was bad: on some days, several thousand of our soldiers died... Having learned about the next defeat, the sovereign locked himself in his office and cried like a child. During morning prayer, he sometimes fell asleep on his knees in front of the images. At some point, the emperor caught the flu. The disease was not too dangerous, but it was as if he did not want to get better. In thirty-degree frost, despite the cough, I went to regiment reviews in a light raincoat. “In the evenings,” writes one of Nikolai Pavlovich’s biographers, “many saw his two-meter figure wandering alone along Nevsky Prospekt. It became clear to everyone around: the tsar, unable to bear the shame, decided to wear himself out in a similar way... The result was not long in coming: about a month after the onset of the illness, Nikolai was already in full swing ordering his funeral, wrote a will, listened to the death bill, last minute holding his son’s hand.” “Sashka, I’m giving you the command in bad order!” - Nikolai Pavlovich said to his son on his deathbed and, addressing all his sons, said: “Serve Russia. I wanted to take on all the difficult things, leaving a peaceful, well-ordered, happy kingdom. Providence judged otherwise. Now I’m going to pray for Russia and for you...” He died, according to A.F. Tyutcheva, in a small office on the ground floor of the Winter Palace, “lying across the room on a very simple iron bed... His head rested on a green leather pillow, and instead of a blanket, a soldier’s overcoat lay on him. It seemed that death overtook him among the deprivations of a military camp, and not in the luxury of a palace.” As ensign Efim Sukhonin of the Izmailovsky regiment wrote, the sad news caught the guardsmen on the march: “The memorial service was solemn. Officers and soldiers prayed on their knees and cried loudly.” Epilogue The horseman on St. Isaac's Square rests on a powerful pedestal with four female figures personifying Strength, Wisdom, Justice and Faith. The liberation of the peasants, the amazing judicial reform, all the good deeds of Alexander the Liberator were the embodiment of his father’s plans. Tied hand and foot by past and present, by the absence of comrades, Nikolai Pavlovich did what he had to do, in the hope that something would happen. He was the flesh of a country where, in addition to fools and bad roads, there are an innumerable number of other misfortunes. Therefore, it is wrong to evaluate it by comparing it with some mental ideal. The one walking ahead, especially if he is a warrior and not a confessor, is almost always the most exhausted person of all, his own and others’ blood dries on his uniform. The question is, is he driven by love for the Fatherland or ambition, does he lead the people in the name of God - or in his own name? One day - this was in 1845 - the tsar suddenly said, turning to a friend: “It’s soon been twenty years since I’ve been sitting in this wonderful place. Often there are such days that I, looking at the sky, say: why am I not there? I'm so tired..." No, Nikolai Pavlovich, it seems, did not lift a finger in his name - his service has been inspiring us with respect for a century and a half. Even the inscription on the monument under the state emblem was never knocked down: “To Nicholas I - Emperor of All Russia.” A very simple inscription - like everything connected with it.

Rise to power

After the childless Emperor Alexander the First, the Russian throne, by virtue of the laws on succession to the throne, was supposed to pass to his brother, Konstantin Pavlovich, who bore the title of Tsarevich. But back in 1819, Emperor Alexander, in a confidential conversation, informed his younger brother, Nikolai Pavlovich, that he would soon ascend the throne, since he decided to abdicate the throne and retire from the world, and his brother Constantine was also renouncing his rights to the throne. After this conversation, Grand Duke Nikolai Pavlovich began to diligently fill in the gaps in his education through reading. But, not having an official document about the renunciation of his brother, Grand Duke Constantine, from the rights to succession to the throne, Nikolai Pavlovich, having learned about the death of Alexander, was the first to take the oath to Emperor Constantine. But then, during an emergency meeting of the State Council, a sealed package was opened, placed there by Emperor Alexander the First back in 1823, with a handwritten inscription: “Keep until my demand, and in the event of my death, open before any other action, in an emergency meeting ". Similar sealed packages were also kept, just in case, in the synod, senate and Moscow Assumption Cathedral; their contents were unknown to anyone. The opened packages contained:

1) a letter from Tsarevich Konstantin Pavlovich to the late sovereign dated January 14, 1822 about the voluntary abdication of the Russian throne, with a request to approve such an intention with his imperial word and the consent of the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna;

2) the response of Alexander I dated February 2 of the same year about consent to the request of Konstantin Pavlovich both on his part and on the part of the Empress-Mother;

3) manifesto of August 16, 1823, confirming the right to the throne, on the occasion of the voluntary abdication of the Tsarevich, to Grand Duke Nikolai Pavlovich. But after opening and reading, Grand Duke Nikolai Pavlovich himself still refused to proclaim himself emperor until the final expression of the will of his elder brother. Constantine's confirmation of his previous abdication was received in St. Petersburg on December 12, and on the same day a manifesto followed on the accession to the throne of Emperor Nicholas I.

Governing body

From the very beginning of his reign, Nicholas I declared the need for reforms and created a “committee on December 6, 1826” to prepare changes. “His Majesty’s Own Office” began to play a major role in the state, which was constantly expanded by creating many branches.

Nicholas I instructed a special commission led by M.M. Speransky to develop a new Code of Laws of the Russian Empire. By 1833, two editions had been printed: “The Complete Collection of Laws of the Russian Empire,” starting from the Council Code of 1649 and until the last decree of Alexander I, and “The Code of Current Laws of the Russian Empire.” The codification of laws carried out under Nicholas I streamlined Russian legislation, facilitated legal practice, but did not bring changes to the political and social structure of Russia.

Emperor Nicholas I was an autocrat in spirit and an ardent opponent of the introduction of a constitution and liberal reforms in the country. In his opinion, society should live and act like a good army, regulated and by laws. The militarization of the state apparatus under the auspices of the monarch is a characteristic feature of the political regime of Nicholas I.

He was extremely suspicious of public opinion; literature, art, and education came under censorship, and measures were taken to limit the periodical press. Official propaganda began to extol unanimity in Russia as a national virtue. The idea “The people and the Tsar are one” was dominant in the education system in Russia under Nicholas I.

According to the “theory of official nationality” developed by S.S. Uvarov, Russia has its own path of development, does not need the influence of the West and should be isolated from the world community. The Russian Empire under Nicholas I received the name “gendarme of Europe” for protecting peace in European countries from revolutionary uprisings.

In social policy, Nicholas I focused on strengthening the class system. In order to protect the nobility from “clogging,” the “December 6 Committee” proposed establishing a procedure according to which nobility was acquired only by right of inheritance. And for service people to create new classes - “officials”, “eminent”, “honorary” citizens. In 1845, the emperor issued a “Decree on Majorates” (indivisibility of noble estates during inheritance).

Serfdom under Nicholas I enjoyed the support of the state, and the tsar signed a manifesto in which he stated that there would be no changes in the situation of serfs. But Nicholas I was not a supporter of serfdom and secretly prepared materials on the peasant issue in order to make matters easier for his followers.

The most important aspects of foreign policy during the reign of Nicholas I were the return to the principles of the Holy Alliance (Russia's struggle against revolutionary movements in Europe) and the Eastern Question. Russia under Nicholas I participated in the Caucasian War (1817-1864), the Russian-Persian War (1826-1828), the Russian-Turkish War (1828-1829), as a result of which Russia annexed the eastern part of Armenia , the entire Caucasus, received the eastern shore of the Black Sea.

During the reign of Nicholas I, the most memorable was the Crimean War of 1853-1856. Russia was forced to fight against Turkey, England, and France. During the siege of Sevastopol, Nicholas I was defeated in the war and lost the right to have a naval base on the Black Sea.

The unsuccessful war showed Russia's backwardness from advanced European countries and how unviable the conservative modernization of the empire turned out to be.

Nicholas I died on February 18, 1855. Summing up the reign of Nicholas I, historians call his era the most unfavorable in the history of Russia, starting with the Time of Troubles.



Nicholas I is not one of the favorites of Russian history. They said about this emperor: “There is a lot of the ensign in him and a little of Peter the Great.” Under Nicholas I, the country underwent an industrial revolution, and Russia in the West began to be called the “prison of nations.”

"Executioner of the Decembrists"

On the day of Nicholas's coronation - December 14, 1825 - the Decembrist uprising broke out in St. Petersburg. After the announcement of the manifesto on the monarch’s ascension to the throne, Alexander’s will and Constantine’s letter confirming the abdication, Nicholas declared: “After this, you answer me with your head for the peace of the capital, and as for me, if I am emperor for even one hour, I will show that I was he deserves it."

By evening, the new emperor had to make, perhaps, one of the most difficult decisions in his life: after negotiations and unsuccessful attempts to settle the matter peacefully, Nicholas decided on an extreme measure - buckshot. He tried to prevent the tragedy and motivated his refusal to use force with the question: “What do you want me to stain with the blood of my subjects on the first day of my reign?” They answered him: “Yes, if it is necessary to save the Empire.”
Even those who disliked the new emperor could not help but admit that “on December 14, he showed himself to be a ruler, influencing the crowd with personal courage and an aura of power.”

Industry reformer

If before 1831 the emperor still intended to carry out a number of reforms to strengthen the position of the autocracy, then the subsequent course of rule, which ended with the “gloomy seven years,” was marked by the spirit of extreme conservatism. After the defeat of the Decembrist uprising, Nicholas vowed that the revolution, which was on the threshold of Russia, would not penetrate the country “as long as the breath of life remained in me.” And he did everything to suppress the slightest manifestations of free thought, including tightening censorship and increasing government control over the educational system (School Charter of 1828 and University Charter of 1835).

The Nicholas era also marked positive developments. The new emperor inherited an industry whose condition was the worst in the entire imperial history. It’s amazing but true: he managed to turn it into a competitive industry through automation of production and large-scale use of civilian labor, paying special attention to these issues. From 1825 to 1860, 70% of paved roads were built, and in 1843, construction of the Nikolaev Railway began.

Censor

A new censorship charter, which prohibited the publication of any materials that undermined the authority of the existing monarchical system, was promulgated in 1826. It was popularly called “cast iron”, probably because it was impossible to find “loopholes” in it. Not only fiction, but also textbooks were subject to strict censorship.

An absurd case is widely known when an arithmetic textbook was banned for publication, in one of the problems of which a “suspicious” ellipsis between numbers was identified. Not only contemporary authors fell under the knife of the censors. The presiding censor Baturlin, for example, proposed excluding the following lines from the akathist of the Intercession of the Virgin Mary: “Rejoice, invisible taming of the cruel and bestial rulers.” Two years later, a slightly more loyal version of the “cast iron” charter was released, which limited the subjectivity of censors, but, in essence, did not differ from its predecessor.

Auditor

Another thing in Nikolai Pavlovich’s life was the fight against the eternal Russian problem - corruption. For the first time, audits began to be carried out at all levels under him. As Klyuchevsky wrote, the emperor himself often acted as an auditor: “It used to be that he would swoop into some government chamber, scare the officials and leave, letting everyone feel that he knew not only their affairs, but also their tricks.”

The fight against theft of state property and abuse was carried out both by the Ministry of Finance, headed by Yegor Kankrin, and by the Ministry of Justice, which, at the legislative level, monitored how zealously the governors were establishing order on the ground. Once, on behalf of the emperor, a list of governors who did not take bribes was compiled for him. In densely populated Russia, there were only two such people: the Kovno governor Radishchev and the Kiev Fundukley, to which the emperor remarked: “It’s understandable that Fundukley doesn’t take bribes, because he’s very rich, but if Radishchev doesn’t take them, it means he’s too honest.” " According to contemporaries, Nikolai Pavlovich “often turned a blind eye” to petty bribery, which had been established for a long time and was widespread. But the emperor punished seriously for serious “tricks”: in 1853, more than two and a half thousand officials appeared before the court.

Peasant question

The so-called “peasant question” also required radical measures - the emperor understood that the people expected a “better life” from him. Delay could lead to the “powder keg under the state” exploding. The emperor did a lot to make life easier for the peasants, strengthening the stability of the empire. A ban was established on the sale of peasants without land and with “fragmentation of the family,” and the right of landowners to exile peasants to Siberia was also limited. The decree on obligated peasants was subsequently used as the basis for the reform to abolish serfdom. Historians Rozhkov, Blum and Klyuchevsky pointed out that for the first time the number of serfs was reduced, the share of which was reduced, according to various estimates, to 35-45%. The life of the so-called state peasants also improved, who received their own land plots, as well as assistance in case of crop failure from auxiliary cash desks and bread stores open everywhere. The growth in the well-being of peasants made it possible to increase treasury revenues by 20%. For the first time, a program of mass education of the peasantry was implemented: by 1856, almost 2,000 new schools were opened, and the number of students from one and a half thousand people in 1838 grew to 111 thousand. According to the historian Zayonchkovsky, the subjects of Emperor Nicholas I could get the impression that “an era of reform has arrived in Russia.”

Legislator

Even Alexander I drew attention to the fact that the law is the same for everyone: “Since I allow myself to break the laws, who then will consider it the duty to observe them?” However, by the beginning of the 19th century, complete confusion reigned in the legislation, which often led to unrest and judicial abuse. Following his own directive not to change the existing order, Nikolai instructs Speransky to codify Russian laws: systematize and consolidate the legislative framework, without making changes to its content. Attempts to unify legislation were made before Nicholas, but still the only collection that covered all Russian law was the Council Code of 1649. As a result of painstaking work, a Complete Collection of Laws was compiled, then the “Code of Laws of the Russian” Empire was published, which included all current legislative acts. However, the codification itself, which Speransky planned to carry out at the third stage of work, namely to create a Code in which old norms would be supplemented with new ones, did not find support from the emperor.

Nicholas I was perhaps the first ruler of Russia to have a monstrous reputation in Europe. It was during his reign that the Russian Empire “earned” such epithets as “prison of nations”, “gendarme of Europe”, which stuck with our country for many decades. The reason for this was Nicholas's active participation in European politics. The years 1830-1840 became a time of revolutions in Europe; the monarch considered it his duty to resist “rebellious chaos.”

In 1830, Nicholas decided to send Polish troops as part of the Russian corps to suppress the revolution in France, which caused an uprising in Poland itself, part of which was part of the Russian Empire. The rebels outlawed the Romanov dynasty and formed a provisional government and self-defense forces. The uprising was supported by many European countries: leading British and French newspapers began persecuting Nicholas and Russia itself. However, the emperor harshly suppressed the uprising. In 1848, he sent troops to Hungary to help Austria suppress the Hungarian national liberation movement.

The emperor was forced to continue the protracted war in the Caucasus and enter into a new one - the Crimean one, which would significantly “tatter” the treasury (the deficit will be replenished only 14 years after the end of the war). Under the terms of the peace treaty in the Crimean War, Russia lost the Black Sea Fleet, although Sevastopol, Balaklava and a number of other Crimean cities were returned in exchange for the Kars fortress. The war gave impetus to economic and military reforms carried out after Nicholas I.
The Emperor, who had previously enjoyed excellent health, suddenly caught a cold at the beginning of 1855. He subordinated his life and the way of life of the “mechanism” entrusted to him to a simple regulation: “Order, strict, unconditional legality, no know-it-all and no contradiction, everything follows from one another; no one commands before he himself learns to obey; no one stands in front of another without legal justification; everyone obeys one specific goal, everything has its purpose.” He died with the words: “I’m handing over my team, unfortunately, not in the order I wanted, leaving a lot of trouble and worries.”

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:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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:

1. Return to the principles of the Holy Alliance, suppression of revolutions and any revolutionary ideas in Europe.
2. 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.

Date of publication or update 11/01/2017

To the table of contents: Rulers

Nicholas I Pavlovich Romanov
Years of life: 1796–1855
Russian Emperor (1825–1855). Tsar of Poland and Grand Duke of Finland.

From the Romanov dynasty.

Monument to Nicholas I in St. Petersburg.

In 1816, he made a three-month journey through European Russia, and from October 1816. until May 1817 Nicholas traveled and lived in England.

In 1817 Nikolai First Pavlovich married the eldest daughter of the Prussian king Frederick William II, Princess Charlotte Frederica-Louise, who took the name Alexandra Feodorovna in Orthodoxy.

In 1819, his brother Emperor Alexander I announced that the heir to the throne, Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich, wanted to renounce his right of succession to the throne, so Nicholas would become the heir as the next senior brother. Formally, Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich renounced his rights to the throne in 1823, since he had no children in a legal marriage and was married in a morganatic marriage to the Polish Countess Grudzinskaya.

On August 16, 1823, Alexander I signed a manifesto appointing his brother Nikolai Pavlovich as heir to the throne.

However Nikolai First Pavlovich refused to proclaim himself emperor until the final expression of the will of his elder brother. Nicholas refused to recognize Alexander's will, and on November 27 the entire population was sworn to Constantine, and Nicholas Pavlovich himself swore allegiance to Constantine I as emperor. But Konstantin Pavlovich did not accept the throne, and at the same time did not want to formally renounce it as emperor, to whom the oath had already been taken. An ambiguous and very tense interregnum was created, which lasted twenty-five days, until December 14.

Nicholas was married once in 1817 to Princess Charlotte of Prussia, daughter of Frederick William III, who received the name Alexandra Feodorovna after converting to Orthodoxy. They had children:

Alexander II (1818-1881)

Maria (08/06/1819-02/09/1876), was married to the Duke of Leuchtenberg and Count Stroganov.

Olga (08/30/1822 - 10/18/1892), was married to the King of Württemberg.

Alexandra (06/12/1825 - 07/29/1844), married to the Prince of Hesse-Kassel

Konstantin (1827-1892)

Nicholas (1831-1891)

Mikhail (1832-1909)

Nikolai led an ascetic and healthy lifestyle. He was a believing Orthodox Christian, he did not smoke and did not like smokers, did not drink strong drinks, walked a lot and did drill exercises with weapons. He was distinguished by his remarkable memory and great capacity for work. Archbishop Innocent wrote about him: “He was... such a crown-bearer, for whom the royal throne served not as a head to rest, but as an incentive to incessant work.” According to the memoirs of Her Imperial Majesty’s maid of honor, Mrs. Anna Tyutcheva, Emperor Nikolai Pavlovich’s favorite phrase was: “I work like a slave in the galleys.”

The king's love for justice and order was well known. He personally visited military formations, inspected fortifications, educational institutions, and government institutions. He always gave specific advice to correct the situation.

He had a pronounced ability to form a team of talented, creatively gifted people. The employees of Nicholas I Pavlovich were the Minister of Public Education Count S. S. Uvarov, the commander Field Marshal His Serene Highness Prince I. F. Paskevich, the Minister of Finance Count E. F. Kankrin, the Minister of State Property Count P. D. Kiselev and others.

Height Nicholas I Pavlovich was 205 cm.

All historians agree on one thing: Nikolai First Pavlovich was undoubtedly a prominent figure among the rulers-emperors of Russia.