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Nicholas I Pavlovich. Born June 25 (July 6), 1796 in Tsarskoye Selo - died February 18 (March 2), 1855 in St. Petersburg. Emperor of All Russia from December 14 (26), 1825, Tsar of Poland and Grand Duke of Finland. Main dates of the reign of Nicholas I: ♦ 1826 - Founding of the Third Department at the Imperial Chancellery - the secret police to monitor the state of minds in the state;
Mother - Empress Maria Feodorovna. Nicholas was the third son of Paul I and Maria Feodorovna. Born a few months before the accession of Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich to the throne. He was the last of the grandchildren born during her lifetime. The birth of Grand Duke Nikolai Pavlovich was announced in Tsarskoe Selo with cannon fire and bell ringing, and news was sent to St. Petersburg by messenger. He received a name unusual for the Romanov dynasty. The court historian M. Korf even specifically noted that the baby was given a name “unprecedented in our royal house.” In the imperial house of the Romanov dynasty, children were not named after Nikolai. There is no explanation for the naming of the name Nicholas in the sources, although Nicholas the Wonderworker was highly revered in Rus'. Perhaps Catherine II took into account the semantics of the name, which goes back to the Greek words “victory” and “people”. Odes were written for the birth of the Grand Duke, the author of one of them was G.R. Derzhavin. Name day - December 6 according to the Julian calendar (Nicholas the Wonderworker). According to the order established by Empress Catherine II, Grand Duke Nikolai Pavlovich from birth entered the care of the Empress, but the death of Catherine II, which soon followed, stopped her influence on the course of the Grand Duke’s upbringing. His nanny was the Livonian Charlotte Karlovna Lieven. She was Nikolai's only mentor for the first seven years. The boy sincerely became attached to his first teacher, and during early childhood, “the heroic, knightly noble, strong and open character of the nanny Charlotte Karlovna Lieven” left an imprint on his character. Since November 1800, General M.I. Lamzdorf became the teacher of Nikolai and Mikhail. The choice of General Lamzdorf for the post of educator of the Grand Duke was made by Emperor Paul I. Paul I indicated: “just don’t make my sons such rakes as German princes.” In the highest order dated November 23 (December 5), 1800, it was announced: “Lieutenant General Lamzdorf has been appointed to serve under His Imperial Highness Grand Duke Nikolai Pavlovich.” The general stayed with his pupil for 17 years. It is obvious that Lamzdorf fully satisfied Maria Fedorovna’s pedagogical requirements. So, in a parting letter in 1814, Maria Feodorovna called General Lamzdorf the “second father” of the Grand Dukes Nicholas and Mikhail. The death of his father, Paul I in March 1801, could not help but be imprinted in the memory of four-year-old Nicholas. Subsequently, he described what happened in his memoirs: “The events of this sad day remained in my memory as well as a vague dream; I was awakened and saw Countess Lieven in front of me. When I was dressed, we noticed through the window, on the drawbridge under the church, guards who had not been there the day before; the entire Semyonovsky regiment was here in an extremely careless appearance. None of us suspected that we had lost our father; we were taken down to my mother, and soon from there we went with her, my sisters, Mikhail and Countess Lieven to the Winter Palace. The guard went out into the courtyard of the Mikhailovsky Palace and saluted. My mother immediately silenced him. My mother was lying in the back of the room when Emperor Alexander entered, accompanied by Konstantin and Prince Nikolai Ivanovich Saltykov; he threw himself on his knees in front of mother, and I can still hear his sobs. They brought him water, and they took us away. It was happiness for us to see our rooms again and, I must tell the truth, our wooden horses, which we had forgotten there.” This was the first blow of fate dealt to him at a very tender age. From then on, the care of his upbringing and education was concentrated entirely and exclusively in the hands of the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna, out of a sense of delicacy for whom Emperor Alexander I refrained from any influence on the education of his younger brothers.
The greatest concerns of Empress Maria Feodorovna in the upbringing of Nikolai Pavlovich consisted of trying to divert him from his passion for military exercises, which was revealed in him from early childhood. The passion for the technical side of military affairs, instilled in Russia by Paul I, took deep and strong roots in the royal family - Alexander I, despite his liberalism, was an ardent supporter of the shift parade and all its subtleties, like Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich. The younger brothers were not inferior to the elders in this passion. From early childhood, Nikolai had a special passion for military toys and stories about military operations. The best reward for him was permission to go to a parade or divorce, where he watched everything that happened with special attention, dwelling even on the smallest details. Grand Duke Nikolai Pavlovich received a home education - teachers were assigned to him and his brother Mikhail. But Nikolai did not show much diligence in his studies. He did not recognize the humanities, but he was well versed in the art of war, was fond of fortification, and was familiar with engineering. Nikolai Pavlovich, having completed his course of education, was horrified by his ignorance and after the wedding tried to fill this gap, but the predominance of military activities and family life distracted him from constant desk work. “His mind is not cultivated, his upbringing was careless,” Queen Victoria wrote about Emperor Nicholas I in 1844. Nikolai Pavlovich’s passion for painting is known, which he studied in childhood under the guidance of the painter I. A. Akimov and the author of religious and historical compositions, Professor V. K. Shebuev. During the Patriotic War of 1812 and the subsequent military campaigns of the Russian army in Europe, Nicholas was eager to go to war, but was met with a decisive refusal from the Empress Mother. In 1813, the 17-year-old Grand Duke was taught strategy. At this time, from his sister Anna Pavlovna, with whom he was very friendly, Nicholas accidentally learned that Alexander I had visited Silesia, where he saw the family of the Prussian king, that Alexander liked his eldest daughter, Princess Charlotte, and that it was his intention that Nicholas I saw her sometime. Only at the beginning of 1814 did Emperor Alexander I allow his younger brothers to join the army abroad. On February 5 (17), 1814, Nikolai and Mikhail left St. Petersburg. On this trip they were accompanied by General Lamzdorf, cavaliers: I.F. Savrasov, A.P. Aledinsky and P.I. Arsenyev, Colonel Gianotti and Dr. Ruehl. After 17 days they reached Berlin, where 17-year-old Nicholas first saw the 16-year-old daughter of King Frederick William III of Prussia, Princess Charlotte.. Princess Charlotte - future wife of Nicholas I in childhood
After spending one day in Berlin, the travelers proceeded through Leipzig and Weimar, where they met with sister Maria Pavlovna. Then through Frankfurt am Main, Bruchsal, where Empress Elizabeth Alekseevna was then located, Rastatt, Freiburg and Basel. Near Basel, they first heard enemy shots, as the Austrians and Bavarians were besieging the nearby Güningen fortress. Then, through Altkirch, they entered France and reached the rear of the army in Vesoul. However, Alexander I ordered the brothers to return to Basel. Only when news arrived of the capture of Paris and the exile of Napoleon I to the island of Elba, the Grand Dukes received permission to arrive in Paris. On November 4 (16), 1815 in Berlin, during an official dinner, the engagement of Princess Charlotte and Tsarevich and Grand Duke Nikolai Pavlovich was announced. After the military campaigns of the Russian army in Europe, professors were invited to the Grand Duke, who were supposed to “read military science in as complete a manner as possible.” For this purpose, the famous engineering general Karl Opperman and, to help him, colonels Gianotti and Andrei Markevich were chosen. In 1815, military conversations between Nikolai Pavlovich and General Opperman began. Upon returning from his second campaign, starting in December 1815, Grand Duke Nikolai Pavlovich continued his studies with some of his former professors. Mikhail Balugyansky read “the science of finance”, Nikolai Akhverdov - Russian history (from the reign to the time of troubles). With Markevich, the Grand Duke was engaged in “military translations,” and with Gianotti, he was reading the works of Giraud and Lloyd about various campaigns of the wars of 1814 and 1815, as well as analyzing the project “on the expulsion of the Turks from Europe under certain given conditions.” At the beginning of 1816, the University of Abo of the Grand Duchy of Finland, following the example of the universities of Sweden, most submissively petitioned: “Will Alexander I, by royal grace, grant him a chancellor in the person of His Imperial Highness Grand Duke Nikolai Pavlovich.” According to the historian M.M. Borodkin, this idea belongs entirely to Tengström, the bishop of the Abo diocese, a supporter of Russia. Alexander I granted the request, and Grand Duke Nikolai Pavlovich was appointed chancellor of the university. His task was to respect the status of the university and the conformity of university life with the spirit and traditions. In memory of this event, the St. Petersburg Mint minted a bronze medal. Also in 1816 he was appointed chief of the horse-jaeger regiment. In the summer of 1816, Nikolai Pavlovich was supposed to complete his education by taking a trip around Russia to get acquainted with his fatherland in administrative, commercial and industrial relations. Upon returning, it was planned to make a trip to England. On this occasion, on behalf of Empress Maria Feodorovna, a special note was drawn up, which set out the main principles of the administrative system of provincial Russia, described the areas that the Grand Duke had to pass through in historical, everyday, industrial and geographical terms, indicating what exactly could constitute the subject of conversations between the Grand Duke and representatives of the provincial government, which should be paid attention to. Thanks to a trip to some provinces of Russia, Nikolai Pavlovich received a clear picture of the internal state and problems of his country, and in England he became acquainted with the experience of developing the socio-political system of the state. Nicholas's own political system of views was distinguished by a pronounced conservative, anti-liberal orientation. Nicholas I's height: 205 centimeters. Personal life of Nicholas I: On July 1 (13), 1817, the marriage of Grand Duke Nicholas with Grand Duchess Alexandra Feodorovna, who was called Princess Charlotte of Prussia before her conversion to Orthodoxy, took place. The wedding took place on the birthday of the young princess in the court church of the Winter Palace. A week before the wedding, on June 24 (6) July 1817, Charlotte converted to Orthodoxy and was given a new name - Alexandra Feodorovna, and upon her betrothal to Grand Duke Nicholas on June 25 (7) July 1817, she became known as the Grand Duchess with the title of Her Imperial Highnesses. The spouses were each other's fourth cousins (they had the same great-great-grandfather and great-great-grandmother). This marriage strengthened the political alliance between Russia and Prussia. Nicholas I and Alexandra Fedorovna had 7 children: ♦ son (1818-1881). 1st wife - Maria Alexandrovna; 2nd wife - Ekaterina Mikhailovna Dolgorukova; Alexandra Fedorovna - wife of Nicholas I
The maid of honor A.F. Tyutcheva, who lived at court for a long time, wrote in her memoirs: “Emperor Nicholas had for his wife, this fragile, irresponsible and graceful creature, a passionate and despotic adoration of a strong nature for a weak being, whose only ruler and legislator he feels. For him, it was a lovely bird, which he kept locked in a golden and jeweled cage, which he fed with nectar and ambrosia, lulled with melodies and scents, but whose wings he would not regret cutting if she wanted to escape from the gilded bars of her cage . But in her magical prison the bird did not even remember its wings.” Also had from 3 to 9 alleged illegitimate children. Nicholas I was in a relationship with his maid of honor Varvara Nelidova for 17 years. According to rumors, the relationship began when, after 7 births of the 34-year-old Empress Alexandra Feodorovna (1832), doctors forbade the emperor from having marital relations with her out of fear for her health. The emperor's relationship with Nelidova was kept in deep secrecy. Varvara Nelidova - mistress of Nicholas I
Decembrist revoltNikolai Pavlovich kept his personal diary irregularly; daily entries covered a short period from 1822 to 1825. The records were kept in French in very small handwriting with frequent abbreviations of words. His last entry was made on the eve of the Decembrist uprising. In 1820, Emperor Alexander I informed Nikolai Pavlovich and his wife that the heir to the throne, Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich, intended to renounce his right to the throne, so Nikolai, as the next senior brother, would become the heir. Nikolai himself was not at all happy about this prospect. In his memoirs, he wrote: “The Emperor left, but my wife and I remained in a situation that I can only liken to that feeling that, I believe, will amaze a person walking calmly along a pleasant road strewn with flowers and from which the most pleasant views open up everywhere, when suddenly an abyss opens up under his feet, into which an irresistible force plunges him, preventing him from retreating or turning back. This is a perfect picture of our terrible situation.” In 1823, Konstantin Pavlovich formally renounced his rights to the throne, since he had no children, was divorced and married for a second morganatic marriage to the Polish Countess Grudzinskaya. On August 16 (28), 1823, Alexander I signed a secretly compiled manifesto, approving the abdication of the Tsarevich and Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich and confirming the Heir to the Throne of the Grand Duke Nikolai Pavlovich. On all the packages with the text of the manifesto, Alexander I himself wrote: “Keep until my demand, and in the event of my death, disclose before any other action.” On November 19 (December 1), 1825, while in Taganrog, Emperor Alexander I died suddenly. In St. Petersburg, news of the death of Alexander I was received only on the morning of November 27 during a prayer service for the health of the emperor. Nicholas, the first of those present, swore allegiance to “Emperor Constantine I” and began to swear in the troops. Constantine himself was in Warsaw at that moment, being the de facto governor of the Kingdom of Poland. On the same day, the State Council met, where the contents of the 1823 Manifesto were heard. Finding themselves in an ambiguous position, when the Manifesto indicated one heir, and the oath was taken to another, the members of the Council turned to Nicholas. He refused to recognize the manifesto of Alexander I and refused to proclaim himself emperor until the final expression of the will of his elder brother. Despite the contents of the Manifesto handed over to him, Nicholas called on the Council to take the oath to Constantine “for the peace of the State.” Following this call, the State Council, Senate and Synod took an oath of allegiance to “Constantine I”. The next day, a decree was issued on a widespread oath to the new emperor. On November 30, the nobles of Moscow swore allegiance to Constantine. In St. Petersburg, the oath was postponed until December 14. Nevertheless, Konstantin refused to come to St. Petersburg and confirmed his abdication in private letters to Nikolai Pavlovich, and then sent rescripts to the Chairman of the State Council (December 3 (15), 1825) and the Minister of Justice (December 8 (20), 1825). Constantine did not accept the throne, and at the same time did not want to formally renounce it as an emperor, to whom the oath had already been taken. An ambiguous and extremely tense interregnum situation was created. Unable to convince his brother to take the throne and having received his final refusal (albeit without a formal act of abdication), Grand Duke Nikolai Pavlovich decided to accept the throne according to the will of Alexander I. On the evening of December 12 (24), 1825, M. M. Speransky drew up a Manifesto on the accession to the throne of Emperor Nicholas I. Nicholas signed it on December 13 in the morning. Attached to the Manifesto were a letter from Constantine to Alexander I dated January 14 (26), 1822, about refusal of inheritance, and a manifesto from Alexander I dated August 16 (28), 1823. The manifesto on the accession to the throne was announced by Nicholas at a meeting of the State Council at about 22:30 on December 13 (25). A separate point in the Manifesto stipulated that November 19, the day of the death of Alexander I, would be considered the time of accession to the throne, which was an attempt to legally close the gap in the continuity of autocratic power. A second oath was appointed, or, as they said in the troops, a “re-oath” - this time to Nicholas I. The re-oath in St. Petersburg was scheduled for December 14. On this day, a group of officers - members of a secret society - scheduled an uprising in order to prevent the troops and the Senate from taking the oath to the new tsar and preventing Nicholas I from ascending the throne. The main goal of the rebels was the liberalization of the Russian socio-political system: the establishment of a provisional government, the abolition of serfdom, equality of all before the law, democratic freedoms (press, confession, labor), the introduction of jury trials, the introduction of compulsory military service for all classes, the election of officials, abolition of the poll tax and change in the form of government to a constitutional monarchy or republic. The rebels decided to block the Senate, send there a revolutionary delegation consisting of Ryleev and Pushchin and present to the Senate a demand not to swear allegiance to Nicholas I, declare the tsarist government deposed and publish a revolutionary manifesto to the Russian people. However, the uprising was brutally suppressed on the same day. Despite the efforts of the Decembrists to carry out a coup d'etat, troops and government institutions were sworn in to the new emperor. Later, the surviving participants in the uprising were exiled, and five leaders were executed. “My dear Konstantin! Your will is fulfilled: I am the emperor, but at what cost, my God! At the cost of the blood of my subjects!” he wrote to his brother, Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich, on December 14. The highest manifesto, given on January 28 (February 9), 1826, with reference to the “Institution on the Imperial Family” on April 5 (16), 1797, decreed: “First, as the days of our life are in the hand of God: then in the event of OUR death, until the legal majority of the Heir, Grand Duke ALEXANDER NIKOLAEVICH, we determine the Ruler of the State and the inseparable Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Finland as OUR Most Dear Brother, Grand Duke MIKHAIL PAVLOVICH...” Crowned on August 22 (September 3), 1826 in Moscow - instead of June of the same year, as originally planned - due to mourning for the Dowager Empress Elizaveta Alekseevna, who died on May 4 in Belev. The coronation of Nicholas I and Empress Alexandra took place in the Assumption Cathedral of the Kremlin. On May 12 (24), 1829, in the Senatorial Hall of the Royal Castle, the coronation of Nicholas I to the Kingdom of Poland took place - a unique event in the history of Russia and Poland. Full title of Nicholas I as Emperor: “By the hastening grace of God, We are NICHOLAS the First, Emperor and Autocrat of All Russia, Moscow, Kiev, Vladimir, Novgorod, Tsar of Kazan, Tsar of Astrakhan, Tsar of Poland, Tsar of Siberia, Tsar of Chersonis-Tauride, Sovereign of Pskov and Grand Duke of Smolensk, Lithuania, Volyn, Podolsk and Finnish, Prince of Estland, Livland, Courland and Semigalsky, Samogitsky, Bialystok, Korelsky, Tver, Yugorsky, Perm, Vyatka, Bulgarian and others; Sovereign and Grand Duke of Novagorod Nizovsky lands, Chernihiv, Ryazan, Polotsk, Rostov, Yaroslavsky, Belozersky, Udorsky, Obdorsky, Kondian, Vitebsky, Mstislav and all north sides of the Ivraki, Kartalinsky, Georgia and Kabardinsky lands, and Armenian regions; Cherkasy and Mountain Princes and other Hereditary Sovereign and Possessor; Heir of Norway, Duke of Schleswig-Holstin, Stormarn, Dietmar and Oldenburg, and so on, and so on, and so on.” Reign of Nicholas IThe first steps of Nicholas I after the coronation were very liberal. The poet was returned from exile, and V. A. Zhukovsky, whose liberal views could not but be known to the emperor, was appointed the main teacher (“mentor”) of the heir. The Emperor closely followed the trial of the participants in the December speech and gave instructions to compile a summary of their critical comments towards the state administration. Despite the fact that attempts on the life of the tsar, according to existing laws, were punishable by quartering, he replaced this execution with hanging. The Ministry of State Property was headed by the hero of 1812, Count P. D. Kiselyov, a monarchist by conviction, but an opponent of serfdom. The future Decembrists Pestel, Basargin and Burtsov served under his command. Kiselyov's name was presented to Nicholas I on the list of conspirators in connection with the uprising case. But, despite this, Kiselev, known for the impeccability of his moral rules and his talent as an organizer, made a career under Nicholas I as the governor of Moldavia and Wallachia and took an active part in preparing the abolition of serfdom. Some contemporaries wrote about his despotism. At the same time, as historians point out, the execution of five Decembrists was the only execution during the entire 30 years of the reign of Nicholas I, while, for example, under Peter I and Catherine II executions numbered in the thousands, and under Alexander II - in the hundreds. However, it should be noted that more than 40,000 people died during the suppression of the Polish uprising. It is also noted that under Nicholas I, torture was not used against political prisoners. Even historians critical of Nicholas I do not mention any violence during the investigation into the case of the Decembrists (in which 579 people were brought in as suspects) and the Petrashevites (232 people). Nevertheless, in October 1827, on a report about the secret passage of two Jews across the river. Rod in violation of quarantine, which noted that only the death penalty for quarantine violations can stop them, Nikolai wrote: “The perpetrators will be driven through a thousand people 12 times. Thank God, we never had the death penalty, and it’s not for me to introduce it.” The most important direction of domestic policy was the centralization of power. To carry out the tasks of political investigation, a permanent body was created in July 1826 - the Third Department of the Personal Chancellery - a secret service with significant powers, the head of which (since 1827) was also the chief of the gendarmes. The third department was headed by A. F. Orlov, who became one of the symbols of the era, and after his death (1844). On December 6 (18), 1826, the first of the secret committees was created, the task of which was, firstly, to consider the papers sealed in the office of Alexander I after his death, and, secondly, to consider the issue of possible transformations of the state apparatus.
Under Nicholas I, the Polish uprising of 1830-1831 was suppressed, during which Nicholas I was declared dethroned by the rebels (Decree on the dethronement of Nicholas I). After the suppression of the uprising, the Kingdom of Poland lost its independence, the Sejm and the army and was divided into provinces. Some authors call Nicholas I a “knight of autocracy”: he firmly defended its foundations and suppressed attempts to change the existing system, despite the revolutions in Europe. After the suppression of the Decembrist uprising, he launched large-scale measures in the country to eradicate the “revolutionary infection”. During the reign of Nicholas I, persecution of the Old Believers resumed, and the Uniates of Belarus and Volyn were reunited with Orthodoxy (1839). In the Volga region, forced Russification of local peoples was carried out on a large scale. Russification was accompanied by administrative and economic coercion and spiritual oppression of the non-Russian population of the Volga region. Emperor Nicholas I paid a lot of attention to the army. The introduction of strict discipline in the army in the first years of the reign of Nicholas I, which was maintained subsequently, was associated with the extreme licentiousness that reigned in the Russian army in the last decade of the reign of Alexander I (after the end of the war with Napoleon). Officers often wore tailcoats rather than military uniforms, even during exercises, wearing an overcoat on top. In the Semenovsky regiment, soldiers were engaged in crafts and trade, and the proceeds were handed over to the company commander. “Private” military formations appeared. Thus, Mamonov, one of the richest men in Russia, formed his own cavalry regiment, which he himself commanded, while expressing extreme anti-monarchist views and calling the Tsar (Alexander I) “a brute.” Under Nicholas I, army “democracy,” bordering on anarchy, was curtailed and strict discipline was restored. Drill training was considered the basis of military training. During the Eastern War, it often happened that for the construction of a minor field fortification, a sapper non-commissioned officer supervised the construction work, since the infantry officer (or even a sapper who graduated from the cadet corps, and not the Mikhailovsky or Engineering School) had no idea about the basics of field fortification. In this situation, “the sapper non-commissioned officer directed the work, the infantry soldiers were the labor force, and their officers were his overseers.” There was a similar attitude towards shooting. At the height of the Crimean War, due to a significant loss of officers at the front, one of the emperor’s orders was to introduce drill training in civilian gymnasiums and higher military sciences (fortification and artillery) in universities. Thus, Nicholas I can be considered the founder of basic military training in Russia. One of Nikolai Pavlovich’s greatest achievements can be considered the codification of law. Involved by the tsar in this work, M. M. Speransky performed a titanic work, thanks to which the Code of Laws of the Russian Empire appeared. During the reign of Nicholas I, the situation of the serfs became easier. Thus, a ban was introduced on exiling peasants to hard labor, selling them individually and without land, and peasants received the right to redeem themselves from the estates being sold. A reform of state village management was carried out and a “decree on obligated peasants” was signed, which became the foundation for the abolition of serfdom. However, the complete liberation of the peasants did not take place during the life of the emperor. For the first time, there was a sharp reduction in the number of serfs - their share in the population of Russia, according to various estimates, decreased from 57-58% in 1811-1817 to 35-45% in 1857-1858, and they ceased to constitute the majority of the population. Obviously, a significant role was played by the cessation of the practice of “distributing” state peasants to landowners along with their lands, which flourished under the previous tsars, and the spontaneous liberation of the peasants that began. The situation of state peasants improved, whose number reached about 50% of the population by the second half of the 1850s. This improvement occurred mainly due to the measures taken by Count P. D. Kiselyov, who was responsible for the management of state property. Thus, all state peasants were allocated their own plots of land and forest plots, and auxiliary cash desks and grain stores were established everywhere, which provided assistance to the peasants with cash loans and grain in case of crop failure. As a result of these measures, not only did the welfare of state peasants increase, but also treasury income from them increased by 15-20%, tax arrears were halved, and by the mid-1850s there were practically no landless farm laborers eking out a miserable and dependent existence. everyone received land from the state. A number of laws were passed to improve the situation of serfs. Thus, landowners were strictly forbidden to sell peasants (without land) and send them to hard labor (which had previously been common practice); serfs received the right to own land, conduct business, and received relative freedom of movement. Earlier, under Peter I, a rule was introduced according to which any peasant who found himself more than 30 miles from his village without a vacation certificate from the landowner was considered a runaway and subject to punishment. These strict restrictions: the obligatory nature of a vacation certificate (passport) for any departure from the village, a ban on business transactions, and even, for example, a ban on marrying off a daughter to another village (you had to pay a “ransom” to the landowner) - survived until the 19th century. and were abolished during the first 10-15 years of the reign of Nicholas I. On the other hand, for the first time, the state began to systematically ensure that the rights of peasants were not violated by landowners (this was one of the functions of the Third Department), and to punish landowners for these violations. As a result of the application of punishments against landowners, by the end of the reign of Nicholas I, about 200 landowner estates were under arrest, which greatly affected the position of the peasants and the psychology of the landowners. Thus, serfdom under Nicholas changed its character - from an institution of slavery it actually turned into an institution of rent in kind, which to some extent guaranteed the peasants a number of basic rights. These changes in the position of the peasants caused discontent on the part of large landowners and nobles, who saw them as a threat to the established order. Some reforms aimed at improving the situation of the peasants did not lead to the desired result due to the stubborn opposition of the landowners. Thus, on the initiative of D. G. Bibikov, who later became the Minister of Internal Affairs, an inventory reform was launched in Right Bank Ukraine in 1848, the experience of which was supposed to be extended to other provinces. The inventory rules introduced by Bibikov, mandatory for landowners, established a certain size of the peasant’s land plot and certain duties for it. However, many landowners ignored their implementation, and the local administration, which was dependent on them, did not take any measures. Was first started mass peasant education program. The number of peasant schools in the country increased from 60, with 1,500 students, in 1838, to 2,551, with 111,000 students, in 1856. During the same period, many technical schools and universities were opened - essentially, the country's system of professional primary and secondary education was created. The state of affairs in industry at the beginning of the reign of Nicholas I was the worst in the entire history of the Russian Empire. There was virtually no industry capable of competing with the West, where the industrial revolution was already coming to an end at that time. Russia's exports included only raw materials; almost all types of industrial products needed by the country were purchased abroad. By the end of the reign of Nicholas I the situation had changed greatly. For the first time in the history of the Russian Empire, a technically advanced and competitive industry began to form in the country, in particular, textile and sugar, the production of metal products, clothing, wood, glass, porcelain, leather and other products began to develop, its own machines, tools and even steam locomotives began to be produced . From 1825 to 1863, the annual output of Russian industry per worker increased 3 times, while in the previous period it not only did not grow, but even decreased. From 1819 to 1859, the volume of Russian cotton production increased almost 30 times; the volume of engineering production from 1830 to 1860 increased 33 times. For the first time in the history of Russia, under Nicholas I, intensive construction of paved roads began: the routes Moscow - St. Petersburg, Moscow - Irkutsk, Moscow - Warsaw were built. Of the 7,700 miles of highways built in Russia by 1893, 5,300 miles (about 70%) were built in the period 1825-1860. The construction of railways was also started and about 1000 miles of railway track was built, which gave impetus to the development of our own mechanical engineering. The rapid development of industry led to a sharp increase in urban population and urban growth. The share of the urban population during the reign of Nicholas I more than doubled - from 4.5% in 1825 to 9.2% in 1858. Having ascended the throne, Nikolai Pavlovich abandoned the practice of favoritism that had prevailed over the previous century. He introduced a moderate system of incentives for officials (in the form of lease of estates/property and cash bonuses), which he controlled to a large extent. Unlike previous reigns, historians have not recorded large gifts in the form of palaces or thousands of serfs granted to any nobleman or royal relative. To combat corruption, under Nicholas I, regular audits were introduced for the first time at all levels. Trials of officials have become commonplace. Thus, in 1853, 2,540 officials were on trial. Nicholas I himself was critical of successes in this area, saying that the only people around him who did not steal were himself and his heir. Nicholas I demanded that only Russian be spoken at court. The courtiers, who did not know their native language, learned a certain number of phrases and uttered them only when they received a sign that the emperor was approaching. Nicholas I suppressed 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 implications. 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. It got to the point that in 1836, the censor P.I. Gaevsky, after serving 8 days in the guardhouse, doubted whether news like “such and such a king had died” could be allowed into print. When in 1837 a note about the attempt on the life of the French king Louis-Philippe I was published in the St. Petersburg Gazette, Count Benckendorf immediately notified the Minister of Education S.S. Uvarov that he considered “it is indecent to place such news in gazettes, especially those published by the government.” " In September 1826, Nicholas I received Alexander Pushkin, who had been released from Mikhailovsky exile, and listened to his confession that on December 14, 1825, Pushkin would have been with the conspirators, but acted mercifully with him: he freed the poet from general censorship (he decided to censor his works himself) , instructed him to prepare a note “On Public Education”, called him after the meeting “the smartest man in Russia” (however, later, after Pushkin’s death, he spoke very coldly about him and this meeting). In 1828, Nicholas I dropped the case against Pushkin regarding the authorship of the “Gabrieliad” after the poet’s handwritten letter was handed over to him personally, bypassing the investigative commission, which, in the opinion of many researchers, contained, in the opinion of many researchers, an admission of authorship of the seditious work after much denial. However, the emperor never completely trusted the poet, seeing in him a dangerous “leader of the liberals,” Pushkin was under police surveillance, his letters were illustrated; Pushkin, having gone through the first euphoria, which was expressed in poems in honor of the tsar (“Stanzas”, “To Friends”), by the mid-1830s also began to evaluate the sovereign ambiguously. “There is a lot of ensign in him and a little of Peter the Great,” Pushkin wrote about Nicholas in his diary on May 21 (June 2), 1834; at the same time, the diary also notes “sensible” comments on “The History of Pugachev” (the sovereign edited it and lent Pushkin 20 thousand rubles), ease of use and the tsar’s good language. In 1834, Pushkin was appointed chamberlain of the imperial court, which greatly burdened the poet and was also reflected in his diary. Pushkin could sometimes afford not to come to balls to which Nicholas I personally invited him. Pushkin preferred to communicate with writers, and Nicholas I showed his dissatisfaction with him. The role played by the emperor in the conflict between Pushkin and Dantes is assessed by historians contradictory. After the death of Pushkin, Nicholas I granted a pension to his widow and children, while limiting speeches in memory of the poet, thereby showing, in particular, dissatisfaction with the violation of the ban on dueling. As a result of the policy of strict censorship, Alexander Polezhaev was arrested for free poetry and was exiled to the Caucasus twice. By order of the emperor, the magazines “European”, “Moscow Telegraph”, “Telescope” were closed, its publisher Nadezhdin was persecuted, and F. Schiller was banned from publication in Russia. In 1852, he was arrested and then administratively exiled to the village for writing an obituary dedicated to memory (the obituary itself was not passed by censorship). The censor also suffered because he allowed Turgenev’s “Notes of a Hunter” to go into print, in which, according to the Moscow Governor-General Count A. A. Zakrevsky, “a decisive direction was expressed towards the destruction of the landowners.” In 1850, by order of Nicholas I, the play "Our People - Let's Be Numbered" was banned from production. The Committee of Higher Censorship was dissatisfied with the fact that among the characters brought out by the author there were not “one of those venerable merchants of ours in whom fear of God, uprightness and straightforwardness of mind constitute a typical and integral attribute.” Censorship also did not allow publication of some jingoistic articles and works that contained harsh and politically undesirable statements and views, which happened, for example, during the Crimean War with two poems. From one (“Prophecy”), Nicholas I personally deleted the paragraph that spoke of the erection of the cross over Sophia of Constantinople and the “All-Slavic Tsar”; another (“Now you have no time for poetry”) was prohibited from publication by the minister, apparently due to the “somewhat harsh tone of the presentation” noted by the censor. Having received a good engineering education in his youth, Nicholas I showed considerable knowledge in the field of construction equipment. Thus, he made successful proposals regarding the dome of the Trinity Cathedral in St. Petersburg. Later, already occupying the highest position in the state, he closely monitored the order in urban planning, and not a single significant project was approved without his signature. He issued a decree regulating the height of private buildings in the capital. The decree limited the height of any private building to the width of the street on which the building was built. At the same time, the height of a residential private building could not exceed 11 fathoms (23.47 m, which corresponds to the height of the eaves of the Winter Palace). Thus, the famous St. Petersburg city panorama that existed until recently was created. Knowing the requirements for choosing a suitable location for the construction of a new astronomical observatory, Nikolai personally indicated the place for it on the top of Pulkovo Mountain. The first all-Russian railways appeared in Russia, including the Nikolaev railway. It is likely that Nicholas I first became acquainted with the technologies of steam locomotive and railway construction at the age of 19 during a trip to England in 1816, where the future emperor visited the railway of engineer Stephenson. Nicholas I, having studied in detail the technical data of the railways proposed for construction, demanded an expansion of the Russian gauge compared to the European one (1524 mm versus 1435 in Europe), thereby eliminating the possibility of delivering the armed forces of a potential enemy deep into Russia. The gauge adopted by the Emperor was proposed by the road builder, the American engineer Whistler, and corresponded to the 5-foot gauge adopted at that time in some “southern” states of the United States. The high relief of the monument to Nicholas I in St. Petersburg depicts an episode of his inspector’s trip along the Nikolaevskaya Railway, when his train stopped at the Verebyinsky railway bridge. The naval defense of St. Petersburg under Admiral Traverse relied on a system of wood-earth fortifications near Kronstadt, armed with outdated short-range cannons, which allowed the enemy to destroy them from long distances without hindrance. Already in December 1827, by order of the Emperor, work began to replace the wooden fortifications with stone ones. Nicholas I personally reviewed the designs of fortifications proposed by the engineers and approved them. And in some cases (for example, during the construction of the fort “Emperor Paul the First”), he made specific proposals to reduce the cost and speed up construction. Nicholas I, aware of the need for reforms, considered their implementation a lengthy and careful task. He looked at the state subordinate to him, like an engineer looks at a complex but deterministic mechanism in its functioning, in which everything is interconnected and the reliability of one part ensures the correct operation of others. The ideal of social order was army life, which was completely regulated by regulations. Foreign policy of Nicholas I was concentrated on three main directions of the foreign policy of the Russian Empire: the fight against the revolutionary movement in Europe; the Eastern Question, including Russia's struggle for control of the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits; as well as the expansion of the empire, advancement in the Caucasus and Central Asia. An important aspect of foreign policy was the return to the principles of the Holy Alliance. Russia's role in the fight against any manifestations of the “spirit of change” in European life has increased. It was during the reign of Nicholas I that Russia received the unflattering nickname of “the gendarme of Europe.” Thus, at the request of the Austrian Empire, Russia took part in the suppression of the Hungarian revolution, sending a 140,000-strong corps to Hungary, which was trying to free itself from oppression by Austria; as a result, the throne of Franz Joseph was saved. The latter circumstance did not prevent the Austrian emperor, who feared excessive strengthening of Russia’s position in the Balkans, from soon taking a position unfriendly to Nicholas during the Crimean War and even threatening to enter the war on the side of a coalition hostile to Russia, which Nicholas I regarded as ungrateful treachery; Russian-Austrian relations were hopelessly damaged until the end of the existence of both monarchies. The Eastern Question occupied a special place in the foreign policy of Nicholas I. Russia under Nicholas I abandoned plans for the division of the Ottoman Empire, which were discussed under the previous tsars (Catherine II and Paul I), and began to pursue a completely different policy in the Balkans - a policy of protecting the Orthodox population and ensuring its religious and civil rights, up to political independence . This policy was first applied in the Treaty of Akkerman with Turkey in 1826. Under this treaty, Moldova and Wallachia, while remaining part of the Ottoman Empire, received political autonomy with the right to elect their own government, which was formed under the control of Russia. After half a century of the existence of such autonomy, the state of Romania was formed on this territory - according to the Treaty of San Stefano in 1878. Along with this, Russia sought to ensure its influence in the Balkans and the possibility of unhindered navigation in the straits (Bosporus and Dardanelles).
During the Russian-Turkish wars of 1806-1812. and 1828-1829, Russia achieved great success in implementing this policy. At the request of Russia, which declared itself the patroness of all Christian subjects of the Sultan, the Sultan was forced to recognize the freedom and independence of Greece and the broad autonomy of Serbia (1830); According to the Treaty of Unkar-Iskelesi (1833), which marked the peak of Russian influence in Constantinople, Russia received the right to block the passage of foreign ships into the Black Sea (which it lost as a result of the Second London Convention in 1841). The same reasons - support for Orthodox Christians in the Ottoman Empire and disagreements over the Eastern Question - pushed Russia to aggravate relations with Turkey in 1853, which resulted in its declaration of war on Russia. The beginning of the war with Turkey in 1853 was marked by the brilliant victory of the Russian fleet under the command of the admiral, which defeated the enemy in Sinop Bay. This was the last major battle of the sailing fleets. Russia's military successes caused a negative reaction in the West. The leading world powers were not interested in strengthening Russia at the expense of the decrepit Ottoman Empire. This created the basis for a military alliance between England and France. Nicholas I's miscalculation in assessing the internal political situation in England, France and Austria led to the country finding itself in political isolation. In 1854, England and France entered the war on the side of Turkey. Due to Russia's technical backwardness, it was difficult to resist these European powers. The main military operations took place in Crimea. In October 1854, the Allies besieged Sevastopol. The Russian army suffered a number of defeats and was unable to provide assistance to the besieged fortress city. Despite the heroic defense of the city, after an 11-month siege, in August 1855, the defenders of Sevastopol were forced to surrender the city. At the beginning of 1856, following the Crimean War, the Paris Peace Treaty was signed. According to its terms, Russia was prohibited from having naval forces, arsenals and fortresses in the Black Sea. Russia became vulnerable from the sea and lost the opportunity to conduct an active foreign policy in this region. Generally During the reign of Nicholas I, Russia participated in wars: Caucasian War 1817-1864, Russian-Persian War 1826-1828, Russian-Turkish War 1828-1829, Crimean War 1853-1856. Death of Nicholas IHe died, according to historical sources, “at twelve minutes past one o’clock in the afternoon” on February 18 (March 2), 1855. According to the official version - due to pneumonia (he caught a cold while taking part in the parade in a light uniform, being already sick with the flu). The funeral service was performed by Metropolitan Nikanor (Klementyevsky). According to some medical historians, the death of the emperor could have occurred due to the consequences of a serious injury he received on August 26 (September 7), 1836, during a fact-finding trip to Russia. Then, as a result of a night traffic accident that occurred near the city of Chembar, Penza province, Emperor Nicholas I received a fractured collarbone and a shock contusion. The diagnosis was made by a random physician, who probably did not have the opportunity to diagnose the condition of the victim’s internal organs. The emperor was forced to stay for two weeks in Chembar for treatment. As soon as his health stabilized, he continued his journey. Due to these circumstances, Emperor Nicholas I, after a serious injury, was without qualified medical care for a long time. The emperor maintained complete composure as death approached. He managed to say goodbye to each of his children and grandchildren and, having blessed them, turned to them with a reminder to remain friendly with each other. The last words of the emperor addressed to his son Alexander were the phrase “Hold tight...”. Immediately after this, rumors spread widely in the capital that Nicholas had committed suicide. The illness began against the backdrop of disappointing news from besieged Sevastopol and worsened after receiving news of the defeat of General Khrulev near Yevpatoria, which was perceived as a harbinger of an inevitable defeat in the war, which Nicholas, due to his character, could not survive. The Tsar’s appearance at the parade in the cold without an overcoat was perceived as an intention to get a fatal cold; according to stories, the life physician Mandt told the Tsar: “Sire, this is worse than death, this is suicide!” We can say with certainty that the illness (mild flu) began on January 27, noticeably intensified on the night of February 4, and during the day the already sick Nikolai went to withdraw troops; After that, he fell ill for a short time, quickly recovered, and on February 9, despite the objections of doctors, in 23-degree frost without an overcoat, he went to review the marching battalions. The same thing happened again on February 10 in even more severe frost. After this, the illness worsened, Nikolai spent several days in bed, but his powerful body took over, and on February 15 he was already working all day. No bulletins were issued about the Tsar's health at this time, which shows that the illness was not considered dangerous. On the evening of February 14, a courier arrived with a message about the defeat near Yevpatoria. The news made the most overwhelming impression, especially since Nikolai himself was the initiator of the attack on Yevpatoria. On February 17, the emperor’s condition unexpectedly and sharply worsened, and on the morning of February 18, painful agony began, lasting several hours (which does not happen with pneumonia). According to a rumor that immediately spread, the emperor, at his request, was given poison by his physician Mandt. Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna directly accused Mandt of poisoning her brother. The emperor forbade the opening and embalming of his body. Nikolaevskaya Square in Kazan and the Nikolaevskaya Hospital in Peterhof were named in honor of Nicholas I. In honor of Emperor Nicholas I, about one and a half dozen monuments were erected in the Russian Empire, mainly various columns and obelisks, in memory of his visit to one place or another. Almost all sculptural monuments to the Emperor (with the exception of the equestrian monument in St. Petersburg) were destroyed during the years of Soviet power. Currently, the following monuments to the Emperor exist: Saint Petersburg. Equestrian monument on St. Isaac's Square. Opened on June 26 (July 8), 1859, sculptor P. K. Klodt. The monument has been preserved in its original form. The fence surrounding it was dismantled in the 1930s and rebuilt again in 1992. Saint Petersburg. Bronze bust of the Emperor on a high granite pedestal. Opened on July 12, 2001 in front of the facade of the building of the former psychiatric department of the Nikolaev Military Hospital, founded in 1840 by decree of the Emperor (now the St. Petersburg District Military Clinical Hospital), Suvorovsky Ave., 63. Initially, a monument to the Emperor, which is a bronze bust on granite pedestal, was opened in front of the main facade of this hospital on August 15 (27), 1890. The monument was destroyed shortly after 1917. Saint Petersburg. Plaster bust on a high granite pedestal. Opened on May 19, 2003 on the main staircase of the Vitebsk station (52 Zagorodny pr.), sculptors V. S. and S. V. Ivanov, architect T. L. Torich. Velikiy Novgorod. Image of Nicholas I on the “Millennium of Russia” monument. Opened in 1862, sculptor - M. O. Mikeshin. Moscow. The monument to the “Creators of Russian Railways” at the Kazansky railway station is a bronze bust of the emperor surrounded by famous figures from the railway industry of his reign. Opened on August 1, 2013. A bronze bust of Emperor Nicholas I was inaugurated on July 2, 2015 on the territory of the Nikolo-Berlyukovsky Monastery in the village of Avdotyino, Moscow region (sculptor A. A. Appolonov). St. Nicholas Cathedral in the city of Starobelsk. In 1859, a location for the construction of the temple was determined - between Malaya Dvoryanskaya and Sobornaya, Classical and Nikolaevskaya streets. The temple was built in the Baroque style and was solemnly consecrated in 1862. The temple is considered an architectural monument of the 19th century and is protected by the state. The following were named after Nicholas I: a battleship that took part in the Battle of Tsushima and surrendered to the Japanese after it, a battleship laid down in 1914 but unfinished due to the Civil War, and a civilian steamer on which Louis de Heeckeren and Georges Dantes arrived in Russia and sailed away to Europe Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol. To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the birth of Nicholas I, according to the decrees of Nicholas II, state awards were established, namely two commemorative medals. The medal “In memory of the reign of Emperor Nicholas I” was awarded to persons who served during the reign of Nicholas I, the medal “In memory of the reign of Emperor Nicholas I” for students of educational institutions was awarded to students of military educational institutions who studied during the reign of Nicholas I, but the rights They didn’t have the right to wear the first medal. The image of Nicholas I in the cinema: 1910 - “The Life and Death of Pushkin”; Nikolai Pavlovich Romanov, the future Emperor Nicholas I, was born on July 6 (June 25, O.S.) 1796 in Tsarskoe Selo. He became the third son of Emperor Paul I and Empress Maria Feodorovna. Nicholas was not the eldest son and therefore did not claim the throne. It was assumed that he would devote himself to a military career. At the age of six months, the boy received the rank of colonel, and at three years old he was already sporting the uniform of the Life Guards Horse Regiment. Responsibility for raising Nikolai and his younger brother Mikhail was entrusted to General Lamzdorf. Home education consisted of studying economics, history, geography, law, engineering and fortification. Particular emphasis was placed on the study of foreign languages: French, German and Latin. The humanities did not give Nikolai much pleasure, but everything related to engineering and military affairs attracted his attention. As a child, Nikolai mastered playing the flute and took drawing lessons, and this acquaintance with art allowed him to be considered a connoisseur of opera and ballet in the future. In July 1817, Nikolai Pavlovich’s wedding took place with Princess Friederike Louise Charlotte Wilhelmina of Prussia, who after baptism took the name Alexandra Feodorovna. And from that time on, the Grand Duke began to actively take part in the arrangement of the Russian army. He was in charge of engineering units, and under his leadership, educational institutions were created in companies and battalions. In 1819, with his assistance, the Main Engineering School and schools for guards ensigns were opened. Nevertheless, the army did not like him for being excessively pedantic and picky about little things. In 1820, a turning point occurred in the biography of the future Emperor Nicholas I: his elder brother Alexander I announced that due to the refusal of the heir to the throne Constantine, the right to reign passed to Nicholas. For Nikolai Pavlovich, the news came as a shock; he was not ready for it. Despite the protests of his younger brother, Alexander I secured this right with a special manifesto. However, on December 1 (November 19, O.S.), Emperor Alexander I suddenly died. Nicholas again tried to renounce his reign and shift the burden of power to Constantine. Only after the publication of the tsar's manifesto, naming Nikolai Pavlovich as heir, did he have to agree with the will of Alexander I. The date of the oath before the troops on Senate Square was set for December 26 (December 14, O.S.). It was this date that became decisive in the speech of participants in various secret societies, which went down in history as the Decembrist uprising. The revolutionaries' plan was not implemented, the army did not support the rebels, and the uprising was suppressed. After the trial, five leaders of the uprising were executed, and a large number of participants and sympathizers went into exile. The reign of Nicholas I began very dramatically, but there were no other executions during his reign. The crowning took place on August 22, 1826 in the Assumption Cathedral of the Kremlin, and in May 1829 the new emperor assumed the rights of autocrat of the Polish kingdom. The first steps of Nicholas I in politics were quite liberal: A. S. Pushkin returned from exile, V. A. Zhukovsky became the heir’s mentor; Nicholas’s liberal views are also indicated by the fact that the Ministry of State Property was headed by P. D. Kiselev, who was not a supporter of serfdom. However, history has shown that the new emperor was an ardent supporter of the monarchy. His main slogan, which determined state policy, was expressed in three postulates: autocracy, Orthodoxy and nationality. The main thing that Nicholas I sought and achieved with his policy was not to create something new and better, but to preserve and improve the existing order. The emperor's desire for conservatism and blind adherence to the letter of the law led to the development of an even greater bureaucracy in the country. In fact, an entire bureaucratic state was created, the ideas of which continue to live to this day. The most severe censorship was introduced, a division of the Secret Chancellery was created, headed by Benckendorff, which conducted political investigation. Very close monitoring of the printing industry was established. During the reign of Nicholas I, some changes affected the existing serfdom. Uncultivated lands in Siberia and the Urals began to be developed, and peasants were sent to raise them regardless of their desire. Infrastructure was created on new lands, and peasants were supplied with new agricultural equipment. Under Nicholas I, the first railway was built. The track of Russian roads was wider than European ones, which contributed to the development of domestic technology. A financial reform began, which was supposed to introduce a unified system for calculating silver coins and banknotes. A special place in the tsar's policy was occupied by concern about the penetration of liberal ideas into Russia. Nicholas I sought to destroy all dissent not only in Russia, but throughout Europe. The suppression of all kinds of uprisings and revolutionary riots could not be done without the Russian Tsar. As a result, he received the well-deserved nickname “gendarme of Europe.” All the years of the reign of Nicholas I were filled with military operations abroad. 1826-1828 - Russian-Persian War, 1828-1829 - Russian-Turkish War, 1830 - suppression of the Polish uprising by Russian troops. In 1833, the Treaty of Unkar-Iskelesi was signed, which became the highest point of Russian influence on Constantinople. Russia received the right to block the passage of foreign ships into the Black Sea. However, this right was soon lost as a result of the Second London Convention in 1841. 1849 - Russia is an active participant in the suppression of the uprising in Hungary. The culmination of the reign of Nicholas I was the Crimean War. It was she who was the collapse of the emperor’s political career. He did not expect that Great Britain and France would come to Turkey's aid. The policy of Austria also caused concern, whose unfriendliness forced the Russian Empire to keep an entire army on its western borders. As a result, Russia lost influence in the Black Sea and lost the opportunity to build and use military fortresses on the coast. In 1855, Nicholas I fell ill with the flu, but, despite being unwell, in February he went to a military parade without outerwear... The emperor died on March 2, 1855. Exactly 200 years have passed since the moment when Russian Emperor Alexander I and Prussian King Wilhelm III officially announced the engagement of Charlotte Lotchen and Tsarevich Nikolai Pavlovich in Berlin. Their marriage has withstood many trials. In order to save the family, the daughter of the Prussian king Charlotte, named Alexandra Feodorovna upon accepting Orthodoxy, had to come to terms with the role of the empress, the harshness of her husband and his regular betrayals. German beautyCharlotte was born into the family of William III and Queen Louise in 1798. The mother of the future Russian empress was one of the first beauties of her time, who received attention from Napoleon and the Russian Tsar Alexander. Nicholas I. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org The grown-up Charlotte was married to the brother of the Russian Emperor, Grand Duke Nikolai Pavlovich, which was solemnly announced in early November 1815. The couple was considered by that time one of the most beautiful in Europe. Their relations from the very beginning were very warm, despite the fact that this alliance was aimed primarily at strengthening Russian-German friendship. At the same time, the future spouses did not count on the crown, since Constantine was considered Alexander’s heir. A magnificent wedding took place in 1816. Charlotte of Prussia converted to Orthodoxy and became Grand Duchess Alexandra Feodorovna. The wife of the future Tsar Nicholas I was well received at court; even the widowed mother-in-law Maria Fedorovna, known for her difficult disposition, warmly received her daughter-in-law. Alexandra Feodorovna was taught Russian by Vasily Andreevich Zhukovsky, with whom the future empress struck up a strong friendship. Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin was also fascinated by her special character. The poet captured Alexandra Feodorovna, nicknamed Lalla-Ruk at court, in the following lines: ...into a silent close circle, Like a winged lily, Hesitating, Lalla-Ruk enters, And above the drooping crowd Shines with a royal head And quietly curls and glides A harita star among haritas. Nervous ticThe first-born appeared in the royal family in 1818. Alexandra Fedorovna went from St. Petersburg to Moscow to give birth to her son. There the future Emperor Alexander II was born, who was destined to finish his father’s work and abolish serfdom. A difficult moment in the life of the family occurred after the death of Emperor Alexander I. He bequeathed that after his departure his brother, Nicholas, should ascend to the throne. To do this, Constantine had to abdicate the throne, who was pathologically afraid of becoming a king and being strangled, like his father. The eldest heir refused to return to St. Petersburg from Warsaw, and in the meantime, “turmoil” occurred in the country. The interregnum led to the Decembrist uprising on Senate Square on December 14, 1825. For Nikolai and Alexandra Feodorovna, this day became one of the most terrible. They understood that not only the imperial crown, but also their lives could be cut short. After the shock, the future empress began to suffer from a nervous tic. After this uprising, Nicholas’s character became stubborn and cruel, which subsequently alienated him from his wife. According to historians, Alexandra Feodorovna asked her husband to pardon the Decembrists, but he flatly refused, reminding her that these people wanted to kill their children. Love on the sideCelebrating the Empress's birthday has become a family tradition. In the summer of 1828, Nikolai and Alexandra Fedorovna visited Berlin. The queen's 30th birthday was celebrated here. Europe remembered the grandiose holiday under the name of the White Rose - this is how the empress was poetically called. Nicholas I himself left for Russia, where he prepared a gift for his wife - a cottage in Peterhof. The palace was decorated in a pseudo-Gothic style, and the emblem was a white rose - the Empress’s favorite flower.
Emperor Nicholas I on Senate Square on December 14, 1825. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org In the 1830s, public masquerades became fashionable. Here the upper classes could feel more at ease and start love affairs. Meanwhile, the flourishing of masquerades at that time is also associated with a significant variable in the intimate life of the august couple. Alexandra Fedorovna's frequent births undermined her health. By 1832, doctors completely forbade her to have an intimate life, which is why Nicholas I had to come to terms with the need to abstain from intimacy with his wife. At masquerades, the king began to have one mistress after another. He did not tell his wife about this, but he carefully monitored Alexandra Fedorovna’s fidelity. He even personally began to approve the list of those who would dance with the empress at official events. The same surname was not repeated on this list more than once a year. The empress's slight infatuation with Prince Alexander Trubetskoy was harshly suppressed by the emperor - the suitor was quickly sent abroad. Nicholas I, who showed signs of attention to a large number of court ladies, eventually became inflamed with a strong feeling for Varvara Nelidova, who was also the niece of his father’s favorite. The Tsar's new mistress was Alexandra Feodorovna's maid of honor. The queen, who could not help but notice the change in her wife, staged a riot. In 1845, she went to Italy and took Varvara Nelidova with her. Two weeks later, Nicholas I could not stand it and went after the travelers. They managed to discuss the extremely sensitive situation in Naples and remove all questions. The three of them returned to St. Petersburg. Alone by the bedIn 1853, the Crimean War broke out. Sevastopol fell, the landing of an Anglo-French assault force in the vicinity of St. Petersburg was actively discussed. The betrayal of his former allies greatly undermined the king. Nicholas I eventually caught a bad cold and burned out from the disease on March 2, 1855. Alexandra Fedorovna was at his bedside in his last hours. The tsar, observing decency, did not allow Varvara Nelidova, who was very close to the door of his bedroom at the time of the tragedy, to go to his bed. The emperor left his mistress 200 thousand rubles. Nelidova decided to give everything to charity and was left without a livelihood. Surprisingly, Alexandra Feodorovna forgave her rival and gave her a court position. The memory of Nicholas I made them best friends until the end of their lives. The Empress spent the rest of her life in foreign resorts - the damp climate of St. Petersburg greatly affected her health. Alexandra Fedorovna died on October 20, 1860. Varvara Nelidova survived her by 37 years, managing to witness the coronation of her friend’s great-grandson, who became the last Russian emperor.
Biography Childhood and adolescence The most important milestones of the reign Domestic policy Peasant question Nikolai and the problem of corruption Foreign policy Emperor Engineer Culture, censorship and writers Nicknames Family and personal life Monuments Nicholas I Pavlovich Unforgettable (June 25 (July 6), 1796, Tsarskoe Selo - February 18 (March 2), 1855, St. Petersburg) - Emperor of All Russia from December 14 (December 26), 1825 to February 18 (March 2), 1855, Tsar of Poland and Grand Duke of Finland . From the imperial house of Romanov, Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov dynasty. BiographyChildhood and adolescenceNicholas was the third son of Emperor Paul I and Empress Maria Feodorovna. He was born on June 25, 1796 - a few months before the accession of Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich to the throne. Thus, he was the last of Catherine II’s grandchildren born during her lifetime. The birth of Grand Duke Nikolai Pavlovich was announced in Tsarskoe Selo with cannon fire and bell ringing, and news was sent to St. Petersburg by express. Odes were written for the birth of the Grand Duke, the author of one of them was G.R. Derzhavin. Before him, in the imperial house of the Romanovs, the Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov dynasty, children were not named after Nikolai. Name day - December 6 according to the Julian calendar (Nicholas the Wonderworker). According to the order established under Empress Catherine, Grand Duke Nicholas from birth entered into the care of the royal grandmother, but the Empress’s death, which soon followed, stopped her influence on the course of the Grand Duke’s upbringing. His nanny was a Scottish woman, Lyon. For the first seven years she was Nikolai's only leader. The boy with all the strength of his soul became attached to his first teacher, and one cannot but agree that during the period of tender childhood, “the heroic, knightly noble, strong and open character of nanny Lyon” left an imprint on the character of her pupil. Since November 1800, General M.I. Lamzdorf became the teacher of Nikolai and Mikhail. The choice of General Lamsdorf for the post of tutor of the Grand Duke was made by Emperor Paul. Paul I pointed out: “just don’t make my sons such rakes as German princes” (German. Solche Schlingel wie die deutschen Prinzen). The highest order of November 23, 1800 declared: “Lieutenant General Lamzdorf has been appointed to serve under His Imperial Highness Grand Duke Nikolai Pavlovich.” The general stayed with his pupil for 17 years. It is obvious that Lamzdorf fully satisfied Maria Fedorovna’s pedagogical requirements. Thus, in her parting letter of 1814, Maria Feodorovna called General Lamzdorf the “second father” of the Grand Dukes Nicholas and Mikhail. The death of his father, Paul I, in March 1801 could not help but be imprinted in the memory of four-year-old Nicholas. He subsequently described what happened in his memoirs:
This was the first blow of fate dealt to him at a very tender age, a blow. From then on, the care of his upbringing and education was concentrated entirely and exclusively in the hands of the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna, out of a sense of delicacy for whom Emperor Alexander I refrained from any influence on the education of his younger brothers. The greatest concerns of Empress Maria Feodorovna in the upbringing of Nikolai Pavlovich consisted of trying to divert him from his passion for military exercises, which was revealed in him from early childhood. The passion for the technical side of military affairs, instilled in Russia by Paul I, took deep and strong roots in the royal family - Alexander I, despite his liberalism, was an ardent supporter of the watch parade and all its subtleties, Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich experienced complete happiness only parade ground, among the drilling teams. The younger brothers were not inferior to the elders in this passion. From early childhood, Nikolai began to show a special passion for military toys and stories about military operations. The best reward for him was permission to go to a parade or divorce, where he watched with special attention everything that happened, dwelling even on the smallest details. Grand Duke Nikolai Pavlovich received a home education - teachers were assigned to him and his brother Mikhail. But Nikolai did not show much diligence in his studies. He did not recognize the humanities, but he was well versed in the art of war, was fond of fortification, and was familiar with engineering. According to V.A. Mukhanov, Nikolai Pavlovich, having completed his course of education, was horrified by his ignorance and after the wedding tried to fill this gap, but the conditions of an absent-minded life, the predominance of military activities and the bright joys of family life distracted him from constant desk work. “His mind was not cultivated, his upbringing was careless,” Queen Victoria wrote about Emperor Nikolai Pavlovich in 1844. The future emperor’s passion for painting is known, which he studied in childhood under the guidance of the painter I. A. Akimov and the author of religious and historical compositions, Professor V. K. Shebuev During the Patriotic War of 1812 and the subsequent military campaigns of the Russian army in Europe, Nicholas was eager to go to war, but was met with a decisive refusal from the Empress Mother. In 1813, the 17-year-old Grand Duke was taught strategy. At this time, from his sister Anna Pavlovna, with whom he was very friendly, Nicholas accidentally learned that Alexander I had visited Silesia, where he saw the family of the Prussian king, that Alexander liked his eldest daughter, Princess Charlotte, and that it was his intention that Nicholas I saw her sometime. Only at the beginning of 1814 did Emperor Alexander allow his younger brothers to join the army abroad. On February 5 (17), 1814, Nikolai and Mikhail left St. Petersburg. On this journey they were accompanied by General Lamzdorf, cavaliers: I. F. Savrasov, A. P. Aledinsky and P. I. Arsenyev, Colonel Gianotti and Dr. Ruehl. After 17 days, they reached Berlin, where 17-year-old Nicholas saw the 16-year-old daughter of King Frederick William III of Prussia, Charlotte. After spending one day in Berlin, the travelers proceeded through Leipzig, Weimar, where they saw their sister Maria Pavlovna, Frankfurt am Main, Bruchsal, where Empress Elizabeth Alekseevna then lived, Rastatt, Freiburg and Basel. Near Basel, they first heard enemy shots, as the Austrians and Bavarians were besieging the nearby Güningen fortress. They then entered France through Altkirch and reached the tail of the army at Vesoul. However, Alexander I ordered the brothers to return to Basel. Only when news arrived that Paris had been taken and Napoleon had been banished to the island of Elba, did the grand dukes receive orders to arrive in Paris. On November 4, 1815 in Berlin, during an official dinner, the engagement of Princess Charlotte and Tsarevich and Grand Duke Nikolai Pavlovich was announced. After the military campaigns of the Russian army in Europe, professors were invited to the Grand Duke, who were supposed to “read military science in as complete a manner as possible.” For this purpose, the famous engineering general Karl Opperman and, to help him, colonels Gianotti and Markevich were chosen. In 1815, military conversations between Nikolai Pavlovich and General Opperman began. Upon returning from a second campaign, starting in December 1815, Grand Duke Nicholas again began studying with some of his former professors. Balugyansky read the “science of finance,” Akhverdov read Russian history (from the reign of Ivan the Terrible to the Time of Troubles). With Markevich, the Grand Duke was engaged in “military translations,” and with Gianotti, he was reading the works of Giraud and Lloyd about various campaigns of the wars of 1814 and 1815, as well as analyzing the project “on the expulsion of the Turks from Europe under certain given conditions.” YouthIn March 1816, three months before his twentieth birthday, fate brought Nicholas together with the Grand Duchy of Finland. At the beginning of 1816, Abo University, following the example of the universities of Sweden, most submissively petitioned whether Alexander I would deign to grant him a chancellor in the person of His Imperial Highness Grand Duke Nikolai Pavlovich. According to the historian M. M. Borodkin, this “thought belongs entirely to Tengström, the bishop of the Abo diocese, a supporter of Russia. Alexander I granted the request and Grand Duke Nikolai Pavlovich was appointed chancellor of the university. His task was to respect the status of the university and the conformity of university life with the spirit and traditions. In memory of this event, the St. Petersburg Mint minted a bronze medal. Also in 1816 he was appointed chief of the horse-jaeger regiment. In the summer of 1816, Nikolai Pavlovich had to complete his education by traveling around Russia to get acquainted with his fatherland in administrative, commercial and industrial relations. Upon returning from this trip, it was planned to also travel abroad to get acquainted with England. On this occasion, on behalf of Empress Maria Feodorovna, a special note was drawn up, which briefly outlined the main foundations of the administrative system of provincial Russia, described the areas that the Grand Duke had to pass through in historical, everyday, industrial and geographical terms, indicated what exactly could be the subject of conversations between the Grand Duke and representatives of the provincial government, what should be paid attention to, and so on. Thanks to a trip to some provinces of Russia, Nikolai gained a clear understanding of the internal state and problems of his country, and in England he became acquainted with the experience of developing one of the most advanced socio-political systems of its time. However, Nicholas’s own emerging political system of views was distinguished by a pronounced conservative, anti-liberal orientation. On July 13, 1817, the marriage of Grand Duke Nicholas to Princess Charlotte of Prussia took place. The wedding took place on the birthday of the young princess - July 13, 1817 in the Church of the Winter Palace. Charlotte of Prussia converted to Orthodoxy and was given a new name - Alexandra Feodorovna. This marriage strengthened the political alliance between Russia and Prussia. The question of succession to the throne. InterregnumIn 1820, Emperor Alexander I informed his brother Nikolai Pavlovich and his wife that the heir to the throne, their brother Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich, intended to renounce his right, so Nicholas would become the heir as the next senior brother. In 1823, Constantine formally renounced his rights to the throne, since he had no children, was divorced and married in a second morganatic marriage to the Polish Countess Grudzinskaya. On August 16, 1823, Alexander I signed a manifesto drawn up in secret, approving the abdication of the Tsarevich and Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich and approving Grand Duke Nikolai Pavlovich as the Heir to the Throne. On all the packages with the text of the manifesto, Alexander I himself wrote: “Keep until my demand, and in the event of my death, disclose before any other action.” On November 19, 1825, while in Taganrog, Emperor Alexander I died suddenly. In St. Petersburg, news of Alexander's death was received only on the morning of November 27 during a prayer service for the health of the emperor. Nicholas, the first of those present, swore allegiance to “Emperor Constantine I” and began to swear in the troops. Constantine himself was in Warsaw at that moment, being the de facto governor of the Kingdom of Poland. On the same day, the State Council met, at which the contents of the Manifesto of 1823 were heard. Finding themselves in an ambiguous position, when the Manifesto indicated one heir, and the oath was taken to another, the members of the Council turned to Nicholas. He refused to recognize the manifesto of Alexander I and refused to proclaim himself emperor until the final expression of the will of his elder brother. Despite the contents of the Manifesto handed over to him, Nicholas called on the Council to take the oath to Constantine “for the peace of the State.” Following this call, the State Council, Senate and Synod took an oath of allegiance to “Constantine I”. The next day, a decree was issued on a widespread oath to the new emperor. On November 30, the nobles of Moscow swore allegiance to Constantine. In St. Petersburg, the oath was postponed until December 14. However, Konstantin refused to come to St. Petersburg and confirmed his abdication in private letters to Nikolai Pavlovich, and then sent rescripts to the Chairman of the State Council (December 3 (15), 1825) and the Minister of Justice (December 8 (20), 1825). Constantine did not accept the throne, and at the same time did not want to formally renounce it as an emperor, to whom the oath had already been taken. An ambiguous and extremely tense interregnum situation was created. Accession to the throne. Decembrist revoltUnable to convince his brother to take the throne and having received his final refusal (albeit without a formal act of abdication), Grand Duke Nikolai Pavlovich decided to accept the throne according to the will of Alexander I. On the evening of December 12 (24), M. M. Speransky compiled Manifesto on the accession to the throne of Emperor Nicholas I. Nikolai signed it on the morning of December 13th. Attached to the Manifesto were a letter from Constantine to Alexander I dated January 14, 1822 about refusal of inheritance and a manifesto from Alexander I dated August 16, 1823. The manifesto on the accession to the throne was announced by Nicholas at a meeting of the State Council at about 22:30 on December 13 (25). A separate point in the Manifesto stipulated that November 19, the day of the death of Alexander I, would be considered the time of accession to the throne, which was an attempt to legally close the gap in the continuity of autocratic power. A second oath was appointed, or, as they said in the troops, a “re-oath” - this time to Nicholas I. The re-oath in St. Petersburg was scheduled for December 14. On this day, a group of officers - members of a secret society - scheduled an uprising in order to prevent the troops and the Senate from taking the oath to the new tsar and preventing Nicholas I from ascending the throne. The main goal of the rebels was the liberalization of the Russian socio-political system: the establishment of a provisional government, the abolition of serfdom, equality of all before the law, democratic freedoms (press, confession, labor), the introduction of jury trials, the introduction of compulsory military service for all classes, the election of officials, abolition of the poll tax and change in the form of government to a constitutional monarchy or republic. The rebels decided to block the Senate, send there a revolutionary delegation consisting of Ryleev and Pushchin and present to the Senate a demand not to swear allegiance to Nicholas I, declare the tsarist government deposed and publish a revolutionary manifesto to the Russian people. However, the uprising was brutally suppressed on the same day. Despite the efforts of the Decembrists to carry out a coup d'etat, troops and government institutions were sworn in to the new emperor. Later, the surviving participants in the uprising were exiled, and five leaders were executed.
The highest manifesto, given on January 28, 1826, with reference to the “Institution on the Imperial Family” on April 5, 1797, decreed: “First, as the days of our life are in the hand of God: then in the event of OUR death, until the legal adulthood of the Heir, the Grand Duke ALEXANDER NIKOLAEVICH, we determine as the Ruler of the State and the indivisible Kingdoms of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Finland, OUR Most Dear Brother, Grand Duke MICHAIL PAVLOVICH. » Crowned on August 22 (September 3), 1826 in Moscow - instead of June of the same year, as originally planned - due to mourning for the Dowager Empress Elizaveta Alekseevna, who died on May 4 in Belev. The coronation of Nicholas I and Empress Alexandra took place in the Assumption Cathedral of the Kremlin. Archbishop Filaret (Drozdov) of Moscow, who served with Metropolitan Seraphim (Glagolevsky) of Novgorod during the coronation, as is clear from his track record, was the person who presented Nicholas with “a description of the discovery of the act of Emperor Alexander Pavlovich stored in the Assumption Cathedral.” In 1827, the Coronation Album of Nicholas I was published in Paris. The most important milestones of the reign
Domestic policyHis very first steps after the coronation were very liberal. The poet A. S. Pushkin was returned from exile, and V. A. Zhukovsky, whose liberal views could not but be known to the emperor, was appointed the main teacher (“mentor”) of the heir. (However, Zhukovsky wrote about the events of December 14, 1825: “Providence preserved Russia. By the will of Providence, this day was a day of purification. Providence was on the part of our fatherland and the throne.”) The Emperor closely followed the trial of the participants in the December speech and gave instructions to compile a summary of their critical comments towards the state administration. Despite the fact that attempts on the life of the tsar, according to existing laws, were punishable by quartering, he replaced this execution with hanging. The Ministry of State Property was headed by the hero of 1812, Count P. D. Kiselev, a monarchist by conviction, but an opponent of serfdom. The future Decembrists Pestel, Basargin and Burtsov served under his command. Kiselyov's name was presented to Nicholas on the list of conspirators in connection with the coup case. But, despite this, Kiselev, known for the impeccability of his moral rules and his talent as an organizer, made a successful career under Nicholas as the governor of Moldavia and Wallachia and took an active part in preparing the abolition of serfdom.
At the same time, this opinion of the court maid of honor, which corresponded to the sentiments of representatives of the highest noble society, contradicts a number of facts indicating that it was in the era of Nicholas I that Russian literature flourished (Pushkin, Lermontov, Nekrasov, Gogol, Belinsky, Turgenev), such as never before had not happened before, Russian industry developed unusually rapidly, which for the first time began to take shape as technically advanced and competitive, serfdom changed its character, ceasing to be serfdom (see below). These changes were appreciated by the most prominent contemporaries. “No, I am not a flatterer when I freely praise the Tsar,” wrote A. S. Pushkin about Nicholas I. Pushkin also wrote: “In Russia there is no law, but a pillar - and on a pillar there is a crown.” N.V. Gogol, by the end of his reign, sharply changed his views on autocracy, which he began to praise, and even in serfdom he no longer saw any evil. The following facts do not correspond to the ideas about Nicholas I as a “tyrant” that existed in the noble high society and in the liberal press. As historians point out, the execution of 5 Decembrists was the only execution during the entire 30 years of the reign of Nicholas I, while, for example, under Peter I and Catherine II, executions numbered in the thousands, and under Alexander II - in the hundreds. The situation was no better in Western Europe: for example, in Paris, 11,000 participants in the Parisian June uprising of 1848 were shot within 3 days. Torture and beatings of prisoners in prisons, which were widely practiced in the 18th century, became a thing of the past under Nicholas I (in particular, they were not used against the Decembrists and Petrashevists), and under Alexander II, beatings of prisoners resumed again (the trial of the populists). The most important direction of his domestic policy was the centralization of power. To carry out the tasks of political investigation, a permanent body was created in July 1826 - the Third Department of the Personal Chancellery - a secret service with significant powers, the head of which (since 1827) was also the chief of the gendarmes. The third department was headed by A. Kh. Benkendorf, who became one of the symbols of the era, and after his death (1844) - A. F. Orlov. On December 8, 1826, the first of the secret committees was created, the task of which was, firstly, to consider the papers sealed in the office of Alexander I after his death, and, secondly, to consider the issue of possible transformations of the state apparatus. On May 12 (24), 1829, in the Senate hall in the Warsaw Palace, in the presence of senators, nuncios and deputies of the Kingdom, he was crowned King (Tsar) of Poland. Under Nicholas, the Polish uprising of 1830-1831 was suppressed, during which Nicholas was declared dethroned by the rebels (Decree on the dethronement of Nicholas I). After the suppression of the uprising, the Kingdom of Poland lost its independence, the Sejm and the army and was divided into provinces. Some authors call Nicholas I a “knight of autocracy”: he firmly defended its foundations and suppressed attempts to change the existing system - despite the revolutions in Europe. After the suppression of the Decembrist uprising, he launched large-scale measures in the country to eradicate the “revolutionary infection”. During the reign of Nicholas I, persecution of the Old Believers resumed; The Uniates of Belarus and Volyn were reunited with Orthodoxy (1839). As for the army, to which the emperor paid a lot of attention, D. A. Milyutin, the future minister of war during the reign of Alexander II, writes in his notes: “...Even in military affairs, which the emperor was engaged in with such passionate enthusiasm, the same concern for order, about discipline, they were not chasing the significant improvement of the army, not adapting it to combat purposes, but only external harmony, a brilliant appearance at parades, pedantic observance of countless petty formalities that dull human reason and kill the true military spirit.” In 1834, Lieutenant General N. N. Muravyov compiled a note “On the reasons for escapes and means to correct the shortcomings of the army.” “I drew up a note in which I outlined the sad state in which the troops are morally,” he wrote. - This note showed the reasons for the decline of spirit in the army, escapes, weakness of the people, which consisted mostly in the exorbitant demands of the authorities in frequent reviews, the haste with which they tried to educate young soldiers, and, finally, in the indifference of the closest commanders to the welfare of the people, they entrusted. I immediately expressed my opinion about the measures that I would consider necessary to correct this matter, which is destroying the troops year after year. I proposed not to hold reviews that do not form troops, not to change commanders often, not to transfer (as is now done) people hourly from one unit to another, and to give the troops some rest." In many ways, these shortcomings were associated with the existence of a recruiting system for army formation, which was inherently inhumane, representing lifelong forced service in the army. At the same time, the facts indicate that, in general, the accusations of Nicholas I of the ineffective organization of the army are unfounded. Wars with Persia and Turkey in 1826-1829. ended with the rapid defeat of both opponents, although the very duration of these wars casts serious doubt on this thesis. It must also be taken into account that neither Turkey nor Persia were considered among the first-class military powers in those days. During the Crimean War, the Russian army, which was significantly inferior in the quality of its weapons and technical equipment to the armies of Great Britain and France, showed miracles of courage, high morale and military training. The Crimean War is one of the rare examples of Russian participation in a war with a Western European enemy over the past 300-400 years, in which the losses in the Russian army were lower (or at least not higher) than the losses of the enemy. The defeat of Russia in the Crimean War was associated with the political miscalculation of Nicholas I and with the lag in Russia's development from Western Europe, where the Industrial Revolution had already taken place, but was not associated with the fighting qualities and organization of the Russian army. Peasant questionDuring his reign, meetings of commissions were held to alleviate the situation of the serfs; Thus, a ban was introduced on exiling peasants to hard labor, selling them individually and without land, and peasants received the right to redeem themselves from the estates being sold. A reform of state village management was carried out and a “decree on obligated peasants” was signed, which became the foundation for the abolition of serfdom. However, the complete liberation of the peasants did not take place during the life of the emperor. At the same time, historians - specialists in the Russian agrarian and peasant issue: N. Rozhkov, American historian D. Blum and V. O. Klyuchevsky pointed to three significant changes in this area that occurred during the reign of Nicholas I: 1) For the first time, there was a sharp reduction in the number of serfs - their share in the Russian population, according to various estimates, decreased from 57-58% in 1811-1817. to 35-45% in 1857-1858 and they ceased to constitute the majority of the population. Obviously, a significant role was played by the cessation of the practice of “distributing” state peasants to landowners along with their lands, which flourished under the previous tsars, and the spontaneous liberation of the peasants that began. 2) The situation of state peasants improved greatly, the number of whom by the second half of the 1850s. reached about 50% of the population. This improvement occurred mainly due to the measures taken by Count P. D. Kiselev, who was responsible for the management of state property. Thus, all state peasants were allocated their own plots of land and forest plots, and auxiliary cash desks and grain stores were established everywhere, which provided assistance to the peasants with cash loans and grain in case of crop failure. As a result of these measures, not only did the welfare of state peasants increase, but also treasury income from them increased by 15-20%, tax arrears were halved, and by the mid-1850s there were practically no landless farm laborers who eked out a miserable and dependent existence, all received land from the state. 3) The situation of serfs improved significantly. On the one hand, a number of laws were passed that improved their situation; on the other hand, for the first time, the state began to systematically ensure that the rights of peasants were not violated by landowners (this was one of the functions of the Third Department), and to punish landowners for these violations. As a result of the application of punishments against landowners, by the end of the reign of Nicholas I, about 200 landowner estates were under arrest, which greatly affected the position of the peasants and the psychology of the landowners. As V. Klyuchevsky wrote, two completely new conclusions followed from the laws adopted under Nicholas I: firstly, that peasants are not the property of the landowner, but, first of all, subjects of the state, which protects their rights; secondly, that the personality of the peasant is not the private property of the landowner, that they are connected by their relationship to the landowner’s land, from which the peasants cannot be driven away. Thus, according to the conclusions of historians, serfdom under Nicholas changed its character - from an institution of slavery it turned into an institution that to some extent protected the rights of peasants. These changes in the position of the peasants caused discontent on the part of large landowners and nobles, who saw them as a threat to the established order. Particular indignation was caused by P. D. Kiselev’s proposals regarding serfs, which boiled down to bringing their status closer to state peasants and strengthening control over landowners. As the prominent nobleman Count Nesselrode stated in 1843, Kiselev’s plans for the peasants would lead to the death of the nobility, while the peasants themselves would become increasingly impudent and rebellious. For the first time, a program of mass peasant education was launched. The number of peasant schools in the country increased from only 60 schools with 1,500 students in 1838 to 2,551 schools with 111,000 students in 1856. During the same period, many technical schools and universities were opened - essentially a system of professional primary and secondary education in the country was created. Development of industry and transportThe state of affairs in industry at the beginning of the reign of Nicholas I was the worst in the entire history of the Russian Empire. There was virtually no industry capable of competing with the West, where the Industrial Revolution was already coming to an end at that time (for more details, see Industrialization in the Russian Empire). Russia's exports included only raw materials; almost all types of industrial products needed by the country were purchased abroad. By the end of the reign of Nicholas I the situation had changed greatly. For the first time in the history of the Russian Empire, a technically advanced and competitive industry began to form in the country, in particular textiles and sugar, the production of metal products, clothing, wood, glass, porcelain, leather and other products began to develop, its own machines, tools and even steam locomotives began to be produced . According to economic historians, this was facilitated by the protectionist policy pursued throughout the reign of Nicholas I. As I. Wallerstein points out, it was precisely as a result of the protectionist industrial policy pursued by Nicholas I that the further development of Russia did not follow the path that the majority followed at that time countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America, and along a different path - the path of industrial development. For the first time in the history of Russia, under Nicholas I, intensive construction of paved roads began: the routes Moscow - St. Petersburg, Moscow - Irkutsk, Moscow - Warsaw were built. Of the 7,700 miles of highways built in Russia by 1893, 5,300 miles (about 70%) were built in the period 1825-1860. The construction of railways was also started and about 1000 miles of railway track was built, which gave impetus to the development of our own mechanical engineering. The rapid development of industry led to a sharp increase in urban population and urban growth. The share of the urban population during the reign of Nicholas I more than doubled - from 4.5% in 1825 to 9.2% in 1858. Nikolai and the problem of corruptionThe reign of Nicholas I in Russia ended the “era of favoritism” - a euphemism often used by historians, which essentially means large-scale corruption, that is, the usurpation of government positions, honors and awards by the favorites of the tsar and his entourage. Examples of “favoritism” and associated corruption and theft of state property on a large scale abound in almost all reigns from the beginning of the 17th century. and right up to Alexander I. But in relation to the reign of Nicholas I, these examples do not exist - in general, there is not a single example of large-scale theft of state property that would be mentioned by historians. Nicholas I introduced an extremely moderate system of incentives for officials (in the form of lease of estates/property and cash bonuses), which he controlled to a large extent. Unlike previous reigns, historians have not recorded large gifts in the form of palaces or thousands of serfs granted to any nobleman or royal relative. Even to V. Nelidova, with whom Nicholas I had a long-term relationship and who had children from him, he did not make a single truly large gift comparable to what the kings of the previous era gave to their favorites. To combat corruption in the middle and lower ranks of officials, for the first time under Nicholas I, regular audits were introduced at all levels. Such a practice practically did not exist before; its introduction was dictated by the need not only to fight corruption, but also to establish basic order in government affairs. (However, the following fact is also known: patriotic residents of Tula and the Tula province, by subscription, collected considerable money for those times - 380 thousand rubles for the installation of a monument on the Kulikovo field in honor of the victory over the Tatars, because almost five hundred years have passed, and it is not possible to erect a monument did not bother, and sent this money, collected with such difficulty, to St. Petersburg, Nicholas I. As a result, A.P. Bryullov in 1847 composed a design for the monument, cast iron castings were made in St. Petersburg, transported to the Tula province, and in 1849 This cast iron pillar was erected on the Kulikovo field. Its cost was 60 thousand rubles, and where another 320 thousand went remains unknown. Perhaps they went to restore basic order). In general, we can note a sharp reduction in major corruption and the beginning of the fight against medium and petty corruption. For the first time, the problem of corruption was raised at the state level and widely discussed. Gogol's The Inspector General, which showcased examples of bribery and theft, was shown in theaters (while previously discussion of such topics was strictly prohibited). However, the tsar's critics regarded the fight against corruption he initiated as an increase in corruption itself. In addition, officials came up with new ways of stealing, bypassing the measures taken by Nicholas I, as evidenced by the following statement: Nicholas I himself was critical of successes in this area, saying that the only people around him who did not steal were himself and his heir. Foreign policyAn important aspect of foreign policy was the return to the principles of the Holy Alliance. Russia's role in the fight against any manifestations of the “spirit of change” in European life has increased. It was during the reign of Nicholas I that Russia received the unflattering nickname of “the gendarme of Europe.” Thus, at the request of the Austrian Empire, Russia took part in the suppression of the Hungarian revolution, sending a 140,000-strong corps to Hungary, which was trying to free itself from oppression by Austria; as a result, the throne of Franz Joseph was saved. The latter circumstance did not prevent the Austrian emperor, who feared excessive strengthening of Russia’s position in the Balkans, from soon taking a position unfriendly to Nicholas during the Crimean War and even threatening to enter the war on the side of a coalition hostile to Russia, which Nicholas I regarded as ungrateful treachery; Russian-Austrian relations were hopelessly damaged until the end of the existence of both monarchies. However, the emperor helped the Austrians not just out of charity. “It is very likely that Hungary, having defeated Austria, due to the prevailing circumstances, would have been forced to actively assist the plans of the Polish emigration,” wrote the biographer of Field Marshal Paskevich, Prince. Shcherbatov. The Eastern Question occupied a special place in the foreign policy of Nicholas I. Russia under Nicholas I abandoned plans for the division of the Ottoman Empire, which were discussed under the previous tsars (Catherine II and Paul I), and began to pursue a completely different policy in the Balkans - a policy of protecting the Orthodox population and ensuring its religious and civil rights, up to political independence . This policy was first applied in the Treaty of Akkerman with Turkey in 1826. Under this treaty, Moldavia and Wallachia, while remaining part of the Ottoman Empire, received political autonomy with the right to elect their own government, which was formed under the control of Russia. After half a century of the existence of such autonomy, the state of Romania was formed on this territory - according to the Treaty of San Stefano in 1878. “In exactly the same order,” wrote V. Klyuchevsky, “the liberation of other tribes of the Balkan Peninsula took place: the tribe rebelled against Turkey; the Turks directed their forces at him; at a certain moment Russia shouted to Turkey: “Stop!”; then Turkey began to prepare for war with Russia, the war was lost, and by agreement the rebel tribe received internal independence, remaining under the supreme authority of Turkey. With a new clash between Russia and Turkey, vassal dependence was destroyed. This is how the Serbian Principality was formed according to the Treaty of Adrianople of 1829, the Greek Kingdom - according to the same treaty and according to the London Protocol of 1830 ... " Along with this, Russia sought to ensure its influence in the Balkans and the possibility of unhindered navigation in the straits (Bosporus and Dardanelles). During the Russian-Turkish wars of 1806-1812. and 1828-1829, Russia achieved great success in implementing this policy. At the request of Russia, which declared itself the patroness of all Christian subjects of the Sultan, the Sultan was forced to recognize the freedom and independence of Greece and the broad autonomy of Serbia (1830); according to the Treaty of Unkar-Iskelesiki (1833), which marked the peak of Russian influence in Constantinople, Russia received the right to block the passage of foreign ships into the Black Sea (which it lost in 1841) The same reasons: support for Orthodox Christians in the Ottoman Empire and disagreements over the Eastern Question, pushed Russia to aggravate relations with Turkey in 1853, which resulted in its declaration of war on Russia. The beginning of the war with Turkey in 1853 was marked by the brilliant victory of the Russian fleet under the command of Admiral P. S. Nakhimov, which defeated the enemy in Sinop Bay. This was the last major battle of the sailing fleet. Russia's military successes caused a negative reaction in the West. The leading world powers were not interested in strengthening Russia at the expense of the decrepit Ottoman Empire. This created the basis for a military alliance between England and France. Nicholas I's miscalculation in assessing the internal political situation in England, France and Austria led to the country finding itself in political isolation. In 1854, England and France entered the war on the side of Turkey. Due to Russia's technical backwardness, it was difficult to resist these European powers. The main military operations took place in Crimea. In October 1854, the Allies besieged Sevastopol. The Russian army suffered a number of defeats and was unable to provide assistance to the besieged fortress city. Despite the heroic defense of the city, after an 11-month siege, in August 1855, the defenders of Sevastopol were forced to surrender the city. At the beginning of 1856, following the results of the Crimean War, the Paris Peace Treaty was signed. According to its terms, Russia was prohibited from having naval forces, arsenals and fortresses in the Black Sea. Russia became vulnerable from the sea and lost the opportunity to conduct an active foreign policy in this region. Even more serious were the consequences of the war in the economic field. Immediately after the end of the war, in 1857, a liberal customs tariff was introduced in Russia, which practically abolished duties on Western European industrial imports, which may have been one of the peace conditions imposed on Russia by Great Britain. The result was an industrial crisis: by 1862, iron smelting in the country fell by 1/4, and cotton processing by 3.5 times. The increase in imports led to the outflow of money from the country, a deterioration in the trade balance and a chronic shortage of money in the treasury. During the reign of Nicholas I, Russia took part in wars: the Caucasian War 1817-1864, the Russian-Persian War 1826-1828, the Russian-Turkish War 1828-29, the Crimean War 1853-56. Emperor EngineerHaving received a good engineering education in his youth, Nikolai showed considerable knowledge in the field of construction equipment. Thus, he made sensible proposals regarding the dome of the Trinity Cathedral in St. Petersburg. Later, already occupying the highest position in the state, he closely monitored the order in urban planning and not a single significant project was approved without his signature. He established regulations on the height of buildings in the capital, prohibiting the construction of civil structures higher than the cornice of the Winter Palace. Thus, the famous St. Petersburg city panorama, which existed until recently, was created, thanks to which the city was considered one of the most beautiful cities in the world and was included in the list of cities considered the cultural heritage of mankind. Knowing the requirements for choosing a suitable location for the construction of an astronomical observatory, Nikolai personally indicated a place for it on the top of Pulkovo Mountain The first railways appeared in Russia (since 1837). It is believed that Nikolai became acquainted with steam locomotives at the age of 19 during a trip to England in 1816. The locals proudly showed Grand Duke Nikolai Pavlovich their successes in the field of locomotive engineering and railway construction. There is a claim that the future emperor became the first Russian fireman - he could not resist asking engineer Stephenson to come to his railway, climb onto the platform of the locomotive, throw several shovels of coal into the firebox and ride on this miracle. The far-sighted Nikolai, having studied in detail the technical data of the railways proposed for construction, demanded a widening of the Russian gauge compared to the European one (1524 mm versus 1435 in Europe), rightly fearing that the enemy would be able to come to Russia by steam locomotive. This, a hundred years later, significantly hampered the supply and maneuver of the German occupation forces due to the lack of locomotives for the broad gauge. So, in the November days of 1941, the troops of the Center group received only 30% of the military supplies necessary for a successful attack on Moscow. The daily supply was only 23 trains, when 70 were required to develop success. Moreover, when the crisis that arose on the African front near Tobruk required the rapid transfer to the south of part of the military contingents withdrawn from the Moscow direction, this transfer was extremely difficult for the same reason. The high relief of the monument to Nicholas in St. Petersburg depicts an episode that occurred during his inspection trip along the Nicholas Railway, when his train stopped at the Verebyinsky railway bridge and could not go further, because out of loyal zeal the rails were painted white. Under the Marquis de Travers, the Russian fleet, due to lack of funds, often operated in the eastern part of the Gulf of Finland, which received the nickname Marquis's Puddle. At that time, the naval defense of St. Petersburg relied on a system of wood-earth fortifications near Kronstadt, armed with outdated short-range cannons, which allowed the enemy to easily destroy them from long distances. Already in December 1827, by order of the Emperor, work began to replace the wooden fortifications with stone ones. Nikolai personally reviewed the designs of fortifications proposed by the engineers and approved them. And in some cases (for example, during the construction of the Pavel I fort), he made specific proposals to reduce the cost and speed up construction. The emperor carefully selected the performers of the work. Thus, he patronized the previously little-known Lieutenant Colonel Zarzhetsky, who became the main builder of the Kronstadt Nikolaev docks. The work was carried out in a timely manner, and by the time the English squadron of Admiral Napier appeared in the Baltic, the defense of the capital, provided by strong fortifications and mine banks, had become so impregnable that the First Lord of the Admiralty, James Graham, pointed out to Napier the disastrousness of any attempt to capture Kronstadt. As a result, the St. Petersburg public received a reason for entertainment by traveling to Oranienbaum and Krasnaya Gorka to observe the evolution of the enemy fleet. The mine and artillery position, created under Nicholas I for the first time in world practice, turned out to be an insurmountable obstacle on the way to the capital of the state. Nikolai was aware of the need for reforms, but taking into account the experience gained, he considered their implementation a lengthy and cautious matter. Nikolai looked at the state subordinate to him, like an engineer looks at a mechanism that is complex, but deterministic in its functioning, in which everything is interconnected and the reliability of one part ensures the correct operation of others. The ideal of social order was army life, which was completely regulated by regulations. DeathHe died “at twelve minutes past one o’clock in the afternoon” on February 18 (March 2), 1855, due to pneumonia (he caught a cold while taking part in a parade in a light uniform, being already sick with the flu). There is a conspiracy theory, widespread in society at that time, that Nicholas I accepted the defeat of General S. A. Khrulev near Yevpatoria during the Crimean War as the final harbinger of defeat in the war, and therefore asked his physician Mandt to give him poison that would allow him commit suicide without unnecessary suffering and quickly enough, but not suddenly, preventing personal shame. The emperor forbade the opening and embalming of his body. As eyewitnesses recalled, the emperor passed away in a clear mind, without losing his presence of mind for a minute. He managed to say goodbye to each of his children and grandchildren and, having blessed them, turned to them with a reminder to remain friendly with each other. His son, Alexander II, ascended the Russian throne. “I was surprised,” recalled A.E. Zimmerman, “that the death of Nikolai Pavlovich, apparently, did not make a particular impression on the defenders of Sevastopol. I noticed in everyone almost indifference to my questions, when and why the Emperor died, they answered: we don’t know...” Culture, censorship and writersNikolai suppressed 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. It got to the point that in 1836, the censor P.I. Gaevsky, after serving 8 days in the guardhouse, doubted whether news like “such and such a king had died” could be allowed into print. When in 1837 a note was published in the St. Petersburg Gazette about an attempt on the life of the French king Louis-Philippe, Benckendorff immediately notified the Minister of Education S.S. Uvarov that he considered it “indecent to place such news in bulletins, especially those published by the government.” In September 1826, Nikolai received Pushkin, who had been released from Mikhailovsky exile, and listened to his confession that on December 14, Pushkin would have been with the conspirators, but acted mercifully with him: he freed the poet from general censorship (he decided to censor his works himself), and instructed him to prepare note “On Public Education”, called him after the meeting “the smartest man in Russia” (however, later, after Pushkin’s death, he spoke very coldly about him and this meeting). In 1828, Nikolai dropped the case against Pushkin regarding the authorship of the “Gabriiliad” after the poet’s handwritten letter was handed over to him personally, bypassing the investigative commission, which, in the opinion of many researchers, contained, in the opinion of many researchers, an admission of authorship of the seditious work after much denial. However, the emperor never completely trusted the poet, seeing him as a dangerous “leader of the liberals”; the poet was under police surveillance, his letters were illustrated; Pushkin, having gone through the first euphoria, which was expressed in poems in honor of the tsar (“Stanzas”, “To Friends”), by the mid-1830s also began to evaluate the sovereign ambiguously. “There is a lot of ensign in him and a little of Peter the Great,” Pushkin wrote about Nicholas in his diary on May 21, 1834; at the same time, the diary also notes “sensible” comments on “The History of Pugachev” (the sovereign edited it and lent Pushkin 20 thousand rubles), ease of use and the king’s good language. In 1834, Pushkin was appointed chamberlain of the imperial court, which greatly burdened the poet and was also reflected in his diary. Nikolai himself considered such an appointment as a gesture of recognition of the poet and was internally upset that Pushkin was cool about the appointment. Pushkin could sometimes afford not to come to balls to which Nikolai personally invited him. Balam Pushkin preferred to communicate with writers, but Nikolai showed his dissatisfaction with him. The role played by Nikolai in the conflict between Pushkin and Dantes is assessed by historians contradictory. After the death of Pushkin, Nikolai awarded a pension to his widow and children, but sought in every possible way to limit performances in memory of him, thereby showing, in particular, dissatisfaction with the violation of his ban on dueling. Guided by the statute of 1826, the Nikolaev censors reached the point of absurdity in their prohibitive zeal. One of them banned the publication of an arithmetic textbook after he saw three dots between the numbers in the text of the problem and suspected the author’s malicious intent in this. Chairman of the Censorship Committee D.P. Buturlin even proposed to delete certain passages (for example: “Rejoice, invisible taming of the cruel and bestial rulers...”) from the akathist to the Protection of the Mother of God, since they looked “unreliable.” Nikolai also doomed Polezhaev, who was arrested for free poetry, to years of soldiering, and twice ordered Lermontov to be exiled to the Caucasus. By his order, the magazines “European”, “Moscow Telegraph”, “Telescope” were closed, P. Chaadaev and his publisher were persecuted, and F. Schiller was banned from publication in Russia. I. S. Turgenev was arrested in 1852 and then administratively exiled to the village only for writing an obituary dedicated to the memory of Gogol (the obituary itself was not passed by censors). The censor also suffered because he allowed Turgenev’s “Notes of a Hunter” to go into print, in which, according to the Moscow Governor-General Count A. A. Zakrevsky, “a decisive direction was expressed towards the destruction of the landowners.” Liberal contemporary writers (primarily A.I. Herzen) were inclined to demonize Nicholas. There were facts showing his personal participation in the development of the arts: personal censorship of Pushkin (the general censorship of that time in a number of issues was much stricter and more careful), support of the Alexandrinsky Theater. As I.L. Solonevich wrote in this regard, “Pushkin read “Eugene Onegin” to Nicholas I, and N. Gogol read “Dead Souls.” Nicholas I financed both of them, was the first to note the talent of L. Tolstoy, and wrote a review about “Hero of Our Time” that would have done honor to any professional literary critic... Nicholas I had enough literary taste and civic courage to defend “The Inspector General” and after the first performance, say: “Everyone got it – and most of all ME.” In 1850, by order of Nicholas I, N. A. Ostrovsky’s play “We Will Be Numbered Our Own People” was banned from production. The Committee of Higher Censorship was dissatisfied with the fact that among the characters brought out by the author there were not “one of those venerable merchants of ours in whom fear of God, uprightness and straightforwardness of mind constitute a typical and integral attribute.” It was not only liberals who came under suspicion. Professor M.P. Pogodin, who published “The Moskvitian,” was placed under police supervision in 1852 for a critical article addressed to N.V. Puppeteer’s play “The Batman” (about Peter I), which received the praise of the emperor. A critical review of another play by the Puppeteer, “The Hand of the Almighty Saved the Fatherland,” led to the closure of the Moscow Telegraph magazine, published by N. A. Polev, in 1834. The Minister of Public Education, Count S.S. Uvarov, who initiated the repressions, wrote about the magazine: “This is a conductor of the revolution, it has been systematically spreading destructive rules for several years. He doesn't like Russia." Censorship also did not allow publication of some jingoistic articles and works that contained harsh and politically undesirable statements and views, which happened, for example, during the Crimean War with two poems by F.I. Tyutchev. From one (“Prophecy”), Nicholas I personally deleted the paragraph that spoke of the erection of the cross over Sophia of Constantinople and the “All-Slavic Tsar”; another (“Now you have no time for poetry”) was prohibited from publication by the minister, apparently due to the “somewhat harsh tone of the presentation” noted by the censor. “He would like,” S.M. Soloviev wrote about him, “to cut off all the heads that rose above the general level.” NicknamesHome nickname: Knicks. The official nickname is Unforgettable. Leo Tolstoy in the story “Nikolai Palkin” gives another nickname for the emperor: Family and personal lifeIn 1817, Nicholas married Princess Charlotte of Prussia, daughter of Frederick William III, who received the name Alexandra Feodorovna after converting to Orthodoxy. The spouses were each other's fourth cousins (they had the same great-great-grandfather and great-great-grandmother). In the spring of the following year, their first son Alexander (the future Emperor Alexander II) was born. Children:
1st marriage - Maximilian Duke of Leuchtenberg (1817-1852) 2nd marriage (unofficial marriage since 1854) - Stroganov Grigory Alexandrovich, count
husband - Friedrich-Karl-Alexander, King of Württemberg
husband - Friedrich Wilhelm, Prince of Hesse-Kassel
Had 4 or 7 alleged illegitimate children (see List of illegitimate children of Russian emperors#Nicholas I). Nikolai was in a relationship with Varvara Nelidova for 17 years. Assessing the attitude of Nicholas I towards women in general, Herzen wrote: “I do not believe that he ever passionately loved any woman, like Pavel Lopukhina, like Alexander all women except his wife; he “was favorable to them,” no more.” Personality, business and human qualities“The sense of humor inherent in Grand Duke Nikolai Pavlovich is clearly visible in his drawings. Friends and relatives, types encountered, sketches observed, sketches of camp life - the subjects of his youthful drawings. All of them are executed easily, dynamically, quickly, with a simple pencil, on small sheets of paper, often in the manner of a cartoon. “He had a talent for caricatures,” Paul Lacroix wrote about the emperor, “and most successfully captured the funny sides of faces that he wanted to place in some satirical drawing.” “He was handsome, but his beauty was cold; there is no face that reveals a person’s character as mercilessly as his face. The forehead, quickly running back, the lower jaw, developed at the expense of the skull, expressed an unyielding will and weak thought, more cruelty than sensuality. But the main thing is the eyes, without any warmth, without any mercy, winter eyes.” He led an ascetic and healthy lifestyle; never missed Sunday services. He did not smoke and did not like smokers, did not drink strong drinks, walked a lot, and did drill exercises with weapons. It was known that he strictly followed the daily routine: the working day began at 7 o’clock in the morning, and at exactly 9 o’clock the reception of reports began. He preferred to dress in a simple officer's overcoat and slept on a hard bed. He was distinguished by good memory and great efficiency; The tsar's working day lasted 16 - 18 hours. According to Archbishop of Kherson Innokenty (Borisov), “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.” Maid of honor A.F. Tyutcheva writes that he “spent 18 hours a day at work, worked until late at night, got up at dawn, sacrificed nothing for pleasure and everything for duty, and took on more labor and worries than the last day laborer from his subjects. He sincerely and sincerely believed that he was able to see everything with his own eyes, hear everything with his own ears, regulate everything according to his own understanding, and transform everything with his own will. But what was the result of such a passion for the supreme ruler in trifles? 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 that neither public opinion nor private initiative had the right to point out them, nor the opportunity to fight them.” The tsar's love for law, justice, and order was well known. I personally attended military formations, parades, and inspected fortifications, educational institutions, office premises, and government institutions. Remarks and criticisms were always accompanied by specific advice on how to correct the situation. A younger contemporary of Nicholas I, historian S. M. Solovyov, writes: “after Nicholas’s accession, a military man, like a stick, accustomed not to reason, but to execute and capable of teaching others to perform without reasoning, was considered the best, most capable commander everywhere; experience in affairs - no attention was paid to this. The Fruntoviks sat in all government places, and with them ignorance, arbitrariness, robbery, and all kinds of disorder reigned." He had a pronounced ability to attract talented, creatively gifted people to work, to “form a team.” The employees of Nicholas I were 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. Kiselyov, the Minister of Public Education Count S.S. Uvarov and others. The talented architect Konstantin Ton served under him as a state architect. However, this did not stop Nikolai from severely fining him for his sins. He had absolutely no understanding of people and their talents. Personnel appointments, with rare exceptions, turned out to be unsuccessful (the most striking example of this is the Crimean War, when during Nicholas’s lifetime the two best corps commanders - generals Leaders and Roediger - were never appointed to the army operating in the Crimea). Even very capable people were often appointed to completely inappropriate positions. “He is the vice director of the trade department,” Zhukovsky wrote on the appointment of the poet and publicist Prince P. A. Vyazemsky to a new post. - Laughter and nothing more! Our people use it well..." Through the eyes of contemporaries and publicistsIn the book of the French writer Marquis de Custine “La Russie en 1839” (“Russia in 1839”), sharply critical of Nicholas’s autocracy and many features of Russian life, Nicholas is described as follows:
Along with this, Custine wrote in his book that Nicholas I was mired in debauchery and dishonored a huge number of decent girls and women: “If he (the king) distinguishes a woman on a walk, in the theater, in society, he says one word to the adjutant on duty. A person who attracts the attention of a deity comes under observation and supervision. They warn the spouse if she is married, the parents if she is a girl, about the honor that has befallen them. There are no examples of this difference being accepted except with an expression of respectful gratitude. Likewise, there are no examples yet of dishonored husbands or fathers not profiting from their dishonor.” Custine argued that all this was “put on stream”, that girls dishonored by the emperor were usually married off to one of the court suitors, and this was done by none other than the Tsar’s wife herself, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna. However, historians do not confirm the accusations of debauchery and the existence of a “conveyor belt of victims” dishonored by Nicholas I, contained in Custine’s book, and, on the contrary, they write that he was a monogamous man and for many years maintained a long-term attachment to one woman. Contemporaries noted the “basilisk gaze” characteristic of the emperor, unbearable for timid people. General B.V. Gerua in his memoirs (Memories of my life. “Tanais”, Paris, 1969) gives the following story about Nicholas: “Regarding the guard service under Nicholas I, I remember the tombstone at the Lazarevsky cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra in St. Petersburg. My father showed it to me when we went with him to worship the graves of his parents and passed by this unusual monument. It was an excellently executed bronze figure - probably by a first-class craftsman - of a young and handsome officer of the Semenovsky Life Guards Regiment, lying as if in a sleeping position. His head rests on a bucket-shaped shako of the Nicholas reign, its first half. The collar is unbuttoned. The body is decoratively covered with a draped cloak, descending to the floor in picturesque, heavy folds. My father told the story of this monument. The officer lay down on guard to rest and unfastened the hooks of his huge stand-up collar, which was cutting his neck. This was forbidden. Hearing some noise in my sleep, I opened my eyes and saw the Emperor above me! The officer never got up. He died of a broken heart." N.V. Gogol wrote that Nicholas I, with his arrival in Moscow during the horrors of the cholera epidemic, showed a desire to uplift and encourage the fallen - “a trait that hardly any of the crown bearers showed,” which caused A.S. Pushkin “this wonderful poems" ("Conversation between a bookseller and a poet; Pushkin talks about Napoleon I with a hint of modern events): In “Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends,” Gogol writes enthusiastically about Nikolai and claims that Pushkin also allegedly addressed Nikolai, who read Homer during a ball, the apologetic poem “You talked alone with Homer for a long time...”, hiding this dedication for fear of being branded a liar. . In Pushkin studies this attribution is often questioned; it is indicated that the dedication to the translator of Homer N.I. Gnedich is more likely. An extremely negative assessment of the personality and activities of Nicholas I is associated with the work of A. I. Herzen. Herzen, who from his youth was painfully worried about the failure of the Decembrist uprising, attributed cruelty, rudeness, vindictiveness, intolerance to “free-thinking” to the tsar’s personality, and accused him of following a reactionary course of domestic policy. I. L. Solonevich wrote that Nicholas I was, like Alexander Nevsky and Ivan III, a true “sovereign master”, with “a master’s eye and a master’s calculation” N.A. Rozhkov believed that Nicholas I was alien to the lust for power, the enjoyment of personal power: “Paul I and Alexander I, more than Nicholas, loved power, as such, in itself.” A.I. Solzhenitsyn admired the courage of Nicholas I, shown by him during the cholera riot. Seeing the helplessness and fear of the officials around him, the king himself went into the crowd of rioting people suffering from cholera, suppressed this rebellion with his authority and, upon leaving quarantine, he took off all his clothes and burned them right in the field, so as not to infect his retinue. And here is what N.E. Wrangel writes in his “Memoirs (from serfdom to the Bolsheviks)”: Now, after the damage caused by the lack of will of Nicholas II, Nicholas I is again coming into fashion, and I will be reproached, perhaps, for remembering This Monarch, “adored by all his contemporaries,” was not treated with due respect. The passion for the deceased Sovereign Nikolai Pavlovich by his current admirers, in any case, is both more understandable and sincere than the adoration of his deceased contemporaries. Nikolai Pavlovich, like his grandmother Catherine, managed to acquire an innumerable number of admirers and praisers and create a halo around himself. Catherine succeeded in this by bribing encyclopedists and various French and German greedy brethren with flattery, gifts and money, and her Russian associates with ranks, orders, allotment of peasants and land. Nikolai succeeded, and even in a less unprofitable way - through fear. Through bribery and fear, everything is always and everywhere achieved, everything, even immortality. Nikolai Pavlovich’s contemporaries did not “idolize” him, as it was customary to say during his reign, but they were afraid of him. Non-worship, non-worship would probably be recognized as a state crime. And gradually this custom-made feeling, a necessary guarantee of personal safety, entered the flesh and blood of contemporaries and was then instilled in their children and grandchildren. The late Grand Duke Mikhail Nikolaevich10 used to go to Dr. Dreherin in Dresden for treatment. To my surprise, I saw that this seventy-year-old man kept kneeling during the service. How does he do this? - I asked his son Nikolai Mikhailovich, a famous historian of the first quarter of the 19th century. Most likely, he is still afraid of his “unforgettable” father. He managed to instill such fear in them that they would not forget him until their death. But I heard that the Grand Duke, your father, adored his father. Yes, and, oddly enough, quite sincerely. Why is it strange? He was adored by many at the time. Do not make me laugh. (...) Once I asked Adjutant General Chikhachev, the former Minister of Navy, whether it was true that all his contemporaries idolized the Tsar. Still would! I was even flogged for this once, and it was very painful. Tell us! I was only four years old when, as an orphan, I was placed in the juvenile orphanage department of the building. There were no teachers there, but there were lady teachers. Once my friend asked me if I loved the Emperor. This was the first time I heard about the Emperor and I replied that I didn’t know. Well, they whipped me. That's all. And did it help? Did you fall in love? That is, how! Straight up - I began to idolize him. I was satisfied with the first spanking. What if they didn’t start idolizing? Of course, they wouldn't pat him on the head. This was mandatory, for everyone both above and below. So it was necessary to pretend? They didn’t go into such psychological subtleties back then. We were ordered - we loved. Then they said that only geese think, not people." MonumentsIn honor of Emperor Nicholas I, about one and a half dozen monuments were erected in the Russian Empire, mainly various columns and obelisks, in memory of his visit to one place or another. Almost all sculptural monuments to the Emperor (with the exception of the equestrian monument in St. Petersburg) were destroyed during the years of Soviet power. Currently, the following monuments to the Emperor exist:
This is a small excerpt from my large (about 7 hours of reading) work “A Famous Person or the History of an Old Song.” You can read it in full in pdf format in the “cloud” at the link: https://cloud.mail.ru/public/36QV/vU12vH62F ______________________________________________ Now I’ll tell you a little about another, supposedly “forged” letter. Everything here is much more serious from the point of view of provability. According to this letter, it is believed that Emperor Paul I suspected his wife Maria Feodorovna of having given birth to at least one son, Nicholas (the future emperor), from the Goff-Fourier Babkin (Daniil Grigorievich, 1771 - 1858). A copy of the old letter (the original allegedly burned down in a fire in 1918) was published by Pavel Eliseevich Shchegolev (1877 - 1931, a major Pushkin scholar, literary historian) in the magazine "Byloe" in 1925. “Today for me is a sacred day of remembrance in Bose of the late Tsarevna Natalya Alekseevna (Pavel Petrovich’s first wife, whom he really loved. She died as a result of childbirth after much suffering at five o’clock in the morning on April 15, 1776. - I.Sh.), whose bright the image will never be erased from my memory until my death hour. This is where a slight doubt creeps into my mind - if this letter is dated April 1800, then Paul I wrote it at least a year after “drawing a manifesto recognizing my son Nicholas as illegal,” since Chancellor Bezborodko died on April 6, 1799. It turns out that this letter was written by Pavel after some nostalgic memories. A little illogical..., but on the other hand, if this letter were a fake, then those who produced it would probably have tried to adjust the dating of the letter to the years of life of Chancellor Bezborodko. Everything here is painfully very subtle... This letter is not the final point in this story. An indirect fact that the “Shchegolev letter” is not a fake and it existed is the following entry by Denis Vasilyevich Davydov (Russian partisan poet, 1784 - 1839): "Count F.V. Rastopchin was a remarkable man in many respects; his correspondence with many people can serve as precious material for a historian. Having once received a letter from Paul, who ordered him to declare the Grand Dukes Nicholas and Mikhail Pavlovich illegitimate, he, among other things, wrote to him : “You have the power to command, but I am obliged to tell you that if this is carried out, there will not be enough dirt in Russia to hide the redness of your cheeks.” The Emperor wrote on this letter: “Vous;tes terrible, mais pas moins tr;s juste” (You are terrible, but fair. - Ed.). But Denis Davydov himself has not seen this letter..., and knows about it only through oral traditions..., that is, it turns out that this whole story has been going on for a very long time exclusively at the level of rumors. And this is not at all surprising, since presenting such letters to the public would mean blowing up the state's bonds. "Monsieur.... est averti que Mamam est accouhee ce matin a trois heures d'un enorme garson, anquel on confere le nom de Nicolas.... Today at three o'clock in the morning the mother gave birth to a huge boy, who was named Nikolai. His voice is bass, and he screams amazingly; it is an arshin long minus two inches (71 cm – 2 x 4.4 cm = 62 cm - I.Sh.), and the hands are a little smaller than mine. This is the first time in my life that I have seen such a knight... If he continues as he began, then the brothers will turn out to be dwarfs in front of this colossus.” "Le chevalier Nicolas depuis trois jours mange deja de la bouillie, parsequ'il vent manger a tont moment .... Knight Nikolai has been eating porridge for three days now, because he constantly asks for food. I believe that never before has an eight-day-old child enjoyed such a treat; this is unheard of. The nannies simply drop their hands in surprise; if this continues, we will have to wean him after six weeks. He looks at everyone with all his eyes (il toise tout le monde), holds his head straight and turns as well as I can.” So from the first days Nikolai was sharply different from his older brothers. |
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