Nikolaev rule years. solution of the peasant question. Did not shy away from connections on the side
Emperor of All Russia in 1825-1855.
Grand Duke Nikolai Pavlovich was born in Tsarskoye Selo (now) on June 25 (July 6), 1796. He was the third son of Tsarevich Pavel Petrovich, the future emperor.
In 1800, Grand Duke Nikolai Pavlovich, together with his brother Mikhail, was entrusted with the supervision of the director of the 1st Cadet Corps, Count V. N. Lamzdorf, who gave his ward a pedantically severe military education. Nikolai Pavlovich's attraction to military affairs developed early and was supported by the whole environment of life around him.
On July 1 (12), 1817, the Grand Duke married the eldest daughter of the Prussian king, Princess Louise Charlotte, who adopted the name Alexandra Feodorovna in Orthodoxy. On April 17 (29), 1818, Grand Duke Alexander Nikolayevich, the future emperor, was born in their family.
In 1817, Nikolai Pavlovich was appointed inspector general for engineering. From 1823 he commanded the 1st Guards Division. In the spring of 1825, when he was leaving for Warsaw, Nikolai Pavlovich was left temporarily interceding for the emperor in matters of supreme administration.
After the death of Emperor Alexander I, Tsarevich Konstantin Pavlovich was supposed to inherit the throne, but, as it turned out during the days of mourning, he abdicated as early as 1822. However, before the confirmation of his abdication, the oath to Konstantin Pavlovich as emperor was carried out throughout the country.
Uncertainty with the succession to the throne created a favorable situation for the performance of the Decembrists. The publication of the manifesto on the accession to the throne of Nicholas I on December 14 (26), 1825, coincided with the exit of the military units of the capital's garrison, led by conspirators, to the Senate Square. The confident actions of the young emperor and his supporters, as well as the indecision of the leaders of the uprising, predetermined his defeat.
Emperor Nicholas I was crowned on August 22 (September 3), 1826. In 1829, in Warsaw, he was crowned constitutional monarch of the Kingdom of Poland.
At the beginning of his reign, Nicholas I sought to reform the existing state institutions. In 1826-1830, a special secret committee headed by Count V.P. Kochubey worked, which, with the participation of the emperor, was engaged in considering ways to modernize state administration. Some of the committee's projects were later brought to life, but most were never implemented.
Nicholas I paid close attention to the codification of Russian legislation. In 1826, to solve this problem, the Second Department was formed as part of His Imperial Majesty's Own Chancellery. The leadership of this work was entrusted to a member of the State Council. Its result was the 45-volume chronological collection of Russian laws published in 1830 from the Code of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich to the last decree of Emperor Alexander I - the Complete Collection of Laws of the Russian Empire, subsequently replenished with all newly issued acts. In 1832, the Second Department prepared for publication a complete set of laws in force in the empire in 15 volumes.
The most important issue of the domestic policy of Nicholas I was the peasant one. The emperor understood the need to abolish serfdom, but could not carry it out because of the opposition of the nobility and fear of a "general shock". Because of this, he limited himself to ineffective measures, such as the issuance of a law on indebted peasants, and the partial reform of state peasants. However, despite the policy of conservation of existing feudal institutions, the course of development of society objectively led the government to take actions that contributed to economic development: the creation of manufacturing and commercial councils, the organization of industrial exhibitions, the opening of higher educational institutions, including technical ones.
In 1826, Nicholas I formed the Third Section of His Majesty's Own Chancellery, which was under the command of the chief of gendarmes and dealt with the affairs of the higher police, both observational and preventive. With this new institution, the emperor wished to strengthen his direct supervision over the protection of the legitimate rights, honor and tranquility of his subjects. In fact, it has become a secret political police department.
Nicholas I brutally suppressed separatist movements on the national outskirts of the empire. The years of his reign account for most of the fighting in the Caucasian War of 1817-1864. The Polish uprising of 1830-1831 ended with the complete defeat of the rebels and the liquidation of the autonomy of the Kingdom of Poland.
The foreign policy of Nicholas I was characterized by the continuation of traditional Russian expansion in the southern and eastern directions. The Russian-Persian war of 1826-1828 ended with the Turkmenchay peace, according to which Russia gained the Erivan and Nakhichevan regions. The Russian-Turkish war of 1828-1829, the prelude to which was the battle of Navarino in 1827, ended with the Peace of Andrianopol, according to which Greece gained independence, and Russia held part of Bessarabia and in the eastern theater of the war - fortresses, Akhaltsykh, Akhalkalaki and Poti. The government of Nicholas I pursued a policy of energetic territorial expansion in Central Asia and Kazakhstan.
An important aspect of the foreign policy of Nicholas I was the return to the principles of the Holy Alliance, proclaimed in 1833 after the official entry into allied relations with the Emperor of Austria and the King of Prussia to fight the revolutionary movement in Europe. Implementing the principles of this alliance, in 1848 Nicholas I severed diplomatic relations with France, launched an invasion of the Danubian principalities, and took an active part in the brutal suppression of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848-1849.
The main direction of the foreign policy of the state under Nicholas I was the solution of the so-called. Eastern question. Its essence was to ensure a favorable regime for Russia in the Black Sea straits, which was extremely important both for the security of the southern borders and for the economic development of the state. The Unkyar-Iskelesi Treaty of 1833 became a stage in achieving this goal. The desire to solve the Eastern question by dividing the Ottoman Empire gave rise to the beginning of the Crimean War of 1853-1856. Russia's unsuccessful participation in this conflict was one of the reasons for the collapse of the Nikolaev political system and the death of the emperor himself.
Emperor Nicholas I died in the Winter Palace on February 18 (March 2), 1855. His reign entered the history of Russia as the period of the highest flowering of absolute monarchy in its military-bureaucratic form.
Nicholas I Pavlovich - born: June 25 (July 6), 1796. Date of death: February 18 (March 2), 1855 (aged 58).
The Nikolaev era in Russian history is amazing in itself: an unprecedented flourishing of culture and police arbitrariness, the strictest discipline and widespread bribery, economic growth and backwardness in everything. But before coming to power, the future autocrat hatched completely different plans, the implementation of which could make the state one of the richest and most democratic in Europe.
The reign of Emperor Nicholas 1 is usually called a period of gloomy reaction and hopeless stagnation, a period of despotism, barracks order and graveyard silence, and hence the assessment of the emperor himself as a strangler of revolutions, a jailer of the Decembrists, a gendarme of Europe, an incorrigible martinet, "a fiend of uniform enlightenment", "a boa constrictor , 30 years strangling Russia. Let's try to figure everything out.
The starting point of the reign of Nicholas 1 was December 14, 1825 - the day when the Decembrist uprising took place. He became not only a test of the character of the new emperor, but also had a significant impact on the subsequent formation of his thoughts and actions. After the death of Emperor Alexander 1 on November 19, 1825, a situation of the so-called interregnum arose. The emperor died childless, and his middle brother Constantine was to inherit the throne. However, back in 1823, Alexander signed a secret manifesto appointing his younger brother Nicholas as heir.
In addition to Alexander, Konstantin and their mother, only three people knew about this: Metropolitan Filaret, A. Arakcheev and A. Golitsyn. Nicholas himself, until the death of his brother, did not suspect this, therefore, after his death, he swore allegiance to Konstantin, who was in Warsaw. From this, according to V. Zhukovsky, a three-week “struggle not for power, but for the sacrifice of honor and duty by the throne” began. Only on December 14, when Constantine confirmed his renunciation of the throne, Nicholas issued a manifesto about his accession. But by this time, conspirators from secret societies began to spread rumors in the army, as if Nicholas intended to usurp the rights of Constantine.
December 14, morning - Nikolai familiarized the Guards generals and colonels with the will of Alexander 1 and documents on the abdication of Constantine and read out a manifesto on his accession to the throne. All unanimously recognized him as the legitimate monarch and pledged to swear in the troops. The Senate and the Synod have already sworn in, but in the Moscow regiment, the soldiers, incited by the conspirators, refused to take the oath.
There were even armed clashes, and the regiment went to the Senate Square, where it was joined by part of the soldiers from the Life Guards of the Grenadier Regiment and the guards crew. The rebellion flared up. “Tonight,” Nicholas 1 said to A. Benkendorf, “perhaps both of us will not be in the world, but at least we will die, having fulfilled our duty.”
Just in case, he gave the order to prepare crews to take his mother, wife and children to Tsarskoye Selo. “It is not known what awaits us,” Nikolai turned to his wife. “Promise me to show courage and, if I have to die, to die with honor.”
Intending to prevent bloodshed, Nicholas 1 with a small retinue went to the rebels. They fired at him. The exhortations of either Metropolitan Seraphim or Grand Duke Michael did not help. And the shot of the Decembrist P. Kakhovsky in the back of the St. Petersburg governor-general made it completely clear: the negotiating ways have exhausted themselves, one cannot do without buckshot. “I am an emperor,” Nikolai later wrote to his brother, “but at what cost. My God! At the cost of the blood of my subjects." But, based on what the Decembrists really wanted to do with the people and the state, Nicholas 1 was right in his determination to quickly suppress the rebellion.
Consequences of the uprising
“I saw,” he recalled, “that either I should take it upon myself to shed the blood of some and save almost certainly everything, or, sparing myself, decisively sacrifice the state.” At first, he had an idea - to forgive everyone. However, when during the investigation it turned out that the performance of the Decembrists was not an accidental outbreak, but the fruit of a long conspiracy, which set as its task, first of all, regicide and a change in the form of government, personal impulses faded into the background. There was a trial and punishment to the full extent of the law: 5 people were executed, 120 were sent to hard labor. But that's all!
Whatever they write or say for Nicholas 1, he, as a person, is much more attractive than his "friends on the 14th". After all, some of them (Ryleev and Trubetskoy), having incited people to speak, did not come to the square themselves; they were going to destroy the entire royal family, including women and children. After all, it was they who had the idea, in case of failure, to set fire to the capital and retreat to Moscow. After all, it was they (Pestel) who were going to establish a 10-year dictatorship, distract the people with wars of conquest, bring in 113,000 gendarmes, which was 130 times more than under Nicholas 1.
What was the emperor like?
By nature, the emperor was a rather generous person and knew how to forgive, not attaching importance to personal insults and believing that he should be above this. He could, for example, before the entire regiment ask for forgiveness from an officer unjustly offended by him, and now, given the awareness of the conspirators of their guilt and the complete repentance of most of them, he could demonstrate "mercy to the fallen." Could. But he did not do this, although the fate of the majority of the Decembrists and their families was mitigated as much as possible.
For example, Ryleev's wife received a financial assistance of 2,000 rubles, and Pavel Pestel's brother Alexander was given a lifetime pension of 3,000 rubles a year and he was assigned to the cavalry guard regiment. Even the children of the Decembrists, who were born in Siberia, with the consent of their parents, were determined in the best educational institutions at public expense.
It would be appropriate to cite the statement of Count D.A. Tolstoy: “What the great sovereign would have done for his people if he had not met December 14, 1825 at the first step of his reign, is unknown, but this sad event should have had on him a huge impact. Apparently, one should attribute to him that dislike for any liberalism, which was constantly noticed in the orders of Emperor Nicholas ... "And this is well illustrated by the words of the tsar himself:" The revolution is on the threshold of Russia, but, I swear, it will not penetrate into it until it remains in me breath of life, until by the grace of God I am emperor." From the time of December 14, 1825, Nicholas 1 celebrated this date every year, considering it the day of his true accession to the throne.
What many noted in the emperor is the desire for order and legality.
“My fate is strange,” Nicholas 1 wrote in one of his letters, “they tell me that I am one of the most powerful sovereigns in the world, and I should say that everything, that is, everything that is permissible, should be for me it is possible that I could, therefore, at my own discretion, do what I please. In fact, however, the opposite is true for me. And if I am asked about the reason for this anomaly, there is only one answer: duty!
Yes, this is not an empty word for someone who is accustomed to understand it from youth, like me. This word has a sacred meaning, before which every personal impulse recedes, everything must fall silent before this one feeling and yield to it until you disappear into the grave. That is my slogan. He is tough, I confess, it is more painful for me under him than I can express, but I am created to suffer.
Contemporaries about Nicholas 1
This sacrifice in the name of duty is worthy of respect, and the French politician A. Lamartine said well: “It is impossible not to respect a monarch who demanded nothing for himself and fought only for principles.”
The maid of honor A. Tyutcheva wrote about Nicholas 1: “He had an irresistible charm, could charm people ... Extremely unpretentious in everyday life, already being an emperor, he slept on a hard camp bed, hiding himself in a simple overcoat, observed moderation in food, preferred simple food, and almost did not drink alcohol. He stood up for discipline, but he himself was above all disciplined. Order, clarity, organization, the utmost clarity in actions - that's what he demanded of himself and others. I worked 18 hours a day."
Principles of Government
The emperor paid great attention to the Decembrists' criticism of the orders that existed before him, trying to clarify for himself a possible positive beginning in their plans. He then brought close to him two of the most prominent initiators and conductors of the liberal undertakings of Alexander 1 - M. Speransky and V. Kochubey, who had long since departed from their former constitutional views, who were to lead the work on creating a code of laws and reforming public administration.
“I have noted and will always celebrate,” the emperor said, “those who want fair demands and want them to come from legitimate authority ...” He also invited N. Mordvinov to work, whose views had previously attracted the attention of the Decembrists, and then often disagreed with government decisions. The emperor raised Mordvinov to the dignity of a count and awarded the Order of St. Andrew the First-Called.
But in general, people who think independently irritated Nicholas I. He often admitted that he preferred not smart, but obedient performers. Hence his constant difficulties in personnel policy and the selection of worthy employees. Nevertheless, Speransky's work on the codification of laws successfully ended with the publication of the Code of Laws. The situation was worse with regard to resolving the issue of alleviating the situation of the peasants. True, within the framework of government guardianship, it was forbidden to sell serfs at public auctions with the fragmentation of families, give them as gifts, give them to factories or exile them to Siberia at their discretion.
The landlords were given the right to release the householders by mutual consent to freedom, and they even had the right to acquire real estate. When the estates were sold, the peasants received the right to freedom. All this paved the way for the reforms of Alexander II, but led to new types of bribery and arbitrariness in relation to the peasants on the part of officials.
Law and autocracy
Much attention was paid to education and upbringing. Nicholas 1 raised his first-born son Alexander in a Spartan way and declared: “I want to educate a man in my son before I make him a sovereign.” The poet V. Zhukovsky was his teacher, the teachers were the best specialists of the country: K. Arsenyev, A. Pletnev and others. M. Speransky taught the law of Alexander 1, who convinced the heir: law that it is based on truth. Where truth ends and untruth begins, right ends and autocracy begins.
Nicholas 1 shared the same views. A. Pushkin also thought about the combination of intellectual and moral education, who, at the request of the tsar, compiled a note “On Public Education”. By this time, the poet had already completely departed from the views of the Decembrists. And the emperor himself set an example of service to duty. During the cholera epidemic in Moscow, the tsar went there. The Empress brought children to him, trying to keep him from traveling. “Take them away,” said Nicholas 1, “thousands of my children are suffering in Moscow now.” For ten days, the emperor visited cholera barracks, ordered the construction of new hospitals, shelters, and provided financial and food assistance to the poor.
Domestic politics
If in relation to revolutionary ideas, Nicholas 1 pursued an isolationist policy, then the material inventions of the West attracted his close attention, and he liked to repeat: "We are engineers." New factories began to appear, railroads and highways were laid, industrial output doubled, and finances stabilized. The number of the poor in European Russia was no more than 1%, while in European countries it ranged from 3 to 20%.
Much attention was also paid to the natural sciences. By order of the emperor, observatories were equipped in Kazan, Kyiv, near St. Petersburg; different scientific societies appeared. Nicholas 1 paid special attention to the archeographic commission, which was engaged in the study of ancient monuments, analysis and publication of ancient acts. Under him, many educational institutions appeared, including Kyiv University, St. Petersburg Institute of Technology, Technical School, military and naval academies, 11 cadet corps, a higher school of law and a number of others.
It is curious that, at the request of the emperor, in the construction of temples, volost administrations, schools, etc., it was prescribed to use the canons of ancient Russian architecture. No less interesting is the fact that it was during the "gloomy" 30-year reign of Nicholas 1 that an unprecedented surge of Russian science and culture took place. What names! Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol, Zhukovsky, Tyutchev, Koltsov, Odoevsky, Pogodin, Granovsky, Bryullov, Kiprensky, Tropinin, Venetsianov, Beauvais, Montferan, Tone, Rossi, Glinka, Verstovsky, Dargomyzhsky, Lobachevsky, Jacobi, Struve, Shchepkin, Mochalov, Karatygin and other brilliant talents.
The emperor supported many of them financially. New journals appeared, university public readings were organized, literary circles and salons opened their activities, where any political, literary, philosophical issues were discussed. The emperor personally took A. Pushkin under his protection, forbidding F. Bulgarin to publish any criticism of him in the Northern Bee, and invited the poet to write new fairy tales, because he considered his old ones to be highly moral. But… Why is the Nicholas era usually described in such gloomy terms?
As they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Building, as it seemed to him, an ideal state, the tsar essentially turned the country into a huge barracks, introducing only one thing into the minds of people - obedience with the help of cane discipline. And now they have reduced the admission of students to universities, established control over censorship itself, and expanded the rights of gendarmes. The works of Plato, Aeschylus, Tacitus were banned; the works of Kantemir, Derzhavin, Krylov were censored; entire historical periods were excluded from consideration.
Foreign policy
During the period of intensification of the revolutionary movement in Europe, the emperor remained faithful to his allied duty. Based on the decisions of the Congress of Vienna, he helped to suppress the revolutionary movement in Hungary. As a sign of "gratitude", Austria allied itself with England and France, who sought to weaken Russia at the first opportunity. It was necessary to pay attention to the words of the member of the English Parliament T. Attwood in relation to Russia: "... It will take a little time ... and these barbarians will learn to use the sword, bayonet and musket with almost the same skill as civilized people." Hence the conclusion - as soon as possible to declare war on Russia.
Bureaucracy
But it was not the loss in the Crimean War that was the most terrible defeat of Nicholas 1. There were worse defeats. The emperor lost the main war to his officials. Under him, their number increased from 16 to 74,000. The bureaucracy became an independent force acting according to its own laws, capable of torpedoing any attempts at reform, which weakened the state. And there was no need to talk about bribery. So during the reign of Nicholas 1, there was an illusion of the country's prosperity. The king understood all this.
Last years. Death
“Unfortunately,” he admitted, “more than often you are forced to use the services of people whom you do not respect ...” Already by 1845, many noted the emperor’s depression “I work to stun myself,” he wrote to King Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia. And what is such a recognition worth: “For almost 20 years now I have been sitting in this beautiful place. Often such days happen that, looking at the sky, I say: why am I not there? I'm so tired".
At the end of January 1855, the autocrat fell ill with acute bronchitis, but continued to work. As a result, pneumonia began, and on February 18, 1855, he died. Before his death, he told his son Alexander: “I wanted to take on all the difficult, all the hard, to leave you a kingdom of peace, order and happiness. Providence judged otherwise. Now I’m going to pray for Russia and for you…”
Introduction
There has always been interest in historical figures - emperors, generals, politicians. But in Soviet times, historians were attracted, first of all, by the leaders of the revolutionary movement, who fought against the autocracy. In recent years, this bias has been overcome: articles and books have appeared that analyze in detail the upbringing, education, family relationships, character formation, and the personality of Russian autocrats.
There is hardly a more controversial figure in Russian history than Nicholas I. Historians unanimously consider his reign to be the period of the darkest reaction. “The time of Nicholas I is the era of extreme self-assertion of the Russian autocratic power, in the most extreme manifestations of its actual rule and principled ideology,” historian A.E. Presnyakov. The image of the "gendarme of Europe", "Nikolai Palkin" rises before us from the pages of the works of A.I. Herzen, N.A. Dobrolyubova, L.N. Tolstoy.
From the second half of the 19th century, and especially after the October Revolution of 1917, Russian historians and philosophers: I. Ilyin, K. Leontiev, I. Solonevich, considered the personality of Nicholas I and the significance of his reign for Russia in a different way.
This view is most consistently expressed in the writings of the philosopher K.N. Leontiev, who called Nicholas I "a true and great legitimist", who "was called upon to delay the general decay for a while", whose name is revolution. So who was the autocrat, whose name is inextricably linked with a whole era in the political, social and cultural life of Russia, the “strangler of freedom” and despot, or did his personality contain something more? The answer to this question is closely connected with the dispute about the fate of Russia, about the ways of its development, about its past and future, which continues to this day.
The purpose of this essay is to review the most important moments of the reign of Emperor Nicholas I.
Nicholas politics Decembrists
1. Accession of Nicholas I to the throne
Nicholas was the third son of Paul I. The eldest sons of Paul I - Alexander and Constantine were prepared for the throne from childhood, the younger ones - Nicholas and Michael for military service.
After the death of Paul I, his wife Empress Maria Feodorovna devoted all her time to raising children. She adored her older sons, carefully selected teachers for them and reverently guarded the peace and quiet in their half during class hours. She ran past half of the younger ones, plugging her ears: for days on end, fortresses were built there, drums beat, trumpets blew, pistols fired. They looked through their fingers at their pranks: military service has always been the lot of the younger in royal families.
The teaching staff of Nikolai Pavlovich was not as brilliant as his older brothers. Social science teachers failed to instill in him an interest in their disciplines. But he was given the exact and natural sciences, and military engineering became his real passion for life.
Military education, the hereditary passion of the Romanovs for the army, the ability to exact sciences brought results. Nikolai Pavlovich grew up as a whole person, with firm principles and convictions. He loved order and discipline in everything. In his opinion, it is necessary not to kill time in useless philosophical dreams, but to build fortresses, bridges, roads. Nicholas in everyday life was unusually modest. His life was strictly regulated: he got up early, slept on a bed stuffed with hay, covered himself with a soldier's overcoat, worked hard, was moderate in food. The attitude towards Nicholas I of his contemporaries and descendants was ambiguous: some called him a rude martinet, others a genius of Russian history. The accession of Nicholas I to the throne was accompanied by dramatic events.
On October 1825, Alexander I died unexpectedly in Taganrog. He had no heirs. His successor was to be his brother Konstantin Pavlovich, but he renounced the throne in favor of his younger brother Nikolai Pavlovich. Having no communication from Constantine himself, Nicholas refused to take the throne until a letter was received from Warsaw in which his brother confirmed his unconditional renunciation of royal power. Constantine avoided public renunciation. He even refused to come to St. Petersburg on the day of the oath to the new tsar, believing that a written act was quite enough. All this was the reason for the interregnum in the country, which dragged on for three weeks and ended with the announcement of Nicholas as Russian tsar. However, the first step to the throne, on which the next Tsar Romanov ascended, was stained with blood. This time, the shots were directed at the guardsmen who had come to the aid of his ancestors so many times.
On the morning of December 14, 1825, when the manifesto on Nicholas's accession to the throne was published, the majority in the guard immediately swore allegiance to the new emperor. But several guards regiments refused the oath and gathered on the Senate Square.
They demanded the abolition of royal power and the introduction of a democratic form of government. They tried to persuade the rebels, but to no avail. Then the order was given to shoot at the rebels with cannons. Many remained lying right there on the square, the rest fled.
By evening, all the main instigators were arrested. These were representatives of the highest nobility, who dreamed of making Russia free from autocracy, freeing the peasants from serfdom, and making trials open. For this purpose, they created secret societies in Russia, at whose meetings the plan of the uprising was drawn up. It was decided to refuse the oath to the new king and come forward with their own demands.
The freedom-loving ideas proclaimed by Russian aristocrats were the trend of Europe, along which many Russians marched during the time of Alexander I. They had a chance to see and hear a lot of things that they wanted to create in their homeland. Among the members of the secret societies, later called the Decembrists, there were many people of foreign origin. Mostly immigrants from Germany: Anton von Delvig, Wilhelm Küchelbecker, Paul von Pestel, Kondraty Ryleev.
However, the ideas of progress that came from the West were not destined to come true, and the punishment for these ideas turned out to be very cruel.
The High Commission of Inquiry was set up to investigate the case. 120 people were detained, whom the tsar ordered to be put in a fortress and tried in a closed court. He personally took part in the interrogations of the arrested. He ordered five of them to be hanged. Among those executed were Pestel and Ryleev. More than a hundred participants in the rebellion were sent to hard labor in Siberia or the far North, where the conditions of detention were very strict.
The difficult events of the first day of the reign of Nicholas I made a depressing impression on everyone. With a harsh reprisal against the Decembrists, the new emperor wanted to emphasize the power and impregnability of tsarist power, although, undoubtedly, he also felt human pity for the rebels, even tried to alleviate their plight and showed some attention to their families. For example, he assigned a life pension to the three-year-old daughter of the executed Ryleyev and sent Zhukovsky, the court poet and educator of his son, to Siberia, ordering him to give all kinds of relief to the exiles, but in no case on behalf of the emperor, but on his own.
For Nicholas I, the main thing was the observance of law, and the mere thought of overthrowing order aroused panic fear in him. He believed that the king must be feared. Emperor Nicholas considered retribution his duty, and the so-called "revolution" the greatest danger to Russia.
The day of December 14 made an indelible impression on Nicholas I, which was clearly reflected in the whole character of his reign.
2. Russia during the reign of Nicholas I
2.1 Domestic politics
Nicholas ascended the throne, inspired by the idea of serving the state, and the rebellion on December 14 broke its implementation in two directions. On the one hand, Nicholas saw a danger to his own rights, and, consequently, from his point of view, to the state as a whole from the social forces that wanted to change. This predetermined the distinctly protective character of the government. On the other hand, from the materials of the interrogations of the Decembrists, their notes and letters addressed to Nikolai, they formed his idea of the need for reforms, but moderate and cautious, carried out exclusively by the autocratic authorities to ensure the stability and prosperity of the state.
The emperor began to reorganize the system of state administration. A huge role in his reign began to play his own imperial majesty's office. It was created by Alexander I to consider petitions to the highest name. Nicholas I significantly expanded its functions, giving it the importance of the highest governing body of the state. In 1826, the office was divided into 5 departments. Of particular importance was the III branch - the secret police under the leadership of Count A.Kh. Benckendorff. Under the leadership of the III department were: detective and investigation on political affairs; control over literature, theater and periodicals; struggle against the Old Believers and sectarianism.
At the very beginning of his reign, Nicholas I declared that he wanted to put the law at the basis of state administration. To do this, he decided to put Russian legislation in order, which has not been done since the time of Alexei Mikhailovich. Under Nicholas I, the “Complete Collection of Laws of the Russian Empire” was published, which contained about thirty thousand laws, starting with the “Council Code” of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. Nicholas I introduced the death penalty into criminal law - it was his personal initiative. He banned all kinds of sects, encouraging the restoration of churches. The protective measures of the first years of the reign of Nicholas I included the publication in 1826 of a new censorship charter, which consisted of more than 200 paragraphs, significantly exceeding the censorship rules of the Alexander time in severity. In society, this charter was called "cast iron". However, already in 1828 it was replaced by a more moderate one, in which censors were advised to consider the direct meaning of speech, not allowing themselves to arbitrarily interpret it. At the same time, an unspoken order was made by the gendarmerie department, according to which persons subjected to censorship punishment fell under the covert supervision of the police. All these measures served to combat the “spirit of freethinking” that spread during the reign of Alexander I.
During the reign of Nicholas I, the first railways appeared in Russia. In October 1837, the first section between St. Petersburg and Tsarskoye Selo was completed, twenty-three kilometers long, and fourteen years later, trains began to run between St. Petersburg and Moscow.
Several technical higher educational institutions were opened in the country, but the freedom of universities was somewhat curtailed. Student enrollment is limited, tuition fees are increased, only poor nobles were exempted from it.
Peasant question
Nicholas I considered the issue of serfdom to be the most important. At the beginning of his reign, he was constantly occupied with the idea of liberating the peasants, he agreed that serfdom was evil. Nicholas I wanted to abolish serfdom, but in such a way as not to cause the slightest damage or offense to the landlords. However, over the thirty years of his reign, he could not come up with anything in this direction.
The government issued a series of laws that emphasized that "a serf is not a simple property of a private person, but, above all, a subject of the state."
· In 1827, a law was issued according to which, if a peasant had less than 4.5 acres per capita in a noble estate, then such a peasant either passed into state administration, or into a free city state.
· In 1833, a decree was issued prohibiting the sale of peasants at auction and the sale of individual family members, it was forbidden to pay private debts to serfs without land.
· In March 1835, a "Secret Committee was established to find means to improve the condition of peasants of various ranks."
· In 1841, the peasant family was recognized as an inseparable legal structure, and it was forbidden to sell peasants separately from the family.
· In 1842, the Decree on obligated peasants was issued, which allowed the landowner to release the peasants into the wild, providing them with land for temporary use in response to certain duties or dues.
· In 1848, a law was passed giving peasants the right, with the consent of the landowner, to acquire real estate.
All further measures of the government of Nicholas I went in two directions: the organization of the life of the state peasants and the ordering of the position of the landlord peasants. Taxable state peasants were considered personally free rural class. In practice, the government treated them as their serfs. The Ministry of Finance, which was entrusted with their organization, considered the state peasants only a source of budget revenues. During the reign of Alexander I and Nicholas I, criticism of the autocrats as the guardians of serfdom intensified among the nobility. Alexander I in 1803 issued a decree "On free cultivators", Nicholas I in 1842 issued a decree "On obligated peasants", which allowed the landowner to voluntarily release his peasants to freedom. But the consequences of these decrees were insignificant. From 1804 to 1855, only 116,000 serfs were set free by the landowners. This testified that the landlords were primarily interested in maintaining serfdom.
Attempts to resolve the peasant issue during the reign of Nicholas I show that even the tsar, who tried to be an autocrat in the full sense of the word, could not show intransigence towards the nobility, contrary to his own views. Within the framework of the obsolete system, life went its own way in complete contradiction to the protective principles of the Nikolaev policy. The economy of the empire entered new ways of development. New branches of industry arose: sugar beet in the south, engineering and weaving in the central part of the country. The Central Russian industrial region stands out, which is increasingly fed by the purchase of grain in the agricultural provinces. In defiance of government measures, the diversity of students in the universities is increasing, and the middle social strata are becoming stronger. The authorities had to reckon with the new needs of the country.
And all this happened against the backdrop of a deepening crisis of serfdom. In the reign of Nicholas I, the economic and social foundations on which the autocracy had matured finally disintegrated. In acute distrust of social forces: to the conservative - for their degeneration, to the progressive - for their revolutionary nature, the tsarist government tried to live a self-sufficient life, bringing the autocracy to the personal dictatorship of the emperor. He considered the administration of the state according to his personal will and personal views to be the direct work of the autocrat.
But it would be an oversimplification to judge the 30-year reign of Nicholas I only as a time of gloomy reaction. The Nikolaev era was a period of genuine flowering of Russian literature and art. It was at that time that A.S. Pushkin and V.A. Zhukovsky, N.V. Gogol and M.Yu. Lermontov, K. Bryullov and A. Ivanov created their masterpieces.
Domestic scientific thought successfully developed. The works of G.I. Hess, N.N. Zinina, A.A. Resurrection. In 1828, refined platinum was obtained for the first time. In 1842, K. K. Klaus discovered a previously unknown metal, which received, in honor of Russia, the name "ruthenium". In the 30s of the 19th century, the Pulkovo Observatory was opened. The outstanding Russian mathematician N.I. Lobachevsky created the theory of non-Euclidean geometry. In the field of physics and electrical engineering, remarkable results were achieved by B.S. Jacobi. The network of medical institutions expanded, domestic surgery represented by N.Y. Pirogova has reached world fame.
Culture and art
Nicholas I, who sought to put all aspects of the country's life under his personal control, paid great attention to national culture and art. The emperor himself was a great lover and connoisseur of painting, he collected rare paintings, both by Russian and foreign artists.
The favorite brainchild of Nicholas I was the Alexandrinsky Theater, which experienced a heyday in the 30-40s of the 19th century.
The Russian stage was enriched at that time by the works of N.V. Gogol, I.S. Turgenev, A.N. Ostrovsky, M.I. Glinka. Stage art has reached special heights.
Significant changes took place in the architectural appearance of the empire. The departure of classicism and its replacement by a national, although not very original, style is symbolic for the Nikolaev time. Nicholas I had a special predilection for architecture. Not a single project of a public building was carried out without his personal approval.
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Conclusion
The reign of Emperor Nicholas I is often called the apogee of autocracy. Indeed, the front facade of the Russian Empire has never been so brilliant, and its international prestige so high, as in the era of Nicholas I.
However, its internal inconsistency is striking. The golden age of Russian culture, the first railways, the systematization of laws. Formation of the ideological basis of the Russian autocracy, a number of important reforms in various areas of society. The defeat of the Decembrist movement, the harsh persecution of dissent, the oppressive dominance of bureaucratic routine, the Hungarian campaign of the Russian army in 1849 and the failure in the Crimean War as a kind of result of the reign of Nicholas I. And in all this one can find traces of his personal participation, the manifestation of his common sense and spiritual limitations , unbending will and capricious stubbornness, worldly good nature and petty suspiciousness.
The private life and state activities of Nicholas I, his character, habits, relationships with a wide variety of people are reflected in no less than 300 diaries and memoirs of his contemporaries.
Statesmen and generals, writers and poets, visiting foreign and court ladies wrote about Nicholas I.
There is still no truly scientific biography of Nicholas I. On the other hand, all aspects of Nicholas's domestic policy have been studied in detail, although somewhat one-sidedly, with an emphasis on exposing punitive (gendarmerie, censorship, and other) terror. The most informative reviews of Nikolaev's domestic policy are in the 85th lecture of the fifth volume of the "Course of Russian History" by V.O. Klyuchevsky, and from Soviet literature in "Essays" and "Lectures" on the history of the USSR S.B. Okun and in the monograph by A.S. Nifontov "Russia in 1848".
In the literature on the foreign policy of Nicholas I, the deep and bright work of A.V. Fadeev. An overview of the same was written by N.S. Kinyapin, and the intervention of tsarism against the Hungarian revolution was studied by R.A. Averbukh.
The Nikolaev reforms do not arouse much interest among historians. Only the reform of P.D. Kiseleva. The classic work of N.M. Druzhinin. It exhaustively examines the prerequisites, meaning and consequences of Kiselev's reform as a serious, carefully thought out, but, nevertheless, obviously doomed to failure attempt by tsarism to find a way out of the imminent crisis of the feudal-serf system without destroying its foundations.
Bibliography
1.V.G. Grigoryan. Royal destinies. - M.: ZAO NPP Ermak, 2003. - 350-355 p.
.History of Russia from the beginning of the 18th to the end of the 19th century. Ed. A.N. Sakharov. - M.: AST, 1996.
3.ON THE. Trinity. Russia in the nineteenth century. Lecture course. - M.: Higher school. - 2003.
.N.S. Kinyapin. Foreign policy of Nicholas I. New and recent history. - M.: 2001. No. 1-195 p.
.M.A. Rakhmatullin. Emperor Nicholas I and his reign. Science and life. - M.: 2002. No. 2-94 p.
.I.N. Kuznetsov. National history. - M.: Dashkov i K, 2005.
.T.A. Kapustin. Nicholas I. Questions of history. - M.: 1993. No. 11-12.
9. Materials from the site www.historicus.ru/kultura
Materials from the site www.history-at-russia.ru/
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Therefore, he could not count on the throne, which determined the direction of his upbringing and education. From an early age, he was fond of military affairs, especially its outer side, and prepared for a military career.
In 1817, Grand Duke Nikolai Pavlovich married the daughter of the Prussian king, who received the name Alexandra Feodorovna in Orthodoxy. They had 7 children, the eldest of whom was the future Emperor Alexander II.
In 1819, Emperor Alexander I informed Nicholas of the intention of their brother Konstantin Pavlovich to renounce his right to the throne, and, accordingly, power would have to pass to Nicholas. In 1823, Alexander I issued a Manifesto proclaiming Nikolai Pavlovich the heir to the throne. The manifesto was a family secret and was not published. Therefore, after the sudden death of Alexander I in 1825, confusion arose with the accession of a new monarch to the throne.
On December 14, 1825, the oath to the new Emperor Nicholas I Pavlovich was appointed. On the same day, the "Decembrists" planned an uprising with the aim of overthrowing autocracy and demanding the signing of the "Manifesto to the Russian people", which proclaimed civil liberties. Informed, Nicholas postponed the oath to December 13, and the uprising was crushed.
Domestic policy of Nicholas I
From the very beginning of his reign, Nicholas I declared the need for reforms and created a "committee on December 6, 1826" to prepare the reforms. An important role in the state began to play "His Majesty's Own Chancellery", which was constantly expanding by creating many branches.
Nicholas I instructed a special commission led by M.M. Speransky to develop a new Code of Laws of the Russian Empire. By 1833, two editions had been printed: The Complete Collection of Laws of the Russian Empire, starting with the Council Code of 1649 and up to the last decree of Alexander I, and The Code of Current Laws of the Russian Empire. The codification of laws, carried out under Nicholas I, streamlined Russian legislation, facilitated the conduct of legal practice, but did not bring changes to the political and social structure of Russia.
Emperor Nicholas I was an autocrat in spirit and an ardent opponent of the introduction of a constitution and liberal reforms in the country. In his opinion, society should live and act like a good army, regulated and in accordance with the laws. The militarization of the state apparatus under the auspices of the monarch is a characteristic feature of the political regime of Nicholas I.
He was extremely suspicious of public opinion, literature, art, education fell under the yoke of censorship, and measures were taken to limit the periodical press. As a national dignity, official propaganda began to extol unanimity in Russia. The idea "The people and the tsar are one" was the dominant one in the education system in Russia under Nicholas I.
According to the "theory of official nationality" developed by S.S. Uvarov, Russia has its own way of development, does not need the influence of the West and must be isolated from the world community. The Russian Empire under Nicholas I was called the "gendarme of Europe" for keeping peace in European countries from revolutionary uprisings.
In social policy, Nicholas I emphasized the strengthening of the estate system. In order to protect the nobility from "contamination", the "Committee of December 6" proposed to establish a procedure according to which the nobility was acquired only by right of inheritance. And for service people to create new estates - "bureaucratic", "eminent", "honorary" citizens. In 1845, the emperor issued a "Decree on Majorates" (the indivisibility of noble estates during inheritance).
Serfdom under Nicholas I enjoyed the support of the state, and the tsar signed a manifesto in which he stated that there would be no changes in the position of serfs. But Nicholas I was not a supporter of serfdom and secretly prepared materials on the peasant question in order to make things easier for his followers.
Foreign policy of Nicholas I
The most important aspects of foreign policy during the reign of Nicholas I were the return to the principles of the Holy Alliance (Russia's struggle against revolutionary movements in Europe) and the Eastern Question. Russia under Nicholas I participated in the Caucasian War (1817-1864), the Russo-Persian War (1826-1828), the Russo-Turkish War (1828-1829), as a result of which Russia annexed the eastern part of Armenia , the entire Caucasus, received the eastern coast of the Black Sea.
During the reign of Nicholas I, the most memorable was the Crimean War of 1853-1856. Russia was forced to fight against Turkey, England, France. During the siege of Sevastopol, Nicholas I was defeated in the war and lost the right to have a naval base on the Black Sea.
The unsuccessful war showed Russia's backwardness from the advanced European countries and how unviable the conservative modernization of the empire turned out to be.
Nicholas I died on February 18, 1855. Summing up the reign of Nicholas I, historians call his era the most unfavorable in the history of Russia, starting from the Time of Troubles.
