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Summary Russia from 1801 to 1917
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RUSSIA FROM 1801 TO 1917The reigns of Alexander I and Nicholas I
General survey
When Alexander I ascended the throne in March 1801, Russia was in a state of
hostility towards most of Europe, although its armies were not really fighting; her
only ally was her traditional enemy, Turkey. The new emperor quickly made peace
with both France and Great Britain and restored normal relations with Austria. His
hopes that he could then concentrate on internal reforms were thwarted by the
reopening of the war with Napoleon in 1805. The Russian armies, defeated at
Austerlitz in December 1805, fought against Napoleon in Poland in 1806 and
1807, with Prussia as an ineffective ally. . After the Treaty of Tilsit (1807) there
was peace for five years, which ended with the invasion of Russia by Napoleon in
1812. Advancing her arms west over the next two years of fierce fighting, Russia
became the greatest land power in Europe and first among Napoleon's continental
victors. The immense prestige acquired in these campaigns lasted until the middle
of the century. During this period, Russian armies fought only weaker enemies:
Persia in 1826, Turkey in 1828-1829, Poland in 1830-1831, and the Caucasian
highlanders in the 1830s and 1840s. shook Europe in 1848, only Russia and Britain
among the great powers remained intact, and in the summer of 1849 the Tsar sent
,troops to crush the Hungarians in Transylvania. Russia was not loved, but admired
and feared. For the upper classes of central Europe, Nicholas I was the stern
defender of monarchical legitimacy; for the democrats of the whole world he was
"the gendarme of Europe" and the main enemy of freedom. But the Crimean War
(1853-1856) proved that this giant had feet made of clay. The vast empire was
unable to mobilize, equip and transport sufficient troops to defeat medium-sized
French and British forces under very mediocre command. Nicholas died in the
bitter awareness of general failure.
Alexander I, as a young man, longed to reform his empire and benefit his subjects.
His hopes were dashed, partly by the sheer inertia, backwardness, and vastness of
his dominions, partly perhaps because of his own character flaws, but also because
Napoleon's aggressive undertakings drew the Alexander's focus on diplomacy and
defense. Russia's abundant manpower and meager financial resources were
consumed during the war. The early years of his reign saw two brief periods of
attempted reform. During the first, from 1801 to 1803, the Tsar met with four close
friends, who formed his so-called unofficial committee, with a view to developing
ambitious reforms. In the period 1807-1812 he had the liberal Mikhail Speransky
as his chief adviser. Both periods produced some valuable administrative
innovations, but did not initiate fundamental reforms. After 1815 Alexander was
chiefly occupied with grandiose plans for international peace; his motivation was
,not only political but also religious, not to say mystical, for the years of war and
national danger had awakened in him an interest in matters of faith to which he had
previously been very attached as a student. eighteenth-century Enlightenment
indifferent. So, while he dabbled in diplomacy and religion, Russia was ruled by
conservatives and reactionaries, among whom the brutal but honest General
Aleksey Arakcheyev stood out. Victory in the war had strengthened those who
maintained the established order, serfdom and all. The mood was strong with
national pride: Orthodox Russia had defeated Napoleon, and so it was not only
foolish but also impious to copy foreign models. Educated young Russians who
had served in the military and seen Europe, who read and spoke French and
German, and who were familiar with contemporary European literature saw things
differently. Masonic lodges and secret societies flourished in the early 1820s. From
their deliberations arose a conspiracy to overthrow the government, inspired by a
variety of ideas: some looked to the United States for a model, to others to Jacobin
France. The conspirators, known as the Decembrists because they attempted to act
in December 1825, when news of Alexander I's death broke and there was
uncertainty about his successor, were defeated and arrested; five were executed
and many others were sentenced to various prison terms in Siberia. Nicholas I, who
succeeded him after his older brother Constantine finally refused the throne, was
deeply marked by these events and opposed major political changes, although he
, did not reject the idea of administrative reform. After the 1848 revolutions in
Europe, his refusal of any change, his distrust of even slightly liberal ideas and his
insistence on obscurantist censorship reached their climax.
The following sections cover the development of the machinery of government,
social classes and economic forces, education and political ideas, relations between
Russians and other peoples within the empire, and Russian foreign policy under
Alexander I and Nicholas I.
Government
The discussions of the unofficial Committee of Alexander I were part of an
ongoing debate that would remain important until the end of the Imperial regime.
You could call it the debate between enlightened oligarchy and enlightened
autocracy. Proponents of the oligarchy turned to a somewhat idealized model of
Catherine II's government. They wanted to place more power in the hands of the
aristocracy, in order to establish a certain balance between the monarch and the
social elite, believing that together they were able to carry out policies that would
benefit the whole people. Their adversaries, the most talented of whom was the
young Count Pavel Stroganov, opposed any limitation of the tsar's power.
Whereas the oligarchs wished to make the Senate an important centre of power and
to have it elected by senior officials and country nobility, Stroganov maintained
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