17. Nicholas I, Reform and Reaction, 1825-55

Nicholas I:

• Wasn’t well liked by intellectuals

• Shiemann, German historian - most consistent of autocrats

• The perfect despot (Riasanovsky)

• The drill master (Lincoln)

• Russians 'Nick the Stick'

• Marquis de Custine, Russia in 1939: Nicholas is more sincere than his brother Alexander, but he has a habitual expression of severity which sometimes gives an impression of harshness and inflexibility. Less charming than his late brother, he is firmer. Desires to be obeyed where others desire to be loved.

• Petrine legacy 1839: We are continuing the work of Peter the Great

  • N wanted to take direct part in the government to assume more responsibility for Russia day to day welfare than any monarch since Peter the Great (Bruce Lincoln)

  • N unwilling to relinquish any of his autocratic powers

Nicholas, commander of all Russians:

• Military discipline and service: N was more at home on the parade than at court

  • 'I regard all human life nothing more than service because everyone must serve'.

• 'I do not need educated people, I need loyal subjects'

• Everyone, including the monarch, had their duty

imperial elite

• Bureaucracy - corrupt, incompetent, obsessed with rank and status. Rank was not much reward for efficient service, it was an entitled privilege.

• Aristocracy: regarded bureaucracy with disapproval since it interposed itself between the aristocracy and the throne - disrupted traditional ties between ruler + nobility.

• Nicholas: distrust for nobility as they killed his father and rebelled in 1825.

• Nobility faced economic difficulties due to Napoleonic wars and their own financial irresponsibility

• Growing demands for loans - burden for states finances.

domestic problems

• Economically impoverished nobility

• Underdeveloped industry - it was heavily agricultural

• Russia unfavourable balance of trade with West

• Reform needed for bureaucracy who had too much power

• Modernised court system

• Modernised taxation reform

dynastic crisis of 1825

• Alexander I died in Taganrog on 19 Nov 1825

• Succession law of 1797: heir to childless Alexander is his younger brother Konstantin, who was in Warsaw

  • But Konstantin abdicated the throne in 1822 with the agreement with Alexander

  • Heir would be the next brother N, but Alexander didn’t tell him that

• After A death, Nicholas was shocked to know he was heir - he wanted to hear Konstantin

decembrist revolt 1825 and Nicholas perspective

• This uprising had a big impact on the monarchy

Experience:

• Nicholas believed victory came from god, wanted to maintain Russia's control here and abroad

• Never departed from his throne

• Unlike his father, N did not barricade himself or separate himself

• Learned the main lesson from the Decembrist revolt - learn more about the elite -

  • 22/289 were sons of generals, 12 sons of senators, etc., so rich people

• 17 Dec 1825 - N appointed an investigation commission. Decembrists cooperated, revealed their plans, projects, and saw N as having the power to correct what society suffered.

Lesson of criticism:

• Bad tax burden on peasants

• The absence of code of laws in Russia led to corruption in the empire

• Complex court procedures - local people divided power, which was corrupted practically at all levels

• Tyranny of local officials

• Basic principles of what became known as Nicholas system - talks about enlightenment (Catherine exacerbated it prior): 'Not have any other desire than to see our motherland attain their very heights of happiness and glory preordained for her by providence’ - divine authority gave this to them

Alexander borovkov (Secretary of the investigative commission on Decembrists) + comittee of 6 december 1826:

• Grant laws, implant justice by better judicial procedure

• Raise education, strengthen the nobility

• Issue regulations for resurrection of trade + industry

• Provide young people with good education

• Circumstances of peasants to be improved

• Get rid of disorder

Committee of 6 December 1826:

• What reforms should be considered

His majesty own chancellery:

• Tsar rejected notion of representative institution + sharing political power - he wanted administrative innovations - like revising the role of his majesty own chancellery in the government (created by his Brother originally, but he turned it central for empires administrative)

• Chancellery got reports from all gov agencies, responsible for service records of civil servants.

• Responsible for law reform, political matters, charitable institutions, Caucasion affairs

• Second section - law and justice

• Third section - political police - arrested those who were disloyal

• Fifth section - peasantry and agriculture - serious reforms were implemented

 

Third section - police agency

• Tast: moral + political guardian of all Russia

• Vague tasks

• For N, it was an extension of his personal power into every corner of empire

• Practical function: surveillance (at state homes and even N own son).

Second section - law and reform

• Every monarch wanted to codify Russian law since Peter I.

Problems:

• No one could demonstrate what laws governed particular situation

• Officials with access to files of imperial decrees could be despotic

• Imperial degrees themselves were often contradictory

• Many decrees unpublished

1828-30 complete collection of laws

1833-35: Digest of Laws

Confidication of law under Nicholas I

• Major legislative acts published in one collection, accessible to all who needed to refer to them

• Publication of laws did not eliminate arbitrariness, but now could be checked

• Possible to review decisions

• Clear cut notion of legality introduced in society

• Special codes for Siberia + Steppe people

  • Attempts to issue similar codes for western provinces failed

fiftth section - peasantry

• State peasants to be more profitable for the state

• Rational reorganisation/confirmation of rights

• Tried to equalise tax burden, army draft burden, land allotment by conducting surveys

• Increased number of schools

• Main aim - increase revenue

other reforms under Nicholas

• Improved links between ministry of internal affairs and local governors. Ministry got tools for carrying out its decisions in the province.

• Civil service became a full time career - usually prior combined with military service.

  • Bureaucracy became more socially inclusive

• Corruption did not disappear, but more people in civil service had liberal views

• 1837 reforms of local government - driven by fiscal problems, more power to governors, provincial boards lost consultative prerogative and became just an executive body, local police were strengthened.

• More inclusive bodies for the cities - city councils (dumas) represented local societies better than any other institution in the empire.

• Enlightened bureaucrats: applied science, collection of accurate data about social and economic conditions in Russia's countryside

• Was it creative or regulatory? The Decembrist revolt made N. suspicious

  • Needed an autocracy to be guarded

• Significant economic development: industrialisation, noble families used steam engines, railways began to appear, role of the Russian intelligentsia?

• S.S. Uvarov 1832 - created a new ideology for Nicholas - Orthodoxy, autocracy, nationality - first time, supported the regime

Enlightenment → national romanticism - historical context

• Cosmopolitanism v. national distinctiveness

• Classical v. medieval

• Purity of doctrine and spirit

• Purging of foreign influence

Historical context:

• Education was responsible for the spread of radical ideas: some people viewed this as bad and wanted aristocrats to study at home and military schools across the empire

• N did not fully embrace such views

  • He did think school functions had to be limited to transmitting "the knowledge most necessary for each class" of society

• Revolution in France and rising in Poland disturbances in parts of empire in the wake of the Cholera epidemic - confirmed to the tsar that he had to be on guard against disorder - step up in his role

Russian orthodox church

• Attempted closure of Uniate Church following polish uprising of 1830

• Search for authentic tradition

• Rejection of protestant + catholic influence in art, architecture, theology

• Study and translation of Patristic texts

• Archival work on mount Athos and mount Sinai

 

Autocracy: paternalism not constitutionalism

• Utilitarian not divine

  • Had preserved and strengthened nation by defeating revolts

• Tsar was highest expression of nation

Official nationality

• Political unity and dynastic loyalty

• Loyalty to monarch more important than ethnic background

Practical results:

• Religious, Christian principles in politics. State and Church complemented each other. Narodnost – the spirit of the people.

  • A Christian, popular monarchy.

  • increased printing budget of the Holy Synod in 250 times in the course of 25 years. Promoting nationality meant emphasizing Russianness.

• The tsar emphasised the importance of not allowing to develop cosmopolitan ideas even for the members of the royal family.

  • 1826 Peasant children were forbidden from entering schools that might prepare them for further education.

  • Students sent abroad must be absolutely of pure Russian background. Students must study in Russia between the ages of 10 and 18 – most impressionable age.

• 1826 N closed the Bible Society (associated with the mystical, Masonic, and cosmopolitan religious currents of AI’s reign).

• Issued an iron censorship statute in 1826, but two years later this statute was modified.

• The tsar could treat writers with generosity (he allowed the frustrated Aleksandr Pushkin to return to the metropolitan life though he knew about Pushkin's sympathy with the ideas of the Decembrists).

 

Nicholas V. Riasanovsky, Nationality in the State Ideology during the Reign of Nicholas I (Published 1974)

• Main argument: The concept of “Nationality” in Nicholas I’s 1833 doctrine (Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality) was ambiguous, containing both dynastic loyalty and romantic nationalism, which often contradicted each other and hinted at radical nationalist ambitions within an autocratic system.

• Key points:

  • “Orthodoxy” and “Autocracy” were clear; “Nationality” had no single accepted meaning.

  • Dynastic group: loyalty to tsar, support for status quo, defended serfdom (e.g., Nicholas I, Bulgarin, Kankrin).

  • Nationalist group: promoted Russia’s grand destiny, potential social reforms, Pan-Slavism (e.g., Shevyrev, Tyutchev, Pogodin).

  • Nationalists argued Russia was morally and spiritually superior to Europe, destined to lead the Slavs and expand to Constantinople, Vienna, the Elbe.

  • Tension existed: Nicholas I warned Pan-Slavism could “ruin Russia,” showing the conflict between nationalism and conservative policy.

  • Conflict over minorities and language: dynastic thinkers defended status quo; nationalists pushed Russification, especially in the Baltic provinces.

Cynthia H. Whittaker, The Ideology of Sergei Uvarov: An Interpretive Essay (Published 1990)

• Main argument: Uvarov’s ideology was consistent in theory, aiming to reconcile Western Enlightenment ideas with Russian autocracy, though policies shifted in tone due to historical circumstances like the Decembrist revolt.

• Key points:

  • Uvarov believed history followed a Providential plan: states progress through stages (infancy → decay); revolutions occur when nations act prematurely.

  • Russia was historically “young,” so autocracy was necessary and proper, delaying constitutionalism until maturity.

  • Education was the central tool to prepare Russia for political maturity (“emancipation of the soul through enlightenment precedes emancipation of the body”).

  • Policies: centralized and expanded education, budget increased by one-third, Academy doubled.

  • Ideology justified progress under autocratic control, rejecting revolutionary liberalism but promoting measured reform within national traditions.

  • Uvarov represents maximum possible reform within autocracy; successors never surpassed his framework.