19. Overall Russian empire

1815-30 + Crimean War 1853-56

Part 1 -1815-30 expansion + governance of the empire, western borders, southern borders

Part 2 - Crimean War 1853-56 - ottoman empire, tensions, causes, outcomes

 

Expansion and governance of the empire:

1. How did the empire expand?

2. How did the tsar govern their empire?

 

2 views on its expansion:

Traditional - expanded primarily through defensive means: security, create buffer zones to push their enemies away (Ottoman in the south)

Revisionist - pre-emptive, aggressive, military, colonial nature of the empire - seemingly opportunistic in certain aspects, driven by territorial needs

 

2 views on Tsar governance:

Traditional - powerful, centralised autocracy, ruled from the centre, suppression of local elites

Revisionist - negotiated rule, limited in some places, flexibility and compromise

context of empire

1780-1815: certain things taking place which affected American power:

• French decline

  • War of America Independence

  • French revolution

  • Napoleonic war - temporary revival, defeat, terror

  • Lost conquered territories, clients dismantled

• Russian expansion

  • Annexation of Crimea 1783

  • Partition of Poland 1772-95

  • Defeat of Napoleon in 1812

Challenges of empire:

• Nationalism - numerous groups in the empire, uprising in 1830 (Poland) how do we deal with these differing independence movements?

• Difficult frontier regions - Caucasus, Central Asia, harsh climates - hard to maintain control in such climates, Finland - differences of terrain Russia has to govern which was a challenge in 1800

• Fighting on multiple fronts - expand its empire but also maintain it

• Different types of warfare is different in different theatres - Russia must be adaptable + flexible

• Diplomacy - viewed with suspicion by French + British

• Infrastructure and industry - poor infrastructure connecting the empire, industrially behind the West

western border - Finland

 

Western borders - Finland

Aim - keep what the empire already had

Expansion:

• Finnish War 1808-9: Finland was a part of the Swedish Empire

• Treaty of Tilsit - between Russia + Napoleon - Russia promised to join French blockade of Britain

• Sweden refused to join, Russia went to war with Sweden, annexed Finland

  • Overall - Opportunistic? Russia sees a chance - takes further territory

Governance:

• Large autonomy was given

• Diet - nobility, clergy, never convened by Tsar Nicholas I, but rest of autonomous Finnish government stayed in place

• Legal system - maintained their own system

  • Overall - left largely autonomous

Western borders - Baltic Provinces

Aim - keep what the empire already had

Expansion:

• 1709-21 Peter the Great war with Sweden, Treaty of Nystad, ceded Estonia, Livonia, Ingria, parts of Karelia to Russia

• 1722-95 Catherine the Great, partition of Poland, Lithuania became part of the empire

  • Overall - aggressive, pre-emptive?

Governance:

• Serfdom - abolished here earlier than in Russia

• Imperial governor - appointed by the Tsar

• Local government - left to German Baltic elites, acted as intermediaries

• Legal system - Herman legal system remained in place

  • Overall - some central control, but large measures of autonomy, particularly at local level

 

Poland

The 1815 Constitution provided for a diet, a Polish army, and a local government, only generally subject to Russian control.

Increasing conflict between Warsaw and St. Petersburg

The impact of the July Revolution of 1830 in France

an uprising in November 1830 and a full-scale war.

Russia sent over 180,000 well-trained men against Poland's 70,000; still, the war lasted eight months.

The Russian army crushed the Polish revolt

Liquidation of Polish autonomy. Nicholas abolished the constitution, retaining only the Polish legal system under Russian administrators.

Nicholas warned the Poles that they must give up the idea of separate statehood.

Warsaw turned into a military garrison,

Warsaw university closed

Georgia

uAlexander I had taken control of Georgia and then conquered Azerbaijan from Iran (Persian Empire).

uA Persian attempt at revenge in 1826 led to a short war

uThe Treaty of Turkmenchay, 10 February 1828: Persia to cede to Russia the control of several areas in the South Caucasus: the Erivan Khanate, the Nakhchivan Khanate and the remainder of the Talysh Khanate (the territories are now Armenia, the south of the Republic of Azerbaijan, and parts of Turkey).

uThe boundary between Russian and Persia was set at the Aras River.

uRussia received a more defensible border that included the khanate of Erevan (part of the territory of medieval Armenia).

Alexander Griboedov

Russian ambassador to Persia, major role in the ratification of the treaty of Turkmenchay

Graduated from the U of Moscow, married to Nino Chavchavadze, a Georgian aristocratic woman,

Also a poet and playwright: verse comedy Woe from Wit (1823, banned for the stage, partially published 1825 and 1833,  full publication 1866

a satire on Russian aristocratic society, the protagonist Alexandr Chatsky, an ironic satirist just returned from western Europe, probably modelled after Petr Chaadaev

Persians humiliated by the treaty which permitted Georgians and Armenians living in Persia to return to their home counties.

Three Armenians (a eunuch and two women) escaped the harems of Persian royalty and received refuge in the Russian embassy

A mob, instigated by the mullahs, stormed the embassy

Griboedov and the embassy’s Cossack guards defended the embassy

Griboedov killed, his body decapitated

The shah sends his grandson to NI with apologies and diplomatic gifts, incl a diamond (became known as the Shah diamond)

Transcaucasia: Integrating local nobility

Numerous Georgian nobility: the Russians set out to include them in the empire’s elite:

abolished the various types of dependency and vassalage within the Georgian nobility, making all nobles equal.

new schools appeared, with curricula the same as Russian gymnasia,

the higher Georgian aristocracy entered the elite schools in St. Petersburg.

the viceroys of the Caucasus set up operas and introduced other European entertainments and forms of sociability (to “Europeanize” the “oriental” Georgians).

The small Armenian nobility of Georgia acquired the same status as Russian and Georgian nobles,

 Russian administrators freed the largely Armenian townspeople from serfdom.

The Russian Empire relied on the local nobility where it could find one,

in its absence on the Armenian Church and the local notables of the Azeri towns.

Ottoman empire

Need to maintain existing boundaries in the south.

At the same time, the Christian subjects of the OE were becoming increasingly restive,

They were NI’s potential allies in any possible conflict.

But influenced by the political events in Western Europe:

 the Greek rebels imagined their future under some type of constitutional monarchy

The idea of any limitations on the monarch’s power was anathema to both Alexander and Nicholas.

International aspect:

Russia could also not afford to let the Ottoman Empire collapse, for it was not the only power interested in the area:

France had long possessed major commercial interests in the eastern Mediterranean and in 1830 began the conquest of Algeria.

Britain, completing the conquest of India, had become the first world superpower and considered itself privileged to dictate the shape of the world wherever it chose.

A collapse of the Ottomans could lead to British or French control of the Balkans,

Nicholas preferred to maintain a weak neighbour under Russian influence

uBy the end of the 1830, N’s power in Europe was awesome: Count Nesselrode: ‘In the wake of revolutions, your majesty has become for the world the representative of the monarchical ideal, the mainstay of the principles of order and the impartial defender of European equilibrium’.

John Shelton Curtiss, The Army of Nicholas I: Its Role and Character

• Main argument: The Russian army under Nicholas I was more than a military force—it was a central institution shaping society, internal security, and administration, but it was also inefficient and a social burden.

• Key points:

  • Army = core institution, over 1 million soldiers, disciplined, used as Europe’s “police force.”

  • Military personnel staffed ministries (justice, education) in 1840.

  • 180,000 troops for internal policing; used “dragonades” to enforce tax collection.

  • Military colonies: peasants quartered soldiers for 6 months/year, under strict discipline → revolts in 1831.

  • Drafting was socially burdensome; universal service exempted military colonies but caused local hardship.

  • Army recruited non-Russians (Poles, Finns, Lithuanians), sometimes forcibly converting Jews/others to Orthodoxy.

  • Financial burden: overspending in Caucasus, taxes, loans; wars against Magyars, Turks, Anglo-French allies.

  • Inefficiency in infantry and cavalry; engineering and artillery moderately competent.

  • Corruption at top and lack of modern techniques evident → later revealed in Crimean War.

David Schimmelpenninck van der Oye, From Holy Alliance to Crimean Isolation

• Main argument: Russia played a central role in maintaining conservative order in Europe, gaining influence through diplomacy but ultimately undermining its position, culminating in the Crimean War.

• Key points:

  • Congress of Vienna (1815) restored European balance; Poland semi-autonomous under Russian control.

  • Alexander I created Holy Alliance; real power = Metternich.

  • Britain-Russia rivalry due to strategic, ideological tensions.

  • Eastern Question: decline of Ottoman Empire, Russian strategic aims in Balkans.

  • Nicholas I continued conservative foreign policy; intervened in Hungary 1848.

  • Treaty of Adrianople: territorial and strategic gains; Treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi increased influence but alarmed Britain.

  • Crimean War triggered by Christian holy sites disputes; Russia defeated by Britain/France coalition.

  • Peace of Paris (1856): moderate penalties, reduced Black Sea power, prestige damaged.

Andreas Renner, Defining a Russian Nation: Mikhail Katkov and the “Invention” of National Politics

• Main argument: Mikhail Katkov shaped Russian nationalism through journalism, redefining imperial unity as national unity and influencing political culture in 1860s Russia.

• Key points:

  • Katkov = journalist, not philosopher/politician; influenced nationalism via Moskovskie Vedomosti.

  • Context: post-Crimean War, reform debates, rising literacy, press influence.

  • National unity emphasized, especially against Polish separatism.

  • Nationalism compatible with modernization, reform, and state-building.

  • Russian nationalism emerged mainly in intelligentsia, not mass movement.

  • Competing ideas:

    • Westernizers → political nation, civic participation

    • Slavophiles → cultural/religious nation, rooted in narod

  • Key outcomes:

    • Denial of Polish independence widely accepted

    • Western provinces defined as naturally Russian

    • Russification promoted as policy

    • Public opinion linked to national politics via press

timeline

• 1826: Third Section (secret police) established under Nicholas I (Benkendorf).

• 1831: Revolt of military colonists due to oppressive quartering system.

• 1840: Military officers used in ministries; army deeply integrated in civil life.

• 1848: European revolutions → increased repression, Nicholas I issues anti-revolutionary manifesto.

• 1853–1856: Crimean War → defeat exposes army weaknesses, damaged prestige.

• 1860s: Katkov promotes nationalism, linking reforms and state-building.

• 1863: Polish uprising → key turning point in nationalist discourse; Russification policies strengthened.