Nicholas I

views of nicholas despot

• ‘the most consistent of autocrats’ (T. Shiemann, German historian).

• ‘the perfect despot’ (Riasanovsky, American historian).

• ‘the drill master’ (Lincoln, American historian).

views of nicholas marquis de custine

• Marquis de Custine, ‘Russia in 1839’: The Emperor Nicholas is more sincere than his brother Alexander [I], but he has a habitual expression of severity, which sometimes gives impression of harshness and inflexibility. However he is less charming than his late brother (Alexander I), he is firmer. The Emperor Nicholas desires to be obeyed, where others desire to be loved.

• Petrine legacy: NI to de Custine, 1839: ‘We are continuing the work of Peter the Great’

nicholas views autocracy

• NI sought to take direct part in government and to assume more responsibility for Russia’s day to day welfare than any monarch since Peter the Great (Bruce Lincoln).

• NI convinced of basic soundness of existing order: no need to change autocracy.

• NI unwilling to relinquish any of his autocratic powers.

nicholas views military

• Preoccupied with idea of military discipline and service - more comfortable on the parade than at court.

• N while Grand Duke 'I regard all human life nothing more than service because everyone must serve.', ‘I do not need educated people, I need loyal subjects’.

nicholas views nobility

• distrust for the nobility (nobles killed his father Paul I, nobles rebelled in 1825).

• The nobility in serious economic difficulties as a result of the Napoleonic wars and their own financial irresponsibility.

• Growing demands for loans – serious burden for state’s finances.

domestic problems reform

• Need to reform the bureaucracy - were corrupt and incompetent

• Need for functional court system.

• Need for taxation reform.

domestic problems economic

• Economically impoverished nobility.

• Underdeveloped industry.

• Russia's unfavourable balance of trade with the West.

domestic problems dynastic crisis

Dynastic crisis of 1825 - Alexander I's sudden death in Taganrog in November 1825.

• Succession law of 1797 maintained that the heir should have been Alexander's younger brother Konstantin.

• However Konstantin had secretly abdicated the throne in 1822 by agreement with Alexander and left papers about it with the Council of State, was agreed that the heir would be the next brother Nicholas.

• Nicholas not told about it by Alexander, and after A's death Nicholas shocked to hear and insisted on hearing it from Konstantin himself.

• Only after definitive answer Nicholas ordered a new oath for December 1825.

nicholas view of decembrists uprising

Nicholas believed that his victory over the revolt was granted by God.

• His mission was to maintain order in Russia and abroad.

• NI’s reaction to the Decembrist revolt: unlike his father Paul I, N did not barricade himself in a stronghold.

• Learned the main lesson from the Decembrist revolt: to learn more about his elite.

• Of 289 young men who would be punished, 22 were the sons of generals, 13 were sons of senators, 7 of provincial governors, 2 of state ministers.

nicholas investigating commission decembrists

17 December 1825 – NI appointed an Investigating Commission. Decembrists actively cooperated, revealed their plans, projects – saw the Emperor as having the power to correct the abuses and shortcomings from which Russian society suffered.

nicholas learnt from decembrists

• Ruinous tax burden on the peasantry.

• Absence of a code of laws in Russia.

• Complex court procedures.

• Tyranny of local officials.

• Corruption at all levels of state administration

nicholas and chancellery

Nicholas substantially increased the position of His Majesty's Own Chancellery in the government (created by Alexander, but NI turned it into the nerve-centre of the empire's administrative machine):

• The Chancellery received frequent reports from almost all central government agencies. Later it became responsible for the service records of civil servants.

• The Departments of the Chancellery were also responsible for law reform, political matters, charitable institutions, Caucasian affairs.

• Third section was the political police, a police agency created 25 June 1826.

chancellery issues

no one could demonstrate what laws governed a particular situation, officials with access to files of imperial decrees could be despotic, imperial degrees themselves were often contradictory, many decrees unpublished.

publication of laws

Complete Collection of Laws appeared with 45 volumes 1828-30, and then 1833-35 saw Digest of Laws with 15 thematic volumes.

• Result was 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 it could be checked. It became possible to review decisions.

• Clear cut notion of legality introduced in society.

nicholas reforms local gov

1837 Reform of local government: driven by fiscal problems: more power to governors, the provincial board lost consultative prerogative and became just executive body, the local police was strengthened.

• More inclusive bodies for the cities – city councils (dumas) received more powers, almost all residents had the right to participate in its elections.

• Nicholas also accepted a statute for the city of St Petersburg and lately extended it to other cities of the Empire. St Petersburg new municipal administration represented the community much more nearly than any other Russian institutions of the day.

nicholas reforms nobles

Civil service became a full time career (earlier usually combined with military service). Bureaucracy became more socially inclusive (members of lower ranks were allowed).

• Corruption and bribery did not disappear (Gogol), but many people in the civil service had liberal views – cadres for the great reforms of the 1860s.

• Bureaucracy increases 470%, while population barely doubles - 1796-1850 saw table of ranks increase from 16,000 to 75,200 and population 36 million to 69 million.

result of nicholas reforms

• Powerful group of 'Enlightened bureaucrats'.

• Applied science.

• Imperial Russian Geographical Society (1845-51).

• Collection of accurate data about social and economic conditions in Russia’s countryside.

• Political effects - Decembrists and Polish revolt make Nicholas suspicious.

• Economic developments eg Sheremetevs using steam engines from 1790s on textile estates, railways developed.

marquis de custine on state of russia 1839

'everything is gloomy, as disciplined as in a barracks or camp; it is war without its enthusiasm and life. Military discipline dominates Russia'

nicholas official ideology

Sergei Uvarov responsible for formulating an official ideology for Nicholas - about orthodoxy, autocracy and nationality - intelligentsia.

uvarov official ideology

About orthodoxy, autocracy and nationality

Transition from period of enlightenment ideas to national romanticism, many national figures emphasised national distinctiveness, idea society needed pure philosophical and spirit to be guided, purging of foreign influences.

• Question if lead to repression?

education effecting ideas

Education was responsible for spread of radical ideas. Obscurantist views - General Vasilchikov: to close Kazan and Kharkiv Universities, to revise the practise of home education for aristocrats, to establish Cadet Corps schools ‘where education so necessary for our time can be combined with military discipline’.

• NI did not fully embrace such obscurantist views.

• However, he thought that schools’ functions had to be limited to transmitting "the knowledge most necessary for each class" of society.

ideology changes to church and autocracy

Role of Russian Orthodox Church re-evaluated - limitation of non-orthodox activities eg attempted closure of the Uniate Church (1837) following the Polish uprising of 1830, search for authentic tradition, rejection of Protestant and Catholic influences in art, architecture and theology, study and translation of Patristic texts.

• Position of autocracy - about paternalistic approach over constitutional, utilitarian not divine (preserved and strengthened the nation by defeating dissidents and schemers such as Decembrists), tsar highest expression of nation.

official nationality

Political unity and dynastic loyalty trumped ethnic diversity, all empire's nationalities share in devotion to the tsar.

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

• A Christian, popular monarchy.

changes to implement ideology

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

• 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

riasanovsky view of nationality in state ideology

• Nationality possessed no single generally accepted meaning though. Served mainly as a propaganda device and possessed no significance of its own.

• Two views of nationality - the dynastic and the nationalistic - were in contradiction to each other.

• The concept of nationality accounted for the tensions and conflicts within the government doctrine.

• All views of nationality emphasised that the subjects of the tsar felt devotion to Orthodoxy and autocracy.

• Agreement among proponents of Official Nationality went as far as this though.

view of romantic nationalists

Romantic nationalism was in the government, ministers and high officials, and professors, publicists and students.

• Never grew strong enough to replace the essentially dynastic outlook of the emperor though.

views of official nationalists

Proponents of Official Nationality argued Russian people had a narrowly circumscribed role - were to act within the confines of an autocratic regime.

• Defended serfdom as an indispensable pillar of Russian society, education of the tsar's subjects was not to exceed what was proper for their social position, people were to be kept within their place.

• Believed in popular autocracy, in a real union in thought and action between the tsar and his subjects.

popularity of official nationality

Ideologists of the state who thought in dynastic terms limited their view of nationality to devotion to orthodoxy and autocracy.

• Their attitude entirely defensive - nationality served as buttresses of the existing order.

• Nicholas I represented the dynastic view himself - as well as most members of his government and court.

whittaker on general views of uvarov

Classic scholarly view define him as an inflexible reactionary under Nicholas I, even though he mouthed progressive phrases during Alexandrine era.

• Other studies define him as a lifelong moderate engaged in an apolitical pursuit of educational progress, some suggesting his policies helped prepare the foundations for the subsequent reform era.

whittaker on uvarov views

• Conceived historical events as sets of predestined trials or regular revolutions designed by Providence.

• Plan of providence was to reconcile the rights of the individual as a creature of God with the rights of a citizen in a state, a moral-political ideal lost since the fall of man.

• "The great lesson of moral equality that God gave the world" provided the basis for the rights of man.

• The culmination of the Providential plan would be the moderation of a constitutional monarch - the legitimate, absolute monarch had the right and duty to determine when his country had reached the maturity necessary for the new order.

• Believed each state arrived at its constitution by an individual route and proceeded in a slow organic fashion.