Nicholas_I_of_Russia

Emperor Nicholas I


Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias





Reign

December 1, 1825 – March 2, 1855


Coronation

September 3, 1826


Born

July 6 1796(1796-07-06)




Gatchina


Died

March 2 1855


Predecessor

Alexander I


Successor

Alexander II


Consort

Charlotte of Prussia


Issue

Tsar Alexander II
Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna
Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna
Grand Duchess Alexandra Nikolaevna
Grand Duke Konstantin Nicholaievich of Russia
Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaievich
Grand Duke Mikhail Nikolaevich


Royal House

House of Romanov


Father

Paul I


Mother

Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg


Nicholas I  (Russian: Николай I Павлович, Nikolai I Pavlovich), July 6 (June 25, Old Style), 1796 – March 2 (18 February Old Style), 1855), was the Emperor of Russia from 1825 until 1855, known as one of the most reactionary of the Russian monarchs. Nicholas came to the thrown after the debacle of the Decembrist Revolt, but nonetheless set about to prevent another uprising with a program designed to suppress political dissent at home, and role back constitutional gains in Poland. This resulted in the November Uprising, which Nicholas brutally suppressed. His reactionary policies served to spawn revolutionaries, including liberals, populists and radicals. While many were forced underground during his reign, they would eventually gain momentum after his death. Russia's failure to reform would ultimately lead to the assassination of Nicholas' successor, the reformer Tsar Alexander II of Russia as well as the later rise of the Bolshevik Party.

Contents

1 Biography

1.1 Early life and road to power
1.2 Emperor and principles


2 Culture
3 Foreign policy
4 Legacy
5 Ancestry
6 Issue
7 Notes
8 References
9 Credits



Biography
He was born in Gatchina to Emperor Paul I and Empress Maria Feodorovna. He was a younger brother to Alexander I of Russia and Grand Duke Constantine Pavlovich of Russia.

Early life and road to power
Nicholas was not brought up to be the Emperor of Russia as he had two elder brothers who were before him in the line of succession. As such in 1825, when Alexander I suddenly died of typhus, Nicholas was caught in between swearing allegiance to his second-eldest brother Constantine Pavlovich and accepting the throne for himself.
The interregnum lasted until Constantine Pavlovich who was in Warsaw at that time confirmed his refusal additionally. In December 25 (13 Old Style) Nicholas issued the manifesto claiming his accession to the throne. That manifesto named December 1 as official date of his reign start. During that confusion a plot was hatched by the military to overthrow Nicholas and to usurp power. This led to the Decembrist Revolt in December 26 (14 Old Style), 1825 in which Nicholas almost lost his life, but ultimately he was successful in suppressing the uprising.

Emperor and principles
Nicholas completely lacked his brothers' spiritual and intellectual breadth; he saw his role simply as one paternal autocrat ruling his people by whatever means were necessary. Having experienced the trauma of the Decembrist Revolt, Nicholas I was determined to restrain Russian society. A secret police, the Third Section of Imperial Chancellery, ran a huge network of spies and informers with the help of Gendarmes. The government exercised censorship and other controls over education, publishing, and all manifestations of public life. In 1833 the minister of education, Sergey Uvarov, devised a program of "autocracy, Orthodoxy, and nationality" as the guiding principle of the regime. The people were to show loyalty to the unlimited authority of the tsar, to the traditions of the Russian Orthodox Church, and, in a vague way, to the Russian nation. These principles did not gain the support of the population but instead led to repression in general and to suppression of non-Russian nationalities and religions in particular. For example, the government suppressed the Greek-Catholic Churches in Ukraine and Belarus in 1839. See also Cantonists.
Template:House of Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov
Nicholas refused to abolish serfdom during his reign, since it enabled the landlords to govern the peasants, which the relatively small Russian bureaucracy was unable to do directly. However, he did make some efforts to improve the lot of the state peasants (serfs owned by the government) with the help of the minister Pavel Kiselev.

Culture
The official emphasis on Russian nationalism contributed to a debate on Russia's place in the world, the meaning of Russian history, and the future of Russia. One group, the Westernizers, believed that Russia remained backward and primitive and could progress only through more Europeanization, which included both adopting European customs in Russia and greater integration of Russia into European politics and culture. Another group, the Slavophiles, enthusiastically favored the Slavs and their culture and customs, and had a distaste for westerners and their culture and customs. The Slavophiles viewed Slavic philosophy as a source of wholeness in Russia and were skeptical of Western rationalism and materialism. Some of them believed that the Russian peasant commune, or Mir, offered an attractive alternative to Western capitalism and could make Russia a potential social and moral savior of humanity. The Slavophiles, therefore, represented a form of Russian messianism. At its zenith was the Third Rome theory that postulated that Russia had a unique destiny on the world stage.
Despite the repressions of this period, Russia experienced a flowering of literature and the arts. Through the works of Aleksandr Pushkin, Nikolai Gogol, Ivan Turgenev, and numerous others, Russian literature gained international stature and recognition. Ballet took root in Russia after its importation from France, and classical music became firmly established with the compositions of Mikhail Glinka (1804-1857).

Foreign policy
 Monument to Nicholas I on St. Isaac's Square
In foreign policy, Nicholas I acted as the protector of ruling legitimism and guardian against revolution. His offers to suppress revolution on the European continent, accepted in some instances, earned him the label of gendarme of Europe. In 1825 Nicholas I was crowned and began to limit the liberties of constitutional monarchy in Congress Poland. In return, after the November Uprising broke out, in 1831 the Polish parliament deposed Nicholas as king of Poland in response to his repeated curtailment of its constitutional rights. The Tsar reacted by sending Russian troops into Poland. Nicholas crushed the rebellion, abrogated the Polish constitution, and reduced Poland to the status of a Russian province and embarked on a policy of repression towards Catholics[1]. In 1848, when a series of revolutions convulsed Europe, Nicholas was in the forefront of reaction. In 1849 he intervened on behalf of the Habsburgs and helped suppress an uprising in Hungary, and he also urged Prussia not to accept a liberal constitution. Having helped conservative forces repel the specter of revolution, Nicholas I seemed to dominate Europe.
Russian dominance proved illusory, however. While Nicholas was attempting to maintain the status quo in Europe, he adopted an aggressive policy toward the Ottoman Empire. Nicholas I was following the traditional Russian policy of resolving the so-called Eastern Question by seeking to partition the Ottoman Empire and establish a protectorate over the Orthodox population of the Balkans, still largely under Ottoman control in the 1820s. Russia fought a successful war with the Ottomans in 1828 and 1829. In 1833 Russia negotiated the Treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi with the Ottoman Empire. The major European parties mistakenly believed that the treaty contained a secret clause granting Russia the right to send warships through the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits. By the London Straits Convention of 1841, they affirmed Ottoman control over the straits and forbade any power, including Russia, to send warships through the straits. Based on his role in suppressing the revolutions of 1848 and his mistaken belief that he had British diplomatic support, Nicholas moved against the Ottomans, who declared war on Russia in 1853. Fearing the results of an Ottoman defeat by Russia, in 1854 Britain and France joined what became known as the Crimean War on the Ottoman side. Austria offered the Ottomans diplomatic support, and Prussia remained neutral, leaving Russia without allies on the continent. The European allies landed in Crimea and laid siege to the well-fortified Russian base at Sevastopol. After a year's siege the base fell, exposing Russia's inability to defend a major fortification on its own soil. Nicholas I died before the fall of Sevastopol, but he already had recognized the failure of his regime. Russia now faced the choice of initiating major reforms or losing its status as a major European power.

Legacy
Nicholas responded to the social unrest in the mid-ninteenth century both at home and abroad by becoming the most reactionary ruler in modern Russian history and among the most reactionary in modern European history.
From time to time efforts are made to revive Nicholas' reputation.

Nicholas believed in his own oath and in respecting other peoples' rights as well as his own; witness Poland before 1831 and Hungary in 1849. He hated serfdom at heart and would have liked to destroy it, as well as detesting the tyranny of the Baltic squires over their 'emancipated' peasantry…. He must not be judged by the panic period of 1848-1855… it must not be forgetten that his Minister of Public Education was Uvarov… who did an immense amount to spread education through the Empire at all levels. (Igor Vinogradoff)
The Marquis de Custine was open to the possibility that, inside, Nicholas was a good person, and only behaved as he did because he believed he had to. "If the Emperor, has no more of mercy in his heart than he reveals in his policies, then I pity Russia; if, on the other hand, his true sentiments are really superior to his acts, then I pity the Emperor."
Nicolas is involved in a common misconception about the railroad from Moscow to Saint Petersburg. When it was to be constructed, the engineers proposed to Nicholas to draw the future road on the map himself. So he is said to have taken the ruler and put one end at Moscow, the other at Saint Petersburg, and then drawn a straight line. But as his finger was slightly sticking out, this left the road with a small curving. In fact, this curve was added in 1877, 26 years after the railway's construction to circumvent a steep gradient that lasted for 15km, and interfered with the railway's functionality.[1] This curving had to be rectified in the early 2000s when the speed of the trains running between the two cities had to be increased.

Ancestry

Nicholas I's ancestors in three generations


Nicholas I of Russia

Father:
Paul I of Russia

Paternal Grandfather:
Peter III of Russia

Paternal Great-grandfather:
Charles Frederick, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp


Paternal Great-grandmother:
Anna Petrovna, Tsesarevna of Russia


Paternal Grandmother:
Catherine II of Russia

Paternal Great-grandfather:
Christian August, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst


Paternal Great-grandmother:
Johanna Elisabeth, Princess of Holstein-Gottorp


Mother:
Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg

Maternal Grandfather:
Friedrich II Eugen, Duke of Württemberg

Maternal Great-grandfather:
Karl Alexander, Duke of Württemberg


Maternal Great-grandmother:
Maria Augusta Anna of Thurn and Taxis


Maternal Grandmother:
Friederike Dorothea of Brandenburg-Schwedt

Maternal Great-grandfather:
Friedrich Wilhelm, Margrave of Brandenburg-Schwedt


Maternal Great-grandmother:
Sophie Dorothea Marie, Princess of Prussia

Issue
Nicholas married Charlotte of Prussia (1798 - 1860) who thereafter went by the name Alexandra Feodorovna. Charlotte was daughter of Frederick William III of Prussia and Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz.



Name
Birth
Death
Notes


Tsar Alexander II
April 17 1818
March 13 1881
married 1841, Marie of Hesse and by Rhine; had issue


Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna
1819
1876
married 1839, Maximilian de Beauharnais; had issue


Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna
September 11 1822
October 30 1892
married 1846, Karl of Württemberg


Grand Duchess Alexandra Nikolaevna of Russia
June 24 1825
August 10 1844
married 1844, Landgrave Friedrich-Wilhelm of Hesse-Kassel


Grand Duke Constantin Nikolaevich
1827
1892
married 1848, Alexandra of Saxe-Altenburg; had issue


Grand Duke Nicholas Nicolaevich
July 27 1831
April 13 1891
married 1856, Alexandra of Oldenburg; had issue


Grand Duke Mikhail Nikolaevich
October 13 1832
December 18 1909
married 1857, Cecily of Baden; had issue




Notes

↑ "Tsar's Finger sliced off on the Moscow express", Guardian Unlimited, October 24, 2001.


ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
de Grunwald, Constantin, Tsar Nicholas I, Macmillan Press, 1955.
Lincoln, W. Bruce, Nicholas I: Emperor and Autocrat of all the Russias, Indiana University Press, 1978. ISBN 9780253340597
Presniakov, A. E., Emperor Nicholas I of Russia, the apogee of autocracy, 1825-1855, Academic International Press, 1974. ISBN 9780875690537
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House of Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov
Cadet Branch of the House of Oldenburg 
Born: 6 July 1796; Died: 2 March 1855


Regnal Titles




Preceded by:
Alexander I

Emperor of Russia
December 1, 1825–March 2, 1855

Succeeded by: Alexander II


King of Poland
December 1, 1825–January 25, 1831


Grand Duke of Finland
December 1, 1825–March 2, 1855


 Historical Russian Leadership

  Pre-imperial Russian Leadership (860–1721) 



  Russian Empire (1721–1917)

Peter I • Catherine I • Peter II • Anna Ivanovna • Ivan VI • Elizabeth • Peter III • Catherine II • Paul I • Alexander I • Nicholas I • Alexander II • Alexander III • Nicholas II



   Soviet Union (1917–1991)

Vladimir Lenin • Joseph Stalin • Georgy Malenkov • Nikita Khrushchev • Leonid Brezhnev • Yuri Andropov • Konstantin Chernenko • Mikhail Gorbachev



 Russian Federation (1991–present)

Boris Yeltsin • Vladimir Putin



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