Nicholas 1 Tsar of Russia

Question: Evaluate the reign of Tsar Nicholas I.

“Mikolaj I? byl despota i tyranem. Byl kurewskim typem czlowieka a jego proces myslowy byl czarniejszy niz wnetrze dupy murzyna.” (Nicholas 1st? He was a despot, a tyrant. He was a whore of a man and his thoughts were blacker than the inside of a black man's arse.)

The words are those of my Polish mother-in-law, Agnieszka Maria Lobaczewska late of 33 Ulica Gagarinska, Warszawa 7272, Poland b 1909 – d 1991. The sentiments expressed are in line with practically any Pole’s perception of any Russian Tsar or, indeed, any pre Gorbachev Russian leader. To what extent Mrs. Lobaczewska’s description of Tsar Nicholas 1 was justified forms a large part of this essay.

In order to evaluate the reign of Nicholas 1 it is first necessary to delve a little into his upbringing because his reign so closely mirrored the worldview and personality with which he was infused before reaching adulthood. The attitudes instilled in him by his family, tutors and his life experiences during his young and impressionable years will be seen to have stayed with him throughout his reign almost as if he had been programmed like a machine. He was a man of rigid and unshakable opinions, reluctant and resistant to change and blinkered in his outlook. His reign was, in many ways, a reflection of his upbringing. He sought not for choices when faced with decisions in matters of foreign policy or, unfortunately, in the government of his subjects but trusted to his instilled instincts.

Of he Romanov family, he was born Nikolay Pavlovich in the town of Tsarskoye Selo [now Pushkin], near St. Petersburg in 1796, he was the son of Grand Duke Paul and Grand Duchess Maria. His father, who became the Emperor Paul I after his mother Catherine the Great’s death, was said by some to have been kind and considerate to his children but was, nevertheless, a despot and is on record as having been both overbearing, capricious and somewhat unstable.[2]

He had an obsession for military order that ran contra to the basic values of the development of a civil society and an obsessive hatred of the French Revolution. This hatred of the revolution and all that it had espoused was so acute that it led him impose tight restrictions on travel abroad and to prohibit French books, fashions, music, and so forth. Society in St. Petersburg so disliked the impositions of his rules and regulations with regard to all things foreign that in 1801 he was murdered by a syndicate of conspirators which included old favourites of his mother, government officials and officers of his own guard. [3]

Nicholas’ mother Maria is usually described as having been cold and formal with her children and extremely exacting. Thus far we can already see in Nicholas’ parents and, by default, role models, something of the way in which Nicholas himself would develop in later life. These human qualities, or the lack thereof, we see echoed and applied throughout the reign of Nicholas 1.[4]

As an infant his grandmother Catherine assigned to him his first tutor, a Scottish nurse who taught him the Russian alphabet, Russian prayers and, it is said, his hatred of Poles. Nurse Jane Lyon disliked Poles intensely after having been imprisoned by Polish rebels for a short period of time in Warsaw in 1794.[5]

Although his education (as that of his male siblings) was one that generally would have befitted a future Tsar of Russia, it was to his father’s pet subject of the military that Nicholas was drawn. He excelled in the area of military science, becoming an army engineer and an authority in several other areas of military knowledge. Almost predictably for the son of one who was obsessed with military order, he married a Prussian - Princess Charlotte of Prussia - who was required to convert to the Orthodox faith before the marriage could take place.[6]

Nicholas was strongly attracted by the Prussian court and even more so by the Prussian Army, which he visited with his father in law on tours of inspection as often as he could. To round off his education he was sent to London where he attended the opening of the houses of Parliament but preferred his visits to the military and naval centres. His favourite English companion - again predictably - was the Duke of Wellington. After his return to Russia, Nicholas was appointed inspector general of the army corps of engineers.

Nicholas came to the throne in 1825 at the age of twenty-nine, a man who had made no choices in the direction of his own life, one who had been thoroughly conditioned by his parents, his tutor and his experiences of life at the Russian court. Moreover he had buried himself further within the narrow frame of reference which, until then, had been his life by marrying into the Prussian monarchy. His in-laws were among the most entrenched reactionaries in Europe. The reign of Nicholas, it could be seen from the outset, would be nothing if not predictable.

Nicholas’ accession to the throne took place under somewhat confusing circumstances. Tsar Alexander 1, brother to Nicholas, had died without male issue and so the crown was expected to go to the next eldest brother Constantine. Constantine who was commander in chief of Russian occupied Poland had married a Polish commoner in 1820 and renounced his rights to the crown. Although Constantine had willingly signed away his rights to the throne three years earlier the manifesto in which this was stated had not been published. The circumstances became somewhat perplexing to most Russians when Nicholas, St. Petersburg and the army swore allegiance to Constantine who was residing in Poland whilst, at about the same time, Constantine and the Polish kingdom he was in charge of swore allegiance to Nicholas.

The army was then required to swear allegiance to Nicholas only a few days after having done so to Constantine. This action led to a minor rebellion among the military in St. Petersburg.[7] Liberally minded members of the upper classes who had military backgrounds, and had participated in the Russian occupation of France after the Napoleonic Wars, staged an uprising convincing some of the troops in St. Petersburg to refuse to swear allegiance to the supposedly “usurping” Nicholas and to demand the accession of Constantine. The participants formed a large part of what was Russia’s “enlightened nobility” but their rebellion was poorly organized and was easily suppressed by nightfall although not before some sixty or so rebels had been killed.

Nicholas was acutely aware that he had now ascended the throne over the bodies of some of his subjects whilst fighting the dreaded revolution.[8] The reign had started out badly by confirming what Nicholas already knew in his heart - that treacherous revolution was lurking around the corner waiting to pounce upon Russia. Here was proof, if proof was needed, that his father had been right to hate the French Revolution.

Leaving nothing to chance Nicholas personally participated in the ensuing investigation and trial of some three hundred Decembrists. Mikhail Speransky, Nicholas’ future law codifier and the future head of his personal chancellery, managed to secure a significant reduction of the sentences the tribunal had imposed which ranged from execution to banishment to Siberia.[9]

From now on Nicholas would become the supreme European autocrat, a hard, unflinching taskmaster devoid of all visible emotion. How much of the cool, unflappable and aloof detachment of his outward appearance was a veneer to cover his fear is difficult to determine for he was a man who seldom let his guard down. Certainly throughout the remainder of his reign he acted as though he was in a state of near panic beneath the surface as he tended, as do the frightened, to suddenly lash out at people or nations he perceived as a threat. Furthermore he would keep hitting hard until the threat ceased to exist like a person bitten by an insect who stamps it into the ground in a panic stricken rage.[10]

His reign ushered in a new type of military bureaucracy in which almost all official governmental positions were held by members of the military. His style of government may best be described as a military autocracy as his orders were to be obeyed instantly without question and he seldom consulted with his ministers. Instead he preferred to ignore the regular channels which he viewed, in some cases correctly, as being too slow and too apt to allow opposition which he did not, under any circumstances, wish to invite.[11]

Rather than use the existing State bureaucracy put in place by Alexander 1 Nicholas preferred to make use of quickly established ad hoc committees which he would dispense with as soon as the problem at hand was either dealt with or seen to be more difficult than he had imagined. A case in point was the issue of the emancipation of the serfs that saw the establishment of nine committees, one after another. All were dropped when it was finally realised that the members of these committees were nearly all land and, ipso facto, serf owners and progress would be slow. Nicholas then abruptly turned away from the problem and never returned to it.[12]

Indeed, Nicholas’ reign saw much of Alexander’s machinery of State fall into decay as it was either whittled away, ridden over rough shod or just ignored. Most of the aforementioned committees were peopled by the same handful of his most trusted assistants who usually met and deliberated in secret. This small circle appeared again and in committees formed to address so many different issues that I am left wondering how these people could, even if they were exceptional polymaths, have possibly contributed anything meaningful to even half of the discussions.[13]

Nicholas also used a large number of ex military men as special agents or emissaries who constantly travelled the country on individual assignments with direct orders from their master and whose jobs it was to make known his will across the length and bread of the realm. They represented an extension of his own person in much the same way as did Louis XIVs hated intendentes although without their tax gathering power’s or privileges.[14]

The department of His Majesty’s Own Chancery served Nicholas I as a major means of conducting personal policies that bypassed the regular state channels. The Chancery had operated under Alexander 1st but it took on several new departments during the reign of the Emperor Nicholas and each department reported directly to him. The heads of these departments he referred to as chiefs of staff E.g. the “Chief of Staff for Peasant Affairs” and so forth.[15]

It was while head of one of these departments, the second section, that Nicholas’ trusted aid Michael Speransky succeeded in finally codifying Russian law. Speransky’s achievement in this area was immense. His was the eleventh commission set up to codify the law and the first – in over a century - to bring its work to a successful conclusion. Nicholas was so impressed with Speransky’s service to the State that he elevated him to the rank of Count of the Russian empire and, in a rare show of humanity, visited Speransky on his death bed shortly thereafter.[16] Speransky’s new law code effectively spelled an end to the hopes of the Russian Enlightenment for political-constitutional reform. Antiquated laws were now “set in stone”, rigid and, for most part, unambiguous. [17]

Whilst the work of second section of the chancery seems to have been benign on the surface but insidious beneath, the third section soon became infamous. This section was the department of the secret or political police. Known to all simply as The Third Department it was particularly repressive. It conducted surveillances and gathered information on political dissidents, religious schismatics, and foreigners. It banished suspected political criminals to remote regions and operated prisons for "State criminals." It was also responsible for prosecuting counterfeiters of money and official documents and for conducting – in cooperation with the ministry of education - censorship. It functioned in conjunction with the Corps of Gendarmes a well-organized military force that operated throughout the empire, and with a network of anonymous spies and informers.[18]

The Third Department became an agency for the control of Nicholas’ subjects and acted as an early warning system intended to dig out revolutionaries before they had a chance to ‘infect’ his realm. In reality it brought forth such a wave of false denunciations from informers that the subsequent investigations were hampered by lack of manpower. False reports were so forthcoming that the department had to set up another wing to track down and punish their authors.[19]

The third Department was often required to work hand in hand with the ministry of education and this particularly applied to matters of censorship. A quick perusal of the lengths Nicholas took in an effort to isolate Russia from the reforming ideas of the west, leaves the reader wondering about the state of the Emperor’s mental health. Given the fact that by frustrating moderate reforms he may have been creating extremists, perhaps he was right to look for a revolutionary around every corner but his attitudes toward censorship do seem to have smacked of paranoia.[20]

Under Count Sergey Uvarov, Nicholas’ minister of education from 1833-49, censorship reached absurd heights. In his book “The Western Impact Upon Tsarist Russia” Melvin Wren gives a pithy and succinct account of the constraints placed upon university students and intellectuals in Russia of Nicholas 1. “The ministry of Education became the agency that doused every spark of enlightenment…philosophy was halted at the University of Moscow….No university could teach higher mathematics, a subject that might promote speculation in other fields….a censorship designed to prevent the slightest breath of criticism about the regime….Even the department of Horse Breeding exercised censorship over materials it sent to the press.” [21]

Uvarov’s ministry of education quickly grew in size so as to keep pace with his master’s increasingly more stringent censorship demands. Direct political criticism was prevented by the censorship of books and periodicals - even if not directly on the subject of politics - and constant meddling by the police made life intolerable for many writers. Indeed, according to Wren, Uvarov expressed the hope that “Russian literature might cease to exist"[22]

Alexander Pushkin, Russia's greatest poet, was urged by Nicholas to “write more like Sir Walter Scott” and was often in trouble with the police.[23] So it was also for the writers Mikhail Lermontov and Nikolay Gogol who were also objects of suspicion to the bureaucrats. However, despite Nicholas' harsh rule, the first half of the 19th century was a period of considerable literary achievement in Russian literature. During a reign which witnessed both the flowering and the waning of Russian romanticism Pushkin, Lermontov and Gogol actually wrote their finest works while Fyodor Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy, and Ivan Turgenev began their careers.[24]

Constantly on the lookout for all things which might be precursive to subversion and, consequently, revolution, Nicholas had Uvarov ban all foreign publications; a ban even extended to sheet music which could carry subversive messages using crotchets, quavers, minims and the like as code.[25]

Of course the ministry of education did attempt to educate as well as censor its charges. During Nicholas’ reign large amounts were spent on the material side of education in the way of buildings, libraries and so forth and standards of education rose although these higher standards were used to make education more exclusive. Predictably, it was the fields of technical and vocational instruction that came to the fore in school and university curriculums rather than the arts which may have brought forth thinkers who would challenge the status quo. Intellectual opposition, if allowed to develop through subjects such as philosophy or politics, might lead to subversion.[26]

Nicholas’ spirit of anti enlightenment was perhaps most evident in the area of education. Here his main thrust was to limit the student’s education to the confines of his background. His schooling was to fit his class and destiny in life rather than to furnish him with ideas which might encourage him to improve his position. Serfs were effectively prohibited from attending secondary schools and universities even before Uvarov’s tenure as minister for education.[27]

In his decree on education for the serfs of October 1827 Nicholas wrote “It has come to my knowledge that serfs…are frequently enrolled in the gimnazii [secondary schools] and other institutions of higher education. This is doubly harmful: in the first place, these young people, having received their first education from their squires or from careless parents, mostly enter the gimnazia with bad habits which infect their fellow students or cause prudent fathers to abstain from placing their own children in such establishments; secondly, the most proficient among them become used to a way of life, to a manner of thinking, and to notions that are not fitting to their situation in life.[28]

The role which the ministry of education, especially under Uvarov, came to play in Nicholas’ reign should not be understated. Its insidious tentacles permeated almost every sector of society in one form or another. The stifled intellectual climate it fostered stopped the forces of the would-be Russian enlightenment dead in their tracks.

The monarch and his inner circle held a somewhat suspicious view of education and Nicholas was right to consider it dangerous to his reign and style of government. He seems to have reluctantly conceded to himself that education was a necessary evil but, recognizing that it could bring about the eventual undoing of his Tsardom, set out to control every aspect of it. This attitude is manifest in the system of school inspections instituted by the Emperor, in which he personally participated, and the setting up in 1834 of a body of full time inspectors charged with the surveillance of students both in and out of the classroom.[29]

Nicholas’ much touted doctrine of Official Nationality was predominately the brainchild of Sergey Uvarov. It was the ideological expression of what Nicholas perceived as the true path to “Russianness.” It came to represent the official ideology of the imperial government and remained so throughout his reign. Official Nationality rested on three principles considered to be the fundamental factors distinguishing Russian society and protecting it from the corrupting influence of western Europe: orthodoxy, autocracy, and nationality.[30]

This “holy trinity” of words was subsequently adopted by various periodicals and associations as articles of faith. The ideology that they came to represent was rooted in loyalty to dynastic rule, traditional religious faith, and the romantic glorification of the Russian homeland. Autocracy meant the declaration and maintenance of the absolute power of the sovereign, which was considered the indispensable foundation of the Russian State. Orthodoxy referred to the official church and its important role in Russia - the wellspring of ethics and morals that gave meaning to Russian life. Nationality described the “different” nature of the Russian people, considered as a mighty and dedicated supporter of its dynasty and government.[31]

Those who followed the slogan "Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality" helped the cause of Russian nationalists, many of whom were employed in government and other influential positions. Taking the word “nationality” to mean “nationalism”, they used their authority to institute Russification policies in schools in non-Russian areas of the empire, to pressure non-Orthodox religious groups to convert, and to enact various restrictive measures that suppressed non-Russian nationality groups.

Many educated Russians began to debate the values of Westernized Russian life against those of old, traditional Russian life. The pro-Western group argued that Russia must learn from and catch up with the West economically and politically. The opposing group argued for the old Russian ways, including the czarist system, a strong church, and the quiet life of the Russian countryside. These two groups became, at times, violently opposed to each other and, I am tempted to think, at the same time grateful for each other’s presence and contribution to intellectual conversation which by now must have been difficult to come by. Intellectual life under Nicholas had become indescribably boring.

The two groups defined themselves against each other as the “Westerners” and the “Slavophiles”. The Slavophiles idealized early Russian history holding that Russia should return to the way from which it had strayed under Peter the Great and would have liked to have seen a consultative assembly to advise the emperor in the way they believed things had been before Peter’s Germanising ways. Nicholas, who believed himself Peter the Great’s political heir, was most unimpressed.[32]

The Westernisers were not anti Slavic but wanted to elevate Russia out of her Slavic-Byzantine past without necessarily descending into Western parochialism. They were opposed to Nicholas’ attitudes towards science, freedom of expression and constitutional government and against serfdom and an education system that allowed illiteracy as a matter of policy. Slavophiles too were concerned to see an end to serfdom and, in tune with the Westernizers, they too resented the Prussian style of militaristic bureaucracy the Tsar was so fond of. Nevertheless as the reign went on the Slavophiles fell more in line with autocracy and came to be thought of as reactionary and partly under the spell of Russian orthodoxy.

If Nicholas’ domestic policies were autocratic, his foreign policies were best described as aggressive. Outside of Russia’s borders Nicholas became known as the “policeman of Europe”.

At the beginning of his reign the Decembrist revolt had deeply impressed and frightened Nicholas. The experience left him henceforth nervous, jittery and always on his guard lest a similar occurrence should again raise its head. When in July 1830 a revolution broke out in Paris, and Nicholas indicated his intention of using the Polish Army to suppress it, a Polish secret society of infantry cadets staged an uprising in Warsaw. Despite his brother Constantine being commander in chief of the armed forces in Poland and a popular figure, Nicholas decided to strike swiftly.[33]

In the ensuing war the Poles kept the Russians at bay for several months. The Russians won an important victory at Ostroléka on May 26, 1831, however, and they took Warsaw on September 8.
In the aftermath of the rebellion The constitution, the Sejm (the Polish Parliament), and the Polish army were abolished. The Poles were deprived of civil liberties, their country was robbed of literary and art treasures, and severe measures were taken to Russianize public institutions and administration. Other abortive insurrections and nationalist demonstrations occurred in various parts of Poland in 1846, 1848 and led to Russia intensifying its programme for the Russification of the Polish lands under its rule. The Russian language was made compulsory in schools, the use of the Polish language was restricted, and Russia interfered with the activities of the Roman Catholic Church. Culturally, politically, and economically, the parts of Poland under Russian rule were transformed into mere provinces of the Russian Empire and Poles lost almost all vestiges of their former autonomy. [34]
For a man long haunted by the prospect of revolution 1848 was the year that confirmed Nicholas’ very worst fears. It must have appeared to him that revolutionary reform fever was moving so fast in the soft and decaying Western Europe that it resembled the erupting buboes on the skin of a plague victim.

When the Hungarian Revolution broke out in March 1848 the Austrian government under Francis Joseph requested military assistance from Russia. Nicholas was only too happy to assist a fellow reactionary in the quelling of a “French infected” revolution and sent troops to Francis’ aid. It is interesting to note that when the Hungarian rebels were finally suppressed, hoping to receive better treatment from the Russians than from the Austrians, they surrendered directly to Nicholas’ General Paskevich – the same general who had put down the Polish rebellion.[35]

A war with Iran was instigated by Nicholas in 1826 and ended two years later with the Russian acquisition of part of Armenia, including the strategic city of Yerevan. However his schemes to add more Turkish territory to his domain were viewed with alarm by the Western European powers.

The Greeks' struggle for independence sparked the Russo-Turkish War of 1828-29, in which Russian forces advanced into Bulgaria, the Caucasus, and northeastern Anatolia. The resulting Treaty of Edirne in 1829 saw Russia gain most of the eastern shore of the Black Sea, and Turkey recognized Russian sovereignty over Georgia and parts of Armenia. But, when Nicholas tried to obtain further concessions from Turkey Great Britain and France declared war upon Russia and supported the Turks. Known as the Crimean War it was, perhaps, the greatest disaster of Nicholas’ reign; a reign under which Russia had suffered no invasions or external provocations. [36]

The war started from a dispute over the status of the Christian Orthodox Church in the Islamic Ottoman Empire although the long-term causes were far more complex. In March 1855, at the height of the war, Nicholas died and was succeeded by Alexander II. If the war which Nicholas started did anything good for Russia it was that it made Alexander realise how backward Russia had become. Alexander quickly introduced far-reaching economic and military reforms to try and overcome his country's backwardness so to compete successfully with the other European powers.[37]

If one word could best describe Nicholas’ reign, if it could be placed in a category, it would called “Prussian”. In this sense the reign had been in the manner of his father Paul 1 and brother Alexander 1. State interference in all aspects of their subjects lives from cradle to grave, the preponderance of things military – uniforms, military drill etc. – and obsessive concern with minutiae were all to be seen in Prussia before and during Nicholas’ reign.

Too much attention had been paid to his determination to preserve autocracy at all costs and the repressive mechanisms put in place to preserve and protect it took up an inordinate amount of time and effort. His was a backward looking regime that failed to address the country’s much needed basic reforms. He was unable to learn from history and, in this regard, failed to recognise that a nation that fails to educate its peasants never prospers.

The Russia that, under Alexander 1, had broken the cocky upstart Napoleon and became hailed as the liberator and arbiter of Europe descended, under Nicholas, to become the Gendarme of Europe that trampled Agnieszka Maria Lobaczewska’s glorious Polonia underfoot. Fear, oppression, apathy, boredom and social distress became the hallmarks of a reign almost everyone was glad to see the back of.

His all-embracing form of control paralyzed Russia and a measure of this is that under his reign Russia contributed nothing memorable to European thought or culture – nor was it allowed to take from it. Although it may be argued that Russian literature flowered between 1825 and 1855, in output or variety it did not come close to that of, say, France or Britain. Most Russian literature of the period contributed only to the “Great Russian Spirit of Misery” but even in this area England had its Dickens and France its young Zola. Where do we look to find a Russian Hugo, a Balzac, or, heaven forbid, a “George Sandovich”? Even conservative Old England produced Keats, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Thackery, the Bronte sisters and Tennyson during the same period.[38]

Perhaps the reign of Nicholas was too Prussian. Bakunin accused him of it several times but Bakunin either had glaring gaps in his education or he chose to ignore the life and times of the Prussian population under Frederick the Great.[39]

A poor man in all respects, it is difficult to find a redeeming feature in “Nicholas I Emperor and Tasr of all the Russias” with which to counter the opinion of Agnieszka Maria Lobaczewska. He was indeed a very black thinker.

Bibliography

Blinhoff, M., Life and Thought in Old Russia (Pennsylvania, 1961).

Grebelski, P. and Mirvis, A., The House of Romanovs, (St-Petersburg, 1992).

Laushkin, A., Russian Autocrats: set of cards (Moscow, 1998).

Lincoln, W. B., Nicholas 1: Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias, (DeKalb Illinois, 1989).

Mackenzie Wallace, Sir D., Russia: on the Eve of War and Revolution (New York, 1961).

Malia, M., Alexander Herzen and the Birth of Russian Socialism 1812-1855 (London, 1961).

Ogg, D., Europe of the Ancien Regime 1715-1783, (London, 1967).

Raeff, M., Michael Speransky: Statesman of Imperial Russia 1772-1839. (The Hague, 1957).

Riasanovsky, N. V., A History of Russia (New York, 1984).
Raisanovsky, N. V., Nicholas 1 and Official Nationality in Russia, 1825-1855 (Berkley and Los Angeles, 1959).

Vasys, A., et al. "Russian Area Reader" (Skokie, IL., 1977).
Wren. M. C., The Western Impact upon Tsarist Russia (Chicago, 1971).

[1] Nicholas 1st? He was a despot, a tyrant. He was a whore of a man and his thoughts were blacker than the inside of a black man's arse.
[2] Sir D. Mackenzie Wallace, Russia: on the Eve of War and Revolution (New York, 1961) p. 314.

[3] A. Laushkin., Russian Autocrats: set of cards (Moscow, 1998) p. 84.

[4] W. B. Lincoln., Nicholas 1: Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias, (DeKalb Illinois, 1989). Passim pp. 21-58.

[5] 1794 was a tumultuous year in Poland. The Polish officer Tadeusz Kosciuszko led a national uprising and Russia and Prussia intervened to suppress the insurgents. On October 24th 1795 they concluded an agreement with Austria that divided the remnants of Poland among themselves resulting in the third partition. For more information on Jane Lyon see Lincoln, Nicholas1, pp. 50-52.


[6] Lincoln, Nicholas 1. pp. 59-65.

[7] The Decembrist rebellion

[8] N. V. Raisanovsky, Nicholas 1 and Official Nationality in Russia, 1825-1855 (Berkley and Los Angeles, 1959). pp. 32-33.

[9] Speransky was one of the very few officials who Nicholas seems to have trusted implicitly. His major achievement under Nicholas was the publication, in 1830, of the first Complete Collection of the Laws of the Russian Empire.

[10] P. Grebelski., and A. Mirvis., The House of Romanovs, (St-Petersburg, 1992) pp. 68-70.


[11] J. H., Billington, The Icon and The Axe: An Interpretive History of Russian Culture (London, 1966), p. 303.

[12] Throughout Nicholas’ reign isolated and uncoordinated peasant rebellions increased in frequency. These usually went no further than burning nobles houses or seizing their land. All were brutally put down. For more on this subject see Mackenzie Wallace, Russia: on the Eve, p. 171-172.

[13] M. C., Wren, The Western Impact upon Tsarist Russia (Chicago, 1971). pp.139-143.

[14] D. Ogg., Europe of the Ancien Regime 1715-1783, (London, 1967). P. 250.

[15] Raisanovsky, Nicholas 1, pp. 219-221.

[16] Ibid., p. 356.

[17] M. Raeff, Michael Speransky: Statesman of Imperial Russia 1772-1839. (The Hague, 1957). pp. 316-317.

[18] Raisanovsky, Nicholas 1 and Official Nationality, pp. 220-227.

[19] Raisanovsky, Nicholas 1, pp. 219-221.

[20] Billington, The Icon, p. 219.

[21] Raisanovsky, Nicholas 1, pp. 219-221

[22] Ibid, p. 144.

[23] Raisanovsky, Nicholas 1, pp. 144.

[24] Raisanovsky, Nicholas 1, pp. 269.

[25] Mackenzie Wallace, Russia: on the Eve of War, p. 157.

[26] Lincoln, Nicholas 1. pp. 59-65.-261.

[27] Wren, The Western Impact, p. 141.

[28] M. Blinhoff., Life and Thought in Old Russia, (Pennsylvania, 1961). p. 120.

[29] Raisanovsky, Nicholas 1, pp. 217-218.

[30] Billington, The Icon, pp. 304-307.

[31] Raisanovsky, Nicholas 1, Passim, pp. 105-157.

[32] Wren, The Western Impact, p. 148.

[33] Ibid pp. 154-158.

[34] Ibid.

[35] Ibid. pp. 159-161.

[36] Lincoln, Nicholas 1. P. 85.

[37] Wren, The Western Impact, pp. 160-164

[38] A Russian Byron, of course would have been unthinkable under any Romanov.

[39] Raisanovsky, Nicholas 1 and Official Nationality, pp. 228-229.