220 years ago, on July 6, 1796, one grandmother wrote: “Today at three in the morning my grandson was born - a huge boy. His voice is bass and screams amazingly. This is the first time I have seen such a knight. If he continues as he began, his brothers will turn out to be dwarfs compared to this giant.” Grandmother's name was Catherine II, grandson was christened Nikolai.

Empress Catherine the Great's prophetic abilities were mediocre, but in this case she hit it with amazing accuracy. Nicholas I really became a knight, receiving the unspoken title “knight of autocracy” during his lifetime. Born at a height of “arshin less two inches,” that is, about 62 cm, he became the tallest king in the entire history of Russia - 205 cm. Even Peter the Great was shorter - 201 cm. But what if Catherine put a different meaning into the word “giant”, meaning not growth, but the greatness of her accomplishments? Then her entire prophecy goes to hell. We are accustomed to thinking that Nicholas I is an uneducated, cruel and vulgar person. The strangler of freedoms and the universal gendarme. It is known that under him it was considered the norm to beat 30 soldiers out of 100 with sticks to death.

At the same time, it is forgotten that under his predecessor Alexandra I the number of those who fell under the spitzrutens could reach up to 60. However, for some reason, the glory of the executioner and the nickname Palkin went to Nicholas I.

Shy and quiet?

Although he does have an excuse. Little Kolya got it to the fullest. Here are his words: “I was accused of laziness and absent-mindedness. Often the teacher Count Lamsdorf, punished me with a cane very painfully right in the middle of lessons.” Reeds are just flowers. The future emperor was beaten with a heavy ruler made of palm wood, and even with a rifle ramrod. They could also grab me by the collar and hit me hard against the wall.

But, according to the memoirs of his contemporaries, he was a quiet and shy boy. When he was six years old, when he heard gunfire, he got scared and hid - they couldn’t find him for a long time. He was afraid of cannon fire, thunder, and even fireworks, which is why he endured ridicule and teasing.

But education soon bore fruit. One could pay for ridicule and even a sidelong glance in his direction, just as his playmate paid Volodya Adlerberg, future minister of the court. Nikolai hit him on the head with a butt so hard that he was left with a scar for life.

Subsequently, he already dispensed with assault, instilling horror with just one glance. When the Emperor visited the Orphanage, Prince Peter Trubetskoy, wanting to please him, playfully said: “Look, Your Majesty, how the nurses lined up! Just like guardsmen!” The prince recalled the reaction of Nicholas I, lowering his voice: “The Emperor turned and looked at me with such a look that in an instant a misfortune happened to me, the kind that happens to small children when they are very frightened...”

However, it rarely came to this. Usually the king was correct, polite and fair. On March 11, 1830, an article appeared in the newspaper “Northern Bee” Thaddeus Bulgarina, enemy Pushkin. Nicholas I called to himself chief of gendarmes Alexander Benkendorf and said: “Here again is the most unfair and vulgar criticism of Pushkin. I advise you to prohibit Bulgarin from publishing reviews of literary works.” Those who are sure that Nicholas I and his “chain dogs of the autocracy” were persecuting the “sun of Russian poetry” in every possible way should think twice.

Nicholas I and Tsarevich Alexander Nikolaevich. 1847 Photo: www.globallookpress.com

King for the simple

As well as those who like to quote something like: “The educational level of Nicholas I was below average, and there was no literary taste.” Yes, the emperor was, as they say, a technician. Often, in vain and to the point, he flaunted the phrase “We, the engineers.” Sometimes I read novels Walter Scott, but valued the Frenchman more Eugene Xu- a “low-grade” writer, the founder of “pulp fiction”. A good reason for malice. True, someone rated the same author very highly Fedor Dostoevsky, so everything is not so smooth here either.

And it’s completely strange to understand that the life of a common man was not an empty phrase for the emperor. But there were situations when he really took care of the soldiers. He punished, but took care. So, during the Russian-Turkish War of 1828-1829. it was necessary to take the enemy fortress Shumla. General Field Marshal Peter Wittgenstein believed that success was possible, but at the cost of 50 thousand soldiers. Nicholas I went into a frenzy: “So I’d better stand under her until she gives up on her own, even if it costs me 50 years of my life!” The assault was canceled and a blockade was used.

Here are his other words that can shake the stereotype: “I don’t want to die without completing two things - publishing the Code of Laws and abolishing serfdom.”

By the time of the reign of Nicholas I, the last general Code of Laws dated back to 1649. During this time, more than 30 thousand legislative acts had accumulated. It was impossible for an ordinary person to achieve justice in court without a bribe - there was always an ancient act, according to which he was completely guilty. Nicholas I eliminated this problem - a Code of Laws was created.

Nicholas I came close to abolishing serfdom. Oddly enough, this is precisely why the nuts were tightened almost until the threads broke. His predecessors also wanted to abolish “slavery.” But they couldn’t - otherwise the nobles would start to worry, and this, as we know, is fraught with coups and even the death of monarchs. But Nicholas I intimidated and crushed everyone, making the state an ideally obedient apparatus, blindly obeying the emperor. Thanks to this, it became possible to give the most “crazy” orders and know for sure that they will be carried out. So the laurels of the liberator should at least half belong to the one we know as Palkin.

Nicholas I. Works and days

Even the great achievements of rulers can be lost. But there are some that are so successful that they continue to live for centuries. Here are just a few of these cases of Nicholas I.

1827 Previously, pensions were paid only to those who distinguished themselves. According to the “Charter on Pensions” of Nicholas I, payments were due to all employees, as well as “widows and orphans of persons who served blamelessly.”

1827 New military insignia - stars on epaulets. Since 1854, shoulder straps with stars have appeared, which have survived to this day.

1837 The first railway in Russia was opened. The birthday of Nicholas I began to be celebrated as Railwayman's Day. The holiday has survived to this day.

1842 He established the first savings banks in Russia, which allowed the population to save their savings and receive income from them. The principle of their operation did not change even in the USSR.

You rarely hear a good word about Emperor Nicholas I. To listen to some historians, it was some kind of sworn enemy of social and technical progress. It is all the more useful to recall that it was this sovereign who laid the first railway in Russia. And that's how it was.

In 1830, the transport of the future - a steam locomotive - rushed along the Liverpool-Manchester line, belching clouds of smoke. In the same year, the United States followed the example of England, in 1832-33 - France, in 1835 - Germany and Belgium. Russia kept pace with progress. Already in 1834, father and son Cherepanovs built a steam locomotive for a kilometer-long cast-iron road in Nizhny Tagil. But soon the road was dismantled - as unnecessary, since merchants and manufacturers still preferred horse-drawn transport. And as often happens with us, the first to direct the matter in a practical direction was a foreigner - the English engineer Franz Anton von Gerstner. “There is no country in the world where railways would be more profitable and even necessary than in Russia, since they make it possible to reduce distances by increasing the speed of movement,” he wrote in a memorandum addressed to the Highest Name.
After reading his report, Nicholas I, himself a military engineer by training, became interested in the bold project. Gerstner was entrusted with constructing a test route between the capital and Tsarskoe Selo. An English hand drew the railway standard of Russia. Gerstner proposed a 6-foot gauge (later narrowed to 5 feet). In his opinion, such parameters were ideal for transporting carriages on open platforms, which was a very acute problem on the Tsarskoye Selo road at that time.
Funds for the work (3 million rubles) were collected by subscription. Over the course of a year, 1,800 workers worked on the construction of the embankment, joined by one and a half thousand soldiers. Technical management was provided by 17 engineers. The grand opening of the Tsarskoye Selo railway line took place on October 30, 1837, in the presence of ministers and the diplomatic corps. The first flight from St. Petersburg to Tsarskoe Selo was flown by Gerstner himself. After 35 minutes, amid shouts of “Hurray!” The train approached the platform of the Tsarskoe Selo station. The average speed of the train was unheard of at that time - 48 versts per hour, and in some sections it reached 60 versts per hour.

“Sixty miles an hour, it’s scary to think! - St. Petersburg Vedomosti wrote the next day. - Meanwhile, you sit quietly, you do not notice this speed, terrifying the imagination; only the wind whistles, only the horse fluffs with fiery foam, leaving behind a white cloud of steam.”
It was at such mind-blowing speed that Nikolaev Russia burst into the railway era.

And in another important technological innovation, Nikolaev Russia has overtaken the whole world.

In 1832, the director of the US Patent Office proposed abolishing his department in view of the fact that “all possible inventions have already been made.” This odious statement was made on the eve of the entry of science into the era of greatest discoveries. Already in the same 1832, the Russian scientist Pavel Lvovich Schilling designed the first usable electromagnetic telegraph.

While still a young man, Pavel Lvovich became interested in electricity and all his life, with youthful enthusiasm, he worked on its various applications.

Gradually, he came up with the idea of ​​​​developing a conductor with which it would be possible to telegraph. The path from concept to implementation took many years. After all, Schilling was by no means an armchair scientist. Together with the Russian army, in 1813-1814, he traveled all the way to Paris and was awarded the Order of St. Vladimir and a saber with the inscription “For bravery.” In the 1820s, he served in the Collegium of Foreign Affairs, was a member of the Commission for the publication of the Collection of Laws of the Russian Empire, and inspected the regions of Siberia bordering China.

All this time he did not abandon his scientific studies. Finally, in 1833, Schilling demonstrated to Nicholas I the operation of the telegraph apparatus. The scientist asked the emperor to write a dispatch, which was accurately transmitted to its destination. Two years later, Pavel Lvovich successfully tested the underwater transmission of dispatches. To achieve this, Schilling produced the world's first insulated cable covered with rubber.

It is interesting that at the beginning of 1837, at one of the meetings of the commission on the issue of establishing telegraph communications between St. Petersburg and Peterhof, Schilling proposed hanging wires on poles along the roads. This proposal caused friendly laughter from the commission members: “Your proposal is completely insane, your overhead wires are truly ridiculous.” As we can see, the director of the US Patent Office had many like-minded people in our country.

Initially, a telegraph cable connected the Winter Palace with the General Headquarters (1841), with the Main Directorate of Communications and Tsarskoye Selo (1842). Finally, in 1852, regular telegraph communication opened between St. Petersburg and Moscow. By 1870, over 90 thousand kilometers of telegraph communication lines and 714 telegraph stations were in operation in Russia. In 1871, the world's longest telegraph line Moscow - Vladivostok was opened, with a length of 12 thousand kilometers.

***
Emperor Nicholas I did not like social sciences from his youth. But he was really interested in military engineering. One day he was assigned an essay on the topic that military service is not the only honorable occupation for a nobleman. The scowling Nikolai did not write a word, and the teachers had to write this essay themselves and then dictate it to the student. Let's remember what the emperor's love for military affairs gave Russia.

Nicholas I fought a lot and - almost until the very end of his 30-year reign - with constant success. “Our Tsar revived Russia / With war, hope, and labor,” Pushkin wrote about him.
In the first years of his reign, Nicholas supported the liberation struggle of Orthodox Greece against the Turkish yoke. The Russian-Turkish War of 1828-1829 was carried out like clockwork. In the Caucasian theater of military operations, General Paskevich reached Erzurum and captured this formidable fortress. In the Balkans, the Russian army under the command of General Dibich made an unusually bold push through Bulgaria and set up camp a few miles from Istanbul. The panicked Sultan unconditionally recognized the freedom and independence of Greece.

In 1830, an uprising began in Russian Poland. Alexander I granted the Poles a constitution back in 1815 (which, by the way, he never did for Russia). Since then, Poland has been governed on the basis of autonomy. But this was not enough for the Poles; they demanded complete independence. All of Europe supported the Polish uprising. Despite this, Nicholas put an end to the unrest with a firm hand. On September 7, 1830, the Russian army took Warsaw by storm - for the second time after Suvorov. The Poles became subdued for a long time.

In 1848, Nicholas prevented the revolution from tearing Europe apart. In February of this year, a republic was proclaimed in Paris. Nikolai found out about this during a ball in the Winter Palace. “Saddle your horses, gentlemen officers!” - he exclaimed. And although he never had to visit Paris, like Alexander I, the words of the Russian sovereign were heard. In May 1849, when the Austro-Hungarian Empire was in flames, engulfed in a revolutionary movement, the Austrian Emperor turned to Nicholas for help. The 100,000-strong Russian army moved to Hungary helped suppress the rebellion. After this, the revolution in Europe began to decline.

Finally, it was under Nicholas I that Russia firmly established itself in the Caucasus. Although the head of the highlanders, Imam Shamil, was captured by Russian troops 4 years after the death of Nicholas, all the prerequisites for the final victory were laid during his reign.
Napoleon once said that it is impossible to win for more than 15 years. Nicholas I denied these words of the great commander. He led Russia from victory to victory for 28 years. And only at the end of his reign fortune turned away from him and from Russia.

***
Our officials, having failed an important state matter, do not even resign. The Russian tsars acted differently in such cases - they died. Nicholas I paid with his life for failures in the Crimean War.

In 1850, a conflict broke out in Palestine between the Orthodox and Catholic clergy over who should be the trustee of the especially revered Christian churches in Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Palestine was then part of the Ottoman Empire, and the Sultan, under pressure from the French Emperor Napoleon III, gave preference to Catholics. In addition, Turkey stubbornly refused to grant the Russian Black Sea Fleet the right of free passage through the straits into the Mediterranean Sea, although French and English squadrons could freely enter the Black Sea.
In 1853, Turkey, incited by England and France, declared war on Russia. The Turks planned to deliver the main blow in Transcaucasia, counting on the help of the Shamil mountaineers. But this plan was thwarted by the decisive actions of the Russian fleet. On November 18, 1853, a Russian squadron under the command of Admiral Nakhimov broke into Sinop Bay, where the Turkish fleet was ready to depart, and destroyed it.

Shamil's army, which reached the Georgian village of Tsinandali, was stopped and thrown back into the mountains. At the same time, Russian troops inflicted a number of defeats on the Turks in Transcaucasia and on the Danube.

Saving Turkey from inevitable defeat, the Anglo-French squadron entered the Black Sea in 1854 and landed troops in the Crimea. The Allied army immediately moved to Sevastopol. It was not possible to stop them on the approaches to the city. On October 5, the 349-day heroic defense of Sevastopol began. 170 thousand British, French and Turks acted against the 75 thousand Sevastopol garrison. Attempts to break the blockade were unsuccessful.

Nicholas I had a hard time with the failures of the Russian army. Residents of St. Petersburg often saw at night the huge figure of the emperor walking alone along the Palace Embankment. At the beginning of February 1855, Nikolai caught a slight cold. Ignoring his illness, to the amazement of the courtiers, he put on a light raincoat and rode in an open sleigh to review the troops in 20-degree frost. The next day he repeated the trip. The indignant royal doctor declared that it was suicide. The king really seemed to be looking for death. In the evening he came down with pneumonia. At that time, this disease was a death sentence. Saying goodbye to his eldest son and heir Alexander, Nikolai said: “I wanted to take upon myself everything difficult, everything difficult, to leave you a peaceful, well-ordered and happy kingdom. Providence judged otherwise. Now I’m going to pray for Russia and for you. After Russia, I loved you more than anything in the world. Serve Russia."
On February 18 he passed away.

Alexander II fulfilled his father's will. Defeat in the Crimean War prompted him to begin sweeping internal reforms that breathed new life into Russia. Nicholas's successor, an autocratic sovereign, made Russia a country of free people.
________________________________________ __________________________
Lovers of historical reading are invited to my new book of historical miniatures

2012 - YEAR OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

HALF THE WORLD LORD INVOLVED

Spartan sourdough

Father

"Male Education"

Intemperance and remorse

Little soldier

Artist

Guards sapper

Echoes of war and unburnt letters

Brother

Heir to the throne

Do what you have to do

Vladimir GRIGORYAN

She promised that the next post would be the next chapter of the novel, but she couldn’t help herself and decided to comment on this remark by Trisha:
I was unpleasantly surprised by the reaction of high society and Nicholas I to the death of the poet.

What to take from him? It was not for nothing that Herzen aptly nicknamed him “Nikolai Palkin” (in consonance with Nikolai Palych - the emperor’s father was Paul I). He began his reign by suppressing the Decembrist uprising, and later the Polish uprising and revolution in Hungary were brutally suppressed; as we already know, a bloody war was waged in the Caucasus, where Lermontov was exiled twice.

To make it clear why exactly such a nickname is Palkin, I will give a piece of Leo Tolstoy’s story “Nikolai Palkin”.

“We spent the night with a 95-year-old soldier. He served under Alexander I and Nicholas.
- What, do you want to die?
- Die? As much as I want. Before I was afraid, but now I ask God for one thing: if only I would repent and God would bring me to take communion. Otherwise there are a lot of sins.
- What sins?
- What kind? After all, when did I serve? Under Nicholas; Back then, was there really such a service as it is today? Then what happened? Uh! It's so terrifying to remember. I also found Alexander. The soldiers praised Alexander and said he was merciful.
I remembered the last times of Alexander's reign, when out of 100 - 20 people were beaten to death. Nikolai was good when in comparison with him Alexander seemed merciful.
“And I had the opportunity to serve under Nikolai,” said the old man. - And he immediately perked up and began to talk.
“Then what happened,” he said. - Then for 50 sticks and trousers they didn’t take off; and 150, 200, 300... were screwed to death.
He spoke with disgust, horror, and not without pride about his former youth.
- And with sticks - not a week passed without a person or two from the regiment being beaten to death. Nowadays they don’t even know what sticks are, but then this word never left their mouths, Sticks, sticks!.. Our soldiers even called Nikolai Palkin. Nikolai Pavlych, and they say Nikolai Palkin. That's how his nickname came to be...
...I asked him about running the gauntlet.
He told in detail about this terrible thing. How they lead a man tied to guns and between soldiers with spitzruten sticks placed on the street, how everyone beats him, and officers walk behind the soldiers and shout: “Hit it harder!”
“Hit it harder!” the old man shouted in a commanding voice, obviously not without pleasure remembering and conveying this youthfully bossy tone.
He told all the details without any remorse, as if he were talking about how bulls are beaten and beef is skinned. He talked about how the unfortunate man is led back and forth between the rows, how the man being slaughtered stretches and falls on bayonets, how bloody scars are first visible, how they cross, how little by little the scars merge, blood comes out and splashes, how bloody meat flies in clumps, how the bones are exposed, how at first the unfortunate man still screams and how then he only groans muffledly with every step and with every blow, how then he becomes silent and how the doctor assigned for this purpose comes up and feels the pulse, looks around and decides whether it is still possible to beat the person or whether he must wait and put it off until another time, when he has healed, so that he can start the torture all over again and add the number of blows that some animals, with Palkin at the head, decided that they should give him. The doctor uses his knowledge to ensure that a person does not die before he has endured all the torment that his body can endure.
The soldier later told how, after he could no longer walk, the unfortunate man was laid face down on his overcoat and, with a blood pillow all over his back, was carried to the hospital to be cured so that, when he was cured, they would give him the thousand or two sticks that he I didn’t receive enough and didn’t take it out right away.
He told me how they ask for death and are not given it right away, but are cured and beaten another, sometimes a third time. And he lives and is treated in the hospital, awaiting new torments that will lead him to death.
And they lead him a second or third time and then finish him off to death. And all this because a person either runs away from the sticks, or had the courage and selflessness to complain on behalf of his comrades that they are poorly fed, and the authorities are stealing their rations..."

And, in general, the reaction of Nicholas I to the death of Lermontov was not surprising, because under this tsar any dissent was persecuted, and for the first time Lermontov was exiled to the Caucasus precisely for the rebellious poem “The Death of a Poet,” written after the death of Pushkin (remember? “You , standing in a greedy crowd at the throne, executioners of Freedom, Genius and Glory! You are hiding under the shadow of the law, Judgment and truth are before you - keep quiet!.."), and the second time, in fact, Lermontov was exiled to the Caucasus, because he was accidentally caught in the eyes of the imperial couple after a duel with Barant at the same ball. This poet, who dared to condemn the autocracy, was a thorn in Nicholas's side - so it was ordered to keep him in exile.

“His mind was not cultivated, his upbringing was careless,” British Queen Victoria wrote about Nicholas I.
“A smug mediocrity with the outlook of a company commander,” F. Engels echoed her.
“The highest sergeant major,” A. Herzen said about Nikolai.
And the emperor himself yawned: “I don’t need smart people, but loyal subjects.”

And in general, with the legitimacy of his reign from a legal point of view, not everything is clear: after the death of Alexander I, the nobles, the State Council, the Senate and the Synod took an oath to the next most senior living brother of the deceased emperor - Constantine, as Emperor Constantine I, that is, from a legal point of view According to him, he ascended the throne, but Konstantin, who was in Warsaw at that moment, refused to come to St. Petersburg and did not want to ascend the throne, which he wrote about in private letters to his brother Nicholas, and also informed the State Council and the Minister of Justice, but at the same time refused to renounce formally and officially - and yet the oath had already been taken to him. As a result, Nicholas I ascended the throne without a formal act of abdication by the previous emperor and the official date of his accession to the throne was, in fact, falsified - supposedly this happened immediately after the death of Alexander I. These are the things.

P.S. By the way, the nanny of the future Emperor Nicholas I was... the Scotswoman Eugenia Lyon. Again, a Scottish trace in Russian history!))) By the way, she met with Alexander Vasilyevich Suvorov himself under very unusual circumstances!

Briefly - about Him and His era.

So, the power in Russia has changed. It has already been translated into Russian: “The king is dead. Long live the king!". And immediately, as always with such “tragic-pathetic” events, the question arose: “is the new Emperor Nikolai Pavlovich Romanov, who ascended the Russian throne in 1825, any different from his older brother Alexander Pavlovich Romanov, who ruled the Empire for the previous quarter of a century? » It would seem that the answer is predictable: most likely, “no”; after all, both brothers were brought up in the same royal family, so to speak, “birds of a feather.” This is in theory, but in practice this is not the case, quite the opposite.

The brothers were strikingly different. Significant differences from each other were manifested in their different interests in taking the throne, in the reaction of each of them to the most important European events of those years and - what is especially important - in the awareness of the need for fundamental changes in Russia's domestic and foreign policy and the implementation of specific reforms related to such transformations. In addition, the conditions in which the reigns of Alexander and Nicholas began were completely different: the first was met with general delight and jubilation on the occasion of getting rid of the psychopathic autocrat, while the second began with the uprising of a number of army units that denied Nicholas’s right to the throne, and subsequent bloodshed and executions, which left a dark imprint on the entire 30-year “Nicholas era.”

In order not to drown in our own, often not always correct, thoughts, when necessary, we will seek advice from prominent (and not so prominent) professional historians.

So, the first question: did the 25-year-old Tsarevich at one time strive Alexander, who had been preparing for this event for years, to take – after the death of his father – the Russian throne? My answer “yes” is based on the recognition of the “hero of the occasion”. It is contained in his letter - a request for good advice, addressed by Alexander to his beloved teacher Laharpe. Here is the most important passage from this letter for us: “ if my turn to reign ever comes, then instead of voluntarily exiling myself, I will do incomparably better by devoting myself to the task of giving the country freedom and thereby preventing it from becoming a toy in the future in the hands of some madmen.” One can argue about the motives of such a statement, about the sincerity or “playing for the public” of the author of the letter, but the confession of Tsarevich Alexander’s desire to ascend to the throne of the Empire does not raise any doubts. " He craves the throne, craves power and absolute primacy."(Edition “Three Centuries”, 1913). As is known, Alexander actually participated in the conspiracy, insisting that the “day of murder” should fall during the duty of the officers of the Semenovsky regiment loyal to him; however, later, after the murder, he cried bitterly, repented, renounced the throne, but ultimately, he graciously agreed to reign oRRRRRRrRRRR.

We already know that Alexander’s personality was complex, contradictory, that he somehow combined, on the one hand, the desire for liberalization and transformation (or imitated it), on the other, the tightening of the autocratic system not only in his country, but throughout Europe. This was the rare case when a bend in one direction was balanced by a subsequent bend in the other. under the same ruler. A closer example of such a case to us is war communism and the diametrically opposed NEP under the leadership of the same Lenin(what can I say, our leader was “flexible”).

And what about the younger brother? Nikolai? Did he also strive to “register” on the throne (for which he also needed to “outdo” the second-eldest brother, Constantine), or was the throne not a threat to him and was of no use to him? To answer this question, let’s trust the prominent Russian historian V.O. Klyuchevsky, according to whom “ two circumstances had a strong impact on the nature of the reign: the emperor(future Nicholas I) ranks of rebel troops» (this refers to the army uprising of the “Decembrists” that broke out on December 14, 1825, the story of which is yet to come).

So, Nikolai, unlike his older brother Alexander, did not thirst for the throne and did not prepare for it. After all, the second-eldest brother Konstantin stood in front of him in the “queue” for the throne, so it was unlikely that Nikolai’s turn would ever come. But it so happened that I got there...

And now it has become important that Nikolai, unlike Alexander, was never any kind of controversial person. Throughout the 30 years of his reign, he adhered to the rule: no liberal concessions; strengthen autocracy and prevent the authoritarian system of power from being undermined. Apparently, he was well frightened for the rest of his life by the Decembrists, and the European revolutions and uprisings of the 18th-19th centuries (in France, Poland, etc.) and the collapse of absolutist regimes led to the main conclusion - the need to prioritize strengthening the internal order in the country, as he understood it. And he - not without the prompting of those close to him - defined it with the slogan « Autocracy, Orthodoxy, nationality», overshadowing all the activities of Emperor Nicholas I. In addition, he believed it was necessary for Russia to have powerful armed forces that would guarantee against external threats and allow them to keep “pugnacious”, easily excited neighbors under control.

In his era - in the 20-40s of the 19th century, a huge number of the Russian army was the strongest in Europe. This is how the elder brother Alexander gave it to Nikolai “from hand to hand”. True, the Crimean War was lost under Nicholas in the 50s, but still, forty years before that, Russia defeated Napoleon, then crushed all the revolutionary movements in Europe and struck fear into neighboring (and not only) countries. Hence the Russian-appropriated right of intervention into the internal affairs of other countries . Here is one of the minor, but illustrative examples.

In 1844, Alexandre Dumas' play "Paul I" was staged in Paris. It openly spoke of the murder of Emperor Paul with the knowledge and consent of his son Alexander I (and Paul himself was not portrayed in the best way there). Having learned about this, Nicholas I summoned the French ambassador and said: “ pass it onto the King of France that if he does not immediately stop this performance, then I will send a million spectators in gray greatcoats to Paris and they will boo him.”. As a result, the performance, despite the freedom of speech that existed in France, when it was not forbidden to scold even the king, was banned. This was, of course, not the only case of forceful pressure and blackmail of those who are weaker on the part of Nikolaev Russia.

Even today, some Russian leaders believe that they have the right to interfere in the internal life of other countries. Thus, the President of Russia in January 2012. stated that there was no way will not negotiate with the current President of Georgia". Why not call for a coup d'etat in a small neighboring country? They say, remove the elected head of state, then we will improve our relations. If you don’t want to, blame yourself. Let us also recall the open interference in the presidential elections in Ukraine, the recent events in South Ossetia, threats to interrupt gas supplies abroad, etc. Alas, time has not cured the former great power from the dangerous disease of arrogance and the use of overt blackmail.

Sad results. Recently, while “walking” on the Internet, I came across a number of interesting assessments of the state in which Russia found itself at the end of the 30-year reign of Nicholas I. I repeat, the reign - unlike the era of Alexander I - is almost entirely tilted in one direction - authoritarianism. It was possible to direct the country in a different direction, where liberalization and fundamental economic and political reforms dominate, and thereby reduce the gap from civilized Europe, only with a simultaneous change of ruler, that is, after the death of Nicholas I.

What was Russia like at the end of the 30th anniversary of Nicholas I on the throne? Some prominent historians and writers of the Nicholas era tell us about this:

“The current state of Russia represents internal discord, covered up by shameless lies. The government, and with it the upper classes, moved away from the people and became strangers to them.
...The general corruption or weakening of moral principles in society has reached enormous proportions. Bribery and bureaucratic organized robbery are terrible. This has become so much in the air, so to speak, that among us not only those thieves are dishonest people: no, very often wonderful, kind, even honest people in their own way are also thieves: there are few exceptions. This has no longer become a personal sin, but a public one.(Isn't it a familiar picture?) ...The oppression of every opinion, every manifestation of thought has reached the point that other representatives of state power prohibit expressing an opinion even favorable to the government, because they prohibit every opinion. They don’t even allow you to praise the orders of your superiors...”(K. Aksakov);

“The Emperor, fascinated by brilliant reports, does not have a correct idea of ​​​​the real situation in Russia. Having risen to an unattainable height, he does not have the means to hear everything: no truth dares to reach him, and cannot; all ways of expressing thoughts are closed, there is no publicity, no public opinion, no appeal, no protest, no control... No one even thinks about the people who work, shed blood, bear all the hardships, suffer...and no. It is as if the people do not exist morally, known only from the statements of the treasury chamber"(M. Pogodin);

"Frontoviki" ( meaning participants in the war.) sat down in all government places, and with them reigned ignorance, arbitrariness, robbery, and all kinds of disorder. The review became the goal of public and state life. Everything was done for show so that the sovereign would come, look and say: Good! Everything is fine!" From here everything was drawn to show, to the outside, and internal development stopped...”(S. Solovyov).

Then and now. You read all this and cease to understand what century we are talking about - the 19th or 21st? Or maybe you shouldn’t be surprised, it’s just that Putin’s 21st century is the same Nikolaev 19th century, but, of course, on a more modern technical basis? Both represent deviations from the previously achieved level of liberalization towards authoritarianism. To correct this and “steering” back – towards liberalization – is most often destined only for the next generation of rulers, who, in turn, can also “go too far” (for example, due to failure to take into account the level of preparedness of the population for democratic transformations).

Obviously, this is how forward movement occurs with alternating deviations in both directions. Moving “forward”, by the standards of civilized countries, means approaching important goals fixed in the election programs of competing parties (coalitions, groupings). But the presence of competing programs is not everything. Their successful implementation largely depends on the ability of the management system to track deviations and timely restore the normal pace of progress towards the goal. The effective basis of such systems, as follows from world experience, is competition, the competitive struggle of the party in power with real, strong, a critical opposition, something you won’t find in Russia today even during the day.

But everything flows, everything changes. For example, Nicholas I “couldn’t stand” any real opposition and fundamental reforms (once, when visiting England, he even expressed the wish that all these talkers who make noise at rallies and clubs would be speechless). But his own son, Alexander II, who replaced him, made a sharp turn and went down in history with his most important transformations since the time of Peter I (more on this later). The rulers of today's Russia, cowardly avoiding pre-election debates, also do not welcome strong opposition, and if without opposition today they are not allowed into a “decent house”, then they organize a “Potemkin village” in the form of puppet, pocket partiesRRRRRRRRRR, which “will approve of everything, whatever they order (the use of such “parties” was tested back in Soviet times in the so-called “countries of people’s democracy”). Or they will open the floodgates to such a flood of microscopic parties, which will lead to discrediting the entire idea of ​​a multi-party system.

But just as the once authoritarian rule of Nicholas I was replaced by the transformations of Alexander II, so, in my opinion, the current authoritarian “vertical” in Russia, covered by cosmetic reforms, is destined for a short life. According to N. Troitsky’s definition,

"Nicholas' reformsIdiffered from the reforms of the previous and subsequent reigns: if earlier AlexanderI maneuvered between the old, feudal, and new, bourgeois principles in all (economic, social, political, spiritual) spheres of life of Russians, and later AlexanderIIconcedednew pressure, then NikolaiIstrengthened the old (by healing, repairing and varnishing it) in order to more successfully withstand the new.” In a word, this is how the era of Nicholas I is seen from afar, this, in my opinion, is its place in the history of Russia.

Curious names and events .

Now let’s supplement the brief description of the era of Nicholas I with some interesting names and episodes of that time.

Palkin - from “beating with sticks”. Why, instead of pleasing to the ear, even though it is official? Unforgettable", he clung to the emperor so tightly that he couldn’t tear him off with his teeth. , shameful tail " Palkin» ? Let us turn to the story of Leo Tolstoy:

« We spent the night with a 95-year-old soldier. He served under AlexanderIand Nikolai...
“And I had the opportunity to serve under Nikolai,” said the old man. - And he immediately perked up and began to talk.
“Then what happened,” he said. - Then for 50 sticks and trousers they didn’t take off; and 150, 200, 300... they were screwed to death.
He spoke with disgust, horror, and not without pride about his former youth.
- And with sticks - not a week passed without a person or two from the regiment being beaten to death. Nowadays they don’t even know what sticks are, but back then this word never left their lips, “Sticks, sticks!.. Our soldiers also nicknamed Nikolai Palkin. Nikolai Pavlych, and they say Nikolai Palkin. That’s how his nickname came to be.”

There are, of course, other versions of why this dry, harsh word became inseparable from the name of the Russian emperor.

In general, during the reign of Nicholas I, one of the widespread punishments was indeed caning. For the slightest sins they could be beaten to death if the number of blows was from 150 to 300. Among the people, Nikolai Pavlych (as already mentioned) was replaced by Nikolai Palkin.

Beating with sticks was the cheapest, but by no means the only way of punishment and coercion to “good” behavior and conscientious performance by all “cogs” of the state system of the duties assigned to them. Prison, exile to distant lands, etc. were also used to re-educate subjects who violated the uniform discipline established for all.

Corruption and “The Inspector”. Of all the types of violations, the one that caused particular concern to the tsar was the widely practiced one, which was strangling the entire country. corrupt practices. One day, Nicholas I collected information about which of the governors did not take bribes. It turned out that there were only two of them - the Kovno (Radishchev, son of the famous writer) and the Kiev (Fundukley) governors. The king left this information without consequences and commented on it as follows: “It’s understandable that Fundukley doesn’t take bribes, because he’s very rich, but if Radishchev doesn’t take them, that means he’s too honest.”

Within six months after ascending the throne, Nicholas, realizing the importance of fighting this eternal evil of Russia, formed a committee “ For consideration of the laws on extortion and the provision of preliminary detention on measures to eliminate this crime". But “understanding” the laws and complying with them are, in Russia, in street terminology, “two big differences.” Nicholas I could only bitterly complain about bribery and embezzlement in his country. Nicholas, who himself was never involved in any acts of corruption or bribery, tried in vain to suppress this evil through purely administrative measures. According to V. O. Klyuchevsky

“He sent trusted dignitaries to the province to carry out a strict audit. Horrifying details were revealed; it was discovered, for example, that in St. Petersburg, in the center, not a single cash register was ever checked; all financial statements were deliberately prepared falsely; several officials with hundreds of thousands went missing. In the courts, the emperor “found” two million cases for which 127 were in prison thousand people. Senate decrees were left without consequences by subordinate institutions. Governors were given a one-year deadline to clear the backlog; the emperor reduced it to three months, giving the faulty governors a positive and direct promise to bring them to justice" But this was practically a “blank shot”.

What about this matter now? What has changed in almost 200 years? Unfortunately, RRRRRRR the same situation, and perhaps much worse, in today's Russia. Thus, according to reliable data Transparency International In terms of the level of corruption, Russia in the 2010 ranking shared the “honorable” 154th place (out of 178) with Papua New Guinea, Tajikistan, Congo and Guinea-Bissau. The average household bribe has more than tripled in recent years.

It would seem, who will be surprised by this now? Tsarist Russia never had a shortage of corrupt officials, and extortion and bribes made up a significant part of their income. One of the plays by the famous playwright A. Ostrovsky is called “Profitable Place”; in it, a decent person, after unsuccessful attempts to live honestly, is forced to ask for a “lucrative position.” Not good, of course. But all this cannot be compared with what is happening now. Not only officials, but also military commissars take it to “excuse” them from military service, teachers – for grades and certifications, doctors – for free or “special” treatment, even “small fry” – for issuing simple certificates, etc. Today in Russia, bribery and corruption have crossed all conceivable boundaries. Where next!?

Who will help “The Inspector General”? But let’s return to the 19th century, more precisely to the mid-30s, when N. Gogol completed work on his brilliant comedy “The Inspector General”. But since in this comedy he mercilessly ridiculed and exposed the entire bureaucratic system of the Russian Empire, in the conditions of the stifling Nikolaev censorship, serious difficulties could not but arise with the publication of the play and its production in the theater. Nobody wanted to take risks. And yet there was a person who pushed the play onto the stage. It was…. Emperor Nicholas I, who read it on someone’s tip. When he arrived at the premiere of The Inspector General at Alexandrinka, the theater was already filled with high-ranking dignitaries who, considering the production of The Inspector General a mistake, nevertheless awaited the tsar’s angry reaction with fear and trepidation. And he was the first to applaud, after which the stalls and boxes could not help but follow his example. They say that, leaving the theater, the sovereign said: “ We all had a good time here. And to me most of all".

For what? Let's think about it: why did he, who strangled many talented works with the hands of censors for political (and not only) reasons, why did he pave the way for Gogol's "The Inspector General", from which, by his own admission, he "got it the most"? It seems to me that this mystery has not yet been fully solved. Many believed that Nicholas simply did not catch the mockery inherent in the play, and the courtiers, after the unexpected public praise of the tsar in the theater, were afraid to anger the emperor by seeing and gloating how it was “slowly dawning on him.” In a word, for some time a situation similar to the “dress of the naked king” “stuck”; except that there was no boy...

In my opinion, this is a dubious statement. One should not underestimate the mental abilities of the emperor, nor exaggerate the sycophantic influence of the “faithful servants”; After all, it was already the 19th century, and not the 15th. It should also be taken into account that in the 1830s, Nicholas may still have hoped to, if not overcome, then at least reduce the scale of the corruption he hated. Having read the script of Gogol’s comedy, he could quite reasonably assume that it could play some positive role in his hopeless fight against corruption, exposing and skillfully ridiculing bribe-takers of all levels and professions throughout the country.

Such “knight moves” also happened in later times. Maybe someone from the war (Great Patriotic War) generation will remember that after the terrible defeats of the first stage of the war, Stalin, having removed from real command those who had shown themselves to be unsuitable in the new conditions, but well-deserved veterans like Budyonny, Voroshilov and others, used the play A. Korneychuk “Front” in order to make these decisions clear to everyone (it is believed that the leader himself ordered this play to his “court playwright”). I think readers will suggest more recent, perhaps today’s examples. And we return to Nikolai to reveal in more detail some important events of his era.

Childhood (and not only) .

In 1796, four months before the death of Catherine II, her third grandson, Nicholas, was born. He grew up as a healthy and strong boy, outwardly standing out among his peers by his tall stature. He lost his father, the emperor, who loved him very much, at the age of four. He did not have a close relationship with his older brothers, Alexander and Konstantin. His childhood was spent in endless war games with his younger brother Mikhail.

How and what did you study? He studied unevenly. Social sciences clearly did not interest him; they seemed boring to him. He drew well. At the same time, I felt a certain attraction to the exact and natural sciences, and truly fell in love with military engineering. One day he had to write an essay about how military service is not the only occupation of a nobleman, that there are other occupations, also honorable and useful. The Grand Duke - the boy Nicholas did not deign to compose anything, and the teachers had to do it for him, and then dictate the finished text to him. In the journals filled out by his mentors, there are constant complaints that he brings too much intemperance into all his actions, that he almost always ends his games by causing pain to himself and others.

« Nikolai Pavlovich's temper and obstinacy usually manifested themselves in cases when someone or something made him angry; so that it would not happen to him, whether he fell, or hurt himself, or considered his desires unfulfilled, and himself offended, he immediately uttered swear words, chopped the drum, toys with his hatchet, broke them, beat his playmates with a stick or whatever that he loved them very much.”

The magazine for 1805 notes other shortcomings of the Grand Duke - “a constant tendency to admit his mistakes only when he is forced to do so by force”; They also noted that he readily adopts a tone of complacency when everything is going well and when he imagines that he no longer needs anyone, despite the fact that he “He was not at all distinguished by a warlike spirit and in many cases showed timidity and even cowardice.”

The wife of his brother, Emperor Alexander, Elizabeth, whom the reader had already met earlier, spoke more than once about Nikolai Pavlovich’s bad manners, that “ he considers rudeness a sign and manifestation of independence"; she goes even further than all the other witnesses to Nikolai’s youth and directly calls him “ an arrogant and insincere person."

Unlike Alexander, Nikolai was never carried away by the ideas of liberalism. In essence, from a young age he was a militarist and a materialist and, without hiding it, was contemptuous of the spiritual side of life. In everyday life he was very unpretentious, and he maintained his severity even in a narrow family circle, where, however, he could sometimes be charming. He had a good sense of humor, which is clearly visible in his drawings. He easily and quickly drew family and friends, scenes he spied, including those from camp life, often in the manner of a cartoon. "He had a talent for caricatures, - Paul Lacroix wrote about Nicholas, - and in the most successful way he captured the funny sides of the faces that he wanted to place in some satirical drawing.”.

Since in his childhood and youth no one assumed that he was the future emperor, Nicholas, often left to his own devices, “wandered” around the palace vestibule, where he heard a lot that was by no means intended for his ears.

« With him, as with the third brother, they were not shy,- wrote V.O. Klyuchevsky, - the Grand Duke could observe people in the form in which they kept themselves in the hallway, that is, in the form most convenient for their observation. Here he learned relationships, faces, intrigues, orders... He really needed this small knowledge on the throne... That’s why he could look at the existing order from the other side, from which a monarch rarely manages to look at it.”

In the first years of his life, his nanny, the Scottish Miss Lyon, a straightforward and courageous woman, had a great influence on him; He had both mentors and tutors who taught the boy Russian and foreign languages, history, geography and other subjects, and the director of the 1st Cadet Corps, General M.I., was appointed his main mentor shortly before Pavel’s death. Lamsdorf, an honest, but stern and rude German, who sometimes resorted to corporal punishment. From an early age, Nikolai began to show a tendency towards autocracy, arrogance and arrogance. He was interested, as noted, only in drawing, and when he grew up a little - in military sciences and especially engineering. It was believed that, in general, the upbringing of both younger brothers of Emperor Alexander was in charge of their mother, Empress Maria Fedorovna. No matter how hard she tried to overcome the passion of her younger sons - Nikolai and Mikhail - for military amusements, she achieved practically nothing; this passion only took root in them over the years and did not wane.

This is how he came from childhood.

Over the years, the prospect of taking the throne of the Russian Empire began to emerge for Nicholas, since his elder brother Constantine abandoned the throne. It was known in the royal family that back in 1819, Emperor Alexander informed his younger brother Nicholas of his intention to appoint him as heir. Moreover, it completely coincided with the wishes of their mother, the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna.

The authors of the anniversary book “Three Centuries” (1913), characterizing Nicolas, also pay tribute sense of tact, characteristic of Nikolai Pavlovich: "December 14, 1825(day of the Decembrist uprising) after a three-week interregnum or two-regnum(with brother Konstantin ), during which Nikolai Pavlovich behaved with complete correctness towards his brother... He ascended the throne of his ancestors with very definite views on his rank and his significance - views that were formed not only under the influence of the traditions of power of the Russian sovereigns, but the development of which was influenced by his personal character, his military tastes and the concept of a soldier - a pawn and an all-powerful commander...

Unwavering Monarchist NikolayI- a fanatical priest and at the same time a kind of poet of the unlimited power of the sovereign...

Self-sufficiency and worship of oneself as an earthly god was the main feature of Emperor NicholasI-th as a ruler."

This main feature " was reflected in his foreign and domestic policies; it was also reflected in his attitude towards his subjects... Nikolai did not tolerate differences of opinion, contradictions, and even more so opposition. It is natural, therefore, that any protest against his power aroused in him anger and a desire to suppress and destroy it... And therefore the fight against the revolution at home and in Europe became the main content of his domestic and foreign policy.”

There were, however, also some other features « ... in his youth, which made themselves felt throughout his 30-year reign. Since childhood, he was gloomy, not particularly brave, cruel, insincere and did not forget insults. Nicholas demanded only obedience from everyone, favored only those who were submissive to him, and mercilessly punished everyone who did not obey him, who violated the discipline common to all subjects... For almost 30 years he commanded Russia, as if he commanded an army or corps, demanding from his subjects, as the picky and harsh commanders of his time exacted from the soldiers... He cannot at all be called a consciously evil man who did not think about his country: on the contrary, he loved Russia in his own way, with a heavy love, which she could not forget for a long time.”

At the same time, contemporaries note his extraordinary ability to work. Nicholas I " spent eighteen hours a day at work... worked until late at night, got up at dawn... sacrificed nothing for pleasure and everything for duty, and took on more labor and worries than the last day laborer of his subjects. He sincerely and sincerely believed that he was able to see everything with his own eyes, hear everything with his own ears, regulate everything according to his own understanding, and transform everything with his own will." And as a result, according to the same contemporaries, “ he only piled up a pile of colossal abuses around his uncontrolled power, all the more harmful because from the outside they were covered up by official legality...»

The king's passion for justice and order was well known. And it is also important that he had the ability to form a team of talented, creatively gifted people.

Accession (contrary to the Decembrists) .

Apparently , the reader remembers that Nikolai, according to V.O. Klyuchevsky, " did not prepare and did not want to reign , and he walked to an unexpected and unwanted throne through ranks of rebel troops». So, "rows rebel troops“—these were the same regiments that the Decembrist officers brought to Senate Square on December 14, 1825 (the participants in the rebellion began to be called that after the time of this event). But who were the Decembrists and why did they not like the heir of Emperor Alexander I, his younger brother Nicholas? Why did they suddenly rebel in December 1825 against the coming to power of a new sovereign - Nicholas I - after the death of his elder brother, who ruled Russia for a quarter of a century? Let's try to briefly answer all these questions, taking into account the enormous influence that, according to a number of historians, the Decembrist rebellion had on the life and work of Nicholas I

(I suddenly remembered an aphorism I read somewhere: “a rebellion cannot end in success, otherwise it has a different name”).

Where did the Decembrists come from in Russia? - initiators of the rebellion? They were Russians, mostly officers of noble origin. An important reason for their unification into “circles”, clubs, and unions of like-minded people was the contradictions of Russian reality itself, which hampered progress. The most intolerable thing for progressive Russian people at that time was serfdom, which personified the tyranny that was strangling the country, the lack of rights of the overwhelming majority of the people, the economic and technical lag behind the West, etc. From life itself, as well as from foreign and advanced domestic literature (the works of A.N. Radishchev, D.I. Fonvizin, etc.), the future Decembrists drew ideas about the need to abolish serfdom and transform Russia from an autocratic to a constitutional state. Patriotic War of 1812 pushed and sharply accelerated the growth of their political consciousness. The war brought the future Decembrists together with simple peasants, artisans, etc. - not as masters and slaves, but as comrades in defense of their homeland, and thus pushed them more than ever before to think about the fate of Russia and its people. “We were children of 1812,” said M.I. on behalf of all the Decembrists. Muravyov-Apostol.

Their Societies and Programs. By the mid-1820s, future Decembrists concentrated in two Societies - Northern (St. Petersburg) and Southern (Ukraine). Their programs for the transformation of Russia included the demand for the elimination of absolutism, the abolition of serfdom and class privileges. One of the leaders of the Decembrists, Pestel, was a supporter of the overthrow of tsarism by revolutionary means and the wholesale extermination of all members of the royal house, without exception, including young children (which is what the Bolsheviks did in 1918).

Insurrection. Now let's get acquainted with the real situation in December (1825) Russia and how the Decembrist uprising began and ended.

Re-oath. In November 1825 Alexander I died in Taganrog. According to the law of that time, his next brother Constantine was to become king. But he categorically refused two years ago. At the same time, Alexander declared the next of his brothers, Nicholas, to be the heir, but the manifesto about this was kept in deep secrecy until Alexander’s death. It is for this reason that the interregnum situation arose.

As soon as the news of the death of Alexander I arrived in St. Petersburg, the authorities and troops began to swear allegiance to Constantine. Nicholas also swore allegiance to him. At the same time, Konstantin, who lived in Warsaw, swore allegiance to Nicholas. The race of couriers from St. Petersburg to Warsaw and back has begun. Nicholas asked Constantine to sit on the throne. He refused. In the end, Nicholas decided to become king and scheduled the oath of office for December 14th.

Mutiny. Meanwhile, in St. Petersburg, members of the Northern Society decided to take advantage of the interregnum to overthrow the autocracy and establish a republic with the help of a military rebellion. But themselves

The rebels were convinced that if the soldiers were told honestly about the goals of the uprising, no one would support them. Therefore, the leaders of the uprising led soldiers to the square in the name of the “legitimate” sovereign Constantine: “Having sworn allegiance to one sovereign, immediately swearing allegiance to another is a sin!” However, Constantine was desirable to the soldiers not in himself, but as a “good” king - as opposed to the supposedly “evil” Nicholas. Contemporaries also said that some of the rebels shouted: "Hurray, Constitution!" — believing that this is the name of Konstantin Pavlovich’s wife. This was the readiness among the soldier masses for the transition from autocracy to a republic.

End. The rebellion that began on December 14 was suppressed on the same day. At the same time, according to official data, 1,271 people died, of which: “ 39 - in tailcoats and greatcoats, 9 - female, 19 - minors and 903 - rabble".

The “Northerners” still managed to send a messenger to the “South” with the news that the rebellion in St. Petersburg had failed. And the Decembrist uprising in the “South” turned out to be longer (from December 29, 1825 to January 3, 1826), but less dangerous for tsarism. By the beginning of the uprising, Pestel had already been captured, and after him the other “southern” Decembrists. Mass arrests in St. Petersburg affected hundreds of people involved in the conspiracy. Consequence headed by the sovereign himself. I remember in one of the Soviet films about the Decembrists, Nikolai says to the interrogated: “ So, Prince, you keep referring to Voltaire, but I read Voltaire all night today and didn’t find anything like that in his book.” “But Your Majesty, maybe

Wasn’t it the book’s fault?”. Of course, not all interrogations were contests of wit and causticism, much less court verdicts.

Sentence. The court sentenced five to quartering (replaced by hanging) - these were P.I., who led the uprising. Pestel, K.F. Ryleev, S.I. Muravyov-Apostol, M.P. Bestuzhev-Ryumin and Kakhovsky. More than 100 Decembrists - after replacing the “cut-off of heads” with hard labor - were exiled to Siberia and - demoted to rank and file - to the Caucasus (to fight against the highlanders).

Decembrists. Some of the Decembrists (Trubetskoy, Volkonsky, Nikita Muravyov, etc.) were voluntarily followed to penal servitude by their wives - young aristocrats who had just gotten married yesterday, as well as convict brides. Their feat is glorified in N. Nekrasov’s famous poem “Russian Women” and other publications.

What was the impact of the uprising? Now think about it, dear reader, what trace, what responses, what feelings should have been left in the soul of a relatively young man who, by chance, suddenly ascended to the throne, these first days of his reign, that is, how could the Decembrist uprising have personally influenced him?

I think that, firstly, it was fear before the impending “tsunami” of popular revolt (in the first hours of the uprising, crews were even prepared for the escape of the royal family).

Secondly, it has established itself and increased many times over hatred to those who do not obey, and confidence the need to not allow any liberal concessions; strengthen autocracy and prevent the authoritarian system of power from being undermined. Obviously, in the eyes of Nicholas, the uprising was that dangerous event that convincingly confirmed the correctness his course to prevent any significant changes in Russia that would create a threat to the autocratic monarchy, as well as the need to comprehensively strengthen and tighten what is now “modestly” called the “vertical of power” (you catch the “roll call of the 19th and 21st centuries ?). Moreover, this course included in foreign policy Russia's defense of all “legitimate” monarchies Europe from revolutions, i.e. become the “gendarme of Europe.”

I hope you yourself will feel the influence of the Decembrist uprising on many of the steps and actions of Nicholas I, revealed in subsequent sections of the article. And we just have to add that the Decembrist uprising largely influenced revolutionary movement not only in Russia, but throughout the world. About this is a poem by Naum Korzhavin, humorous in form, but quite serious in content, which begins like this:

Love for the Good sons of the nobles burned the heart in dreams,
And Herzen slept, not knowing about the evil...
But the Decembrists woke Herzen.
He didn't get enough sleep. From here All let's go.

Everything could have worked out over time.
Russian life could be brought back into order...
What bitch woke up Lenin?
Who bothered that the child was sleeping?

Domestic policy after the Decembrists.

Political processes. During the Nicholas era, a wave of revolutions and uprisings, in particular in 1930 and 1948, swept across Western Europe, inciting active actions in the name of freedom Poles, whose state, torn into pieces back in the 18th century, ceased to exist as an independent state; Hungarians, those who refused in 1848 recognize the Austrian emperor as their king, and other European nations. News of these events, like Western literature, preaching state building based on the ideas of socialism, leaked into Russia.

The stifling censorship of all Russian publications and control over literature imported from abroad were powerless to block all channels of entry for publications infected with the “criminal” ideas of Saint-Simon, Proudhon, Fourier and others. Russian reality itself favored the popularity and spread of these ideas. “Soldiership” not only in the army but also in civilian life, “black lies in the courts”, the abomination of serfdom, investigation and censorship - all this caused the discontent of many thinking people. Students were the most excitable at first, and only later were more mature people. Their, almost childish in naivety, games of “Decembrists” fell upon cruel punishments, designed, in addition to punishments, to draw attention to the “proper” upbringing of children.

It must be taken into account that the events that took place at that time in Western Europe and in Russian Poland spurred the detective and justice authorities to see danger even where there was none, or to simply invent it. Here is one example of the naive ideas of the young followers of the Decembrists:

“... elect A.S. as chairman of his secret society. Pushkin, and entrust the leadership in the combat performance to the offended NikolaiI-to General Ermolov..." Childish naivety! But all members of this frivolous secret society were exiled to distant lands. Of course, this is far from the nightmare that life turned into in our Stalinist times, when people were sentenced to years in prison for telling an anti-Soviet joke. And for the guilty children, from the point of view of the authorities, the death penalty was even legalized from the age of 12 (!). Here is such a “roll call” of Nikolaev and Soviet times...

The rulers of Nikolaev Russia “promoted” the not worth a damn “Case of persons who sang libelous poems in Moscow.” They really sang - at cheerful youth parties. Among those having fun were members of the circle headed by Herzen and Ogarev. Herzen recalled these times: “ The new world was pushing through the doors, our souls, our hearts dissolved into it. Saint-Sémonism formed the basis of our beliefs."

The ideas of utopian socialism - the subject of passion for the members of the Herzen circle - also captured more mature people who grouped around M.V. Butashevich-Petrashevsky. The meetings of this group were attended by students, teachers, officers, writers, artists, etc. These essentially harmless meetings were presented by police officials as “sedition” for the sake of their own careers. Despite the obvious absence of criminal actions, the field court sentenced the defendants - members of the Petrashevsky group (including F. M. Dostoevsky) to death. The Emperor wrote in his own hand: “So be it.” Then a terrifying simulation of execution was carried out and only at the last minute was life given to “each according to his guilt” (hard labor from life to several years).

Here's how it happened. Those sentenced to death were brought in prison carriages, surrounded by a gendarme cortege. The scaffold, installed on the Semyonovsky parade ground, was covered with black crepe, and pillars were dug into the ground according to the number of those sentenced to execution. Years later, remembering that terrible day, Dostoevsky would write:

“We, Petrashevites, stood on the scaffold and listened to our sentence without the slightest remorse... At that moment, if not everyone, then at least the overwhelming majority of us would consider it a dishonor to renounce our convictions... The case for which we were condemned , those thoughts, those concepts that dominated our spirit seemed to us not only not requiring repentance, but even something purifying us, martyrdom, for which much will be forgiven us!

White shrouds with caps were pulled over the condemned and tied to posts. There was a drum roll and the command “Take aim!” The soldiers clicked their bolts and aimed their guns at their victims. Suddenly a carriage arrived. The arriving officer brought the emperor's decree of pardon. All convicts received various sentences of hard labor. Only Petrashevsky, shackled right on the square, faced eternal exile.

One of those sentenced to execution, Grigoriev, went crazy. Dostoevsky conveyed the feelings that he might experience before his execution in the words of Prince Myshkin in one of the monologues in the novel “The Idiot”.

The cruel, inhuman execution was staged in order to demonstrate both the severity of the punishment and the mercy of the Tsar-Father. Such was the “good king”!

And in the south, in Kyiv, the “Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood” was defeated, whose members, led by the famous historian N. Kostomarov, advocated the creation of the Federation of Slavic Peoples. All members of the Brotherhood were arrested and eventually exiled to areas far from their native Ukraine. Taras Shevchenko suffered more than others: for his poetry and, as a person of low origin, he was sent to the army with a ban on writing and drawing and exiled to the Kazakh city of Aktau, which at one time bore the name “Shevchenko”. Such was, again, the “sovereign mercy”...

Legislation and reforms. As we remember, the reign of Nicholas I began with bloodshed and executions, events that imposed indelible mark for his 30-year reign. These dark memories apparently haunted the emperor all his life, who did not trust either society, the bureaucracy, or “his” close people, from whom he was constantly afraid of new “antics,” betrayal, or a “treacherous blow.” This is what the authors of “Three Centuries” explain why

“The reign of Nicholas turned into an era of complete stagnation in the social and state life of Russia. Neither back nor forward - that’s how it wasprotective mottogovernment of 1825, afraid of any movement, open word, free gesture. It seemed as if a “dead swell” had spread throughout the entire country and plunged it into a kind of stupor.”

But, while maintaining the autocracy unchanged, the government was forced to rely on the nobility, which advocated the inviolability of serfdom. This is how the vicious circle closed.

Vicious circle. Indeed, at the slightest attempt at the most modest transformative undertaking, it became obvious that touching one thing, it was impossible not to touch the whole. The dilapidated building of the empire either required a thorough reconstruction, or it really should not have been touched. The government, having refused in advance any radical changes, thereby obviously doomed itself to complete creative sterility... Nicholas and his entourage consistently and with increasing persistence implanted the peace of the cemetery, barracks regime and police-bureaucratic subordination in the country, and his efforts “did not were wasted."

« The protective-conservative policy of the authorities turned into an aggressive-reactionary one, and Russia according to S. Solovyov – to the Nikolaev Prison. Having refused any movement forward, Emperor Nicholas had no choice but to mark time...”

Convinced monarchist Nicholas I once said in a conversation with the Marquis de Custine: “ I understand that a republic is a direct and sincere government, or at least capable of being so; I understand absolute monarchy, because I myself am the head of such an order of things, but I do not understand representative monarchy. This is a government of lies, deception, bribery; I would rather retreat to China than ever accept this form of government.”

Dead end, into which any transformative undertakings hopelessly rested, was created by the clearly expressed above position of the tsar and his government. So, for example, “frozen” in a “dead end” "transformation of serfdom" precisely because Nicholas was completely clear about the connection between the interests of the “landowners” - the nobles, this primordial support of the throne, with “inner peace” and “the good of the state.”

Historians note that even in simpler cases than the problem of serfdom, when the government of Nicholas I "contained" its transformations in the law, things were no better".

The authors of the publication “Three Centuries” (1913) state that the government of Nicholas I “he struggled painfully, maintaining the appearance of firm power in that “vicious circle” where all his activities were doomed in advance to complete futility”.

Economic (and not only) policy. Advantages and disadvantages. Nicholas I — he did a lot to develop the economy of his absolute monarchy and improve the system of higher and secondary technical education. He laid railways, built bridges and palaces, encouraged the creation of industrial enterprises... Being an absolute monarch, he had practically unlimited possibilities for concentrating huge (primarily human) resources on large construction and other projects (remember, for comparison, “the great construction projects of communism”, “ development of virgin lands”, BAM, which, however, do not always evoke the admiration of descendants).

Having received a good engineering education in his youth, Nikolai himself showed noticeable abilities in the field of technical sciences, especially construction equipment. Thus, he made sensible proposals for the design of one of the cathedrals in St. Petersburg. He also established regulations on the height of buildings in the capital; to some extent, thanks to this and other standards, St. Petersburg has become one of the most beautiful cities in the world. When the question of what kind of railway route from St. Petersburg to Moscow should be, the emperor insisted that it be a straight line. They said that he understood that although this increases the volume of work today, it is necessary for future high-speed trains. I’m not sure that he actually thought this way, but the fact of his “straight line” is obvious.

But in order to successfully use the most advanced engineering solutions and technical means, an effective management system for this entire economy is needed, otherwise a situation will arise: “who goes to the forest, who gets the firewood.” And Nicholas I, who fundamentally rejected any fundamental changes in the clearly outdated bureaucratic management system that had long been established in RussiaRRRRRRRR Russia, tried to “improve” it through even greater bureaucratization. The staff of officials in all departments was significantly expanded, and the volume of correspondence between various authorities increased enormously. The activities of the administration acquired an increasingly formal, clerical character. The king himself felt this. It is no coincidence that Nikolai sought to tear out those categories of cases that were of particular importance from the general management system and subordinate them to his personal control.

Now let's take a quick look at what exactly happened during the Nicholas era in some sectors of the Russian economy. The predominant occupation of the population was Agriculture. It would seem that the government should have contributed to its intensification - mechanization of work, provision of agronomic assistance - but was in no hurry to do this. After all, under serfdom there was no shortage of labor, and no one was going to abolish serfdom yet.

The reason for the insufficient assistance to the developing Russian economy was also similar. manufacturing industry and some other industries - serfdom, although they, oh, how they needed help. Perhaps the authorities would have increased such assistance in order to make industry competitive with the West, but they were afraid of the consequences of such a development. After all, it demanded, again, the abolition of serfdom - the main brake on progress. But Nicholas I did not intend to do this: he consciously or unconsciously ignored the fact that without cardinal economic and political reforms, the use of even the best foreign technical innovations and specialists invited from outside did not and will never lead to eliminating the backlog from the same abroad, which was far ahead of the Russian state in political and economic development. In the Nikolaev era, attempts to soften serfdom were pitiful, provided they did not infringe on the interests of the landowners and did not impose their will on them. Thus, the government obviously doomed itself to failure. Only a serious push could break this “vicious circle”, but this happened after the Nicholas era...

And here's what real result According to S. Solovyov, the 30-year authoritarian rule of Nicholas I brought Russia:

« I had to pay for thirty years of lies, thirty years of pressure on everything living and spiritual, the suppression of popular forces, the transformation of Russian people into regiments; for a complete stop of exactly what needed to be encouraged most of all, which, unfortunately, our history has prepared so little for - namely, independence and common action...”

It would seem like this killer score should certainly protect Russia from anything similar in the future. Ah, no! Are the ideas of the Bolshevik leaders of the 20th century about the industrialization of the national economy realized (and on the bones of millions of Soviet people) without fundamental economic and political reforms of the authoritarian one-party system, as well as the arms race and attempts to impose communist orders everywhere, could lead to results other than the widespread shortage of literally all goods that we are well familiar with, the suppression of freedoms and rights of citizens and, ultimately, to the collapse of the economic , and then the political system and collapse of the USSR? It seems to me that it is worth thinking about this and about today’s danger of again “stepping on the same rake” that was worked out in the era of Nicholas I.

Culture. The 30 years of the Nicholas era occurred during a period that is often called the “golden age” of Russian culture. The first thing that guests of Russia usually admire is the bright representative of the “Golden Age” - St. Petersburg, its magnificent buildings and structures (however, the development of the city was started by Peter I). Therefore, let's start the story about the rise of Russian culture with architecture.

I remember how, back in 1947, I first came to student practice in Leningrad and spent the entire “white night” wandering its streets, embankments and squares, unable to tear myself away from the city I loved at first sight. What most attracted attention was the fact that it was not just the architecture of individual buildings (although each of them is beautiful in its own way), but entire ensembles, fascinating with their unity and harmony. Then I did not know that almost all of this miracle of architecture arose, starting from the 18th century, in a relatively short period of time, a significant part of which fell on the years of the Nicholas era. I was just admiring it.

Later, friends said that Nevsky Prospekt, the main street of St. Petersburg, took on the appearance of an ensemble after the construction of the Kazan Cathedral. It took forty years to build St. Isaac's Cathedral, designed to personify the power and inviolability of the autocracy, its unity with the Orthodox Church. According to Rossi's design, the buildings of the Senate and Synod and the Alexandrinsky Theater were erected. Old Petersburg, created by Rastrelli, Zakharov, Voronikhin, Montferrand, Rossi and other outstanding Russian and foreign architects, is a masterpiece of world architecture.

Many architectural achievements of that era adorn Moscow and other Russian cities. In 1839, on the banks of the Moscow River, the Cathedral of Christ the Savior was founded in memory of the deliverance of Russia from the French invasion. True, in the era of Bolshevism, it was blown up as “the opium of the people” in order to erect a grandiose Palace of Soviets on this site, crowned with a gigantic figure of Lenin, higher than the clouds. Nothing was built, except perhaps a swimming pool. Already in post-Soviet times, the temple was restored by the Russian Orthodox Church itself.

In 1852, the Hermitage opened its doors to visitors in St. Petersburg, where valuable artistic treasures of the imperial family were collected. In Kyiv in 1837 By order of Nicholas I, the so-called Red Building of the University was founded. This original building, painted red, was built by architects father and son Beretti, sent from St. Petersburg. As for why red was chosen, there are several legends. According to one of them, Kyiv students held noisy parties at night, sang hooligan songs, which prevented the people living nearby from resting. Local authorities did not respond to their complaints, and then they turned to the sovereign. And they received a non-trivial solution in response: “ If students do not blush for their behavior, let the university blush for them. Paint it red!" There are, of course, other versions.

Let's move on to blossom Russian literature under conditions of strict control over publications in the Nicholas era. In the first quarter of the 19th century, poetry was the leading genre in Russian literature. In the poems of the Decembrist poets, inspired by the victory in the Patriotic War and the ideas of freedom that came from the West, the pathos of high citizenship sounded and themes of serving society were raised. After the defeat of the Decembrists, the mood of pessimism in literature intensified, but, fortunately, there was no failure in creativity.

A.S. Pushkin is deservedly considered the symbol of the “Golden Age” of Russian literature. Many believe (and I join them) that before Pushkin in Russia there was no literature in depth and diversity equal to the remarkable works of such European writers - giants as Shakespeare, Goethe, Cervantes... Pushkin is a unique Russian poet, prose writer, playwright, publicist and historian. He lived only 37 years, but the number of literary masterpieces he created is extremely large. Even during Pushkin’s lifetime, N.V. Gogol also became widely known. His triumph was the brilliant play “The Inspector General” (its significance and breakthrough to the “big stage” were discussed earlier in this article).

The death of Pushkin revealed to the Russian public M.Yu. Lermontov in all the power of his poetic talent. The poem “The Death of the Poet,” which circulated in manuscripts, and his other works aroused such hatred towards the author “ crowd standing at the throne"that the poet was not allowed to live to the age of 27. I remember how, at one of his once very popular story-concerts, the famous literary critic and connoisseur of Lermontov’s work, Irakli Andronnikov, told the audience the words of an old man from a village near Moscow, where Lermontov was from:

“You are right, Pushkin in Russian literature is No. 1. But our Mikhail Yuryevich lived 10 years less. Add these 10 years to him, and it’s still unknownthen one of them would be “Pushkin”. Here it is appropriate to recall the lines that Lermontov left when going into exile to the Caucasus, where he was soon killed in a duel:

Goodbye, unwashed Russia,

Country of slaves, country of masters,

And you, blue uniforms,

And you, their devoted people.

Perhaps behind the wall of the Caucasus

I'll hide from your pashas,

From their all-seeing eye,

From their all-hearing ears.

I never cease to be amazed that it was in the era of Nicholas I that Russian literature flourished like never before. The list of remarkable writers - Pushkin, Gogol and Lermontov can be supplemented with the names of Griboedov, Turgenev, Belinsky, etc. And this despite the fact that Nikolai suppressed any manifestations of freethinking. Just a few months after the beginning of his era, a censorship statute was adopted, nicknamed by his contemporaries “cast iron”. It was forbidden to print almost everything that had any political overtones and much that did not have it. Such censorship bans, of course, significantly infringed on freedom of speech and the discovery of new, young talents, but they cannot be compared with the massive scale of censorship and its “all-seeing eye” in the former Soviet Union. USSR, where even business cards and dinner invitations required censorship approval, and simple typewriters had to be kept sealed after hours.

And yet - returning to Nicholas I - it is strange that the sovereign - the strangler of all free speech - sometimes personally supported talented poets, writers, and playwrights who were not at all loyal to him, but were talented. One can only guess why he did this, as with pushing “The Inspector General” onto the “big stage.” But the facts remain facts. Having become emperor, he freed Pushkin from exile in Mikhailovskoye, calmly listened to his confession that on December 14 the poet would have been on the side of the conspirators, treated him extremely mercifully: he freed him from the censors, took upon himself the censorship of all his new works, and called him “the smartest man of Russia,” and also stopped the cases brought against Pushkin. " There’s a lot of ensign in him and a little bit of Peter the Great,”- this is how Pushkin once wrote about Nikolai. And also - in a letter to N.M. Yazykov:

“The king freed me from censorship. He himself is my censor. The benefit, of course, is immense. Thus, we will emboss Godunov.” Pushkin could afford to do things that others could not get away with so easily, for example, not coming to a ball to which the tsar personally invited him.

Apparently, communicating with Pushkin was not an easy task at all. It cost him nothing to offend another. It is estimated that he took part in 27 duels (on both sides), which is quite a lot even for that “pugnacious” time (fortunately, not all of them took place). Isn’t the epigram offensive in form: “ There is no law in Russia, but a pillar - and on the pillar there is a crown"? The famous art critic Solomon Volkov, speaking about Pushkin’s quarrelsomeness, notes that in real life “Alexander Sergeevich was a rather intemperate person, did not pay debts, or could easily, for example, start courting a friend’s wife. Would you really want to have such a person as your close friend? There will immediately be a lot of problems. But that never stopped me from admiring his work,” S. Volkov summarizes. (Me too. V. Rybalsky).

Let's leave Volkov alone with Pushkin to sort things out and return to the censorship of the Nikolaev era. Guided by the “charter,” the censors reached the point of idiocy in their prohibitions. For example, they banned the printing of an arithmetic textbook after they looked for three dots between the numbers in the text of a problem and “saw” malicious intent in this. A number of magazines were closed, the works of F. Schiller were banned, P. Chaadaev and many others were persecuted.

I think everyone who lived and studied in B. The USSR is familiar with Griboyedov’s wonderful comedy “Woe from Wit.” But not everyone knows that the author of the play never saw it either on stage or published in its entirety. And this is also the work of Nikolaev censors. True, the play was secretly distributed throughout Russia in “lists” (then equivalent of our “Samizdat”). Moreover, written in a bright aphoristic style, it was all “dispersed into quotes.” There are as many examples of aphorisms contained in it as you like (“ah, evil tongues are worse than a pistol”, “happy people don’t watch the clock”, “I would be glad to serve, it’s sickening to be served”, etc.)

The life of Griboyedov himself ended horribly. He was the Russian ambassador to Persia (Iran) when a huge crowd of fanatics, armed with anything, with the obvious connivance of the Shah, attacked the mansion of the Russian embassy. The Cossack escort, embassy officials and Griboyedov himself heroically defended themselves. But the forces were too unequal. The entire Russian embassy - thirty-seven people - were torn to pieces. The crowd dragged Griboyedov’s corpse through the streets and bazaars of Tehran for three days, then the body was thrown into a ditch and could only be identified by an old wound on his arm. Subsequently, Griboyedov’s ashes were taken to Russia and buried in Georgia on Mount Mtatsminda. There is also the grave of his beloved, inconsolable wife, Nina Chavchavadze, who did not stop mourning until her death. Her words are carved on black stone “Your mind and deeds are immortal in Russian memory, but why did my love survive you!”

But let’s return to the topic of censorship bans and incomprehensible exceptions to them. By order of the Nikolaev censors, Ostrovsky’s play “We Will Be Numbered Our Own People” was banned from production (the reason was that the “good” merchants were not shown), Turgenev’s “Notes of a Hunter,” many articles by Belinsky, etc. and so on. And at the same time, Pushkin personally read “Eugene Onegin” to Nicholas himself, Gogol read “Dead Souls,” and the sovereign not only approved, but also financed both. Nikolai was the first to note the talent of L. Tolstoy, and wrote a review about Lermontov’s “Hero of Our Time” at the level of a professional literary critic. This was the different attitude towards stars of different sizes in the “Golden Age”.

That we are all about literature and censorship,” a picky reader has the right to complain, “as if there were other components culture didn't touch the "Golden Age?" Of course, he touched her, even took her into his arms. Take theater. An important event in the theatrical life of Russia was the premiere of Gogol's The Inspector General, where Shchepkin played the role of the mayor. During these same years, the Bolshoi Theater started music“Golden Age” - M. I. Glinka’s opera “A Life for the Tsar” was staged and enjoyed enormous success. The talented Alyabyev, Varlamov, Gumilyov enriched the music with “soul-touching” romances. In the first half of the 19th century, Russian musical culture began to climb to unprecedented heights.

Found their place of honor in the “Golden Age” painting and sculpture. It is enough to recall the outstanding works of O. Kiprensky, V. Tropinin, K. Bryullov, A. Ivanov and other major artists of the 19th century.

Foreign policy

Polish uprising. The first years of Nicholas's reign evoked a conciliatory mood in Russian society, based, on the one hand, on the successes of the new emperor's foreign policy, and on the other, on the still relatively soft, non-suffocating domestic policy. Soon, however, a shift began in the other, reactionary direction.

Nicholas was shocked by the July Revolution of 1830 in France and the behavior of the commander of the guard, Louis Philippe, who by force seized the throne of Louis XVIII - the king of the “legitimate dynasty” (ruling again after the victory over Napoleon and the restoration of the monarchy). At first, Nicholas thought about a coalition of European powers that could restore the “legitimate dynasty” in France by military force, but then he was forced, following the example of other countries, to recognize the new dynasty.

And soon there was no time for France, because... An uprising broke out in the Kingdom of Poland, which was then part of the Russian Empire. This uprising then turned into a long war. The Provisional Polish Government, formed by the rebels, first tried to negotiate with Nicholas, and at the same time put forward a demand to annex other parts of the former Polish state to the Kingdom of Poland. Nicholas refused to negotiate on such terms and demanded that the rebels capitulate, promising an amnesty for this. In response, the Polish Sejm declared the Romanov dynasty deprived of the Polish throne. The uprising was brutally suppressed, the Polish Constitution was abolished, and the Kingdom of Poland was annexed to Russia as a conquered province. Martial law was introduced, and General Field Marshal Paskevich, who became the governor of the region, was endowed with dictatorial power. Thousands and thousands of participants in the uprising and their families fled abroad where they became political emigrants in the free countries of Europe and America.

Gendarme of Europe. Apparently, after the Polish events in 1830-1831, a decision matured in Nicholas’s mind - to recognize the main task of his foreign policy as the fight against any revolutionary actions, and to do this, restore the Holy Alliance of Monarchs, destroyed five years ago.

At the same time, Russia’s role in preventing any changes in the entire European life increased, so it was not for nothing that Russia of the era of Nicholas I began to be called the “gendarme of Europe.” Thus, at the request of the Austrian Empire, a 140,000-strong Russian corps was sent to Hungary, which was trying to free itself from oppression by Austria; as a result, the Hungarian revolution was suppressed (in battles with the Russian army, the “Hungarian Pushkin” - the 24-year-old poet Sandor Petofi - died), and the shaky throne under Emperor Franz Joseph was saved by Russian bayonets.

However, Nikolai helped the Austrians not just out of charity. “It is very likely that Hungary, having defeated Austria, would, due to the prevailing circumstances, be forced to actively assist the plans of the Polish emigration.”, - wrote Paskevch’s biographer.

Eastern Question. Strengthening its influence in the Balkans and ensuring unimpeded navigation in the Bosporus and Dardanelles - these important goals for Russia were achieved during the Russian-Turkish wars in the first third of the 19th century. The Sultan was forced to recognize the freedom and independence of Greece and the broad autonomy of Serbia, and Russia received the right to block the passage of foreign ships through the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits.

Crimean War. And yet in 1853 There was a new aggravation of relations with Turkey, which resulted in its declaration of war on Russia. At the beginning of this war, a brilliant victory was won by the Russian sailing fleet in Sinop Bay. Russia's military successes caused a negative reaction in the West. The main military operations took place in Crimea. In October 1854, the Allies besieged Sevastopol. Despite the heroic defense of the city, after an 11-month siege, in August 1855, its defenders were forced to surrender the city. The result of the Crimean War was this: Russia was prohibited from having naval forces, arsenals and fortresses in the Black Sea. The result was also a drop in production due to the curtailment of international trade and a shortage of money in the treasury. But Russia has swallowed shame in abundance...

During the reign of Nicholas I, Russia participated in a number of other wars, in particular, Russian-Persian, as a result of which the Empire by 1828 gained a foothold in Transcaucasia and the Caspian region, and the Caucasus (the conquest of the highlanders, which practically ended under the next Emperor Alexander II with the capture in 1859 of their leader, the fearless Imam Shamil).

Since I mentioned Imam Shamil, I would like to add a few phrases about this amazing person. In my student and early post-student 40s, Shamil was considered in the former USSR as a progressive leader of the national liberation movement. He was interesting to me, and I read several books about Shamil. It turned out that he was not only a talented military commander and leader of his people, but also an extremely honest and fair person. So, when the inhabitants of one of the mountain villages, tired of the war, wanted to withdraw from participating in it, but did not dare to make such a “shameful” request to Shamil, they brought gifts to his mother, and she already expressed their request to her son. He locked himself in the mosque and, coming out a few hours later, said something like this: “ I asked Allah what I should do, and he ordered that the one who brought this request to me be punished with many blows of the whip. But since this person is my mother, I must take this punishment upon myself.” And he immediately ordered his soldiers to whip themselves with a whip, and harder. Everyone who saw the half-dead Shamil after the punishment, and those who heard about this execution, never made such requests again.

This was the famous Shamil. This is how we, in those years, students of one of the universities of Marxism-Leninism, remembered him (there was such a requirement then). But during this study something unexpected happened. As soon as we listened to lectures about the heroic national liberation struggle of the highlanders under the leadership of Shamil against tsarist Russia, something apparently turned “at the top”, and this struggle began to be called a reactionary movement, setting as its task the preservation of the semi-feudal system. And Shamil was accused of seeking to put the mountaineers at the service of the aggressive goals of Turkey and England in the Caucasus. That's it! The Soviet leadership could turn any fact of history in any direction. And this was followed by repression of those who did not have time to change their minds, expressed bewilderment or asked unnecessary questions..

And the captured Shamil was treated with respect in Russia. He and his family lived first in Kaluga, and then in Kyiv. Later, the emperor allowed him a pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina, where he died at an old age.

Family and personal life

The beginning of family life Nicholas I - 1817. Then the marriage of 21-year-old Nicholas took place with the daughter of the Prussian king, who in Russia is known as Alexandra Fedorovna. From this marriage seven children were born, including four boys. It is assumed that the emperor had about the same number of illegitimate children. It is also known that some of them were born to Varvara Nelidova, with whom he had an intimate relationship for 17 years. Assessing the attitude of the autocrat towards the fair sex in general, Herzen wrote

« I do not believe that he ever fell passionately in love with any woman except his wife; he was favorable to them, nothing more.”

Until December 1825, he really lived a quiet family life, did not take any part in government, and was generally far from the intrigues of the imperial court. And with those around him he was a pleasant conversationalist, and not the pedant whom everyone knew in the service. But since he became emperor, much has changed in his behavior.

Women in his life. The Marquis De Custine said in his book that Nicholas I was mired in debauchery. According to him, if the king

« notes a woman on a walk, in the theater, in the world, he says one word to the adjutant on duty. A person who attracts the attention of a deity comes under observation and supervision. They warn the spouse if she is married, the parents if she is a girl, about the honor that has befallen them. There are no examples of this difference being accepted except with an expression of respectful gratitude. Likewise, there are no examples yet of dishonored husbands or fathers not profiting from their dishonor».

In an even more perverted, sadistic form, a similar practice was repeated by one of the Soviet leaders, Lavrentiy Beria. The only difference is in the technical support of the “event”: the rapist and his henchman rode in different cars and communicated using a walkie-talkie. And the relatives of kidnapped women and girls in B. The USSR was not warned about anything Entangled quadrilateral(Tsar, A.S. Pushkin, his wife Natalya Nikolaevna, Dantes) . Talking about the personal life of Nicholas I, one cannot help but touch on his relationship with A.S. Pushkin, whom he contributed in many ways until the end of the poet’s days. However, this did not surprise contemporaries at all. And you, reader, didn’t have a question, why? After all, Pushkin did not grovel before the Tsar, he was often disrespectful to him, and wrote sarcastic, evil epigrams. It’s somehow hard to believe that the tsar patronized Pushkin only because he understood (if he understood) his enormous importance for Russian and world culture. There was probably something else that stimulated high patronage, some special, royal interest in solving some problem that was important for the country or for him, the tsar, personally. But what exactly, what exactly is the problem?

In countless publications about the last years of the life and untimely death of the brilliant poet, variants of the answer to this question can be traced, although not always directly. Among the publications there are some from 150 years ago and some that have just “hatched”. The points of view of the authors also differ, including V. Veresaev, Yu. Tynyanov, A. Akhmatova, M. Tsvetaeva and many, many others. In particular, one of the versions, concisely presented in the recently published work of Academician, stuck in my memory. N. Petrakova “The Last Game of Alexander Pushkin.” In combination with a number of other publications (O. Latsis “Why did Pushkin cry?” and others), this version is based on the well-known fact that Emperor Nicholas I was in love with Natalya Nikolaevna (after Nicholas’s death in 1855, a medallion was found inside his its image) and briefly looks like this:

“Having his eye” on the dazzlingly beautiful Natalya Nikolaevna, Pushkin’s wife, the tsar began to “conquer” her in his usual primitive way, which the Marquis De Custine wrote about, when the husband’s consent to turn a blind eye to his wife’s adultery was more or less generously paid. In the conditions of Russia at that time, this worked flawlessly. But, unlike the spouses of Nicholas’s numerous mistresses, who considered such relationships between their wives and the Tsar an honor and never questioned this Tsar’s right, Pushkin flatly refuses to recognize the Tsar’s right to such relationships with his wife and tries to prevent them. Neither “benefits” (generous financial assistance - for example, the poet’s salary was 7 times higher than that required for his position, getting rid of illiterate censors, etc.) nor direct threats have an effect on the poet. An explosion and a big scandal are brewing.

And then the emperor introduces a dummy figure into the “palace game” - Dantes, whose career in Russia completely depends on him. Dantes, ostentatiously flirting with Pushkin’s wife, essentially must play the role of a “whipping boy” and thereby help divert suspicion from the real seducer - the Tsar himself. Pushkin, who immediately “saw through” this base royal game, but was deprived of the opportunity to throw down the gauntlet to the emperor (not by rank!), outwardly “plays along” with the palace adventure, but in fact leads his own counter-game. Allegedly believing in Dantes’s flirtation, he starts a quarrel with him, “rewarding” him with a full range of insults, actually addressed to the king. It comes to a duel with Dantes, which - and this is Pushkin's last hope - can lead to his expulsion from the capital(and, therefore, the opportunity to take his wife and children away from the depraved royal court) or to his death. Alas, we know how it all ended. As well as the fact that a mortally wounded poet, protecting his beloved wife from any reproaches in the future, will say: “ It's not your fault" Let us accept these words of his, which obviously concern all of us, as a sacred command, not subject to doubt or discussion.

But this family tragedy is not enough. Pushkin, according to some researchers, was ill with a progressive, incurable disease since childhood, and this was reflected in a number of his recent poems, for example, in “The Wanderer.”

“Oh woe, woe to us! You children, you wife! –
I said, know: my soul is full
Longing and horror; painful burden
It weighs me down. It's coming! The time is near, the time is near...”

The disease pushed him to try to face death before the stage of the disease reached the “point of no return”; he even thought about suicide (maybe this is also why he without hesitation moved towards death - towards a duel with a likely fatal outcome).

A few years after the fatal duel, the widow of the deceased poet Natalya Nikolaevna becomes the wife of General Lansky. Alexandra (married Arapova) - the first child in this new Lansky family - mentions in her memoirs that the tsar acted as her godfather, but gives reason to think about blood paternity. Essentially, this version, not supported by irrefutable facts and evidence, was in circulation before. The mentioned book by N. Petrakov contains some new evidence and facts, and his interviews and a number of articles by other authors again attracted increased, sometimes unhealthy, attention to this issue among “Pushkinists” and not only them. Well, let them argue among themselves, and in the meantime we will return to the not yet completed story about the Nicholas era.

Results and reflections

Failure. The defeat in the Crimean War demonstrated the deep crisis of Russia's autocratic-serf system and clearly showed its lag behind the advanced countries of Europe. Thus, the strength and size of the fleet under Nicholas I was maintained at a level similar to other naval powers, but only as long as there was only a sailing fleet everywhere. However, in the 1840s in England, France and America they began to switch to steam and screw ships, and Russia not only itself, as happened more than once, did not come up with anything like this, but also again missed a real opportunity to use, following the example of Peter I, advanced foreign experience in order to, if not overcome, at least reduce the gap with the West (of course, not only in shipbuilding).

Thus, the defeat in Crimea once again - now with a menacing cry - reminded of the need for fundamental changes in all areas of life, brought the country out of a state of political anemia, caused a protest of wide sections of society against the existing order, as well as peasant revolts. It became obvious that during the reign of Nicholas I, the deviation towards authoritarianism had gone too far, and unless the steering wheel was urgently turned in the other direction, and extensive reforms based on market relations and greater freedom were not immediately launched, Russia would soon turn into a third-rate raw material appendage to economy of developed capitalist countries of the West and East. Thus, under the threat of death, the autocracy was forced to prepare and implement a whole range of reforms in all spheres of life and activity of the population of the Empire. But all this will happen without Nicholas I. The “unforgettable” emperor died in 1855. shortly before the surrender of Russian troops in Crimea, in which he was hardly eager to participate.

So, Nicholas passed away, who considered the main goal of his reign to be the fight against the widespread revolutionary spirit, attempts to undermine the authoritarian system of power, and turn towards the path of radical transformations and reforms. Nicholas I spent most of his life achieving this illusory goal. Sometimes this struggle was expressed in open violent clashes within the empire (for example, the defeat and execution of the Decembrists, the suppression of the Polish uprising) or in sending troops abroad, for example, to Hungary to quickly defeat the national liberation movement against the rule of the Austrian crown. Russia increasingly became an object of fear, hatred and ridicule in the eyes of the liberal part of European public opinion, and Nikolai “earned” a less than pleasant reputation as the “gendarme of Europe,” whose duties he more than diligently fulfilled for 30 years.

At the same time, the emperor worked a lot and very effectively in the field of engineering and technical problems of the development of his state, for various reasons he supported (albeit only some) outstanding cultural figures - the stars of the “Golden Age”... However, with regard to the main problem - serfdom - and a number of other heavy “weights on the legs” of the country - the matter did not go further than half-measures that did not affect the foundations of the social structure. And now, in the twilight of his life, Nicholas may have turned his “Highest Attention” to the generally negative outcome of his 30-year reign. Thus, not without the influence of the defeat in the Crimean War, as well as natural disasters and crop failures, the need and hardships of the masses noticeably worsened, iron smelting fell from 20.5 to 15.3 million poods, and cotton processing - from 2.8 to 0.8 million poods. Accordingly, the number of workers in the manufacturing industry decreased very sharply, almost 1.5 times.

Russia suffered large territorial losses, its level of security decreased, the state treasury was empty... In short, the good intentions of Nicholas I failed. It is no coincidence that on his deathbed he tells his son, the future Emperor Alexander II, “ I'm giving you a command not in good order" Perhaps he understood: he chose the wrong path, led the country to a dead end... In my opinion, the failure in the development of Russia in the era of Nicholas I is mainly the result of a deviation towards authoritarianism. This is probably a lesson for leaders of the 21st century, a warning about a rake that is dangerous to step on twice. Alas, not every lesson goes well...

Opinions of contemporaries. Some estimates, in particular by K. Aksakov, M. Pogodin and S. Solovyov, were previously presented in this article. And here are the opinions of other historians (also well acquainted with the real state of affairs in the country), expressed by them immediately after the death of Nicholas I.

V. Aksakova, sister and assistant of the poet K. Aksakov, described the mood of the Slavophil community close to her:

“Everyone talks about Emperor Nikolai Pavlovich not only without irritation, but even with sympathy, wanting to even forgive him in many ways. But meanwhile, everyone involuntarily feels that some stone, some pressure has been removed from everyone, somehow it has become easier to breathe; suddenly unprecedented hopes were revived, a hopeless situation, the consciousness of which they came to almost with despair, everything suddenly seemed accessible to change.”

Historian K. Kavelin responded much less restrainedly to the news of the departure of Nicholas I:

“The Kalmyk demigod, who passed like a hurricane, and a scourge, and a roller, and a terpug through the Russian state for 30 years, carving out the faces of thought, destroying thousands of characters and minds, wasting more money on the trinkets of autocracy and vanity than all previous reigns “, starting with Peter I, this fiend of uniform enlightenment and the most vile side of Russian nature has finally died, and this is the absolute truth.”

According to contemporaries, this letter was passed from hand to hand and aroused interest and sympathy among many. The historian K. Leontyev has a completely different opinion:

“Emperor Nicholas, as seen from above, was called upon to delay for a time that universal decay, which to this day no one knows how and how to stop for a long time... And he, with the true greatness of a guardian genius, fulfilled his stern and high purpose!».

Many contemporaries considered an important character trait of Nicholas I, associated with the narrowness of his horizons, to be a stubborn rejection of other people's opinions. In this regard, the historian S. Solovyov rightly wrote:

“He was the epitome of: “Don’t reason!” Complex questions seemed simple to him, and for failures he was always inclined to blame bad performers and the liberal chatterboxes entrenched everywhere, conspiratorial revolutionaries, spies, etc. He hated all of them fiercely. The most important slogan of Nicholas I was: “The revolution is on the threshold of Russia, but, I swear, it will not penetrate it as long as the breath of life remains in me.”

Contemporaries also testify that the emperor selflessly dealt with “state affairs”, got up at dawn and worked until late at night. A naive man, he had no doubt that he was able to " see everything with your own eyes, hear everything with your own ears, regulate everything according to your own understanding, transform everything with your own will »( However, some naive Bolshevik romantics of the first period of communist rule in Russia were the same).

And here is what Archbishop Innocent said about Nicholas’s hard work:

“He was... such a crown-bearer, for whom the royal throne served not as a head to rest, but as an incentive to incessant work.”.

According to the memoirs of maid of honor A. Tyutcheva, daughter of the famous poet Tyutchev, the favorite phrase of Emperor Nicholas I was: “ I work like a galley slave.". (We’ve already heard this somewhere. True, familiar words? I remembered: quite recently Putin said the same thing about himself. A curious coincidence, isn’t it?).

During the era of Nicholas I, Russian culture flourished, and Russian industry developed, albeit lagging behind the West. Medieval serfdom somewhat softened its harsh character (however, this affected only certain categories of peasants and certain small regions). These and some other changes were positively assessed by a number of prominent contemporaries. " No, I’m not a flatterer when I offer free praise to the king.”, - wrote Pushkin about Nikolai. At the same time, criticizing the system of individual autocratic power that has developed in Russia, he “sarcastically”: “ In Russia there is no law, but a pillar - and on the pillar there is a crown.”

Let's once again give the floor to a prominent historian, whose opinion, really, is worth listening to - S. Solovyov:

“The Russian sovereign became a man….quite strong, prosperous, naturally intelligent, but unusually uncommunicative with those around him, unloved by his subordinates, a demanding, picky and demanding military commander.”

Well, in conclusion of the review of opinions about the Nicholas era, we will follow the good tradition of one of the Russian-language television programs in the USA and conclude our serious conversation with poems about “good” and “evil” deeds. Poems written by the wonderful Russian poet Fyodor Tyutchev and addressed directly to Nicholas I:

You did not serve God and not Russia,

Served only his vanity,

And all your deeds, both good and evil,

Everything was a lie in you, all the ghosts were empty:

You were not a king, but a performer.

Ordinary death or suicide? Emperor Nicholas I died “at twelve minutes past one o’clock in the afternoon” on February 18, 1855 due to pneumonia (he caught a cold while taking part in a parade in a light uniform, being already sick with the flu). This is from the official message. But another version is also known, according to which Nicholas I, considering defeat in the Crimean War inevitable, asked his physician Mandt to give him poison that would allow him to commit suicide without unnecessary suffering and quickly enough, but not suddenly, preventing personal shame. He also prohibited the dissection and embalming of his body. As eyewitnesses recalled, the emperor died in a clear mind. He said goodbye to each of his children and grandchildren, reminding them to live together in harmony. General A.E. Zimmerman, a participant in the Crimean War, recalls:

“No malice, no hostility against the culprit... of the situation. They pity him as a person, but they even say that, despite all the regrets about him, no one, if you ask yourself frankly, would wish for him to be resurrected. Peace to his soul!”.

And now I submit to your judgment, dear readers, the testimony of Dr. Mandt. It's your choice to believe him or not. He said that after receiving a dispatch about the defeat of the Russian army near Evpatoria, the emperor summoned him and stated:

“You have always been loyal to me, and therefore I want to speak with you confidentially - the course of the war has revealed the fallacy of my entire foreign policy, but I have neither the strength nor the desire to change and take a different path, this would contradict my convictions. Let my son, after my death, make this turn. It will be easier for him to do this after coming to terms with the enemy.

“Your Majesty,” I answered him, “The Almighty has given you good health, and you have the strength and time to improve matters.”

“No, I’m not able to change things for the better and I have to leave the stage, which is why I called you to ask you to help me.” Give me poison that would allow me to give up my life without unnecessary suffering, quickly enough, but not suddenly (so as not to cause misunderstandings).

“Your Majesty, both my profession and my conscience forbid me to carry out your command.”

“If you don’t do this, I will find it possible to fulfill what was planned, you know me, in spite of everything, at any cost, but you have the power to save me from unnecessary torment.” Therefore, I command and ask you, in the name of your devotion, to fulfill my last will.

“If Your Majesty’s will is unchanged, I will fulfill it, but let me still inform the sovereign heir about this, because I, as your personal doctor, will inevitably be accused of poisoning.”

“Therefore, but first give me poison.”

It was after this that the disease sharply worsened and he barely had time to receive unction before his death.

The further fate of the anatomist V. Gruber, who embalmed the body of the deceased emperor, also indicates that there was poisoning. He was taken into custody and imprisoned in a fortress for drawing up a report on the autopsy of the body of Nicholas I and printing it in Germany in the interests of forensic science. And the official protocol bulletin on the progress of the disease was, according to him, prepared at the behest of the heir.

It is also known that Nicholas I, saying goodbye to his eldest grandson (the future Tsar Alexander III), whispered: “Learn to die.”

And one more opinion - from Prince V. Meshchersky:

“The fact was undeniable, Nikolai Pavlovich died of grief, and precisely from Russian grief. This dying had no signs of physical illness - it came only at the last minute - but the dying took place in the form of an undoubted predominance of mental suffering over his physical being.

The tragedy of Nicholas I most likely consisted in the fact that, despite his firmness, pride, and conviction, he failed to preserve the Empire within the framework of the old order he created. The ideal society always seemed to Nicholas to be built on the model of a patriarchal family, where the younger members of the family unquestioningly obey the elders, and the head of the family - the father, with whom he identified himself - the autocratic sovereign, is responsible for everything. Alas, or fortunately, the world will not return to such a past: you cannot step into the same water twice.

It took 30 years for him to perhaps realize this, as well as the fact that he had in vain invested enormous work and titanic efforts in an attempt to force Russia RRRRRRR to deviate from the pan-European path of liberalism and democracy, towards authoritarianism. And now, in his old age, he could no longer “restructure” or change course to the opposite (like Lenin - war communism on the NEP). He, apparently, was simply forced to come to the realization that his system of views turned out to be unsuitable in the new conditions, that other times had come, another life in which there was and would never be a suitable place for him.

Therefore, it is not so important what exactly happened to him: whether it was a classic suicide, or departure to another world due to unbearable emotional experiences. The main thing is that a new turn from authoritarianism to democracy and reforms (so that further, if possible, “to go in a straight line”) was inevitable by that time, and this difficult and dangerous turn would soon be shouldered by his eldest son, Emperor Alexander II. And he, Nicholas I, looking from under the heavens at everything that is happening on this strange land, can only repeat after the great German poet Heinrich Heine:

Another life, other birds

They sing different songs

I would love these songs

If only I had different ears.

Victor Rybalsky New York

(Newspaper “Courier”, April-May 2012)