Nicholas i of russia biography books
Nicholas I: Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias
May 17, 2023
Apogee of Autocracy.
Tsar Nicholas I of all the Russias was divisive in his lifetime as he has been in his death. Despised or worshipped, most nineteenth century Russians could not remain indifferent to him, he had a profound influence on everyone’s lives. W. Bruce Lincoln is up there with the greatest Russian historians and here has offered a much needed revisit to the emperor. First published in 1978, this book has remained the authority on a much neglected Tsar. As Lincoln explains much opinion on Nicholas is unflattering, historians have drawn their views of him from memoirs of intelligentsia figures such as Alexander Herzen or PV Annenkov and has led to biased, bitter accounts. Lincoln as such attempts to reset the balance and bring Nicholas back to where he belongs, more central. But as Lincoln explains, this is not an apology for Nicholas, just a fair assessment.
Nicholas I was the last tsar to hold absolute power in Russia and he has often been associated reactionary absolute oppression. During which political and cultural thought was completely choked to death. So much so that his Third Section was watching and informing on everyone, even his second son, without his knowledge. As Lincoln explains, Nicholas’ police state was set up like that centralised world of Louis XIV’s France, the only difference was that nineteenth century Russia was not last seventeenth century France. The world of Peter the Great was not of Nicholas I. Times had changed and society had become too complex to be managed in this way by one man. Nicholas was a strong ruler, who put duty before everything else, even family. When he knew he was dying, he took it with dignity and continued to do his duty to the end. However within a year his system collapsed.
Russia in the time of Nicholas I was a good time for many Russians. Russia was stable and predictable, she was at the pinnacle of her powers and the old order had few self doubts which would tear itself apart in the latter half of the nineteenth century. However, at the same time Russia was getting by left behind, apart from the huge censorship, which wasted a lot of time and energy and kept Russia back, she was not industrialising or modernising. With almost no railways, no industry apart from a meek cotton one and a military that used tactics and weaponry which belonging to the last century, Russia couldn’t keep up. Then there was the problem with serfdom where around 60 million subjects were bound to the land and the nobility. Nicholas recognised this system had to go, but didn’t know how to address it and hoped it would gradually be phased out. He faced the backlash from the nobility who relied on it and had murdered his father when they were unhappy with him and also the peasantry, who emancipated may have rioted, wanting more.
Nicholas ruled Russia for a long time and in the end it broke him. He essentially died from stress and exhaustion. Russia lost no battles until the defeats of the Crimean War, when he found Russia completely isolated from Europe. Lincoln does a good job in telling the story and showing that he was a loving family man, a man who he genuinely loved his wife, rare for a match made monarch. He was kind to his subjects when he met them, famously during his daily walks around St Petersburg, stopping and talking to all classes, giving them money and sometimes helping even more than that. Most others who met him admired him to some extent. But his system was flawed and out of date and this caused his son Alexander II to introduce the great reforms that he did. But in the end this was not enough and in trying to hold onto the role of an autocrat, all became dissatisfied. It was either too much or too little. When revolution came in 1917 it was the violent bloodbath that Nicholas had tried so hard to shield is people from. The ultimate expression of the tensions which had built up following his death.
This is truly a magnificent study of Nicholas I. From his birth under Catherine II, to the Napoleonic Wars, his strange accession and the Decemberist Revolt, to being the gendarme of Europe, the 1848 revolutions and finally the Crimean War. It is important to note, Nicholas said multiple times in his reign he had no desire for Ottoman territory and had no desire to see it destroyed, in fact a week Ottoman Empire suited him as it allowed his ships to flow through the Dardanelles, where the majority of Russian trade travelled. To find himself at war with most of Europe in 1852 was a misunderstanding of Nicholas as much as everything else. He was just from a bygone age. A much need addition to anyone’s book collection if you are interested in Russian or nineteenth century history!
Tsar Nicholas I of all the Russias was divisive in his lifetime as he has been in his death. Despised or worshipped, most nineteenth century Russians could not remain indifferent to him, he had a profound influence on everyone’s lives. W. Bruce Lincoln is up there with the greatest Russian historians and here has offered a much needed revisit to the emperor. First published in 1978, this book has remained the authority on a much neglected Tsar. As Lincoln explains much opinion on Nicholas is unflattering, historians have drawn their views of him from memoirs of intelligentsia figures such as Alexander Herzen or PV Annenkov and has led to biased, bitter accounts. Lincoln as such attempts to reset the balance and bring Nicholas back to where he belongs, more central. But as Lincoln explains, this is not an apology for Nicholas, just a fair assessment.
Nicholas I was the last tsar to hold absolute power in Russia and he has often been associated reactionary absolute oppression. During which political and cultural thought was completely choked to death. So much so that his Third Section was watching and informing on everyone, even his second son, without his knowledge. As Lincoln explains, Nicholas’ police state was set up like that centralised world of Louis XIV’s France, the only difference was that nineteenth century Russia was not last seventeenth century France. The world of Peter the Great was not of Nicholas I. Times had changed and society had become too complex to be managed in this way by one man. Nicholas was a strong ruler, who put duty before everything else, even family. When he knew he was dying, he took it with dignity and continued to do his duty to the end. However within a year his system collapsed.
Russia in the time of Nicholas I was a good time for many Russians. Russia was stable and predictable, she was at the pinnacle of her powers and the old order had few self doubts which would tear itself apart in the latter half of the nineteenth century. However, at the same time Russia was getting by left behind, apart from the huge censorship, which wasted a lot of time and energy and kept Russia back, she was not industrialising or modernising. With almost no railways, no industry apart from a meek cotton one and a military that used tactics and weaponry which belonging to the last century, Russia couldn’t keep up. Then there was the problem with serfdom where around 60 million subjects were bound to the land and the nobility. Nicholas recognised this system had to go, but didn’t know how to address it and hoped it would gradually be phased out. He faced the backlash from the nobility who relied on it and had murdered his father when they were unhappy with him and also the peasantry, who emancipated may have rioted, wanting more.
Nicholas ruled Russia for a long time and in the end it broke him. He essentially died from stress and exhaustion. Russia lost no battles until the defeats of the Crimean War, when he found Russia completely isolated from Europe. Lincoln does a good job in telling the story and showing that he was a loving family man, a man who he genuinely loved his wife, rare for a match made monarch. He was kind to his subjects when he met them, famously during his daily walks around St Petersburg, stopping and talking to all classes, giving them money and sometimes helping even more than that. Most others who met him admired him to some extent. But his system was flawed and out of date and this caused his son Alexander II to introduce the great reforms that he did. But in the end this was not enough and in trying to hold onto the role of an autocrat, all became dissatisfied. It was either too much or too little. When revolution came in 1917 it was the violent bloodbath that Nicholas had tried so hard to shield is people from. The ultimate expression of the tensions which had built up following his death.
This is truly a magnificent study of Nicholas I. From his birth under Catherine II, to the Napoleonic Wars, his strange accession and the Decemberist Revolt, to being the gendarme of Europe, the 1848 revolutions and finally the Crimean War. It is important to note, Nicholas said multiple times in his reign he had no desire for Ottoman territory and had no desire to see it destroyed, in fact a week Ottoman Empire suited him as it allowed his ships to flow through the Dardanelles, where the majority of Russian trade travelled. To find himself at war with most of Europe in 1852 was a misunderstanding of Nicholas as much as everything else. He was just from a bygone age. A much need addition to anyone’s book collection if you are interested in Russian or nineteenth century history!