Nicholas I of Russia - Emperor and Principles

Emperor and Principles

Nicholas completely lacked his brothers' spiritual and intellectual breadth; he saw his role simply as that of a paternal autocrat ruling his people by whatever means necessary. Nicholas I was crowned on 14 December 1825, which fell on a Monday; Russian superstition held that Mondays were unlucky days. This particular Monday dawned as a very cold day with temperatures of −8 degrees Celsius. This was regarded by the Russian people as a bad omen for the coming reign. Coincident with the accession of Nicholas I was a demonstration of 3,000 young Imperial Army officers and other liberal-minded citizens. This demonstration was an attempt to force the government to accept a constitution and a representative form of government. Nicolas ordered the army out to smash the demonstration. This "revolt" was quickly put down and became known as the Decembrist Revolt. Having experienced the trauma of the Decembrist Revolt on the very first day of his reign, Nicholas I was determined to restrain Russian society. The Third Section of the Imperial Chancellery ran a huge network of spies and informers with the help of Gendarmes. The government exercised censorship and other controls over education, publishing, and all manifestations of public life.

He abolished several areas of local autonomy. Bessarabia's autonomy was removed in 1828, Poland's in 1830 and the Jewish Qahal was abolished in 1843. Russia's first railway was opened in 1838, a 16 mile line between St. Petersburg and the palace at Tsarskoye Selo. The second was the Moscow – Saint Petersburg Railway, built 1842–51. Nevertheless, by 1855 there was only 570 miles of Russian railways.

In 1833 the minister of education, Sergey Uvarov, devised a program of "Orthodoxy, Autocracy and Nationality" as the guiding principle of the regime. The people were to show loyalty to the unlimited authority of the tsar, to the traditions of the Russian Orthodox Church, and, in a vague way, to the Russian nation. These romantic and conservative principles outlined by Uvarov were also espoused by Vasilii Zhukovskii, one of the tutors of the Grand Duke Alexander. The results of these conservative principles led, broadly speaking, to repression in general and to suppression of non-Russian nationalities and religions in particular. For example, the government suppressed the Greek-Catholic Churches in Ukraine and Belarus in 1839. See also Cantonists.

Nicholas disliked serfdom and toyed with the idea of abolishing it in Russia, but did not do so for practical reasons of state. He feared the landowners and believed they might turn against him if he abolished serfdom. However, he did make some efforts to improve the lot of the state peasants (serfs owned by the government) with the help of the minister Pavel Kiselev. During most of his reign he tried to increase his control over the landowners and other influential groups in Russia. In 1831 Nicholas restricted the votes in the Noble Assembly to those with over 100 serfs, leaving 21,916 voters. In 1841, landless nobles were banned from selling Serfs separate from the land. In 1845, attainment of the 5th rank in the Table of Ranks (out of 14) was require to be ennobled, previously it had been the 8th rank.