Lesson plan
Week 1
Week 2
Nicholas I
Nicholas system
Crimean War
Alexander II
Emancipation
of the serfs
Alexander II
other reforms
Week 3
Week 4
Week 5
Web Wiz
Nicholas I (1825 - 1855)
There are few contradictions in the reign of Nicholas I. The brother of Alexander I, Nicholas became Tsar after the Decembrist Revolt attempted to prevent him taking the throne. Unlike his brother, Nicholas was an enthusiastic and competent ruler. From the start he adopted policies of strict repression to ensure that there would be no further uprisings against the government. He set up a system of strict censorship, outlawed all secret revolutionary activity, introduced close supervision of education in universities and made entry into university life, as a student or a teacher, very difficult.
The economy under Nicholas remained wholly agricultural. Almost no attention was paid to the development of industry. Nicholas feared that rapid industrialisation would create instability and a desire for reform which would threaten his authority and autocracy. Until 1851 the only railway track in Russia was owned by the Tsar and ran between St Petersburg and his palace, Tsarkoye Selo, just outside of St Petersburg. Because his policies encouraged no growth of the middle-class there was no large wealthy middle class to press for the introduction of industrialisation.
Nicholas rejected the ideas of the Westernisers and followed the Slavophile philosophy, a movement which wanted to create a 'Slav" culture under Russian leadership, based upon the Russian feudal system and rejected any influences of Western culture. This put him at odds with the intellectuals who, after 1840, swung away from Slavophile ideas towards Westernisation as the future for Russia. Westernisers believed that the technical and industrial strength of the West was too strong to be ignored and that the Tsar should introduce moderate reforms to allow Russia to match these strengths. They proposed, economic modernisation of the financial sector and the introduction of industrialisation, freeing the serfs and the granting of political reforms to create a more liberal government. Westernisers were seen by Nicholas as critics of his regime and were treated harshly. Some were imprisoned and one of the leaders of the movement was declared insane and put into an asylum.
The method of government under Nicholas became known The Nicholas System and its creed was "Orthodoxy, Autocracy and Nationalism". The system was an attempt to shift control of the serfs, given to the nobility by Catherine II, back to the government. Under this system the Imperial Chancery was split into five sections, each of which was responsible for a key portfolio of Russian Affairs. Look at the graph in the next lesson to see how each section controlled all aspects of life in Russia.
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Exercise 2.1: Source Study Read the hints on how to do a source study, then do the exercise on Nicholas I. |