Nicolas Ier Pavlovitch ( Nikolai Pavlovitch Romanov , in Russian НиколайПавловичРома́нов ) (July 6th 1796 - March 2nd 1855) was emperor of Russia, king de Pologne and large-duke of Finland of February 1st 1825 until its death. It is about the sovereign of the Russian Empire whose influence was surely most important and who gave to this last his apogee on the international plan. It is known for the autocratic mode which it founded and which allowed moreover a greater development of the Russian Empire.

Family

Nicolas is the son of the Tsar Paul I {{er}} and of the princess Sophie-Dorothée of Wurtemberg. He is also the young brother of Alexandre.

He marries in 1817 the princess Charlotte of Prussia, which is called from now on Alexandra Feodorovna. Charlotte is the girl of the king Frederic-Guillaume III of Prussia and of the princess Louise de Mecklembourg-Strelitz. Charlotte and Nicolas had seven children:

It also had a natural child: Joséphine Koberwein (1825 - 1893), which married the painter Joseph Fricero.

Principles

Nicolas Ier completely missed spiritual and intellectual width of his brother. It was a very autocratic colossus, called Nicolas the Cudgel. Born in 1796, it had been high during the time of the revolutionary Guerre S and Napoleonean, at the time of the coalitions against the liberal France. It had kept of it a savage hatred for liberalism. The episode of the revolt decembrist accentuated this hatred.

It was a soldier who liked to surround himself by soldiers that it used as special correspondents to make apply his policy in the provinces. Formed with the military discipline, he wanted that its orders were carried out quickly. The respect of the hierarchy and the discipline involved at his place the will to defend the established order. At the same time, the disorder reigned because the civil administration did not support the capacity of the soldiers.

Nicolas only controlled because it had short circuity the traditional bodies of the capacity. The Senate, the Council of State and the Council of Ministers had been put in sleep. Nicolas used especially the Special Committees. These bodies temporary were made of Favori S of the tsar, joined together to discuss a particular problem and to regulate it. They were thus very numerous, and had only little result. The tsar also rested on the Secretariat of His Majesty, relay of his personal capacity. The Secretariat of Its Majesty was divided into 6 sections. Most important were the second, third and fifth sections.
La second section carried out a very large legislative work under the direction of Mikhail Mikhailovich Speranski.
La third section was the political police in charge of the monitoring of the Russians, in all the aspects of their life. It made also imperial propaganda, defending the governmental design of Nicolas, and controlled the press by the censure. It was directed by Prince Alexis Orlov. It showed the limits of its effectiveness at the time of the episode of Petrachevtsy, groups extremist who discovered and was dismantled by the traditional police force.
La fifth section was to reform the statute of the peasants of State. It failed, and its work was entrusted in 1837 to the Ministry for the Fields of State.

The government exerted the censure and other controls direct on education, the publication and all the manifestations of the public life. In 1833 the Minister for education Sergueï Ouvarov specified this authoritative program: " autocracy, orthodoxy and genius national" would be the principles guiding the mode. People should show their honesty with the unlimited authority of the tsar, the traditions of the Russian orthodoxe church, and, in a vague way the Russian nation. The repression in particular of nationalities not-Russian and other religions was exerted. For example the Church Uniate in Ukraine and Bielorussia in 1839. See also Cantoniste S.

Culture

Official insistence on the Russian national feeling contributed to a debate on the place of Russia in the world. A group, the Westerners, believed that the fatherland remained late and primitive and was to go towards more Europeanization. Another group, the Slavophiles, supported with enthusiasm the Slaves and their culture and habits hating technicality with the rationalism of the west. Some thought that the common Russian country-woman, or to mir , offered a possible alternative to Western capitalism and would be a social and ethical saver. The Slavophiles, therefore, represented a form of messianism.

The literature, through works of Alexandre Pouchkine, Nicolas Gogol, Ivan Tourgueniev and well of others, gained a stature and international recognition. The ballet was acclimatized after its importation of France and the classical music was established firmly with the compositions of Mikhaïl Glinka.

Foreign politics

As foreign politics Nicolas acts like guard of the forces in places and obstacle with the revolutions. He was at the beginning of his reign particularly influenced by the Austrian ambassador Charles Louis de Ficquelmont, conservative proven near to Metternich and having of cease only to fight the revolutionary ideas that he had undergoes being young Lorraine prince in the storm which followed 1789. On his councils, Nicolas served the policy of the large Austrian chancellor. Its offers of repression of the revolts in Europe were worth to him to be regarded as the gendarme of Europe . In 1830, after the Glorious Three in France, the Poles in the Royaume of the Congress rebelled in what is known like the Insurrection of November. Nicolas broke it, abolishes the Polish constitution, and reduced this country to the statute of simple Russian province. In 1849 it intervened at the request of the Habsbourg and helped them to reduce the insurrection in Hungary. He also insisted near the Prussia so that she refused the liberal constitution. Having helped the preserving forces to push back the spectrum of the revolution, Nicolas seemed to dominate Europe.

But it was an illusion. Whereas Nicolas sought to maintain the status quo in Europe it adopted an aggressive position with respect to the Ottoman Empire. Nicolas considered that the Eastern Question would be solved by the partition of the Ottoman Empire. It was the traditional policy of Russia. It wished to maintain protection Russian on Christians orthodoxe of the Balkans, then largely under the control of the Turks in the Années 1820. Russia was military successes against the Ottoman Empire in 1828 and 1829 and obliged it with the Traité of Unkiar-Skelessi in 1833.

The European principal parties believed that the treaty contained a secret clause granting Russia the right to send warships through the straits of the the Bosphorus and of the Dardanelles. By the Convention of the straits of London of 1841 they affirmed the Othoman control of these straits and prohibited with some power including Russia to send military boats by these passages. Based on his role in the suppression of the revolutions of 1848 and his erroneous belief that it had of the British report/ratio, Nicolas engaged against the Othomans who declared the war in 1853. Fearing an easy victory of Russia the the United Kingdom and the France were combined as regards known like the Crimean War. The Austria offered to the Othomans a diplomatic support and the Prussia remained neutral, leaving Russia without combined on the continent. The allies unloaded in the Crimea and reflect the seat at the Russian base good strengthened of Sébastopol. After one year of confrontations the base fell, exposing the incapacity to defend a fortification inside its territory. Nicolas died before rendering but he had already recognized the failure of the mode. Russia made then vis-a-vis the choice beginning major reforms or losing its statute like principal European power.

Legacy

Nicolas 1st left with his successor a Russia more plain and stronger as well on the economic plan, as political and military. Its reign was rate/rhythm by an expansionism strong (wars of the Caucasus, conquests in minor Asia and on the Ottoman Empire, etc.), an important interventionism and a dynamic foreign policy. It adopted a policy side-Slavist and considered the union under the crown of Russia of the Slavic people of the Balkans and the annexation of the Empires Othoman and Persian, but its step was blocked by the Franco-British intervention of 1854-1855 (Crimean War).

See too

Random links:List publications by editors - Association - O | Mattapan (Boston) | Flamenpolitik | Balance of Schlenk | Jean-Marie Thick

© 2007-2008 speedlook.com; article text available under the terms of GFDL, from fr.wikipedia.org