RUS Lecture 4
Peter The Great (1682-1725) and Catherine The Great (1762-1796) spared no pains in their shared goal of Westernizing the Russian Empire. On the surface level, they were very successful. Russian intellectual life had developed just as rapidly as the imperial boundaries, the economy, the military, and the government. Yet these benefits were largely restricted to a very small [elite]. For the greater part of the Russian peoples (note the use of the plural), the [muzhiks], life remained just as brutal and short, and incrementally nastier. They worked the Russian soil, fought in Russia's wars, and prayed devoutly for the well-being of their beloved monarch. But the cultural wedge inserted by Peter and driven in by Catherine would continue to work its way deeper and deeper into the Russian social fabric.
The reign of Alexander I (1801-1825) was characterized by the same mix of liberalism and tyranny which had marked his grandmother's. At Catherine's order he was educated by Enlightenment scholars, but history molded him into Europe's counterweight to Napoleon.In 1808, he annexed Finland, in order to provide a protective buffer for St. Petersburg. His victory over France made him the master of the strongest and most feared empire in the world.
This experience made Alexander I first conservative and then downright reactionary, mixed in with a typically Slavic mystical streak. The intelligentsia moved in the exact opposite direction. They saw first hand the great cities and nations of Europe as they commanded troops in Alexander I's campaigns, and the experience radicalized them. For the first time, intellectuals formed discussion groups devoted to
liberalizing society - for example, representative government and
freedom for the serfs. This development led to the
Decembrist Revolt after the death of Alexander.
Nicholas I
(1825-1855) put down the Decembrists and succeeded his older brother.
His willingness to prop up threatened monarchies with Russian
troops earned him the name Gendarme Of Europe. On the home front, Russia's literary culture took off under Nicholas I, with writers like Alexander Pushkin and a young count named [Leo Tolstoy]. Yet he is best understood as the most thoroughly repressive of Russian autocrats with his program of
[Official Nationality]: "orthodoxy, autocracy, and patriotism:" in other words, one religion ([Orthodoxy]), one source of authority (the Tsar), and one culture (Russian). Under his reign, Russia made such excellent progress in chipping away
at the declining Ottoman Empire that Russia's former allies England,
Austria and France joined in a [Pre-emptive Strike] better known as
the Crimean War. Perhaps fortunately for Nicholas, he did not live
to see the resulting national humiliation, as Russia's obsolete
military and general backwardness were brought to light.
Social ferment is devilishly difficult to keep bottled up. Although Nicholas I rigorously censored the university curricula, Russia needed educated people. Once educated, they gravitated towards a [Public Affairs Mission] of systemic, radical (if need be) change. Like the Decembrists, young Russians admired the progressive nation-states of the early 19th century, and envied Americans and Britons their freedoms. They met secretly in small groups, and devoured Thick Journals delving into every possible aspect of Russian cultural life. They became increasingly disenchanted with Tsarist rule, all the more so because they were effectively censored by the Tsar's secret police. The muzhiks, too, were tired of working harder and harder to support their noble and/or royal masters, and looked for a Stenka Razin or a Pugachev to help them reclaim the land which was properly theirs. Finally, Russification was fraught with difficulty: in Poland and [Finland], which Russia treated with comparative kindness, and all the more so in places like Chechnya, which even then was scarred by Russian lust for empire.
Alexander II (1855-1881) reaped the whirlwind. Conservative by nature and by training, he recognized that some sort of reform was necessary. In 1861 he freed the serfs, in 1864 he overhauled the judicial system and set forth a penal code; he allowed limited self government for rural regions and large cities in 1870, and in 1874 reformed the army and the navy. In 1860 he founded the city of [Vladivostok] on the Pacific, and in 1867 he sold [Alaska] to the United States. But the sum total of Alexander II's efforts was much less than its individual parts. Like his predecessors, Alexander II was understandably hesitant to part with any of his autocratic powers, but on the other hand, his reforms satisfied neither the muzhiks nor the nobles nor the [intelligentsia]. Dissenters were becoming more and more radical; several groups such as Peoples Will even branched into Terrorism. After several failed attempts on his life, Alexander II was literally blown to bits by a terrorist bomb on March 13, 1881.
His son, Alexander III (1881-1894), followed the approach of his grandfather Nicholas I in trying to stamp out dissent while building up ''Official Nationality." He strove to Russify the provinces of Finland and Poland; Finland's constitution was still left in place but Poland was renamed the "Vistula Province." On the other hand, he was able to build a military/economic alliance with Republican France and engaged in no major external wars. His untimely death kept him from training his dim son, the Tsarevich Nicholas, in the arts of government. It probably wouldn't have helped, but he could have tried.
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