Who is Alexander 1 summary. Alexander I: biography. Khrushchev's foreign and domestic policy

Son of Pavel Petrovich and Empress Maria Feodorovna; genus. in St. Petersburg on December 12, 1777, ascended the throne on March 12, 1801, † in Taganrog on November 19, 1825 Great Catherine did not love her son Pavel Petrovich, but took care of raising her grandson, whom, however, for these purposes, early deprived of maternal supervision. The empress tried to put his upbringing to the height of her contemporary pedagogical requirements. She wrote "grandmother's alphabet" with anecdotes of a didactic nature, and in the instructions given to the teacher of the Grand Dukes Alexander and (his brother) Konstantin, Count (later Prince) N. I. Saltykov, with the highest rescript of March 13, 1784, she expressed her thoughts " regarding health and its preservation; regarding the continuation and reinforcement of the inclination towards goodness, regarding virtue, courtesy and knowledge "and the rule" to the ministers regarding their behavior with pupils. These instructions are built on the principles of abstract liberalism and are imbued with the pedagogical inventions of Emile Rousseau. The implementation of this plan was entrusted to different persons. The conscientious Swiss Laharpe, an admirer of republican ideas and political freedom, was in charge of the intellectual education of the Grand Duke, read with him Demosthenes and Mably, Tacitus and Gibbon, Locke and Rousseau; he managed to earn the respect and friendship of his student. La Harpe was assisted by Kraft, a professor of physics, the famous Pallas, who read botany, and the mathematician Masson. The Russian language was taught by the famous sentimental writer and moralist M. N. Muravyov, and the law of God was taught by Fr. A. A. Samborsky, a more secular person, devoid of a deep religious feeling. Finally, Count N. I. Saltykov cared mainly about maintaining the health of the Grand Dukes and enjoyed the favor of Alexander until his death. In the upbringing given to the Grand Duke, there was no strong religious and national foundation, it did not develop personal initiative in him and protected him from contact with Russian reality. On the other hand, it was too abstract for a young man of 10-14 years old and glided over the surface of his mind without penetrating deep. Therefore, although such an upbringing evoked in the Grand Duke a number of humane feelings and vague ideas of a liberal nature, it did not give either one or the other a definite form and did not give the young Alexander the means to implement them, therefore, it was deprived of practical significance. The results of this upbringing affected the character of Alexander. They largely explain his impressionability, humanity, attractive treatment, but at the same time some inconsistency. The education itself was interrupted in view of the early marriage of the Grand Duke (16 years old) to the 14-year-old Princess Louise of Baden, Grand Duchess Elisaveta Alekseevna. From a young age, Alexander was in a rather difficult position between his father and grandmother. Often, present in the morning at parades and exercises in Gatchina, in a clumsy uniform, in the evening he appeared among the refined and witty society that gathered in the Hermitage. The need to be perfectly reasonable in these two areas taught the Grand Duke to secrecy, and the discrepancy that he encountered between the theories inspired by him and the bare Russian reality instilled in him distrust of people and disappointment. The changes that took place in court life and public order after the death of the empress could not favorably influence the character of Alexander. Although at that time he served as the St. Petersburg military governor, he was also a member of the Council, the Senate, and the chief of the l.-g. Semyonovsky regiment and presided over the military department, but did not enjoy the confidence of Emperor Pavel Petrovich. Despite the difficult situation in which the Grand Duke was at the court of Emperor Paul, he already at that time showed humanity and meekness in dealing with his subordinates; these properties so seduced everyone that even a person with a stone heart, according to Speransky, could not resist such treatment. Therefore, when Alexander Pavlovich ascended the throne on March 12, 1801, he was greeted by the most joyful public mood. Difficult political and administrative tasks awaited their resolution from the young ruler. Still little experienced in matters of government, he preferred to adhere to the political views of his great grandmother, Empress Catherine, and in a manifesto of March 12, 1801, he announced his intention to govern the people entrusted to him by God according to the laws and "after the heart" of the late Empress.

The Treaty of Basel, concluded between Prussia and France, forced Empress Catherine to join with England in a coalition against France. With the accession to the throne of Emperor Paul, the coalition fell apart, but was renewed again in 1799. In the same year, Russia's alliance with Austria and England broke again; rapprochement between the St. Petersburg and Berlin courts was discovered, peaceful relations began with the first consul (1800). Emperor Alexander hurried to restore peace with England by convention on 5 June and concluded peace treaties on 26 September with France and Spain; the decree on the free passage of foreigners and Russians abroad, as it was before 1796, dates back to the same time. Having thus restored peaceful relations with the powers, the emperor devoted the first four years of his reign almost all his strength to internal, transformative activities. The transformative activity of Alexander was primarily aimed at the destruction of those orders of the past reign, which modified public order, foreordained by the great Catherine. Two manifestos, signed on April 2, 1801, were restored: a charter to the nobility, a city status and a charter given to cities; soon after, a law was again approved that freed priests and deacons, along with personal nobles, from corporal punishment. A secret expedition (however, established under Catherine II ) was destroyed by the manifesto of April 2, and on September 15 it was ordered to establish a commission to review previous criminal cases; this commission really eased the fate of persons "whose guilt was unintentional and more related to the opinion and way of thinking of that time than to dishonorable deeds and real harm to the state." Finally, torture was abolished, it was allowed to import foreign books and notes, and also to open private printing houses, as it was before 1796. However, the transformations consisted not only in restoring the order that existed before 1796, but also in replenishing it with new orders . The reform of local institutions, which took place under Catherine, did not affect the central institutions; meanwhile they, too, demanded restructuring. Emperor Alexander set about this difficult task. His collaborators in this activity were: insightful and knowing England better than Russia gr. V. P. Kochubey, smart, learned and capable N. N. Novosiltsev, admirer of the English order, Prince. A. Czartoryski, a Pole by sympathy, and c. P. A. Stroganov, who received an exclusively French upbringing. Shortly after accession to the throne, the sovereign established an indispensable council instead of a temporary council, which was subject to consideration of all the most important state affairs and draft regulations. Manifesto of 8 Sept. In 1802, the significance of the Senate was determined, which was instructed to "consider the acts of the ministers in all parts of their administration entrusted and, according to the proper comparison and consideration of these with state decrees and reports that have reached the Senate directly from the places, make their conclusions and submit a report" to the sovereign. The significance of the highest judicial authority was left to the Senate; only the First Department retained its administrative significance. By the same manifesto on 8 Sept. central administration is divided among 8 newly established ministries, which are the ministries: military land forces, naval forces, foreign affairs, justice, finance, commerce and public education. Each ministry was under the control of a minister, to whom (in the ministries of the interior and foreign affairs, justice, finance and public education) a comrade was attached. All ministers were members of the Council of State and were present in the Senate. These transformations, however, were carried out rather hastily, so that the old institutions were faced with a new administrative order, not yet fully determined. The Ministry of Internal Affairs earlier than others (in 1803) received a more complete device. - In addition to a more or less systematic reform of the central institutions, in the same period (1801-1805) separate orders were made regarding public relations and measures were taken to disseminate public education . The right to own land, on the one hand, and engage in trade, on the other, is extended to different classes of the population. Decree 12 Dec. In 1801, the merchants, bourgeoisie and state-owned settlers were given the right to acquire land. On the other hand, in 1802 the landlords were allowed to carry out wholesale trade abroad with the payment of guild duties, and also in 1812 the peasants were allowed to carry out trade in their own name, but only on the basis of an annual certificate taken from the county treasury with payment of the required duties. Emperor Alexander sympathized with the idea of ​​freeing the peasants; To this end, several important measures have been taken. Under the influence of the project on the liberation of the peasants, filed by c. S. P. Rumyantsev, the law on free cultivators was issued (February 20, 1803). According to this law, the peasants could enter into deals with the landowners, be released from the land and, without registering in another state, continued to be called free cultivators. It was also forbidden to make publications about the sale of peasants without land, the distribution of populated estates was stopped, and the regulation on the peasants of the Livland province, approved on February 20, 1804, alleviated their fate. Along with the administrative and estate reforms, the revision of laws continued in the commission, the management of which was entrusted to Count Zavadovsky on June 5, 1801, and a draft code began to be drawn up. This code was supposed, in the opinion of the sovereign, to complete a number of reforms undertaken by him and "protect the rights of everyone and everyone", but remained unfulfilled, except for one general part (Code général). But if the administrative and social order was not yet reduced to the general principles of state law in the monuments of legislation, then in any case it was spiritualized thanks to an ever wider system of public education. On September 8, 1802, a commission (then the main board) of schools was established; she developed a regulation on the organization of educational institutions in Russia. The rules of this regulation on the establishment of schools, divided into parish, district, provincial or gymnasiums and universities, on orders for the educational and economic parts were approved on January 24, 1803. The Academy of Sciences was restored in St. Petersburg, new regulations and staff were issued for it, in 1804 a pedagogical institute was founded, and in 1805 universities in Kazan and Kharkov were founded. In 1805, P. G. Demidov donated a significant amount of capital to the establishment of a higher school in Yaroslavl, gr. Bezborodko did the same for Nezhin, the nobility of the Kharkov province petitioned for the founding of a university in Kharkov and provided funds for this. Technical institutions were founded, which are: a commercial school in Moscow (in 1804), commercial gymnasiums in Odessa and Taganrog (1804); the number of gymnasiums and schools has been increased.

But all this peaceful reform activity was soon to cease. Emperor Alexander, unaccustomed to the stubborn struggle with those practical difficulties that he so often encountered on the way to the implementation of his plans, and surrounded by inexperienced young advisers who were too little familiar with Russian reality, soon lost interest in reforms. In the meantime, the dull rumblings of the war, which was impending, if not on Russia, then on neighboring Austria, began to attract his attention and opened up to him a new field of diplomatic and military activity. Shortly after the Peace of Amiens (March 25, 1802), a break again followed between England and France (beginning of 1803) and hostile relations between France and Austria resumed. Misunderstandings also arose between Russia and France. The patronage provided by the Russian government to Dantrague, who was with Christen in the Russian service, and the arrest of the latter by the French government, violation of the articles of the secret convention of October 11 (N.S.) 1801 on the preservation of the possessions of the King of the Two Sicilies inviolability, the execution of the Duke of Enghien (March 1804) and the adoption of the imperial title by the first consul - led to a break with Russia (August 1804). Therefore, it was natural for Russia to draw closer to England and Sweden at the beginning of 1805 and to join the same alliance with Austria, friendly relations with which had begun even with the accession of Emperor Alexander to the throne. The war opened unsuccessfully: the shameful defeat of the Austrian troops at Ulm forced the Russian forces sent to help Austria, with Kutuzov at the head, to retreat from Inn to Moravia. The affairs under Krems, Gollabrun and Schöngraben were only ominous harbingers of the Austerlitz defeat (November 20, 1805), in which Emperor Alexander was at the head of the Russian army. The results of this defeat affected: in the retreat of the Russian troops to Radziwillov, in the uncertain, and then hostile attitudes of Prussia towards Russia and Austria, in the conclusion of the Peace of Pressburg (December 26, 1805) and the Schönbrunn defensive and offensive alliance. Before the defeat of Austerlitz, Prussian relations with Russia remained extremely uncertain. Although Emperor Alexander managed to persuade the weak Friedrich Wilhelm to approve the secret declaration on May 12, 1804 regarding the war against France, but already on June 1 it was violated by new conditions concluded by the Prussian king with France. The same fluctuations are noticeable after the victories of Napoleon in Austria. During a personal meeting, imp. Alexander and the king in Potsdam concluded the Potsdam Convention on October 22. 1805 Under this convention, the king undertook to contribute to the restoration of the conditions of the Luneville peace violated by Napoleon, to accept military mediation between the warring powers, and in case of failure of such mediation, he had to join the Coalition. But the Peace of Schönbrunn (December 15, 1805) and even more so the Paris Convention (February 1806), approved by the King of Prussia, showed how little one could hope for consistency in Prussian policy. Nevertheless, the declaration and counter-declaration, signed on July 12, 1806, at Charlottenburg and on Kamenny Island, revealed a rapprochement between Prussia and Russia, a rapprochement that was confirmed by the Bartenstein Convention (April 14, 1807). But already in the second half of 1806 a new war broke out. The campaign began on October 8, was marked by terrible defeats of the Prussian troops at Jena and Auerstedt, and would have ended with the complete subjugation of Prussia if Russian troops had not come to the aid of the Prussians. Under the command of M.F. Kamensky, who was soon replaced by Bennigsen, these troops put up strong resistance to Napoleon at Pultusk, then were forced to retreat after the battles of Morungen, Bergfried, Landsberg. Although the Russians also retreated after the bloody battle of Preussisch-Eylau, Napoleon's losses were so significant that he unsuccessfully sought an opportunity to enter into peace negotiations with Bennigsen and corrected his affairs only with a victory at Friedland (June 14, 1807). Emperor Alexander did not take part in this campaign, perhaps because he was still under the impression of the Austerlitz defeat, and only on April 2. In 1807 he came to Memel to meet with the King of Prussia, who was deprived of almost all his possessions. The failure at Friedland forced him to agree to peace. Peace was desired by a whole party at the court of the sovereign and the army; the ambiguous behavior of Austria and the emperor's displeasure with regard to England were also prompted; finally, Napoleon himself needed the same peace. On June 25, a meeting took place between Emperor Alexander and Napoleon, who managed to charm the sovereign with his mind and insinuating treatment, and on the 27th of the same month, the Treaty of Tilsit was concluded. According to this treatise, Russia acquired the Belostok region; Emperor Alexander ceded Cattaro and the republic of 7 islands to Napoleon, and the Principality of Ievre to Louis of Holland, recognized Napoleon as emperor, Joseph of Naples as king of the Two Sicilies, and also agreed to recognize the titles of the other brothers of Napoleon, the present and future titles of members of the Confederation of the Rhine. Emperor Alexander took over the mediation between France and England and in turn agreed to Napoleon's mediation between Russia and the Porte. Finally, according to the same peace, "out of respect for Russia," the Prussian king was returned to his possessions. - The Treaty of Tilsit was confirmed by the Erfurt Convention (September 30, 1808), and Napoleon then agreed to the annexation of Moldavia and Wallachia to Russia.

When meeting in Tilsit, Napoleon, wanting to divert the Russian forces, pointed Emperor Alexander to Finland and even earlier (in 1806) armed Turkey against Russia. The reason for the war with Sweden was the dissatisfaction of Gustav IV with the Peace of Tilsit and his unwillingness to enter into armed neutrality, restored in view of the break between Russia and England (October 25, 1807). War was declared on March 16, 1808. Russian troops, commanded by c. Buxhowden, then c. Kamensky, occupied Sveaborg (April 22), won victories at Alovo, Kuortan and especially at Orovais, then crossed over the ice from Abo to the Aland Islands in the winter of 1809 under the command of Prince. Bagration, from Vasa to Umeå and through Torneo to Vestrabonia under the leadership of Barclay de Tolly and gr. Shuvalov. The successes of the Russian troops and the change of government in Sweden contributed to the conclusion of the Friedrichsham Peace (September 5, 1809) with the new king, Charles XIII. According to this world, Russia acquired Finland to the river. Torneo with the Aland Islands. Emperor Alexander himself visited Finland, opened the Diet and "preserved the faith, the fundamental laws, the rights and privileges that hitherto had been enjoyed by every class in particular and all the inhabitants of Finland in general according to their constitutions." A committee was set up in St. Petersburg and a secretary of state for Finnish affairs was appointed; in Finland itself, executive power was handed over to the Governor-General, legislative power to the Governing Council, which later became known as the Finnish Senate. - Less successful was the war with Turkey. The occupation of Moldavia and Wallachia by Russian troops in 1806 led to this war; but until the Treaty of Tilsit, hostilities were limited to Michelson's attempts to occupy Zhurzhu, Ishmael and some friends. fortress, as well as the successful actions of the Russian fleet under the command of Senyavin against the Turkish, which suffered a severe defeat at Fr. Lemnos. The peace of Tilsit stopped the war for a while; but it resumed after the Erfurt meeting, in view of the refusal of the Porte to cede Moldavia and Wallachia. The failures of the book Prozorovsky were soon corrected by the brilliant victory of Count. Kamensky at Batyn (near Ruschuk) and the defeat of the Turkish army at Slobodze on the left bank of the Danube, under the command of Kutuzov, who was appointed to the place of the deceased c. Kamensky. The successes of Russian weapons forced the sultan to peace, but the peace negotiations dragged on for a very long time, and the sovereign, dissatisfied with the slowness of Kutuzov, had already appointed Admiral Chichagov as commander-in-chief when he learned about the conclusion of the Bucharest peace (May 16, 1812). ). According to this peace, Russia acquired Bessarabia with the fortresses of Khotyn, Bendery, Akkerman, Kiliya, Izmail to the Prut River, and Serbia - internal autonomy. - Next to the wars in Finland and on the Danube, Russian weapons had to fight in the Caucasus. After the unsuccessful administration of Georgia, Gen. Knorring was appointed chief governor of Georgia, Prince. Tsitsianov. He conquered the Jaro-Belokan region and Ganzha, which he renamed Elisavetopol, but was treacherously killed during the siege of Baku (1806). - When managing gr. Gudovich and Tormasov, Mingrelia, Abkhazia and Imeretia were annexed, and the exploits of Kotlyarevsky (the defeat of Abbas-Mirza, the capture of Lankaran and the conquest of the Talshinsky Khanate) contributed to the conclusion of the Gulistan Peace (October 12, 1813), the conditions of which changed after some acquisitions made by Mr. . Yermolov, commander-in-chief of Georgia since 1816.

All these wars, although they ended in rather important territorial acquisitions, had a harmful effect on the state of the national and state economy. In 1801-1804. state revenues collected about 100 million. annually, there were up to 260 m. of banknotes in circulation, the external debt did not exceed 47¼ million silver. rub., the deficit was negligible. Meanwhile, in 1810, incomes decreased two, and then four times. Banknotes were issued for 577 million rubles, the external debt increased to 100 million rubles, and there was a deficit of 66 million rubles. Accordingly, the value of the ruble has fallen sharply. In 1801-1804. the silver ruble accounted for 1¼ and 11/5 bank notes, and on April 9, 1812, 1 ruble was supposed to be considered. silver equal to 3 rubles. assig. The courageous hand of the former pupil of the St. Petersburg Alexander Seminary brought the state economy out of such a difficult situation. Thanks to the activities of Speransky (especially the manifestos of February 2, 1810, January 29 and February 11, 1812), the issuance of banknotes was discontinued, the per capita salary and quitrent tax were increased, a new progressive income tax, new indirect taxes and duties were established. The monetary system is also converted to the manifest. dated June 20, 1810. The results of the transformations were already partly reflected in 1811, when revenues of 355 1/2 m. (= 89 m. silver), expenses extended only up to 272 m. p., arrears were 43 m., and debt 61 m. This entire financial crisis was caused by a series of difficult wars. But these wars, after the Peace of Tilsit, no longer absorbed all the attention of Emperor Alexander. Unsuccessful wars 1805-1807 instilled in him distrust of his own military abilities; he again turned his energies to internal transformative activity, especially since he now had such a talented assistant as Speransky. The project of reforms, drawn up by Speransky in a liberal spirit and bringing into a system the thoughts expressed by the sovereign himself, was carried out only to a small extent. Decree 6 Aug. 1809 promulgated the rules for the promotion to ranks in the civil service and on tests in the sciences for the production in the 8th and 9th grades of officials without university certificates. By the Manifesto of January 1, 1810, the former "permanent" council was transformed into a state council with legislative significance. "In the order of state institutions," the Council constituted "a class in which all parts of government in their main relations to legislation" were considered and through it ascended to the supreme imperial power. Therefore, "all laws, statutes and institutions in their primitive outlines were proposed and considered in the State Council and then, by the action of the sovereign power, proceeded to their intended fulfillment." State Council It was subdivided into four departments: the department of laws included everything that, in essence, was the subject of the law; The commission of laws was supposed to submit to this department all the original outlines of the laws drawn up in it. The Department of Military Affairs included "objects" of the ministries of the military and naval. The department of civil and spiritual affairs included the affairs of justice, the spiritual administration and the police. Finally, the department of state economy belonged to "objects of general industry, sciences, trade, finance, treasury and accounts." Under the State Council there were: a commission for the drafting of laws, a commission of petitions, and a state chancellery. Together with the transformation of the State Council by the manifesto of July 25, 1810, two new institutions were attached to the former ministries: the Ministry of Police and the General Directorate for the Audit of Public Accounts. On the contrary, the affairs of the Ministry of Commerce are distributed between the Ministries of the Interior and Finance, and the min. Commerce has been abolished. - Along with the reform of the central administration, transformations continued in the sphere of spiritual education. Candle income of the church, determined for the expenses for the construction of religious schools (1807), made it possible to increase their number. In 1809, a theological academy was opened in St. Petersburg and in 1814 - in the Sergius Lavra; in 1810 a corps of railway engineers was established, in 1811 the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum was founded, and in 1814 the Public Library was opened.

But the second period of transformative activity was disrupted by the new war. Soon after the Erfurt Convention, disagreements between Russia and France were revealed. By virtue of this convention, Emperor Alexander posted the 30,000th detachment of the allied army in Galicia during the Austrian war of 1809. But this detachment, which was under the command of Prince. S. F. Golitsyn, acted hesitantly, since Napoleon's obvious desire to restore or at least significantly strengthen Poland and his refusal to approve the convention on December 23. 1809, which protected Russia from such an increase, aroused strong fears on the part of the Russian government. The emergence of disagreements intensified under the influence of new circumstances. The tariff for 1811, issued on December 19, 1810, aroused Napoleon's displeasure. By the agreement of 1801, peaceful trade relations with France were restored, and in 1802 the trade agreement concluded in 1786 was extended for 6 years. But already in 1804 it was forbidden to bring any paper fabrics along the western border, and in 1805 duties were raised on some silk and woolen products in order to encourage local, Russian production. The government was guided by the same goals in 1810. The new tariff increased duties on wine, wood, cocoa, coffee and granulated sugar; foreign paper (except white under branding), linen, silk, woolen and similar products are prohibited; Russian goods, flax, hemp, bacon, flaxseed, sailing and flamme linens, potash and resin are subject to the highest selling duty. On the contrary, the importation of crude foreign products and the duty-free export of iron from Russian factories are allowed. The new tariff harmed French trade and infuriated Napoleon, who demanded that Emperor Alexander accept the French tariff and not accept not only English, but also neutral (American) ships in Russian harbors. Soon after the publication of the new tariff, the Duke of Oldenburg, the uncle of Emperor Alexander, was deprived of his possessions, and the sovereign's protest, circularly expressed on this occasion on March 12, 1811, remained without consequences. After these clashes, war was inevitable. Already in 1810, Scharnhorst assured that Napoleon had a plan of war against Russia ready. In 1811, Prussia entered into an alliance with France, then Austria. In the summer of 1812, Napoleon moved with the allied troops through Prussia and on June 11 crossed the Neman between Kovno and Grodno, with 600,000 troops. Emperor Alexander had military forces three times smaller; at their head were: Barclay de Tolly and Prince. Bagration in the Vilna and Grodno provinces. But behind this relatively small army stood the entire Russian people, not to mention individuals and the nobility of entire provinces, all of Russia voluntarily fielded up to 320,000 warriors and donated at least a hundred million rubles. After the first clashes between Barclay near Vitebsk and Bagration near Mogilev with French troops, as well as Napoleon's unsuccessful attempt to go behind Russian troops and occupy Smolensk, Barclay began to retreat along the Dorogobuzh road. Raevsky, and then Dokhturov (with Konovnitsyn and Neverovsky) succeeded in repelling Napoleon's two attacks on Smolensk; but after the second attack, Dokhturov had to leave Smolensk and join the retreating army. Despite the retreat, Emperor Alexander left without consequences Napoleon's attempt to start peace negotiations, but was forced to replace Barclay, who was unpopular among the troops, with Kutuzov. The latter arrived at the main apartment in Tsarevo Zaimishche on August 17, and on the 26th he fought the battle of Borodino. The outcome of the battle remained unresolved, but the Russian troops continued to retreat to Moscow, the population of which was strongly agitated against the French, among other things, posters gr. Rastopchina. The military council in Fili on the evening of September 1 decided to leave Moscow, which was occupied by Napoleon on September 3, but soon (October 7) was abandoned due to a lack of supplies, severe fires and a decline in military discipline. Meanwhile, Kutuzov (probably on the advice of Tolya) turned off the Ryazan road, along which he was retreating, to Kaluga and gave battles to Napoleon at Tarutin and Maloyaroslavets. Cold, hunger, unrest in the army, rapid retreat, successful actions of the partisans (Davydov, Figner, Seslavin, Samus), the victories of Miloradovich at Vyazma, Ataman Platov at Vopi, Kutuzov at Krasnoye led the French army into complete disorder, and after the disastrous crossing of the Berezina forced Napoleon, before reaching Vilna, to flee to Paris. On December 25, 1812, a manifesto was issued on the final expulsion of the French from Russia. The Patriotic War was over; she made a strong change in the spiritual life of Emperor Alexander. In a difficult time of national disasters and spiritual anxieties, he began to seek support in a religious feeling and in this respect found support in the state. secret Shishkov, who now occupied a place that had been vacant after Speransky's removal before the start of the war. The successful outcome of this war further developed in the sovereign faith in the inscrutable ways of Divine Providence and the conviction that the Russian tsar had a difficult political task: to establish peace in Europe on the basis of justice, the sources of which the religious soul of Emperor Alexander began to look for in the gospel teachings. . Kutuzov, Shishkov, partly c. Rumyantsev was against the continuation of the war abroad. But Emperor Alexander, supported by Stein, firmly resolved to continue military operations. January 1, 1813 Russian troops crossed the border of the empire and ended up in Prussia. Already on December 18, 1812, York, the head of the Prussian detachment sent to help the French troops, entered into an agreement with Dibich on the neutrality of the German troops, although, however, he did not have permission from the Prussian government to do so. The Treaty of Kalisz (February 15-16, 1813) concluded a defensive-offensive alliance with Prussia, confirmed by the Treaty of Teplitsky (August 1813). Meanwhile, the Russian troops under the command of Wittgenstein, together with the Prussians, were defeated in the battles of Lutzen and Bautzen (April 20 and May 9). After the armistice and the so-called Prague Conferences, which resulted in Austria entering into an alliance against Napoleon under the Reichenbach Convention (June 15, 1813), hostilities resumed. After a successful battle for Napoleon at Dresden and unsuccessful at Kulm, Brienne, Laon, Arsis-sur-Aube and Fer Champenoise, Paris surrendered on March 18, 1814, the Peace of Paris was concluded (May 18) and Napoleon was overthrown. Shortly thereafter, on May 26, 1815, the Congress of Vienna opened, chiefly to discuss questions of Polish, Saxon, and Greek. Emperor Alexander was with the army throughout the campaign and insisted on the occupation of Paris by the allied forces. According to the main act of the Congress of Vienna (June 28, 1816), Russia acquired part of the Duchy of Warsaw, except for the grand duchy of Poznan, given to Prussia, and part ceded to Austria, and in the Polish possessions annexed to Russia, a constitution was introduced by Emperor Alexander, drawn up in liberal spirit. The peace negotiations at the Congress of Vienna were interrupted by Napoleon's attempt to seize the French throne again. Russian troops again moved from Poland to the banks of the Rhine, and Emperor Alexander left Vienna for Heidelberg. But the hundred-day reign of Napoleon ended with his defeat at Waterloo and the restoration of the legitimate dynasty in the person of Louis XVIII under the difficult conditions of the second Peace of Paris (November 8, 1815). Desiring to establish peaceful international relations between the Christian sovereigns of Europe on the basis of brotherly love and the gospel commandments, Emperor Alexander drew up an act of the Holy Alliance, signed by himself, the King of Prussia and the Austrian Emperor. International relations were maintained by congresses in Aachen (1818), where it was decided to withdraw the Allied troops from France, in Troppau (1820) about the unrest in Spain, Laibach (1821) - in view of the indignation in Savoy and the Neapolitan revolution, and, finally, in Verona (1822) - to pacify the indignation in Spain and discuss the Eastern question.

A direct result of the difficult wars of 1812-1814. was the deterioration of the state economy. By January 1, 1814, only 587½ million rubles were listed in the parish; internal debts reached 700 million rubles, the Dutch debt extended to 101½ million guilders (= 54 million rubles), and the silver ruble in 1815 went for 4 rubles. 15 k. assign. How long these consequences were, reveals the state of Russian finances ten years later. In 1825, state revenues were only 529½ million rubles, banknotes were issued for 595 1/3 million rubles, which, together with the Dutch and some other debts, amounted to 350½ million rubles. ser. It is true that in trade matters more significant successes are noticed. In 1814, the import of goods did not exceed 113½ million rubles, and the export - 196 million rubles; in 1825 the importation of goods reached 185½ mil. rub., the export extended to the amount of 236½ mil. rub. But the wars of 1812-1814. had other consequences as well. The restoration of free political and commercial relations between the European powers also caused the publication of several new tariffs. In the tariff of 1816, some changes were made in comparison with the tariff of 1810; and the new tariff of 1822 marked a return to the former protective system. With the fall of Napoleon, the established relationship between the political forces of Europe collapsed. Emperor Alexander took over the new definition of their relationship. This task diverted the attention of the sovereign from the internal transformative activities of previous years, especially since the throne at that time was no longer the former admirers of English constitutionalism, and the brilliant theorist and supporter of French institutions Speransky was replaced over time by a stern formalist, chairman of the military department of the State Council and the head of the military settlements, Count Arakcheev, poorly gifted by nature. However, in government orders of the last decade of the reign of Emperor Alexander, traces of former reformative ideas are sometimes still visible. On May 28, 1816, the project of the Estonian nobility on the final emancipation of the peasants was approved. The Courland nobility followed the example of the Estonian nobles at the invitation of the government itself, which approved the same project for the Courland peasants on August 25, 1817 and for the Livland peasants on March 26, 1819. Together with estate orders, several changes were made in the central and regional administration. By decree of September 4, 1819, the Ministry of Police was attached to the Ministry of the Interior, from which the Department of Manufactories and Internal Trade was transferred to the Ministry of Finance. In May 1824, the affairs of the Holy Synod were separated from the Ministry of Public Education, where they were transferred according to the manifesto of October 24, 1817, and where only the affairs of foreign confessions remained. Even earlier, a manifesto on May 7, 1817 established a council of credit institutions, both for auditing and verifying all operations, and for considering and concluding all assumptions on the credit part. By the same time (manif. April 2, 1817) was the replacement of the farming system with state-owned wine sales; management of drinking fees is concentrated in state chambers. Concerning the regional administration, an attempt was also made soon after to distribute the Great Russian provinces among governor-generals. Government activity also continued to affect the care of public education. At the St. Petersburg Pedagogical Institute in 1819, public courses were organized, which laid the foundation for St. Petersburg University. In 1820 r. the engineering school was transformed and an artillery school was founded; The Richelieu Lyceum was founded in Odessa in 1816. Schools of mutual learning began to spread according to the method of Bel and Lancaster. In 1813, the Bible Society was founded, to which the sovereign soon issued a significant financial allowance. In 1814 the Imperial Public Library was opened in St. Petersburg. Individuals followed the lead of the government. Gr. Rumyantsev constantly donated money for the printing of sources (for example, for the publication of Russian chronicles - 25,000 rubles) and scientific research. At the same time, journalistic and literary activity developed strongly. Already in 1803, the Ministry of Public Education published a "periodical essay on the successes of public education", and the Ministry of the Interior - "St. Petersburg Journal" (since 1804). But these official publications were far from having the same significance that they received: Vestnik Evropy (since 1802) by M. Kachenovsky and N. Karamzin, Son of the Fatherland by N. Grech (since 1813), Domestic Notes P Svinin (since 1818), G. Spassky's "Siberian Bulletin" (1818-1825), F. Bulgarin's "Northern Archive" (1822-1838), which later merged with Son of the Fatherland. The publications of the Moscow Society of History and Antiquities, founded in 1804, were distinguished by their scholarly character. ("Proceedings" and "Chronicles", as well as "Russian Memorabilia" - since 1815). At the same time, V. Zhukovsky, I. Dmitriev and I. Krylov, V. Ozerov and A. Griboyedov acted, the sad sounds of Batyushkov's lyre were heard, the mighty voice of Pushkin was already heard and Baratynsky's poems began to be printed. Meanwhile, Karamzin was publishing his "History of the Russian State", and A. Schletser, N. Bantysh-Kamensky, K. Kalaidovich, A. Vostokov, Evgeny Bolkhovitinov (Metropolitan of Kyiv), M. Kachenovsky, G. Evers. Unfortunately, this intellectual movement was subjected to repressive measures, partly under the influence of the unrest that took place abroad and resonated to a small extent in the Russian troops, partly due to the more and more religiously conservative direction that the sovereign’s own way of thinking was taking. On August 1, 1822, all sorts of secret societies were banned; in 1823, it was not allowed to send young people to some of the German universities. In May 1824, Admiral A. S. Shishkov, a well-known adherent of old Russian literary traditions, was entrusted with the management of the Ministry of Public Education; from the same time, the Bible Society ceased to meet and censorship conditions were significantly constrained.

Emperor Alexander spent the last years of his life for the most part in constant traveling to the most remote corners of Russia, or in almost complete solitude in Tsarskoye Selo. At this time, the Greek question was the main subject of his concern. The uprising of the Greeks against the Turks, caused in 1821 by Alexander Ypsilanti, who was in the Russian service, and the indignation in the Morea and on the islands of the Archipelago provoked a protest from Emperor Alexander. But the Sultan did not believe the sincerity of such a protest, and the Turks in Constantinople killed many Christians. Then the Russian ambassador, bar. Stroganov, left Constantinople. War was inevitable, but, delayed by European diplomats, it broke out only after the death of the sovereign. Emperor Alexander † November 19, 1825 in Taganrog, where he accompanied his wife, Empress Elisaveta Alekseevna, to improve her health.

In the attitude of Emperor Alexander to the Greek question, the peculiarities of that third stage of development, which the created by him experienced political system during the last decade of his reign. This system initially grew up on the soil of abstract liberalism; the latter was replaced by political altruism, which in turn was transformed into religious conservatism.

The most important works on the history of Emperor Alexander I: M. Bogdanovich,"History of Emperor Alexander I", VI vol. (St. Petersburg, 1869-1871); S. Solovyov,"Emperor Alexander the First. Politics - diplomacy" (St. Petersburg, 1877); A. Hadler,"Emperor Alexander the First and the idea of ​​the Holy Union" (Riga, IV vol., 1885-1868); H. Putyata,"Review of the life and reign of Emperor Alexander I" (in the "Historical collection." 1872, No. 1, pp. 426-494); Schilder,"Russia in its relations to Europe in the reign of Emperor Alexander I, 1806-1815." (in Rus. Star., 1888); N. Varadinov,"Histor. Ministry of Internal Affairs" (parts I-III, St. Petersburg, 1862); A. Semenov,"Study of historical information about Russian trade" (St. Petersburg, 1859, part II, pp. 113-226); M. Semevsky,"The Peasant Question" (2 volumes, St. Petersburg, 1888); I. Dityatin,"Organization and management of cities in Russia" (2 volumes, 1875-1877); A. Pypin,"The social movement Alexandra I"(St. Petersburg, 1871).

(Brockhaus)

(1777-1825) - ascended the throne in 1801, son of Paul I, grandson of Catherine II. Grandmother's favorite, A. was brought up "in the spirit of the 18th century," as this spirit was understood by the then nobility. In the sense of physical education, they tried to stay "closer to nature", which gave A. temper, very useful for his future camp life. As for education, it was entrusted to Rousseau's countryman, the Swiss La Harpe, a "republican" who, however, was so tactful that he did not have any clashes with the court nobility of Catherine II, that is, with the serf landowners. From La Harpe A. got the habit of "republican" phrases, which again helped a lot when it was necessary to show off their liberalism and win over public opinion. In essence, A. was never a Republican or even a Liberal. Flogging and shooting seemed to him natural means of control, and in this respect he excelled many of his generals [an example is famous phrase: "There will be military settlements, even if the road from St. Petersburg to Chudov had to be laid with corpses," said almost simultaneously with another statement: "Whatever they say about me, but I lived and will die a republican"].

Catherine had in mind to bequeath the throne directly to A., bypassing Paul, but she died without having time to formalize her desire. When Paul came to the throne in 1796, A. found himself in relation to his father in the position of an unsuccessful applicant. This immediately had to create unbearable relations in the family. Pavel suspected his son all the time, rushed about with a plan to plant him in the fortress, in a word, at every step the story of Peter and Alexei Petrovich could be repeated. But Pavel was incomparably smaller than Peter, and A. was much larger, smarter and more cunning than his ill-fated son. Alexei Petrovich was only suspected of a conspiracy, while A. really organized conspiracies against his father: Pavel fell victim to the second of them (March 11/23, 1801). A. personally did not take part in the murder, but his name was given to the conspirators at the decisive moment, and his adjutant and closest friend Volkonsky was among the killers. Under the circumstances, parricide was the only way out, but the tragedy of March 11 still had a strong impact on A.'s psyche, partly preparing the mysticism of his last days.

A.'s policy was determined, however, not by his moods, but by the objective conditions of his accession to the throne. Pavel persecuted and persecuted the big nobility, the court servants of Catherine hated by him. A. in the early years relied on the people of this circle, although he despised them in his soul ("these insignificant people" - it was once said about them to the French envoy). Aristocratic constitution, which sought to "know", A., however, did not give, deftly playing on the contradictions within the "nobility". He followed her lead in his foreign policy completely, concluding an alliance against Napoleonic France with England, the main consumer of the products of noble estates and the main supplier of luxury goods for large landowners. When the alliance led to the double defeat of Russia, in 1805 and in 1807, A. was forced to make peace, thereby breaking with the "nobility". A situation was emerging that was reminiscent of the last years of his father's life. In St. Petersburg "they talked about the assassination of the emperor, as they talk about rain or good weather" (report of the French ambassador Caulaincourt to Napoleon). A. for several years tried to hold on, relying on that layer, which was later called "raznochintsy", and on the rising, thanks to the break with England, the industrial bourgeoisie. A former seminarian connected with bourgeois circles, the son of a rural priest, Speransky became state secretary and, in fact, first minister. He drafted a bourgeois constitution, reminiscent of the "fundamental laws" of 1906. But the severance of relations with England was, in fact, equal to the cessation of all foreign trade and placed against A. the main economic force of the era - merchant capital; the newborn industrial bourgeoisie was still too weak to serve as a support. By the spring of 1812, A. surrendered, Speransky was exiled, and the "nobility", in the person of the one created - formally according to the project of Speransky, but in fact from social elements hostile to the latter - state council returned to power again.

The natural consequence was a new alliance with England and a new break with France - the so-called. "patriotic war" (1812-14). After the first setbacks of the new war, A. almost "retired to private life." He lived in St. Petersburg, in the Kamennoostrovsky Palace, almost never showing up anywhere. “You are not in any danger,” his sister (and at the same time one of his favorites) Ekaterina Pavlovna wrote to him, “but you can imagine the situation of a country whose head is despised.” The unforeseen catastrophe of Napoleon's "great army", which lost 90% of its composition in Russia from hunger and frost, and the subsequent uprising of central Europe against Napoleon, radically changed the personal situation of A. from a loser despised even by his close ones, he turned into a victorious leader of the entire anti-Napoleonic coalition, into the "king of kings." On March 31, 1814, at the head of the allied armies, A. solemnly entered Paris - there was no person in Europe more influential than he. It might have made a stronger head spin; A., being neither a fool nor a coward, like some of the last Romanovs, was nevertheless a man of average mind and character. He now seeks above all to maintain his position of power in the West. Europe, not realizing that he got it by accident and that he played the role of a tool in the hands of the British. To this end, he seizes Poland, seeks to make it a springboard for a new campaign of Russian armies at any moment to the west; in order to ensure the reliability of this bridgehead, he courts the Polish bourgeoisie and the Polish landlords in every possible way, gives Poland a constitution, which he violates every day, inciting against himself both the Poles with his insincerity, and the Russian landlords in whom. The "Patriotic" war greatly raised nationalist sentiments - with its clear preference for Poland. Feeling his ever-increasing alienation from Russian "society", in which non-noble elements played an insignificant role at that time, A. tries to rely on people "personally devoted", which turn out to be, ch. arr., "Germans", that is, Baltic and partly Prussian nobles, and from the Russians - a rude soldier Arakcheev, by origin almost the same plebeian as Speransky, but without any constitutional projects. The crowning of the building was to be the creation of a uniform oprichnina, a special military caste, represented by the so-called. military settlements. All this terribly teased both the class and national pride of the Russian landowners, creating a favorable atmosphere for a conspiracy against A. himself - a conspiracy much deeper and more serious politically than the one that ended his father on March 11/23, 1801 . The plan for the murder of A. had already been completely worked out, and the moment of the murder was scheduled for maneuvers in the summer of 1826, but on November 19 (December 1) of the previous 1825 A. unexpectedly died in Taganrog from a malignant fever, which he contracted in the Crimea, where he traveled, preparing a war with Turkey and the capture of Constantinople; the realization of this dream of all the Romanovs, starting with Catherine, A. hoped to end his reign brilliantly. To carry out this campaign without capturing Constantinople, however, was already his younger brother and heir, Nikolai Pavlovich, who also had to lead a more "national" policy, abandoning too broad Western plans. From the nominal wife, Elizaveta Alekseevna, A. had no children - but he had countless of them from his constant and random favorites. According to his friend Volkonsky, mentioned above (not to be confused with the Decembrist), A. had connections with women in every city where he stayed. As we saw above, he did not leave alone the women of his own family, being in the closest relationship with one of his own sisters. In this respect, he was the real grandson of his grandmother, who counted the favorites in dozens. But Catherine until the end of her life retained a clear mind, while A. in recent years showed all the signs of religious insanity. It seemed to him that the "Lord God" interfered in all the little things of his life, he was brought to religious tenderness even, for example, by a successful review of the troops. On this basis, there was his rapprochement with the well-known religious charlatan Mrs. Krudener(cm.); In connection with these sentiments of his, there is also the form that he gave to his dominance over Europe - the formation of the so-called. Holy Union.

Lit.: Non-Marxist literature: Bogdanovich, M.N., History of the reign of Alexander I and Russia in his time, 6 vols., St. Petersburg, 1869-71; Schilder, N. K., Alexander I, 4 vols., St. Petersburg, 2nd ed., 1904; his own, Alexander I (in the Russian Biographical Dictionary, vol. 1); b. led. Prince Nikolai Mikhailovich, Emperor Alexander I, ed. 2, St. Petersburg; his own, Correspondence of Alexander I with his sister Ekaterina Pavlovna, St. Petersburg, 1910; his own, Count P. A. Stroganov, 3 vols., St. Petersburg, 1903; his own, Empress Ekaterina Alekseevna, 3 vols., St. Petersburg, 1908; Schiemann, Geschichte Russlands unter Kaiser Nicolaus I, B. I. Kaiser Alexander I und die Ergebnisse seiner Lebensarbeit, Berlin. 1901 (this entire first volume is devoted to the era of A. I); Schiller, Histoire intime de la Russie sous les empereurs Alexandre et Nicolas, 2 v., Paris; Mémoires du prince Adam Czartorysky et sa correspondance avec l "empereur Alexandre I, 2 t., P., 1887 (there is a Russian translation, M., 1912 and 1913). Marxist literature: Pokrovsky, MH, Russian history from ancient times, vol. III (several editions), his own, Alexander I (History of Russia in the 19th century, ed. Granat, vol. 1, pp. 31-66).

M. Pokrovsky. Dictionary of personal names

- (Αλέξανδρος) Greek Genus: male. Etymological meaning: Αλέξ "protector" / ανδρος "man", "man" Middle name: Alexandrovich Alexandrovna Female pair name: Alexandra Produced. forms: Alik, Sanya, Aleksasha, Sasha ... Wikipedia

Alexander I. Alexander I (1777, St. Petersburg 1825, Taganrog), emperor since 1801, from the Romanov dynasty. Emperor's son. He ascended the throne as a result of a palace coup. As a child, he was greatly influenced by his grandmother, the Empress, ... ... Moscow (encyclopedia)

- (Alexander, Αλέξανδρος), called the Great, the king of Macedonia and the conqueror of Asia, was born in Pella in 356 BC. He was the son of Philip II and Olympias and was raised by Aristotle. In his early youth, he already showed that courage and fearlessness, which ... Encyclopedia of mythology

Alexander- Pavlovich (1777-1825), emperor (since 1801), son of Paul I, ascended the throne as a result of a palace coup. At the beginning of his reign, he pursued a liberal policy aimed at preserving absolutism. In 1802 ministries and a committee were established... Encyclopedic reference book "St. Petersburg"

Alexander I. Portrait by F. Gerard. ALEXANDER I (1777-1825), Emperor of Russia from 1801. The eldest son of Emperor Paul I. At the beginning of his reign, he carried out reforms prepared by the Unspoken Committee and M.M. Speransky. Under his leadership, Russia in ... Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary

I (1777 1825) Russian emperor since 1801. The eldest son of Paul I. At the beginning of his reign, he carried out moderately liberal reforms developed by the Unofficial Committee and M. M. Speransky. In foreign policy, he maneuvered between Great Britain and France. In 1805 ... ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary, Alexander Blok. The present collected works of A. Blok included the poet's works of art, his most significant literary-critical and journalistic articles, essays and selected materials from ...

Alexander I Pavlovich (1777-1825). Russian emperor, son of Emperor Paul I and Princess Sophia Dorothea of ​​Württemberg-Mempelgard (baptized Maria Feodorovna), grandson of Catherine II.

Alexander, born from the second marriage of Emperor Paul I, was a long-awaited child, since his birth ensured direct succession to the throne.

From the first days after the birth of the heir, Catherine II took her grandson from her parents and herself took up his upbringing. For this, the best teachers were involved, including the Swiss Frederic Cesar de La Harpe, who was an adherent of the ideas of cosmopolitanism, abstract humanism and divorced from real life universal justice. The future emperor took these ideas as indisputable truths and remained in their captivity for almost his entire life.

On the night of March 11-12, 1801, as a result of a conspiracy organized by British diplomacy, the emperor was killed, and the throne passed to Alexander. Alexander's participation in the conspiracy is not in doubt. The death of his father shocked Alexander, because he had no doubt that the removal of Paul I from power would be limited to his abdication. The indirect sin of parricide burdened the soul of Alexander Pavlovich for all subsequent years.

March 12, 1801 Alexander I became Russian emperor. Ascending the throne, he proclaimed that he would govern the country "according to the laws and according to the heart of our late august sovereign, Empress Catherine the Great."

Alexander I began his reign with the preparation of a series of radical reforms. Speransky became the inspirer and direct developer of these reforms. The reforms concerned mainly social sphere: the foundations of a classless education were laid, ministries were created instead of the Colleges of Peter I, where the one-man command of ministers was introduced and their personal responsibility was provided for, the State Council (the highest legislative advisory body) was established. Of particular importance was the Decree on free cultivators. According to this law, for the first time in the history of Russia, it was allowed to release peasants into the wild for a ransom.

The foreign policy of Alexander I was no less active. In 1805, Russia again entered (into the third) anti-French coalition with England, Turkey and Austria. The defeat of the coalition troops at Austerlitz put an end to this alliance and put Russia in a very difficult position. The fame of Napoleon's invincibility boomed all over the world. The allies betrayed Alexander I one after another. Under these conditions, on June 13-14, 1807, in Tilsit, Alexander I and Napoleon met, where the Act of offensive and defensive alliance between Russia and France was signed.

In 1801, Georgia and a number of Transcaucasian provinces voluntarily joined Russia. Russia received the exclusive right to have its own navy in the Caspian Sea. On the southern borders from 1806 to 1812, Russia was fighting with an old enemy - Turkey. At the last stage of the war, General Field Marshal M. Kutuzov was at the head of the Russian army. He managed to surround the Turkish army and issue an ultimatum. The Turkish side accepted the ultimatum due to the hopelessness of the situation. According to the Brest peace treaty, Bessarabia with the fortresses of Khotyn, Bendery, Izmail, Akkerman departed to Russia.

In the north from 1808 to 1809 there was a war with Sweden. In March 1809, the troops of Field Marshal M. Barclay de Tolly marched across the ice of the Gulf of Bothnia to the Aland Islands and Stockholm. Sweden urgently asked for peace. According to the peace treaty signed in Friedrichsgam, Finland and the Åland Islands departed from Russia.

Patriotic War of 1812

On June 12, 1812, a huge Napoleonic army, which included troops from most of the countries of Europe, which is why it was nicknamed the "army of the twelve languages", crossed the borders of Russia and launched an attack on Moscow. Alexander I entrusted the conduct of the war with Napoleon to Field Marshal Barclay de Tolly and Bagration, and at a critical moment, when Smolensk was abandoned by the Russian troops, he appointed Field Marshal M. Kutuzov as commander-in-chief.

The decisive battle of the Patriotic War of 1812 was the battle near the village of Borodino (110 km west of Moscow). During this battle, the forces of Napoleon's army were undermined. The Russian army inflicted irreparable losses on the enemy - over 58 thousand people, or 43% of the entire composition of the forces participating in the battle. But the Russian army also lost 44 thousand killed and wounded (including 23 generals). Napoleon's goal - the complete defeat of the Russian army - was not achieved. “Of all my battles,” Napoleon later wrote, “the most terrible is the one I fought near Moscow. The French showed themselves worthy of victory, and the Russians acquired the right to be invincible.

Given the heavy losses of the Russian army, Kutuzov at the military council in Fili decided to leave Moscow without a fight. Kutuzov argued this decision as follows: "Leaving Moscow, we will save the army, losing the army, we will lose both Moscow and Russia." On September 2, 1812, Russian troops left Moscow without a fight, and half of the Moscow population (about 100,000 people) left with them. From the first day of the entry of Napoleon's troops in Moscow, fires began. Up to 75% of houses were destroyed by fire, shopping arcades, shops, factories burned down, the Kremlin was damaged.

At this time, near the village of Tarutino (80 km south of Moscow), Kutuzov took steps to replenish the army and procure everything necessary to continue the war. In the rear of the French troops, a partisan movement unfolded. The partisan detachments of Davydov, Dorokhov, Seslavin and others controlled all the roads leading to Moscow. Torn off from their rear, Napoleon's army, actually locked in Moscow, began to starve.

Napoleon's attempts to make peace were unsuccessful, Alexander I rejected all negotiations for a truce. Under the circumstances, Napoleon had only one way out: to leave Moscow and retreat to the western borders of Russia in order to spend the winter there and resume the fight in 1813.

On October 7, the 110,000-strong French army left Moscow and moved towards Kaluga. But Kutuzov blocked Napoleon's path at Maloyaroslavets, forcing him to retreat along the Smolensk road devastated by the war, where the retreating troops were subjected to continuous attacks by the Cossack detachments of Ataman Davydov and partisans. The lack of food for the soldiers, fodder for horses, the onset of cold weather led to the rapid degradation of the French army. Exhausted, frostbitten, eating dead horses, the French retreated with little or no resistance. November 16 Napoleon, leaving his army to its fate, crossed the river. Berezina and fled from Russia. "Great French Army" as an organized military force ceased to exist.

The catastrophe of the French army in Russia put Alexander I at the head of the anti-Napoleonic coalition. England, Prussia, Austria and a number of other states hastened to join it. On March 31, 1814, the emperor, at the head of the Russian army, entered Paris. At the Vienna Congress of the victorious powers (1815), the Russian emperor became the head of the Holy Alliance, the main task of which was the collective suppression of any anti-monarchist (revolutionary) movements in Europe.

Under pressure from Alexander I, Louis XVIII, who was elevated to the French throne, including by Russian bayonets, was soon forced to give his subjects a constitutional charter. But the point here, according to Russian historian V.V. Degoev, “is not only in the liberal fantasies of the tsar, as K. Metternich thought, but also in a very pragmatic desire to eventually see France as a loyal partner of Russia in its foreign policy.” However, according to the Decembrist I. D. Yakushkin, "Louis XVIII's charter enabled the French to continue the work they had begun in 1989."

Russia's participation in the creation of the Holy Alliance marked the emperor's final transition from liberalism to conservatism and the idea of ​​an unlimited monarchy.

Since 1816, military settlements began to be created in Russia - a special organization of troops, which had the goal of reducing state spending on the army. Here the soldiers combined military service with occupations agriculture. The system of military settlements was headed by artillery general Arakcheev. By this time, he was already the all-powerful temporary worker of Russia, who fully justified his coat of arms motto "Without flattery betrayed." Alexander I handed over to Arakcheev the conduct of all internal affairs, and he himself preferred to engage in foreign policy.

The counter-reforms carried out in the second half of the reign of Alexander I were radical. The Ministry of Public Education was transformed into the Ministry of Spiritual Affairs, persecution of the press began, and "liberal professors" were expelled from St. Petersburg University. In 1821, the secret police was created, in 1822 all secret societies were banned, and subscriptions were collected from all military and civilians not to participate in such. This era was called in the history of "Arakcheevshchina".

Despite the measures taken, conspiracies were repeatedly created in the country with the aim of deposing the emperor. The most serious was being prepared for the autumn of 1825 - the winter of 1826. The Emperor knew about this, but did not take any preventive measures. In August 1825, Alexander I went to Taganrog to treat his consumptive wife, but he suddenly fell ill himself and died on November 19, 1825.

The legend has been preserved among the people that the emperor did not die, but went to Siberia, where he lived under the name of the elder Fyodor Kuzmich until his death in 1864 in Tomsk. When opened, the tomb of Alexander I in the Cathedral of the Peter and Paul Fortress was empty. However, an urn with ashes was found at the feet of the coffin of his wife Elizaveta Alekseevna. According to the most common version, Alexander I, prone to mysticism, wanted to atone for his guilt for the death of his father Paul I, in a conspiracy against whom he was directly involved, by his departure to Siberia and the life of an old ascetic.

The sudden mysterious death of Emperor Alexander I left Russia without a legitimate heir to the throne. In accordance with the Law of Succession, the second oldest son of Paul I, Constantine, was supposed to ascend the throne, but he refused the imperial crown, and the third son of Paul I, Nicholas I, ascended the throne.

General S. A. Tuchkov noted in his "Notes" for 1766-1808: Although Emperor Alexander said in his manifesto, issued upon his accession to the throne, that he would follow in the footsteps of the great Catherine in everything, but politics, the internal government of the state and the organization of the troops - everything was changed. Everyone knows with what inconstancy Alexander I followed either the suggestions of the English cabinet or the will of Napoleon. From the side of government, he showed at the beginning a great inclination towards liberty and constitution, but even this was one mask. The spirit of his despotism was found in the army, which many considered at first necessary for the preservation of discipline. ... under Alexander, his court became almost exactly like a soldier's barracks ... Emperor Alexander showed a penchant for mystical books, societies and persons involved in this.

The historian A. I. Turgenev (brother of one of the main Decembrists N. I. Turgenev) called Alexander I "a republican in words and an autocrat in deeds" and believed that "Better is the despotism of Paul than a despotism hidden and changeable" Alexandra.

Married to Princess Louise (Elizaveta Alekseevna), Alexander I had two daughters: Maria and Elizabeth (both died in infancy). With his wife, the emperor was more than cold, despite the fact that contemporaries called Elizabeth Alekseevna the most beautiful empress all times and peoples. The relationship between the Empress and A. S. Pushkin remained a mystery. Only recently were documents published showing that from the age of 14 Pushkin was in love with the wife of the emperor, and she reciprocated. Not being Russian by blood, Elizaveta Alekseevna carried her love for Russia through her whole life. In 1812, in connection with the invasion of Napoleon, she was asked to leave for England, but the empress replied: "I am Russian, and I will die with the Russians."

The entire imperial court adored their mistress, and only Alexandra's mother Maria Fedorovna, nicknamed "cast iron" for cruelty and deceit, hated her daughter-in-law. The widow of Paul I could not forgive Elizabeth Alekseevna for interfering in the events that followed the death of her husband. Upon learning of the death of Paul I, Maria Feodorovna demanded the crown for herself, and Alexander I was inclined to abdicate. But at the most critical moment, Elizaveta Alekkseevna exclaimed: “Madame! Russia is tired of the power of a fat German woman. Let her rejoice at the young king."

From 1804, Alexander I cohabited with Princess M. Naryshkina, who bore several children to the emperor. However, even then the legal wife remained the most devoted person to Alexander I. Elizaveta Alekseevna was repeatedly offered to carry out a coup d'etat and ascend the throne. With her popularity, this was easy to do (even the Society of Friends of Elizabeth arose). However, Elizaveta Alekseevna stubbornly refused power.

The very circumstances of Alexander I's accession to the Russian throne were dramatic.

Petersburg Governor-General Palen led a conspiracy, as a result of which Alexander's father, Emperor Paul I, was overthrown and killed by a crowd of drunken officers.

Alexander knew about the conspiracy, as he understood that while his father was alive, he could not rule. And yet, the news of the death of his father plunged the newly-appeared emperor into shock, from which he was brought out by the words of the same Palen: “Sir, it’s enough to babysit, go reign.”

And Alexander came to his senses, going out to the courtiers and announcing that with him everything would be like with his grandmother, i.e. under Catherine II. However, it took time to understand the full declarative nature of this statement ...

Biography of Alexander I

Already in infancy, Catherine II, in fact, took her grandson from his legitimate parents - Maria Feodorovna and Pavel Petrovich, deciding to raise her personally, in an educational spirit. She partially succeeded, but the empress's lifestyle was contrary to her words, which Alexander saw, but about which he was forced to remain silent.

So he acquired slyness and hypocrisy, which became the basis of his character later. There is a version that Catherine was preparing to transfer the throne to Alexander, over the head of her son, Paul. This was not destined to happen. Nevertheless, the reign of Paul turned out to be short, and Russia entered the new century with a new emperor - Alexander I.

Yielding to the insistence of his father and mother, while still heir to the throne, Alexander married Louise of Baden, whom he always treated with restraint and even coldly. Over the years, religiosity and even piety began to increase in him, caused by a sense of guilt for the violent death of his father. For the same reason, Alexander did not persecute members of secret societies and abandoned many liberal reforms.

Domestic policy of Alexander I

Shortly after ascending the throne, Alexander instructed M.M. Speransky to head a commission to develop a draft Russian constitution and abolish serfdom. However, gentlemen senators, in fact, blocked all these initiatives. Everything was limited to the publication of the law "on free cultivators", according to which the landowners received the right to free their peasants from serfdom with the land.

Some Decembrists did not fail to set a similar example. After the Patriotic War of 1812, “crackdown” began in domestic politics: Speransky was replaced by Arakcheev, who planted military settlements. The performance of the Semyonovsky regiment was brutally suppressed. The censorship persecution of advanced thought intensified.

Foreign policy of Alexander I

Paradoxically, Alexander's success in foreign policy was much more significant than his merits in the transformation of his own country. The laurels of the conqueror of Napoleon went to him. Russia became one of the organizers of the so-called. Holy Union. New territories were added to it: Georgia, Finland, Azerbaijan. Successful military operations were conducted against the Ottoman Empire and Sweden.

• According to a completely plausible version, tormented by pangs of conscience, Alexander I did not die in Taganrog from typhoid fever, according to the official version, but left the world, became a hermit, and lived in Siberia until his death in 1864 under the name of Elder Fyodor Kuzmich.
• A few years ago, the television series "Northern Sphinx" was filmed, which is based on this particular historical version.
• It was for her grandchildren, including the adored Alexander, that Catherine II wrote the first Russian literary tales - The Tale of Tsarevich Chlorine and The Tale of Tsarevich Thebes. Ershov and Pushkin had whose experience to take into account ...

Emperor Alexander I was the grandson of Catherine the Great from her only son Pavel Petrovich and the German princess Sophia of Württemberg, in Orthodoxy Maria Feodorovna. He was born in St. Petersburg on December 25, 1777. Named after Alexander Nevsky, the newborn crown prince was immediately taken away from his parents and brought up under the control of the royal grandmother, which greatly influenced the political views of the future autocrat.

Childhood and youth

Alexander's entire childhood passed under the control of his reigning grandmother, he almost did not communicate with his parents, however, despite this, he, like Father Pavel, loved and was well versed in military affairs. The Tsarevich served in active service in Gatchina, at the age of 19 he was promoted to colonel.

The Tsarevich had insight, quickly grasped new knowledge and studied with pleasure. It was in him, and not in her son Paul, that Catherine the Great saw the future Russian emperor, but she could not put him on the throne, bypassing her father.

At the age of 20, he became the governor-general of St. Petersburg and the chief of the Semenovsky Guards Regiment. A year later, he begins to sit in the Senate.

Alexander was critical of the policies pursued by his father Emperor Paul, so he became involved in a conspiracy aimed at removing the emperor from the throne and accession of Alexander. However, the condition of the crown prince was to save the life of his father, so the violent death of the latter brought the crown prince a feeling of guilt for life.

Married life

The personal life of Alexander I was very eventful. Marriage relations with the Tsarevich began early - at the age of 16 he was married to the fourteen-year-old Princess Louise Maria Augusta of Baden, who changed her name in Orthodoxy, becoming Elizaveta Alekseevna. The newlyweds were very suitable for each other, for which among the courtiers they received the nicknames Cupid and Psyche. In the first years of marriage, the relationship between the spouses was very tender and touching, the Grand Duchess was very loved and respected at court by everyone except mother-in-law Maria Feodorovna. However, warm relations in the family soon changed to cool ones - the newlyweds had too much different tempers, besides, Alexander Pavlovich often cheated on his wife.

The wife of Alexander I was distinguished by modesty, did not like luxury, was engaged in charity work, she preferred walking and reading books to balls and social events.

Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna

For almost six years, the marriage of the Grand Duke did not bear fruit, and only in 1799 did Alexander I have children. The Grand Duchess gave birth to a daughter, Maria Alexandrovna. The birth of the baby led to an intra-family scandal in the imperial family. Alexander's mother hinted that the child was born not from the Tsarevich, but from Prince Czartoryski, in an affair with whom she suspected her daughter-in-law. In addition, the girl was born a brunette, and both parents were blondes. Emperor Paul also hinted at the betrayal of his daughter-in-law. Tsarevich Alexander himself recognized his daughter and never spoke about the possible betrayal of his wife. The happiness of fatherhood was short-lived, Grand Duchess Maria lived a little over a year and died in 1800. The death of her daughter briefly reconciled and brought the couple closer.

Grand Duchess Elizabeth Alexandrovna

Numerous novels increasingly alienated the crowned spouses, Alexander, without hiding, cohabited with Maria Naryshkina, and since 1803, Empress Elizabeth began an affair with Alexy Okhotnikov. In 1806, the wife of Alexander I gave birth to a daughter, Grand Duchess Elizabeth, despite the fact that the couple had not lived together for several years, the emperor recognized his daughter, which made the girl first in line for the Russian throne. The children of Alexander I did not please him for long. The second daughter died at the age of 18 months. After the death of Princess Elizabeth, the relationship of the married couple became even cooler.

Love affair with Maria Naryshkina

Married life with in many ways did not work out because of Alexander's fifteen-year relationship with the daughter of a Polish aristocrat M. Naryshkina, before the marriage of Chetvertinskaya. Alexander did not hide this connection, his family and all the courtiers knew about it, moreover, Maria Naryshkina herself, at every opportunity, tried to prick the emperor's wife, hinting at an affair with Alexander. Over the years of a love affair, Alexander was credited with paternity of five of the six children of Naryshkina:

• Elizaveta Dmitrievna, born in 1803,
• Elizaveta Dmitrievna, born in 1804,
• Sofia Dmitrievna, born in 1808,
• Zinaida Dmitrievna, born in 1810,
• Emmanuil Dmitrievich, born in 1813.

In 1813, the emperor broke up with Naryshkina, as he suspected her of having an affair with another man. The emperor suspected that Emmanuel Naryshkin was not his son. After parting, the former lovers maintained friendly relations. Of all the children of Maria and Alexander I, Sofya Naryshkina lived the longest. She died at 16, on the eve of her wedding.

Illegitimate children of Alexander I

In addition to children from Maria Naryshkina, Emperor Alexander also had other favorites.

• Nikolai Lukash, born in 1796 from Sophia Meshcherskaya;
• Maria, born in 1819 to Maria Turkestanova;
• Maria Alexandrovna of Paris (1814), mother of Margarita Josephine Weimer;
• Alexandrova Wilhelmina Alexandrina Paulina, born 1816, mother unknown;
• (1818), mother Elena Rautenstrauch;
• Nikolay Isakov (1821), mother - Karacharova Maria.

The paternity of the last four children among researchers of the biography of the emperor remains controversial. Some historians generally doubt whether Alexander I had children.

Domestic policy 1801 -1815

Having ascended the throne in March 1801, Alexander I Pavlovich proclaimed that he would continue the policy of his grandmother Catherine the Great. In addition to the title of Russian emperor, Alexander was titled Tsar of Poland since 1815, Grand Duke of Finland since 1801 and Protector of the Order of Malta since 1801.

Alexander I (from 1801 to 1825) began his reign with the development of radical reforms. The emperor abolished the Secret Expedition, prohibited the use of torture against prisoners, allowed the importation of books from abroad and the opening of private printing houses in the country.

Alexander took the first step towards the abolition of serfdom by issuing a decree “On free cultivators”, and introduced a ban on the sale of peasants without land, but these measures did not make any special changes.

Reforms in the education system

Alexander's reforms in the education system were more fruitful. A clear gradation of educational institutions was introduced according to the level of educational programs, so district and parish schools, provincial gymnasiums and colleges, and universities appeared. During the years 1804-1810. Kazan and Kharkov universities were opened, a pedagogical institute was opened in St. Petersburg, the privileged Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum, the Academy of Sciences was restored in the capital.

From the first days of his reign, the emperor surrounded himself with young educated people with progressive views. One of these was the jurist Speransky, it was under his leadership that the Petrovsky collegiums in the Ministry were reformed. Speransky also began developing a project to rebuild the empire, which provided for the separation of powers and the creation of an elected representative body. Thus, the monarchy would have been transformed into a constitutional one, but the reform was opposed by the political and aristocratic elites, so it was not carried out.

Reforms 1815-1825

Under the reign of Alexander I, the history of Russia changed dramatically. The emperor was active in domestic politics at the beginning of his reign, but after 1815 they began to decline. In addition, each of his reforms met with fierce resistance from the Russian nobility. Since that time, significant changes in Russian Empire Did not happen. In 1821-1822, a secret police was established in the army, secret organizations and Masonic lodges were banned.

The exceptions were the western provinces of the empire. In 1815, Alexander 1 granted the Tsardom of Poland a constitution, according to which Poland became a hereditary monarchy within Russia. In Poland, the bicameral Sejm was retained, which, together with the king, was the legislative body. The constitution was of a liberal nature and in many respects resembled the French Charter and the constitution of England. Also in Finland, the implementation of the constitutional law of 1772 was guaranteed, and the peasants of the Baltic states were freed from serfdom.

Military reform

After the victory over Napoleon, Alexander saw that the country needed a military reform, so in 1815 the Minister of War Arakcheev was instructed to develop its project. It implied the creation of military settlements as a new military-agricultural estate, which would complete the army on a permanent basis. The first such settlements were introduced in the Kherson and Novgorod provinces.

Foreign policy

The reign of Alexander I left its mark on foreign policy. In the first year of his reign, he concluded peace treaties with England and France, and in 1805-1807 joined the ranks against the Emperor of France, Napoleon. The defeat at Austerlitz aggravated the position of Russia, which led to the signing of the Peace of Tilsit with Napoleon in June 1807, which implied the creation of a defensive alliance between France and Russia.

More successful was the Russian-Turkish confrontation of 1806-1812, which ended with the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, according to which Bessarabia ceded to Russia.

The war with Sweden in 1808-1809 ended with the victory of Russia; under a peace treaty, the empire received Finland and the Aland Islands.

Also during the reign of Alexander during the Russian-Persian war, Azerbaijan, Imeretia, Guria, Mengrelia and Abkhazia were annexed to the empire. The empire received the right to have its own Caspian fleet. Earlier, in 1801, Georgia became part of Russia, and in 1815, the Duchy of Warsaw.

However, the greatest victory of Alexander is the victory in the Patriotic War of 1812, so it was he who led the years 1813-1814. In March 1814, the Emperor of Russia entered Paris at the head of the coalition armies, he also became one of the leaders of the Congress of Vienna to establish a new order in Europe. The popularity of the Russian emperor was colossal, in 1819 he became the godfather of the future Queen of England Victoria.

Emperor's death

According to the official version, Emperor Alexander I Romanov died on November 19, 1825 in Taganrog from complications of inflammation of the brain. Such an early death of the emperor caused a lot of rumors and legends.

In 1825, the health of the emperor's wife deteriorated sharply, the doctors advised the southern climate, it was decided to go to Taganrog, the emperor decided to accompany his wife, with whom relations had become very warm in recent years.

While in the south, the emperor visited Novocherkassk and the Crimea, on the way he caught a bad cold and died. Alexander was distinguished by good health and never got sick, so the death of the 48-year-old emperor became suspicious for many, and many considered his unexpected desire to accompany the empress on a trip suspicious too. In addition, the body of the king before the burial was not shown to the people, the farewell took place with a closed coffin. Even more rumors were generated by the imminent death of the emperor's wife - Elizabeth died six months later.

Emperor - old man

In 1830-1840. the deceased tsar began to be identified with a certain old man Fyodor Kuzmich, who, with his features, resembled the emperor, and also had excellent manners that were not characteristic of a simple tramp. There were rumors among the population that the emperor's double was buried, and the tsar himself lived under the name of an elder until 1864, while Empress Elizaveta Alekseevna herself was also identified with the hermit Vera the Silent.

The question of whether Elder Fyodor Kuzmich and Alexander are one person has not yet been clarified; only a genetic examination can put all the dots over the “i”.

Emperor and Autocrat of All Russia, Grand Duke of Finland, Tsar of Poland

short biography

(December 23, 1777, St. Petersburg - December 1, 1825, Taganrog) - Emperor and Autocrat of All Russia (from March 12 (24), 1801), Protector of the Order of Malta (from 1801), Grand Duke of Finland (from 1809), Tsar Polish (since 1815), the eldest son of Emperor Paul I and Maria Feodorovna. In the official pre-revolutionary historiography it was called Blessed.

At the beginning of his reign, he carried out moderate liberal reforms developed by the Private Committee and M. M. Speransky. In foreign policy, he maneuvered between Great Britain and France. In 1805-1807 he participated in anti-French coalitions. In 1807-1812 he temporarily became close to France. He waged successful wars with Turkey (1806-1812), Persia (1804-1813) and Sweden (1808-1809). Under Alexander I, the territories of Eastern Georgia (1801), Finland (1809), Bessarabia (1812), and the former Duchy of Warsaw (1815) were annexed to Russia. After the Patriotic War of 1812, in 1813-1814 he headed the anti-French coalition of European powers. He was one of the leaders of the Vienna Congress of 1814-1815 and the organizers of the Holy Alliance.

In the last years of his life, he often spoke of his intention to abdicate and "withdraw from the world," which, after his unexpected death in Taganrog, gave rise to the legend of "Elder Fyodor Kuzmich." According to this legend, it was not Alexander who died and was then buried in Taganrog, but his double, while the tsar lived for a long time as an old hermit in the Urals in a cave on the banks of the Sim River and died in 1864.

Birth and name

Catherine II named one of her grandsons Konstantin in honor of Constantine the Great, the other - Alexander in honor of Alexander Nevsky. This choice of names expressed the hope that Constantine would liberate Constantinople from the Turks, and the newly-minted Alexander the Great would become the sovereign of the new empire. On the throne of the Greek Empire, which was supposed to be restored, she wanted to see Constantine.

“You say,” Catherine wrote to Baron F. M. Grimm, “that he will have to choose who to imitate: a hero (Alexander the Great) or a saint (Alexander Nevsky). You don't seem to know that our saint was a hero. He was a courageous warrior, a firm ruler and a clever politician and surpassed all other specific princes, his contemporaries ... So, I agree that Mr. Alexander has only one choice, and it depends on his personal talents which path he will take - holiness or heroism ".

“Thus, by choosing the name, Catherine predicted a great future for her grandson and prepared him for the royal vocation, which, in her opinion, should have been facilitated, first of all, by a militarized and antique-oriented upbringing.” The name "Alexander" was not typical of the Romanovs - before that, the early deceased son of Peter the Great had been baptized only once. However, after Alexander I, it firmly entered the Romanov name book.

Gabriel Derzhavin responded to the birth of Alexander with the famous poem "On the birth of a porphyry-born child in the North": "At this time, it's so cold, As Boreas was furious, A porphyry-born child In the kingdom of the North was born ...".

Childhood, education and upbringing

He grew up at the intellectual court of Catherine the Great; the tutor - the Swiss Jacobin Frederic Cesar Laharpe introduced him to the principles of humanity, the military teacher Nikolai Saltykov - to the traditions of the Russian aristocracy, his father conveyed to him his passion for the military parade and taught him to combine spiritual love for humanity with practical concern for others. Catherine II considered her son Paul incapable of taking the throne and planned to enthrone Alexander, bypassing his father.

Alexander owed many traits of his character to his grandmother, who took her son away from her mother and assigned him to live in Tsarskoe Selo, near her, away from her parents, who lived in their palaces (in Pavlovsk and Gatchina) and rarely appeared at the “big court”. However, the child, as can be seen from all the reviews about him, was an affectionate and gentle boy, so it was a great pleasure for the royal grandmother to mess with him.

Young Alexander had intelligence and talents, shared liberal ideas, but was lazy, proud and superficial in the assimilation of knowledge, unable to concentrate on long and serious work.

On September 17 (28), 1793, he married the daughter of the Margrave of Baden, Louise Maria Augusta ( Luise Marie Auguste von Baden), who took the name of Elizabeth Alekseevna. For some time he did military service in the Gatchina troops formed by his father; here he developed deafness in his left ear "from the strong roar of the cannons." On November 7 (18), 1796, he was promoted to colonel of the guard.

In 1797, Alexander was the St. Petersburg military governor, chief of the Semyonovsky Guards Regiment, commander of the metropolitan division, chairman of the food supply commission, and performed a number of other duties. Since 1798, he also presided over the military parliament, and, starting from next year, sat in the Senate.

Ascension to the throne

In the reign of Paul, the heir liked to dream aloud how, after giving the people a constitution, he would leave the throne to spend his days in peace in a modest hut on the banks of the Rhine. Easy strife against his father ensured his location high nobility. Society sincerely welcomed the coming to power of a young, handsome and liberal-minded emperor. "The days of Alexander's are a wonderful beginning" was marked by general optimism.

Many biographers of Alexander admit that he was aware of the intention of the higher nobility to overthrow his father, but did not allow the thought of regicide.

On the night of March 12, Alexander and his wife did not sleep and were dressed for the appropriate event to go out to people, which indirectly confirms Alexander's awareness of the plans of the conspirators. At one o'clock in the morning on March 12 (24), 1801, Count P. A. Palen appeared at the Mikhailovsky Palace and informed Alexander about the murder of his father. After listening to Palen, Alexander sobbed. Count Pahlen said to him in French: "Enough childishness, go reign!" Alexander went out onto the balcony to show himself to the troops and said: “Batiushka died of an apoplexy. Everything with me will be like with my grandmother.

Already in the manifesto of March 12, 1801, the new emperor assumed the obligation to govern the people " according to the laws and according to the heart in Bose of the reposed august grandmother of our sovereign Empress Catherine the Great". In decrees, as well as in private conversations, the emperor expressed the basic rule that he would be guided by: in place of personal arbitrariness, actively establish strict legality. The emperor repeatedly pointed out the main shortcoming that the Russian state order suffered from. He called this deficiency by the will of our government". To eliminate it, it was necessary to develop fundamental laws, which were almost non-existent in Russia. It was in this direction that the transformative experiments of the first years were conducted.

Within a month, Alexander pardoned 156 prisoners (including A. N. Radishchev, A. P. Yermolov, and others), pardoned and allowed 12 thousand previously dismissed by Pavel to return to service, lifted the ban on the import of various goods and products into Russia ( including books and musical notes), announced an amnesty for fugitives who had taken refuge abroad, restored noble elections, freed priests and deacons from corporal punishment, restored cash benefits for the maintenance of leading scientific institutions - Volny economic society(5 thousand rubles) and the Russian Academy (6 thousand rubles), etc. On April 2, he restored the validity of the Charter to the nobility and cities, liquidated the Secret Chancellery.

Even before Alexander’s accession to the throne, a group of “young friends” rallied around him (Count P. A. Stroganov, Count V. P. Kochubey, Prince A. A. Czartorysky, N. N. Novosiltsev), who from 1801 began to play an important role in government. Already in May, Stroganov invited the young tsar to form a secret committee and discuss plans for state reform in it. Alexander readily agreed, and friends jokingly called their secret committee the Committee of Public Safety.

In the region of foreign policy urgent measures were taken to normalize frustrated relations with the "great powers". Already on June 5 (17), 1801, a Russian-English convention was signed in St. Petersburg, which ended the interstate crisis, and on May 10, the Russian mission in Vienna was restored. September 29 (October 11), 1801, a peace treaty was signed with France, on the same day a secret convention was concluded.

Alexander was crowned on September 15 (27), 1801 in the Assumption Cathedral by Metropolitan Platon; the same order of coronation was used as under Paul I, but the difference was that Empress Elizaveta Alekseevna "during her coronation did not kneel before her husband, but stood up and took the crown on her head."

Domestic policy of Alexander I

Liberal reforms

From the first days of the new reign, the emperor was surrounded by young people, whom he called to help him in the work of transformation. They made up the so-called. The secret committee. In 1801-1803, a reform of the highest bodies was carried out state power. Under the emperor, a legislative advisory body was created, which until 1810 was called the Permanent Council, and then transformed into the State Council. In an attempt to weaken serfdom, the Unspoken Committee prepared in 1803 a "Decree on free cultivators."

Despite the great-hearted impulses and complaints about serfdom, the state activity of the young Alexander did not go beyond the enlightened absolutism of Catherine's model. hallmark this ideology is the emphasis on expanding public education. Under Alexander, several new higher and privileged secondary educational institutions (lyceums) were added to the existing Moscow University, including the famous Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum, later renamed Alexandrovsky. In 1804, the first censorship and university charters in Russia were published: the highest educational establishments received a certain degree of autonomy.

In 1803, Alexander dissolved the Unspoken Committee and placed the reform of the empire on the shoulders of a talented jurist from the lower classes - M. M. Speransky. Under his leadership, a ministerial reform was carried out, replacing the archaic Petrine collegiums with ministries.

In 1808-1809, Speransky developed a plan for a comprehensive reorganization of the empire, involving the creation of an elected representative body and the separation of powers. The project met with stubborn opposition from senators, ministers and other top dignitaries. Before Alexander's eyes was the example of his father, who was destroyed by the elite, whom he stubbornly opposed. Having already approved and begun the implementation of the Speransky project, the sovereign yielded to the pressure of those close to him and postponed the reforms until better times.

On August 6, 1809, a decree was issued "On the rules for the promotion to ranks in the civil service and on tests in the sciences for the production of collegiate assessors and state councilors." It provided that the condition for promotion to the rank of collegiate assessor (VIII class), along with length of service and the approval of superiors, was studying at one of the universities of the Russian Empire or passing a special exam there. For the production of state councilors (V class), the following were called mandatory conditions: ten years of service "with zeal and zeal"; at least two years in one of the named positions (counselor, prosecutor, governor of the office, or head of an expedition determined by the state); approval from superiors; successful study at the university or passing the relevant exam, confirmed by the certificate.

In a famous speech on the occasion of the opening of the Polish Sejm (1818), Alexander again promised to give a constitutional arrangement to all his subjects. The secret development of draft constitutions and peasant reform continued in his entourage until the end of the 1810s, although by 1812 the emperor had already lost his former interest in reform and sent Speransky into exile. The transformations continued only in the western provinces of the empire, where they did not meet with such fierce resistance from the nobility: for example, the peasants of the Baltic states were freed from personal serfdom, the Poles were granted a constitution, and the Finns were guaranteed the inviolability of the constitutional law of 1772.

In general, Alexander's reforms, from which so much was expected in society, turned out to be top-notch and, bogged down in compromises between noble groups, did not entail any significant restructuring of the state system.

Military reform

Count A. A. Arakcheev, ideologist of military settlements

If the first half of Alexander's reign was marked by liberal transformations, then in the second half the emphasis shifted to concerns about state security and "tightening the screws". The Napoleonic Wars convinced the emperor that in the conditions of recruitment, Russia was not able to quickly increase the size of the army in wartime and reduce it with the onset of peace. War Minister Arakcheev began to develop a military reform.

At the end of 1815, the proposed transformation finally took the form of military settlements. Arakcheev planned to create a new military-agricultural estate, which, on its own, could maintain and recruit a standing army without burdening the country's budget; the size of the army would be maintained at wartime levels. On the one hand, this made it possible to free the population of the country from the constant duty of maintaining the army, on the other hand, it made it possible to quickly cover the western border space from a possible invasion.

The first experience of the introduction of military settlements was obtained in 1810-1812 at the reserve battalion of the Yelets Musketeer Regiment, stationed in the Bobylevsky eldership of the Klimovsky district of the Mogilev province. In August 1816, preparations began for the transfer of troops and residents of other provinces to the category of military settlers. In 1817, settlements were introduced in the Novgorod, Kherson and Sloboda-Ukrainian provinces.

Until the end of the reign of Alexander I, the number of districts of military settlements continued to grow, gradually surrounding the border of the empire from the Baltic to the Black Sea. By 1825, there were 169,828 regular army soldiers and 374,000 state peasants and Cossacks in the military settlements. These settlements, which caused sharp criticism at the top and discontent at the bottom, were abolished only in 1857, with the beginning of the "great reforms". By this time, they numbered 800,000 people.

Forms of opposition

The introduction of military settlements met with stubborn resistance from the peasants and Cossacks, who were converted to military settlers. In the summer of 1819, an uprising broke out in Chuguev near Kharkov. In 1820, the peasants were agitated on the Don: 2556 villages were in revolt.

On October 16 (28), 1820, the head company of the Semyonovsky regiment filed a request to cancel the introduced strict procedures and change the regimental commander. The company was deceived into the arena, arrested and sent to the casemates of the Peter and Paul Fortress. The whole regiment stood up for her. The regiment was surrounded by the military garrison of the capital, and then sent in full force to the Peter and Paul Fortress. The first battalion was handed over to a military court, which sentenced the instigators to be driven through the ranks, and the rest of the soldiers to exile in distant garrisons. Other battalions were dispersed among various army regiments.

Under the influence of the Semyonovsky regiment, fermentation began in other parts of the capital's garrison: proclamations were distributed. In 1821, a secret police was introduced into the army. On August 1 (13), 1822, a decree was issued banning secret organizations and Masonic lodges.

As Alexander abandoned the policy of reforms and shifted his views towards reaction, secret officer organizations were formed, which received the name of the Decembrists in historiography: in 1816, the "Union of Salvation" was created, consisting of 30 officers, participants in the war with Napoleon, who sharply criticized Alexander I for an end to liberal reforms and those who insisted on basic democratic freedoms. In 1818, on the basis of the "Union of Salvation", the "Union of Welfare" was formed, which numbered more than 200 people and was more determined (elimination of the autocracy, serfdom, etc.).

In 1821, the Welfare Union announced its self-dissolution, and on its basis the Northern and Southern secret societies were created, the leaders of which had programs for revolutionary transformations. They hoped to seize power through a military coup in the capital (Northern Society) and support it in the provinces (Southern Society). After the mysterious death of Alexander I and the resulting interregnum, the Northern and Southern societies decided to oppose the new Emperor Nicholas I, which led to an open uprising in December 1825.

Foreign policy

War of the Third Coalition

In 1805, by concluding a series of treatises, a new anti-French coalition was actually formed, and on September 9 of the same year, Alexander left for the army. Although M. I. Kutuzov was listed as commander, in fact leading role Alexander began to play in decision-making. The emperor bears the main responsibility for the defeat of the Russian-Austrian army at Austerlitz, however, serious measures were taken against a number of generals: Lieutenant General A.F. Lanzheron was dismissed from service, Lieutenant General I. Ya. Przhibyshevsky and Major General I. A. Loshakov was put on trial, the Novgorod Musketeer Regiment was deprived of distinctions.

On November 22 (December 4), 1805, an armistice was concluded, according to which Russian troops were to leave Austrian territory. On June 8 (20), 1806, a Russian-French peace treaty was signed in Paris. In September 1806, Prussia started a war against France, and on November 16 (28), 1806, Alexander announced the Russian Empire's action against France. On March 16 (28), 1807, Alexander left for the army through Riga and Mitava, and on April 5 he arrived at the Headquarters of General L. L. Bennigsen. This time, Alexander interfered less than in the previous campaign in the affairs of the commander. After the defeat of the Russian army in the war, he was forced to negotiate peace with Napoleon.

Franco-Russian alliance

On June 25 (July 7), 1807, Alexander I concluded the Treaty of Tilsit with France, under the terms of which he recognized territorial changes in Europe, undertook to conclude a truce with Turkey and withdraw troops from Moldavia and Wallachia, join the continental blockade (severance of trade relations with England), provide Napoleon with troops for the war in Europe, as well as mediate between France and Great Britain. The British, in response to the Treaty of Tilsit, bombarded Copenhagen and took the Danish fleet away. On October 25 (November 6), 1807, Alexander announced the severance of trade ties with England. In 1808-1809, Russian troops successfully fought a war with Sweden, annexing Finland to the Russian Empire. On September 15 (27), 1808, Alexander I met with Napoleon in Erfurt and on September 30 (October 12), 1808 signed a secret convention, according to which, in exchange for Moldavia and Wallachia, he undertook to act jointly with France against Great Britain.

During the Franco-Austrian war of 1809, Russia, as an official ally of France, advanced the corps of General S.F. Golitsyn to the Austrian borders, which, however, did not conduct any active military operations and limited itself to meaningless demonstrations. In 1809, the alliance with France was broken.

Wars with other countries

The reason for the war with the Swedes was the refusal of the King of Sweden Gustav IV Adolf to the offer of Russia to join the anti-English coalition. On February 9 (21), 1808, the troops of F. F. Buksgevden invaded Finland. On March 16 war was declared.

Russian troops occupied Helsingfors (Helsinki), laid siege to Sveaborg, took the Aland Islands and Gotland, the Swedish army was forced out to the north of Finland. Under pressure from the English fleet, Aland and Gotland had to be abandoned. Buksgevden, on his own initiative, agreed to conclude a truce, which was not approved by the emperor.

In December 1808, Buxhoveden was replaced by O. F. Knorring. Emperor Alexander I ordered the new commander-in-chief to transfer the theater of war to the Swedish coast, taking the opportunity to move there on the ice. Knorring delayed the execution of the plan and remained inactive until mid-February. Alexander I, extremely dissatisfied with this, sent the Minister of War, Count Arakcheev, to Finland, who, arriving on February 20 in Abo, insisted on the speedy implementation of the highest will. On March 1, the army crossed the Gulf of Bothnia in three columns, the main one was commanded by P.I. Bagration. On September 5 (17), 1809, peace was concluded in the city of Friedrichsham:

• Finland and the Aland Islands passed to Russia (the Emperor of All Russia also became the Grand Duke of Finland);
• Sweden pledged to terminate the alliance with England and make peace with France and Denmark, join the continental blockade.

In 1806-1812, Russia waged war against Turkey, at the same time in 1804-1813 - a war with the Persians.

Patriotic War of 1812

On June 12 (24), 1812, when Napoleon's "Great Army" launched an invasion of Russia, Alexander was at General Bennigsen's ball at the Zakret estate near Vilna. Here he received a message about the beginning of the war. The next day the order was given to the army:

From a long time ago, WE noticed the hostile actions of the French Emperor against Russia, but we always hoped to reject them in meek and peaceful ways. Finally, seeing the incessant renewal of obvious insults, with all OUR desire to maintain silence, WE were forced to take up arms and gather OUR troops; but even then, still caressing reconciliation, they remained within the boundaries of OUR Empire, not violating the peace, but being only ready for defense. All these measures of meekness and peacefulness could not keep the tranquility we desired. The French Emperor, by attacking OUR troops at Kovne, opened the first war. And so, seeing him by no means adamant to the world, we have no choice but to call for help the Witness and Defender of Truth, the Almighty Creator of heaven, to put OUR forces against the forces of the enemy. I do not need to remind OUR leaders, generals and warriors of their duty and courage. Since ancient times, the blood of the Slavs has flowed in them with loud victories. Warriors! You defend faith, Fatherland, freedom. I'm with you. For a beginner God.

At the same time, a manifesto was issued on the beginning of the war with France, which ended with the words: "I will not lay down my arms until not a single enemy warrior remains in my kingdom." Alexander sent A. D. Balashov to Napoleon with a proposal to start negotiations on the condition that the French troops leave the empire. On June 13 (25) he left for Sventsiany. Arriving at the field army, he did not declare M. B. Barclay de Tolly commander in chief and thereby assumed command. Alexander approved the plan of defensive military operations and forbade peace negotiations until at least one enemy soldier remained on Russian soil.

The stay of Alexander and his retinue in the Drissa camp fettered the military leaders and made it difficult to make decisions. On the night of July 7 (19) in Polotsk, heeding the advice of Arakcheev and Balashov, he left the army for Moscow, from where he returned to St. Petersburg. After the expulsion of the French troops from Russia, on December 31, 1812 (January 12, 1813), Alexander issued a manifesto with the words: “The spectacle of the death of his troops is incredible! Who could do this?.. May we recognize God's providence in this great work.

Foreign campaigns of the Russian army. Congress of Vienna

Participated in the development of the campaign plan of 1813-1814. He was at the headquarters of the Main Army and was present at the main battles of the campaign of 1813 and 1814, leading the anti-French coalition. The day after the capture of Paris, on March 31 (April 12), 1814, he triumphantly entered the capital of France at the head of the allied troops.

In 1815, having overtaken the army by several crossings, he arrived in Paris and prevented the explosion of the Vienna Bridge prepared by the allies, built in honor of the capture of Vienna by Napoleon in 1806. He was one of the leaders of the Congress of Vienna (September 1814 - June 1815), which established a new European order.

In August 1815, near Vertu, on a vast plain near Mount Aimé (fr. Mont Aimé), the emperor held a general review of Russian troops before their return to their homeland (300 thousand soldiers and 85 thousand horses); the review remained in the memory of the French as a huge military parade of the winners of the completely defeated Napoleon and his army.

Expanding the boundaries

During the reign of Alexander I, the territory of the Russian Empire expanded significantly: Eastern and Western Georgia, Mingrelia, Imeretia, Guria, Finland, Bessarabia, most of Poland (which formed the Kingdom of Poland) passed into Russian citizenship. The entry of Finland into Russia was essentially an act to create a national state, which the Finns did not have before - at the Diet of Borgo in 1809, Alexander promised to keep unchanged the country's basic law, the "constitution", as he called it, adopted back in 1772 year. This Diet entrusted the Emperor of Russia with the functions that had previously been performed by the King of Sweden, who had been removed from power the day before. The western borders of the empire were finally established.

Personal life

Personality scores

An aristocrat and a liberal, at the same time mysterious and open, Alexander seemed to his contemporaries a mystery that everyone solves according to his own idea. Napoleon called him an "inventive Byzantine", northern Talma, an actor who is able to play any prominent role. “The Sphinx, not unraveled to the grave,” Vyazemsky said about him.

In his youth, Alexander Pavlovich - a tall, slender, handsome young man with blond hair and blue eyes - was the ruler of hearts. The contrast with his father seemed striking to his contemporaries. Having received an excellent upbringing and a brilliant education, he was fluent in three European languages. A follower of the revolutionary-minded La Harpe considered himself a “happy accident” on the throne of the kings and spoke with regret about the “state of barbarism in which the country was due to the serfdom”, but pretty soon got into the taste of autocratic rule. “He was ready to agree,” Prince Czartoryski wrote, “that everyone can be free if they freely do what he wanted.”

According to Metternich, Alexander I was an intelligent and insightful person, but "devoid of depth." He quickly and passionately took a great interest in various ideas, but also easily changed his hobbies. From childhood, Alexander got used to doing what both his grandmother (Catherine) and his father (Paul) liked, in whose characters there was little in common. “The harlequin is accustomed to counter-feelings, in the face and life,” Pushkin wrote about him. Modern historians confirm the validity of this observation:

Alexander lived with two minds, had two ceremonial guises, double manners, feelings and thoughts. He learned to please everyone - it was his innate talent, which ran like a red thread through his entire future life.

Women and children

From his youth, Alexander had a close and very personal relationship with his sister Ekaterina Pavlovna. In 1793 he married Louise Maria Augusta (1779-1826), daughter of Margrave Karl Ludwig of Baden, who adopted the name Elizaveta Alekseevna in Orthodoxy. Both of their daughters died in early childhood:

• Maria (1799-1800)
• Elizabeth (1806-1808)

Relations between Alexander and his wife were very cool. For 15 years, he was practically openly in touch with Maria Naryshkina (nee Chetvertinskaya) and was forced to break with her, only after making sure of her infidelity. After breaking up with Naryshkina, for some time he met in the Babolovsky Palace with the Portuguese Sophie Velho, the daughter of a court banker.

According to some estimates, Alexander could have had up to 11 illegitimate children from Naryshkina and other mistresses; other biographers consider it barren. Most often, Sophia Naryshkina and General Nikolai Lukash (illegitimate son of Sophia Vsevolozhskaya) are called his children.

Alexander was the godfather of the future Queen Victoria (named in honor of Tsar Alexandrina Victoria) and the architect Vitberg, who created the unrealized project of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior.

Religiosity and mysticism

In the year of Napoleon's invasion of Russia, under the influence of all the amazing events of that time, Alexander for the first time became keenly interested in the Christian religion. In the summer of 1812, on the advice of his longtime friend, Prince A. N. Golitsyn, he became addicted to reading the Bible; he was especially excited by the pages of the Apocalypse. This pietism was encouraged by the elderly widower R. A. Koshelev, to whom the emperor allocated a room in the Winter Palace. When the French ruled Moscow and the Kremlin burned, all three often prayed together, forming a kind of mystical union.

In December of the same year, Golitsyn and Koshelev organized the Bible Society, which encouraged the study and new translations of sacred texts. Representatives of exotic currents in Christianity rushed to Russia from Europe - Moravian brothers, Quakers, Bavarian preachers of ecstasy Lindl and Gosner. “This general tendency towards rapprochement with Christ the Savior is a real pleasure for me,” the emperor admitted to his new friends. When the Baltic authorities tried to make it difficult for the “non-Slavs” to worship, Alexander intervened personally:

Why disturb the tranquility of beings who are engaged only in prayers to the Eternal and do no harm to anyone? What do you care about someone who prays to God! It is better to pray in some way than not to pray at all.

During his stay in Europe in 1815, the sovereign was completely fascinated by Baroness Kridener. This "tearful preacher" from the Protestants immersed Alexander in the analysis of the movements of his restless soul; upon arriving in Russia, the baroness bombarded the "sovereign novice" with detailed letters on mystical topics, full of ornate expressions and vague conclusions, along with unambiguous requests for material payments. Meanwhile, the sectarian Tatarinova, who had recently taken part in the joys of the whips and the dances of the eunuchs, discovered in herself the gift of prophecy and, with the consent of the emperor, settled in the Mikhailovsky Castle, where the Minister of Spiritual Affairs Golitsyn also frequented "singing cantatas from the common speech".

Such a "union of all faiths in the bosom of universal Christianity" was explained by the emperor's desire to get closer to the truth through invisible communication with God's Providence; the spiritual rites of various confessions were to be united on the basis of "universal truth". The atmosphere of tolerance, unheard of before in the Russian Empire, outraged the church authorities, and in the first place the influential Archimandrite Photius. He was able to convince of the danger threatening Orthodoxy from high-ranking mystics, the emperor's favorite adjutant, F. P. Uvarov, and after that Arakcheev, who also began to worry about the unlimited influence of the Golitsyn clique. Photius considered the main "enemy of Orthodoxy and the insidious Illuminati" not Golitsyn, but Koshelev.

Obscurants Magnitsky and Runich, who were considered right hand Golitsyn in the Ministry of Education and the Bible Society, planted clericalism in universities and fired professors of the exact sciences for "atheism." Receiving from them secret denunciations of the "Illuminati", Arakcheev slowly collected dirt against Golitsyn. The behind-the-scenes struggle continued for several years and ended with the complete victory of the official church. At the instigation of Arakcheev and other persons close to the emperor, Baroness Kridener and Koshelev were removed from the court, all Masonic societies were banned and disbanded; in 1824, Prince Golitsyn was also forced to retire.

Last years

In the last two years of his life, having lost support in the form of Golitsyn and the mystics, Alexander was less and less interested in state affairs, which he entrusted to Arakcheev (“Arakcheevshchina”). He did not react in any way to reports of the spread of secret societies. The weariness of the burden of government, the apathy and pessimism of the emperor were such that they talked about his intention to abdicate the throne. Last year Alexander's life was overshadowed by the largest flood in the capital and the death of 16-year-old illegitimate daughter Sophia (the only child whom he secretly recognized as his and sincerely loved).

Until the end of his life, Alexander retained his passion for travel, which made him travel half of Russia and half of Europe, and died far from his capital. Two years before his death, he ordered to draw up a secret manifesto (August 16 (28), 1823), in which he accepted the abdication of his brother Konstantin from the throne and recognized him as the legitimate heir younger brother, Nicholas. Shortly before the trip to Taganrog, he visited Elder Alexy (Shestakov) at the Alexander Nevsky Lavra.

Death

Emperor Alexander died on November 19 (December 1), 1825 in Taganrog in the house of the mayor Papkov at the age of 47. Alexander Pushkin wrote an epitaph: " He spent his whole life on the road, caught a cold and died in Taganrog". In the house where the sovereign died, the first memorial museum in Russia named after him was organized, which existed until 1925.

The sudden death of the emperor, who had almost never been sick before, gave rise to a lot of rumors among the people (N.K. Schilder in his biography of the emperor cites 51 opinions that arose within a few weeks after Alexander's death). One of the rumors stated that " the sovereign fled under cover to Kyiv and there he will live in Christ with his soul and begin to give advice that the current sovereign Nikolai Pavlovich needs for better government».

Later, in the 1830s-1840s, a legend appeared that Alexander, allegedly tormented by remorse (as an accomplice in the murder of his father), staged his death far from the capital and began a wandering, hermit life under the name of Elder Fyodor Kuzmich (died on January 20 (1 February) 1864 in Tomsk). This legend appeared already during the lifetime of the Siberian elder and became widespread in the second half of the 19th century.

In the 20th century, unreliable rumors appeared that during the opening of the tomb of Alexander I in the Peter and Paul Cathedral, held in 1921, it was found that it was empty. Also in the Russian emigre press in the 1920s, a story by I. I. Balinsky about the history of the opening of the tomb of Alexander I in 1864, which turned out to be empty, appeared. In it, allegedly in the presence of Emperor Alexander II and the Minister of the Court Adlerberg, the body of a long-bearded old man was laid. According to the memoirs of Soviet astrophysicist Iosif Shklovsky, anthropologist Mikhail Gerasimov tried to get permission from the government to open the tomb of the emperor, but he was refused. According to Shklovsky, the body of Alexander I could have been treated in the same way as it was with the remains of Count Alexei Orlov-Chesmensky - on the basis of a secret decree of 1921, the grave of the count was disturbed in search of jewelry, but no valuables were found, and the body was thrown into a ditch.

At the beginning of the 21st century, the president of the Russian graphological society, Svetlana Semenova, and a number of handwriting experts stated that the handwriting of Alexander I and Fedor were identical.

The question of the identity of Fyodor Kuzmich and Emperor Alexander I has not been unequivocally determined by historians. The final answer to the question of whether Elder Theodore had anything to do with Emperor Alexander could only be a genetic examination, the possibility of which experts do not exclude Russian center forensic examination. Archbishop Rostislav of Tomsk spoke about the possibility of such an examination (the relics of the Siberian elder are kept in his diocese).

In the middle of the 19th century, similar legends appeared in relation to the wife of Alexander, Empress Elizabeth Alekseevna, who died after her husband in 1826. She was identified with the recluse of the Syrkov Monastery, Vera the Silent Woman, who first appeared in 1834 in the vicinity of Tikhvin.

• Order of St. Andrew the First-Called (December 20 (31), 1777)
• Order of St. Alexander Nevsky (December 20 (31), 1777)
• Order of St. Anne (December 20 (31), 1777)
• Order of St. John of Jerusalem (November 29 (December 10), 1798)
• Order of St. George 4th class (December 13 (25), 1805)
• Order of the White Eagle (Kingdom of Poland, 1815)
• Order of St. Stanislaus, 1st class (Kingdom of Poland, 1815)
• Order of Virtuti Militari 2nd class (Kingdom of Poland, 1815)

foreign:

• Military Order of Maria Theresa, Knight's Cross (Austria, 1815)
• Army Cross 1813/14 (Austria, 1815)
• Order of Saint Hubert (Kingdom of Bavaria, 1813)
• Order of Fidelity (Grand Duchy of Baden)
• Order of the Garter (Great Britain, 28 September (10 October) 1813)
• Order of the Württemberg Crown (Kingdom of Württemberg)
• Order of Military Merit (Kingdom of Württemberg)
• Order of the Elephant (Denmark, 1814)
• Order of the Golden Fleece (Spain, 1812)
• Military Order of Wilhelm 1st Class (Netherlands, 1815)
• Order of Saint Januarius (Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, 1814)
• Constantine Order of Saint George, Grand Cross (Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, 1815)
• Order of Saint Ferdinand and Merit, Grand Cross (Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, 1815)
• Triple Order (Portugal, 1824)
• Order of the Tower and Sword, Grand Cross (Portugal)
• Iron Cross 2nd Class (Prussia, 1813)
• Order of the Red Eagle 1st class (Prussia, 1813)
• Order of the Black Eagle (Prussia, 1815)
• 1813 Campaign Medal (Prussia)
• Order of the White Falcon (Grand Duchy of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach)
• Supreme Order of the Holy Annunciation (Kingdom of Sardinia, 1815)
• Order of the Legion of Honor, Grand Cross (France, June 28 (July 10), 1807)
• Order of Our Lady of Carmel and Saint Lazarus of Jerusalem (France, 1814)
• Order of the Holy Spirit (France, June 28 (July 10), 1815)
• Order of Saint Louis (France, June 28 (July 10), 1815)
• Order of the Seraphim with a chain (Sweden, 16 (27) November 1799)
• Order of the Sword 1st class (Sweden, 1815)

Memory of Alexander I

As shown in modern scientific literature, the sources of the formation of the historical memory of Alexander I are diverse (including literary and journalistic texts, audiovisual sources, network content), and the image formed in the mass historical consciousness is very contradictory, and Emperor Alexander is even called "painful dot" of Russian historical memory.

Named after Alexander

• Alexander Column on Palace Square in St. Petersburg.
• Alexanderplatz - one of the most famous squares in Berlin, until 1945 - the main square of the city.
• Land of Alexander I in Antarctica, discovered during his reign in 1821 by a Russian round-the-world expedition under the command of F. F. Bellingshausen.
• In Helsinki, in honor of Alexander I, the Aleksanterinkatu street is named, on which the building of the State Council is located.
• Alexander Garden is a park in the center of Moscow. The date of foundation on the site of the Neglinnaya River is considered to be 1812. It is located on the northwest side of the Kremlin in the area of ​​Kitay-Gorod. The area of ​​the garden is about 10 hectares.
• Aleksandrovsky Park - a park in the Petrogradsky district of St. Petersburg. One of the first public parks in the city.
• Fort "Emperor Alexander I" is one of the long-term defensive structures included in the defense system of Kronstadt. Located on a small artificial island south of Kotlin Island.
• In Yekaterinburg, in honor of the visit of the city by Alexander I (the emperor visited the city in 1824), Alexandrovsky prospect(since 1919 Decembrists Street) and Royal Bridge(on the same street across the Iset River, wooden from 1824, stone from 1890, still preserved).
• Aleksandrovskaya Street - named after Emperor Alexander I, who often visited Oranienbaum.
• Aleksandrovskaya Street - named after Emperor Alexander I, who died in Taganrog.
• Alexander Square - a monument to the emperor was erected on the square, recreated for the 300th anniversary of Taganrog according to the drawings preserved in St. Petersburg.

monuments

The victorious Patriotic War of 1812 fell on the reign of Alexander, and many monuments dedicated to the victory in that war were somehow connected with Alexander.

• Monument to Alexander I in Taganrog (sculptor I.P. Martos, architect A.I. Melnikov, 1831).
• Near the walls of the Moscow Kremlin, in the Alexander Garden, on November 20, 2014, a monument to Emperor Alexander I was unveiled, the President of Russia V.V. Putin and Patriarch Kirill took part in the ceremony.
• Monument to the Emperor of All Russia Alexander I and the Crown Prince of Sweden Karl Johan (dedicated to the historical meeting in August 1812), Turku, Finland, (2012; sculptor A. N. Kovalchuk).
• Bronze bust in Helsinki on the Senate Square, from the outside of the university library building.
• Bronze bust on the territory of Nikolo-Berlyukovsky monastery in the village of Avdotyino, Moscow Region (ceremonially opened on September 28, 2012; sculptor A. A. Appolonov).
• Imperial column in honor of Emperor Alexander I in the Arkhangelskoye estate.
• Column of two emperors in the Vyborg Mon Repos park.
• Marble stele of 1851, crowned with a double-headed gilded eagle, in Evpatoria, on the territory of the Karaite temple complex.
• Monument-bust in the village of Panikovets, Lipetsk region.
• Monument-bust on the territory of the Tula Cadet Corps of Rescuers.
• Monument in Teplice (Czech Republic).

In numismatics

• In 2012 the Central Bank Russian Federation A coin was issued (2 rubles, nickel-plated steel) from the series "Commanders and Heroes of the Patriotic War of 1812" with a portrait of Emperor Alexander I on the reverse.

Educational institutions

• Petersburg State University means of communication of Emperor Alexander I
• College "Imperial Alexander Lyceum".

In music

• Piano Concerto No. 1 op. 61 Friedrich Kalkbrenner written for the 10th anniversary of the defeat of Napoleon I Bonaparte in the Russian campaign and the Battle of the Nations and is dedicated to "Alexander I, Emperor of All Russia."

Movie incarnations

Alexander I Pavlovich - "Cunning Angel". Documentary film from the series "Russian Tsars"

• Vladimir Maksimov ("Decembrists", USSR, 1926).
• Neil Hamilton (The Patriot, 1928)
• Georgy Kranert ("Youth of the poet" of the USSR, 1936).
• N. Timchenko (Kutuzov, USSR, 1943).
• Mikhail Nazvanov (“Ships storm the bastions”, USSR, 1953).
• Jean-Claude Pascal ("The Beautiful Liar", France - Germany, 1959).
• Victor Murganov ("War and Peace", USSR, 1967; "Bagration", USSR, 1985).
• Donald Douglas (War and Peace, UK, 1972).
• Boris Dubensky ("Star of Captivating Happiness", USSR, 1975).
• Andrey Tolubeev (“Russia”, Great Britain, 1986; “That is a man, then a woman”, USSR, 1989).