Alexander, I, Tsar of Russia (1777-1825)

Born: December 12, 1777
Died: November 19, 1825
Occupation: Tsar

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Russian tsar

Russian Tsar who defeated Napoleon and attempted to bring constitutional reforms to his country.

Despite the important events that took place during the reign of Tsar Alexander I of Russia, biographers have never agreed on the meaning of Alexander and of his actions. Consequently, he has been called by some historians the "enigmatic tsar" or the "sphinx."

The difficult nature of Alexander's personality can perhaps be traced to the tense circumstances surrounding his childhood. During the long reign of his grandmother, the Empress Catherine II, the Great (1762-96), the question arose about who would succeed her as ruler of Russia. Relations between the Empress and her son Paul, the heir apparent, were stormy and mutually distrusting. Rumors linked Catherine with the suspicious deaths of Paul's father Tsar Peter III in 1762 and another claimant to the throne, Ivan VI, in 1764. To make rumors worse, rumors circulated that Catherine wanted to disinherit Paul and name Paul's son Alexander as heir apparent.

As a young boy, Alexander walked the line between his dueling relatives. In front of Catherine, he would sincerely support his grandmother's ideas about governing Russia according to the popular 18th-century principles of Enlightenment. Originating from France, the Enlightenment spoke of the importance of ruling in a lawful and orderly fashion. These ideas would eventually inspire the American Revolution in 1776 and the French Revolution in 1789. In front of Paul, Alexander would patiently listen to his father's open expressions of hatred against Catherine's rule. "This self-mastery and this faculty of concealing his feelings were the fundamental traits of Alexander's character throughout his life," noted Alexander's physician in 1823. This skill of diplomacy was later used when he negotiated one-on-one with the great leaders of Europe: Napoleon of France and Metternich of Austria. Though he tried to remain neutral in the intrigues between his grandmother and father, Alexander could not escape the politics of the Russian court.

Since Catherine wanted to cultivate Alexander as a potential heir, she personally took charge of his education. To this end, she kept the boy away from his parents and imported a French-speaking tutor from Switzerland by the name of La Harpe. Teacher and student soon formed a close friendship that would last for many years. Alexander grew to enjoy an Enlightenment education that stressed the importance of equal rights; so much so that he was rumored to be disappointed that his Empress-grandmother did not do more to provide for the general liberty of all subjects by establishing a constitution or bill of rights for Russia. Unfortunately, Alexander's education did not include any experience in governing the Empire; Catherine never commissioned him to occupy any official position within the Russian government.

Such a free-spirited upbringing contrasted sharply with life at Gatchina, a suburb of St. Petersburg (then the capital of Russia), where Alexander's father kept his main residence. Partially out of spite for his mother's predilections and fashions, Grand Duke Paul distrusted anything French, preferring instead to run a very harsh household modeled on the strict military discipline of the powerful neighboring German state of Prussia. In the palace of the Grand Duke, Alexander had to stand witness when the slightest mistake by a servant or soldier would result in punishment by lashing. Nonetheless, Alexander absorbed this trait from his father and would later earn the nickname "the parading tsar," because of his love for military display.

When Alexander reached 16, Catherine arranged his marriage to the German Princess Luisa of Baden, who then took the Russian name Elizaveta or Elizabeth. One of his longtime friends Prince Czartoryski observed that from this point on, Alexander never had the time to finish a book because the Russian court was a "fatiguing, yet idle" way of life in which one was "constantly busy in doing nothing."

But Catherine the Great died unexpectedly in 1796, before she could finalize any changes in the status of the heir apparent, and Paul began his short and turbulent rule (1796-1801) as tsar. One of his first acts was to change the law of succession (1797). Nobles and courtiers could no longer conspire about whom to make the next tsar because the first-born male would automatically become heir apparent. Thus, Alexander would inherit a position that he longed to forsake. He would have preferred to retire to one of the royal estates with his new wife or travel abroad to live in the German Rhine valley (his wife's homeland) where he could continue his studies as an amateur naturalist. Alexander once wrote that a man of "ordinary capabilities" like himself would have quite a difficult time being tsar. But his tyrannical father would never hear of Alexander abdicating his responsibility.

A violent temper and rumors of mental instability won Tsar Paul many enemies. Count Nikita P. Panin, a prominent noble, suggested that Paul be retired from his official duties. When Paul refused to abdicate, he was strangled by a group of officers in the course of an 1801 palace revolution. Although Alexander had been involved in the conspiracy, he thought the conspirators intended only to force his father to abdicate, not to kill him.


Alexander Ascends to the Throne

Upon ascending the throne, Alexander declared that he wanted to rule Russia in the "spirit and wisdom" of his grandmother's philosophy; he envisioned sweeping reforms. In theory, Russia was governed by the tsar, who had supreme or autocratic power over every aspect of government. Several institutions known as the Senate and the Colleges, the members of which were tsar appointed, assisted in governing. Instead, Alexander wanted to give Russia a constitution that would guarantee the rights of every Russian citizen and outline responsibilities of a new government with elected representatives. He even sought the advice of the U.S. president, Thomas Jefferson, on how to establish such a constitution. It was reported that the new Tsar walked the streets of the capital unaccompanied and spoke with his subjects as equals. To discuss proposals for reform, Alexander and his close friends formed the Unofficial Committee, whose meetings were often held over coffee in an informal setting at the Winter Palace (the tsar's residence in St. Petersburg). During the two years of its activity, the Unofficial Committee provided the young and inexperienced Alexander with practical knowledge. One of the first issues that the Committee tackled was the reorganization of the government. Alexander wanted his administration to operate in an orderly fashion as opposed to the often chaotic and overlapping Collegiate system. To this end, he established in 1802 eight ministries with clearly defined jurisdictions: War, Navy, Foreign Affairs, Internal Affairs, Commerce, Finance, Education, and Justice.

The final details of how the ministries would absorb the duties of the former Colleges were worked on by one of Alexander's most brilliant advisors, Michael M. Speransky. This ministerial organization was to last in almost unchanged form until thethe. Speransky worked out a system whereby the Senate would preserve its duties as a sort of high court, and Russia would receive a legislature with two houses: the State Council, whose members were appointed by the tsar, and the Duma (assembly), whose members were to be elected. An elected Duma in Russia, however, was not installed until the revolutionary turmoil of 1905. But Speransky was a better lawmaker than a politician, and he made many enemies in high levels of government who would force his dismissal in 1812.

Alexander and his Unofficial Committee became a forum for two other major reforms during the early part of his reign: educational and economic. To provide trained personnel, he increased the number of schools at all levels. According to the charter of 1804, the Russian Empire would now include--in addition to its three existing universities--three new schools: the Universities of St. Petersburg, Kazan and Kharkov, which have lasted to the present day. The agricultural economy was also in need of reform. At the turn of the 19th century, about 5% of Russia's 40 million people lived in cities; the rest of the population was primarily engaged in farming. About half of Russia's farmers were peasants who rented small lots from the Russian government and the imperial family; the rest were serfs, a type of indentured servant, farming for a landlord who then sold most of the harvest for personal profit. Serfdom has been compared in severity to the system of plantations and slavery in the United States before the Civil War. Alexander wanted to free all farmers, allow them to own their land, and give them freedom of movement. According to his manifesto of 1803, a landlord was given the right to allow serfs to buy freedom and land for their own development. Nevertheless, in the years before the complete abolishment of serfdom in 1861, this measure freed only about 115,000 serfs or a little less than 1% of the total indentured population.

Since Alexander failed in these initial years to publish a constitution for Russia and to quickly free all serfs, his efforts for reform may come across as insincere. In the opinion of his critics, he was a man who jealously guarded his autocratic privilege and did not truly intend to help Russia with a constitution. They point to his establishing press censorship in 1804 and secret police in 1805 to spy against those who disagreed with his use of power.

Nicholas M. Karamzin, a contemporary of Alexander and the first great historian of modern Russia, attacked Alexander by arguing that the former Collegiate system had been a more satisfactory governing body than the newly formed ministerial government, which he saw as being too bureaucratic. Though the shortcomings of his reign were many, Alexander did take his responsibility as tsar very seriously. Originally, he planned to give Russia a stable and fair political system and only afterwards, abdicate and return to private life; but a variety of circumstances prevented him from fulfilling that dream.


At War with Napoleon

The rapid domination of Europe by France's emperor, Napoleon, began to alarm Alexander and his allies--Austria and Prussia. During the battles of Austerlitz (present-day Slavkov in the Czech Republic) in 1805 and Friedland in 1807, Russia suffered tragic losses. Napoleon, however, felt that his armies were too exhausted to pursue the retreating Russian armies. So in 1807, Alexander and Napoleon negotiated the treaty of Tilsit. Using his skills as a diplomat, Alexander convinced Napoleon that Russia was the faithful and loyal ally of France: "The union of France with Russia has been constantly the object of my wishes. . . ." Overwhelmed and flattered, Napoleon thought Alexander's friendship to be genuine. The Tsar then persuaded the French Emperor to make no demands on Russia other than participation in Napoleon's Continental System of trade, which forbade any commerce with Napoleon's longtime rival, England. According to the peace treaty, France and her allies would withdraw from Russia, while Russia would gain the Polish city of Bialystok. At home, many considered Alexander's new alliance with Napoleon a disaster. Russia's economy was anchored on strong commercial ties with England, which consumed large volumes of Russian products such as wheat, wool, and iron. But Alexander correctly concluded that he had "gained time." Russia would need as much time as possible to regroup its armies for the future conflict with Napoleon's Empire.

Inevitably, Russia had to relax its observance of the stifling Continental System as it slowly resumed trade with England, and relations with France soured. In 1812, when Napoleon invaded Russia, Alexander rushed to rally his people to their country's defense. After Napoleon had captured Moscow, in the heart of Russia, Alexander proclaimed:


Russia will not surrender the treasures of her laws, her religion, and independence. She is ready to shed the last drop of her blood in their defense.

His skill as an inspiring leader was instrumental in winning the necessary human and financial support from his Russian subjects to destroy Napoleon. Instead of driving Napoleon out of Russia, the Tsar decided to go further: to pursue him back to France, if necessary. The Russians scorched everything in Napoleon's path of advance--even Moscow was burned--to prevent the French from benefiting from anything Russian. Weakened by the winter cold and the continual Russian guerilla warfare, Napoleon's armies eventually retreated from Moscow. In the ensuing chase of the French, Alexander's armies saved not only Russia, but the rest of Europe, from continued Napoleonic aggression. After capturing Paris, Alexander required that Napoleon surrender and abdicate.


Alexander Sponsors Holy Alliance

Alexander's victorious march through Europe had a profound effect on him; he turned to mysticism and religion as guiding principles for restoring peace and order in Russia and Europe. In 1817, he appointed a fellow mystic and president of the Russian Bible Society, Prince Alexander N. Golytsin, as minister of education. Even after the Tsar's death in 1825, rumors would circulate that he had not really died, but had escaped to Siberia under the name Fyodor Kuzmich to live the ascetic life of a monk. In Europe, Alexander was the key to the formation in 1815 of the Holy Alliance, a union of Christian monarchs dedicated to protecting the general peace and the legitimacy of ruling monarchs against revolutionary turmoil. He described this alliance as a sort of United Nations:


When peace is made, a new treaty should . . . lay down a sort of new code of international law which, being sanctioned by the greater part of the European States, would, if violated by any one of them, bind the others to turn against the offender and make good the evil he has committed.

Although most European states joined the Holy Alliance, they did not treat it seriously. Instead, the Congress of Vienna and the Quintuple Alliance of Austria, England, France, Prussia, and Russia, became the effective means for restoring order after the collapse of Napoleon's Europe.

In foreign relations, Alexander eagerly promoted constitutional government and respect for the law. When Russia took Finland from Sweden in 1809, Alexander kept Finnish laws almost intact. He also expressed his approval that the new king of France, Louis XVIII, was a constitutional monarch. After the Napoleonic wars ended, Alexander supported the efforts of Poland, now under Russian rule, to establish its own constitution and parliament (sejm). Sometimes, however, Alexander found that a straightforward application of his principles of foreign policy was impossible, if not contradictory. When Greece was fighting in the early 1820s for its independence from the Ottoman Empire (Turkey), Alexander, on the one hand, sympathized as a member of the Holy Alliance with his Christian comrades in Greece against their Muslim oppressors, the Ottoman Turks. On the other hand, out of his respect for law and order, Alexander felt that the Greeks were out of line in revolting because the revolutionaries were breaking the laws of the Ottoman Empire.

After the Napoleonic wars, when Alexander again turned his attention to internal Russian affairs, the momentum behind his reforms slowed in comparison to the earlier years. During the last decade of his reign, he entrusted General Alexis A. Arakcheev to act as his primary minister in directing the government. Frustrated with the opposition to his reforms, Alexander preferred to focus on foreign affairs, an area in which he met with his greatest success. Though he had stepped back from governing, he was well aware of what was happening in domestic affairs. Arakcheev's powers were extensive, but he was no dictator; rather, he was an obedient servant whose only work ethic was to satisfy the wishes of his master.

The major domestic program of Alexander's later years concentrated on founding military colonies. Since the Russian treasury could no longer maintain the large armies necessary to preserve Russia's dominance in international relations, Alexander settled soldiers, along with their families, as farmers on homesteads. This early attempt at state socialism might have worked if Alexander had not placed such emphasis on making the military settlements profitable. The organization of these colonies reflected the Tsar's personality: his orientation to frugality and discipline. In light of the strict regimen of training, the soldiers did not have the energy to make the colonies self-sufficient, providing for their own food and uniforms. The burdens placed upon the colonists were so great that this system rapidly declined after the Tsar's death.

Traditionally, historical accounts of Alexander's reign are divided into two parts: liberal (1801-15) and conservative (1816-25). Based on his hesitation to grant an immediate constitution, one group of historians concludes that weakness and timidity allowed the liberal half of Alexander's rule to slide into a more conservative, reactionary period. Another line of criticism asserts that Alexander's efforts at liberal reform were aimed at winning popular support. Yet another evaluation proposes that the issue is not whether Alexander was timid or hollow, but rather that Alexander soon learned that his office as supreme autocrat of Russia was incapable of speedily implementing reforms. Even as late as 1820, Alexander was still asking a friend and advisor to present him with a tentative draft for a Russian constitution.

During this last half of Alexander's reign, many of the officers who had served abroad during the Napoleonic wars brought back with them admiration for liberal constitutional government. To fight off the onslaught of the Napoleonic armies, Russia had to unite in new ways. Tolstoy's novel War and Peace is an excellent account of the spirit that brought landlord, military officer, peasant, and serf together on a national scale to fight a common enemy. Through this newfound unity, the liberal ideas of returning soldiers trickled down to other levels of society. But no constitution ever appeared, and the officer corps grew impatient. Since Alexander was not moving fast enough to enact liberal reforms, many of these soldiers were instrumental in founding secret societies to expedite the process; some advocated overthrowing the present autocratic regime. Alexander knew about the activities of these societies through his secret police, but took no action out of sympathy, perhaps, for their ideas.

Since Alexander's marriage with Elizabeth produced only one daughter, who had died in infancy, by the law of succession his eldest brother Constantine was to inherit the throne. But Constantine abdicated his responsibilities to the next brother in line, Nicholas. Perhaps to avoid intrigue at court, Alexander kept the abdication of Constantine a secret. So when Alexander died suddenly on November 19, 1825, just before his 48th birthday, confusion ensued regarding succession. The secret societies took this opportunity to stage a revolution for a more liberal government. Unlike the palace revolution of 1801, in which the leading strata of society united in their effort to depose the hated regime of Tsar Paul I, the much more popular regime of Alexander I did not inflame widespread discontent. Thus, about a month after Alexander's death, Nicholas was able to find the support to take firm control as the next tsar. Nicholas I quickly repressed the rebels, or Decembrists as they were called, after their ill-fated revolution. But the rift in Russian society between the more conservative elements who supported the rule of Alexander and Nicholas and those who were more liberally inclined toward greater reforms continued to grow.

FURTHER READINGS


Czartoryski, Adam. Memoirs of Prince Adam Czartoryski and His Correspondence with Alexander I. 2 vols. Edited by A. Gielgud. London: Remmington & Co., 1888.

Eroshkin, Nikolai P. Istoriia gosudarstvennykh uchrezhdenii dorevoliutsionnoi Rossii. Moscow, 1983.

Flynn, James T. The University Reform of Tsar Alexander I, 1802-1835. Catholic University of America Press, 1988.

Karamzin, Nikolai M. Karamzin's Memoir on Ancient and Modern Russia. Translated by R. Pipes. Atheneum, 1986.

Kliuchevskii, Vasilii O. Sochineniia: kurs russkoi istorii. Vol. 5. Moscow, 1958.

Kornilov, Alexander. Modern Russian History. Vol. 1. Translated by A.S. Kaun. Knopf, 1948.

McConnell, Allen. Tsar Alexander I: Paternalistic Reformer. Crowell, 1970.

Raeff, Michael. Michael Speransky: Statesman of Imperial Russia, 1772-1839. The Hague, 1957.

Walsh, Warren B., ed. Readings in Russian History. Vol. II. Syracuse University Press, 1963.

Wortman, Richard. "Images of Rule and Problems of Gender in the Upbringing of Paul I and Alexander I," in Imperial Russia, 1700-1917. Edited by E. Mendelsohn & M. Shatz. Northern Illinois University Press, 1988.

Almedingen, Edith. Emperor Alexander I. London, 1964.

Mikhailovich, Nicholas, Grand Duke of Russia, ed. Scenes of Russian Court Life, Being the Correspondence of Alexander I with his Sister Catherine. Translated by H. Havelock. Jarrolds Ltd. (n.d.).

Paleologue, Maurice. The Enigmatic Tsar: The Life of Alexander I. London, 1938.

Tolstoy, Leo N. War and Peace.