There was no doubt that Nicholas I loved both order and duty, both attributes that he learned in his father's household (Tsar Paul I), which was run along very military lines. (I can't remember any right now, but there used to be all these colorful anecdotes about the way that Paul's household was run, inspecting the chickens, checking on the precise cutting of the grass, etc.) Note also that Nicholas did not grow up with his two older brothers, Alexander and Konstantin, who were pretty much raised by Catherine the Great away from the influence of the father.
As tsar, Nicholas felt a profound sense of duty to his country.
Duty! Yes, this is no empty word for those who since their youth have become accustomed to understand it as I do. This word has a holy meaning before which every personal consideration retreats. (Theodor Schiemann, Geschichte Russlands unter Kaiser Nikolaus I, 4 vols. (Berlin, 1904-09), 4: 209.)
The tsar also loved "order."
Here [in the army] there is order, a strict unconditional legality, no one claiming to know all the answers, no contradictions, everything flows logically one from the other; no one commands before he himself has learned to obey; no one steps in front of anybody else without lawful reason; everything is subordinated to one definite goal, everything has its purpose. That is why I feel so well among these people, and why I shall always hold in honor the calling of a soldier. I consider all of human life to be merely service. (Nikolai Shil'der, Imperator Nikolai Pervyi, 2 vols. (St. Petersburg, 1903), 1: 147.)
One thing that you could not say about Nicholas I was that he was lazy. He did work hard from morning to night, trying to keep abreast of all matters in his realm; yes, he tended to micromanage. And as Professor Blois has noted, he did try to improve the functioning of the bureaucracy and also to enact some modest reforms.
Another interesting aspect of the reign of Nicholas I was that the government actually subscribed to a definite ideological orientation (and educated society began to develop a different one, which we will cover in the next unit).
When Sergei Uvarov (1786-1855) became minister of education in 1833, a post that he held until 1849, he derived the tripartite formula that was to serve as the "motto" of the regime and as a guide for the education of Russia: "Orthodoxy, Autocracy and Nationality" or, in other words, "Altar, Throne and Fatherland." (In Russian, the words "православие, самодержавие, народность" (pravoslavie, samoderzhavie, narodnost') have slightly different connotations than the English words.) This formula has come to be known as "Official Nationality." One could understand these elements as: Orthodoxy--a source of spiritual strength and unity (plus obedience); Autocracy--the unity of a single patriarchal tsar ruling the giant empire (plus obedience to the father); Nationality--the unity of the Russian community (plus obedience to Russia for all the non-Russians).
Uvarov did work hard to improve the Russian educational system to bring it up to a level equal to that of what existed in Western Europe at the time. He expanded the secondary school system and upgraded the program of studies there. He also worked to introduce the study of Russia itself and also to expand more scientific and technical subjects in the university system. And Russian universities did flourish in the 1840s. All this laid the foundation for what would later be called the "Marvelous Decade."
It was kind of interesting that the Russian government would come up with a formal ideology to justify its existence and give it purpose, but the idea of "official nationality" did not go much beyond Nicholas himself and some sympathetic intellectuals, and I am not sure how much Nicholas himself ever bought into the ideology since he was not a very theoretical/intellectual person.
If you are interested, you can read the chapter from my Ph.D.. dissertation that deals with Nicholas I.
Some recommended books
- W. Bruce Lincoln, Nicholas I: Emperor and Autocrat of all the Russias (1978)
- August Freiherr von Haxthausen, Studies on the Interior of Russia (1847-52)
- Marquis de Custine, Journey for Our Time (1843)
- Nikolai Gogol, The Inspector General (1836)
- T. J. Binyon, Pushkin (2002)
Some recommended websites
- There were once one or more lectures by the late Professor Michael Boro Petrovich (University of Wisconsin) relevant to this unit available on the web. I am hoping that they will reappear one day. If you are really interested, then you can use this link to search on the Wayback machine for those lectures. You can then figure out how to play the audio.
- Have a look at a A French Description of Nicholas I or A French Description of Corporal and other Punishments in Russia Under Nicholas I.
- Nikolai Gogol could be a fantastic story teller, see, for example, A Terrible Revenge (aka "A Terrible Vengeance"; I had a website for this, but it is now down. See if you can find a citation for me.) or A May Evening
- Mikhail Lermontov, who, like Pushkin, died as a result of a duel, was both an important novelist and a talented poet, for example, A Song about Tsar Ivan Vasilyevish, the Young Bodyguard, and the Valorous Merchant Kalashnikov. Take a look at his portrait and then read his poem Death of a Poet (Smert poeta, 1837) which was written in memory of Pushkin; you can also listen to a reading of this poem.
- Excerpts from Petr Chaadaev's Philosophical Letters Addressed to a Lady are online.
- Aleksandr Pushkin, Russia's national poet died as a result of a duel. The Alexander Pushkin site has some translations, commentary and links to more Pushkin pages. Some of his work is available online in translation: The Prophet, I Loved You Once, The Tale of Tsar Saltan. (There are also other small collections of Pushkin's poems on the web.) Then there is "The Bronze Horseman" (probably one of Russia's most celebrated poems), which you can also listen to a version by Lorna Paperno (with annotations). The poem is also at www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/pushkin/bronze_horseman.html (translation by Yevgeny Bonver). Also, have a look at Alexander Pushkin in English translation by Michale Keller. Finally, you can also listen to some of Pushkin's poems (I recommend I Loved You Once; The Prophet; Remembrance).
- Alan Kimball, University of Oregon, "The Stroganov Family and Their Art Collection"