ALEXANDER I

ALEXANDER I (1777–1825; ruled 1801–1825), emperor of Russia.

At his birth on 23 December (12 December, old style) 1777, Alexander was removed from his parents—the future emperor Paul I (r. 1796–1801) and the Grand Duchess Maria Fyodorovna—by his grandmother, the reigning empress Catherine II (r. 1762–1796). He was an impressionable youth and eagerly absorbed the writings chosen for him by his tutor, Frédéric-César de la Harpe, a Swiss republican. At the same time, the young Alexander was influenced by his visits to the military maneuvers organized by Paul at his establishment at Gatchina. It has been claimed that this is when Alexander learned the art of dissimulation as he had to please both his grandmother and father. Alexander certainly suffered from moments of self-doubt during his reign, but this does not mean that he was either weak or fundamentally inconsistent in his aims and principles. He came to the throne in March 1801, following the assassination of his father, an event that haunted him the rest of his life.

Alexander's foreign policy underwent various shifts, but he was consistent in his belief that Russia had a key role to play in Europe. This led him to propose an ambitious scheme to Britain in 1804 that the two countries should together determine a settlement for Europe. When this was rejected, Alexander became a major player in the formation of the Third Coalition against Napoleon I. Alexander took part in the battle, and defeat, of Austerlitz in 1805, and was fortunate to escape capture. He had to come to terms with Napoleon at the Treaties of Tilsit in 1807. The invasion of Russia by Napoleonic forces in 1812 presented Alexander with the greatest test of his reign, during which he underwent a spiritual experience. Alexander remained steadfast in his refusal to negotiate with Napoleon after the occupation of Moscow in 1812. The Russian invasion was the turning point in the Napoleonic Wars. Russia played a leading role in the victorious Fourth Coalition against France, and Alexander led the triumphant Russian troops into Paris in March 1814. The subsequent Congress of Vienna (1814–1815) was dominated by Russian ambitions and reflected Russia's newfound strength. Not only did Russia acquire new territory (the Congress Kingdom of Poland was formally joined to Russia through the person of the tsar), but Alexander was also able to force almost all other major European powers to adhere to his vision of Europe as expressed in the Holy Alliance, a union of rulers who would maintain order and peace through the application of Christian principles. Alexander continued to play a significant role in European congresses between 1818 and 1822.

Alexander expressed interest in social and political reform throughout his reign. He had a personal abhorrence for serfdom and praised the merits of constitutionalism (to Thomas Jefferson, among others). In the early years of his reign, he encouraged discussion of social and political reform by a group of radical young friends, known as the "Unofficial Committee." He later commissioned plans for constitutional reform by Mikhail Speransky and then Nikolai Novosiltsev. Proposals for the introduction of representative institutions became linked with the question of the rights of serfs, but Alexander also commissioned separate plans for the abolition of serfdom. Alexander introduced a constitution into the Congress Kingdom of Poland and abolished serfdom in the Baltic provinces. But Alexander was always protective of his own power and reluctant to allow any other institution to limit his freedom of action. He could not risk alienating the Russian nobility by abolishing serfdom against their wishes. Alexander was also conscious of the backwardness of Russia compared with other central and western European countries, and with western and non-Russian areas of the empire, and came to the conclusion that Russia was insufficiently mature for constitutional experiments. Revolts in the Italian and Iberian Peninsulas after 1820, and what he perceived as the obstructiveness of the Polish diet, also made him less certain that constitutions ensured the peaceful and orderly rule that he had sought for both Russia and other European countries.

The Napoleonic Wars transformed Russia's great-power status and established her as the dominant military power in continental Europe. Domestically, however, Alexander did not implement any major social or political reforms. It was the contrast between Russia's newfound international status and the perceived stagnation domestically at a time of fundamental changes elsewhere that was at the root of the rising discontent among young, educated, radical Russians and that led to the formation of secret societies in the last years of Alexander's reign, and then an abortive attempt at an uprising (known as the Decembrist revolt) following his death on 1 December (19 November, old style) 1825.

See alsoAusterlitz; Congress of Vienna; French Revolutionary Wars and Napoleonic Wars; Russia; Speransky, Mikhail.

bibliography

Hartley, Janet M. Alexander I. London, 1994.

McConnell, Allen. Tsar Alexander I: Paternalistic Reformer. New York, 1970.

Palmer, Alan. Alexander I: Tsar of War and Peace. London, 1974.

Janet Hartley