Russia. A History

Catherine the Great succumbed to a stroke on 17 November 1796. Her final years were marked by bitterness and political repression, but without any fundamental retreat from the tenets of enlightened absolutism. Her love-affairs, always semi-public, took on the aura of scandal, while unpopular favourites such as Platon Zubov garnered unwonted influence on public policy. The legislative fervour of her earlier reign was gone, and Catherine’s self-construction as a reforming ruler could not adjust to the new political antinomies of revolution and legitimacy. Her son, Paul I, shared none of her commitments to reform and progress; indeed, most accounts describe him as being openly hostile to his mother and everything that she stood for. His five-year reign saw the enactment of numerous decrees that distanced Paul from the powerful families at court, and ultimately turned them against him. His most noteworthy act was to decree, in 1797, that serfs could be forced to work no more than three days per week of corvée—a nominal attempt to curb abuses that had seen some landlords forcing their peasants to work five or six days on estate lands, leaving very little time for them to work on their own fields. This decree apparently had little effect on actual practice, but it deepened the gulf between Paul and his magnates. The unpopular repression of literati and some political figures, as well as the less than successful direction of Russia’s initial clashes with Napoleon, convinced leading court parties that Paul had to be removed. With the tacit agreement of his son and successor, the future Alexander I, a small conspiracy of military leaders and Masonic lodge members arrested and quickly murdered Paul in the bedroom of the newly constructed Michael Castle, on the night of 11 March 1801.

In many respects, the preceding decades had fulfilled the agenda of the Petrine era and set a new one for the nineteenth century. Thus Peter still cast a long shadow over the entire eighteenth century: so much that Peter had decreed but had been unable to implement actually came into existence in the decades that followed his reign. In that sense, his successors not only claimed lineage to Peter to legitimize their power, but also attempted to realize (if in modified form) his ambitions. Much else, however, was new—the changes in noble status, the territorial gains in the south, and the far-reaching acculturation of élites in the two capitals. At the same time, many other issues were still unresolved, most notably the powder keg of serfdom and the role of the Westernized nobility. These and other problems would be the centre of attention in the coming decades of the nineteenth century.

6. Pre-Reform Russia 1801–1855

DAVID L. RANSEL

The regime began the century in a reformist spirit and met the challenge of the Napoleonic invasion, but thereafter abjured far-reaching reform and, especially, the emulation of Western models. By the 1850s it faced a disaffected élite at home and, as the Crimean War demonstrated, could no longer compete militarily with the European great powers.

IF the murder of Tsar Paul in 1801 brought instant relief to the political élite of Russia, it did not have the same healthy effect on the new ruler, Alexander I, son of the murdered tsar. Alexander was himself a conspirator, for he had authorized the overthrow of his father, if not his assassination, and the new tsar initially expressed despair about the killing, feelings of incompetence about ruling, and stark fear that he too might be killed. The recent series of executions and overturns of European rulers had made royalty insecure everywhere in Europe. And Russia had its own tradition of rebellion, including at least nine violent changes of regime in the preceding 120 years. Alexander was understandably concerned not to offend powerful persons at court or in the armed forces. His fears may have deterred him from articulating any plan of political action other than a vague promise to rule in the manner of his grandmother Catherine the Great, whom most nobles remembered fondly for her readiness to protect their interests. The new ruler’s failure to establish a clear political or social programme encouraged groups within the political élite to work out their own proposals for change.

Early Efforts at Reform