Russia. A History

The post-Napoleonic settlement for the European world associated with the name of the Congress of Vienna created a long period of general peace for the continent despite continuing stormy calls for democracy and national self-determination and the occasional limited conflicts they generated. The new state system, often mistakenly labelled a balance of power, was in reality a set of interlocking hegemonies exercised by Russia, Great Britain, and Austria. As long as the governments of these countries were able to maintain amicable relations, no major conflicts arose in Europe or its dependencies. Towards the end of Alexander’s reign, the principles of the system—the legitimacy of established governments and territorial integrity of existing countries—were tested by the rebellion of Greeks within the Ottoman Empire. Many Russians were sympathetic to the Greek cause. Catherine the Great had even worked out a plan in her time to resurrect Greece under the rulership of her grandson Constantine (named purposely after the last Byzantine emperor). But Alexander did not succumb to calls for Russian intervention on the side of the Greeks, and he held to the ideas of legitimacy and stability of established relations. Russia played a larger role in the Greek conflict after Alexander’s death, when a part of Greece became independent. Conflicts in this region ultimately destroyed the Congress of Vienna settlement, but during Alexander’s reign, Russia supported the conservative European regimes in resisting popular aspirations throughout the continent for greater political participation and national expression.

In Russia itself, the same conflict being played out on the European stage between dynastic (and in some cases still feudalistic) regimes and the proponents of democratic nationalism was repeated on a smaller scale. The stunning victory over Napoleonic France resolved the earlier doubts on the part of most of Russia’s leaders about the country’s administration and social system. The autocrat had held firm, the nobility had served and led the conquering army, the common people had remained loyal and even fought partisan campaigns against the invader. The victory strengthened the ruling groups’ belief in the system such that they no longer saw the necessity for fundamental reform. The mood had begun to shift in favour of the conservative voices in high politics. This mood accompanied a European-wide change in political thinking away from the rationalist, mechanistic ideas of the eighteenth century towards organic theories of society on the model enunciated by Edmund Burke, Joseph de Maistre, and Friedrich Karl von Savigny. De Maistre, a refugee from Napoleonic Europe who spent many years in Russia, was able to exert a direct personal influence on Russian statesmen.

Until recently, historians have seen the post-Napoleonic period (or final ten years) of Alexander’s reign as a single piece characterized by a sharp turn away from the reform policies of the previous era. In terms of the outcomes, this view may still be justified. Yet recent research has made a strong case for dividing the period into two five-year segments, in which the first witnessed a continuing sympathy on the part of the tsar and some of his close advisers for the reform ideas of the early reign. Alexander continued as late as 1818 to speak publicly of his wish to establish a constitutional order for Russia, and privately he was still expressing such hopes in 1820. Work on a draft constitution was apparently also in progress as late as 1820. Nor had Alexander given up on making a start towards emancipating serfs from bondage to private landlords despite opposition from most of the nobles in high government. In 1818 he instructed one of his closest aides, General Aleksei Arakcheev, to design a project for emancipation and the following year ordered his minister of finance to work out the fiscal problems associated with a possible emancipation. Finding no support for a broad project of reform in 1820, Alexander proposed at least to bar the sale of serfs separate from their families and without land. But this proposal too met near unanimous opposition from the members of the State Council.