Russia in the Nikolaev era. Nikolaev era - statutes

Introduction.

Emperor Nikolai Pavlovich ascended the throne while still a very young man. By 1825 he was only 29 years old.

He was not prepared to govern the state, and he himself replenished the shortcomings of his education by reading. However, he did not receive proper training and skill for business until his accession, since Alexander did not involve him in the current affairs of government and kept him far from himself.

The circumstances of the accession of Nicholas I were very vague. He himself wrote with grief to his brother Konstantin that he received the throne "at the cost of the blood of his subjects." The case of the Decembrists was of great importance for him, as well as for the entire state. It had a strong influence on all government activities of the emperor and greatly affected the public mood of that time.

A characteristic feature of the Nikolaev style of government was the desire to solve all problems through political centralization and strict regulation of public life, and in order to achieve a clear implementation of the highest instructions, many parts of the state apparatus were militarized: generals were appointed to the most important administrative positions, a number of departments were militarized - mining, forestry, communications . Military governors were placed at the head of large provinces. By 1850, of the 53 provinces of Russia, only 12 had civil administration.

He tried to create a bureaucracy around himself and rule the country with the help of obedient officials. He succeeded in this: under Emperor Nicholas I, the centralization of administration was greatly strengthened, all affairs were decided by officials in the ministerial offices in St. Petersburg, and local institutions turned into simple executive bodies for ministries.

The ideal society seemed to Nicholas built on the model of a patriarchal family, where the younger members of the family unquestioningly obey the elders, and the head of the family, the father, with whom he identified the autocratic sovereign, is responsible for everything.

Nicholas considered the struggle against the revolutionary spirit to be the main goal of his reign, and subordinated his whole life to this goal.

The same desire underlay the persistent attempts of the authorities to put the ideological and spiritual life of society under their total control.

A negative attitude towards the ruling bureaucracy has spread everywhere, between the government and society, a kind of abyss has formed, separating them. For the authorities, this was a great misfortune, although the ruling circles did not notice this. The emperor himself did not understand this. When the best employees of his administration, who had been active in the first half of his reign, died, there was no one to replace them from among the society. Emperor Nicholas I did not believe in society and was content with clerical executors who were not prepared for broad political activity. With the exception of Count Kiselev, by the end of the reign of Nicholas I, there were no noticeable and capable employees of the administration left. Stagnation, disorder and abuse reigned in the administration of the state. Terrible on the outside, by the middle of the 19th century Russia turned out to be a "colossus with feet of clay."

Impact of the Decembrist uprising

for the reorganization of public administration.

The first thing that Nicholas I took out of his acquaintance with the case of the uprising on December 14 was the conclusion about the unreliable mood of the entire nobility in general. Therefore, he did not trust the nobility and suspected the nobles of striving for political dominance in the state. Therefore, he did not want to rule with the help and mediation of the nobility. Therefore, he tried to create a bureaucracy around himself and rule the country with the help of an obedient bureaucracy. He succeeded in this: under Emperor Nicholas I, the centralization of administration was greatly strengthened: all affairs were decided by officials in the ministerial offices in St. Petersburg, and local institutions turned into simple executive bodies for ministries.

On the other hand, Emperor Nicholas from the case of the Decembrists became convinced that the country had a great desire for change, which had deep foundations: serfdom, the absence of a good set of laws, the bias of judges, the arbitrariness of rulers, the lack of education - all these shortcomings of Russian reality needed to be corrected . Therefore, at the beginning of the reign of Nicholas I, we see a lively government work aimed at improving the administration, courts and finances and at improving the life of serfs.

At the same time, from the circumstances of his accession, he took out, along with the desire to preserve autocracy in Russia, a certain inclination towards a bureaucratic form of government, combined with distrust of the nobility as a class. There was a gap and alienation between the government and society. This to some extent facilitated the transition to a bureaucratic form of government, but it had a bad effect on the forces of the government itself. In its undertakings, it did not meet with the support of society, and therefore could not always carry out good intentions and achieve good goals.

Nikolai's determination to start reforms was reflected not only in his speeches, but also in his activities. The outstanding figure of that time M.M. Speransky gained great importance again, Kochubey was placed at the head of the state council, under whose chairmanship at the end of 1826 a special secret committee was established "to revise the state administration." Working for several years, this committee developed projects for the transformation of both central and provincial institutions, prepared an extensive draft of a new law on estates, which, among other things, improved the life of serfs.

The Committee developed draft reforms for central and local government institutions. The Council of State was supposed to become an exclusively legislative body, the Senate was divided into a government (executive) and a judiciary. The same principle of separation of powers was introduced locally. The proposals of the committee were approved by Nicholas I, but the matter never came to their approval.

Unfortunately, the revolutionary movements of 1830 in Europe frightened the imperial power in Russia too much, so that any reform undertakings were shelved.

Key measures

on the "regulation of public life."

The government took practical measures to improve various branches of administration and to streamline public life. The most significant of these measures are:

* Expansion and arrangement of departments of "His Majesty's Own Chancellery";

* edition of the Code of Laws;

* destruction of banknotes;

* measures to improve the life of the peasants;

* measures in the field of public education.

Let's take a closer look at the above changes:

Reorganization of public administration.

In conditions when the emperor sought to concentrate in his hands all the threads of governing the country, the role of His Own Imperial Majesty's office increased immeasurably. It turned into an authority linking the emperor with all government agencies on the most important issues and actually replaced the system of ministries created under Alexander I.

His Imperial Majesty's own chancellery (S.E.V.K.) existed even before Emperor Nicholas, but did not play a significant role in government. Under Nicholas I, so many cases were taken under the personal jurisdiction of the sovereign that the small office could not cope with them, it grew and was first divided into 4 permanent departments, to which two more were later added:

The first department continued to manage those cases that previously constituted all the work of the office - the execution of personal orders and instructions of the sovereign, provided the sovereign with papers received in his name and transmitted answers on them;

The second branch was formed in 1826 with the aim of putting Russian legislation in order, which had long needed it. The actual head of this department was the outstanding Russian politician M.M. Speransky, returned from exile in 1821;

Lecture #2

The reign of Nicholas 1 - 1825-1855. The beginning of the reign - December 14, 1825 - the Decembrist uprising: part of the Russian educated and politically active society became an enemy of the country's traditional system. All his reign Nicholas 1 to this challenge. The character and convictions of Nicholas 1 left their mark on the entire era. Nicholas is the antipode of Alexander 1, a born military man, he has a heightened sense of duty, he is honest, firm, decisive, and courageous. By conviction, Nicholas 1 was an ardent monarchist. He even outwardly personified a mighty indestructible power. Nicholas was not afraid of the challenge and in the very first document (manifesto on July 13, 1826) he said that the absolute monarchy would remain. In 1833, the hymn “God Save the Tsar!” was officially approved. (the first anthem in Russia: lyrics - V.A. Zhukovsky, music - A.F. Lvov). On the emblem, a double-headed eagle held a laurel wreath and a bunch of arrows, and the eagle itself was with outstretched wings.

In 1832, Deputy Minister of Public Education Uvarov stated that the most important guarantee of strength for Russia and the greatness of the Fatherland are the concepts: Orthodoxy, nationality, autocracy. This provision became the official state ideology, criticism of which was suppressed by the III branch of the chancellery (gendarmes, political police). It was in the Nikolaev era that classical Russian liberalism was formed, Westernism. The ideal was a constitution, a parliament. These appositions did not have significant influence in society. Most of the people were loyal to the state regime.

Nicholas I not only cared about the state system, but also sought to eradicate many shortcomings. Nicholas wanted to restore order in the country according to the method of Paul I - to discipline the state apparatus, to eradicate bribery. The method he chose for this was similar to the army methods: unity and discipline. Hence the characteristic feature of the era - over-centralization of the state apparatus. According to this, the monarch had to be responsible for everything, which is why Nicholas sought to control all aspects of the life of the country. He went into all the details and checked the execution of his orders. The monarch personally traveled all over Russia, personally approved all projects, in addition, he was interested in architecture. Nothing was decided without Nicholas. In the system of higher state institutions, his own office, III of six, advanced. It was not only a detective body, the III branch was engaged in collecting information for the king about the true state of affairs in the country. Including the retinue of the king himself, which was part of the III department, carried out the responsible orders of Nicholas I. These several hundred military personnel bore secular ranks, wore imperial monograms on epaulettes, and a golden aiguillette on their right chest.

Another characteristic feature of the era was bureaucratization of management(bureaucrat is a professional manager who is appointed from above, that is, is accountable to a higher bureaucrat). Nicholas I believed that only bureaucrats (officials) should rule the country. He did not recognize any elections, public and self-government. Everything had to be under the complete control of the bureaucracy. At that time, anyone could be put on trial. Nicholas I sought to regulate everything, to every detail. Even the hairstyles of officials were regulated and whether an employee or a military man could wear a mustache. According to Nikolai, everything had to be in the form. In the 1830s under the leadership of M.M. Speransky, they finally carried out the codification of laws, published in the form of a 15-volume code of laws.

But did they achieve what they wanted and what they were striving for, trying to put everything in a framework, regulate, - order? In practice, the law existed only to the extent that it could be circumvented. Laws existed only on paper. They saved on salaries, so the authorities turned a blind eye to bribery. But the paradox was that even well-paid officials, of general rank, also took bribes. And they couldn't do anything about it. There was no sense in over-centralization and bureaucracy, but the harm was enormous. Responsibility, initiative were etched out in people, passivity, lack of initiative were cultivated. The uniform became the symbol of the era. It was cut so as to sit exactly on the figure, without a single crease. It was absolutely impossible to move in it, the uniform squeezed all the organs, the collar crushed the neck. So the initiative in those years was squeezed, squeezed, difficult in uniform.

Nicholas I clearly saw the need to abolish serfdom. Landlord peasants made up more than 50% of the population of the entire country. In the Nikolaev era, the inefficiency of the work of serfs became obvious. Since the 1830s the peasants began to simply shirk from work, and enterprises began to go bankrupt. Only those enterprises that used freelance labor flourished. I had to pay an increased salary, it turned out that the company had to give all its profits to an outsider - the landowner. And the entrepreneur himself was often a landlord peasant, who was released by the master, and had to give the profit to the master. It turned out a vicious circle.

Nicholas I created a secret committee to resolve issues of serfdom. Count P.D. Kiselev in 1842 prepared a project for the abolition of serfdom, which Nicholas I never signed. On March 20, 1842, Nicholas I declared that serfdom is an obvious evil, but to touch it would be an even greater evil! The majority of the nobility and bureaucracy (the 2 most influential forces) were also against the abolition. But the position of the landowning peasantry was nevertheless slightly improved, its rights were expanded. Thanks to the reform of P.D. Kiselev, the position of state peasants was improved, they received schools and hospitals.

Nicholas I is usually scolded for slowing down technological progress. After the construction of the railway Moscow - St. Petersburg, he banned the construction of the railway. But on the other hand, more than half of all highways until 1917 were laid under Nicholas. At this time, new economic and technical universities were opened, industrial exhibitions were held. In addition, now familiar things appeared in Russia: potatoes and matches. True, in 1848 the production of matches was banned due to the increased number of arsons.

In the Nikolaev era there was Caucasian war, which became an integral feature of the era. Russia fought with the peoples of the North Caucasus: Chechens, Dagestanis, Adyghes, etc. In 1864, the war ended, but they managed to get used to it as something ordinary. Causes of the war were simple: it was necessary to put an end to the raids of the people of the Caucasus on Russian soil. The method was also simple: subdue and include in the state. In the era of Nicholas I, Kazakhstan was annexed to Russia, as a result of another war with Iran in 1828 - the Eastern Army. The era is rich foreign policy success. Defeated Iran, Poland, Turkey. Nicholas I began to decide the fate of other empires: he did not allow Austria to disintegrate, he did not allow Germany to form, he decided to divide Turkey in general in order to get the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits. The growth and power of Russia alarmed England and France, and in 1853 they provoked another Russian-Turkish war (1853 - 1856), which was called the Crimean War, and became one of the turning points in the history of Russia.

Russia entered this war with the consciousness of the invincibility of its army. The Nikolaev army was a real phenomenon, whose soldiers became a symbol of the era. It is customary to scoff at drill training, it is even compared to ballet. But they forget that with the tactics of a combat battle, the ability to march in step, keep alignment, etc. are important things. It taught them discipline and obedience to orders. The concepts of duty and discipline entered the flesh and blood of the soldiers, they were recognized even by bearing. The soldier of the Nikolaev army did not lose heart and firmly knew that Russia would win. The beginning of the Crimean War only strengthened this belief. And the British and French came to the aid of the Turks. The Anglo-French army (in which the majority were French) landed in the Crimea and laid siege to Sevastopol. The defense became the central event (it lasted from September 13, 1854 to August 28, 1855, almost a year - 349 days). All this time, earthen fortifications held out. The bastions were hastily poured and rammed platforms, surrounded around the perimeter by a wall of timber and a moat. These fortifications were hollowed out by heavy artillery, but the Nikolaev army held the defense! At night they poured walls destroyed during the day, during the day they fought off the assault.

Russia still lost the war and surrendered Sevastopol. The country had to confront England, France, Sardinia, Turkey. Russia was threatened by Prussia, Austria and Sweden. The huge Russian army had to be dispersed along the entire western border. Therefore, we were in the minority in the Crimea, and the decline of industry also had an effect. There were no railways - reinforcements approached on foot, while the enemy transported troops by sea and by rail. The Russians always carried ammunition on oxen, they always did not have time. The Nikolaev super-centralization also had an effect: the army lost the habit of showing reasonable initiative in battle, waiting for orders. That is why the chance to lift the blockade in 1864 was missed. At the very beginning, the Russian army attacked the enemy, the battle began successfully, it only remained to complete it competently. But the Russian army was waiting for an order from the general, who by that time had already been killed during the battle, and did not take the initiative. The French acted according to circumstances and won.

In the summer of 1855, after the death of Nicholas I in Sevastopol, they no longer had time to rebuild the fortifications that had been destroyed overnight. The French during the last offensive captured the Allah Kurgan. The order was given to leave all the fortifications. Having mastered them, the French and British ran out of steam and agreed to peace. So it’s impossible to talk about the defeat of the Russian army in the Crimea . It was a defeat, but not a rout. According to the Peace of Paris in 1856, Russia lost the right to have a fleet on the Black Sea and strengthen the coast (restriction of sovereignty). Russian educated society for many years weaned from defeat and was in shock. Now the need for new reforms in Russia has become clear.

The era of Nicholas I is a period when the autocrat comes to the fore in all areas of life. At that time, everything was covered by the rigid framework of a strict bureaucratic hierarchy, outwardly giving the impression of unity and order. The personality of Nicholas I (1825-1855) was ambiguously assessed by both contemporaries and descendants. Some considered him a cruel despot and tyrant, deeply alien to the constitutional regime and the ideas of liberalism, indifferent to the spiritual side of life, others admired his natural mind, extraordinary capacity for work, decency, unpretentiousness in everyday life, but most importantly - an extremely highly developed sense of duty, in the concept of which he invested care for the moral and material well-being of his subjects. However, all these outstanding qualities were based on the traditions of the Orthodox state, the principles of a police state. Nicholas was alien to any thought of any restriction of the monarch's will, aimed at caring for his subjects.

The younger grandson of Catherine II, Nicholas I, was brought up differently than his older brothers, and was not prepared to rule the empire. In contrast, he grew up under the direct supervision of his father, Paul I, inheriting his political sympathies. Nicholas ascended the throne on December 14, 1825 after the death of his brother, childless Alexander I, and the forced abdication (due to a morganatic marriage, i.e. marriage with a person not of royal blood) of the second brother Constantine. Throughout his reign, the political course of Nicholas I remained consistently conservative: the main measures were to strengthen the centralization and bureaucratization of the country's administration while maintaining the inviolability of autocratic power. Meanwhile, the second quarter of the XIX century. in common European history was marked by the liberalization of the state system in a number of countries, the change in the political system of absolutism under the influence of bourgeois revolutions. These changes, in turn, left their mark on the worldview and activities of Nicholas, strengthening his antipathy towards liberal regimes, which, in his opinion, embodied political anarchy and disorder.

The court of Nicholas I was visited by a French traveler and diplomat, an aristocrat whose parents were persecuted during the Great French Revolution, Marquis Astolfe de Custine. His memoirs "Russia in 1839" have become an interesting source, revealing the falseness of the Russian autocracy as a cultural phenomenon. Having arrived in the country as a consistent opponent of a representative form of government and a supporter of the monarchy, he left it as an opponent of absolutism, concluding: "To live in Russia, one must be Russian." A complete translation of the memoirs saw the light in Russia only in the 1990s. 20th century

Politics Nicholas I began reforms with the creation of a code of laws, the government, i.e. streamlining legislation based on the study and classification of old laws. Major statesmen were involved in the work, first of all, returned from exile M.M. Speransky, as well as P.D. Kiselev and E.F. Kankrin. The laws that were in force before the reform had accumulated since the Council Code of 1649, many of them mutually supplemented or contradicted each other.

Solving the problem of creating a code of Russian laws, M.M. Speransky had in mind not only the systematization of old laws, but also the further development and completion of existing law. He believed that for this purpose, Western European law should be adopted, or at least, when developing new laws, use the results of the legislative activity of Western countries. MM. Speransky was clearly aware of the importance of the code of laws for the development of Russia in a liberal direction.

Under Nicholas I, the State Council lost its importance in solving state issues, and the system of ministries was actually replaced by a body that gained enormous influence - His Imperial Majesty's Own Chancellery. Its I department represented the personal office of the emperor, II - was engaged in the codification of legislation, III - was in charge of the political police, IV - managed charitable institutions (the so-called "department of institutions - Empress Mary", mother of Nicholas I). The objects of their regulation were the most diverse spheres of human activity, including religion, art, literature, and science. Intensified, passing all reasonable limits, managerial centralism. Seeing the army and bureaucracy as his main support, Nikolai considered it necessary to establish a bureaucratic system. To this end, the apparatus of officials was significantly increased (from 15-16 thousand at the beginning of the 19th century to 61.5 thousand in 1847 and 86 thousand in 1857).

Having suppressed the Decembrist uprising, Nicholas I realized during the investigation that the issue of serfdom was one of the main ones. The issue began to be discussed in secret committees with the participation of senior government officials. During the discussion, it became clear that the release of peasants without land would significantly worsen their economic situation. Therefore, the peasants were supposed to be released only with the simultaneous allocation of part of the land belonging to the landowner. But in order to do this, it was necessary to violate the principle according to which the land was the private property of the nobility. The members of the committees did not dare to ignore the rights of the nobles. Nicholas I, addressing the State Council, officially described serfdom as an obvious evil, "to touch" which would be even greater evil. On this basis, the committees sought not to abolish serfdom, but to streamline relations between peasants and landowners within the framework of the serf system. The government limited itself to half-measures aimed at softening serfdom. The determining factor here was the belief in the inviolability of the landowner's right to land ownership, which was reaffirmed by the emperor in a speech at the State Council in connection with the discussion of the bill: "... the land is the property not of the peasants settled on it, but of the landowners." Nicholas I was forced to seek within the framework of serfdom itself legal means against the evil that this system brought.

In the Nicholas era, a prominent role in the attempt to resolve the peasant issue was played by the Minister of State Property P.D. Kiselev, an enlightened and humane man, but at the same time a former model of a classical bureaucrat. In an effort to preserve noble landownership and at the same time considering it impossible to free the peasants without land, he proposed that the peasants must be given a certain allotment for redemption and establish strictly fixed duties that the peasants could not refuse until the ransom was fully paid. The peasants, for their part, had to cultivate these allotments and pay some payment to the landowners for their use. The size of the allotments, as well as the payment that the peasants would pay for them, were to be determined by law.

In 1837-1841. P.D. Kiselyov carried out a reform of the self-government of state peasants, who by that time accounted for almost half of the entire taxable rural population. Legally, state peasants were considered a free estate, but they performed duties in favor of the state. Their legal status was more advantageous than the status of serfs. They were relatively free to choose their occupation, move into the urban estate, and by decree of December 12, 1801, they had the right to acquire ownership of land, but this legal status was not sufficiently guaranteed.

However, the big drawback of the reform was the bureaucratic nature of the entire system, permeated with the idea of guardianship due to the desire to somehow delay the natural process of population differentiation. P.D. Kiselev was criticized both from the right for "undermining the foundations" and from the left for increasing the bureaucratic apparatus, was removed from government service and sent as an honorary ambassador to Paris. The experiment with state peasants once again convincingly proved the impossibility of solving the peasant problem piecemeal and confirmed the need to abolish serfdom.

Only one law of the Nikolaev era on the peasant question embodied the tendency to expand the civil system. On March 3, 1848, serfs were also allowed (with the permission of the owner) to acquire land as property. It must be admitted that the position of some categories of peasants was improved, and the most ugly manifestations of serfdom were softened, which means that some prerequisites were created for the future liberal reforms of Alexander II, and first of all, the abolition of serfdom.

Government policy

Nicholas I began the reforms with the creation of a code of laws, i.e. streamlining legislation based on the study and classification of old laws. Major statesmen were involved in the work, first of all, returned from exile M.M. Speransky, as well as P.D. Kiselev and E.F. Kankrin. The laws that were in force before the reform had accumulated since the Council Code of 1649, many of them mutually supplemented or contradicted each other. Solving the problem of creating a code of Russian laws, M.M. Speransky had in mind not only the systematization of old laws, but also the further development and completion of existing law. He believed that for this purpose, Western European law should be adopted, or at least, when developing new laws, use the results of the legislative activity of Western countries. MM. Speransky was clearly aware of the importance of the code of laws for the development of Russia in a liberal direction.

All laws adopted after 1649 were identified in the archives and arranged chronologically, and then published in the Complete Collection of Laws of the Russian Empire, which amounted to 51 volumes. The next step was the codification of existing laws. By the end of 1832, the preparation of all 15 volumes of the Code of Laws of the Russian Empire was completed. Speransky was awarded the Order of St. Andrew the First-Called, the highest distinction of the Russian Empire, which Nicholas I took off and solemnly placed on him at a meeting of the State Council. However, trends in government policy as a whole determined the conservative spirit of both publications, which did not correspond well to the modern legal level. The first article of the Code of Laws read: “The All-Russian Emperor is an autocratic and unlimited monarch. To obey his supreme authority is not only out of fear, but also out of conscience, GOD Himself commands.

During the financial reform (1830-1844), the initiator and conductor of which was the economical and conscientious Count E.F. Kankrin, the silver ruble was put as the basis of monetary circulation, which made it possible to withdraw from circulation a large number of depreciated banknotes (paper money) and strengthened the financial system of Russia. A deficit-free state budget was temporarily achieved.

In the field of education, the charter of 1828 for lower and secondary educational institutions became decisive. He established a closed-class education system and the strictest government control from the Ministry of Education, which approved all textbooks and programs. For the "lowest states" parochial schools were intended, for townspeople of non-noble origin - county schools, for nobles and officials - gymnasiums. The transition from the first two levels of education to the gymnasium was difficult, which disrupted its continuity.

Under the new university charter of 1835, the country's universities were largely deprived of their autonomy and completely surrendered to the power of the highest bureaucracy. Internal affairs were no longer in charge of the university council, but the board, wholly subordinate to the trustee. The university court was abolished, all life was regulated, tuition fees were raised, student enrollment was reduced. The Minister of Education could appoint the administration and professors at his own discretion.

Censorship statutes of 1826 and 1828 gave police functions to censorship, which gave rise to real censorship terror. According to contemporaries, the paragraphs of these "cast-iron" statutes provided society with "complete freedom of silence."

Of all the secret committees, of which more than ten were created, only two of them, the committees of 1835 and 1839, left a noticeable mark. The main ideas discussed by them were the limitation of the work of a peasant for a landowner three days a week, fixed by law, and the right to free transfer from one owner to another. The discussions were interrupted by the revolutionary events of 1848 in Europe.

In 1841, a law was passed prohibiting the sale of peasants one by one, separately from the family, and without land. In 1843, landless nobles were deprived of the right to acquire serfs, which destroyed the practice of using peasants as domestic slaves.

The law on “obligated peasants” issued in 1842, continuing the decree on “free cultivators” of 1803, allowed the landowners to give personal freedom to the peasant without any redemption with a small plot of land, the cost of which the peasant was obliged to work off the landowner.

In 1837-1841. P.D. Kiselyov carried out a reform of the self-government of state peasants, who by that time accounted for almost half of the entire taxable rural population. Legally, state peasants were considered a free estate, but they performed duties in favor of the state. Their legal status was more advantageous than the status of serfs. They could relatively freely choose their occupation, move into the urban estate, and by decree of December 12, 1801, they had the right to acquire ownership of land, but this legal status was not sufficiently guaranteed.

The government acted more boldly on the issue of state peasants, since the measures did not affect the direct interests of the nobles. State peasants received self-government bodies - volost and rural, subordinated to the supervision of state officials. Subsequently created by P.D. Kiselyov, self-government served as a model for the arrangement of landlord peasants after their liberation from serfdom. A specially created Ministry of State Property was supposed to take care of their economic and domestic needs, in particular, demarcate land, increase the plots of small-land peasants, take care of creating stocks of seed stock in case of crop failure and opening auxiliary cash desks in the village for small loans to peasants, opening schools and hospitals.

As a result of the reform, 2.5 million acres of land were distributed from the state fund, including 0.5 million acres to those who had no land at all, 2 million acres of forest were given to rural communities. The annual loans of the auxiliary cash desks created for credit to the peasants amounted to 1.5 million rubles. Instead of an equalizing per capita tax, a tax was introduced taking into account the quality of the land and an inventory was made, i.e. the calculation of the tax actually began to be made not from the worker, but from the land as the main factor of production. By 1861, the beginning of the peasant reform, the economic situation of the state peasants turned out to be better than that of the landlords.

population. P.D. Kiselev was criticized both from the right for "undermining the foundations" and from the left for increasing the bureaucratic apparatus, was removed from government service and sent as an honorary ambassador to Paris. The experiment with state peasants once again convincingly proved the impossibility of solving the peasant problem piecemeal and confirmed the need to abolish serfdom.

The state development of Russia was carried out in the mode of a pendulum. Brought to polarization, one managerial model, having exhausted its potential, was replaced by the opposite. However, the reverse swing of the state pendulum began long before the accession to the throne Nicholas I(1825-1855). The alternative of Constantine and Nicholas during the interregnum embodied the liberal and statist dilemma of Alexander's politics. The succession of power was also determined by the need to complete a number of structural and functional transformations: the transition from a collegiate to a ministerial system; institutionalization of the Imperial Chancellery; creation of the Russian state infrastructure in the annexed territories.

Rationalization of legal consciousness and codification of law.

During the Nikolaev reign, the vector of rationalization of the management system dominated, associated with the emperor's setting for the standardization of state and public life. The desire for unification as a whole characterized the entire course of the internal policy of Nicholas I. The ongoing bureaucratization of the system correlated with managerial rationalization.

“I,” Nicholas I formulated in front of his former teacher of law ML. Balugyansky one of the main tasks of the reign - I want to put the entire force and severity of laws into the basis of the state system and administration. However, the understanding of the nature of laws for Nikolaev Russia was fundamentally different than for the Western European sense of justice. The need for them was determined not by the tasks of administering justice, but by maintaining order.

Already in the activities of the Investigative Commission and the Supreme Criminal Court regarding the uprising of the Decembrists, a certain evolution appeared in the direction of establishing a rational sense of justice. If the predecessors of Nikolai Pavlovich on the Russian throne personally dealt with their enemies, then he punished them not personally, but on behalf of the state. The emperor tried to clothe the conclusions of the investigation and the decision of the court in the form of a law. On the other hand, Nicholas I was far from actually distancing himself from legal proceedings. Members of the investigative and judicial bodies were completely dependent on the imperial power. Nicholas I took a personal part in the interrogations of the conspirators. And thus the decisions of the court were predetermined.

The standardization of the management system was associated with the codifying activity of M.M. Speransky. The cultivation of laws was contradicted by the swollen for 200 years (after the Cathedral Code) and eclectic in its content, the system of Russian legislation. No judge could claim to have a comprehensive knowledge of existing laws. Therefore, in real legal proceedings, they were guided by ethical expediency and practical tradition.

The first "Complete Collection of Laws", consisting of 45 volumes (40 volumes of laws and 5 volumes of indexes), included about 31 thousand legislative acts, arranged in chronological order and covering the period from 1649 to December 3, 1825. The second, undertaken simultaneously the publication was subsequently printed weather-wise and ended only in 1883 with the publication of the 55th volume, bringing the publication of legal acts to the end of the reign of Alexander II. For the practical needs of the apparatus of bureaucracy, a 15-volume Code of Laws of the Russian Empire (1832) was proposed, which was limited to existing laws, structured by thematic sections. Directly related to management issues were the first volume, which included laws on higher and central institutions, the second - on local ones, the third - on the service of officials, the fourteenth - on the police, censorship, exile, etc. In view of the growth of the bureaucratic apparatus, twice - in 1842 and in 1857 - a reissue of the Code was undertaken.

Despite all the efforts made, the introduction of the Code of Laws on January 1, 1835 did not lead to the triumph of legality. A typical example of the reaction of officials to innovations in the field of legal proceedings is the case that happened to the Mogilev governor. When one of the subordinates objected that the order received from him could not be executed as contradicting a specific article of the legislation, he snatched a volume of the Code of Laws from the hands of the governor of the office, sat down on it and, pointing his finger at his chest, proclaimed to the audience: “Here you are law!"

A similar legal nihilism characterized not only the views of provincial officials, but also representatives of the highest authorities. “Laws are written for subordinates, not for superiors!” - said OH. Benkerdorf pestering him with complaints about the “illegal” nitpicking of the censors A.A. Delvig.

Bureaucratization contradicted the aristocratic principle of power organization. Service rotation led to the devaluation of the title of nobility. The desire to combine both principles was imbued with the law of June 11, 1845, aimed at restricting access to hereditary and even personal nobility in the service by increasing the class of their assignment according to the Table of Ranks. Personal nobility was now granted to civil servants from the IX class, hereditary - from V (for military ranks - from VI). The status of honorary citizens extended to officials of the five lowest ranks.

The restrictions also affected another way of conferring a title of nobility - through submission to the order. In Alexander's reign, the awarding of any of the orders, regardless of its degree, meant elevation to the hereditary nobility. The Nikolaev laws generally forbade the "application" of orders for merchants and "persons of a rural estate." If the merchant was nevertheless awarded the order, then from 1826 he was awarded only personal nobility, and from 1832 - the title of hereditary honorary citizen. In accordance with the new table of order seniority and rank production, personal nobility was provided (in ascending order) by the orders of Anna 4th degree (since 1845), Stanislav 3rd (since 1855), Anna 3rd (since 1845 .), Stanislav 2nd (since 1855), Anna 2nd (since 1845), and hereditary - Vladimir 4th, Vladimir 3rd, Stanislav 1st, Anna - 1st, Vladimir - 2nd, White Eagle, Alexander Nevsky, Vladimir 1st, St. Catherine and St. Andrew the First-Called. In addition, all degrees of awards of the Order of St. George the Victorious, who were outside this system, were elevated to hereditary nobility. To encourage the official zeal of representatives of the lower ranks of the bureaucracy, who did not have an appropriate prolongation to move up the bureaucratic hierarchy, in 1827-1828. a “sign of impeccable service” was established, which was awarded to persons whose service record exceeded 15 years.

The introduction in 1832 of the procedure for conferring the title of "honorary citizen" on officials of lower ranks reflected the specifics of understanding the nature of citizenship in Nikolaev Russia. In contrast to Western European law, which associated mainly the private sphere with this category, in the Russian Empire it belonged to the bureaucratic system. A citizen in Russia turned out to be nothing more than an official of one of the five lowest ranks. Citizenship in the specific Russian administrative context was seen as the lowest rung of the career ladder in relation to the nobility.

The carriers of the Nikolaev bureaucracy were the German part of the Russian bureaucracy. The direction of the Prussianization of the state system was revived. Nicholas I himself, carried away by comprehensive regulation, despite the appeal to the Russian national tradition, was often characterized by his contemporaries as an ideological German.

The Nikolaev generation of technocratic officials was personified by the Minister of Finance E.F. Kankrin. His arguments about ways to deal with the budget deficit were in clear contradiction with the tradition of the Russian financial department. “In the state,” he wrote, “as in private life, it must be remembered that one can go bankrupt not so much from capital expenditures as from daily petty expenses. The former are not made suddenly, on mature reflection, but the latter are not paid attention to, while kopecks grow into rubles. In accordance with this understanding, the Minister of Finance, working 15 hours a day, expended most of his efforts to repel attacks on state financial reserves, proving that this or that business requires significantly less costs than requested.

The reign of Nicholas 1 lasted from December 14, 1825 to February 1855. This emperor has an amazing fate, but the fact that the beginning and end of his reign are characterized by important political events in the country is noteworthy. So the coming to power of Nicholas was marked by the uprising of the Decembrists, and the death of the emperor fell on the days of the defense of Sevastopol.

Beginning of the reign

Speaking about the personality of Nicholas 1, it is important to understand that no one prepared this person for the role of Emperor of Russia from the very beginning. This was the third son of Paul 1 (Alexander - the eldest, Konstantin - the middle and Nikolai - the youngest). Alexander the First died on December 1, 1825, leaving no heir. Therefore, power, according to the laws of that time, came to the middle son of Paul 1 - Constantine. And on December 1, the Russian government swore allegiance to him. Including the oath of allegiance was brought by Nicholas himself. The problem was that Constantine was married to a woman of no noble family, lived in Poland and did not aspire to the throne. Therefore, he transferred the authority to manage Nicholas the First. Nevertheless, 2 weeks passed between these events, during which Russia was virtually without power.

It is necessary to note the main features of the reign of Nicholas 1, which were characterized by his character traits:

Military education. It is known that Nikolai poorly mastered any sciences except military ones. His educators were military men and almost all of his entourage were former military personnel. It is in this that one must look for the origins of the fact that Nicholas 1 said "In Russia everyone must serve", as well as his love for the uniform, which he forced everyone to wear without exception in the country.
Decembrist revolt. The first day of the power of the new emperor was marked by a major uprising. This showed the main threat that liberal ideas posed to Russia. Therefore, the main task of his reign was precisely the fight against the revolution.
Lack of communication with Western countries. If we consider the history of Russia, starting from the era of Peter the Great, then at the court they always spoke foreign languages: Dutch, English, French, German. Nicholas 1 - it stopped. Now all conversations were conducted exclusively in Russian, people wore traditional Russian clothes, there was propaganda of traditional Russian values and traditions.

Many history textbooks say that the Nicholas era is characterized by reactionary rule. Nevertheless, it was very difficult to manage the country in those conditions, since the whole of Europe was literally mired in revolutions, the focus of which could shift towards Russia. And this had to be fought. The second important point is the need to resolve the peasant issue, where the emperor himself advocated the abolition of serfdom.

Changes within the country

Nicholas 1 was a military man, so his reign is associated with attempts to transfer army orders and customs to everyday life and government.

The army has a clear order and subordination. There are laws and there are no contradictions. Here everything is clear and understandable: some order, others obey. And all this to achieve a common goal. That is why I feel so comfortable among these people.
Nicholas the First

This phrase best emphasizes what the emperor saw in order. And it was precisely this order that he sought to bring to all organs of state power. First of all, in the epoch of Nicholas there was a strengthening of police and bureaucratic power. According to the emperor, this was necessary to fight the revolution.

On July 3, 1826, the III department was created, which performed the functions of the highest police. In fact, this body kept order in the country. This fact is interesting in that it significantly expands the powers of ordinary police officers, giving them almost unlimited power. The third branch consisted of about 6,000 people, which was a huge number at that time. They studied the public mood, observed foreign citizens and organizations in Russia, collected statistics, checked all private letters, and so on. During the second phase of Emperor III's reign, the branch further expanded its powers by establishing a network of agents to work overseas.

Systematization of laws

Even in the era of Alexander in Russia, attempts began to systematize laws. This was extremely necessary, since there were a huge number of laws, many of them contradicted each other, many were only in the manuscript version in the archive, and the laws had been in force since 1649. Therefore, until the Nicholas era, judges were no longer guided by the letter of the law, but rather by general orders and worldview. To solve this problem, Nicholas 1 decided to turn to Speransky, whom he empowered to systematize the laws of the Russian Empire.

Speransky proposed to carry out all the work in three stages:

Collect in chronological order all the laws issued from 1649 until the end of the reign of Alexander 1.
Publish a set of current laws of the empire. This is not about changing laws, about considering which of the old laws can be repealed and which cannot.
Creation of a new "Code", which was supposed to amend the current legislation in accordance with the current needs of the state.

Nicholas 1 was a terrible opponent of innovations (the only exception is the army). Therefore, he allowed the first two stages to be held, categorically forbade the third.

The work of the commission began in 1828, and in 1832 the 15-volume Code of Laws of the Russian Empire was published. It was the codification of laws during the era of the reign of Nicholas 1 played a huge role in the formation of Russian absolutism. In fact, the country has not changed dramatically, but has received real structures for quality management.

Policy on education and awareness

Nikolai believed that the events of December 14, 1825 were connected with the education system that was built under Alexander. Therefore, one of the first orders of the emperor in his post happened on August 18, 1827, in which Nicholas demanded that the charters of all educational institutions of the country be revised. As a result of this revision, it was forbidden for any peasants to enter higher educational institutions, philosophy as a science was abolished, and supervision over private educational institutions was strengthened. The control over this work was performed by Shishkov, who holds the post of Minister of Public Education. Nicholas 1 absolutely trust this man, since their basic views converged. At the same time, it is enough to consider just one phrase of Shishkov in order to understand what the essence was behind the then education system.

Science is like salt. They are useful and can only be pleasurable if given in moderation. People should be taught only such literacy that corresponds to their position in society. The education of all people, without exception, will no doubt do more harm than good.
A.S. Shishkov

The result of this stage of government is the creation of 3 types of educational institutions:

For the lower classes, one-class education was introduced, based on parish schools. People were taught only 4 operations of arithmetic (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division), reading, writing, the laws of God.
For the middle classes (merchants, philistines, and so on) three-year education. As additional subjects, geometry, geography and history were found.
For the upper classes, a seven-year education was introduced, the receipt of which guaranteed the right to enter universities.

Solution of the peasant question

Nicholas 1 often said that the main task of his reign was the abolition of serfdom. However, he could not directly solve this problem. It is important to understand here that the emperor was faced with his own elite, which was categorically against this. The question of the abolition of serfdom was extremely complex and extremely acute. One need only look at the peasant uprisings of the 19th century to understand that they took place literally every decade, and their strength increased each time. For example, here is what the head of the third department said.

Serfdom is a powder charge under the building of the Russian Empire.
OH. Benkendorf

Nicholas the First himself also understood the full significance of this problem.

It is better to start changes on your own, gradually, carefully. We need to start at least with something, because otherwise, we will wait until the changes come from the people themselves.
Nicholas 1

A secret committee was formed to solve peasant problems. In total, in the Nikolaev era, 9 secret committees met on this issue. The greatest changes affected exclusively the state peasants, and these changes were superficial and insignificant. The main problem of giving the peasants their own land and the right to work for themselves was not resolved. In total, during the reign and work of 9 secret committees, the following problems of the peasants were solved:

Peasants were forbidden to sell
It was forbidden to separate families
Peasants were allowed to buy property
It was forbidden to send old people to Siberia

In total, during the reign of Nicholas 1, about 100 decrees were adopted that related to the solution of the peasant issue. It is here that you need to look for the base that led to the events of 1861, their abolition of serfdom.

Relations with other countries

Emperor Nicholas 1 sacredly honored the "Holy Alliance", a treaty signed by Alexander 1, on Russian assistance to countries where uprisings began. Russia was the European gendarme. In essence, the implementation of the "Holy Alliance" of Russia did not give anything. The Russians solved the problems of the Europeans and returned home with nothing. In July 1830, the Russian army was preparing for a campaign in France, where the revolution took place, but the events in Poland disrupted this campaign. A major uprising broke out in Poland, led by Czartoryski. Nicholas 1 appointed Count Paskevich as commander of the army for a campaign against Poland, who in September 1831 defeated the Polish troops. The uprising was crushed, and the autonomy of Poland itself became almost formal.

In the period from 1826 - 1828. reign of Nicholas I, Russia was drawn into the war with Iran. Her reasons were that Iran was dissatisfied with the peace of 1813 when, when they lost part of their territory. Therefore, Iran decided to take advantage of the uprising in Russia to regain what they had lost. The war began suddenly for Russia, however, by the end of 1826, Russian troops completely expelled the Iranians from their territory, and in 1827 the Russian army went on the offensive. Iran was defeated, the existence of the country was under threat. The Russian army cleared its way to Tehran. In 1828, Iran offered peace. Russia received the khanates of Nakhichevan and Yerevan. Iran also pledged to pay Russia 20 million rubles. The war was successful for Russia; access to the Caspian Sea was won.

As soon as the war with Iran ended, the war with Turkey began. The Ottoman Empire, like Iran, wanted to take advantage of the apparent weakness of Russia and regain some of the previously lost lands. As a result, in 1828 the Russian-Turkish war began. It lasted until September 2, 1829, when the Treaty of Adrianople was signed. The Turks suffered a brutal defeat that cost them their positions in the Balkans. In fact, with this war, Emperor Nicholas 1 achieved diplomatic submission to the Ottoman Empire.

In 1849, Europe was engulfed in revolutionary fire. Emperor Nicholas 1, fulfilling the allied dog, sent an army to Hungary in 1849, where, within a few weeks, the Russian army unconditionally defeated the revolutionary forces of Hungary and Austria.

Emperor Nicholas 1 paid great attention to the fight against the revolutionaries, mindful of the events of 1825. To this end, he created a special office, which was subordinate only to the emperor and conducted only activities against the revolutionaries. Despite all the efforts of the emperor, revolutionary circles in Russia actively developed.

The reign of Nicholas 1 ended in 1855, when Russia was drawn into a new war, the Crimean War, which ended sadly for our state. This war ended after the death of Nicholas, when his son, Alexander 2, ruled the country.

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