In historical science, and in the public consciousness, transformations and reforms carried out in monarchical states are usually associated with the personality of the monarch reigning at that time. It never occurs to anyone to call the reforms of Peter the Great, Catherine II or Alexander II the reforms of Menshikov, Potemkin or Milyutin. There are historical concepts: “Petrine reforms”, “Catherine’s century”, “Great reforms of Alexander II”. No one would think of calling the famous Code Napoleon (Napoleon's Code) the “Code of François Tronchet” or the “Code of Jean Portalis,” although these were the people who were the direct executors of the will of the First Consul to draw up a legislative act. This is as true as the fact that Petersburg was founded by Peter the Great, and Versailles was built by Louis XIV.
But as soon as we talk about the era of the last Sovereign, for some reason they use the terms: “Witte reform” or “Stolypin reform”. Meanwhile, Witte and Stolypin themselves invariably called these transformations the reforms of Emperor Nicholas II. S.Yu. Witte spoke about the monetary reform of 1897: “ Russia owes its metallic gold circulation exclusively to Emperor Nicholas II" P.A. Stolypin on March 6, 1907, speaking in the State Duma, said: “The government set itself one goal - to preserve those covenants, those foundations, those principles that were the basis for the reforms of Emperor Nicholas II”. Witte and Stolypin knew well that all their reform activities would have been impossible without the approval and guidance of the Autocrat.
Serious modern researchers come to a clear conclusion about Emperor Nicholas II as an outstanding reformer. Historian D.B. Strukov notes: “By nature, Nicholas II was very inclined to search for new solutions and improvise. His political thought did not stand still, he was not a dogmatist.”.
A detailed and unbiased study of the progress of reforms in Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century irrefutably proves that Emperor Nicholas II was their main initiator and convinced supporter. He did not refuse reforms even during the revolution of 1905-1907. At the same time, Nicholas II was well versed in the issues of that aspect of the country’s life that he was going to reform. In 1909, Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs S.E. Kryzhanovsky reported to Nicholas II his thoughts regarding the project of decentralization of the Empire. He later recalled: “I was amazed by the ease with which the Emperor, who had no special training, understood the complex issues of the electoral procedure both in our country and in Western countries, and the curiosity that he showed at the same time.”.
Moreover, there is no doubt that reforms were never born spontaneously in the head of the Sovereign, many of them he nurtured even before ascending the throne. Under Nicholas II, a total of more transformations were carried out than under Peter the Great and Alexander II. It is enough just to list the main ones to be convinced of this: 1) the introduction of a wine monopoly;
2) monetary reform;
3) education reform;
4) abolition of peasant “mutual responsibility”;
5) judicial reform;
6) reform of public administration (establishment of the State Duma, Council of Ministers, etc.);
7) the law on religious tolerance;
8) introduction of civil liberties;
9) agrarian reform of 1906;
10) military reform;
11) health care reform.
It should be taken into account that these reforms were practically painless for the majority of the population of the Russian Empire precisely because the Emperor did not prioritize the transformation itself, but the people in whose name it was carried out.
The example of Emperor Nicholas II convincingly proves that it is possible to carry out the most ambitious, most ambitious reforms and transformations without the death and impoverishment of millions of people, as would be the case during the Bolshevik “transformations.” But it was under Emperor Nicholas II that all the “great construction projects of communism” were programmed, started or implemented, which the Bolsheviks took credit for: the electrification of the entire country, the BAM, the development of the Far East, the construction of the largest railways, the construction of the largest hydroelectric power stations at that time, the foundation of an ice-free ports beyond the Arctic Circle.
The reform activity of Emperor Nicholas II was most clearly manifested during the famous Agrarian Reform of 1906.
I quote about the reforms of Nicholas II from the book "Emperor Nicholas II and the Fate of Orthodox Russia" by Alfred Mirek.
In the second half of the 19th century in Russia, there was a progressive desire of the monarchical government for reforms in all areas of state activity, which led to the rapid flourishing of the economy and the growth of the country's well-being. The last three Emperors - Alexander II, Alexander III and Nicholas II - with their mighty hands and great royal mind, raised the country to unprecedented heights.
I will not touch on the results of the reforms of Alexander II and Alexander III here, but will immediately focus on the achievements of Nicholas II. By 1913, industry and agriculture had reached such high levels that the Soviet economy was only able to reach them decades later. And some indicators were exceeded only in the 70-80s. For example, the power supply of the USSR reached pre-revolutionary levels only in the 1970-1980s. And in some areas, such as grain production, it has not caught up with Nikolaev Russia. The reason for this rise was the powerful transformations carried out by Emperor Nicholas II in various areas of the country.
Trans-Siberian Railway
Siberia, although rich, was a remote and inaccessible region of Russia; criminals, both criminal and political, were exiled there, as if in a huge sack. However, the Russian government, ardently supported by merchants and industrialists, understood that this was a huge storehouse of inexhaustible natural resources, but, unfortunately, very difficult to develop without a well-established transport system. The very need for the project has been discussed for more than ten years.
Alexander III instructed his son, Tsarevich Nicholas, to lay the first, Ussuri section of the Trans-Siberian Railway. Alexander III placed serious trust in his Heir by appointing him chairman of the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway. At that time it was, perhaps, the most voluminous, difficult and responsible state. a business that was under the direct leadership and control of Nicholas II, which he began as Tsarevich and successfully continued throughout his reign. The Trans-Siberian Railway could rightfully be called the “Construction Site of the Century” not only at the Russian, but also at the international level.
The Imperial House jealously ensured that construction was carried out by Russian people and with Russian money. Railway terminology was introduced predominantly by Russian: “crossing”, “path”, “locomotive”. On December 21, 1901, the labor movement along the Trans-Siberian Railway began. The cities of Siberia began to develop quickly: Omsk, Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk, Chita, Khabarovsk, Vladivostok. Over the course of 10 years, thanks to the far-sighted policy of Nicholas II, and the implementation of the reforms of Peter Stolypin, and due to the opportunities opened up with the advent of the Trans-Siberian Railway, the population here has increased sharply. The enormous riches of Siberia became available for development, which strengthened the economic and military power of the Empire.
The Trans-Siberian Railway is still the most powerful transport artery of modern Russia.
Currency reform
In 1897, under the Minister of Finance S.Yu. Witte, an extremely important monetary reform was painlessly carried out - the transition to a gold currency, which strengthened the international financial position of Russia. A distinctive feature of this financial reform from all modern ones was that no segments of the population suffered financial losses. Witte wrote: “Russia owes its metallic gold circulation exclusively to Emperor Nicholas II.” As a result of the reforms, Russia received its own strong convertible currency, which took a leading position in the world foreign exchange market, which opened up enormous prospects for the country's economic development.
The Hague Conference
During his reign, Nicholas II paid a lot of attention to the defense capabilities of the army and navy. He constantly took care of improving the entire complex of equipment and weapons for the rank and file - the basis of any army at that time.
When a new set of uniforms was created for the Russian army, Nikolai personally tried it out himself: he put it on and walked 20 versts (25 km) in it. Came back in the evening and approved the kit. A widespread rearmament of the army began, dramatically increasing the country's defense capability. Nicholas II loved and nurtured the army, living the same life with it. He did not raise his rank, remaining a colonel until the end of his life. And it was Nicholas II who, for the first time in the world, as the head of the strongest European power at that time, came up with peaceful initiatives to reduce and limit the armaments of the main world powers.
On August 12, 1898, the Emperor issued a note that, as the newspapers wrote, “will amount to the glory of the Tsar and His reign.” The greatest historical date was the day of August 15, 1898, when the young thirty-year-old Emperor of All Russia, on his own initiative, addressed the whole world with a proposal to convene an international conference to put a limit to the growth of armaments and prevent the outbreak of war in the future. However, at first this proposal was received with caution by world powers and did not receive much support. The Hague, the capital of neutral Holland, was chosen as its convening place.
Push: “here, between the lines, I would like to recall an excerpt from the memoirs of Gilliard, to whom, during long intimate conversations, Nicholas II once said: “Oh, if only we could manage without diplomats! On this day, humanity would achieve great success."
In December 1898, the Tsar made his second, more specific, constructive proposal. It must be emphasized that 30 years later, at the disarmament conference convened in Geneva by the League of Nations, created after World War I, the same issues were repeated and discussed as in 1898-1899.
The Hague Peace Conference met from May 6 to July 17, 1899. A number of conventions have been adopted, including the Convention on the Peaceful Settlement of International Disputes through Mediation and Arbitration. The fruit of this convention was the establishment of the Hague International Court, which is still in force today. The 2nd conference in The Hague met in 1907, also on the initiative of the Sovereign Emperor of Russia. The 13 conventions adopted there on the laws and customs of war on land and at sea were of great importance, and some of them are still in force.
On the basis of these 2 conferences, the League of Nations was created in 1919, the purpose of which is to develop cooperation between peoples and guarantee peace and security. Those who created the League of Nations and organized the disarmament conference could not help but admit that the first initiative undoubtedly belonged to Emperor Nicholas II, and neither war nor revolution of our time could erase this from the pages of history.
Agricultural reform
Emperor Nicholas II, caring with all his soul for the well-being of the Russian people, most of whom were peasants, gave instructions to the outstanding state. Russian leader, Minister P.A. Stolypin, to make proposals for carrying out agrarian reform in Russia. Stolypin came up with a proposal to carry out a number of important government reforms aimed at the benefit of the people. All of them were warmly supported by the Emperor. The most important of them was the famous agrarian reform, which began by royal decree on November 9, 1906. THE ESSENCE OF THE REFORM is the transfer of peasant farming from low-profit communal farming to a more productive private sector. And this was not done forcibly, but voluntarily. Peasants could now allocate their own personal plot in the community and dispose of it at their own discretion. All social rights were returned to them and complete personal independence from the community in managing their affairs was guaranteed. The reform helped to include large areas of undeveloped and abandoned land into agricultural circulation. It should also be noted that peasants received equal civil rights with the entire population of Russia.
His premature death at the hands of a terrorist on September 1, 1911 prevented Stolypin from completing his reforms. The murder of Stolypin took place before the eyes of the Sovereign, and His Majesty showed the same courage and fearlessness as his August grandfather Emperor Alexander II at the time of the villainous attempt on his life. The fatal shot thundered at the Kiev Opera House during a gala performance. To stop the panic, the orchestra played the national anthem, and the Emperor, approaching the barrier of the royal box, stood in full view of everyone, as if showing that he was here at his post. So he stood - although many feared a new assassination attempt - until the sounds of the anthem ceased. It is symbolic that on this fateful evening M. Glinka’s opera “A Life for the Tsar” was performed.
The Emperor's courage and will were also evident in the fact that, despite the death of Stolypin, he continued to implement the main ideas of the illustrious minister. When the reform began to work and began to gain national momentum, the production of agricultural products in Russia sharply increased, prices stabilized, and the growth rate of the people's wealth was significantly higher than in other countries. In terms of the volume of growth of national property per capita by 1913, Russia was in third place in the world.
Despite the fact that the outbreak of the war slowed down the progress of reforms, by the time V.I. Lenin proclaimed his famous slogan “Land to the peasants!”, 75% of the Russian peasantry already owned land. After the October revolution, the reform was canceled, the peasants completely lost their land - it was nationalized, then the cattle were expropriated. About 2 million wealthy farmers (“kulaks”) were exterminated by their entire families, mostly in Siberian exile. The rest were forced into collective farms and deprived of civil rights and freedoms. They were deprived of the right to move to other places of residence, i.e. found themselves in the position of serf peasants under Soviet rule. The Bolsheviks de-peasantized the country, and to this day in Russia the level of agricultural production is not only significantly lower than it was after the Stolypin reform, but even lower than before the reform.
Church transformations
Among the enormous merits of Nicholas II in a variety of state areas, a prominent place is occupied by his exceptional services in matters of religion. They are connected with the main commandment for every citizen of his homeland, his people to honor and preserve his historical and spiritual heritage. Orthodoxy spiritually and morally strengthened the national and state principles of Russia; for Russian people it was more than just a religion, it was a deep spiritual and moral basis of life. Russian Orthodoxy developed as a living faith, consisting in the unity of religious feeling and activity. It was not only a religious system, but also a state of mind - a spiritual and moral movement towards God, which included all aspects of the life of a Russian person - state, public and personal. The church activities of Nicholas II were very broad and covered all aspects of church life. As never before, during the reign of Nicholas II, spiritual eldership and pilgrimage became widespread. The number of churches built increased. The number of monasteries and monastics in them increased. If at the beginning of the reign of Nicholas II there were 774 monasteries, then in 1912 there were 1005. During his reign, Russia continued to be decorated with monasteries and churches. A comparison of statistics for 1894 and 1912 shows that in 18 years 211 new monasteries and convents and 7,546 new churches were opened, not counting a large number of new chapels and houses of worship.
In addition, thanks to the generous donations of the Sovereign, during these same years, 17 Russian churches were built in many cities around the world, standing out for their beauty and becoming landmarks of the cities in which they were built.
Nicholas II was a true Christian, treating all shrines with care and reverence, making every effort to preserve them for posterity for all times. Then, under the Bolsheviks, there was a total looting and destruction of temples, churches and monasteries. Moscow, which was called golden-domed due to the abundance of churches, lost most of its shrines. Many monasteries that created the unique flavor of the capital disappeared: Chudov, Spaso-Andronevsky (the gate bell tower was destroyed), Voznesensky, Sretensky, Nikolsky, Novo-Spassky and others. Some of them are being restored today with great effort, but these are only small fragments of noble beauties that once towered majestically above Moscow. Some monasteries were completely razed to the ground, and they were lost forever. Russian Orthodoxy has never known such damage in its almost thousand-year history.
The merit of Nicholas II is that that he applied all his spiritual strength, intelligence and talent, to revive the spiritual foundations of living faith and true Orthodoxy in the country, which was at that time the most powerful Orthodox power in the world. Nicholas II made great efforts to restore the unity of the Russian Church. April 17, 1905 On the eve of Easter, he issues a decree “On strengthening the principles of religious tolerance,” which laid the foundation for overcoming one of the most tragic phenomena in Russian history - the church schism. After almost 50 years of desolation, the altars of Old Believer churches (sealed under Nicholas I) were opened and it was allowed to serve in them.
The Emperor, who knew the church charter very well, well understood, loved and appreciated church singing. Preserving the origins of this special path and its further development allowed Russian church singing to occupy one of the honorable places in world musical culture. After one of the spiritual concerts of the Synodal Choir in the presence of the Sovereign, as archpriest Vasily Metallov, a researcher of the history of synodal schools, recalls, Nicholas II said: “The choir has reached the highest degree of perfection, beyond which it is difficult to imagine that one can go.”
In 1901, the Emperor ordered the organization of a committee of trusteeship of Russian icon painting. Its main tasks were formed as follows: to preserve in icon painting the fruitful influence of examples of Byzantine antiquity and Russian antiquity; to establish “active connections” between official church and folk icon painting. Under the leadership of the committee, manuals for icon painters were created. Icon painting schools were opened in Palekh, Mstera and Kholuy. In 1903 S.T. Bolshakov released the original icon painting; on page 1 of this unique publication, the author wrote words of gratitude to the Emperor for his sovereign patronage of Russian icon painting: “...We all hope to see a turn in modern Russian icon painting towards ancient, time-honored examples...”
Since December 1917, when the arrested Nicholas II was still alive, the leader of the world proletariat began reprisals against the clergy and the looting of churches (in Lenin’s terminology - “cleansing”), while icons and all church literature, including unique notes, were burned everywhere. bonfires near churches. This has been done for over 10 years. At the same time, many unique monuments of church singing disappeared without a trace.
Nicholas II's concerns for the Church of God extended far beyond the borders of Russia. Many churches in Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, Romania, Montenegro, Turkey, Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Libya have one or another gift of martyrdom. Entire sets of expensive vestments, icons and liturgical books were donated, not to mention generous monetary subsidies for their maintenance. Most of the Jerusalem churches were maintained with Russian money, and the famous decorations of the Holy Sepulcher were gifts from the Russian Tsars.
The fight against drunkenness
In 1914, despite wartime, the Tsar resolutely began to realize his long-standing dream - the eradication of drunkenness. For a long time, Nikolai Alexandrovich was imbued with the conviction that drunkenness is a vice that is corroding the Russian people, and that it is the duty of the Tsarist government to join the fight against this vice. However, all his attempts in this direction met with stubborn resistance in the Council of Ministers, since income from the sale of alcoholic beverages constituted the main budget item - one fifth of the state budget. income. The main opponent of this event was the Minister of Finance V.N. Kokovtsev, who became P.A. Stolypin’s successor as Prime Minister after his tragic death in 1911. He believed that the introduction of Prohibition would deal a serious blow to the Russian budget. The Emperor deeply valued Kokovtsev, but, seeing his lack of understanding of this important problem, he decided to part with him. The Monarch's efforts were in keeping with the general popular opinion at the time, which accepted the prohibition of alcoholic beverages as a deliverance from sin. Only wartime conditions, which overturned all normal budgetary considerations, made it possible to carry out a measure that meant the state renounced the largest of its incomes.
Before 1914, no country had ever taken such a radical measure to combat alcoholism. It was a huge, unheard of experience. “Accept, Great Sovereign, the prostration of your people! Your people firmly believe that from now on the past grief will end!” - said Duma Chairman Rodzianko. Thus, by the firm will of the Sovereign, an end was put to state speculation on the people's misfortune and the state was laid. basis for further fight against drunkenness. The “lasting end” to drunkenness lasted until the October revolution. The beginning of the general drinking of the people began in October during the capture of the Winter Palace, when most of those who “stormed” the palace went to the wine cellars, and there they drank to such an extent that they had to carry the “heroes of the assault” upstairs by their feet. 6 people died - that was all the losses that day. Subsequently, the revolutionary leaders drank the Red Army soldiers into unconsciousness, and then sent them to rob churches, shoot, smash and commit such inhuman sacrileges that people would not have dared to do in a sober state. Drunkenness remains the worst Russian tragedy to this day.
The material is taken from the book by Mirek Alfred “Emperor Nicholas II and the fate of Orthodox Russia. - M.: Spiritual Education, 2011. - 408 p.
He always faced the truth and did not shy away from responsibility for the decisions he made...
Research by leading Western scientists over the past 70 years has proven that the management of both small businesses and large states is not simply a matter of issuing edicts dictated by personal ego. The high level of consciousness of the ruler and motives based on love and mutual support can create a hidden motivating force in people that can work wonders for each person and for the entire society.
Nicholas II knew about this power. The pace of development of the Russian Empire during his reign is amazing even today.
Military journalist, reserve colonel Vladislav Mayorov is the author of the calendar “Russia during the reign of Emperor Nicholas II.”
We present the abstracts of the report “The Moral Foundations of the Reforms of Emperor Nicholas II”, with which V.N. Mayorov performed in August 2017 in Yekaterinburg. The article is illustrated with some pages of calendars for 2017 – 2018.
Find out the answers:
- What determined the success of all the reforms of Nicholas II?
- How many institutions in the Russian Empire were supported by the personal funds of members of the Imperial family?
- Why were the statistics of the Russian Empire considered the most accurate in the world?
- Due to what, during the reign of Nicholas II, the frequency of epidemics of severe infectious diseases sharply decreased?
- What rights did Nicholas II grant to the State Council of the Russian Empire?
- What unique conditions were created for ordinary workers by the Emperor's new laws?
The outstanding results of the reforms carried out by the Sovereign in a short historical period were not the result of extreme tension and depletion of the vital forces of the people, repression, strengthening of the state by limiting political freedoms, or the total impoverishment of the people. Their enormous vitality was nourished by the moral foundations of the Christian faith, reliance on the creative talent of the Russian people, and thoughtful measures of state support for reforms.
At the same time, we must not forget that the reforms were carried out in conditions of growing revolutionary terror in Russia. In 1905-1917 alone, more than twenty thousand civil servants, prominent military commanders and heads of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and high-ranking officials of various ministries and departments died at the hands of terrorists. Many representatives of the ruling circles, the State Duma, and even individual members of the government actively opposed Emperor Nicholas II. Radical trends in Russian literature and the weakening of religious feeling among the Russian people also prepared the spiritual collapse that led to the catastrophe of 1917.
Under these conditions, the moral courage of the Sovereign and his ability for long-term, consistent work for the benefit of Russia and the people became decisive. As the heir to the Russian throne, Nikolai Alexandrovich gained deep knowledge in the field of economics, finance, and government. His knowledge of military affairs was at the level of the best graduates of the elite Academy of the General Staff. He was a brilliant expert on Russian history and the history of international relations. The teachers and mentors of the future Emperor were world-class scientists and outstanding statesmen of the era. This largely predetermined the thoughtfulness and consistency of all transformations. Emperor Nicholas II not only initiated the reforms, but also steadily carried out their organizational, legislative, financial, and personnel support.
At the same time, the government of Emperor Nicholas II never allowed pompous rhetoric and self-praise in its address. On the contrary, it critically assessed shortcomings in the implementation of reforms and changes. Russian statistics were one of the most advanced in the world. Data from statistical and documentary reference books of Imperial Russia reflected the real picture of the country’s economic life, shortcomings in the social sphere, education, and healthcare. This was a principled and unwavering demand of the Sovereign, who always looked the truth in the face and did not shy away from responsibility for the decisions made, shortcomings and miscalculations. Let us briefly outline the results of the reforms and transformations of Emperor Nicholas II in 1894-1917.
During the reign of Emperor Nicholas II, Russia came out on top in the world in terms of economic growth.
The result of the monetary reform carried out in 1895-1897 was a convertible currency that took a leading position in the world foreign exchange market. A stable banking system was created. Russia's gold reserves increased 2.5 times. The state budget has grown by almost 300 percent.
The agrarian reform, the ideological initiator of which was Emperor Nicholas II, brought the country to first place in the world in the production and export of grain, flour, sugar, flax, eggs, and livestock products. The sovereign equalized peasants in civil rights with persons of other classes. In a short historical period, about 2 million strong farms and bran farms were created on allotment lands. In Siberia, 37 million 441 tithes were demarcated for plots, to which 3.8 million migrants voluntarily arrived. In the Altai Territory, roads, public schools, and hospitals were built for the settlers using the personal funds of the Sovereign. The population of Siberia has doubled. Siberian butter and eggs were exported to Europe. Large-scale mechanization of rural labor began. The state allocated huge funds to provide agronomic assistance to the population.
During the reign of Nicholas II, the creation of the fuel industry and mechanical engineering with the development of the mining and metallurgical industry completed the formation of the sectoral structure of Russian industry. Russia has taken one of the leading positions in the world in the production of oil, coal, platinum, and asbestos. The production of steel, cast iron, and copper increased fivefold. Labor productivity increased fourfold. New industries such as the automobile, aviation, chemical, electrical and power industries were created in the Russian Empire. Metallurgy and shipbuilding experienced a rebirth. By 1914, there were 27,566 industrial enterprises in the country. In steam locomotive construction, motor ship construction, aircraft construction, and the production of diesel engines, Russia has taken first place in the world in the application of scientific and technical innovations to mass production. In 1913, Russia produced 5.3% of the world's industrial output.
By the decision of Nicholas II, by 1915, the Strategy for the Electrification of Russia was formulated, which later became the basis of the well-known GOELRO plan. But by 1914, 220 power plants and hydroelectric power stations had been built in the country, and the world's first energy system was created in the North Caucasus. Electricity production grew annually by 20-25%. Russia became an innovator in the creation of oil pipelines, a tanker fleet, the transportation of petroleum products in railway tanks, and was a leading exporter of lubricating oils in Europe.
During the reign of Emperor Nicholas II, 35 thousand kilometers of railways were built in the country. Under the leadership of the Sovereign, the construction of the world's largest Trans-Siberian Railway, 7,416 km long, was carried out. According to his decision, the world's northernmost Murmansk railway was built, which was of strategic importance during two world wars. Passenger fares in Russia remained the lowest in the world. During the reign of Nicholas II, large-scale development of northern and Far Eastern waterways began. Russia has created the world's first icebreaker fleet. The Emperor paid great attention to the development of all types of communications. The number of postal institutions increased by 4.5 times, telephone subscribers by more than 200 times. The total length of telegraph lines was about 230 thousand km.
By 1917, Russia was firmly among the five most developed countries in the world.
Consistent reforms of Emperor Nicholas II in the field of public education, healthcare, development of the sports movement, support for charity and patronage of the arts led to a real improvement in people's lives.
It was in Russia that for the first time in world practice, medical care for the population became accessible and free. Emperor Nicholas II supported the introduction of territorial precincts. The medical station has become a unique form of organizing medical care for the rural population. In Russia, a system of Duma doctors has developed, which became the first experience in Europe of providing public assistance to the urban population. Emperor Nicholas II, through measures of state support and improvement of legislation, contributed to the establishment of factory medicine in Russia, which was advanced in the world. By 1913, 1 million 762 thousand Russian workers were covered by affordable medical care. During the reign of Nicholas II, a sharp decrease in the frequency of epidemics of severe infectious diseases was achieved. The leadership of the Russian scientific school in the field of psychiatry, surgery, and physiology was recognized throughout the world.
Emperor Nicholas II carried out a large-scale and outstanding reform of public education. Expenditures on public education increased 8 times. Since 1904, initial education has been free by law, and since 1908 it has become compulsory. About 10 public schools were opened in Russia every year. By 1914, there were more than 11 million students in Russia. By 1917, 86 percent of Russian youth could read and write. During the reign of Nicholas II, the number of higher educational institutions in Russia increased 2.5 times, 4 new universities, 16 technical universities were opened, and a system of agricultural and commercial education was created. In terms of the number of girls and women studying in gymnasiums and universities, Russia ranked first in Europe. By 1914, 49.7% of university students were children of townspeople, merchants, peasants, and Cossacks. The social status of the teacher was worthy.
It was during the reign of Nicholas II that the sports movement was born in Russia, 1235 sports societies and clubs arose. In 1894-1914, the first Russian championships in cycling, gymnastics, boxing, weightlifting, shooting, motorsports, rowing, chess, hockey and speed skating took place. By the decrees of Nicholas II, the Russian Olympic Committee was formed in 1911, and in 1913, the Office of the Chief Monitoring the Physical Development of the Population of the Russian Empire. The Emperor initiated the first Olympics in Russia, which took place in 1913-1914 in Kyiv and Riga. By the decision of Nicholas II, gymnastics was introduced as an academic discipline in 1566 gymnasiums.
During the reign of Emperor Nicholas II, charity and patronage of the arts became the most important instrument of social policy. Donations from members of the Imperial family accounted for a third of all expenses - the only example in world history. Representatives of the House of Romanov maintained 903 orphanages, 145 shelters, 213 charitable institutions, 234 educational institutions, 199 hospitals and first-aid posts. The Emperor allocated 2 million rubles annually to support Russian art. During the First World War, Nicholas II and members of his family donated more than 250 million rubles of personal funds for the needs of the wounded and to help the families of fallen soldiers.
Emperor Nicholas II carried out a reform of the state-political system of Russia and laid the foundations of the rule of law.
On October 17, 1905, the Emperor approved the highest Manifesto “On the improvement of public order.” The right to legislate was distributed between the monarch and the legislative body - the State Duma. For the first time in Russian history, the Manifesto proclaimed and provided political rights and freedoms. The Manifesto of February 24, 1906 established the basic principles of the new legal system. In the pre-revolutionary State Duma of the first four convocations, 65 percent of deputies were from the middle and lower class.
Emperor Nicholas II, by decree of 1906, vested the State Council with legislative functions. The competence of the State Council included the consideration of bills adopted by the State Duma, as well as issues of internal governance, domestic and foreign policy in emergency circumstances, and consideration of the country's budget.
Emperor Nicholas II on April 26, 1906 approved the “Code of Basic State Laws of the Russian Empire” - a fundamental legislative act that strengthened the foundations of the renewed state system.
A reform of the Senate was carried out, which resulted in a significant influence of the interested ministries on the decisions of cases, and an adversarial principle was introduced into Senate proceedings.
Emperor Nicholas II transformed the factory inspection, established the responsibility of entrepreneurs for industrial accidents - treatment, payment of benefits and pensions. The law of June 2, 1897 limited the length of working hours in enterprises and protected child and female labor. A package of laws approved by Nicholas II in 1912 completed the creation of the world's best workers' insurance system.
The sovereign significantly expanded the rights of local governments, approved laws on the creation of the Kamchatka region and the Sakhalin governorate, on the introduction of zemstvo self-government in 9 provinces of Belarus and Right Bank Ukraine, in the Orenburg, Astrakhan and Stavropol provinces, and city government in Novocherkassk.
Nicholas II successfully carried out the reform of the Ministry of Justice. In 1894-1897, specialists from this department developed draft laws on changing the procedure for raising questions about the responsibility of governors, probation, a disciplinary charter regulating punishment for official acts, and other bills.
A progressive judicial system was created in Russia. Emperor Nicholas II on May 13, 1896 approved the law on the introduction of “Judicial Statutes” in an additional 21 provinces of the Russian Empire. Since 1899, the mandatory appointment of a defense attorney has been introduced in the judicial chambers. In 1909, the institution of parole was introduced. On June 15, 1912, Nicholas II approved the “Law on the Transformation of the Local Court,” which restored the magistrate’s elected court. Administrative justice, the prototype of current arbitration, has become a new phenomenon.
In 1984-1916, more than 4,000 laws were adopted in the Russian Empire, defining a new legal field.
Emperor Nicholas II carried out one of the most effective military reforms in Russian history. Strengthening its defense capability with a peaceful foreign policy allowed the Russian Empire to take its rightful place among the most influential world powers.
Emperor Nicholas II in 1905-1908 completely reorganized the management of the Armed Forces. The State Defense Council, the Naval General Staff, and the Higher Attestation Commission were formed, new regulations and instructions were adopted, the combat-weak reserve and serf troops were abolished, and corps and field heavy artillery were formed. By decrees of the Emperor, new types of troops are created - the submarine forces of the fleet, the Air Force, automobile units, the engineering and railway troops, and communications troops are significantly strengthened. In 1913, the Armed Forces included 13 military districts, 2 fleets, 3 flotillas. During the reign of Nicholas II, much attention was paid to the social security of soldiers and officers, and the officer training system was changed. The Chief of the General Staff of the German Empire, General von Moltke, assessed the military reform in the following way in 1914: “Russia’s combat readiness has made absolutely exceptional progress since the Russo-Japanese period and is now at a height never before reached.”
Emperor Nicholas II assumed supreme command of the Russian Armed Forces in August 1915, as the Russian army was retreating. Under his leadership, 13 new armies were deployed, and the Vilna-Molodechno, Sarykamysh, Carpathian, and Erzurum strategic offensive operations were successfully carried out. On the Southwestern Front in 1916, for the first time in the world, a breakthrough in deep-echelon positional defense was carried out. Nicholas II ensured the mobilization of the military industry, which in 1914-1917 produced 3.3 million rifles, 11.7 thousand guns, 28 thousand machine guns, 4.6 thousand mortars, 27 million shells, 13.5 billion cartridges, 5565 aircraft. Winston Churchill assessed these achievements this way: “There are few episodes of the Great War more astonishing than the resurrection, rearmament and renewed gigantic effort of Russia in 1916.”
Emperor Nicholas II directly supervised Russia's foreign policy. The Emperor restored diplomatic relations with Bulgaria and Afghanistan, contributed to the return of France to the fold of the great powers, and consistently advocated a peaceful resolution of the Balkan conflict. “Russia will grow with Asia,” these words of the Emperor determined the direction of Russian geopolitics. Nicholas II began developing the “Great Asian Program” - the development of Siberia and the Far East, economic cooperation with neighbors in Asia. Russia's patronage helped China survive as a state. The Sovereign's firm position forced Japan to abandon the seizure of the Liaodong Peninsula and deprived it of control over the Gulf of Pechili.
On the initiative of Emperor Nicholas II, the I and II Hague Peace Conferences were convened in 1899 and 1907, marking the beginning of a new system of international relations. The Hague International Court was created. For the first time in the world, the Russian Tsar took the initiative to limit arms and peacefully resolve international disputes. The peacemaking ideas of Nicholas II still form the basis of the normative provisions of the UN Charter.
Nature did not give Nicholas the properties important for the sovereign that his late father possessed. Most importantly, Nikolai did not have the “mind of the heart” - political instinct, foresight and that inner strength that those around him feel and obey. However, Nikolai himself felt his weakness, helplessness before fate. He even foresaw his bitter destiny: “I will undergo severe trials, but will not see reward on earth.” Nikolai considered himself an eternal loser: “I succeed in nothing in my endeavors. I have no luck”... Moreover, he not only turned out to be unprepared for ruling, but also did not like state affairs, which were torment for him, a heavy burden: “A day of rest for me - no reports, no receptions... I read a lot - again they sent heaps of papers…” (from the diary). He didn’t have his father’s passion or dedication to his work. He said: “I... try not to think about anything and find that this is the only way to rule Russia.” At the same time, dealing with him was extremely difficult. Nikolai was secretive and vindictive. Witte called him a “Byzantine” who knew how to attract a person with his trust and then deceive him. One wit wrote about the king: “He doesn’t lie, but he doesn’t tell the truth either.”
KHODYNKA
And three days later [after the coronation of Nicholas on May 14, 1896 in the Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin] on the suburban Khodynskoye field, where public festivities were supposed to take place, a terrible tragedy occurred. Thousands of people, already in the evening, on the eve of the day of festivities, began to gather there, hoping in the morning to be among the first to receive at the “buffet” (of which a hundred were prepared) the royal gift - one of 400 thousand gifts wrapped in a colored scarf, consisting of a “food set” ( half a pound of sausage, sausage, sweets, nuts, gingerbread), and most importantly - an outlandish, “eternal” enameled mug with a royal monogram and gilding. The Khodynskoe field was a training ground and was all pitted with ditches, trenches and holes. The night turned out to be moonless, dark, crowds of “guests” arrived and arrived, heading to the “buffets”. People, not seeing the road in front of them, fell into holes and ditches, and from behind they were pressed and pressed by those who were approaching from Moscow. […]
In total, by morning, about half a million Muscovites had gathered on Khodynka, compacted into huge crowds. As V. A. Gilyarovsky recalled,
“steam began to rise above the million-strong crowd, similar to swamp fog... The crush was terrible. Many became ill, some lost consciousness, unable to get out or even fall: deprived of feelings, with their eyes closed, squeezed as if in a vice, they swayed along with the mass.”
The crush intensified when the bartenders, fearing the onslaught of the crowd, began handing out gifts without waiting for the announced deadline...
According to official data, 1,389 people died, although in reality there were much more victims. The blood ran cold even among seasoned military men and firefighters: scalped heads, crushed chests, premature babies lying in the dust... The king learned about this disaster in the morning, but did not cancel any of the planned festivities and in the evening he opened a ball with the charming wife of the French ambassador Montebello... And although the tsar later visited hospitals and donated money to the families of the victims, it was too late. The indifference shown by the sovereign to his people in the first hours of the disaster cost him dearly. He received the nickname "Nicholas the Bloody".
NICHOLAS II AND THE ARMY
When he was heir to the throne, the young Sovereign received thorough combat training, not only in the guard, but also in the army infantry. At the request of his sovereign father, he served as a junior officer in the 65th Moscow Infantry Regiment (the first time a member of the Royal House was assigned to the army infantry). The observant and sensitive Tsarevich became familiar with the life of the troops in every detail and, having become Emperor of All Russia, turned all his attention to improving this life. His first orders streamlined production in the chief officer ranks, increased salaries and pensions, and improved soldiers' allowances. He canceled the passage with a ceremonial march and run, knowing from experience how difficult it was for the troops.
Emperor Nikolai Alexandrovich retained this love and affection for his troops until his martyrdom. Characteristic of Emperor Nicholas II’s love for the troops is his avoidance of the official term “lower rank.” The Emperor considered him too dry, official and always used the words: “Cossack”, “hussar”, “shooter”, etc. It is impossible to read the lines of the Tobolsk diary of the dark days of the cursed year without deep emotion:
December 6. My name day... At 12 o'clock a prayer service was served. The riflemen of the 4th regiment, who were in the garden, who were on guard, all congratulated me, and I congratulated them on the regimental holiday.”
FROM THE DIARY OF NICHOLAS II FOR 1905
June 15th. Wednesday. Hot quiet day. Alix and I took a very long time at the Farm and were a full hour late for breakfast. Uncle Alexey was waiting for him with the children in the garden. Took a long trip in a kayak. Aunt Olga arrived for tea. Swimmed in the sea. After lunch we went for a drive.
I received stunning news from Odessa that the crew of the battleship Prince Potemkin-Tavrichesky that arrived there had mutinied, killed the officers and taken possession of the ship, threatening unrest in the city. I just can't believe it!
Today the war with Turkey began. Early in the morning, the Turkish squadron approached Sevastopol in the fog and opened fire on the batteries, and left half an hour later. At the same time, “Breslau” bombarded Feodosia, and “Goeben” appeared in front of Novorossiysk.
The scoundrel Germans continue to retreat hastily in western Poland.
MANIFESTO ON THE DISSOLUTION OF THE 1st STATE DUMA JULY 9, 1906
By Our will, people chosen from the population were called to legislative construction […] Firmly trusting in the mercy of God, believing in the bright and great future of Our people, We expected from their labors the good and benefit for the country. […] We have planned major transformations in all sectors of the people’s life, and Our main concern has always been to dispel the people’s darkness with the light of enlightenment and the people’s hardships by easing land labor. A severe test has been sent down to Our expectations. Those elected from the population, instead of working on legislative construction, deviated into an area that did not belong to them and turned to investigating the actions of local authorities appointed by Us, to pointing out to Us the imperfections of the Fundamental Laws, changes to which can only be undertaken by Our Monarch’s will, and to actions that are clearly illegal, such as an appeal on behalf of the Duma to the population. […]
Confused by such disorders, the peasantry, not expecting a legal improvement in their situation, moved in a number of provinces to open robbery, theft of other people's property, disobedience to the law and legitimate authorities. […]
But let our subjects remember that only with complete order and tranquility is a lasting improvement in the people’s life possible. Let it be known that We will not allow any self-will or lawlessness and with all the might of the state we will bring those who disobey the law to submission to our Royal will. We call on all right-thinking Russian people to unite to maintain legitimate power and restore peace in our dear Fatherland.
May peace be restored in the Russian land, and may the Almighty help us to carry out the most important of our royal labors - raising the well-being of the peasantry. an honest way to expand your land holdings. Persons of other classes will, at Our call, make every effort to carry out this great task, the final decision of which in the legislative order will belong to the future composition of the Duma.
We, dissolving the current composition of the State Duma, at the same time confirm Our unchangeable intention to keep in force the very law on the establishment of this institution and, in accordance with this Decree of Ours to the Governing Senate on July 8th, set the time for its new convening on February 20, 1907 of the year.
MANIFESTO ON THE DISSOLUTION OF THE II STATE DUMA JUNE 3, 1907
To our regret, a significant part of the composition of the second State Duma did not live up to our expectations. Many of the people sent from the population began to work not with a pure heart, not with a desire to strengthen Russia and improve its system, but with a clear desire to increase unrest and contribute to the disintegration of the state. The activities of these individuals in the State Duma served as an insurmountable obstacle to fruitful work. A spirit of hostility was introduced into the environment of the Duma itself, which prevented a sufficient number of its members who wanted to work for the benefit of their native land from uniting.
For this reason, the State Duma either did not consider the extensive measures developed by our government at all, or slowed down the discussion or rejected it, not even stopping to reject the laws that punished the open praise of crimes and especially punished the sowers of trouble in the troops. Avoiding condemnation of murders and violence. The State Duma did not provide moral assistance to the government in establishing order, and Russia continues to experience the shame of criminal hard times. The slow consideration by the State Duma of the state painting caused difficulties in the timely satisfaction of many urgent needs of the people.
A significant part of the Duma turned the right to interrogate the government into a way of fighting the government and inciting distrust of it among broad sections of the population. Finally, an act unheard of in the annals of history took place. The judiciary uncovered a conspiracy by an entire part of the State Duma against the state and tsarist power. When our government demanded the temporary, until the end of the trial, removal of the fifty-five members of the Duma accused of this crime and the detention of the most incriminated of them, the State Duma did not fulfill the immediate legal demand of the authorities, which did not allow any delay. […]
Created to strengthen the Russian state, the State Duma must be Russian in spirit. Other nationalities that were part of our state should have representatives of their needs in the State Duma, but they should not and will not appear in a number that gives them the opportunity to be arbiters of purely Russian issues. In those outskirts of the state where the population has not achieved sufficient development of citizenship, elections to the State Duma should be temporarily suspended.
Holy Fools and Rasputin
The king, and especially the queen, were susceptible to mysticism. The closest maid of honor to Alexandra Fedorovna and Nicholas II, Anna Alexandrovna Vyrubova (Taneeva), wrote in her memoirs: “The Emperor, like his ancestor Alexander I, was always mystically inclined; The empress was equally mystically inclined... Their Majesties said that they believe that there are people, as in the time of the Apostles... who possess the grace of God and whose prayer the Lord hears.”
Because of this, in the Winter Palace one could often see various holy fools, “blessed” people, fortune tellers, people supposedly capable of influencing people’s destinies. This is Pasha the perspicacious, and Matryona the barefoot, and Mitya Kozelsky, and Anastasia Nikolaevna Leuchtenbergskaya (Stana) - the wife of Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich Jr. The doors of the royal palace were wide open for all sorts of rogues and adventurers, such as, for example, the Frenchman Philip (real name Nizier Vashol), who presented the empress with an icon with a bell, which was supposed to ring when people “with bad intentions” approached Alexandra Feodorovna. .
But the crown of royal mysticism was Grigory Efimovich Rasputin, who managed to completely subjugate the queen, and through her, the king. “Now it is not the tsar who rules, but the rogue Rasputin,” Bogdanovich noted in February 1912. “All respect for the tsar has disappeared.” The same idea was expressed on August 3, 1916 by former Minister of Foreign Affairs S.D. Sazonov in a conversation with M. Paleologus: “The Emperor reigns, but the Empress, inspired by Rasputin, rules.”
Rasputin […] quickly recognized all the weaknesses of the royal couple and skillfully took advantage of it. Alexandra Fedorovna wrote to her husband in September 1916: “I fully believe in the wisdom of our Friend, sent to Him by God, to advise what you and our country need.” “Listen to Him,” she instructed Nicholas II, “...God sent Him to you as an assistant and leader.” […]
It got to the point that individual governors-general, chief prosecutors of the Holy Synod and ministers were appointed and removed by the tsar on the recommendation of Rasputin, transmitted through the tsarina. On January 20, 1916, on his advice, V.V. was appointed chairman of the Council of Ministers. Sturmer is “an absolutely unprincipled person and a complete nonentity,” as Shulgin described him.
Radzig E.S. Nicholas II in the memoirs of those close to him. New and recent history. No. 2, 1999
REFORM AND COUNTER-REFORMS
The most promising path of development for the country through consistent democratic reforms turned out to be impossible. Although it was marked, as if by a dotted line, even under Alexander I, later it was either subject to distortion or even interrupted. Under that autocratic form of government, which throughout the 19th century. remained unshakable in Russia, the final word on any issue about the fate of the country belonged to the monarchs. They, by the whim of history, alternated: reformer Alexander I - reactionary Nicholas I, reformer Alexander II - counter-reformer Alexander III (Nicholas II, who ascended the throne in 1894, also had to undergo reforms after his father’s counter-reforms at the beginning of the next century) .
DEVELOPMENT OF RUSSIA DURING THE REIGN OF NICHOLAS II
The main executor of all transformations in the first decade of the reign of Nicholas II (1894-1904) was S.Yu. Witte. A talented financier and statesman, S. Witte, having headed the Ministry of Finance in 1892, promised Alexander III, without carrying out political reforms, to make Russia one of the leading industrialized countries in 20 years.
The industrialization policy developed by Witte required significant capital investments from the budget. One of the sources of capital was the introduction of a state monopoly on wine and vodka products in 1894, which became the main revenue item of the budget.
In 1897, a monetary reform was carried out. Measures to increase taxes, increased gold production, and the conclusion of external loans made it possible to introduce gold coins into circulation instead of paper bills, which helped attract foreign capital to Russia and strengthen the country's monetary system, thanks to which state income doubled. The reform of commercial and industrial taxation carried out in 1898 introduced a trade tax.
The real result of Witte's economic policy was the accelerated development of industrial and railway construction. In the period from 1895 to 1899, an average of 3 thousand kilometers of tracks were built in the country per year.
By 1900, Russia took first place in the world in oil production.
By the end of 1903, there were 23 thousand factory enterprises operating in Russia with approximately 2,200 thousand workers. Politics S.Yu. Witte gave impetus to the development of Russian industry, commercial and industrial entrepreneurship, and the economy.
According to the project of P.A. Stolypin, agrarian reform began: peasants were allowed to freely dispose of their land, leave the community and run farmsteads. The attempt to abolish the rural community was of great importance for the development of capitalist relations in the countryside.
Chapter 19. The reign of Nicholas II (1894-1917). Russian history
BEGINNING OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR
On the same day, July 29, at the insistence of the Chief of the General Staff Yanushkevich, Nicholas II signed a decree on general mobilization. In the evening, the head of the mobilization department of the General Staff, General Dobrorolsky, arrived at the building of the St. Petersburg main telegraph and personally brought there the text of the decree on mobilization for communication to all parts of the empire. There were literally a few minutes left before the devices were supposed to start transmitting the telegram. And suddenly Dobrorolsky was given the tsar’s order to suspend the transfer of the decree. It turned out that the tsar received a new telegram from Wilhelm. In his telegram, the Kaiser again assured that he would try to reach an agreement between Russia and Austria, and asked the Tsar not to complicate this with military preparations. After reading the telegram, Nikolai informed Sukhomlinov that he was canceling the decree on general mobilization. The Tsar decided to limit himself to partial mobilization directed only against Austria.
Sazonov, Yanushkevich and Sukhomlinov were extremely concerned that Nikolai had succumbed to the influence of Wilhelm. They were afraid that Germany would get ahead of Russia in the concentration and deployment of the army. They met on the morning of July 30 and decided to try to convince the king. Yanushkevich and Sukhomlinov tried to do this over the phone. However, Nikolai dryly announced to Yanushkevich that he was ending the conversation. The general nevertheless managed to inform the tsar that Sazonov was present in the room, who would also like to say a few words to him. After a short silence, the king agreed to listen to the minister. Sazonov asked for an audience for an urgent report. Nikolai was silent again, and then offered to come to him at 3 o’clock. Sazonov agreed with his interlocutors that if he convinced the Tsar, he would immediately call Yanushkevich from the Peterhof Palace, and he would give an order to the main telegraph to the officer on duty to communicate the decree to all military districts. “After this,” Yanushkevich said, “I will leave home, break the phone, and generally make it so that I can no longer be found for a new cancellation of the general mobilization.”
For almost an entire hour, Sazonov proved to Nikolai that war was inevitable anyway, since Germany was striving for it, and that under these conditions, delaying general mobilization was extremely dangerous. In the end, Nikolai agreed. […] From the lobby, Sazonov called Yanushkevich and reported the tsar’s sanction. “Now you can break your phone,” he added. At 5 pm on July 30, all the machines of the main St. Petersburg telegraph started knocking. They sent out the tsar's decree on general mobilization to all military districts. On July 31, in the morning, it became public.
The beginning of the First World War. History of Diplomacy. Volume 2. Edited by V. P. Potemkin. Moscow-Leningrad, 1945
THE REIGN OF NICHOLAS II IN THE ASSESSMENTS OF HISTORIANS
In emigration, there was a split among researchers in assessing the personality of the last king. The debates often became harsh, and the participants in the discussions took opposing positions, from praise on the conservative right flank to criticism from liberals and denigration on the left, socialist flank.
The monarchists who worked in exile included S. Oldenburg, N. Markov, I. Solonevich. According to I. Solonevich: “Nicholas II, a man of “average abilities,” faithfully and honestly did everything for Russia that He knew how to do, that He could. No one else was able or able to do more”... “Left-wing historians speak of Emperor Nicholas II as mediocrity, right-wing historians as an idol whose talents or mediocrity are not subject to discussion.” […].
An even more right-wing monarchist, N. Markov, noted: “The sovereign himself was slandered and defamed in the eyes of his people, he could not withstand the evil pressure of all those who, it would seem, were obliged to strengthen and defend the monarchy in every possible way” […].
The largest researcher of the reign of the last Russian Tsar is S. Oldenburg, whose work remains of paramount importance in the 21st century. For any researcher of the Nicholas period of Russian history, it is necessary, in the process of studying this era, to get acquainted with the work of S. Oldenburg “The Reign of Emperor Nicholas II”. […].
The left-liberal direction was represented by P. N. Milyukov, who stated in the book “The Second Russian Revolution”: “Concessions to power (Manifesto of October 17, 1905) not only could not satisfy society and the people because they were insufficient and incomplete. They were insincere and deceitful, and the power that gave them did not for a moment look at them as if they had been ceded forever and finally” […].
Socialist A.F. Kerensky wrote in “History of Russia”: “The reign of Nicholas II was fatal for Russia due to his personal qualities. But he was clear about one thing: having entered the war and linking the fate of Russia with the fate of the countries allied with it, he did not make any tempting compromises with Germany until the very end, until his martyrdom […]. The king bore the burden of power. She weighed him down internally... He had no will to power. He kept it according to oath and tradition” […].
Modern Russian historians have different assessments of the reign of the last Russian Tsar. The same split was observed among scholars of the reign of Nicholas II in exile. Some of them were monarchists, others had liberal views, and others considered themselves supporters of socialism. In our time, the historiography of the reign of Nicholas II can be divided into three directions, such as in emigrant literature. But in relation to the post-Soviet period, clarifications are also needed: modern researchers who praise the tsar are not necessarily monarchists, although a certain tendency is certainly present: A. Bokhanov, O. Platonov, V. Multatuli, M. Nazarov.
A. Bokhanov, the largest modern historian in the study of pre-revolutionary Russia, positively assesses the reign of Emperor Nicholas II: “In 1913, peace, order, and prosperity reigned all around. Russia confidently moved forward, no unrest occurred. Industry worked at full capacity, agriculture developed dynamically, and every year brought greater harvests. Prosperity grew, and the purchasing power of the population increased year by year. The rearmament of the army has begun, a few more years - and Russian military power will become the first force in the world” […].
Conservative historian V. Shambarov speaks positively about the last tsar, noting that the tsar was too lenient in dealing with his political enemies, who were also enemies of Russia: “Russia was destroyed not by autocratic “despotism,” but rather by the weakness and toothlessness of power.” The Tsar too often tried to find a compromise, to come to an agreement with the liberals, so that there would be no bloodshed between the government and part of the people deceived by the liberals and socialists. To do this, Nicholas II dismissed loyal, decent, competent ministers who were loyal to the monarchy and instead appointed either unprofessionals or secret enemies of the autocratic monarchy, or swindlers. […].
M. Nazarov in his book “To the Leader of the Third Rome” drew attention to the aspect of the global conspiracy of the financial elite to overthrow the Russian monarchy... […] According to the description of Admiral A. Bubnov, an atmosphere of conspiracy reigned at Headquarters. At the decisive moment, in response to Alekseev’s cleverly formulated request for abdication, only two generals publicly expressed loyalty to the Sovereign and readiness to lead their troops to pacify the rebellion (General Khan Nakhichevansky and General Count F.A. Keller). The rest welcomed the abdication by wearing red bows. Including the future founders of the White Army, Generals Alekseev and Kornilov (the latter then had the task of announcing to the royal family the order of the Provisional Government for its arrest). Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich also violated his oath on March 1, 1917 - even before the Tsar’s abdication and as a means of putting pressure on him! - removed his military unit (the Guards crew) from guarding the royal family, came to the State Duma under a red flag, provided this headquarters of the Masonic revolution with his guards to guard the arrested royal ministers and issued a call for other troops to “join the new government.” “There is cowardice, treason, and deceit all around,” these were the last words in the tsar’s diary on the night of his abdication […].
Representatives of the old socialist ideology, for example, A.M. Anfimov and E.S. Radzig, on the contrary, negatively assess the reign of the last Russian Tsar, calling the years of his reign a chain of crimes against the people.
Between two directions - praise and overly harsh, unfair criticism are the works of Ananich B.V., N.V. Kuznetsov and P. Cherkasov. […]
P. Cherkasov adheres to the middle in his assessment of the reign of Nicholas: “From the pages of all the works mentioned in the review, the tragic personality of the last Russian Tsar appears - a deeply decent and delicate man to the point of shyness, an exemplary Christian, a loving husband and father, faithful to his duty and at the same time an unremarkable statesman an activist, a prisoner of once and for all acquired convictions in the inviolability of the order of things bequeathed to him by his ancestors. He was neither a despot, much less an executioner of his people, as our official historiography claimed, but during his lifetime he was not a saint, as is sometimes now claimed, although by martyrdom he undoubtedly atoned for all the sins and mistakes of his reign. The drama of Nicholas II as a politician lies in his mediocrity, in the discrepancy between the scale of his personality and the challenge of the time” […].
And finally, there are historians of liberal views, such as K. Shatsillo, A. Utkin. According to the first: “Nicholas II, unlike his grandfather Alexander II, not only did not give overdue reforms, but even if they were wrested from him by force by the revolutionary movement, he stubbornly strove to take back what was given “in a moment of hesitation.” All this “driven” the country into a new revolution, making it completely inevitable... A. Utkin went even further, agreeing to the point that the Russian government was one of the culprits of the First World War, wanting a clash with Germany. At the same time, the tsarist administration simply did not calculate the strength of Russia: “Criminal pride destroyed Russia. Under no circumstances should she go to war with the industrial champion of the continent. Russia had the opportunity to avoid a fatal conflict with Germany.”
Nicholas II |
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Coronation: |
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Predecessor: |
Alexander III |
Successor: |
Mikhail Alexandrovich (did not accept the throne) |
Heir: |
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Religion: |
Orthodoxy |
Birth: |
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Buried: |
Secretly buried, presumably in the forest near the village of Koptyaki, Sverdlovsk region; in 1998, the alleged remains were reburied in the Peter and Paul Cathedral |
Dynasty: |
Romanovs |
Alexander III |
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Maria Fedorovna |
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Alice of Hesse (Alexandra Fedorovna) |
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Daughters: Olga, Tatyana, Maria and Anastasia |
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Autograph: |
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Monogram: |
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Names, titles, nicknames
First steps and coronation
Economic policy
Revolution of 1905-1907
Nicholas II and the Duma
Land reform
Military command reform
World War I
Probing the world
Fall of the Monarchy
Lifestyle, habits, hobbies
Russian
Foreign
After death
Assessment in Russian emigration
Official assessment in the USSR
Church veneration
Filmography
Film incarnations
Nicholas II Alexandrovich(May 6 (18), 1868, Tsarskoe Selo - July 17, 1918, Yekaterinburg) - the last Emperor of All Russia, Tsar of Poland and Grand Duke of Finland (October 20 (November 1), 1894 - March 2 (March 15), 1917). From the Romanov dynasty. Colonel (1892); in addition, from the British monarchs he had the ranks of: admiral of the fleet (May 28, 1908) and field marshal of the British army (December 18, 1915).
The reign of Nicholas II was marked by the economic development of Russia and at the same time by the growth of socio-political contradictions in it, the revolutionary movement, which resulted in the revolution of 1905-1907 and the revolution of 1917; in foreign policy - expansion in the Far East, the war with Japan, as well as Russia's participation in the military blocs of European powers and the First World War.
Nicholas II abdicated the throne during the February Revolution of 1917 and was under house arrest with his family in the Tsarskoye Selo palace. In the summer of 1917, by decision of the Provisional Government, he and his family were sent into exile in Tobolsk, and in the spring of 1918 he was moved by the Bolsheviks to Yekaterinburg, where he was shot along with his family and associates in July 1918.
Canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church as a passion-bearer in 2000.
Names, titles, nicknames
Titled from birth His Imperial Highness (Sovereign) Grand Duke Nikolai Alexandrovich. After the death of his grandfather, Emperor Alexander II, on March 1, 1881, he received the title of Heir to Tsesarevich.
The full title of Nicholas II as Emperor: “By the advancing grace of God, Nicholas II, Emperor and Autocrat of All Russia, Moscow, Kiev, Vladimir, Novgorod; Tsar of Kazan, Tsar of Astrakhan, Tsar of Poland, Tsar of Siberia, Tsar of Chersonese Tauride, Tsar of Georgia; Sovereign of Pskov and Grand Duke of Smolensk, Lithuania, Volyn, Podolsk and Finland; Prince of Estland, Livonia, Courland and Semigal, Samogit, Bialystok, Korel, Tver, Yugorsk, Perm, Vyatka, Bulgarian and others; Sovereign and Grand Duke of Novagorod of the Nizovsky lands?, Chernigov, Ryazan, Polotsk, Rostov, Yaroslavl, Belozersky, Udorsky, Obdorsky, Kondiysky, Vitebsk, Mstislavsky and all northern countries? Lord; and Sovereign of Iversk, Kartalinsky and Kabardian lands? and the region of Armenia; Cherkasy and Mountain Princes and other Hereditary Sovereign and Possessor, Sovereign of Turkestan; Heir of Norway, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein, Stormarn, Ditmarsen and Oldenburg, and so on, and so on, and so on.”
After the February Revolution, it began to be called Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov(previously, the surname “Romanov” was not indicated by members of the imperial house; membership in the family was indicated by the titles: Grand Duke, Emperor, Empress, Tsarevich, etc.).
In connection with the events on Khodynka and January 9, 1905, he was nicknamed “Nicholas the Bloody” by the radical opposition; appeared with this nickname in Soviet popular historiography. His wife privately called him “Niki” (communication between them was mainly in English).
The Caucasian highlanders who served in the Caucasian native cavalry division of the imperial army called Sovereign Nicholas II the “White Padishah,” thereby showing their respect and devotion to the Russian emperor.
Childhood, education and upbringing
Nicholas II is the eldest son of Emperor Alexander III and Empress Maria Feodorovna. Immediately after birth, on May 6, 1868, he was named Nikolai. The baby's baptism was performed by the confessor of the imperial family, Protopresbyter Vasily Bazhanov, in the Resurrection Church of the Great Tsarskoye Selo Palace on May 20 of the same year; the successors were: Alexander II, Queen Louise of Denmark, Crown Prince Frederick of Denmark, Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna.
In early childhood, the teacher of Nikolai and his brothers was the Englishman Karl Osipovich Heath, who lived in Russia ( Charles Heath, 1826-1900); General G. G. Danilovich was appointed his official tutor as his heir in 1877. Nikolai was educated at home as part of a large gymnasium course; in 1885-1890 - according to a specially written program that combined the course of the state and economic departments of the law faculty of the university with the course of the Academy of the General Staff. The studies were conducted for 13 years: the first eight years were devoted to subjects of an extended gymnasium course, where special attention was paid to the study of political history, Russian literature, English, German and French (Nikolai Alexandrovich spoke English as a native); the next five years were devoted to the study of military affairs, legal and economic sciences necessary for a statesman. Lectures were given by world-famous scientists: N. N. Beketov, N. N. Obruchev, Ts. A. Cui, M. I. Dragomirov, N. H. Bunge, K. P. Pobedonostsev and others. Protopresbyter John Yanyshev taught the Tsarevich canon law in connection with the history of the church, the most important departments of theology and the history of religion.
On May 6, 1884, upon reaching adulthood (for the Heir), he took the oath in the Great Church of the Winter Palace, as announced by the Highest Manifesto. The first act published on his behalf was a rescript addressed to Moscow Governor-General V.A. Dolgorukov: 15 thousand rubles for distribution, at the discretion of that “among the residents of Moscow who most need help”
For the first two years, Nikolai served as a junior officer in the ranks of the Preobrazhensky Regiment. For two summer seasons he served in the ranks of a cavalry hussar regiment as a squadron commander, and then did a camp training in the ranks of the artillery. On August 6, 1892 he was promoted to colonel. At the same time, his father introduces him to the affairs of governing the country, inviting him to participate in meetings of the State Council and the Cabinet of Ministers. At the suggestion of the Minister of Railways S. Yu. Witte, Nikolai in 1892, in order to gain experience in government affairs, was appointed chairman of the committee for the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway. By the age of 23, the Heir was a man who had received extensive information in various fields of knowledge.
The educational program included travel to various provinces of Russia, which he made together with his father. To complete his education, his father gave him a cruiser to travel to the Far East. In nine months, he and his retinue visited Austria-Hungary, Greece, Egypt, India, China, Japan, and later returned to the capital of Russia by land through all of Siberia. In Japan, an attempt was made on Nicholas's life (see Otsu Incident). A shirt with blood stains is kept in the Hermitage.
Opposition politician, member of the State Duma of the first convocation V.P. Obninsky, in his anti-monarchist essay “The Last Autocrat,” argued that Nicholas “at one time stubbornly refused the throne,” but was forced to yield to the demands of Alexander III and “sign a manifesto on his accession during his father’s lifetime.” to the throne."
Accession to the throne and beginning of reign
First steps and coronation
A few days after the death of Alexander III (October 20, 1894) and his accession to the throne (the Highest Manifesto was published on October 21; on the same day the oath was taken by dignitaries, officials, courtiers and troops), on November 14, 1894 in the Great Church of the Winter Palace married to Alexandra Fedorovna; the honeymoon took place in an atmosphere of funeral services and mourning visits.
One of the first personnel decisions of Emperor Nicholas II was the dismissal of the conflict-ridden I.V. in December 1894. Gurko from the post of Governor-General of the Kingdom of Poland and the appointment in February 1895 of A.B. to the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs. Lobanov-Rostovsky - after the death of N.K. Girsa.
As a result of the exchange of notes dated February 27 (March 11), 1895, “the delimitation of the spheres of influence of Russia and Great Britain in the Pamir region, east of Lake Zor-Kul (Victoria)” was established along the Pyanj River; The Pamir volost became part of the Osh district of the Fergana region; The Vakhan ridge on Russian maps received the designation Ridge of Emperor Nicholas II. The first major international act of the emperor was the Triple Intervention - a simultaneous (April 11 (23) 1895), on the initiative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, presentation (together with Germany and France) of demands for Japan to reconsider the terms of the Shimonoseki Peace Treaty with China, renouncing claims to the Liaodong Peninsula .
The first public appearance of the Emperor in St. Petersburg was his speech, delivered on January 17, 1895 in the Nicholas Hall of the Winter Palace before deputations of the nobility, zemstvos and cities who arrived “to express loyal feelings to Their Majesties and bring congratulations on the Marriage”; The delivered text of the speech (the speech was written in advance, but the emperor pronounced it only from time to time looking at the paper) read: “I know that recently in some zemstvo meetings the voices of people have been heard who were carried away by meaningless dreams about the participation of zemstvo representatives in the affairs of internal government. Let everyone know that I, devoting all My strength to the good of the people, will protect the beginning of autocracy as firmly and unswervingly as My unforgettable, late Parent guarded it.” In connection with the Tsar’s speech, Chief Prosecutor K.P. Pobedonostsev wrote to Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich on February 2 of the same year: “After the Tsar’s speech, excitement continues with chatter of all kinds. I don’t hear her, but they tell me that everywhere among the youth and intelligentsia there is talk of some kind of irritation against the young Sovereign. Yesterday Maria Al came to see me. Meshcherskaya (ur. Panina), who came here for a short time from the village. She is indignant at all the speeches she hears about this in living rooms. But the Tsar’s word made a beneficial impression on ordinary people and villages. Many deputies, coming here, were expecting God knows what, and when they heard, they breathed freely. But how sad it is that in the upper circles there is absurd irritation. I am sure, unfortunately, that the majority of members of the government. The Council is critical of the Sovereign's action and, alas, so are some ministers! God knows what? was in people's heads before this day, and what expectations had grown... It is true that they gave a reason for this... Many straightforward Russian people were positively confused by the awards announced on January 1st. It turned out that the new Sovereign, from the first step, distinguished those very people whom the deceased considered dangerous. All this inspires fear for the future. “In the early 1910s, a representative of the left wing of the Cadets, V.P. Obninsky, wrote about the tsar’s speech in his anti-monarchist essay: “They assured that the word “unrealizable” was in the text. But be that as it may, it served as the beginning not only of a general cooling towards Nicholas, but also laid the foundation for the future liberation movement, uniting zemstvo leaders and instilling in them a more decisive course of action. The speech on January 17, 95 can be considered Nicholas’s first step down an inclined plane, along which he continues to roll to this day, descending ever lower in the opinion of both his subjects and the entire civilized world. “Historian S.S. Oldenburg wrote about the speech of January 17: “Russian educated society, for the most part, accepted this speech as a challenge to itself. The speech of January 17 dispelled the hopes of the intelligentsia for the possibility of constitutional reforms from above. In this regard, it served as the starting point for a new growth of revolutionary agitation, for which funds again began to be found.”
The coronation of the emperor and his wife took place on May 14 (26), 1896 ( about the victims of coronation celebrations in Moscow, see the article by Khodynka). In the same year, the All-Russian Industrial and Art Exhibition was held in Nizhny Novgorod, which he attended.
In April 1896, the Russian government formally recognized the Bulgarian government of Prince Ferdinand. In 1896, Nicholas II also made a big trip to Europe, meeting with Franz Joseph, Wilhelm II, Queen Victoria (Alexandra Feodorovna's grandmother); The end of the trip was his arrival in the capital of the allied France, Paris. By the time of his arrival in Britain in September 1896, there had been a sharp deterioration in relations between London and the Porte, formally associated with the massacre of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, and a simultaneous rapprochement between St. Petersburg and Constantinople; guest? at Queen Victoria's in Balmoral, Nicholas, having agreed to jointly develop a project of reforms in the Ottoman Empire, rejected the proposals made to him by the English government to remove Sultan Abdul Hamid, retain Egypt for England, and in return receive some concessions on the issue of the Straits. Arriving in Paris in early October of the same year, Nicholas approved joint instructions to the ambassadors of Russia and France in Constantinople (which the Russian government had categorically refused until that time), approved French proposals on the Egyptian issue (which included “guarantees of neutralization of the Suez Canal” - a goal which was previously outlined for Russian diplomacy by Foreign Minister Lobanov-Rostovsky, who died on August 30, 1896). The Paris agreements of the tsar, who was accompanied on the trip by N.P. Shishkin, aroused sharp objections from Sergei Witte, Lamzdorf, Ambassador Nelidov and others; however, by the end of the same year, Russian diplomacy returned to its previous course: strengthening the alliance with France, pragmatic cooperation with Germany on certain issues, freezing the Eastern Question (that is, supporting the Sultan and opposition to England’s plans in Egypt). It was ultimately decided to abandon the plan for landing Russian troops on the Bosphorus (under a certain scenario) approved at a meeting of ministers on December 5, 1896, chaired by the Tsar. During 1897, 3 heads of state arrived in St. Petersburg to pay a visit to the Russian Emperor: Franz Joseph, Wilhelm II, French President Felix Faure; During the visit of Franz Josef, an agreement was concluded between Russia and Austria for 10 years.
The Manifesto of February 3 (15), 1899 on the order of legislation in the Grand Duchy of Finland was perceived by the population of the Grand Duchy as an encroachment on its rights of autonomy and caused mass discontent and protests
The manifesto of June 28, 1899 (published on June 30) announced the death of the same June 28 “Heir to the Tsarevich and Grand Duke George Alexandrovich” (the oath to the latter, as the heir to the throne, was previously taken along with the oath to Nicholas) and read further: “From now on, until The Lord is not yet pleased to bless Us with the birth of a Son; the immediate right of succession to the All-Russian Throne, on the exact basis of the main State Law on Succession to the Throne, belongs to Our Most Dear Brother, Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich.” The absence in the Manifesto of the words “Heir Tsarevich” in the title of Mikhail Alexandrovich aroused bewilderment in court circles, which prompted the emperor to issue a Personal Highest Decree on July 7 of the same year, which ordered the latter to be called “Sovereign Heir and Grand Duke.”
Economic policy
According to the first general census conducted in January 1897, the population of the Russian Empire was 125 million people; Of these, 84 million had Russian as their native language; 21% of the Russian population were literate, and 34% of people aged 10-19 years.
In January of the same year, a monetary reform was carried out, establishing the gold standard of the ruble. The transition to the gold ruble, among other things, was a devaluation of the national currency: on imperials of the previous weight and fineness it was now written “15 rubles” - instead of 10; However, the stabilization of the ruble at the “two-thirds” rate, contrary to forecasts, was successful and without shocks.
Much attention was paid to the work issue. In factories with more than 100 workers, free medical care was introduced, covering 70 percent of the total number of factory workers (1898). In June 1903, the Rules on Remuneration for Victims of Industrial Accidents were approved by the Highest, obliging the entrepreneur to pay benefits and pensions to the victim or his family in the amount of 50-66 percent of the victim’s maintenance. In 1906, workers' trade unions were created in the country. The law of June 23, 1912 introduced compulsory insurance of workers against illnesses and accidents in Russia. On June 2, 1897, a law was issued to limit working hours, which established a maximum limit of the working day of no more than 11.5 hours on ordinary days, and 10 hours on Saturdays and holidays, or if at least part of the working day fell at night.
A special tax on landowners of Polish origin in the Western Region, introduced as punishment for the Polish uprising of 1863, was abolished. By decree of June 12, 1900, exile to Siberia as a punishment was abolished.
The reign of Nicholas II was a period of relatively high rates of economic growth: in 1885-1913, the growth rate of agricultural production averaged 2%, and the growth rate of industrial production was 4.5-5% per year. Coal production in the Donbass increased from 4.8 million tons in 1894 to 24 million tons in 1913. Coal mining began in the Kuznetsk coal basin. Oil production developed in the vicinity of Baku, Grozny and Emba.
The construction of railways continued, the total length of which, amounting to 44 thousand kilometers in 1898, by 1913 exceeded 70 thousand kilometers. In terms of the total length of railways, Russia surpassed any other European country and was second only to the United States. In terms of output of the main types of industrial products per capita, Russia in 1913 was a neighbor of Spain.
Foreign policy and the Russo-Japanese War
The historian Oldenburg, while in exile, argued in his apologetic work that back in 1895 the emperor foresaw the possibility of a clash with Japan for dominance in the Far East, and therefore was preparing for this struggle - both diplomatically and militarily. From the tsar's resolution on April 2, 1895, at the report of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, his desire for further Russian expansion in the Southeast (Korea) was clear.
On June 3, 1896, a Russian-Chinese agreement on a military alliance against Japan was concluded in Moscow; China agreed to the construction of a railway through Northern Manchuria to Vladivostok, the construction and operation of which was provided to the Russian-Chinese Bank. On September 8, 1896, a concession agreement was signed between the Chinese government and the Russian-Chinese Bank for the construction of the Chinese Eastern Railway (CER). On March 15 (27), 1898, Russia and China signed the Russian-Chinese Convention of 1898 in Beijing, according to which Russia was granted lease use for 25 years of the ports of Port Arthur (Lushun) and Dalniy (Dalian) with adjacent territories and waters; In addition, the Chinese government agreed to extend the concession it granted to the CER Society for the construction of a railway line (South Manchurian Railway) from one of the points of the CER to Dalniy and Port Arthur.
In 1898, Nicholas II turned to the governments of Europe with proposals to sign agreements on maintaining world peace and establishing limits to the constant growth of armaments. The Hague Peace Conferences took place in 1899 and 1907, some of whose decisions are still in effect today (in particular, the Permanent Court of Arbitration was created in The Hague).
In 1900, Nicholas II sent Russian troops to suppress the Yihetuan uprising together with the troops of other European powers, Japan and the United States.
Russia's lease of the Liaodong Peninsula, the construction of the Chinese Eastern Railway and the establishment of a naval base in Port Arthur, and Russia's growing influence in Manchuria clashed with the aspirations of Japan, which also laid claim to Manchuria.
On January 24, 1904, the Japanese ambassador presented the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs V.N. Lamzdorf with a note, which announced the termination of negotiations, which Japan considered “useless,” and the severance of diplomatic relations with Russia; Japan recalled its diplomatic mission from St. Petersburg and reserved the right to resort to “independent actions” as it deemed necessary to protect its interests. On the evening of January 26, the Japanese fleet attacked the Port Arthur squadron without declaring war. The highest manifesto, given by Nicholas II on January 27, 1904, declared war on Japan.
The border battle on the Yalu River was followed by battles at Liaoyang, the Shahe River and Sandepu. After a major battle in February - March 1905, the Russian army abandoned Mukden.
The outcome of the war was decided by the naval battle of Tsushima in May 1905, which ended in the complete defeat of the Russian fleet. On May 23, 1905, the Emperor received, through the US Ambassador in St. Petersburg, a proposal from President T. Roosevelt for mediation to conclude peace. The difficult situation of the Russian government after the Russo-Japanese War prompted German diplomacy to make another attempt in July 1905 to tear Russia away from France and conclude a Russian-German alliance: Wilhelm II invited Nicholas II to meet in July 1905 in the Finnish skerries, near the island of Bjorke. Nikolai agreed and signed the agreement at the meeting; Having returned to St. Petersburg, he abandoned it, since on August 23 (September 5), 1905, a peace treaty was signed in Portsmouth by Russian representatives S. Yu. Witte and R. R. Rosen. Under the terms of the latter, Russia recognized Korea as Japan's sphere of influence, ceded to Japan Southern Sakhalin and the rights to the Liaodong Peninsula with the cities of Port Arthur and Dalniy.
American researcher of the era T. Dennett stated in 1925: “Few people now believe that Japan was deprived of the fruits of its upcoming victories. The opposite opinion prevails. Many believe that Japan was already exhausted by the end of May, and that only the conclusion of peace saved her from collapse or complete defeat in a clash with Russia.”
Defeat in the Russo-Japanese War (the first in half a century) and the subsequent suppression of the Troubles of 1905-1907. (later aggravated by the appearance of Rasputin at court) led to a decline in the authority of the emperor in ruling and intellectual circles.
The German journalist G. Ganz, who lived in St. Petersburg during the war, noted the defeatist position of a significant part of the nobility and intelligentsia in relation to the war: “The common secret prayer of not only liberals, but also many moderate conservatives at that time was: “God, help us to be defeated.” "
Revolution of 1905-1907
With the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War, Nicholas II made some concessions to liberal circles: after the murder of the Minister of Internal Affairs V.K. Plehve by a Socialist Revolutionary militant, he appointed P.D. Svyatopolk-Mirsky, who was considered a liberal, to his post; On December 12, 1904, the Supreme Decree was given to the Senate “On plans for improving the State order,” which promised the expansion of the rights of zemstvos, insurance of workers, emancipation of foreigners and people of other faiths, and the elimination of censorship. When discussing the text of the Decree of December 12, 1904, he, however, privately told Count Witte (according to the latter’s memoirs): “I will never, under any circumstances, agree to a representative form of government, because I consider it harmful for the people entrusted to me by God. »
On January 6, 1905 (the feast of Epiphany), during the blessing of water in Jordan (on the ice of the Neva), in front of the Winter Palace, in the presence of the emperor and members of his family, at the very beginning of the singing of the troparion, a shot was heard from a gun, which accidentally (according to the official version ) there was a charge of buckshot left after the exercise on January 4th. Most of the bullets hit the ice next to the royal pavilion and the facade of the palace, in 4 of whose windows the glass was broken. In connection with the incident, the editor of the synodal publication wrote that “one cannot help but see something special” in the fact that only one policeman named “Romanov” was mortally wounded and the pole of the banner of “the nursery of our ill-fated fleet” - the banner of the naval corps - was shot through .
On January 9 (Old Art.), 1905, in St. Petersburg, on the initiative of priest Georgy Gapon, a procession of workers took place to the Winter Palace. The workers went to the tsar with a petition containing socio-economic, as well as some political, demands. The procession was dispersed by troops, and there were casualties. The events of that day in St. Petersburg entered Russian historiography as “Bloody Sunday”, the victims of which, according to V. Nevsky’s research, were no more than 100-200 people (according to updated government data as of January 10, 1905, 96 were killed and injured in the riots 333 people, which includes a number of law enforcement officers). On February 4, in the Moscow Kremlin, Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, who professed extreme right-wing political views and had a certain influence on his nephew, was killed by a terrorist bomb.
On April 17, 1905, a decree “On strengthening the principles of religious tolerance” was issued, which abolished a number of religious restrictions, in particular in relation to “schismatics” (Old Believers).
Strikes continued throughout the country; Unrest began on the outskirts of the empire: in Courland, the Forest Brothers began to massacre local German landowners, and the Armenian-Tatar massacre began in the Caucasus. Revolutionaries and separatists received support with money and weapons from England and Japan. Thus, in the summer of 1905, the English steamer John Grafton, which ran aground, was detained in the Baltic Sea, carrying several thousand rifles for Finnish separatists and revolutionary militants. There were several uprisings in the navy and in various cities. The largest was the December uprising in Moscow. At the same time, Socialist Revolutionary and anarchist individual terror gained great momentum. In just a couple of years, revolutionaries killed thousands of officials, officers and police officers - in 1906 alone, 768 were killed and 820 representatives and agents of the government were wounded. The second half of 1905 was marked by numerous unrest in universities and theological seminaries: due to the unrest, almost 50 secondary theological educational institutions were closed. The adoption of a temporary law on university autonomy on August 27 caused a general strike of students and stirred up teachers at universities and theological academies. Opposition parties took advantage of the expansion of freedoms to intensify attacks on the autocracy in the press.
On August 6, 1905, a manifesto was signed on the establishment of the State Duma (“as a legislative advisory institution, which is provided with the preliminary development and discussion of legislative proposals and consideration of the list of state revenues and expenses” - the Bulygin Duma), the law on the State Duma and the regulations on elections to the Duma. But the revolution, which was gaining strength, overstepped the acts of August 6: in October, an all-Russian political strike began, over 2 million people went on strike. On the evening of October 17, Nikolai, after psychologically difficult hesitations, decided to sign a manifesto, which commanded, among other things: “1. To grant the population the unshakable foundations of civil freedom on the basis of actual personal inviolability, freedom of conscience, speech, assembly and association. 3. Establish as an unshakable rule that no law can take effect without the approval of the State Duma and that those elected by the people are provided with the opportunity to truly participate in monitoring the regularity of the actions of the authorities appointed by US.” On April 23, 1906, the Basic State Laws of the Russian Empire were approved, which provided for a new role for the Duma in the legislative process. From the point of view of the liberal public, the Manifesto marked the end of the Russian autocracy as the unlimited power of the monarch.
Three weeks after the manifesto, political prisoners were amnestied, except for those convicted of terrorism; The decree of November 24, 1905 abolished preliminary general and spiritual censorship for time-based (periodical) publications published in the cities of the empire (on April 26, 1906, all censorship was abolished).
After the publication of the manifestos, the strikes subsided; the armed forces (except for the navy, where unrest took place) remained faithful to the oath; An extreme right monarchist public organization, the Union of the Russian People, arose and was secretly supported by Nicholas.
During the revolution, in 1906, Konstantin Balmont wrote the poem “Our Tsar”, dedicated to Nicholas II, which turned out to be prophetic:
Our King is Mukden, our King is Tsushima,
Our King is a bloody stain,
The stench of gunpowder and smoke,
In which the mind is dark. Our Tsar is a blind misery,
Prison and whip, trial, execution,
The hanged king is twice as low,
What he promised, but didn’t dare give. He is a coward, he feels with hesitation,
But it will happen, the hour of reckoning awaits.
Who began to reign - Khodynka,
He will end up standing on the scaffold.
The decade between two revolutions
Milestones of domestic and foreign policy
On August 18 (31), 1907, an agreement was signed with Great Britain to delimit spheres of influence in China, Afghanistan and Persia, which generally completed the process of forming an alliance of 3 powers - the Triple Entente, known as the Entente ( Triple Entente); however, mutual military obligations at that time existed only between Russia and France - under the agreement of 1891 and the military convention of 1892. On May 27 - 28, 1908 (Old Art.), a meeting of the British King Edward VIII with the Tsar took place - on the roadstead in the harbor of Revel; the tsar accepted from the king the uniform of an admiral of the British fleet. The Revel meeting of the monarchs was interpreted in Berlin as a step towards the formation of an anti-German coalition - despite the fact that Nicholas was a staunch opponent of rapprochement with England against Germany. The agreement concluded between Russia and Germany on August 6 (19), 1911 (Potsdam Agreement) did not change the general vector of the involvement of Russia and Germany in opposing military-political alliances.
On June 17, 1910, the law on the procedure for issuing laws relating to the Principality of Finland, known as the law on the procedure for general imperial legislation, was approved by the State Council and the State Duma (see Russification of Finland).
The Russian contingent, which had been stationed there in Persia since 1909 due to the unstable political situation, was reinforced in 1911.
In 1912, Mongolia became a de facto protectorate of Russia, gaining independence from China as a result of the revolution that took place there. After this revolution in 1912-1913, Tuvan noyons (ambyn-noyon Kombu-Dorzhu, Chamzy Khamby Lama, noyon Daa-khoshun Buyan-Badyrgy and others) several times appealed to the tsarist government with a request to accept Tuva under the protectorate of the Russian Empire. On April 4 (17), 1914, a resolution on the report of the Minister of Foreign Affairs established a Russian protectorate over the Uriankhai region: the region was included in the Yenisei province with the transfer of political and diplomatic affairs in Tuva to the Irkutsk Governor-General.
The beginning of military operations of the Balkan Union against Turkey in the fall of 1912 marked the collapse of the diplomatic efforts undertaken after the Bosnian crisis by the Minister of Foreign Affairs S. D. Sazonov towards an alliance with the Porte and at the same time keeping the Balkan states under his control: contrary to the expectations of the Russian government, the troops of the latter successfully pushed back Turks and in November 1912 the Bulgarian army was 45 km from the Ottoman capital of Constantinople (see Battle of Chataldzhin). After the actual transfer of the Turkish army under German command (German General Liman von Sanders at the end of 1913 took over the post of chief inspector of the Turkish army), the question of the inevitability of war with Germany was raised in Sazonov’s note to the emperor dated December 23, 1913; Sazonov's note was also discussed at a meeting of the Council of Ministers.
In 1913, a wide celebration of the 300th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty took place: the imperial family traveled to Moscow, from there to Vladimir, Nizhny Novgorod, and then along the Volga to Kostroma, where in the Ipatiev Monastery on March 14, 1613, the first Romanov tsar was called to the throne - Mikhail Fedorovich; In January 1914, the solemn consecration of the Fedorov Cathedral, erected to commemorate the anniversary of the dynasty, took place in St. Petersburg.
Nicholas II and the Duma
The first two State Dumas were unable to conduct regular legislative work: the contradictions between the deputies, on the one hand, and the emperor, on the other, were insurmountable. So, immediately after the opening, in a response to Nicholas II’s speech from the throne, the left Duma members demanded the liquidation of the State Council (the upper house of parliament) and the transfer of monastery and state-owned lands to the peasants. On May 19, 1906, 104 deputies of the Labor Group put forward a land reform project (Project 104), the content of which was the confiscation of landowners' lands and the nationalization of all land.
The Duma of the first convocation was dissolved by the emperor by a personal decree to the Senate of July 8 (21), 1906 (published on Sunday, July 9), which set the time for convening the newly elected Duma on February 20, 1907; the subsequent Highest Manifesto of July 9 explained the reasons, among which were: “Those elected from the population, instead of working on legislative construction, deviated into an area that did not belong to them and turned to investigating the actions of local authorities appointed by Us, to pointing out to Us the imperfections of the Fundamental Laws, the changes of which could to be undertaken only by Our Monarch’s will, and to actions that are clearly illegal, such as an appeal on behalf of the Duma to the population.” By decree of July 10 of the same year, the sessions of the State Council were suspended.
Simultaneously with the dissolution of the Duma, P. A. Stolypin was appointed instead of I. L. Goremykin to the post of Chairman of the Council of Ministers. Stolypin's agricultural policy, successful suppression of the unrest, and bright speeches in the Second Duma made him the idol of some right-wingers.
The second Duma turned out to be even more left-wing than the first, since the Social Democrats and Socialist Revolutionaries, who boycotted the first Duma, took part in the elections. The government was ripening the idea of dissolving the Duma and changing the electoral law; Stolypin did not intend to destroy the Duma, but to change the composition of the Duma. The reason for the dissolution was the actions of the Social Democrats: on May 5, at the apartment of a Duma member from the RSDLP Ozol, the police discovered a meeting of 35 Social Democrats and about 30 soldiers of the St. Petersburg garrison; In addition, the police discovered various propaganda materials calling for the violent overthrow of the state system, various orders from soldiers of military units and fake passports. On June 1, Stolypin and the chairman of the St. Petersburg Judicial Chamber demanded that the Duma remove the entire Social Democratic faction from Duma meetings and lift immunity from 16 members of the RSDLP. The Duma did not agree to the government's demand; The result of the confrontation was the manifesto of Nicholas II on the dissolution of the Second Duma, published on June 3, 1907, together with the Regulations on elections to the Duma, that is, the new electoral law. The manifesto also indicated the date for the opening of the new Duma - November 1 of the same year. The act of June 3, 1907 in Soviet historiography was called a “coup d’etat,” since it contradicted the manifesto of October 17, 1905, according to which no new law could be adopted without the approval of the State Duma.
According to General A. A. Mosolov, Nicholas II looked at the members of the Duma not as representatives of the people, but as “simply intellectuals” and added that his attitude towards peasant delegations was completely different: “The Tsar met with them willingly and spoke for a long time , without fatigue, joyfully and affably.”
Land reform
From 1902 to 1905, both statesmen and scientists of Russia were involved in the development of new agrarian legislation at the state level: Vl. I. Gurko, S. Yu. Witte, I. L. Goremykin, A. V. Krivoshein, P. A. Stolypin, P. P. Migulin, N. N. Kutler and A. A. Kaufman. The question of abolishing the community was posed by life itself. At the height of the revolution, N. N. Kutler even proposed a project for the alienation of part of the landowners' lands. On January 1, 1907, the law on the free exit of peasants from the community (Stolypin agrarian reform) began to be practically applied. Granting peasants the right to freely dispose of their land and the abolition of communities was of great national importance, but the reform was not completed and could not be completed, the peasant did not become the owner of land throughout the country, peasants left the community en masse and returned back. And Stolypin sought to allocate land to some peasants at the expense of others and, above all, to preserve landownership, which closed the way to free farming. This was only a partial solution to the problem.
In 1913, Russia (excluding the Vistlensky provinces) was in first place in the world in the production of rye, barley and oats, in third (after Canada and the USA) in wheat production, in fourth (after France, Germany and Austria-Hungary) in production potatoes. Russia has become the main exporter of agricultural products, accounting for 2/5 of all world agricultural exports. Grain yield was 3 times lower than in England or Germany, potato yield was 2 times lower.
Military command reform
The military reforms of 1905-1912 were carried out after the defeat of Russia in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, which revealed serious shortcomings in the central administration, organization, recruitment system, combat training and technical equipment of the army.
In the first period of military reforms (1905-1908), the highest military administration was decentralized (the Main Directorate of the General Staff, independent of the War Ministry, was established, the State Defense Council was created, inspector generals were subordinate directly to the emperor), the terms of active service were reduced (in the infantry and field artillery from 5 to 3 years, in other branches of the military from 5 to 4 years, in the navy from 7 to 5 years), the officer corps was rejuvenated; The life of soldiers and sailors (food and clothing allowances) and the financial situation of officers and long-term servicemen were improved.
During the second period of Military reforms (1909-1912), the centralization of senior management was carried out (the Main Directorate of the General Staff was included in the Ministry of War, the Council of State Defense was abolished, inspector generals were subordinate to the Minister of War); Due to the combatively weak reserve and fortress troops, the field troops were strengthened (the number of army corps increased from 31 to 37), a reserve was created in the field units, which during mobilization was allocated for the deployment of secondary ones (including field artillery, engineering and railway troops, communications units) , machine gun teams were created in regiments and corps air detachments, cadet schools were transformed into military schools that received new programs, new regulations and instructions were introduced. In 1910, the Imperial Air Force was created.
World War I
On July 19 (August 1), 1914, Germany declared war on Russia: Russia entered the world war, which for it ended in the collapse of the empire and dynasty.
On July 20, 1914, the Emperor gave and by the evening of the same day published the Manifesto on the War, as well as the Personal Highest Decree, in which he, “not recognizing the possibility, for reasons of a national nature, to now become the head of Our land and naval forces intended for military actions,” ordered Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich to be Supreme Commander-in-Chief.
By decrees of July 24, 1914, the sessions of the State Council and the Duma were interrupted from July 26. On July 26, a manifesto on war with Austria was released. On the same day, the Supreme Reception of members of the State Council and the Duma took place: the emperor arrived at the Winter Palace on a yacht together with Nikolai Nikolaevich and, entering the Nicholas Hall, addressed those gathered with the following words: “Germany and then Austria declared war on Russia. That huge upsurge of patriotic feelings of love for the Motherland and devotion to the Throne, which swept like a hurricane across our entire land, serves in My eyes and, I think, in yours, as a guarantee that Our great Mother Russia will bring the war sent by the Lord God to the desired end. I am confident that each and every one of you in your place will help Me endure the test sent down to Me and that everyone, starting with Me, will fulfill their duty to the end. Great is the God of the Russian Land!” At the end of his response speech, the Chairman of the Duma, Chamberlain M.V. Rodzianko, said: “Without differences of opinions, views and convictions, the State Duma on behalf of the Russian Land calmly and firmly says to its Tsar: “Be of good cheer, Sovereign, the Russian people are with you and, firmly trusting by the mercy of God, will not stop at any sacrifices until the enemy is broken and the dignity of the Motherland is protected.“”
With a manifesto dated October 20 (November 2), 1914, Russia declared war on the Ottoman Empire: “In a hitherto unsuccessful struggle with Russia, trying by all means to increase their forces, Germany and Austria-Hungary resorted to the help of the Ottoman government and brought Turkey, blinded by them, into the war with us . The Turkish fleet, led by the Germans, dared to treacherously attack our Black Sea coast. Immediately after this, We commanded the Russian ambassador in Constantinople, with all ambassadorial and consular ranks, to leave the borders of Turkey. Together with all the Russian people, we adamantly believe that Turkey’s current reckless intervention in military operations will only accelerate the fatal course of events for it and will open the way for Russia to resolve the historical tasks bequeathed to it by its ancestors on the shores of the Black Sea.” The government press organ reported that on October 21, “the day of the Accession to the Throne of the Sovereign Emperor took on the character of a national holiday in Tiflis, in connection with the war with Turkey”; on the same day, the Viceroy received a deputation of 100 prominent Armenians led by a bishop: the deputation “asked the Count to bring to the feet of the Monarch of Great Russia the feelings of boundless devotion and ardent love of the loyal Armenian people”; then a deputation of Sunni and Shia Muslims presented themselves.
During the period of Nikolai Nikolayevich's command, the tsar traveled to Headquarters several times for meetings with the command (September 21 - 23, October 22 - 24, November 18 - 20); in November 1914 he also traveled to the south of Russia and the Caucasian front.
At the beginning of June 1915, the situation on the fronts deteriorated sharply: Przemysl, a fortress city captured with huge losses in March, was surrendered. At the end of June Lvov was abandoned. All military acquisitions were lost, and the Russian Empire began losing its own territory. In July, Warsaw, all of Poland and part of Lithuania were surrendered; the enemy continued to advance. The public started talking about the government's inability to cope with the situation.
Both from public organizations, the State Duma, and from other groups, even many grand dukes, they started talking about creating a “Ministry of Public Trust.”
At the beginning of 1915, troops at the front began to experience a great need for weapons and ammunition. The need for a complete restructuring of the economy in accordance with the demands of the war became clear. On August 17, Nicholas II approved documents on the formation of four special meetings: on defense, fuel, food and transportation. These meetings, consisting of representatives of the government, private industrialists, the State Duma and the State Council and headed by the relevant ministers, were supposed to unite the efforts of the government, private industry and the public in mobilizing industry for military needs. The most important of these was the Special Conference on Defense.
Along with the creation of special meetings, in 1915 Military-Industrial Committees began to emerge - public organizations of the bourgeoisie that were semi-oppositional in nature.
On August 23, 1915, motivating his decision by the need to establish agreement between Headquarters and the government, to end the separation of the power at the head of the army from the power governing the country, Nicholas II assumed the title of Supreme Commander-in-Chief, dismissing the Grand Duke, popular in the army, from this post Nikolai Nikolaevich. According to State Council member (a monarchist by conviction) Vladimir Gurko, the emperor’s decision was made at the instigation of Rasputin’s “gang” and caused disapproval from the overwhelming majority of members of the Council of Ministers, the generals and the public.
Due to the constant movements of Nicholas II from Headquarters to Petrograd, as well as insufficient attention to issues of troop leadership, the actual command of the Russian army was concentrated in the hands of his chief of staff, General M.V. Alekseev, and General Vasily Gurko, who replaced him at the end of 1916 - beginning of 1917. The autumn conscription of 1916 put 13 million people under arms, and losses in the war exceeded 2 million.
During 1916, Nicholas II replaced four chairmen of the Council of Ministers (I. L. Goremykin, B. V. Sturmer, A. F. Trepov and Prince N. D. Golitsyn), four ministers of internal affairs (A. N. Khvostova, B. V. Sturmer, A. A. Khvostov and A. D. Protopopov), three foreign ministers (S. D. Sazonov, B. V. Sturmer and N. N. Pokrovsky), two military ministers (A. A. Polivanov, D.S. Shuvaev) and three ministers of justice (A.A. Khvostov, A.A. Makarov and N.A. Dobrovolsky).
On January 19 (February 1), 1917, a meeting of high-ranking representatives of the Allied powers opened in Petrograd, which went down in history as the Petrograd Conference ( q.v.): from Russia's allies it was attended by delegates from Great Britain, France and Italy, who also visited Moscow and the front, had meetings with politicians of different political orientations, with leaders of Duma factions; the latter unanimously told the head of the British delegation about an imminent revolution - either from below or from above (in the form of a palace coup).
Nicholas II assumed the Supreme Command of the Russian Army
Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolayevich’s overestimation of his abilities ultimately led to a number of major military mistakes, and attempts to deflect the corresponding accusations from himself led to the fanning of Germanophobia and spy mania. One of these most significant episodes was the case of Lieutenant Colonel Myasoedov, which ended with the execution of an innocent man, where Nikolai Nikolaevich played the first violin along with A.I. Guchkov. The front commander, due to the disagreement of the judges, did not approve the sentence, but Myasoedov’s fate was decided by the resolution of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich: “Hang him anyway!” This case, in which the Grand Duke played the first role, led to an increase in clearly oriented suspicion of society and played a role, among other things, in the May 1915 German pogrom in Moscow. Military historian A. A. Kersnovsky states that by the summer of 1915, “a military catastrophe was approaching Russia,” and it was this threat that became the main reason for the Supreme decision to remove the Grand Duke from the post of Commander-in-Chief.
General M.V. Alekseev, who came to Headquarters in September 1914, was also “struck by the disorder, confusion and despondency reigning there. Both Nikolai Nikolaevich and Yanushkevich were confused by the failures of the North-Western Front and did not know what to do.”
Failures at the front continued: on July 22, Warsaw and Kovno were surrendered, the fortifications of Brest were blown up, the Germans were approaching the Western Dvina, and the evacuation of Riga began. In such conditions, Nicholas II decided to remove the Grand Duke, who could not cope, and himself stand at the head of the Russian army. According to the military historian A. A. Kersnovsky, such a decision by the emperor was the only way out:
On August 23, 1915, Nicholas II assumed the title of Supreme Commander-in-Chief, replacing Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich, who was appointed commander of the Caucasian Front. M.V. Alekseev was appointed chief of staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. Soon, General Alekseev’s condition changed dramatically: the general perked up, his anxiety and complete confusion disappeared. The general on duty at Headquarters P.K. Kondzerovsky even thought that good news had come from the front, forcing the chief of staff to cheer up, but the reason was different: the new Supreme Commander-in-Chief received Alekseev’s report on the situation at the front and gave him certain instructions; A telegram was sent to the front saying “not a step back now.” The Vilna-Molodechno breakthrough was ordered to be liquidated by the troops of General Evert. Alekseev was busy carrying out the order of the Sovereign:
Meanwhile, Nikolai’s decision caused a mixed reaction, given that all the ministers opposed this step and only his wife unconditionally spoke in favor of it. Minister A.V. Krivoshein said:
The soldiers of the Russian army greeted Nicholas's decision to take up the post of Supreme Commander-in-Chief without enthusiasm. At the same time, the German command was satisfied with the resignation of Prince Nikolai Nikolaevich from the post of Supreme Commander-in-Chief - they considered him a tough and skillful opponent. A number of his strategic ideas were assessed by Erich Ludendorff as extremely bold and brilliant.
The result of this decision of Nicholas II was colossal. During the Sventsyansky breakthrough on September 8 - October 2, German troops were defeated and their offensive was stopped. The parties switched to positional warfare: the brilliant Russian counterattacks that followed in the Vilna-Molodechno region and the events that followed made it possible, after the successful September operation, to prepare for a new stage of the war, no longer fearing an enemy offensive. Work began to begin throughout Russia on the formation and training of new troops. Industry was rapidly producing ammunition and military equipment. Such work became possible due to the emerging confidence that the enemy’s advance had been stopped. By the spring of 1917, new armies were created, provided with equipment and ammunition better than ever before during the entire war.
The autumn conscription of 1916 put 13 million people under arms, and losses in the war exceeded 2 million.
During 1916, Nicholas II replaced four chairmen of the Council of Ministers (I. L. Goremykin, B. V. Sturmer, A. F. Trepov and Prince N. D. Golitsyn), four ministers of internal affairs (A. N. Khvostov, B. V. Sturmer, A. A. Khvostov and A. D. Protopopov), three foreign ministers (S. D. Sazonov, B. V. Sturmer and N. N. Pokrovsky), two military ministers (A. A. Polivanov, D.S. Shuvaev) and three ministers of justice (A.A. Khvostov, A.A. Makarov and N.A. Dobrovolsky).
By January 1, 1917, changes had also occurred in the State Council. Nicholas expelled 17 members and appointed new ones.
On January 19 (February 1), 1917, a meeting of high-ranking representatives of the Allied powers opened in Petrograd, which went down in history as the Petrograd Conference (q.v.): from the allies of Russia it was attended by delegates from Great Britain, France and Italy, who also visited Moscow and the front, had meetings with politicians of different political orientations, with leaders of Duma factions; the latter unanimously told the head of the British delegation about an imminent revolution - either from below or from above (in the form of a palace coup).
Probing the world
Nicholas II, hoping for an improvement in the situation in the country if the spring offensive of 1917 was successful (as agreed upon at the Petrograd Conference), did not intend to conclude a separate peace with the enemy - he saw the victorious end of the war as the most important means of strengthening the throne. Hints that Russia might begin negotiations for a separate peace were a diplomatic game that forced the Entente to accept the need to establish Russian control over the Straits.
Fall of the Monarchy
Growing revolutionary sentiments
The war, during which there was a widespread mobilization of the working-age male population, horses and massive requisition of livestock and agricultural products, had a detrimental effect on the economy, especially in the countryside. Among the politicized Petrograd society, the authorities were discredited by scandals (in particular, related to the influence of G. E. Rasputin and his henchmen - “dark forces”) and suspicions of treason; Nicholas’s declarative commitment to the idea of “autocratic” power came into sharp conflict with the liberal and leftist aspirations of a significant part of the Duma members and society.
General A.I. Denikin testified about the mood in the army after the revolution: “As for the attitude towards the throne, as a general phenomenon, in the officer corps there was a desire to distinguish the person of the sovereign from the court dirt that surrounded him, from the political mistakes and crimes of the tsar government, which clearly and steadily led to the destruction of the country and the defeat of the army. They forgave the sovereign, they tried to justify him. As we will see below, by 1917, this attitude among a certain part of the officers was shaken, causing the phenomenon that Prince Volkonsky called a “revolution on the right,” but on purely political grounds.”
Since December 1916, a “coup” in one form or another was expected in the court and political environment, the possible abdication of the emperor in favor of Tsarevich Alexei under the regency of Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich.
On February 23, 1917, a strike began in Petrograd; after 3 days it became universal. On the morning of February 27, 1917, the soldiers of the Petrograd garrison revolted and joined the strikers; Only the police provided resistance to riots and riots. A similar uprising took place in Moscow. Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, not realizing the seriousness of what was happening, wrote to her husband on February 25: “This is a “hooligan” movement, boys and girls run around shouting that they have no bread just to incite, and the workers do not allow others to work. If it were very cold, they would probably stay at home. But all this will pass and calm down, if only the Duma behaves decently.”
On February 25, 1917, by decree of Nicholas II, meetings of the State Duma were stopped from February 26 to April of the same year, which further inflamed the situation. Chairman of the State Duma M.V. Rodzianko sent a number of telegrams to the emperor about the events in Petrograd. Telegram received at Headquarters on February 26, 1917 at 22:40: “I most humbly inform Your Majesty that the popular unrest that began in Petrograd is becoming spontaneous and of threatening proportions. Their foundations are the lack of baked bread and the weak supply of flour, inspiring panic, but mainly complete distrust in the authorities, which are unable to lead the country out of a difficult situation.” In a telegram on February 27, 1917 he reported: “The civil war has begun and is flaring up. Order the legislative chambers to be reconvened to repeal your Highest decree. If the movement spreads to the army, the collapse of Russia, and with it the dynasty, is inevitable.”
The Duma, which then had high authority in a revolutionary-minded environment, did not obey the decree of February 25 and continued to work in the so-called private meetings of members of the State Duma, convened on the evening of February 27 by the Temporary Committee of the State Duma. The latter assumed the role of the supreme authority immediately upon its formation.
Renunciation
On the evening of February 25, 1917, Nicholas ordered General S.S. Khabalov by telegram to put an end to the unrest by military force. Having sent General N.I. Ivanov to Petrograd on February 27 to suppress the uprising, Nicholas II on the evening of February 28 left for Tsarskoe Selo, but was unable to travel and, having lost contact with Headquarters, on March 1 arrived in Pskov, where the headquarters of the armies of the Northern Front of General N was located. V. Ruzsky. At about 3 p.m. on March 2, he decided to abdicate in favor of his son during the regency of Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich, and in the evening of the same day he announced to the arriving A.I. Guchkov and V.V. Shulgin about the decision to abdicate for his son.
On March 2 (15) at 23 hours 40 minutes (in the document the time of signing was indicated as 15 hours) Nikolai handed over to Guchkov and Shulgin the Manifesto of Abdication, which, in particular, read: “We command OUR Brother to rule the affairs of the state in complete and inviolable unity with representatives of the people in legislative institutions, on those principles that will be established by them, having taken an inviolable oath. "
Some researchers have questioned the authenticity of the manifesto (renunciation).
Guchkov and Shulgin also demanded that Nicholas II sign two decrees: on the appointment of Prince G. E. Lvov as head of government and Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich as supreme commander-in-chief; the former emperor signed decrees, indicating in them the time of 14 hours.
General A.I. Denikin stated in his memoirs that on March 3 in Mogilev, Nikolai told General Alekseev:
A moderately right-wing Moscow newspaper on March 4 reported the emperor’s words to Tuchkov and Shulgin as follows: “I thought about all this,” he said, “and decided to renounce. But I do not abdicate in favor of my son, since I must leave Russia, since I am leaving the Supreme Power. In no case do I consider it possible to leave my son, whom I love very much, in Russia, to leave him in complete obscurity. That’s why I decided to transfer the throne to my brother, Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich.”
Exile and execution
From March 9 to August 14, 1917, Nikolai Romanov and his family lived under arrest in the Alexander Palace of Tsarskoe Selo.
At the end of March, the Minister of the Provisional Government P. N. Milyukov tried to send Nicholas and his family to England, in the care of George V, for which the preliminary consent of the British side was obtained; but in April, due to the unstable internal political situation in England itself, the King chose to abandon such a plan - according to some evidence, against the advice of Prime Minister Lloyd George. However, in 2006, some documents became known indicating that until May 1918, the MI 1 unit of the British Military Intelligence Agency was preparing for an operation to rescue the Romanovs, which was never brought to the stage of practical implementation.
In view of the strengthening of the revolutionary movement and anarchy in Petrograd, the Provisional Government, fearing for the lives of the prisoners, decided to transfer them deep into Russia, to Tobolsk; they were allowed to take the necessary furniture and personal belongings from the palace, and also offer service personnel, if they wish, to voluntarily accompany them to the place of new accommodation and further service. On the eve of departure, the head of the Provisional Government, A.F. Kerensky, arrived and brought with him the brother of the former emperor, Mikhail Alexandrovich (Mikhail Alexandrovich was exiled to Perm, where on the night of June 13, 1918 he was killed by local Bolshevik authorities).
On August 14, 1917, at 6:10 a.m., a train with members of the imperial family and servants under the sign “Japanese Red Cross Mission” set off from Tsarskoye Selo. On August 17, the train arrived in Tyumen, then the arrested were transported along the river to Tobolsk. The Romanov family settled in the governor's house, which was specially renovated for their arrival. The family was allowed to walk across the street and boulevard to services at the Church of the Annunciation. The security regime here was much lighter than in Tsarskoe Selo. The family led a calm, measured life.
At the beginning of April 1918, the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (VTsIK) authorized the transfer of the Romanovs to Moscow for the purpose of their trial. At the end of April 1918, the prisoners were transported to Yekaterinburg, where a house belonging to mining engineer N.N. was requisitioned to house the Romanovs. Ipatiev. Five service personnel lived with them here: doctor Botkin, footman Trupp, room girl Demidova, cook Kharitonov and cook Sednev.
At the beginning of July 1918, the Ural military commissar F.I. Goloshchekin went to Moscow to receive instructions on the future fate of the royal family, which was decided at the highest level of the Bolshevik leadership (except for V.I. Lenin, Ya. M. Sverdlov took an active part in deciding the fate of the former tsar).
On July 12, 1918, the Ural Council of Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' Deputies, in the face of the retreat of the Bolsheviks under the pressure of white troops and members of the Constituent Assembly of the Czechoslovak Corps loyal to the Committee, adopted a resolution to execute the entire family. Nikolai Romanov, Alexandra Fedorovna, their children, Doctor Botkin and three servants (except for the cook Sednev) were shot in the “House of Special Purpose” - Ipatiev’s mansion in Yekaterinburg on the night of July 16-17, 1918. Senior investigator for particularly important cases of the General Russian prosecutor's office Vladimir Solovyov, who led the investigation of the criminal case into the death of the royal family, came to the conclusion that Lenin and Sverdlov were against the execution of the royal family, and the execution itself was organized by the Urals Council, where the left Socialist Revolutionaries had enormous influence, in order to disrupt the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk between Soviet Russia and Kaiser's Germany. After the February Revolution, the Germans, despite the war with Russia, were worried about the fate of the Russian imperial family, because the wife of Nicholas II, Alexandra Feodorovna, was German, and their daughters were both Russian princesses and German princesses.
Religiosity and view of one's power. Church politics
Protopresbyter Georgy Shavelsky, who was a member of the Holy Synod in the pre-revolutionary years (closely communicated with the emperor at Headquarters during the World War), while in exile, testified to the “humble, simple and direct” religiosity of the tsar, to his strict attendance at Sunday and holiday services, to “ generous outpouring of many benefits for the Church.” The opposition politician of the early 20th century, V.P. Obninsky, also wrote about his “sincere piety demonstrated during every divine service.” General A. A. Mosolov noted: “The Tsar was thoughtful about his rank as God’s anointed. You should have seen with what attention he considered requests for pardon from those sentenced to death. He received from his father, whom he revered and whom he tried to imitate even in everyday trifles, an unshakable belief in the fate of his power. His calling came from God. He was responsible for his actions only before his conscience and the Almighty. The king answered to his conscience and was guided by intuition, instinct, that incomprehensible thing that is now called the subconscious. He bowed only to the elemental, irrational, and sometimes contrary to reason, to the weightless, to his ever-increasing mysticism.”
Vladimir Gurko, a former comrade of the Minister of Internal Affairs, in his émigré essay (1927) emphasized: “Nicholas II’s idea of the limits of the power of the Russian autocrat was at all times wrong. Seeing himself, first of all, as God’s anointed, he considered every decision he made to be legal and essentially correct. “This is my will,” was the phrase that repeatedly flew from his lips and should, in his opinion, stop all objections to the assumption he had expressed. Regis voluntas suprema lex esto - this is the formula with which he was imbued through and through. It was not a belief, it was a religion. Ignoring the law, non-recognition of either existing rules or ingrained customs was one of the distinctive features of the last Russian autocrat.” This view of the character and nature of his power, according to Gurko, determined the degree of favor of the emperor towards his closest employees: “He disagreed with the ministers not on the basis of disagreements in understanding the procedure for managing this or that branch of the state system, but only because the head any department showed excessive benevolence towards the public, and especially if he did not want and could not recognize the royal power in all cases as unlimited. In most cases, the differences of opinion between the Tsar and his ministers boiled down to the fact that the ministers defended the rule of law, and the Tsar insisted on his omnipotence. As a result, only such ministers as N.A. Maklakov or Stürmer, who agreed to violate any laws in order to maintain ministerial portfolios, retained the favor of the Sovereign.”
The beginning of the 20th century in the life of the Russian Church, the secular head of which he was according to the laws of the Russian Empire, was marked by a movement for reforms in church administration; a significant part of the episcopate and some laity advocated the convening of an All-Russian local council and the possible restoration of the patriarchate in Russia; in 1905 there were attempts to restore the autocephaly of the Georgian Church (then the Georgian Exarchate of the Russian Holy Synod).
Nicholas, in principle, agreed with the idea of a Council; but considered it untimely and in January 1906 established the Pre-Conciliar Presence, and by the Highest Command of February 28, 1912 - “a permanent pre-conciliar meeting under the Holy Synod, until the convening of the Council.”
On March 1, 1916, he ordered “that in the future, reports of the Chief Prosecutor to His Imperial Majesty on matters relating to the internal structure of church life and the essence of church government should be made in the presence of the leading member of the Holy Synod, for the purpose of comprehensive canonical coverage of them,” which was welcomed in the conservative press as “a great act of royal trust”
During his reign, an unprecedented (for the synodal period) large number of canonizations of new saints took place, and he insisted on the canonization of the most famous - Seraphim of Sarov (1903) - despite the reluctance of the chief prosecutor of the Synod, Pobedonostsev; also glorified: Theodosius of Chernigov (1896), Isidor Yuryevsky (1898), Anna Kashinskaya (1909), Euphrosyne of Polotsk (1910), Efrosin of Sinozersky (1911), Iosaf of Belgorod (1911), Patriarch Hermogenes (1913), Pitirim of Tambov (1914 ), John of Tobolsk (1916).
As the interference of Grigory Rasputin (acting through the empress and hierarchs loyal to him) in synodal affairs increased in the 1910s, dissatisfaction with the entire synodal system grew among a significant part of the clergy, who, for the most part, reacted positively to the fall of the monarchy in March 1917.
Lifestyle, habits, hobbies
Most of the time, Nicholas II lived with his family in the Alexander Palace (Tsarskoe Selo) or Peterhof. In the summer I vacationed in Crimea at the Livadia Palace. For recreation, he also annually made two-week trips around the Gulf of Finland and the Baltic Sea on the yacht “Standart”. I read both light entertainment literature and serious scientific works, often on historical topics; Russian and foreign newspapers and magazines. I smoked cigarettes.
He was interested in photography and also loved watching movies; All his children also took photographs. In the 1900s, he became interested in the then new type of transport - cars (“the tsar had one of the most extensive car parks in Europe”).
The official government press in 1913, in an essay about the everyday and family side of the emperor’s life, wrote, in particular: “The Emperor does not like so-called secular pleasures. His favorite pastime is the hereditary passion of the Russian Tsars - hunting. It is arranged both in permanent places of the Tsar’s stay, and in special places adapted for this purpose - in Spala, near Skierniewice, in Belovezhye.”
At the age of 9 he began keeping a diary. The archive contains 50 voluminous notebooks - the original diary for the years 1882-1918; some of them were published.
Family. Spouse's political influence
"> " title=" Letter from V.K. Nikolai Mikhailovich to the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna on December 16, 1916: All of Russia knows that the late Rasputin and A.F. are one and the same. The first was killed, now he must disappear and other" align="right" class="img"> !}The first conscious meeting of Tsarevich Nicholas with his future wife took place in January 1889 (Princess Alice’s second visit to Russia), when mutual attraction arose. That same year, Nikolai asked his father for permission to marry her, but was refused. In August 1890, during Alice's 3rd visit, Nikolai's parents did not allow him to meet her; A letter in the same year to Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna from Queen Victoria of England, in which the grandmother of the potential bride probed the prospects of a marriage union, also had a negative result. However, due to the deteriorating health of Alexander III and the persistence of the Tsarevich, on April 8 (old style) 1894 in Coburg at the wedding of the Duke of Hesse Ernst-Ludwig (Alice's brother) and Princess Victoria-Melita of Edinburgh (daughter of Duke Alfred and Maria Alexandrovna) Their engagement took place, announced in Russia with a simple newspaper notice.
On November 14, 1894, Nicholas II was married to the German princess Alice of Hesse, who after anointing (performed on October 21, 1894 in Livadia) took the name Alexandra Feodorovna. In subsequent years, they had four daughters - Olga (November 3, 1895), Tatyana (May 29, 1897), Maria (June 14, 1899) and Anastasia (June 5, 1901). On July 30 (August 12), 1904, the fifth child and only son, Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich, appeared in Peterhof.
All correspondence between Alexandra Feodorovna and Nicholas II has been preserved (in English); only one letter from Alexandra Feodorovna was lost, all her letters were numbered by the empress herself; published in Berlin in 1922.
Senator Vl. I. Gurko attributed the origins of Alexandra’s intervention in the affairs of government to the beginning of 1905, when the tsar was in a particularly difficult political situation - when he began to transmit the state acts he issued for her review; Gurko believed: “If the Sovereign, due to his lack of the necessary internal power, did not possess the authority required for a ruler, then the Empress, on the contrary, was entirely woven from authority, which was also based on her inherent arrogance.”
General A. I. Denikin wrote in his memoirs about the role of the empress in the development of the revolutionary situation in Russia in the last years of the monarchy:
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“All possible options regarding Rasputin’s influence penetrated to the front, and the censorship collected enormous material on this topic, even in letters from soldiers in the army. But the most amazing impression was made by the fatal word: It referred to the empress. In the army, loudly, not embarrassed by either place or time, there was talk about the empress’s insistent demand for a separate peace, about her betrayal of Field Marshal Kitchener, about whose trip she allegedly informed the Germans, etc. Reliving the past in memory, taking into account that The impression that the rumor about the treason of the empress made in the army, I believe that this circumstance played a huge role in the mood of the army, in its attitude towards both the dynasty and the revolution. General Alekseev, to whom I asked this painful question in the spring of 1917, answered me somehow vaguely and reluctantly: When sorting through the empress's papers, she found a map with a detailed designation of the troops of the entire front, which was produced only in two copies - for me and for the sovereign. This made a depressing impression on me. You never know who could use it... Say no more. Changed the conversation... History will undoubtedly reveal the extremely negative influence that Empress Alexandra Feodorovna had on the management of the Russian state in the period preceding the revolution. As for the issue of “treason,” this unfortunate rumor was not confirmed by a single fact, and was subsequently refuted by an investigation by the Muravyov Commission specially appointed by the Provisional Government, with the participation of representatives from the Council of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies. » |
Personal assessments of his contemporaries who knew him
Different opinions about the willpower of Nicholas II and his accessibility to environmental influences
The former Chairman of the Council of Ministers, Count S. Yu. Witte, in connection with the critical situation on the eve of the publication of the Manifesto on October 17, 1905, when the possibility of introducing a military dictatorship in the country was discussed, wrote in his memoirs:
General A.F. Roediger (as Minister of War in 1905-1909, had a personal report to the sovereign twice a week) wrote about him in his memoirs (1917-1918): “Before the start of the report, the sovereign always talked about something extraneous; if there was no other topic, then about the weather, about his walk, about the trial portion that was served to him every day before reports, either from the Convoy or from the Consolidated Regiment. He loved these cookings very much and once told me that he had just tried pearl barley soup, which he could not get at home: Kyuba (his cook) says that such a gain can only be achieved by cooking for a hundred people. The sovereign considered it his duty to appoint senior commanders know. He had an amazing memory. He knew a lot of people who served in the Guard or were seen by him for some reason, remembered the military exploits of individuals and military units, knew the units that rebelled and remained faithful during the unrest, knew the number and name of each regiment, the composition of each division and corps, the location many parts... He told me that in rare cases of insomnia, he begins to list the shelves in his memory in numerical order and usually falls asleep when he reaches the reserve parts, which he does not know so well. To know life in the regiments, he read the orders for the Preobrazhensky Regiment every day and explained to me that he reads them every day, since if you only miss a few days, you will become spoiled and stop reading them. He liked to dress lightly and told me that he sweated differently, especially when he was nervous. At first, he willingly wore a white jacket of a naval style at home, and then, when the riflemen of the imperial family were returned to their old uniform with crimson silk shirts, he almost always wore it at home, moreover, in the summer heat - right on his naked body. Despite the difficult days that befell him, he never lost his composure and always remained calm and affable, an equally diligent worker. He told me that he was an optimist, and indeed, even in difficult moments he retained faith in the future, in the power and greatness of Russia. Always friendly and affectionate, he made a charming impression. His inability to refuse someone’s request, especially if it came from an honored person and was somewhat feasible, sometimes interfered with the matter and put the minister, who had to be strict and update the command staff of the army, in a difficult position, but at the same time increased his charm his personality. His reign was unsuccessful and, moreover, through his own fault. His shortcomings are visible to everyone, they are also visible from my real memories. His merits are easily forgotten, since they were visible only to people who saw him up close, and I consider it my duty to note them, especially since I still remember him with the warmest feeling and sincere regret.”
Protopresbyter of the military and naval clergy Georgy Shavelsky, who communicated closely with the tsar in the last months before the revolution, wrote about him in his study written in exile in the 1930s: “It is generally not easy for tsars to recognize the true, unvarnished life, for they are fenced off by a high wall from people and life. And Emperor Nicholas II raised this wall even higher with an artificial superstructure. This was the most characteristic feature of his mental make-up and his royal actions. This happened against his will, thanks to his manner of treating his subjects. Once he told the Minister of Foreign Affairs S.D. Sazonov: “I try not to think seriously about anything, otherwise I would have been in a grave long ago.” He put his interlocutor within strictly defined limits. The conversation began exclusively apolitical. The sovereign showed great attention and interest in the personality of his interlocutor: in the stages of his service, in his exploits and merits. But as soon as the interlocutor stepped out of this framework - touched upon any ailments of his current life, the sovereign immediately changed or outright stopped the conversation.”
Senator Vladimir Gurko wrote in exile: “The social environment that was close to the heart of Nicholas II, where he, by his own admission, rested his soul, was the environment of guards officers, as a result of which he so willingly accepted invitations to officer meetings of the guards officers who were most familiar to him from their personal composition.” regiments and sometimes sat on them until the morning. He was attracted to officer meetings by the ease that reigned there and the absence of burdensome court etiquette. In many ways, the Tsar retained his childish tastes and inclinations until his old age.”
Awards
Russian
- Order of St. Andrew the First-Called (05.20.1868)
- Order of St. Alexander Nevsky (05.20.1868)
- Order of the White Eagle (05/20/1868)
- Order of St. Anne 1st class. (05/20/1868)
- Order of St. Stanislaus 1st class. (05/20/1868)
- Order of St. Vladimir 4th class. (08/30/1890)
- Order of St. George 4th class. (25.10.1915)
Foreign
Highest degrees:
- Order of the Wendish Crown (Mecklenburg-Schwerin) (01/09/1879)
- Order of the Netherlands Lion (03/15/1881)
- Order of Merit of Duke Peter-Friedrich-Ludwig (Oldenburg) (04/15/1881)
- Order of the Rising Sun (Japan) (09/04/1882)
- Order of Loyalty (Baden) (15.05.1883)
- Order of the Golden Fleece (Spain) (05/15/1883)
- Order of Christ (Portugal) (05/15/1883)
- Order of the White Falcon (Saxe-Weimar) (05/15/1883)
- Order of the Seraphim (Sweden) (05/15/1883)
- Order of Ludwig (Hesse-Darmstadt) (05/02/1884)
- Order of St. Stephen (Austria-Hungary) (05/06/1884)
- Order of St. Hubert (Bavaria) (05/06/1884)
- Order of Leopold (Belgium) (05/06/1884)
- Order of St. Alexander (Bulgaria) (05/06/1884)
- Order of the Württemberg Crown (05/06/1884)
- Order of the Savior (Greece) (05/06/1884)
- Order of the Elephant (Denmark) (05/06/1884)
- Order of the Holy Sepulcher (Jerusalem Patriarchate) (05/06/1884)
- Order of the Annunciation (Italy) (05/06/1884)
- Order of Saint Mauritius and Lazarus (Italy) (05/06/1884)
- Order of the Italian Crown (Italy) (05/06/1884)
- Order of the Black Eagle (German Empire) (05/06/1884)
- Order of the Romanian Star (05/06/1884)
- Order of the Legion of Honor (05/06/1884)
- Order of Osmaniye (Ottoman Empire) (07/28/1884)
- Portrait of the Persian Shah (07/28/1884)
- Order of the Southern Cross (Brazil) (09/19/1884)
- Order of Noble Bukhara (11/02/1885), with diamond insignia (02/27/1889)
- Family Order of the Chakri Dynasty (Siam) (03/08/1891)
- Order of the Crown of the State of Bukhara with diamond insignia (11/21/1893)
- Order of the Seal of Solomon 1st class. (Ethiopia) (06/30/1895)
- Order of the Double Dragon, studded with diamonds (04/22/1896)
- Order of the Sun of Alexander (Bukhara Emirate) (05/18/1898)
- Order of the Bath (Britain)
- Order of the Garter (Britain)
- Royal Victorian Order (British) (1904)
- Order of Charles I (Romania) (06/15/1906)
After death
Assessment in Russian emigration
In the preface to his memoirs, General A. A. Mosolov, who was for a number of years in the emperor’s close circle, wrote in the early 1930s: “Sovereign Nicholas II, His family and His entourage were almost the only object of accusation for many circles , representing Russian public opinion of the pre-revolutionary era. After the catastrophic collapse of our fatherland, accusations focused almost exclusively on the Sovereign.” General Mosolov assigned a special role in turning society away from the imperial family and from the throne in general to Empress Alexandra Feodorovna: “the discord between society and the court became so aggravated that society, instead of supporting the throne according to its deep-rooted monarchical views, turned away from it and looked at his downfall with real gloating.”
From the beginning of the 1920s, monarchist-minded circles of the Russian emigration published works about the last tsar, which had an apologetic (later also hagiographic) character and a propaganda orientation; The most famous among these was the study of Professor S. S. Oldenburg, published in 2 volumes in Belgrade (1939) and Munich (1949), respectively. One of Oldenburg’s final conclusions was: “The most difficult and most forgotten feat of Emperor Nicholas II was that He, under incredibly difficult conditions, brought Russia to the threshold of victory: His opponents did not allow her to cross this threshold.”
Official assessment in the USSR
An article about him in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1st edition; 1939): “Nicholas II was as limited and ignorant as his father. The inherent traits of Nicholas II of a stupid, narrow-minded, suspicious and proud despot during his stay on the throne received especially vivid expression. The mental squalor and moral decay of court circles reached extreme limits. The regime was rotting at the root Until the last minute, Nicholas II remained what he was - a stupid autocrat, unable to understand either the surrounding situation or even his own benefit. He was preparing to march on Petrograd in order to drown the revolutionary movement in blood and, together with the generals close to him, discussed a plan of treason. »
The later (post-war) Soviet historiographical publications, intended for a wide circle, in describing the history of Russia during the reign of Nicholas II, sought, as far as possible, to avoid mentioning him as a person and personality: for example, “A Manual on the History of the USSR for Preparatory Departments of Universities” ( 1979) on 82 pages of text (without illustrations), outlining the socio-economic and political development of the Russian Empire in a given period, mentions the name of the emperor who stood at the head of the state at the time described, only once - when describing the events of his abdication in favor of his brother (nothing is said about his accession; the name of V.I. Lenin is mentioned 121 times on the same pages).
Church veneration
Since the 1920s, in the Russian diaspora, on the initiative of the Union of Devotees of the Memory of Emperor Nicholas II, regular funeral commemorations of Emperor Nicholas II were carried out three times a year (on his birthday, namesake day and on the anniversary of his assassination), but his veneration as a saint began to spread after the end of Second World War.
On October 19 (November 1), 1981, Emperor Nicholas and his family were glorified by the Russian Church Abroad (ROCOR), which then had no church communion with the Moscow Patriarchate in the USSR.
Decision of the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church of August 20, 2000: “To glorify the Royal Family as passion-bearers in the host of new martyrs and confessors of Russia: Emperor Nicholas II, Empress Alexandra, Tsarevich Alexy, Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia.” Memorial Day: July 4 (17).
The act of canonization was received ambiguously by Russian society: opponents of canonization claim that the proclamation of Nicholas II as a saint was of a political nature.
In 2003, in Yekaterinburg, on the site of the demolished house of engineer N.N. Ipatiev, where Nicholas II and his family were shot, the Church on the Blood was built? in the name of All Saints who shone in the Russian land, in front of which there is a monument to the family of Nicholas II.
Rehabilitation. Identification of remains
In December 2005, a representative of the head of the “Russian Imperial House” Maria Vladimirovna Romanova sent to the Russian Prosecutor’s Office an application for the rehabilitation of the executed former Emperor Nicholas II and members of his family as victims of political repression. According to the application, after a number of refusals to satisfy, on October 1, 2008, the Presidium of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation made a decision (despite the opinion of the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation, who stated in court that the requirements for rehabilitation do not comply with the provisions of the law due to the fact that these persons were not arrested for political reasons , and no judicial decision was made to execute) on the rehabilitation of the last Russian Emperor Nicholas II and members of his family.
On October 30 of the same 2008, it was reported that the General Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation decided to rehabilitate 52 people from the entourage of Emperor Nicholas II and his family.
In December 2008, at a scientific and practical conference held on the initiative of the Investigative Committee under the Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation, with the participation of geneticists from Russia and the United States, it was stated that the remains found in 1991 near Yekaterinburg and interred on June 17, 1998 in the Catherine's chapel of the Peter and Paul Cathedral (St. Petersburg), belong to Nicholas II. In January 2009, the Investigative Committee completed a criminal investigation into the circumstances of the death and burial of the family of Nicholas II; the investigation was terminated “due to the expiration of the statute of limitations for criminal prosecution and the death of persons who committed premeditated murder”
A representative of M.V. Romanova, who calls herself the head of the Russian Imperial House, stated in 2009 that “Maria Vladimirovna fully shares on this issue the position of the Russian Orthodox Church, which has not found sufficient grounds for recognizing the “Ekaterinburg remains” as belonging to members of the Royal Family.” Other representatives of the Romanovs, led by N. R. Romanov, took a different position: the latter, in particular, took part in the burial of the remains in July 1998, saying: “We came to close the era.”
Monuments to Emperor Nicholas II
Even during the life of the last Emperor, no less than twelve monuments were erected in his honor, related to his visits to various cities and military camps. Basically, these monuments were columns or obelisks with an imperial monogram and a corresponding inscription. The only monument, which was a bronze bust of the Emperor on a high granite pedestal, was erected in Helsingfors for the 300th anniversary of the House of Romanov. To this day, none of these monuments have survived. (Sokol K. G. Monumental monuments of the Russian Empire. Catalog. M., 2006, pp. 162-165)
Ironically, the first monument to the Russian Tsar-Martyr was erected in 1924 in Germany by the Germans who fought with Russia - officers of one of the Prussian regiments, whose Chief was Emperor Nicholas II, “erected a worthy monument to Him in an extremely honorable place.”
Currently, monumental monuments to Emperor Nicholas II, from small busts to full-length bronze statues, are installed in the following cities and towns:
- village Vyritsa, Gatchina district, Leningrad region. On the territory of the mansion of S.V. Vasiliev. Bronze statue of the Emperor on a high pedestal. Opened in 2007
- ur. Ganina Yama, near Yekaterinburg. In the complex of the Monastery of the Holy Royal Passion-Bearers. Bronze bust on a pedestal. Opened in the 2000s.
- Yekaterinburg city. Next to the Church of All Saints who shone forth in the Russian Land (Church on the Blood). The bronze composition includes figures of the Emperor and members of His Family. Opened on July 16, 2003, sculptors K.V. Grunberg and A.G. Mazaev.
- With. Klementyevo (near Sergiev Posad) Moscow region. Behind the altar of the Assumption Church. Plaster bust on a pedestal. Opened in 2007
- Kursk. Next to the Church of Saints Faith, Hope, Love and their mother Sophia (Druzhby Ave.). Bronze bust on a pedestal. Opened on September 24, 2003, sculptor V. M. Klykov.
- Moscow city. At the Vagankovskoye cemetery, next to the Church of the Resurrection of the Word. A memorial monument consisting of a marble worship cross and four granite slabs with carved inscriptions. Opened on May 19, 1991, sculptor N. Pavlov. On July 19, 1997, the memorial was seriously damaged by an explosion; it was subsequently restored, but was damaged again in November 2003.
- Podolsk, Moscow region. On the territory of the estate of V.P. Melikhov, next to the Church of the Holy Royal Passion-Bearers. The first plaster monument by sculptor V. M. Klykov, which was a full-length statue of the Emperor, was opened on July 28, 1998, but was blown up on November 1, 1998. A new, this time bronze, monument based on the same model was reopened on January 16, 1999.
- Pushkin. Near the Feodorovsky Sovereign Cathedral. Bronze bust on a pedestal. Opened on July 17, 1993, sculptor V.V. Zaiko.
- Saint Petersburg. Behind the altar of the Church of the Exaltation of the Cross (Ligovsky Ave., 128). Bronze bust on a pedestal. Opened on May 19, 2002, sculptor S. Yu. Alipov.
- Sochi. On the territory of St. Michael the Archangel Cathedral. Bronze bust on a pedestal. Opened on November 21, 2008, sculptor V. Zelenko.
- village Syrostan (near the city of Miass) Chelyabinsk region. Near the Church of the Exaltation of the Cross. Bronze bust on a pedestal. Opened in July 1996, sculptor P. E. Lyovochkin.
- With. Taininskoye (near the city of Mytishchi) Moscow region. A full-length statue of the Emperor on a high pedestal. Opened on May 26, 1996, sculptor V. M. Klykov. On April 1, 1997, the monument was blown up, but three years later it was restored using the same model and reopened on August 20, 2000.
- village Shushenskoye, Krasnoyarsk Territory. Next to the factory entrance of Shushenskaya Marka LLC (Pionerskaya St., 10). Bronze bust on a pedestal. Opened on December 24, 2010, sculptor K. M. Zinich.
- In 2007, at the Russian Academy of Arts, sculptor Z. K. Tsereteli presented a monumental bronze composition consisting of figures of the Emperor and members of His Family standing before the executioners in the basement of the Ipatiev House, and depicting the last minutes of their lives. To date, not a single city has yet expressed a desire to install this monument.
Memorial temples - monuments to the Emperor include:
- Temple - a monument to the Tsar - Martyr Nicholas II in Brussels. It was founded on February 2, 1936, built according to the design of the architect N.I. Istselenov, and solemnly consecrated on October 1, 1950 by Metropolitan Anastasy (Gribanovsky). The temple-monument is under the jurisdiction of the Russian Orthodox Church (z).
- Church of All Saints who shone forth in the Russian Land (Church - on - Blood) in Yekaterinburg. (about him, see a separate article on Wikipedia)
Filmography
Several feature films have been made about Nicholas II and his family, among which are “Agony” (1981), the English-American film “Nicholas and Alexandra” ( Nicholas and Alexandra, 1971) and two Russian films “The Regicide” (1991) and “The Romanovs. The Crowned Family" (2000). Hollywood made several films about the supposedly saved daughter of the Tsar Anastasia “Anastasia” ( Anastasia, 1956) and “Anastasia, or the secret of Anna” ( , USA, 1986), as well as the cartoon “Anastasia” ( Anastasia, USA, 1997).
Film incarnations
- Alexander Galibin (The Life of Klim Samgin 1987, “The Romanovs. The Crowned Family” (2000)
- Anatoly Romashin (Agony 1974/1981)
- Oleg Yankovsky (The Kingslayer)
- Andrey Rostotsky (Split 1993, Dreams 1993, His cross)
- Andrey Kharitonov (Sins of the Fathers 2004)
- Borislav Brondukov (Kotsyubinsky Family)
- Gennady Glagolev (Pale Horse)
- Nikolay Burlyaev (Admiral)
- Michael Jayston ("Nicholas and Alexandra" Nicholas and Alexandra, 1971)
- Omar Sharif (“Anastasia, or the Secret of Anna” Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna, USA, 1986)
- Ian McKellen (Rasputin, USA, 1996)
- Alexander Galibin (“The Life of Klim Samgin” 1987, “The Romanovs. The Crowned Family”, 2000)
- Oleg Yankovsky (“The Kingslayer”, 1991)
- Andrey Rostotsky (“Raskol”, 1993, “Dreams”, 1993, “Your Cross”)
- Vladimir Baranov (Russian Ark, 2002)
- Gennady Glagolev (“White Horse”, 2003)
- Andrei Kharitonov (“Sins of the Fathers”, 2004)
- Andrey Nevraev (“Death of an Empire”, 2005)
- Evgeny Stychkin (You are my happiness, 2005)
- Mikhail Eliseev (Stolypin...Unlearned Lessons, 2006)
- Yaroslav Ivanov (“Conspiracy”, 2007)
- Nikolay Burlyaev (“Admiral”, 2008)