8.1 The choice of the path of historical development of Russia at the beginning of the 19th century. under Alexander I.
8.2 Decembrist movement.
8.3 Conservative modernization under Nicholas I.
8.4 Social thought of the mid-19th century: Westerners and Slavophiles.
8.5 Russian culture in the first half of the 19th century.
8.1 The choice of the path of historical development of Russia at the beginning of the 19th century. under Alexander I
Alexander I, the eldest son of Paul I, came to power as a result of a palace coup in March 1801. Alexander was initiated into the conspiracy and agreed to it, but on the condition that his father’s life be spared. The murder of Paul I shocked Alexander, and until the end of his life he blamed himself for the death of his father.
A characteristic feature of the reign of Alexander I (1801-1825) was the struggle between two currents - liberal and conservative and the emperor's maneuvering between them. There are two periods in the reign of Alexander I. Until the Patriotic War of 1812 lasted liberal period, after the foreign campaigns of 1813-1814. – conservative.
Liberal period of government. Alexander was well educated and brought up in a liberal spirit. In his manifesto on his accession to the throne, Alexander I declared that he would rule “according to the laws and the heart” of his grandmother, Catherine the Great. He immediately abolished the restrictions on trade with England introduced by Paul I and the regulations in everyday life, clothing, social behavior, etc. that irritated people. Charters were restored to the nobility and cities, free entry and exit abroad, the import of foreign books were allowed, and an amnesty was granted to people who were persecuted under Paul.
In order to prepare a reform program, Alexander I created Secret committee(1801-1803) - an unofficial body that included his friends V.P. Kochubey, N.N. Novosiltsev, P.A. Stroganov, A.A. Czartoryski. The committee discussed reforms, but its activities did not lead to anything concrete.
In 1802, the collegiums were replaced by ministries. This measure meant replacing the principle of collegiality with unity of command. 8 ministries were established: military, naval, foreign affairs, internal affairs, commerce, finance, public education and justice. A Committee of Ministers was created to discuss important issues.
In 1802, the Senate was reformed, becoming the highest judicial and supervisory body in the public administration system.
In 1803, the “Decree on Free Plowmen” was adopted. Landowners received the right to set their peasants free, providing them with land for a ransom. However, this decree did not have any great practical consequences: during the entire reign of Alexander I, a little more than 47 thousand serfs were released, that is, less than 0.5% of their total number.
In 1804, Kharkov and Kazan universities and the Pedagogical Institute in St. Petersburg (since 1819 - a university) were opened. In 1811 the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum was founded. The university charter of 1804 granted universities broad autonomy.
In 1809, on behalf of Alexander I, the most talented official M.M. Speransky developed a reform project. The basis was the principle of separation of powers into legislative, executive and judicial. And although the project did not abolish the monarchy and serfdom, in the aristocratic environment Speransky’s proposals were considered radical. The officials and courtiers were dissatisfied with him and ensured that M.M. Speransky was accused of spying for Napoleon. In 1812 he was dismissed and exiled to Nizhny Novgorod.
Of all Speransky’s proposals, one was accepted: in 1810, the State Council became the highest legislative body.
The Patriotic War of 1812 interrupted liberal reforms. After the war and foreign campaigns of 1813-1814. Alexander's policy becomes more and more conservative.
Conservative period of government. In 1815-1825 Conservative tendencies intensified in the domestic policy of Alexander I. However, liberal reforms were resumed first.
In 1815, Poland was granted a constitution that was liberal in nature and provided for internal self-government of Poland within Russia. In 1816-1819 Serfdom was abolished in the Baltic states. In 1818, work began in Russia on preparing a draft Constitution, headed by N.N. Novosiltsev. It was planned to introduce a constitutional monarchy in Russia and establish a parliament. However, this work was not completed.
Faced with the discontent of the nobles, Alexander abandons liberal reforms. Fearing a repeat of his father's fate, the emperor increasingly switches to conservative positions. Period 1816-1825 called Arakcheevism, those. a policy of harsh military discipline. The period received its name because at this time General A.A. Arakcheev actually concentrated in his hands the leadership of the State Council and the Cabinet of Ministers, and was the only rapporteur to Alexander I on most departments. Military settlements, widely introduced since 1816, became a symbol of Arakcheevism.
Military settlements- a special organization of troops in Russia in 1810-1857, in which state peasants, enrolled as military settlers, combined service with farming. In fact, the settlers were enslaved twice—as peasants and as soldiers. Military settlements were introduced in order to reduce the cost of the army and stop recruitment, since the children of military settlers themselves became military settlers. The good idea eventually resulted in mass discontent.
In 1821, Kazan and St. Petersburg universities were purged. Censorship has increased. Cane discipline was restored in the army. The rejection of the promised liberal reforms led to the radicalization of part of the noble intelligentsia and the emergence of secret anti-government organizations.
Foreign policy under Alexander I. Patriotic War of 1812 The main task in foreign policy during the reign of Alexander I remained to contain French expansion in Europe. Two main directions prevailed in politics: European and southern (Middle Eastern).
In 1801, Eastern Georgia was accepted into Russia, and in 1804, Western Georgia was annexed to Russia. The establishment of Russia in Transcaucasia led to the war with Iran (1804-1813). Thanks to the successful actions of the Russian army, the main part of Azerbaijan came under Russian control. In 1806, a war between Russia and Turkey began, which ended with the signing of a peace treaty in Bucharest in 1812, according to which the eastern part of Moldavia (the land of Bessarabia) went to Russia, and the border with Turkey was established along the Prut River.
In Europe, Russia's objectives were to prevent French hegemony. At first, things didn't go well. In 1805, Napoleon defeated the Russian-Austrian troops at Austerlitz. In 1807, Alexander I signed the Tilsit Peace Treaty with France, according to which Russia joined the continental blockade of England and recognized all of Napoleon's conquests. However, the blockade, which was disadvantageous for the Russian economy, was not respected, so in 1812 Napoleon decided to start a war with Russia.
Napoleon hoped for a quick victory in border battles, and then force him to sign a treaty that was beneficial to him. And the Russian troops intended to lure Napoleon’s army deep into the country, disrupt its supply and defeat it. The French army numbered more than 600 thousand people, more than 400 thousand took part directly in the invasion, it included representatives of the conquered peoples of Europe. The Russian army was divided into three parts, located along the borders. 1st Army M.B. Barclay de Tolly numbered about 120 thousand, the 2nd Army of P.I. Bagration - about 50 thousand and the 3rd Army of A.P. Tormasov - about 40 thousand.
On June 12, 1812, Napoleon's troops crossed the Neman River and entered Russian territory. Started Patriotic War of 1812 Retreating with battles, the armies of Barclay de Tolly and Bagration managed to unite near Smolensk, but after stubborn fighting the city was abandoned. Avoiding a general battle, Russian troops continued to retreat. They fought stubborn rearguard battles with individual units of the French, exhausting and exhausting the enemy, inflicting significant losses on him. A guerrilla war broke out.
Public dissatisfaction with the long retreat, with which Barclay de Tolly was associated, forced Alexander I to appoint M.I. as commander-in-chief. Kutuzov, an experienced commander, student of A.V. Suvorov. In a war that was becoming national in nature, this was of great importance.
On August 26, 1812, the Battle of Borodino took place. Both armies suffered heavy losses (the French - about 30 thousand, the Russians - more than 40 thousand people). Napoleon's main goal - the defeat of the Russian army - was not achieved. The Russians, lacking the strength to continue the battle, retreated. After the military council in Fili, the commander-in-chief of the Russian army M.I. Kutuzov decided to leave Moscow. Having completed the “Tarutino maneuver”, the Russian army evaded the pursuit of the enemy and settled down for rest and replenishment in a camp near Tarutino, south of Moscow, covering the Tula arms factories and the southern provinces of Russia.
On September 2, 1812, the French army entered Moscow . However, no one was in a hurry to sign a peace treaty with Napoleon. Soon the French began to have difficulties: there was not enough food and ammunition, and discipline was decaying. Fires started in Moscow. On October 6, 1812, Napoleon withdrew his troops from Moscow. On October 12, he was met by Kutuzov’s troops at Maloyaroslavets and, after a fierce battle, forced the French to retreat along the devastated Smolensk road.
Moving to the West, losing people from clashes with flying Russian cavalry detachments, due to disease and hunger, Napoleon brought about 60 thousand people to Smolensk. The Russian army marched parallel and threatened to cut off the route to retreat. In the battle on the Berezina River, the French army was defeated. About 30 thousand Napoleonic troops crossed the borders of Russia. On December 25, 1812, Alexander I issued a manifesto on the victorious completion of the Patriotic War. The main reason for the victory was the patriotism and heroism of the people who fought for their Motherland.
In 1813-1814 foreign campaigns of the Russian army took place. In January 1813, she entered the territory of Europe, Prussia and Austria came over to her side. In the battle of Leipzig (October 1813), nicknamed the “Battle of the Nations,” Napoleon was defeated. At the beginning of 1814, he abdicated the throne. According to the Paris Peace Treaty, France returned to the borders of 1793, the Bourbon dynasty was restored, Napoleon was exiled to Fr. Elbe in the Mediterranean Sea.
In September 1814, delegations from the victorious countries gathered in Vienna to resolve controversial territorial issues. Serious disagreements arose between them, but the news of Napoleon's escape from Fr. Elbe (“Hundred Days”) and his seizure of power in France catalyzed the negotiation process. As a result, Saxony passed to Prussia, Finland, Bessarabia and the main part of the Duchy of Warsaw with its capital - to Russia. June 6, 1815 Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo by the allies.
In September 1815 it was created Holy Alliance, which included Russia, Prussia and Austria. The goals of the Union were to preserve the state borders established by the Congress of Vienna and suppress revolutionary and national liberation movements in European countries. Russia's conservatism in foreign policy was reflected in domestic policy, in which conservative tendencies were also growing.
Summing up the reign of Alexander I, we can say that Russia at the beginning of the 19th century. could become a liberal country. The unpreparedness of society, primarily the higher one, for liberal reforms, and the personal motives of the emperor led to the fact that the country continued to develop on the basis of the established order, i.e. conservatively.
Socio-economic development of Russia in the first half of the 19th century.
The most important feature of the socio-economic development of Russia in the first half of the 19th century. (or, as they say, in the pre-reform years) was a progressive process of decomposition of the feudal-serf system. The beginning of this process can be traced back to the second half of the 18th century; it began to manifest itself more clearly in its last thirty years. In the 30-50s of the 19th century. the contradictions between the old feudal production relations and the developing production forces of society reach the level of conflict, i.e. develop into a crisis of the feudal mode of production. In the depths of the serf system during this period, new capitalist relations developed.
Modern domestic historiography abandons the previously existing interpretation of the crisis of the feudal-serf system as a time of complete decline. Along with crisis phenomena (regressive processes occurring in the landowner village, based on serf labor), a noticeable development of production forces was also observed. True, it occurred primarily on the basis of small-scale and capitalist production.
Agriculture
In the conditions of an agrarian country, these processes were most clearly manifested in the agricultural sector. Feudalism as a whole is characterized by feudal ownership of land (by the landowner or the feudal state) in the presence of a small peasant farm, which had its own land allotment and other means of production and was included in the economic structure of the feudal lord's economy. At the same time, the economy was subsistence in nature, and the coercion was non-economic (the personal dependence of the peasant on the landowner); the low routine level of technology used was also characteristic of this method of production.
Russia, with its practically unlimited natural and human resources, developed in the first half of the 19th century. very slowly. The growth of commodity-money relations, which aroused the interest of landowners in increasing the profitability of their farms, while maintaining the corvée form of exploitation, inevitably led to the expansion of the landowner’s own arable land. This could happen either due to the plowing of other lands (forests, mowing, etc.), or due to the reduction of peasants' land plots. In the first case, this often led to a disruption in the existing balance in the structure of the land, a reduction in the number of livestock (and, as a consequence, a decrease in the amount of fertilizer applied to the fields). In the second, the economy of the peasant economy was undermined. In Russia in the first half of the 19th century. There were cases when landowners generally took away land from their peasants, transferring them to monthly rations (“mesyachina”). The peasants were not interested in the results of their labor, which caused a drop in their productivity. In percentage terms, the number of corvee farms not only did not decrease, but even increased slightly.
In the quitrent farms, increased exploitation led to an increase in the size of the quitrent, which, moreover, was increasingly collected by landowners in cash. A sharp increase in the size of quitrents forced peasants to get off the land and look for work on the side, which also lowered the level of agricultural production.
The serf economy of this period was characterized by the impoverishment of the peasantry and the growth of the debt of peasant farms to the landowners, which took chronic forms. In lean years, which systematically recurred in Russia, these farms turned out to be completely helpless and constantly teetered on the brink of ruin.
The situation was no better on the landowners' farms. The funds received by the Russian nobility from the exploitation of their peasants were rarely invested in the economy, thoughtlessly wasted and thrown away. By 1859, according to S.Ya. Borovoy, 66% of serfs in Russia were mortgaged and remortgaged with credit institutions (in some provinces this figure reached 90%).
Capitalist elements in agriculture developed very slowly. This was due, first of all, to the fact that huge tracts of land that belonged to landowners and the treasury were actually excluded from commodity circulation. The land fund on which capitalist economies could develop turned out to be very limited (land was rented or plots of land were occupied in the colonized regions).
However, despite the crisis, Russian agriculture developed during this period. The forward movement was especially noticeable at the end of the 18th and in the first third of the 19th century. Modern historians explain this by the fact that the feudal economic system has not yet completely exhausted its capabilities.
Although the gross grain harvest during this period increased by approximately 1.4 times, these successes were achieved mainly by extensive methods - due to an increase in sown areas. The southern and southeastern steppe regions were developed: the region of the Don Army, Southern Ukraine (according to the calculations of V.K. Yanunsky, the area under arable land here increased more than three times). It is important to note that the south of Russia is becoming an area of intensive colonization, free enterprise developed here at a faster pace, and grain was exported through the Black Sea ports. Cultivated areas in the Middle and Lower Volga regions expanded, but local grain went mainly to the domestic market.
The yield of grain crops was still extremely low, in normal years it amounted to 2.5-3 (for one grain of sowing there are 2.5-3 grains of harvest), agronomic techniques were very undeveloped (traditional three-field crops prevailed - spring - winter - fallow, in In the forested areas of the north and north-west of the country, slash-and-burn farming was common, and in the steppe zone - fallow farming). However, attempts to increase agricultural production were observed more and more often during this period. Agricultural machinery was imported to Russia from abroad, and local inventions also appeared (the flax raking machine of the peasant Kh. Alekseev, the haymaking machine of A. Khitrin), which were exhibited at agricultural exhibitions. Agricultural societies were created that took measures to boost agriculture. However, within the country, all these measures were very insignificant. According to the latest calculations, only 3-4% of landowners showed interest in such improvements; they were much less common among peasants.
Industry
The most noticeable phenomenon in the development of Russian industry was the beginning of the industrial revolution. In technical terms, it was expressed in the transition from manufactory (where intra-production division of labor was already observed and a water wheel was partially used) to a factory equipped with steam engines. The social aspect was that during the industrial revolution there was a rapid formation of two classes of capitalist society - the industrial proletariat and the bourgeoisie.
In domestic historiography, there are different points of view regarding the time of the beginning and completion of the industrial revolution. Thus, S.G. Strumilin believed that the industrial revolution in Russia was completed even before the abolition of serfdom, in contrast to him, P.G. Ryndzyunsky assumed that the revolution took place in the 60-90s of the 19th century. Most historians date its beginning to the 30s and 40s of the 19th century, linking it with the spread of steam engines in transport and industry.
According to the latest estimates, at the turn of the 50s and 60s of the 19th century. factories accounted for about 18% of the total number of large enterprises, they employed almost 45% of all workers (almost 300 thousand people).
Serfdom in Russia delayed both the technical re-equipment of enterprises and the formation of the proletariat. The widespread use of new technology required a transition to hired labor, but the labor of serfs and possession workers was cheaper than the costs of mechanizing production and purchasing labor. The contradiction also lay in the fact that, being cheaper, such labor was much less productive compared to the labor of civilian workers. At the same time, a significant part of these workers consisted of serfs released on quitrent.
Despite the inhibiting influence of serfdom, the development of industry with the beginning of the industrial revolution accelerated significantly, but at that time Russia lagged behind European countries more and more (this was especially noticeable when comparing the amount of production per capita).
Transport
Important progressive changes have occurred in Russia in the field of transport. In the first half of the 19th century. Railways appeared in the country: Tsarskoye Selo (1837), Warsaw-Vienna (1839-1848), Petersburg-Moscow (1843-1851). In the pre-reform years, over 8 thousand miles of highways were built. However, this was clearly not enough for a huge country. The bulk of cargo was still transported by water. At the turn of the XVIII-XIX centuries. A canal system was built that connected the Volga with the Baltic basin (Mariinskaya and Tikhvin systems), the Dnieper was connected to the western rivers through the Oginsky, Berezinsky, Dnieper-Bugsky canal. The number of steamships has increased noticeably. The first steamship was tested on the Neva in 1815, and in 1860 more than 300 steamships were already sailing along the rivers, lakes and seas of Russia.
Trade
One of the most important processes characterizing the socio-economic development of Russia was the formation of a single all-Russian market. In modern historical literature there are different points of view on this issue. I.D. Kovalchenko and L.V. Milov attribute the formation of a single all-Russian market to the 80s of the 19th century; B.N. Mironov recognizes the functioning of the all-Russian commodity market already at the end of the 18th century, noting, however, its distinctive features in compared with the all-Russian capitalist market (in particular, the low degree of penetration of commodity relations into the agricultural sector of the economy).
An important form of trade in the first half of the 19th century. there were fairs. The trade turnover of some of them was estimated at tens of millions of rubles. The largest fairs in Russia were Nizhny Novgorod, Irbit (in Siberia), Korennaya (near Kursk), numerous Ukrainian fairs - the total number of fairs was close to 4 thousand. It should be noted, however, that along with the fairs, permanent (store) trade also developed successfully, widely peddling trade was also developed.
The development of commodity-money relations in the country was facilitated by the formation of economic regions that specialized in various branches of industrial and agricultural production. Differences between regions are clearly visible in the first half of the 19th century. One of the most important for the country’s economy at that time was the Central Industrial Region, which included the Moscow, Vladimir, Kaluga, Kostroma, Nizhny Novgorod, Tver, and Yaroslavl provinces. Large trade and industrial centers of the country were located here, crafts became widespread in the villages, and agriculture also developed significantly. The centers of the mining and metallurgical industry were the Urals and the Urals, where large factories were located, to which serfs and hundreds of thousands of acres of land were assigned. The northwestern region (St. Petersburg, Novgorod and Pskov provinces) gravitated towards the capital - the largest commercial, industrial and administrative center of the country. In the Novgorod province, a wide variety of peasant crafts were widespread; in the Pskov province, the cultivation and processing of flax, which was exported not only to the domestic market, but also abroad, acquired particular importance. The central black earth region (Voronezh, Kursk and other provinces of the black earth belt) was an agricultural region with a clearly defined corvee system of economy; it was here that serfdom was most powerful, restraining progressive economic development. In the north of the country, with its sparse population and poorly developed industry, there was practically no landownership. In the Arkhangelsk, Vologda, and Olonets provinces, huge forest tracts largely determined the nature of economic activity (hunting, fishing, shifting farming), and commercial livestock farming gradually expanded in the region. Agriculture developed intensively in the Baltic states and Lithuania, where the export of agricultural products abroad reached significant proportions. Multidisciplinary agriculture was carried out in Ukraine, however, both here and in Belarus, corvée landowner farms predominated. The areas of intensive colonization were the south of Russia, the steppe Ciscaucasia, and the Volga region.
The formation of economic regions was an important indicator of the development of specialization; it contributed to the rise of the economy in the country, the social division of labor and an increase in its productivity.
Changes in the social structure of society
One of the symptoms of the crisis of serfdom was the reduction in the proportion of serfs. If at the beginning of the 19th century. While serfs made up the majority of the country's population, by the end of the 50s their share dropped to 37%. Most likely, this is explained not so much by the reduction in the natural increase in the serf population of Russia, but by the transfer of serfs to other classes.
Despite the fact that Russia still remained a rural country (by the middle of the 19th century, the urban population was approximately 8%), the trend toward an increase in the number of cities was very clear. The total number of cities over 50 years increased from 600 to 1000, and the number of citizens increased by 2.2 times. This significantly exceeded the growth of the population as a whole.
The growth of the country's economy, including a certain rise in productive forces in the countryside, contributed to the development of the process of social stratification among the peasantry. It was associated with the identification of so-called “capitalist” peasants who were engaged in trade, usury, and entrepreneurship, who exploited the labor of other peasants. Sometimes such peasants themselves acquired serfs, registering them in the name of their landowner. This process proceeded very slowly in the pre-reform period and varied significantly among different groups of peasants. Thus, among state peasants it went much faster than among landowner peasants. In the quitrent village it manifested itself more clearly than among the peasants who were subject to corvée labor. It proceeded differently in individual provinces of Russia.
The result of socio-economic development during the period under review was the formation of new social strata - industrial workers and the bourgeoisie. The Russian hired worker at this time was most often either a landowner peasant sent to the city to collect quitrent, or a state peasant, also still closely connected with his village, land, or community.
The bourgeoisie was dominated by traders and merchants, who increasingly began to invest money in entrepreneurship. Among the Russian entrepreneurs there were also wealthy peasants who owned thousands and tens of thousands of rubles, but at the same time often remained serfs. Many of them tried to buy their way out by paying large sums of money.
Domestic policy of Paul I
After the death of Catherine II (1796), her son Paul I (1796-1801) became emperor. The time of his reign in Russian historiography is assessed differently. This was facilitated by the contradictory character of the emperor (he was unbalanced and neurotic, subject to fits of rage bordering on madness), and the difficult time during which this short reign occurred. The outstanding Russian historian V.O. Klyuchevsky wrote that the new emperor brought to the throne “not so much thoughtful thoughts as those that had boiled over with extreme underdevelopment, if not with a complete dulling of political consciousness and civic feeling, and with the hideously distorted nature of bitter feelings.” At the same time, in some studies this period is contrasted with the last years of the reign of Catherine II as a time of transformation, “justice and severity.”
Paul's reign occurred during those years when signs of future political upheaval were multiplying in Russia. The new emperor saw before him the ghost of Pugachevism (survived by his mother), the symptoms of revolution (French events and the fate of the executed Louis XVI reminded him of this) and the danger of a coup d'etat (his father, Peter III, at one time became a victim of a palace conspiracy). The idea of maintaining and strengthening autocratic power, which had greatly weakened at the end of the previous reign, was no longer associated in the minds of Paul I with “enlightened absolutism,” but with reliance on authoritative force.
In the capital, the new emperor tried to establish the same rules of the Prussian barracks from the time of Frederick II that were in his Gatchina residence (Catherine II did not love her son, he was actually removed from the court and lived in Gatchina, not far from St. Petersburg). The traditions of the Russian army, which brought it glory, did not suit the emperor: his ideal was the Prussian military system, which knocked out any initiative from the soldiers. Every day, on the square in front of the palace, parades were held, during which the slightest offense could lead to disgrace. There were also positive elements in Paul’s military transformations: he excluded from the army the officers who were in it but did not serve, and forced the capital’s guards officers, who did not lead an idle life under Catherine, to bear the hardships of military life. However, the service under Paul was meaningless, formal, and took place in an atmosphere of uncertainty and fear.
Peasant policy under Paul I was essentially a continuation of trends that existed during the time of Catherine. About 600 thousand state peasants were transferred into the hands of the landowners, and the slightest manifestation of discontent among the peasantry was brutally suppressed. At the same time, wanting to ease social tension in the village, Pavel tried to introduce an element of order into the relations between peasants and landowners. Thus, the decree on three-day corvée recommended that landowners limit the exploitation of peasants in the lord’s plowing to three days a week; it was forbidden to sell “under the hammer” courtyards and landless peasants.
An attempt was made to centralize government administration as much as possible. The role of the Prosecutor General of the Senate has grown significantly, and collegiality in management has been limited everywhere.
The new law on succession to the throne (1797), which did not allow female rule, which introduced an element of instability into dynastic relations in the turbulent 18th century, was supposed to strengthen autocratic power.
Paul resolutely suppressed all attempts to penetrate European free-thinking into Russia. The import of foreign literature was prohibited, and a sharply negative attitude towards revolutionary France was also manifested in foreign policy.
Russian foreign policy during the reign of Paul I
In the field of foreign policy, Emperor Paul I continued the fight against the French Revolution begun by his mother. France's active aggressive policy during this period aroused growing fears of the European powers, which formed a new anti-French coalition (England, Russia, Austria, Turkey and the Kingdom of Naples). The main theater of military operations with the participation of Russian troops in the war of 1798-1799. became the Mediterranean Sea, Italy and Switzerland.
In the fall of 1798, the Russian fleet under the command of F.F. Ushakov entered the Adriatic Sea and, together with the Turkish squadron, began military operations against French troops in the Ionian Islands. In February 1799, Russian ships, having landed troops, took the fortifications of the island that were considered impregnable. Corfu and, having cleared the archipelago of the French, moved to the Italian coast.
The landing force landed on the eastern coast of the Apennine Peninsula and fought across it from east to west, liberating Naples and Rome from the French.
In 1799, Russian-Austrian troops under the command of A.V. Suvorov won a series of brilliant victories over the French generals MacDonald, Moreau, and Joubert in Northern Italy. In April 1799, victory was won on the river. Adde. in June - on the river. Trebbia, in July Mantua was taken, in August the French were defeated at Novi. However, Suvorov’s successes aroused great fear among the Austrians, who feared the strengthening of Russian influence and sought to establish their dominance in the Italian territories liberated from the French.
In September 1799, Russian troops left Italy and moved to Switzerland to join the Russian corps of General A.M. Rimsky-Korsakov. Suvorov's troops, having knocked out the French from the Saint Gotthard Pass and defeated the enemy at the Devil's Bridge, entered the Mutten Valley. However, due to the treacherous tactics of the Austrians, it was not possible to build on their success. Rimsky-Korsakov's corps was defeated, and Suvorov's troops were surrounded by superior enemy forces. In fierce battles, they managed to break through the mountain passes and escaped the encirclement.
Friction between the allies ultimately led to a change in direction in Russian foreign policy. The new course towards rapprochement with France led to Anglo-Russian complications, which led to a breakdown in economic relations. In St. Petersburg, they considered the possibility of war with England (it was planned to send Cossack regiments to India, the Baltic fleet was preparing for operations at sea).
However, such a change in foreign policy caused discontent in noble circles interested in trade with England, which became one of the reasons for the conspiracy against Paul I.
Assassination of Paul I
The harsh management methods of Paul I, bordering on cruelty, the atmosphere of fear and uncertainty he created, the discontent of the highest noble circles (deprived of their former freedom and privileges), the capital's guards officers, and the instability of the political course led to the emergence of a conspiracy against the emperor. Its threads came together in the hands of the St. Petersburg military governor, Count P.D. Palen, who controlled the situation in the capital. On the night of March 11-12, 1801, Paul I was killed by conspirators in his new, newly built Mikhailovsky Castle in St. Petersburg. The throne was succeeded by his son Alexander I.
Domestic policy of Alexander I in 1801-1812.
The palace coup on March 11, 1801 demonstrated the desire of some of the ruling circles to strengthen the role of the nobility in governing the country, while somewhat limiting the personal arbitrariness of the monarch. The lessons of Paul's reign and the French Revolution, the penetration of educational ideology into Russia, which condemned despotism and feudal orders, contributed to the spread of reformist views at the top, the emergence of various transformative plans designed to stop the autocracy of the tsar and the abuses of the landowners. The new Emperor Alexander I (1777-1825) generally shared these views. The ideas of the Enlightenment had a certain influence on Alexander I. The Tsar sought to modernize socio-economic and political institutions (he had, in particular, a program for resolving the peasant issue through the gradual elimination of serfdom), thereby hoping to rid the country of internal turmoil.
The accession of Alexander I was marked by a series of measures that canceled those orders of Paul I that caused discontent among the nobility. The officers dismissed by Paul I were returned to the army, political prisoners were released, free entry and exit from the country was allowed, the “secret expedition” was destroyed, etc.
The first years of the reign of Alexander I were characterized by an intense struggle at the top around projects for various reforms of a socio-economic and political nature. There were various groups in the ruling circles, each of which had its own recipes for solving the problems facing the country. “Young friends” of the emperor (P.A. Stroganov, N.N. Novosiltsev, V.P. Kochubey, A. Czartoryski), having formed the so-called Secret Committee, within the framework of which they discussed with the emperor the most important issues of state life, advocated the abolition in the future, serfdom and the transformation of Russia (also in the future) into a constitutional monarchy. The dignitaries of Catherine’s reign (“Catherine’s old men”) sought to strengthen the influence of the nobles and bureaucrats on the management of the empire. To this end, they advocated for expanding the functions of the Senate, in particular for giving it the opportunity to influence the legislative process. “Catherine’s old men” were opponents of any changes in relations between peasants and landowners. Participants in the palace coup, led by the former favorite of Catherine II P.A. Zubov, spoke in favor of broader reforms. They sought to transform the Senate into a representative body of the upper nobility, endowing it with legislative advisory rights in order to place the tsar's legislative activities under the control of the highest nobility. This group allowed for the possibility of a certain limitation of landlord power over the peasants, and in the future was ready for the gradual elimination of serfdom. Finally, among the higher bureaucracy there were many opponents of any changes at all. They saw the preservation of existing orders as the most reliable guarantee of social stability.
The bulk of the nobility was also very conservative. She sought to preserve her privileges and, above all, the unlimited power of the landowners over the peasants. The calm that came in the village after the suppression of a powerful wave of peasant uprisings in 1796–1797 strengthened the confidence of the overwhelming majority of the nobility in the inviolability of the existing system. Wide sections of landowners had a negative attitude towards any attempts to limit the freedom of expression of the emperor. In this regard, the reform plans hatched by various representatives of the ruling circles did not meet with sympathy among the noble masses. The layer of enlightened nobles, in whom Alexander I saw the support of his reform initiatives, was too thin. Any actions of the tsar that affected the privileges of the landowners threatened a new palace coup.
In this regard, in the socio-economic field, the tsar was able to carry out only some modest reforms, which in no way affected the serfdom and represented an insignificant concession to the wealthy strata of the city and countryside. On December 12, 1801, merchants, burghers and state-owned peasants were given the opportunity to acquire ownership of uninhabited lands (previously, ownership of land, inhabited or uninhabited, was the monopoly right of the nobility). On February 20, 1803, a decree appeared, according to which serfs could, with the consent of the landowners, buy their freedom with land in entire villages. The peasants who gained freedom in this way were to be called “free cultivators.” The number of “free cultivators” ultimately turned out to be very small. Act of February 20, 1803 in the first quarter of the 19th century. was applied in 161 cases and affected only 47,153 male peasants. Measures designed to limit landlord arbitrariness to one degree or another affected only the Baltic states. In 1804, the peasants of Livonia and Estonia were declared lifelong and hereditary owners of their land plots. At the same time, fixed amounts of peasant duties were established, which did not allow landowners to increase them at their discretion.
Plans for transformations designed to make more or less significant changes in the management system of the Russian Empire remained only on paper. Alexander I was forced to take into account both the adherence of the bulk of the nobles to the principles of autocracy, and the fact that the introduction of elements of representation (thought, naturally, as noble representation), given the reluctance of the landowners to give up even part of their privileges, would make it difficult to implement measures that contradicted interests of the first estate of the empire. As a result, the matter was limited only to acts that improved the organization of the bureaucratic apparatus. True, on September 8, 1802, a decree on the rights of the Senate appeared, which to some extent took into account the oligarchic sentiments of “Catherine’s old men.” The Senate was given the opportunity to make representations to the king regarding decrees in cases where the latter contradicted existing laws or created any difficulties. However, the attempt of senators in 1803 to use this right caused a negative reaction from Alexander I. As a result, the Senate lost the opportunity given to it (however, extremely modest) to monitor the legality of the actions of the supreme power. On September 8, 1802, the Tsar signed the Manifesto on the establishment of ministries. This act, to a certain extent, formalized legally what had been outlined back in the 18th century. the process of gradual displacement of collegial principles in central management, introduced by Peter I, by the principles of unity of command. The increasing complexity of the tasks facing the autocracy, as social progress changed the life of the country, required increased flexibility and efficiency in the work of the bureaucratic machine. The collegiate management system with its slow office work did not meet the requirements of the time. The publication of this Manifesto prepared the ground for the replacement of collegiums with ministries, in which all power was concentrated in the hands of one person - a minister appointed by the king and responsible for his actions only to the monarch. The colleges themselves were not initially liquidated. They became part of the relevant ministries and continued to deal with current issues of public administration.
At the beginning of the reign of Alexander I, some measures were taken to promote the development of education. In 1803, the regulation on the organization of educational institutions came into force. In addition, universities were founded in Dorpat, Vilna, Kazan and Kharkov, and in St. Petersburg the Pedagogical Institute, which was later transformed into the Main Pedagogical Institute, and in 1819 into the University.
In general, the reforms of the first years of Alexander’s reign did not bring any major changes to the life of the country. The war with France that began in 1805 temporarily removed the issue of any kind of transformation from the agenda.
After the end of hostilities and the conclusion of the Treaty of Tilsit with Napoleon in 1807, the problem of reform again became an object of discussion in ruling circles. Transformative plans during this period were associated with the name of the outstanding statesman M.M. Speransky (1772‑1839), one of the closest advisers to Alexander I. In 1809, M.M. Speransky compiled an “Introduction to the Code of State Laws,” in which contained an extensive program of serious reforms. Their timely implementation, according to M.M. Speransky, was supposed to save the country from the revolutionary upheavals that Europe experienced. The basis for the political reform he conceived was the principle of separation of powers inherent in a rule of law state, which presupposes the separation of legislative, executive and judicial functions and the creation of appropriate structures. M.M. Speransky’s plan provided for the formation of a representative body with legislative functions (in the manner of parliament) in the person of the State Duma. It was conceived as an institution that limited the power of the monarch. Provincial, district and volost councils were created locally. M.M. Speransky was going to grant voting rights to the nobility and people of “average wealth” (merchants, state peasants, etc.). Executive power was concentrated in ministries, and the highest court was to be the Senate. The system of legislative, executive and judicial authorities designed by M.M. Speransky was crowned by the State Council, which was supposed to play the role of a link between the tsar and all state structures. The members of the Council were appointed by the Emperor.
M.M. Speransky’s plan did not provide for the elimination of serfdom. However, M.M. Speransky advocated limiting the landowner's power over the peasants. The latter received certain civil rights. In particular, not a single person, according to M.M. Speransky, could be punished without trial.
The transformation projects of M.M. Speransky became the object of intense struggle at the top. The conservative part of the nobility and bureaucracy opposed the reform plans of M.M. Speransky, seeing in them an undermining of the centuries-old foundations of the empire. The corresponding point of view in expanded form was set out by the outstanding Russian historian N.M. Karamzin in “Note on Ancient and New Russia” (1811), which was addressed to Alexander I. Considering autocracy as a necessary condition for the well-being of the country, N.M. Karamzin categorically condemned any attempts to limit the supreme power. Ultimately, M.M. Speransky failed to realize his plans as a whole. Alexander I, remembering the fate of his father, could not ignore the decisive rejection of the reform initiatives of his adviser by the bulk of the nobility and the highest bureaucracy. True, in 1810 the State Council was formed as a legislative advisory body under the emperor. In 1811, the “General Establishment of Ministries”, prepared by M.M. Speransky, came into force. This extensive legislative act determined the basic principles of the organizational structure of ministries and the order of their activities. This law generally completed the ministerial reform that began in 1802 (most of the collegiums ceased to exist by 1811). The matter was limited to these measures aimed at improving the bureaucratic machine. The hatred of conservative circles for M.M. Speransky was so strong that Alexander I had to sacrifice his associate. In March 1812, M.M. Speransky was removed from public service and exiled - first to Nizhny Novgorod, and then to Perm. Attempts to implement a broad program of liberal reforms failed.
Russian foreign policy in 1801-1812.
The palace coup of March 11, 1801 led to changes in the foreign policy of tsarism. Alexander I immediately took steps to resolve the conflict with England, which caused discontent among wide circles of the Russian nobility. He canceled the campaign of the Don Cossacks to India organized by Paul I. In June 1801, a maritime convention was concluded between Russia and England, ending the conflict.
The renunciation of hostility with England did not, however, mean a break with France. Negotiations with her continued and in October 1801 ended with the signing of a peace treaty and a secret convention. Other participants in the collapsed coalition also agreed to an agreement with France. In 1802, a peace treaty was concluded in Amiens between England and France.
On the Eastern Question, Russian diplomacy in the first years of the 19th century. pursued a very cautious policy, trying to avoid any complications in relations with the Ottoman Empire. Alexander I restrained the activity of Russian military leaders in Transcaucasia and did not immediately decide to carry out the intention of his father, who was going in accordance with the request of the Kartli-Kakheti king George XII to annex Eastern Georgia to Russia. Only on September 12, 1802, Alexander I signed the Manifesto on the inclusion of Eastern Georgia into the Russian Empire. As a result, Russia acquired a profitable strategic bridgehead beyond the Caucasus ridge. The Azerbaijani khanates began to come under Russian rule. This caused discontent in Tehran and ultimately the Russian-Persian War, which began in 1804 and lasted until 1813. The conflict ended in a Russian victory. According to the Gulistan Peace Treaty, the territory of Northern Azerbaijan was annexed to the Russian Empire.
Despite the emerging trend of Europeanization of Russia in the 17th century, in general it lagged significantly behind the level of development of European states. The archaic political, financial and military system of the Russian state did not allow achieving tangible results. In order to fight on equal terms with the European powers and the Ottoman Empire for access to the seas, it was necessary to borrow individual achievements of Europe. Under these conditions, only the modernization of life in Russia would help it enter the circle of European states. The first attempt to modernize Russia, associated with the decomposition of feudalism, were the reforms of Peter I.
In the history of Peter’s reforms, researchers distinguish two stages: before and after 1715 (V.I. Rodenko, A.B. Kamensky): at the first stage, the reforms were chaotic in nature and were caused primarily by the military needs of the state related to the conduct of the Northern war. They were carried out mainly by violent methods and were accompanied by active government intervention in economic affairs (regulation of trade, industry, tax, financial and labor activities). Many reforms were ill-conceived and hasty, which was caused both by failures in the war and by the lack of personnel, experience, and pressure from the old conservative apparatus; at the second stage, when military operations had already been transferred to enemy territory, the transformations became more systematic. The apparatus of power was further strengthened; manufactories no longer only served military needs, but also produced consumer goods for the population; State regulation of the economy weakened somewhat, traders and entrepreneurs were given a certain freedom of action.
The most important direction of Peter I's reforms was the reform of the country's state administrative system: a) instead of the Boyar Duma, the Senate was established - the highest administrative body in judicial, financial and military affairs. It consisted of nobles close to the king;
the system of orders was replaced by 11 boards with a clear division of functions and a collective principle of decision-making; c) to control the activities of state bodies, a prosecutor’s office was created headed by the chief prosecutor; d) the local government system was reorganized. The country is divided into 8 provinces headed by governors. Governorates were divided into provinces, provinces into counties. City administration was transferred to city magistrates, whose members were elected from merchants for life; the patriarchate was abolished and state administration of the Orthodox Church was introduced through a new body - the Holy Synod, consisting of representatives of the clergy appointed by the tsar; f) the system of succession to the throne changed (Decree of 1722), now the monarch himself appointed his successor; g) in 1721 Russia was proclaimed an empire.
During the period of Peter's reforms, changes occurred in the position of social groups in the social class structure of society: a) the process of formation of the noble class was completed; b) a decree on single inheritance was issued, which legally equalized patrimonial and local property. Only one of the heirs could become an heir to real estate, and the rest received movable property (an actual ban on splitting up estates during inheritance);
the introduction of compulsory service for nobles, in which the principle of passage (“breed”) was replaced by the principle of length of service;
publication in 1722 of the Table of Ranks, which divided all military and civil positions into 14 ranks; now progression from rank to rank depended not on the nobility of the family, but on the personal merits of the nobles.
The essence of the military reform of Peter I was the elimination of the noble militia and the organization of a permanent regular army with a uniform structure, weapons, uniforms and regulations. A recruitment system was introduced based on the estate-serf principle. A navy was created.
In the field of economics, the main direction was the creation of manufactories, first by the treasury, and then by private individuals. Owners of manufactories received the right to buy peasants, but not as personal property, but only for work at a given enterprise (possession peasants). New industries arose: shipbuilding, glass and earthenware, silk spinning, paper production. In the field of domestic and foreign trade, the policies of mercantilism and protectionism dominated.
The reforms of Peter I in the field of education and culture were aimed at enlightening society and reorganizing the education system: a) a network of primary education schools (digital schools) was created; b) special schools with professional training were created: mining, clerical, and translator schools; c) special technical educational institutions were organized: navigation, artillery, engineering, medical schools; d) in 1725 - the Academy of Sciences was opened in St. Petersburg. The reform of the civil font was of great importance, which contributed to more mass consumption of book products; The publication of the Vedomosti newspaper began. The life of the ruling class was reformed according to the Western model: shaving beards, wearing dresses according to foreign models. Palace life has been simplified. It became more dynamic: at the famous assemblies they not only drank and danced, but also decided on business issues. All cultural transformations concerned only the upper classes of society.
All the reform activities of Peter I were closely connected with an active foreign policy, the struggle for access to the Baltic, Black and Caspian seas.
The first Azov campaigns were carried out at the end of the 17th century: in 1695, the siege of the Turkish fortress of Azov was unsuccessful, since there was no fleet. After the construction of 30 ships in 1696, Azov was taken and the Taganrog fortress was founded, but in 1710 these conquests had to be given up. It was not possible to reach the Black Sea.
Peter I carried out his main military actions with Sweden during the Northern War (1700-1721), the war for the Baltic was going on. On August 30, 1721, the Peace of Nystadt was concluded: Estland, Livonia, Ingria with St. Petersburg and part of Karelia were annexed to Russia. This was access to the Baltic Sea. Russia
became a great maritime power. There was also the Persian campaign (1722-1723), as a result of which they managed to obtain the western shore of the Caspian Sea, but soon had to give it up again.
The assessment of the reform activities of Peter I is far from ambiguous. This was a striking example of reforms “from above”: a) a huge contribution was made to transforming Russia into an empire with a powerful army and navy. At the end of his life, Peter 1 called Russia an empire, although this did not correspond to reality; b) the creation of industrial production contributed to a giant leap in productive forces. However, the forced construction was done according to the Western model and carried out using harsh methods, which led to more brutal exploitation than even the harsh forms of feudal dependence. There was a nationalization of the economy and a further strengthening of serfdom; c) ongoing reforms in the field of culture led to the mechanical transfer of Western cultural stereotypes to Russian soil, which contributed to the emergence of a tendency to suppress national culture.
The death of Peter I in 1725 led to a long crisis of power. This period in our history was called "palace coups." For 37 years from the death of Peter I to the accession of Catherine II, the throne was occupied by six royal persons who received the throne as a result of complex palace intrigues or coups.
The palace coups were associated with three points: 1) the decree on the succession to the throne of 1722, which gave the monarch the right to appoint an heir, and with each new reign the question of a successor to the throne arose; 2) the revolutions were facilitated by the immaturity of Russian society, which was a consequence of Peter’s reforms; 3) after the death of Peter I, not a single palace coup took place without the intervention of the guard. It was the military and political force closest to the authorities, clearly aware of its interests in this or that coup. It consisted mainly of nobles, so the guard reflected the interests of a significant part of its class.
After the death of Peter I, his wife Catherine I (1725-1727) was elevated to the throne by the guards. Under her, the Supreme Privy Council was created (A.D. Menshikov, D.M. Golitsyn, etc.). The Council retained power under Peter I’s grandson, Peter II (1727-1730), until Menshikov’s exile in 1727.
The council turned into a body of the old noble nobility and, after the death of Peter II, it elevated the niece of Peter I, the Dowager Duchess of Courland Anna Ioannovna (1730-1740), to the throne, with the conditions of her puppet power. But having arrived in Moscow, having received petitions from the nobility, she demonstratively broke the agreement with the Supreme Privy Council, abolished it, and transferred control to the Cabinet of Ministers. But power largely belonged to the Empress’s favorite Biron and those close to him from the Baltic Germans. Anna Ioannovna strengthens the privileges of the nobility: she reduces the service life of nobles in the army to 25 years, abolishes compulsory single inheritance, creates privileged educational institutions for nobles, issues decrees on the exclusive right of nobles to own land and serfs and the right of nobles to exile peasants to Siberia. After the death of the empress, the throne was taken by the son of her niece Ivan Antonovich (under the regency of his mother Anna Leonidovna).
In 1741, the guards, outraged by the dominance of the Germans, elevated the daughter of Peter I, Elizaveta Petrovna (1741 - 1761), to the throne. Under her, an attempt was made to restore the role of the governing bodies created by Peter I, and his policy for the development of Russian industry was continued; there was a tightening of religious policy (decrees were adopted on the eviction of people of the Jewish faith from Russia, on the restructuring of Lutheran churches into Orthodox ones; there was a significant expansion of noble benefits (the establishment of noble loan banks, the provision of cheap loans, monopoly rights to distilling, etc.).
After the death of Elizabeth Petrovna, her nephew Peter III ascended the throne. During his six-month reign, Peter III adopted 192 decrees. The most important was the “Manifesto on Freedom for the Nobility” (1762), by which nobles were exempted from compulsory service to the state, were given the opportunity to live on their estates, freely travel abroad, and even enter the service of foreign sovereigns. The golden age of the nobility has arrived. The secularization of church lands in favor of the state was announced, which strengthened the state treasury (the decree was finally implemented by Catherine II in 1764); The secret office was liquidated, trade monopolies that hampered the development of entrepreneurship were abolished, and freedom of foreign trade was proclaimed. These measures alone were conceived during the previous reign and implemented on the initiative of dignitaries close to the emperor. Peter III had a negative attitude towards everything Russian; the reshaping of many orders according to the Western model offended the national feelings of the Russian people. As a result, on June 28, 1762, a palace coup took place and the wife of Peter III, Catherine II, was elevated to the throne, and a few days later he was killed.
16. The foreign policy of the Russian emperors during the period of palace coups was determined by access to the seas. The war with Turkey (1735-1739) gave Russia the mouth of the Don with Azov. The war with Sweden (1741 -- 1743) confirmed Russia's acquisitions in the Baltic states. In 1756--1763. There was a Seven Years' War of Russia in alliance with Austria, France, Sweden against Prussia, during which the Russian army occupied Berlin in 1760 and Frederick II was ready to sign a peace treaty on any terms, but Peter III, who became emperor after the death of Elizabeth Petrovna, concluded in 1762 peace with Prussia, renouncing all conquests.
Catherine II, brought up on the ideas of the French Enlightenment, in the first period of her reign tried to soften the morals of Russian society, streamline public legislation, and limit serfdom. She wrote the “Order”, which was supposed to serve as a guide for the future legislative assembly. On the one hand, this document advocated the separation of powers and the creation of elements of the rule of law; on the other hand, there was no talk of the abolition of autocracy; it timidly talked about the mitigation of serfdom. Since ideologically this program, and therefore Catherine’s internal policy, was based on the principles of enlightenment, this period itself in Russian history was called “enlightened absolutism.”
Russian enlightened absolutism is characterized by such events in which the nobles and the state were interested, but which at the same time contributed to the development of a new capitalist structure. An important feature of the policy of enlightened absolutism was the desire of monarchs to ease the severity of social contradictions by improving the political superstructure.
The largest event of enlightened absolutism was the convening of the Legislative Commission in 1767 with the aim of revising Russian legislation. But the commission was unable to develop new legislation for the Russian Empire, since it was impossible to combine the liberal ideas of the “Nakaz” with the reality of Russian life, the conflicting needs and wishes of various groups of the population. The curtailment of the policy of enlightened absolutism was influenced by two events of the 18th century: the Peasant War under the leadership of E. Pugachev in Russia and the Great French Revolution in Europe.
Despite the failure in drawing up Russian legislation, Catherine II nevertheless carried out a number of reforms in the spirit of enlightened absolutism, especially in the period before 1775: 1) the Senate was divided into 6 departments with strictly defined functions of each. They were headed by chief prosecutors, subordinate to the prosecutor general; 2) an imperial council was created under the empress from the closest and most influential dignitaries; 3) in the 80s. XVIII century Collegiums (except for four) were liquidated and replaced by provincial government; 4) all monastic lands were transferred to the state; 5) in 1775, a provincial reform was carried out. It became an important stage in the transformation of Russia into a unitary state by creating a uniform system of governance throughout the empire; 6) in 1785, the “Charter of Grant to the Nobility” was published, which determined the status of the nobility and consolidated all its rights and privileges received by that time; 7) in 1785, the “Charter on the rights and benefits of the cities of the Russian Empire” was published, according to which the entire urban population was divided into six categories, merchants were divided into three guilds; 8) paper money circulation was first introduced in Russia, which initially led to inflation and caused discontent among the majority of the population.
By the end of the 18th century. In the socio-economic development of Russia, it is observed that, on the one hand, the process of the formation of capitalist relations has become irreversible: commodity-money relations are growing and the natural isolation of landowner and peasant farms is being destroyed; the number of manufactories based on the use of hired labor is increasing; fishing activities are developing; on the other hand, there is an increase in serfdom's oppression, which is characterized by an increase in lordly and a decrease in peasant arable land, an increase in corvée and quitrents, the right of the landowner to exile guilty peasants to Siberia for settlement and hard labor, the spread of serfdom to the Left Bank Ukraine; As a result of the crisis of the feudal-serf system, the Peasant War took place under the leadership of E. Pugachev (1773-1775).
In historical research there is no unity in assessing the activities of Paul G. Some historians call the time of his reign “unenlightened absolutism”, others - “military-political dictatorship”. His reforms were controversial. There was an increase in the centralization of public administration and the abolition of elements of self-government in provinces and cities (a number of boards were restored, councils and city dumas were eliminated); the system of succession to the throne has changed (return to pre-Petrine principles); the privileges of the nobility were limited (calls for compulsory service, the establishment of a tax on the nobility, the introduction of corporal punishment); serfdom was weakened (limitation of corvée to three days, ban on the sale of peasants without land, massive distribution of state-owned lands with peasants as grants); implementation of financial stabilization (withdrawal of paper notes from circulation); regulation and unification of aspects of society (ban on wearing hats, etc., ban on the import of foreign books). The consequence of the unpredictability of the emperor’s policy and its danger for the noble elite would be the last palace coup and the assassination of Paul I on March 12, 1801.
Tasks in foreign policy of the second half of the 18th century. were: firstly, the struggle for access to the Black Sea; secondly, the liberation of the lands of Ukraine and Belarus from foreign domination and the unification of all Eastern Slavs in one state; thirdly, the fight against revolutionary France in connection with the Great French Revolution that began in 1789; fourthly, asserting its interests in European politics, Russia sought to play the role of guarantor of the independence of the British colonies in North America; compliance with Russia's interests in this region - participation in the colonization of North America. As a result: 1) during the two Russian-Turkish wars (1768-- 1774 and 1787--1791), Russia received territories in the Northern Black Sea region, Kabarda, the territories between the Bug and the Dniester, Ochakov and Crimea - this was access to the Black Sea; 2) as a result of three divisions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1772, 1793, 1795), Belarus, Right Bank Ukraine, Lithuania and the Duchy of Courland went to Russia. The situation on the western borders was stabilized, direct access to the countries of Central Europe was gained; 3) having joined the anti-Napoleonic alliance of European monarchs, where Russia’s main partner was England, the Russian army under the leadership of A.V. Suvorova, together with the Austrians, defeated French troops in three battles in Northern Italy in 1799, crossed the Alps to Switzerland, but in 1800 Paul 1 entered into an alliance with Napoleon and broke off relations with England, recalling the Russian army to Russia; 4) in 1780, during the war of the North American colonies for independence, Russia issued a Declaration of Armed Neutrality, which limited the actions of the British fleet. Other European countries also joined the Declaration, effectively supporting the North American colonies and raising Russia's international prestige. Thus, thanks to an active foreign policy, Russia in the second half of the 18th century. became a great European power. But in socio-economic terms, Russia remained a backward country, which made its position in the system of European civilization unstable and contradictory.
The socio-economic situation of the Russian Empire in the first half of the 19th century. The 19th century began and passed under the sign of the Great French Revolution (1789 - 1794). This event was of global significance, because it marked the transition to industrial civilization in Europe and North America. Its defining feature was the technological revolution, which created opportunities for increasing the pace of production development. In the political sphere, the revolution gave birth to a parliamentary republic, which led to the expansion of civil rights. In the social sphere, as a result of class-forming processes, the struggle of the proletariat intensified, social revolutions unfolded (Germany, Italy, France, England). The theoretical formulation of socialist doctrine is taking place.
Alexander I was raised by his grandmother Catherine II. She sought to prepare him, to make him, if not an ideal person, then an ideal sovereign. “Alexander received a brilliant education for that time. But he was a complex and contradictory person. At the beginning of his reign, he was known as a liberal, looking for ways to decisively reform Russian reality, and ended his life with a reputation as a persecutor of liberal ideas, a religious mystic”1 1. Troitsky N.A. Alexander I and Napoleon. M., 2003. P. 36..
To carry out reforms, the Permanent Council was formed - an advisory body under the emperor. However, the main center in which ideas for transformation were developed was the Secret Committee, which included those brought up on the advanced ideas of the 18th century. young friends of the tsar - Count P. A. Stroganov, Count V. P. Kochubey, Polish Prince Adam Chartbry, Count Novosiltsev N.N. The most liberal, although controversial, was the government's attempt in the field of education. Universities were created: Kazan, Kharkov, St. Petersburg. Universities were opened in Dorpat and Vilna. In 1804, the Moscow commercial school was opened, which marked the beginning of special economic education. In 1811, the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum was opened, the first graduating class of which was glorified by A. S. Pushkin. The widespread import of foreign books began, and the works of Adam Smith were translated and published for the first time. The main attention was paid to reforming the public administration system. An exceptional role in the development of these reforms was played by the State Secretary of the Permanent Council M. M. Speransky. The son of a poor rural priest, he made a dizzying career and became the emperor's closest adviser. The great worker M. M. Speransky achieved encyclopedic knowledge through constant self-education. He prepared the document “Introduction to the Code of State Laws.” As a result, in 1802, the Cabinet of Ministers was established under the control of the emperor himself. Ministries replaced outdated boards, and unity of command was established. The Senate was reformed, becoming the highest judicial body overseeing the observance of the rule of law in the empire. In 1910, on the initiative of Speransky, the State Council was created - the highest legislative body under the Tsar. Speransky's projects could have contributed to the beginning of the constitutional process in Russia, but they were implemented only a hundred years later - the convening of the State Duma, for example.
Some steps were taken to reform the soil structure and change the plight of serfs. They restricted the sale of peasants; they could not be sold “at retail,” that is, without a family. State peasants were prohibited from being transferred into private hands. The decree “On Free Plowmen” provided for the release of peasants by mutual agreement with the landowner. But by 1825, less than 0.5% of the serfs were freed. In 1801 - 1805 Serfdom was abolished in the Baltic states, peasants received personal freedom, but did not receive land. But even all these modest measures met powerful resistance from conservative forces and the nobility. N.M. Karamzin became the ideologist of conservatism. In the note “On Ancient and New Russia,” he insisted on the inviolability of autocracy and serfdom. In practical life, conservative tendencies manifested themselves especially quickly in “Arakcheevism.” Count A.A. Arakcheev pursued a policy aimed at strengthening absolutism and tightening serfdom. The most striking manifestation of “Arakcheevism” was military settlements - a special form of recruitment and maintenance.
“Thus, by the end of the 18th century. a domestic market is emerging in Russia; Foreign trade is becoming more and more active. Serfdom, being drawn into market relations, is changing”1 1 History of Russia. From the beginning of the 18th to the end of the 19th century, Rev. ed. A. N. Sakharov, M.: Publishing house. AST, 2004. P. 296.. As long as it was natural in nature, the needs of landowners were limited to what was produced in their fields, vegetable gardens, barnyards, etc. The exploitation of peasants had clearly defined limits. When a real opportunity arose to turn manufactured products into goods and receive money, the needs of the local nobility began to grow uncontrollably. Landowners are rebuilding their farm in such a way as to maximize its productivity using traditional, serf-based methods. In the black earth regions, which produced excellent harvests, increased exploitation was expressed in the expansion of lordly plowing at the expense of peasant plots and an increase in corvée labor. But this fundamentally undermined the peasant economy. After all, the peasant cultivated the landowner’s land, using his own equipment and his livestock, and he himself was valuable as a worker insofar as he was well-fed, strong, and healthy. The decline of his economy also affected the landowner's economy. As a result, after a noticeable rise at the turn of the 18th - 19th centuries. the landowner's economy gradually falls into a period of hopeless stagnation. In the non-chernozem region, the products of the estates brought less and less profit. Therefore, landowners were inclined to curtail their farming. The increased exploitation of the peasants was expressed here in a constant increase in the monetary dues. Moreover, this quitrent was often set higher than the real profitability of the land allocated to the peasant for use: the landowner counted on the earnings of his serfs through trades, otkhodniki - work in factories, manufactories, and in various spheres of the urban economy. These calculations were completely justified: in this region in the first half of the 19th century. Cities are growing, a new type of factory production is taking shape, which widely uses civilian labor. But the attempts of the serf owners to use these conditions in order to increase the profitability of the farm led to its self-destruction: by increasing the monetary dues, the landowners inevitably tore the peasants off the land, turning them partly into artisans, partly into civilian workers. Russian industrial production found itself in an even more difficult situation. At this time, the decisive role was played by inherited from the 18th century. industry of the old, serf type. However, it had no incentives for technical progress: the quantity and quality of products were regulated from above; the established volume of production strictly corresponded to the number of assigned peasants. “The serf industry was doomed to stagnation. At the same time, enterprises of a different type are appearing in Russia: not associated with the state, they work for the market, use civilian labor”1 1 Kovalchenko I.D. Russian serf peasantry in the first half of the 19th century, M., 2006. P. 57.. Such enterprises arise primarily in light industry, the products of which already have a mass buyer. Their owners become wealthy peasant farmers; and peasant otkhodniks work here. There was a future for this production, but the dominance of the serf system constrained it. Owners of industrial enterprises were usually themselves in serfdom and were forced to give a significant part of their income in the form of quitrents to the landowners; the workers legally and essentially remained peasants who, having earned their quitrent, sought to return to the village. “Production growth was also hampered by a relatively narrow sales market, the expansion of which, in turn, was limited by the serf system. That is, in the first half of the 19th century. The traditional economic system clearly hampered the development of production and prevented the formation of new relations in it. Serfdom turned into an obstacle to the normal development of the country.”
The political system of Russia in the first half of the 19th century. “The accession of the son of Paul I was greeted with jubilation by the population of the capital. In a manifesto hastily printed on March 12, 1801, Alexander I announced that he would govern the people “given by God” to him “according to the laws and the heart of our august grandmother,” thereby emphasizing his commitment to the political course of Catherine II.”2 2 Troitsky N.A. Alexander I and Napoleon. M., 2003. P. 38.. He began by restoring the “Charter of Letters” abolished by Paul to the nobility and cities, the noble elected corporate bodies, freeing the nobles from corporal punishment, declaring an amnesty to everyone who fled from Pavlov’s repressions abroad and exiles. Other Pavlovian decrees were also repealed, such as the ban on wearing round French hats, subscribing to foreign newspapers and magazines, and traveling abroad. Freedom of trade was declared, private printing houses were allowed, and the feared Secret Expedition, which was engaged in investigation and reprisals, was abolished. The St. Petersburg Bastille - the Peter and Paul Fortress - was empty.
These first orders raised hopes for further changes. And they followed. It was necessary to reform the public administration system - the previous one no longer met the requirements of the time. The State Council, which met from time to time under Catherine II, became permanent (“Indispensable”); it was considered as a body with legislative functions under the emperor. The council included representatives of the highest titled nobility (12 people). From the very first days of its existence, the “Indispensable” Council acquired such importance that its position largely predetermined the emperor’s final decision on the most important issues of domestic and foreign policy.
Further transformations were associated with the activities of M.M. Speransky, the son of a village priest, who, thanks to his exceptional abilities, made a dizzying career. Under Pavel, he served in the office of the Prosecutor General, and then found himself in the position of Secretary of State in the “Indispensable” Council. It was this man, “gifted with the talent of a bureaucrat and a brilliant mind... hard as ice, but also cold as ice” (V.O. Klyuchevsky), that Alexander I commissioned to develop a reform that was supposed to significantly change the political system in the country. By October 1809, Speransky had already presented the project to the Tsar. It essentially talked about limiting autocracy and introducing a constitutional monarchy in the country. The author of the project proposed to base the reform on the principle of separation of powers: he considered it necessary to concentrate legislative power in a new body - the State Duma, judicial power - in the Senate, and executive power - in the ministries that arose in Russia back in 1802. Not a single law could be created without prior approval by its elected body - the State Duma. Ministers were appointed by the tsar, but they were responsible to the Duma. A harmonious system of elected dumas was envisaged: State, provincial, district, volost. Members of the Senate were supposed to be chosen by provincial dumas. Political rights were granted to everyone except the “working people” (“local peasants, artisans, their workers and domestic servants”). The connecting link between the emperor and the three branches of government should be the State Council - the pinnacle of the new state system.
Alexander I recognized the project as “satisfactory and useful,” but it was not implemented. The matter came down to the establishment in 1810 of the State Council - a legislative advisory body under the emperor, which took the place of the “Indispensable” council.
“In 1811, the “General Establishment of Ministries” prepared by Speransky received the force of law, completing the reform begun in 1802, when the collegiums were replaced by a new, European form of supreme executive power - ministries. Matters for each ministry were decided individually by a minister appointed by the emperor and responsible only to him”1 1 Kornilov A.A. Course on the history of Russia in the 19th century. M., 2000. P. 201. If in 1802 the structure and functions of the ministry were not clearly defined, then the “General Establishment” established uniformity in the organization and office work of ministries and regulated the relationship of ministries with other government bodies. The ministers united in the Committee of Ministers. Its organizational foundations were finally determined in 1812. The committee also included representatives of the departments of the State Council, and the chairman of the State Council simultaneously became the chairman of the Committee of Ministers. According to the 1812 law, the Committee of Ministers was supposed to consider cases in which “common consideration and cooperation are necessary” and in the resolution of which the minister “met with doubt,” including cases exceeding the limits of his authority. However, in practice, the committee also performed judicial functions and discussed bills that the emperor approved without submitting them for additional consideration to the State Council. The Committee of Ministers could overturn the decisions of the Senate, which also at the beginning of the 19th century. underwent reorganization. It was divided into nine departments (by the middle of the 19th century, their number had grown to 12), semi-independent, secured by the leadership of the prosecutor general (since 1802, this position began to be occupied by the Minister of Justice).
The decisions of the Senate in judicial cases often turned out to be inconclusive: if disagreements arose during the discussion of cases in departments and general meetings of the senates (and such situations happened often), the final verdict was made by the emperor, and subsequently by the State Council. MM. Speransky proposed adopting a law recognizing the decisions of the Council as final; by this time he had prepared a draft for a new transformation of the Senate. It was about dividing the Senate into two - government and judicial. According to the reformer, the composition of the latter was to be partly appointed by the emperor, partly elected by the nobility. However, this proposal did not become law. Speransky's resignation and exile to Nizhny Novgorod soon followed. The reasons for the “fall” of the reformer have been and are being interpreted differently. They talk about the intrigues of dignitaries who saw Speransky as an upstart (V.O. Klyuchevsky); indicate the excessive activity of Speransky himself (in notes to the emperor and personal conversations. He revealed such extensive knowledge of various circumstances of the internal and external political life of Russia that Alexander began to doubt who really rules the empire (V.A. Tosinov) and the tsar’s refusal of the pro-French policy, a supporter of which was M. M. Speransky, and his involvement in Freemasonry (M. N. Pokrovsky).
“But the removal of Speransky did not mean that Alexander I abandoned the liberal course of his policy. In 1815 he granted a constitution to the “Kingdom of Poland.” This was seen as the first step towards the granting of a constitutional structure to Russia itself. The draft of the Russian Constitution was entrusted to the imperial commissioner under the Polish government Nikolai Novosiltsev”1 1. Troitsky N.A. Alexander I and Napoleon. M., 2003. P. 76.. The draft he compiled (“Charter of Statutes”) provided for the creation of a parliament, without whose approval the monarch could not issue laws, the granting of freedom to all Russian subjects, except for serfs, and the federal structure of the state.
But this project, created in secret, was never made public. Moreover, by the beginning of the 20s. XIX century Alexander I refuses fundamental changes in the political sphere and takes the path of returning to the unpromising practice of partial changes and renovations of the existing system. Klyuchevsky believes that the reason for this change is that Alexander was frightened by the military revolutions in Italy and Spain, the ghost of which he saw in the performance of the Semenovsky Life Guards Regiment in 1820. Pokrovsky points out that as soon as the need to play at liberalism disappeared, the emperor immediately overthrew everything liberal initiatives, thereby revealing their true sentiments. A similar point of view is taken by S.B. Perch. A number of historians (N.Ya. Eldman, S.V. Mironenko) expressed the opinion that the refusal to reform occurred due to the imaginary or true narrowness of social support for them and Alexander I’s fear of entering into conflict with the bulk of the nobility.
According to most researchers, the direction of activity of Nicholas I, who replaced his brother on the throne and suppressed the Decembrist uprising, directly continued the conservative course of the end of Alexander’s reign.
Nicholas I set his task to preserve the autocratic system.
His Majesty's Own Office becomes the key body in the state structure. The number of officials in the chancellery increases significantly, and several branches are established. In structure and functions, these departments were actually ministries, but they enjoyed much greater influence and controlled the activities of the corresponding ministries, while remaining bodies of the emperor’s personal power.
“One of the most important was the III department of the chancellery - a body of political investigation and investigation, created according to a note from General A.Kh. Benkendorf, a former member of the Masonic lodge, a friend of the Decembrists, who filed a denunciation against them to Alexander I; in 1826, the head of the department simultaneously became the chief of a specially formed corps of gendarmes”1 1 History of Russia. From the beginning of the 18th to the end of the 19th century, Rev. ed. A. N. Sakharov, M.: Publishing house. AST, 2004. P.295.. The government appointed the most loyal people to this post. Benckendorff was the first to occupy it; in 1844 he was replaced by Count A.F. Orlov; the latter was replaced in 1856 by Prince V.A. Dolgorukov. The country was divided into several gendarmerie districts, headed by generals with an extensive staff of subordinates at their disposal. The tasks of the III Department and the Corps of Gendarmes were diverse: they carried out investigations and investigations in political matters, monitored literature, and were in charge of schism and sectarianism; they monitored foreigners who came to Russia, dealt with major official and criminal crimes, studied the situation of peasants and the causes of crime, studied the situation of peasants and the causes of peasant unrest, were in charge of censorship, etc. In fact, the III department covered all aspects of life.
Attempts were made to place the local administration in the person of governors under strict control of the supreme power. “The central bureaucracy grew incredibly. The emperor decided to involve Speransky in the work of codifying legislation, who returned to the capital in 1821. This work was concentrated in the II department of the imperial chancellery, the head of which Nicholas appointed professor of St. Petersburg University M.A. Balugyansky. In fact, the department was headed by M. M. Speransky"1 1 Kornilov A.A. Course on the history of Russia in the 19th century. M., 2000. P. 211. Nicholas I included Speransky in the Secret Committee, formed on December 6, 1826 to prepare reforms in public administration. The committee developed a number of projects, but most of them remained on paper. Some specific changes concerned the local government system.
Civilizational uniqueness of imperial Russia. The imperial civilization, the formation of which was initiated by the active foreign policy activities of Peter I, was one of the largest civilizations in terms of territory, formed in the spaces of Eastern Europe and Northern Asia, the originality of which is determined by the interaction of specific geographical, ethnic, political and historical factors.
Vast spaces, limited in many respects by natural boundaries, are characterized by a variety of landscapes. At the same time, the life activity of a significant part of the empire’s population was carried out in an unfavorable continental zone, in harsh natural and climatic conditions. The economy and the entire way of life of Russia were significantly influenced by the fact that about 75% of the country's territory was in the zone of risky agriculture, that at colossal distances the main natural resources were concentrated where there was almost no population, access to convenient oceanic zones with their cheap prices was limited. transport arteries. From here stems the constant desire of imperial Russia to expand its borders in order to join the centers of world trade and develop more favorable agricultural areas.
New territories were also needed for the application of entrepreneurial forces and the development of market relations. In this regard, some Western features are visible in Russia's territorial acquisitions. Thus, in 1721, according to the Western model, Russia was proclaimed an empire by Peter I. She was actively involved in European politics and participated in various unions. Her authority in world politics constantly increased. Already during the Northern War (1700 - 1721), Russia declared the right to participate in world affairs on an equal basis with the leading European powers. In the last quarter of the 18th century. it became one of the great powers and confirmed this position during the Napoleonic wars. If previously Russia’s geopolitical interests did not extend beyond the borders of the adjacent territory, now broader great-power claims to areas of control and responsibility have taken shape: the Balkans, the Black Sea straits region, the Slavic territories of Europe, Asia and the Baltic region.
The specifics of the formation of its ethnic composition also stem from the geographical features of the development of imperial civilization. The basic feature of the Russian empire is that its core, integrating principle is the Russian people, which in turn was generated on a multi-ethnic basis. This is one of the largest, developed and culturally rich ethnic groups in the world. Thanks to such objective factors, as well as such integration features as self-restraint, asceticism, tolerance, a penchant for justice, for the mutual enrichment of cultures, etc., the Russian people became the unifier of other ethnic groups of the empire. Throughout the 18th – first half of the 19th centuries, many European and Asian ethnic groups living on their ancestral lands joined it voluntarily or as a result of wars, but mainly through peaceful colonization. Thus, non-Slavic lands were annexed, as a rule, with a rich historical past, most of which were part of other states before joining Russia. The annexation of these territories turned Russia into the Russian Empire. We will indicate these lands based on their geographical location, starting from the northwestern border: Finland (1809), the Baltic states (1721), Poland (1815), Bessarabia (1812), Crimea (1783) , Caucasus (first half of the 19th century), Kazakhstan and Central Asia (annexation completed in the second half of the 19th century). In Russia, unlike European empires that had vast overseas territories, the Russian population lived side by side with the peoples annexed to the empire. Living together objectively contributed to the rapprochement of peoples. And the Russian government spent a lot of effort and money on developing the annexed lands. In fact, this annexation formed the main territory of the imperial civilization.
The Eurasian character of the emerging Russian sociocultural community is an important feature of Russian imperial civilization, which cannot be reduced to the mechanical sum of its European and Asian components, but is expressed in new qualities and features. The commonality of historical destinies, geopolitical interests, the predominance of centripetal principles over centrifugal ones gave rise to common stable social, material and spiritual characteristics, all-Russian self-awareness, including all-Russian patriotism, similarity of spiritual preferences, which is reflected in the specifics of self-identification - a necessary element of civilizational difference. Russian identity is manifested in paradoxical phrases (“Russian German”, “Russian Jew”, etc.) At the same time, the heterogeneity of the components of Russian imperial civilization, their location at different stages of evolution makes it partly blurred (especially on the outskirts), creates a special need in the mechanisms of civilizational and political integration.
Geographical, natural and climatic diversity (from the subtropics to the tundra), specific historical conditions of life contributed to the formation of ethnic groups with different physical appearance, different mentality, and culture. In contrast to the colonialist policies of Western civilization, which led to the disappearance of a number of ethnic groups on different continents and, accordingly, to the disappearance of their cultures, in imperial Russia the peoples who lived here since ancient times survived. The colonization of peripheral territories by Russians, their settlement next to indigenous peoples, the introduction of a higher reproductive culture with respectful interaction with them led to the mixing of different ethnic groups and their mutual cultural adaptation, to the formation of a unique civilizational space with diverse, specific cultures of many peoples in close interaction within the framework of a single Russian multinational culture.
The specific features of its political system stem from the territorial and socio-cultural features of the formation of Russian civilization.
An important role in the functioning of Russian imperial civilization belongs to the state. This is due to both natural and socio-psychological realities, and the need to neutralize disintegration factors. Paternalistic traditions of community, vast, often sparsely populated spaces, the presence of dozens of ethnic groups with a distinctive culture, the lack of stable economic market ties and legal relations, insufficient development of roads and vehicles - all this gives rise to the need for a strong centralized state, capable of holding together sharply different regions, ensure the survival of the weakest and poorest of them, while suppressing the policy of ethno-national separatism. Unlike the Western tradition, in Russia it is not society that produces a certain type of state, but to a large extent the state forms the structures of society: let us remember, for example, the reforms of Peter I and Catherine II.
Such factors give rise to statist beliefs among the peoples of Russia, a belief in the need for an authoritarian ruler - the sole arbiter of the fate of the Fatherland, a strong central government, and the habit of perceiving its decisions as inevitable and due. History of Eurasian Russia in the 18th – first half of the 19th centuries. with its strong paternalistic orientations and authoritarian methods of leadership, shows that much depends on the personality, actions, and general culture of the first persons in the state, starting with Peter I and ending with Nicholas I.
A distinctive feature of Russian civilization in general and in the period under review in particular was multi-confessionalism. A special role in the formation and development of Russian civilization belongs to the Russian Orthodox Church. She had a significant impact on the way of life of the Russian people, their history, literature, fine arts, philosophy, morality, psychology, and the entire culture. Favorable opportunities for the patriotic, spiritual and cultural activities of the Russian Orthodox Church were created, starting with the Baptism of Rus', by the interweaving of religious and state principles, the significant role of the church in collecting and protecting Russian lands, in educational activities (especially significant when secular centers were still weak culture), the slow spread of secularization processes. At the same time, it should be noted that starting from the 18th century. serious changes are taking place in the relationship between spiritual and secular authorities. On the one hand, the Russian Orthodox Church, weakened by the schism, is increasingly acquiring the features of a state institution and, after the decrees of Peter I and Catherine II, it finally loses its political and economic independence, on the other hand, Orthodoxy continues to act as one of the civilizational foundations of a huge confessional multi-ethnic community, bringing together culture, everyday life, helping to feel the solidarity of these peoples with each other. Similar functions are performed by other traditional religions of Russia, primarily Islam (the majority of believers are Tatars, Bashkirs, and representatives of the North Caucasian peoples) and Buddhism (Kalmyks, Buryats, Tuvans). Other religions existing here - Judaism, Lutheranism, etc. - have also become part of Russian culture.
The general cultural area of imperial Russia includes different, but equally autochthonous ethno-confessional communities, which live mostly compactly on their historical territory, and partly in dispersion throughout Russia. This is the specificity of the multi-confessional nature of Russian civilization, characterized by a “cross-strip” of places with varying degrees of compact traditional residence of large ethno-confessional communities. Their interaction, their joint creation and defense of common values and state structures - all this forms among the multi-ethnic and multi-confessional population a sense of participation in the destinies of Russia, a number of common ideas, preferences, orientations that have become deep for the psychology and consciousness of Russian ethno-confessional communities. Such all-Russian preferences are unthinkable without a targeted policy aimed at strengthening in the public consciousness and the state-legal sphere the concept of a single Russian people, composed of all its equal ethno-confessional communities. Various discriminatory actions - ignoring the peculiarities of life in a particular region, infringing on the feelings and self-awareness of ethnic groups - invariably damaged the stability of the entire Russian imperial society - the Caucasian War (1817-1864), the uprising in Poland (1830-1831), etc. .d. The center-region dichotomy, the confrontation between unitary and centrifugal tendencies, the weakening of territorial ties is an eternal problem of Russian society, which sharply worsens during crisis periods of its history.
At the same time, the stability of Russian imperial civilization supports the commitment of the majority of the population to preserve their concept of being, their traditional values. This contributes to a certain social cohesion, which largely neutralizes existing contradictions. A certain role is played here by the established forms of coexistence, traditionalism, which was historically formed as an adaptation mechanism in the conditions of difficulties (climatic, natural, etc.) of economic management. What is specific to Russia in general and the period under study in particular is that arrogance never prevailed in the hierarchy of spiritual values of the Russian people, and profit and acquisitiveness were not a measure of an individual’s social success. In contrast to the Western individualistic and pragmatic tradition described by M. Weber, Russian thinkers, characterizing the features of their people, emphasized that they are not inclined to elevate transitory earthly values (for example, private property) to the rank of sacred (F.M. Dostoevsky), and are not inclined to worship “golden calf” (N.A. Berdyaev).
The concept of the existence of the Russian people, formed over the centuries, was characterized by the priority of the ideas of collective salvation, public interests over personal ones (without rejecting the interests of the individual), and a disposition towards spiritual values. Commitment to human solidarity, compassion for the common man, patriotism, moral and humanistic concepts is reflected in fiction, various types of art, and oral folk art, for which goodness, truth, conscience, and justice are symbolic. It is in the spiritual features of the culture of the people (secular and religious) that the originality of Russian civilization is clearly manifested. And first of all, it is precisely for such features that Russian culture is distinguished and valued in the world community.
Thus, Russian imperial civilization, like any civilization, develops and modernizes, giving rise to splits in the consciousness, behavior, and interests of various social and national communities, stimulating contradictory integration and disintegration processes, and new demographic phenomena.
During the period under review, a huge multinational state was formed, in which elements of different civilizational orientations coexisted. The Russian Empire was both a European and an Asian power. It was connected with Europe by culture, religion, language, and the nature of the economy. But Asia also influenced the country. This is where examples of despotic governance were often taken.
Historically, Russian society was influenced by two different worlds, as a result of which it emerged as pluralistic in spiritual values, social organization, traditions, culture and way of life. Moreover, with the exception of European enclaves, it was dominated by communities with a corporate structure and the inseparability of the spiritual and secular spheres of life, the colossal influence of religion on public consciousness and the everyday life of people.
Russian modernization in the 18th – first half of the 19th centuries. Modernization in the history of Russia has gone through several stages. We will talk about the period of the 18th - first half of the 19th centuries. At this stage, the dominant modernization set by Peter I remained relevant until the middle of the 19th century.
Petrine modernization is associated with the use of a variant that can be conditionally called Asian. It involves a gradual organizational and technological transition from manufacturing to factory production, the introduction of elements of market relations while maintaining the social system of the eastern type. This option was implemented for a century and a half - until the bourgeois reforms of Alexander II.
It was supposed, through modernization, to accelerate development and eliminate the defined and widened gap between Russia and the countries of European civilization in the socio-economic, scientific, technical, military and other fields. A distinctive feature of this type of modernization was the key role of the state and bureaucrats in all areas of the country's public life.
Over the course of a century and a half, the modernization of traditional Russian society has solved several interrelated problems: in the social sphere - the individualization of society, a clear specialization of people, public and state institutions by type of activity; in the economy - the transition from manufacturing to factory, industrial production, the gradual, state-controlled spread of private property; in politics - the transition to a secular state, the introduction of separation of powers, the inclusion of part of the population in the political process; in the cultural and spiritual fields - rationalization of consciousness, development of secular education and rational science, spread of literacy, freedom of thought and creativity, religious tolerance.
Political modernization. Under Peter I, absolutism was finally established in Russia, Peter was proclaimed emperor, which meant strengthening the power of the tsar himself, he became an autocratic and unlimited monarch.
In Russia, a reform of the state apparatus was carried out - instead of the Boyar Duma, a Senate, which included nine dignitaries closest to Peter I. The Senate was the legislative body and controlled the country’s finances and the activities of the administration. The Senate was headed by the Prosecutor General.
The public administration reform affected the system of orders and they were replaced collegiums, the number of which reached 12. Each board was in charge of a certain branch of management: foreign relations were managed by the Board of Foreign Affairs, the Admiralty fleet, revenue collection by the Chamber Board, noble land ownership by the Patrimony, etc. The cities were in charge of the Chief Magistrate.
During this period, the struggle continued between the supreme and secular authorities and the church. In 1721 it was established Spiritual College, or Synod, which testified to the subordination of the church to the state. In Russia, the patriarchate was abolished, and the supervision of the church was entrusted to the chief prosecutor of the Synod.
The system of local government was reorganized, the country was divided in 1708 into eight provinces(Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kyiv, Arkhangelsk, Smolensk, Kazan, Azov and Siberian) led by governors who were in charge of the troops. Since the territories of the provinces were huge, they were divided into 50 provincial In turn, the provinces were divided into counties.
These measures testified to the creation in Russia of a unified administrative-bureaucratic management system - an indispensable attribute of an absolutist state.
An important result and legislative consolidation of all the reform activities of Peter was Table of ranks(1722), which was a law on the procedure for public service. The adoption of this law meant a break with the previous patriarchal tradition of governance, embodied in localism. Having established the order of ranks in the military and civil service not according to nobility, but according to personal abilities and merits, the Table of Ranks contributed to the consolidation of the nobility and the expansion of its composition at the expense of persons loyal to the tsar from different strata of the population.
In historical literature, the time from the death of Peter I to the accession to the throne of Catherine II is usually called the era of palace coups. Never before has supreme power passed along such a broken line as in 1725-1762. The reasons for this were, firstly, the decree of Peter I on succession to the throne, secondly, the attitude of the “chicks of Petrov’s nest” towards the next contender for the throne, and thirdly, the active participation of the guards regiments in the struggle for power waged by palace groups. Under all the rulers of this time, favorites and temporary workers played a huge role. During this period, state policy was aimed at further absolutization of power, increasing the role of the noble class in state life, i.e. maintained the direction set by Peter I.
Having ascended the throne after another palace coup (1762), Catherine II had to develop a policy that would meet the conditions of the new time, moving society forward along the European path. This policy was called “enlightened absolutism.” The policy of enlightened absolutism was expressed in the transformation of the most outdated state institutions and government bodies in the name of strengthening the absolute monarchy and adapting it to the realities of the 18th century, the century of Enlightenment. The monarchs relied on the principles of rationalism, believed in the omnipotence of laws, encouraged science and education, and showed religious tolerance.
The empress began her transformative activities with the reform of the Senate (1763), which streamlined the work of the highest authority of the empire, but deprived it of legislative functions, which were concentrated in the hands of the empress, i.e. merged with the executive branch.
The Empress's next step was the completion of Peter I's measures to make the church completely dependent on secular power. The secularization of church lands (1764) undermined the basis of the well-being of the clergy, turning them into a detachment of peculiar officials. The defeat of the church in the fight against the state machine was another step towards the nationalization of the life of the Russian citizen.
The largest event of the reign of Catherine II was the convening in 1767 of the Commission on the drafting of a new code (Laid Commission).
The commission began its meetings in the Faceted Chamber of the Moscow Kremlin in the summer of 1767. The work of this commission did not affect subsequent Russian reality, but there was plenty of noise and loud phraseology around this action of the empress. According to Klyuchevsky, the commission worked for a year and a half, held 203 meetings, limited itself to discussing the peasant issue and legislation, but due to the outbreak of war with Turkey, it was dissolved and never met again in full force.
A new code of laws was not drawn up under Catherine. The work of the Commission turned out to be fruitless; extensive paperwork retained only the significance of a monument to the socio-historical thought of Russia from the era of Catherine II.
In November 1775, the Empress adopted “Institutions for the administration of the provinces of the All-Russian Empire.” The goal of provincial reform is to create an orderly system of local government. The reform included four main provisions.
Firstly, the country was divided only into provinces and districts. Secondly, uniform governing bodies and courts were created in each province. Thirdly, in the district the Lower Zemstvo Court, headed by a police captain and two assessors, became the executive authority in the district; all of them were chosen by the nobles of the county. In county towns, power belonged to a mayor appointed from among the nobles. Fourthly, Catherine II completely restructured the judicial system and separated the judicial authorities from the executive. The Senate became the highest judicial body in the country, and the judicial chambers in the provinces.
Thus, the reform of 1775 introduced an elective principle at the local level, forgotten in Russia since the time of the Zemstvo Councils, and an attempt was made to separate powers. However, in practice, the provincial government constantly interfered in judicial matters. The governor approved court decisions and appointed or removed judges. The predominant role in local government and courts belonged to the nobles.
The provincial reform led to the liquidation of the collegiums, with the exception of the Foreign, Military, and Admiralty. The functions of the boards were transferred to provincial bodies. Finally, the special order of government in the Cossack regions was abolished; The usual system of provincial institutions was introduced. In 1775, the Zaporozhye Sich was liquidated.
Ten years after the provincial reform, in April 1785, letters of grant to the nobility and cities were simultaneously issued, in which the rights and responsibilities of the two classes - the nobility and the city - were legislated and clearly defined.
The grant of a charter to the nobility became the last step in the rise of the ruling noble class. The charter granted to the cities was a continuation of the policy of Peter I, aimed at developing industry and trade, increasing the role of cities in the socio-economic life of the country.
The short reign of Paul I (1796-1801) was marked by a desire to contrast the “disastrous” policies of his mother, which, in his opinion, weakened autocracy, with a firm line on strengthening absolutist power and strengthening discipline in the army and state. The strictest censorship of the press was introduced, private printing houses were closed, travel abroad and the import of foreign books were prohibited. The effect of the Letter of Grant to the nobility was limited. Prussian order was imposed in the army.
In 1797, Paul I issued the “Institution on the Imperial Family,” according to which Peter the Great’s decree on succession to the throne was canceled. From now on, the throne was to pass strictly through the male line from father to son, and in the absence of sons, to the eldest of the brothers. The law determined the order of internal relations in the imperial family. To maintain the imperial court, a special department of appanages was formed, which managed the lands that belonged to the imperial family and the appanage peasants who lived on these lands. The law of 1797 was in force until the fall of the monarchy.
In the first quarter of the 19th century. Russia was at the crossroads between the autocratic serfdom system and the search for new forms of organization of socio-economic and political life. This controversial and difficult period of Russian history is associated with the reign of Alexandra I(1777-1825). Emperor Alexander I, who ascended the throne after the assassination of Paul I in 1801, inherited the complex internal and external state of the country.
A plan for liberal reforms in the country was drawn up, in the development of which the Secret Committee, consisting of P.A. Stroganova (1772-1817), V.P. Kochubey (1768-1834), N.N. Novosiltseva (1768-1834), A. Czartoryski(1700-1861). The first attempts to restructure public administration and social relations suffered from incompleteness, and the international situation and Russia's participation in coalitions against France in 1805 and 1806-1807. forced Alexander I to temporarily withdraw from internal political problems.
Replaced the Secret Committee MM. Speransky(1772-1839), an educated man with enormous ability to work, later appointed Secretary of State (1821), developed a broad program of government reforms. The program set out in the “Introduction to the Code of State Laws” provided for the creation of representative bodies in the country from bottom to top, the equalization of all classes before the law, and the establishment of the principle of separation of powers into legislative, executive and judicial. The essence of Speransky's reform program was the creation of a bourgeois-type monarchy in Russia and the establishment of a rule of law state. However, Speransky’s program was not and could not be implemented in full due to the lack of objective conditions in Russian reality and Alexander I’s fear of the nobility and the offensiveness of conservative forces. This predetermined the collapse of M.M.’s attempts. Speransky to transform Russia.
And yet, some provisions of his program were implemented. On January 1, 1810, the reformed State Council opened, an advisory body whose members were appointed by the emperor. Ministries were transformed (their number reached 11), the structure, functions of ministries and the responsibilities of ministers were determined.
Alexander I also carried out reforms in the field of education. Six educational districts headed by a trustee were established, district schools, provincial gymnasiums and universities were established. These events contributed to the creation of a public education system, the emergence of a layer of European-educated nobility and the penetration of liberal ideas into its midst. Revolutionary liberalism was emerging in Russia.
The reforms carried out by Alexander I at the beginning of his reign did not lead to significant changes in the political system of Russian society. Moreover, they contributed to the further strengthening of the autocratic system and were essentially aimed at creating a liberal image of Russia in Europe. This explained the more radical nature of the transformations in the western part of the country - the Baltic states and Finland. MM. Speransky was exiled to Nizhny Novgorod in 1812, and then even further to Perm.
The reign of Emperor Nicholas I was a time of severe suppression of free thought, democracy and the liberation movement both within the country and in Europe. At the same time, this time is the golden age of Russian literature, the flourishing of young Russian science, theater, art and the rise of social thought.
Nicholas I sought to preserve the existing order, not to introduce anything new in the country, but only to maintain the state and social system that had developed over centuries, which did not contribute to the growth of Russia’s international influence and the solution of internal problems.
In an effort to preserve and strengthen the existing socio-political system, Nicholas I carried out the task of codifying Russian legislation. The result of the work carried out under the guidance of M.M., returned from exile. Speransky’s work was the collection “Complete Collection of Laws of the Russian Empire,” which included all the decrees, starting with the Council Code of 1649 and ending with the last decree of Alexander I, and the fifteen-volume collection “Code of Laws,” which included current laws. The “Code of Laws” contained the most important principle of the reign of Nicholas I - not to introduce anything new and only to repair and put in order the old. The legislative basis of Russian society has remained the same, only the mechanism of central government has become more complicated. Under him, the system of the Russian bureaucracy and military - the support of the autocracy - was finally established. If at the beginning of the 19th century. the army of officials amounted to 16 thousand people, then in the middle of the 19th century. – 100 thousand. The activities of the apparatus were not controlled by society, impunity and mutual responsibility in the sphere of bureaucracy testified to the crisis of the state apparatus.
Changes in the economic sphere. An important feature of the economic development of Russia in the first half of the 18th century. consisted in the determining role of the autocratic state in the economy, its active and deep penetration into all spheres of economic life. Established by Peter I, the Berg, Manufactory, Commerce Collegium and the Chief Magistrate were institutions of state regulation of the national economy, bodies for implementing the trade and industrial policy of the autocracy.
In the second half of the 18th century. Elizaveta Petrovna and Catherine II continued the policy pursued by Peter I of encouraging the development of domestic industry and Russian trade.
In the middle of the 18th century. The first cotton manufactories appeared in Russia, owned by merchants, and, somewhat later, by rich peasants. By the end of the century, their number reached 200. Moscow gradually became a major center of the textile industry. Of great importance for the development of domestic industrial production was the publication in 1775 of Catherine II’s manifesto on the free establishment of industrial enterprises by representatives of all strata of the then society. The manifesto eliminated many restrictions on the creation of industrial enterprises and allowed “everyone to start all kinds of mills.” In modern terms, freedom of enterprise was introduced in Russia. In addition, Catherine II abolished fees in a number of small-scale industries. The adoption of the manifesto was a form of encouraging the nobility and adapting it to new economic conditions. At the same time, these measures reflected the growth of the capitalist structure in the country.
At the beginning of the 19th century, industrial development, despite the general increase in the number of enterprises, was low. Peasant handicrafts were important. The number of enterprises that used primarily hired labor increased. By 1825, more than half the number of workers in capitalist industry were civilian workers. The merchants expanded their rights. All this contributed to the development of capitalist relations, but the pace of development of industry and agriculture was low.
Satisfying the needs of the nobility focused on the European market, the government of Alexander I in 1802 allowed duty-free trade through the port of Odessa. At the same time, a regulation was approved on duty-free import of machinery and mechanisms for Russian industry and agriculture. In 1801, a decree was adopted according to which all persons of free standing (merchants, state peasants) were given the right to buy land. This decree for the first time began to destroy the monopoly of the nobility on land. In 1803, a decree on free cultivators followed, according to which the nobles, at their discretion, could release serfs for a significant ransom. But under Alexander I, only 47 thousand serf souls were released.
Despite the positive phenomena in the economic development of the country (the volume of industrial production doubled, the number of enterprises increased to 14 thousand, civilian labor became predominant in manufactories, the industrial revolution began in the 30s), the general state of the national economy in the second quarter of the 19th century. testified to the inhibiting influence of serfdom and foreshadowed the aggravation of the crisis of the serfdom. The discontent of the peasantry increased. Peasant unrest is becoming more widespread. The government understood the need to solve the main issue of Russian society - the peasant one. The chief of the gendarmes convinced Emperor Nicholas I that the serfdom of the peasants “is a powder magazine under the state.” There were 11 secret commissions to draw up the law for the liberation of the peasantry. The result of the committees' activities was the creation of a system for managing state peasants, subordinate to a new ministry, the Ministry of State Property, headed by P.D. Kiselev(1788 1872). In 1837-1841. he carried out an administrative reform, according to which state peasants became legally free farmers with communal management. This reform allowed by 1858 270 thousand peasants to buy more than 1 million dessiatines of land, cease to be a burden on the state budget and slightly increase their well-being. Although the problem of the abolition of serfdom was never resolved.
In 1839-1843 Minister of Finance E.F. Kankrin(1774-1845) a monetary reform was carried out, which contributed to the strengthening of the country's financial system. However, innovations in domestic political life could not destroy the conservatism of tsarism's policies. The crisis of the serfdom system manifested itself in all spheres of public life.
Social modernization. In the field of social policy, the legislation of Peter I followed in principle the general trend that emerged in the 18th century. The main task of the emperor was to put all classes in the service of the state, to increase the role of the service class in the life of the empire.
The attachment of peasants to the land, fixed by the Code of 1649, not only did not change during that period, but also received further development. This is evidenced by the introduction of a new system of population registration and taxation, carried out in order to increase the efficiency of control over the collection of taxes from the population. The state, trying to identify each individual taxpayer, introduced a new principle of taxation - the poll tax. Taxes began to be collected – now not from the yard, but from the audit office’s soul.
Another major initiative in the field of state regulation of social relations was the attempt of Peter I to stabilize the ruling class economically and politically. In this regard, an important role was played by the Decree on the procedure for inheritance of movable and immovable property of March 23, 1714, known as the decree of primogeniture. According to the new law, all land holdings of a nobleman were to be inherited only by one eldest son or daughter, and in their absence, by one of the family members. In the long-term historical perspective, Peter's decree would have preserved large land holdings indivisible and would have prevented their fragmentation.
In the second half of the 18th century. the line of strengthening the role of the nobility in the life of the country and strengthening serfdom was continued by the Russian government.
Empress Elizaveta Petrovna provided the nobles with benefits and privileges that increased the stability of serfdom. Her government took four actions in this direction in 1754: a decree declaring distillation a noble monopoly, the organization of the Noble Bank, the transfer of state-owned factories in the Urals to the nobles, and general land surveying. Only in the 18th century. General land surveying replenished the noble landholdings by more than 50 million dessiatines of land.
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