Who ruled after Paul 1 in Russia. The rulers of Russia

At the beginning of the XIX century, the Russian throne suffered a terrible shock: the March night of 1801, a group of guards conspirators led by the St. Petersburg governor-general and the head of the secret police PA Palen infiltrated the chambers of Emperor Pavel Petrovich and killed him, thereby making a palace coup in The result of which the son of the Emperor Alexander ascended to the throne.

The reign begun with the murder

The mother of the murdered Tsar - Catherine II - wanted to make him the successor of his progressive undertakings. That is why N. Paulin, the outstanding statesman of his time, was the main educator of Paul. But fate decreed otherwise. Paul wanted to lead his own line. He was ambitious and ambitious, like many Russian rulers. The years of the reign of this monarch were short, but he managed to deserve the general hatred.

For brave guardsmen it was not new to overthrow the throne of the rulers disliked by them. And the timekeeper Biron, and the young Ivan VI Antonovich, the formal tsar of Russia, are an example. It happened to them and completely knock out the spirit from the unlucky monarch - the blood of the murdered Tsar Peter III on their hands.

The whole short history - from Peter the Great to Nicholas 2 - is full of conspiracies and coups, but in this case there was one detail that gave the assassination a special character. There is reason to believe that the son of Paul, the heir to the throne, Alexander, was aware of the plot being prepared. Even without personally participating in committed villainy, in this case he became even passive, but a parricide, and this night, on March 12, 1801, his whole conscience was burning all his life.

Alexander 1: years of government

When the crown of the Russian Empire crowned Alexander I, he was twenty-four years old. Despite his youth, he had progressive thinking and carried out a series of moderately liberal reforms. In his warehouse, Alexander was a representative of enlightened absolutism, like his grandmother Catherine II. He did not encroach on the stronghold of serfdom, but he saw a pledge of progress in education. With him, several privileged educational institutions were opened, including the famous Tsarskoe Selo Lyceum.

The work of the young emperor transformed the system of administrative management of the state. In place of the old Petrine colleges, according to the European model, ministries were established. Even a real attempt was made to give the subjects a constitution, but it remained only one of the good intentions. Already in the second half of the reign Alexander conducted a reform in the army, supplementing a very cumbersome system of recruitment of the notorious Arakcheyevo military settlements.

Talented politician and bad general

The years of the reign of this monarch fell on the epoch of Napoleonic wars. Despite the fact that the troops created in 1905 by the anti-French coalition were officially headed by M. I. Kutuzov, all decisions were taken personally by Alexander, and it is his fault for the defeat of the Russian-Austrian army in the Battle of Austerlitz. He was not an outstanding commander, but he possessed the gift of an outstanding politician.

Skillfully using the current situation, the Emperor concluded in 1808 a profitable peace with Napoleon. In those same years, Finland, Bessarabia and Eastern Georgia were annexed to Russia. Despite the fact that the name of Alexander I is associated mainly with the war of 1812, his merit in victory is limited, perhaps, only to a tough policy towards Napoleon and non-interference in the management of the army, brilliantly carried out by MI Kutuzov.

The death that gave rise to the legend

Alexander 1, whose years of government were accompanied by a turbulent domestic and foreign policy of the country, at the end of the reign often spoke of the desire to abdicate and devote himself to God. This was the reason that after his death, which followed in 1725 during a trip to Taganrog, there were rumors that a coffin with a body of another person was brought to the capital, and the sovereign himself in the deaf forest sketes under the name of the elder Fedor Kuzmich zamalivaet sin Parricide, which twenty-four years ago, elevated him to the top of power. Whether this version has a basis is unknown to this day.

A new reign that began with a riot

All those who ruled after Paul 1 in Russia were monarchs of a new European type. This fully applies to the Emperor Nicholas I, who in 1825 replaced his brother on the throne. Despite the rigidity of government, inherent in the despotism of the East, he made a lot of efforts to create a well-established administrative system in the country, using the progressive experience of foreign countries.

Just like his brother, from Nicholas I the title "the emperor of all Russia" was sprinkled with spilled blood. And again they were guardsmen, this time openly speaking on December 14 at the Senate Square of the capital. To eradicate possible confusion in the future, Nikolai made radical measures, which subsequently created him a reputation as a gendarme and strangler of freedom. With him, the notorious "Third Department" was founded - the secret police, which carried out a total surveillance of dissenters.

His foreign policy was a complete reflection of the internal. Milestones in the history of the reign of Nicholas I were: the suppression of the Polish and Hungarian uprisings, the war with Turkey in 1828-1829, the war with Persia and, finally, the mediocre Crimean campaign that he had not survived until he died on February 18,

The Reforming King

Among those who ruled after Paul 1 in Russia, the glory of the most progressive reformer was acquired by the next anointed of God - Emperor Alexander II. Unlike his father, he tried to bring to his fatherland spirit of freedom and humanism. The most historically significant of his actions is the abolition of serfdom, proclaimed in 1861.

In addition, the history of his reign includes: the liquidation of military settlements and the reform of the armed forces, higher and secondary education, finance, as well as zemstvos and judicial proceedings. Hardly any of those who ruled Russia after Paul the 1st managed to transform the state of the state so much, but nevertheless the great reformer died at the hands of his own subjects. Seven assassination attempts were organized against him, of which the last, committed on March 1, 1881 by the terrorist organization Narodnaya Volya, cost him his life.

King peacemaker and counter-reformer

His son, also Alexander, ascended to the throne after his father's death, deservedly received the nickname of the king of the peacemaker. A unique case in the history of the Russian autocracy - for all the years of his rule the country has not waged a single war, and not one of its soldiers fell on the battlefield. According to his convictions, Alexander III was a Slavophile and a supporter of the "special path" of Russia's development. This led him to implement a number of counter-reforms aimed at preserving the country's foundations of the former, alien to foreign influences, life.

He passed away, not even fifty years old. Possessing a powerful physique and extraordinary energy, the tsar suffered from a chronic kidney disease that caused the defeat of the heart and blood vessels at the end of his life. His death on September 21, 1894 was the beginning of the reign of the last representative of the House of Romanovs. The name and patronymic of the emperor, who completed the three hundred-year dynasty - Nicholas II Alexandrovich.

The last of the dynasty

His coronation, which took place in 1896, caused the tragedy that occurred in the Khodynka field, where as a result of the accumulation of thousands of people who came to receive the gifts promised for the celebration, a terrible crush ensued, which killed 1,379 people and injured about 1,000. In the people, it was regarded as a bad omen, and the gloomy memory of the event persisted throughout the years of his reign.

Nicholas II, like all the previous rulers of Russia and Russia, should be considered by us in the context of his century. It fell to rule the state, which made up the sixth part of the Earth, in the most dramatic period of its history. These were the years when, along with the rapid economic development, the social tension that spilled over into three revolutions grew, the last of which became destructive both for the reigning dynasty and for the empire as a whole.

Influence of Rasputin

But at the same time he, like all the rulers of Russia and Russia, is responsible for the state of the state that was the result of his reign. The catastrophe that ended the era of the Romanovs' rule was largely caused by ill-conceived decisions in the field of domestic and foreign policy - most modern researchers come to such a conclusion.

Like the previous rulers of Russia, whose years of government were marked by riots and distempers, Nicholas II sought support at the same time in military force and in God's intercession. Hence his blind faith in the "holy old man" - Grigory Rasputin, whose influence greatly aggravated the already critical state in which the empire turned out to be. The last years of the reign are characterized by a feverish succession of successive ministers and senior government officials. These were desperate attempts to lead the country out of the crisis, guided by the advice of the old man, inspired through his wife - the sovereign, Alexandra Fedorovna.

The last empress of Russia

If you look at the list of empresses of Russia, you can be sure that many of them left a good memory about themselves in history. This was the reign of Catherine, and Elizabeth Petrovna, who reigned in different years , but the last of them, Alexandra Feodorovna, had a chance to drink a bitter cup of popular hatred. She was unfoundedly accused of betrayal, of debauchery, and of the fact that she forced her husband to drag Russia into a war so unpopular with the common people. She completed the list of empresses of Russia.

The February Revolution of 1917 deprived Nicholas II of the throne. He renounced it and then, along with his family, was placed under house arrest in the Tsarskoye Selo palace. Soon the Provisional Government sent them to exile in Tobolsk, and in 1918 by the decision of the Bolsheviks the royal family found themselves in Yekaterinburg. There, in the basement of Ipatiev's house, on the night of July 17, 1918, the whole family was shot together with the servant and accompanying doctor Botkin.