Concise Russian history for a traveler

Catherine died in 1796 and was succeeded by her son Paul I(1796-1801). A capricious, somewhat unstable individual, Paul had a passion for military order that conflicted with the basic values of developing civil society. He earned the enmity of upper society in St.Petersburg. On March 11, 1801, he was murdered by conspirators drawn from high officials, favorites of Catherine, his own military entourage, and officers of the guard regiment.

Alexander I (1801-25). The new emperor right after he came to the throne dreamed to make peace in Europe. But his hope that he would then concentrate on internal reform was frustrated by the war with Napoleon.

Defeated at Austerlitz, the Russian armies fought Napoleon in Poland in 1806 and 1807, with Prussia as an ineffective ally. After the Treaty of Tilsit (1807), there were five years of peace, ended by Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812. From the westward advance of its arms in the next two years of heavy fighting, Russia emerged as Europe’s greatest land power and the first among the continental victors over Napoleon. Educated young Russians, who had served in the army

and seen Europe, who read and spoke French and German and knew contemporary European literature, felt an urge for reforms. Masonic lodges and secret societies flourished in the early 1820s.

From their deliberations emerged a conspiracy to overthrow the government, inspired by a variety of ideas: some men looked at the United States for a model, others to Jacobin France. The conspirators, known as Decembrists because they tried to act in December 1825 when the news of Alexander I’s death became known and there was uncertainty about his successor, were defeated and arrested; five were executed, and many more sentenced to various terms of imprisonment in Siberia.

Nicholas I (1825-55). When Europe was convulsed by revolution in 1848, Russia and Great Britain alone among the Great Powers were unaffected, and in the summer of 1849 the tsar sent troops to crush Hungarians in Transylvania. Russia was not loved, but it was admired and feared. To the upper classes in central Europe, Nicholas I was the stern defender of monarchial legitimacy; to democrats all over the world, he was "the gendarme of Europe" and the chief enemy of liberty.