When Paul 1 ruled. Biography of Emperor Paul I Petrovich

Pavel I Petrovich (1754-1801)

The ninth All-Russian Emperor Pavel I Petrovich (Romanov) was born on September 20 (October 1), 1754 in St. Petersburg. His father was Emperor Peter III (1728-1762), who was born in the German city of Kiel, and received the name Karl Peter Ulrich of Holstein-Gottorp at birth. By coincidence, Karl Peter simultaneously had the right to two European thrones - Swedish and Russian, since in addition to kinship with the Romanovs, the Holstein dukes were in direct dynastic connection with the Swedish royal house. Since the Russian Empress Elizabeth Petrovna had no children of her own, in 1742 she invited her 14-year-old nephew Karl Peter to Russia, who was baptized into Orthodoxy under the name of Peter Fedorovich.

Having come to power in 1861 after the death of Elizabeth, Pyotr Fedorovich spent 6 months in the role of all Russian emperor. The activity of Peter III characterizes him as a serious reformer. He did not hide his Prussian sympathies and, having taken the throne, immediately put an end to Russia's participation in Seven Years' War and entered into an alliance against Denmark - a longtime offender of Holstein. Peter III liquidated the Secret Chancellery - a gloomy police institution that kept all of Russia at bay. In fact, no one canceled the denunciations, just from now on they had to be submitted in writing. And then he took away the lands and peasants from the monasteries, which even Peter the Great could not do. However, the time allotted by history for the reforms of Peter III was not great. Only 6 months of his reign, of course, cannot be compared with the 34-year reign of his wife, Catherine the Great. As a result of a palace coup, Peter III was dethroned on June 16 (28), 1762 and killed in Ropsha near St. Petersburg 11 days after that. During this period, his son, the future Emperor Paul I, was not yet eight years old. With the support of the guards, the wife of Peter III came to power, proclaiming herself Catherine II.

The mother of Paul I, the future Catherine the Great, was born on April 21, 1729 in Stettin (Szczecin) in the family of a general in the Prussian service and received a good education for that time. When she was 13 years old, Frederick II recommended her to Elizabeth Petrovna as a bride for Grand Duke Peter Fedorovich. And in 1744, the young Prussian princess Sophia-Friederike-Augusta-Anhalt-Zerbst was brought to Russia, where she received the Orthodox name of Ekaterina Alekseevna. The young girl was smart and ambitious, from the first days of her stay on Russian soil she diligently prepared herself to become a Grand Duchess, and then the wife of the Russian Emperor. But the marriage with Peter III, concluded on August 21, 1745 in St. Petersburg, did not bring happiness to the spouses.

It is officially believed that Pavel's father is Catherine's legal husband, Peter III, however, in her memoirs there are indications (however, indirect) that Pavel's father was her lover Sergei Saltykov. In favor of this assumption is the well-known fact of the extreme hostility that Catherine always had for her husband, and against the significant portrait resemblance of Paul to Peter III, as well as Catherine's steady hostility to Paul. The examination of the DNA of the remains of the emperor, which has not yet been carried out, could finally reject this hypothesis.

September 20, 1754, nine years after the wedding, Catherine gave birth to Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich. It was major event, after all, after Peter I, Russian emperors did not have children, confusion and confusion reigned at the death of each ruler. It was under Peter III and Catherine that there was hope for the stability of the state system. In the first period of her reign, Catherine was worried about the legitimacy of her power. After all, if Peter III was still half (by mother) a Russian person and, moreover, was the grandson of Peter I himself, then Catherine was not even a distant relative of the legitimate heirs and was only the wife of the heir. Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich was the legitimate, but unloved son of the empress. After the death of his father, he, as the only heir, was supposed to take the throne with the establishment of a regency, but this, by the will of Catherine, did not happen.

Tsarevich Pavel Petrovich spent the first years of his life surrounded by nannies. Immediately after his birth, Empress Elizaveta Petrovna took him to her. In her notes, Catherine the Great wrote: “Just as they swaddled him, her confessor appeared on the orders of the empress and named the child Paul, after which the empress immediately ordered the midwife to take him and carry him with her, and I remained on the maternity bed.” The whole empire rejoiced at the birth of the heir, but they forgot about his mother: "Lying in bed, I continuously cried and moaned, I was alone in the room."

Paul's baptism was performed in a magnificent setting on September 25th. Empress Elizaveta Petrovna expressed her goodwill towards the mother of the newborn by the fact that after the baptism she herself brought her on a golden platter a decree to the cabinet on the issuance of 100 thousand rubles to her. After the baptism at the court, solemn holidays began - balls, masquerades, fireworks on the occasion of the birth of Paul lasted about a year. Lomonosov, in an ode written in honor of Pavel Petrovich, wished him to compare with his great great-grandfather.

Catherine had to see her son for the first time after giving birth only after 6 weeks, and then only in the spring of 1755. Catherine recalled: “He was lying in an extremely hot room, in flannel diapers, in a bed upholstered in black fox fur, they covered him with a quilted satin blanket, and moreover, with a pink velvet blanket ... sweat was on his face and all over his body When Pavel grew up a little, the slightest breath of wind caused him a cold and made him sick. In addition, many stupid old women and mothers were assigned to him, who, with their excessive and inappropriate zeal, caused him incomparably more physical and moral evil than good. " Improper care led to the fact that the child was different increased nervousness and impressionability. Even in early childhood, Pavel's nerves were upset to the point that he hid under the table with any strong slamming of doors. There was no system in caring for him. He went to bed either very early, at 8 o'clock in the evening, or at the first hour of the night. It happened that he was given food when he “pleased to ask”, there were also cases of simple negligence: “Once he fell out of the cradle, so no one heard it. fast asleep."

Pavel received an excellent education in the spirit of the French Enlightenment. He knew foreign languages, had knowledge of mathematics, history, and applied sciences. In 1758, Fyodor Dmitrievich Bekhteev was appointed his tutor, who immediately began to teach the boy to read and write. In June 1760, Nikita Ivanovich Panin was appointed chief chamberlain under Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich, Semyon Andreevich Poroshin, the former aide-de-camp of Peter III, was the tutor and teacher of mathematics for Pavel, and Archimandrite Platon, hieromonk of the Trinity- Sergius Lavra, later Metropolitan of Moscow.

On September 29, 1773, 19-year-old Pavel marries, marrying the daughter of the Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt, Princess Augustine-Wilhelmina, who received the name Natalia Alekseevna in Orthodoxy. Three years later, on April 16, 1776, at 5 o'clock in the morning, she died in childbirth, and the child died with her. The medical report, signed by doctors Kruse, Arsh, Bock and others, speaks of the difficult birth of Natalia Alekseevna, who suffered from a curvature of the back, and the "large child" was incorrectly positioned. Catherine, however, not wanting to waste time, begins a new matchmaking. This time, the queen chose the Württemberg princess Sophia-Dorotea-August-Louise. A portrait of the princess is delivered by courier, which Catherine II offers to Pavel, saying that she is "meek, pretty, charming, in a word, a treasure." The heir to the throne falls more and more in love with the image, and already in June he goes to Potsdam to marry the princess.

Seeing the princess for the first time on July 11, 1776 in the palace of Frederick the Great, Paul writes to his mother: “I found my bride the way I could only mentally wish: not ugly, great, slender, answers intelligently and quickly. As for her heart, then she has him very sensitive and gentle ... She loves to be at home and practice reading and music, she is greedy to learn in Russian ... "Acquainted with the princess, Grand Duke passionately fell in love with her, and after parting, already from the road he writes tender letters to her with a declaration of love and devotion.

In August, Sophia Dorothea arrives in Russia and, following the instructions of Catherine II, on September 15 (26), 1776, she receives Orthodox baptism under the name of Maria Feodorovna. Soon the wedding took place, a few months later she writes: "My dear husband is an angel, I love him to the point of madness." A year later, on December 12, 1777, the young couple had their first son, Alexander. On the occasion of the birth of the heir in St. Petersburg, 201 cannon shots were fired, and the sovereign grandmother Catherine II gave her son 362 acres of land, which laid the foundation for the village of Pavlovskoye, where the palace-residence of Paul I was later built. 1778. The construction of a new palace designed by Charles Cameron was carried out mainly under the supervision of Maria Feodorovna.

With Maria Feodorovna, Pavel found true family happiness. Unlike mother Catherine and great-aunt Elizabeth, who did not know family happiness, and whose personal life was far from generally accepted moral standards, Pavel appears as an exemplary family man who set an example for all subsequent Russian emperors - his descendants. In September 1781, the Grand Ducal couple, under the name of the Count and Countess of the North, set off on a long journey through Europe, which lasted a whole year. During this trip, Paul did more than just sightseeing and acquiring works of art for his palace under construction. The journey also had great political significance. For the first time escaping from the tutelage of Catherine II, the Grand Duke had the opportunity to personally get acquainted with European monarchs, paid a visit to Pope Pius VI. In Italy, Paul, following in the footsteps of his great-grandfather, Emperor Peter the Great, is seriously interested in the achievements of European shipbuilding and gets acquainted with the organization of naval affairs abroad. During his stay in Livorno, the Tsarevich finds time to visit the Russian squadron stationed there. As a result of assimilation of new trends in European culture and art, science and technology, style and way of life, Pavel largely changed his own worldview and perception of Russian reality.

By this time, Pavel Petrovich and Maria Fedorovna already had two children after the birth of their son Konstantin on April 27, 1779. And on July 29, 1783, their daughter Alexandra was born, in connection with which Catherine II presented Pavel with the Gatchina manor, bought from Grigory Orlov. Meanwhile, the number of Paul's children is constantly increasing - on December 13, 1784, daughter Elena was born, on February 4, 1786 - Maria, on May 10, 1788 - Catherine. Pavel's mother, Empress Catherine II, rejoicing for her grandchildren, wrote to her daughter-in-law on October 9, 1789: "Really, ma'am, you are a craftswoman to bring children into the world."

The upbringing of all the older children of Pavel Petrovich and Maria Feodorovna was personally handled by Catherine II, in fact, taking them away from their parents and not even consulting with them. It was the Empress who came up with the names for the children of Paul, naming Alexander in honor of the patron saint of St. Petersburg, Prince Alexander Nevsky, and gave Konstantin this name because she intended her second grandson for the throne of the future Constantinople Empire, which was to be formed after the expulsion of the Turks from Europe. Catherine personally engaged in the search for a bride for the sons of Paul - Alexander and Constantine. And both of these marriages did not bring family happiness to anyone. Emperor Alexander only at the end of his life will find in his wife a devoted and understanding friend. And Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich will violate generally accepted norms and divorce his wife, who will leave Russia. Being the viceroy of the Principality of Warsaw, he will fall in love with a beautiful Polish woman - Joanna Grudzinsky, Countess Lovich, in the name of preserving family happiness, he will renounce the Russian throne and will never become Constantine I, Emperor of All Russia. In total, Pavel Petrovich and Maria Feodorovna had four sons - Alexander, Konstantin, Nikolai and Mikhail, and six daughters - Alexandra, Elena, Maria, Ekaterina, Olga and Anna, of whom only 3-year-old Olga died in infancy.

It would seem that Paul's family life developed happily. Loving wife, many children. But the main thing was missing, which every heir to the throne strives for - there was no power. Pavel patiently awaited the death of his unloved mother, but it seemed grand empress, possessing an imperious character and good health, is not going to die ever. In previous years, Catherine wrote more than once about how she would die surrounded by friends, to the sounds of gentle music among the flowers. The blow suddenly overtook her on November 5 (16), 1796, in a narrow passage between two rooms of the Winter Palace. She had a severe stroke, and several servants managed with difficulty to pull the empress's heavy body out of narrow corridor and put on a mattress spread on the floor. Couriers rushed to Gatchina to tell Pavel Petrovich the news of his mother's illness. The first was Count Nikolai Zubov. The next day, in the presence of her son, grandchildren and close courtiers, the Empress died without regaining consciousness at the age of 67, of which she spent 34 years on the Russian throne. Already on the night of November 7 (18), 1796, everyone was sworn in to the new emperor - 42-year-old Paul I.

By the time of accession to the throne, Pavel Petrovich was a man with established views and habits, with a ready-made, as it seemed to him, program of action. Back in 1783, he broke off all relations with his mother, among the courtiers there were rumors about the deprivation of Paul of the right to the throne. Pavel plunges into theoretical discussions about the urgent need to change the management of Russia. Away from the court, in Pavlovsk and Gatchina, he created a peculiar model of the new Russia, which seemed to him a model for governing the whole country. At the age of 30, he received a large list from his mother literary works for deep learning. There were books by Voltaire, Montesquieu, Corneille, Hume and other famous French and English authors. Paul considered the purpose of the state "the blessedness of each and all." He recognized only the monarchy as a form of government, although he agreed that this form "is associated with the inconvenience of mankind." However, Paul argued that autocratic power is better than others, as it "combines the power of the laws of the power of one."

Of all the occupations, the new king had the greatest passion for military affairs. The advice of the combat general P.I. Panin and the example of Frederick the Great drew him to the military path. During the reign of his mother, Paul, removed from business, filled his long hours of leisure with the training of military battalions. It was then that Paul formed, grew and strengthened that "corporal spirit", which he sought to instill in the entire army. In his opinion, the Russian army of Catherine's time was more of a disorderly crowd than a properly arranged army. Embezzlement flourished, the use of the labor of soldiers in the landowners' estates of commanders, and much more. Each commander dressed the soldiers to his liking, sometimes trying to save in his favor the sums of money allocated for uniforms. Pavel considered himself a successor to the cause of Peter I to transform Russia. The ideal for him was the Prussian army, by the way, the strongest in Europe at that time. Pavel introduced a new uniform form, charter, weapons. Soldiers were allowed to complain about the abuses of their commanders. Everything was strictly controlled and, in general, the situation, for example, of the lower ranks became better.

At the same time, Paul was distinguished by a certain peacefulness. During the reign of Catherine II (1762-1796), Russia participated in seven wars, which in total lasted more than 25 years and inflicted heavy damage on the country. Having ascended the throne, Paul declared that Russia under Catherine had the misfortune to use its population in frequent wars, and inside the country things were running. However, Paul's foreign policy was inconsistent. In 1798, Russia entered into an anti-French coalition with England, Austria, Turkey and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. At the insistence of the allies, the disgraced A.V. was appointed commander-in-chief of the Russian troops. Suvorov, to whose jurisdiction the Austrian troops were also transferred. Under the leadership of Suvorov, Northern Italy was liberated from French rule. In September 1799, the Russian army made the famous crossing of the Alps. For the Italian campaign, Suvorov received the rank of Generalissimo and the title of Prince of Italy. However, already in October of the same year, Russia broke off the alliance with Austria, and Russian troops were withdrawn from Europe. Shortly before the murder, Paul sent the Don army on a campaign against India. It was 22,507 men without a wagon train, supplies, or any strategic plan. This adventurous campaign was canceled immediately after the death of Paul.

In 1787, leaving for the first and last time in the army, Paul left his "Instruction", in which he outlined his thoughts on the administration of the state. Enumerating all the estates, he stops at the peasantry, which "contains all the other parts by itself and by its labors, and therefore worthy of respect." Pavel tried to enforce the decree that serfs work no more than three days a week for the landowner, and on Sunday they did not work at all. This, however, led to their even greater enslavement. After all, before Paul, for example, the peasant population of Ukraine did not know corvée at all. Now, to the delight of the Little Russian landlords, a three-day corvee was introduced here. In Russian estates, it was very difficult to follow the implementation of the decree.

In the field of finance, Paul believed that the revenues of the state belonged to the state, and not to the sovereign personally. He demanded that expenditures be coordinated with the needs of the state. Pavel ordered that part of the silver services of the Winter Palace be melted down into coins, and up to two million rubles in banknotes should be destroyed to reduce the state debt.

Attention was also paid to public education. A decree was issued on the restoration of a university in the Baltic states (it was opened in Derpt already under Alexander I), a Medical and Surgical Academy was opened in St. Petersburg, many schools and colleges. At the same time, in order to prevent the idea of ​​"depraved and criminal" France from entering Russia, the study of Russians abroad was completely prohibited, censorship was established on imported literature and notes, and it was even forbidden to play cards. Curiously, for various reasons, the new tsar turned his attention to improving the Russian language. Shortly after accession to the throne, Paul ordered in all official papers "to express themselves in the purest and simplest style, using all possible accuracy, and grandiloquent expressions that have lost their meaning should always be avoided." At the same time, strange, arousing distrust in the mental abilities of Paul, were the decrees that forbade the use of certain types of clothing. So, it was impossible to wear tailcoats, round hats, vests, silk stockings; instead, a German dress was allowed with an exact definition of the color and size of the collar. According to A.T. Bolotov, Pavel demanded that everyone honestly fulfill their duties. So, driving through the city, writes Bolotov, the emperor saw an officer walking without a sword, and behind a batman carrying a sword and a fur coat. Pavel went up to the soldier and asked whose sword he was carrying. He replied: "The officer who goes ahead." "Officer! So, is it difficult for him to carry his sword? So put it on yourself, and give him your bayonet!" So Pavel promoted a soldier to an officer, and demoted the officer to the rank and file. Bolotov notes that this made a huge impression on the soldiers and officers. In particular, the latter, fearing a repetition of this, began to treat the service more responsibly.

In order to control the life of the country, Pavel hung a yellow box at the gates of his palace in St. Petersburg for filing petitions addressed to him. Similar reports were accepted by mail. This was new for Russia. True, this was immediately used for false denunciations, libels and caricatures of the king himself.

One of the important political acts of Emperor Paul after accession to the throne was the reburial on December 18, 1796 of his father Peter III, who was killed 34 years ago. It all started on November 19, when "by the order of Emperor Pavel Petrovich, the body of the late Emperor Pyotr Fedorovich, buried in the Nevsky Monastery, was taken out, and the body was laid in a new magnificent coffin, upholstered with a golden eyelet, with imperial coats of arms, with an old coffin." On the same day in the evening, "His Majesty, Her Majesty and Their Highnesses deigned to arrive at the Nevsky Monastery, at the Lower Annunciation Church, where the body stood, and upon arrival, the coffin was opened; they deigned to kiss the body of the late sovereign ... and then it was closed" . Today it is difficult to imagine what the tsar "applied" to and forced his wife and children to "apply" to. According to eyewitnesses, the coffin contained only bone dust and pieces of clothing.

On November 25, according to the ritual developed by the emperor in the smallest detail, the ashes of Peter III and the corpse of Catherine II were crowned. Russia has never seen this before. In the morning in the Alexander Nevsky Monastery, Pavel laid the crown on the coffin of Peter III, and in the second hour of the day, Maria Feodorovna in the Winter Palace laid the same crown on the deceased Catherine II. There was one terrible detail in the ceremony in the Winter Palace - the chamber junker and the empress's valets during the laying of the crown "raised the body of the deceased." Obviously, it was imitated that Catherine II was, as it were, alive. In the evening of the same day, the body of the empress was transferred to a magnificently arranged mourning tent, and on December 1, Pavel solemnly transferred the imperial regalia to the Nevsky Monastery. The next day, at 11 o'clock in the morning, a funeral procession slowly set off from the Lower Annunciation Church of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. In front of the coffin of Peter III, the hero of Chesma Alexei Orlov carried the imperial crown on a velvet pillow. Behind the hearse, the whole august family marched in deep mourning. The coffin with the remains of Peter III was transported to the Winter Palace and installed next to the coffin of Catherine. Three days later, on December 5, both coffins were transferred to the Peter and Paul Cathedral. For two weeks they were put up there for worship. Finally, on December 18, they were interred. On the tombs of the hated spouses, the same date of burial was indicated. On this occasion, N.I. Grech remarked: "You would think that they spent their whole lives together on the throne, died and were buried on the same day."

This whole phantasmagoric episode struck the imagination of contemporaries who tried to find at least some reasonable explanation for it. Some argued that all this was done in order to refute the rumors that Paul was not the son of Peter III. Others saw in this ceremony a desire to humiliate and insult the memory of Catherine II, who hated her husband. Having crowned the already crowned Catherine at the same time as Peter III, who did not have time to be crowned during his lifetime, with the same crown and almost simultaneously, Paul, as it were, remarried, posthumously, married his parents, and thereby nullified the results of the palace coup of 1762. Paul forced the killers of Peter III to carry the imperial regalia, thereby exposing these people to public ridicule.

There is evidence that the idea of ​​a secondary burial of Peter III was suggested to Paul by the Freemason S.I. Pleshcheev, who wanted to take revenge on Catherine II for the persecution of "free masons". One way or another, the ceremony of reburial of the remains of Peter III was performed even before the coronation of Paul, which followed on April 5, 1797 in Moscow, - so importance devoted the new king to the memory of his father, emphasizing once again that his filial feelings for his father were stronger than feelings for an imperious mother. And on the very day of his coronation, Paul I issued a law on succession to the throne, which established a strict order in the succession to the throne in a direct male descending line, and not at the arbitrary desire of the autocrat, as before. This decree was in effect throughout the 19th century.

Russian society was ambivalent about the government events of the Pavlovsk time and personally to Paul. Sometimes historians said that under Paul, the Gatchina people became the head of state - ignorant and rude people. Among them, A.A. Arakcheev and others like him. The words of F.V. Rostopchin that "the best of them deserves to be wheeled". But we should not forget that among them were N.V. Repnin, A.A. Bekleshov and other honest and decent people. Among the associates of Paul we see S.M. Vorontsova, N.I. Saltykova, A.V. Suvorov, G.R. Derzhavin, under him a brilliant statesman MM. Speransky.

Relations with the Order of Malta played a special role in Paul's politics. The Order of St. John of Jerusalem, which appeared in the 11th century, was associated with Palestine for a long time. Under the onslaught of the Turks, the St. Johnites were forced to leave Palestine, settling first in Cyprus, and then on the island of Rhodes. However, the struggle with the Turks, which lasted for more than one century, forced them to leave this refuge in 1523. After seven years of wandering, the Johnites received a gift from Spanish king Charles V of Malta. This rocky island became an impregnable fortress of the Order, which became known as Maltese. By the Convention of January 4, 1797, the Order was allowed to have a Grand Priory in Russia. In 1798, Paul's manifesto "On the Establishment of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem" appeared. New monastic order consisted of two priors - Roman Catholic and Russian-Orthodox with 98 commanderships. There is an assumption that Paul wanted to thereby unite the two churches - Catholic and Orthodox.

On June 12, 1798, Malta was taken by the French without a fight. The knights suspected Grand Master Gompesh of treason and defrocked him. In the autumn of the same year, Paul I was elected to this post, willingly accepting the signs of the new rank. Before Paul, an image of a knightly union was drawn, in which, in contrast to the ideas of the French Revolution, the principles of the order would flourish - strict Christian piety, unconditional obedience to elders. According to Paul, the Order of Malta, having so long and successfully fought against the enemies of Christianity, must now gather all the "best" forces of Europe and serve as a mighty bulwark against the revolutionary movement. The residence of the Order was moved to St. Petersburg. A fleet was equipped in Kronstadt to expel the French from Malta, but in 1800 the island was occupied by the British, and soon Pavel also died. In 1817 it was announced that the Order no longer existed in Russia.

At the end of the century, Pavel moved away from his family, and his relationship with Maria Feodorovna worsened. There were rumors about the infidelity of the Empress and the unwillingness to recognize the younger boys as her sons - Nikolai, born in 1796, and Mikhail, born in 1798. Trusting and straightforward, but at the same time suspicious, Paul, thanks to the intrigues of von Palen, who became his closest courtier, begins to suspect all people close to him of hostility towards him.

Pavel loved Pavlovsk and Gatchina, where he lived in anticipation of the throne. Having ascended the throne, he began to build a new residence - Mikhailovsky Castle, designed by the Italian Vincenzo Brenna, who became the chief court architect. Everything in the castle was adapted to protect the emperor. Canals, drawbridges, secret passages seemed to make Paul's life long. In January 1801, the construction of the new residence was completed. But many plans of Paul I remained unfulfilled. It was in the Mikhailovsky Palace that Pavel Petrovich was killed on the evening of March 11 (23), 1801. Having lost his sense of reality, he became maniacally suspicious, removed loyal people from himself, and himself provoked the disaffected in the guard and high society to a conspiracy. The conspiracy was attended by Argamakov, Vice-Chancellor P.P. Panin, favorite of Ekaterina P.A. Zubov, Governor-General of St. Petersburg von Palen, commanders of the guards regiments: Semenovsky - N.I. Depreradovich, Kavalergardsky - F.P. Uvarov, Preobrazhensky - P.A. Talyzin. Thanks to treason, a group of conspirators entered the Mikhailovsky Castle, went up to the emperor’s bedroom, where, according to one version, he was killed by Nikolai Zubov (Suvorov’s son-in-law, Platon Zubov’s older brother), who hit him on the temple with a massive golden snuffbox. According to another version, Paul was strangled with a scarf or crushed by a group of conspirators who piled on the emperor. "Have mercy! Air, air! What have I done wrong to you?" - it was his last words.

The question of whether Alexander Pavlovich knew about the conspiracy against his father remained unclear for a long time. According to the memoirs of Prince A. Czartoryski, the idea of ​​a conspiracy arose almost in the first days of Paul's reign, but the coup became possible only after it became known about the consent of Alexander, who signed a secret manifesto, in which he pledged not to pursue the conspirators after accession to the throne. And most likely, Alexander himself was well aware that without the assassination, a palace coup would be impossible, since Paul I would not voluntarily abdicate. The reign of Paul I lasted only four years, four months and four days. His funeral took place on March 23 (April 4), 1801 in the Peter and Paul Cathedral.

Maria Fedorovna devoted the rest of her life to her family and perpetuating the memory of her husband. In Pavlovsk, almost on the edge of the park, in the middle of the wilderness, above the ravine, the Mausoleum to the benefactor spouse was erected according to the project of Thomas de Thomon. Like an ancient temple, it is majestic and silent, all nature around seems to mourn along with a porphyry-bearing widow sculpted from marble, crying over the ashes of her husband.

Paul was ambivalent. A knight in the spirit of the outgoing century, he could not find his place in the 19th century, where the pragmatism of society and the relative freedom of representatives of the elite of society could no longer coexist. Society, which a hundred years before Paul tolerated any antics of Peter I, did not tolerate Paul I. "Our romantic tsar", as A.S. called Paul I. Pushkin, failed to cope with the country, which was waiting not only for the strengthening of power, but, above all, for various reforms in domestic policy. The reforms that Russia expected from every ruler. However, due to his upbringing, education, religious principles, experience of relationships with his father and, especially, with his mother, it was in vain to expect such reforms from Paul. Pavel was a dreamer who wanted to transform Russia and a reformer who displeased everyone. The unfortunate sovereign, who accepted death during the last palace coup in the history of Russia. The unfortunate son who repeated the fate of his father.

Madam dearest mother!

Take a break, do me a favor, please, for a moment from your important activities in order to accept the congratulations that my heart, submissive and obedient to your will, brings on the birthday of Your Imperial Majesty. May the Almighty God bless your precious days for the whole fatherland until the most remote times. human life and may Your Majesty never run dry for me of the tenderness of the mother and ruler, always dear and revered by me, the feelings with which I remain for you, Your Imperial Majesty, the most humble and most devoted son and subject Pavel.

Paul the First went down in history as a cruel reformer. Liberal views and European tastes were persecuted, censorship was established, a ban on the import of foreign literature into the country. The emperor, having received the throne, to a large extent restricted the rights of the nobility. Maybe that's why his reign was so short.

In contact with

Childhood

Peter the Third, Pavel's father, was on the Russian throne for only 186 days, although he planned that many years of reign lay ahead of him. After the palace coup, the emperor signed the abdication, which passed to his wife (Princess of Anhalt-Zerbst).

Catherine built her reign on the expansion of the rights and privileges of the nobility, as well as the enslavement of the peasants. During her reign borders of the Russian Empire were moved to the south and west.

The first son of Peter and Catherine, named Pavel, was born on September 20, 1754. During this period, a political struggle was waged in the palace, so the boy was deprived of the love and care of his parents. At the age of eight, he lost his father. Paul's mother hired a staff of the best nannies and teachers, after which she withdrew herself from the upbringing of the future heir to the throne.

Boy's tutor became Fedor Bekhteev- a diplomat, distinguished by incredible discipline and rigor. He published a newspaper, where the slightest misconduct of the pupil was painted. The second mentor was Nikita Panin, thanks to whom the boy began to study a wide range of subjects - natural history, the Law of God, music, dance.

The inner circle also had an influence on the formation of the personality of the heir to the throne, but communication with peers was minimized - only children of noble families were allowed to reach him.

Catherine bought for her son huge library of Academician Korf. The boy studied many foreign languages, arithmetic, astronomy, history, geography, learned to draw, dance and fence, studied the Law of God. The lad was not taught military discipline, Catherine did not want her son to be fond of this.

The heir was distinguished by an impatient character, was restless child, but boasted a rich imagination and a love of reading. His education was of the highest quality possible at that time.

Personal life of the future emperor

The first wife of the future ruler died in childbirth, and Sophia Dorothea of ​​Württemberg (Maria Feodorovna) became the second chosen one.

Children of Paul I- first-born Alexander (1777), Konstantin (1779), Alexandra (1783), Elena (1784), Maria (1786), Catherine (1788), Olga (1792, died in infancy), Anna (1795), Nikolai (1796) ), Mikhail (1798).

Despite having many children and almost constant pregnancies, Maria Fedorovna was engaged in housekeeping and regularly participated in social events. However, it was not of particular importance at court due to the discord between her husband and his mother.

Maria Fedorovna was a dutiful princess, who followed the postulates that she learned in her youth, but due to circumstances beyond her control, her personal life with her husband came to discord after 20 years. After the birth of her last son, the obstetrician forbade her to become pregnant, as this could cost the woman her life.

The emperor was disappointed by this circumstance and started a relationship with another woman - the favorite Anna Lopukhina. Maria Fedorovna herself took up charity work and began to manage orphanages, streamlining the work of institutions for homeless and abandoned children. She also actively addressed the issues of women's education and founded a number of educational institutions.

Rise to power

When Paul I ruled? He ascended the throne at the age of 42 on November 6, 1796, when Catherine II, his mother, died. Such late deadline due to the complex relationship of the future emperor with his mother. They almost completely distanced themselves from each other, realizing that they are people with opposing views. At first, the boy was brought up as the future heir to the throne, but the older he became, the further they tried to keep him from matters of national importance.

Important! Many people had high hopes for Pavel Petrovich. His name was often heard on the lips of the rebels, for example, at. During the reign of Catherine II, many were dissatisfied with her decrees and laws.

Transformations

Numerous reforms characterize the reign of Paul 1: domestic and foreign policy underwent a number of changes.

What important steps have been taken:

• amendments were introduced to the procedure for succession to the throne, which was developed. The rights to the throne began to be enjoyed exclusively by the sons or brothers of the ruling dynasty in descending line, or by seniority;
• the emperor's associates received the titles of senior officials or senators;
• associates of Catherine II were removed from their posts;
• the activities of the highest state bodies have undergone changes for the better;
• a box for petitions was placed next to the palace, and reception days were established for peasants who could openly leave complaints against their owners;
• abolition of corporal punishment for older people over 70 years of age;
• instead of the burdensome grain service for the peasants, a financial levy was introduced. Debts of 7 million rubles were written off;
• it was forbidden to force peasants to work on holidays and weekends;
• corvee is limited - now it lasted 3 days a week;
• the sale of landless peasants and householders was banned. If the owner treated the serfs inhumanely, the governors were obliged to carry out secret arrests and send the offenders to the monastery.
• for 4 years, 6,000 thousand state peasants were transferred to the nobles, since the emperor believed that their life was worse than that of serfs;
• the cost of salt and food products in stores was reduced - the lack was compensated by money from the treasury.

When Paul came to power, one of major areas his activities turned out to be an infringement of the privileges and rights of the nobles.

He ordered to return to the regiments all the children of the nobility who were recorded in them, forbade unauthorized transfer to civil service from the army without the permission of the Senate, approved by him personally.

The nobles had to pay new taxes, the money from which was sent to support the local administration.

The right was abolished, according to which the nobleman turned to him with complaints and requests: now it was allowed to do this only with the permission of the governor. The punishment of noble people with sticks was reintroduced.

Immediately after accession to the throne, the emperor declared an amnesty, but multiple punishments soon followed. Decrees of Paul the First, limiting the power of the nobility, caused anger and enmity on the part of the privileged class. Over time, the first conspiracies began to appear in the highest guard circles in order to overthrow the autocrat.

Peculiarities of conducting foreign policy

Initially, it was declared at court that neutrality would be observed with respect to France. He always dreamed that wars would be solely for the purpose of defense. However, he was an opponent of the revolutionary sentiments of this country. With countries such as Sweden, Denmark and Prussia, friendly relations were concluded, which was the result of the creation of an anti-French coalition consisting of:

• Russia,
• kingdom of naples,
• Austria,
• England.

In Italy, commander A.V. Suvorov led the domestic expeditionary corps. In just six months, he won a victory in Italy over the French troops, after which he entered Sweden, where he joined the corps of General A.M. Rimsky-Korsakov.

In the same period, the squadron of F.F. Ushakova achieved several naval victories, as a result of which the Ionian Islands became free. However, the Russian-English corps, located in Holland, could not achieve its plans, as a result of which it returned. At the same time, only Russia's allies reaped the fruits of their victories over Napoleon, which caused the rupture of allied ties with Austria and England. The emperor, outraged by the position of England, decided to get closer to France.

Cause of the emperor's death

A conspiracy was formed against the reigning emperor. It was headed by the Zubov brothers, the military governor of St. Petersburg P.A.

Palen and others. The reason for the conspiracy is the internal policy of the autocrat, because he alleviated the position of the peasants and at the same time limited the rights and privileges of the nobility.

Among the conspirators was Alexander Pavlovich, who was promised that his father would be left alive.

Under the leadership of Count Palen on the night of March 12, 1801 the conspirators broke into the Mikhailovsky Castle, reached the imperial chambers and put forward a demand to leave the throne. Having heard from Paul the refusal to abdicate, the conspirators killed the autocrat.

There were several conspiracies during the life and reign of the emperor. So, three cases of unrest observed in the troops were recorded. After the coronation of the new emperor, the Kanal shop was formed - a secret organization whose members sought to kill the ruler. After the disclosure of this conspiracy, all those who took part in it were sent to hard labor or exiled. All materials related to the course of the investigation of the conspiracy were destroyed.

It was officially announced that Emperor Paul 1 had died from apoplexy.

Paul 1st - reign of the king, reforms

The reign of Tsar Paul 1st - domestic and foreign policy, results

Board results

How long did Paul 1 rule? His reign lasted for several years, years of reign: from April 5, 1797. to March 12, 1801. In such a short period of time, there were no significant changes in Russian society, although the emperor tried to introduce as many new measures as possible. At the beginning of the reign, favorable conditions were created for the development of industry and trade, but by the end of the reign, internal trade was in chaos and devastation, and external trade was almost completely destroyed.

Attention! The state was in a sad state when Paul I was assassinated.

Who ruled after Paul 1? His first-born Alexander 1 became the heir to the throne. His reign turned out to be more successful: the first step was taken, the State Council was created, and Napoleon was defeated in 1812, the Russian army distinguished itself in other foreign campaigns. was more successful.

Name: Pavel I

Age: 46 years old

Place of Birth: St. Petersburg

A place of death: St. Petersburg

Activity: Russian Emperor

Family status: was married

Biography of Emperor Paul I

If it were not for the constant humiliation and insults, perhaps Emperor Paul I became a ruler equal in majesty to Peter. However, his domineering mother thought differently. At the mention of Paul, an image of a short-sighted martinet-"Prussian" arises in one's thoughts. But was he really like that?

Pavel I - childhood

Paul was born under very mysterious circumstances. Emperor Peter III and Catherine II could not give birth to an heir for ten years. There was a simple explanation for this: Peter was a chronic alcoholic. Nevertheless, the Empress became pregnant. Few people considered Peter III the father of the baby, but they preferred to keep quiet about this.

The born long-awaited child did not become happiness for the parents. The father matured that the son was not his, and the mother considered the appearance of the baby, rather, a “state project” than a desired child. Strangers took up the upbringing of the newborn. Pavel experienced the whole horror of the saying: "V seven nannies a child without an eye." He was often forgotten to feed, repeatedly dropped, left alone for a long time. He hasn't seen his parents in years! The boy grew up shy, withdrawn and deeply unhappy...

Pavel I: Far from the throne

In 1762, Peter III was overthrown, and his wife Catherine II took the Russian throne for a long 34 years. She treated her son coldly and with suspicion: he was the direct heir to the throne, and the empress was not going to share power with anyone.

September 20, 1772, Paul turned 18 years old - it's time to ascend the throne. However, all that he received from his mother was the position of Admiral General of the Russian Navy and colonel of the cuirassier regiment. For the prince, this was the first serious humiliation. Others followed him: he was not awarded a seat either in the Senate or in the Imperial Council. On April 21, on her birthday, the Empress gave Pavel a cheap watch, and Count Potemkin, her favorite, an expensive one for 50 thousand rubles. And the whole yard saw it!

Pavel I_- two wives, two worlds

To distract her son from thoughts of power, Catherine decided to marry him. The choice fell on the Prussian princess Wilhelmina. In the autumn of 1773, the young people got married. Contrary to expectations, the marriage did not bring happiness to Paul. His wife turned out to be a powerful woman - she actually subjugated her husband and began to cheat on him. It did not last long - three years later Wilhelmina died in childbirth. The empress consoled the grief-stricken Pavel in a peculiar way: she personally handed over to her son the love correspondence of his wife with Razumovsky, a close friend of the prince. The double betrayal made Paul an even more gloomy and closed person.

The emperor did not remain single for long. In the same year, 1776, he went to Berlin to meet the 17-year-old Princess Sophia Dorothea. Prussia made a strong impression on Pavel: unlike Russia, the Germans were dominated by order and exemplary morality. Pavel's love for a foreign country quickly grew into sympathy for his bride; The German woman reciprocated. The marriage took place in October 1776. In Russia, Sophia Dorothea received the name Maria Fedorovna.

For many years, Paul lived in two worlds - in his personal life he enjoyed happiness, and in his public life he suffered from general contempt. If in Europe he had long been revered as a full-fledged emperor, then in Russia every courtier looked at him with a squeamish grin - the country was ruled by Catherine II and her lover Count Potemkin.

When the sons of Paul grew up. the empress personally took up their education, demonstrating that she would rather agree to give the throne to one of her grandchildren than to her son. The Tsarevich's nerves gave way... On May 12, 1783, Catherine and Paul finally broke up. In August of the same year, Pavel received an estate near St. Petersburg as a gift from his mother. It meant only one thing - an invitation to voluntary exile.

Pavel I - Prisoner of Gatchina

Pavel's new estate became for him both a place of unspoken imprisonment and an island of long-awaited freedom.

First of all, the prince defended the right to have three personal battalions in Gatchina consisting of 2399 people. They lived and served according to Prussian laws; Paul himself commanded the daily exercises.

Having inflicted a dressing down on the soldiers, the prince went to supervise numerous construction projects. In Gatchina, under his leadership, a hospital, a school, manufactories for the production of porcelain and glass, four churches (Orthodox, Lutheran, Catholic and Finnish), as well as a library were built. Its funds totaled 36 thousand volumes.

Pavel forgot his sharpness and unsociableness only in the evenings with his relatives. He spent all his evenings with his wife Maria Fedorovna. Dinner was modest - a glass of Burgundy claret and sausages with cabbage. It seemed that until the end of his days he would lead this measured and calm life.

Pavel I - The Great and Terrible

Catherine II died unexpectedly - November 6, 1796 from apoplexy. Had the empress lived six months longer, the throne would have gone to Alexander. All the papers with the order of his succession were ready.

The suddenly acquired power became for Paul not only a long-awaited gift, but also a real curse: the country went to him in a terrible state. The ruble depreciated, corruption and theft reigned everywhere, up to 12 thousand pending cases accumulated in the Senate. Three-quarters of the officer corps of the Russian army existed only on paper. Many received ranks without serving, desertion became the norm, and the fleet was still equipped with cannons from the time of Peter I.

With lawlessness and decadence, morals Paul fought hard. Arrests, trials and exile began all over the country. From the punishment of the highest ranks, neither connections nor past merits saved. The officers also had a hard time: Paul forbade revelry and trips to balls, they were replaced by early rises and exhausting exercises. Dissatisfaction with Paul's reforms was also expressed by ordinary officials - as early as 5 in the morning they were required to be in the service.

Paul I reigned for only four years and four months. During this time, he demoted 7 marshals and more than 300 senior officers, distributed 600 thousand peasants to landowners and issued 2179 laws.

Despite Paul's tough temper, his eldest son Alexander always sided with his father. But the emperor managed to lose this ally as well. Once, in front of everyone, he called his son a fool, which restored the heir against himself.

Feast on blood

The emperor foresaw his death. In any case, numerous memoirs of his contemporaries testify to this.

Here S. M. Golitsyn writes about the last evening: “It was customary that after dinner everyone went into another room and said goodbye to the sovereign. That evening he did not say goodbye to anyone and said only: "What will be, will not be avoided."

Another eyewitness said: “After dinner, the emperor looked at himself in the mirror, which had a flaw and made faces crooked. He laughed at this and said: "Look, what a funny mirror; I see myself in it, with my neck on the side." It was an hour and a half before his death .., "

The last meeting of the conspirators took place on the night of March 12, 1801. Everything was commanded by General Bennigsen, the princes Zubov, and also Count Palen. Dissatisfaction with the policies of Paul I was discussed over champagne and wine. Having reached the desired condition, the men moved to the chambers of the emperor.

Having overcome the barrier of two sentries, the conspirators rushed to Pavel. Zubov invited the emperor to sign the act of renunciation. Paul's refusal infuriated the visitors. According to one version, they strangled the unfortunate man with a pillow, and then cut the body with sabers.

Even before dawn, St. Petersburg learned that Pavel had died suddenly from an "apoplexy," and Alexander had taken his place. In the Northern capital, stormy fun began ...

A few years later, General Ya.I. Sanglen, head of the secret police under Alexander I, wrote: “Pavel will forever remain a psychological task. With a kind, sensitive heart, an exalted soul, an enlightened mind, a fiery love for justice .. he was an object of horror for his subjects. Neither his contemporaries nor his descendants-historians could fully understand the nature of Paul I.

Pavel Petrovich was born on October 1, 1754, Catherine's unwanted and unloved child, and he always felt it. He was not given a long reign. The reign of Paul 1 is only four years.

Fears and pretensions of childhood and adolescence

Paul recognized himself as emperor all the time while his mother illegally ruled, who killed his father, Emperor Peter Fedorovich, and usurped the throne. The murder took place in the summer of 1762. Empress Catherine died in 1796. That is, a huge period has passed, during which Pavel Petrovich, who grew up, matured, a well-trained, very cultured and subtle person, understood that every day he could be killed by his own mother. This was a reality, since Empress Catherine was a cruel ruler. She killed another contender for the throne, Ivan Antonovich, in the Shlisserburg fortress. And for himself, Paul did not exclude this. Second: he saw how his mother ignored the memory of his father in every possible way, that she literally despises Pyotr Fedorovich. When the murdered sovereign was to be buried in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra, Empress Catherine did not even come to say goodbye to her husband. This is a personal moment. Third: Pavel Petrovich knew perfectly well that the Empress wrote a will in which she ordered that the throne be transferred not to him, but to his eldest son Alexander, born in 1777.

Alexander and Konstantin, two older children, Catherine took from him and raised herself, believing that nothing good son cannot teach them.

Hatred of his mother is a feeling that permeated his whole life.

On the other hand, he saw what was happening at his mother's court. It was an orgy. Yes, the Empress issued laws, arranged city self-government, gave liberties to the nobility, but the immorality that was happening at her court was horrifying. And not only in terms of personal relationships, but also in relation to embezzlement, theft, which flourished. Catherine thought only of expanding the country's borders. Pavel Petrovich saw all this. He suffered terribly and dreamed, if God would allow him to become a sovereign, to correct these shortcomings of management. The reign of Paul 1, as he expected, would be excellent.

Death of Catherine

And when his mother, Empress Catherine, died, Pavel Petrovich first of all took Tsarskoe Selo, occupied it and burned his mother's will in the fireplace with the transfer of the throne to Alexander. The second thing he does is orders the solemn reburial of his father, Peter III, along with his mother, Catherine the Great. And Catherine, who killed her husband, at the behest of her son, lay down with him on one deathbed. They were buried together. Thus begins the reign of Paul 1.

The burden of power

After that, he issues a decree on succession to the throne, which was valid until the abdication of Nicholas II (and which he violated with his abdication). Until then, this act of succession, which was published on April 5, 1797, had always been respected. In it, in contrast to the chaotic 18th century, when the tsar took the throne as his own and transferred it to whomever he wanted, a strict principle was introduced that the tsar could not transfer the throne to anyone at all. It is inherited automatically. Everything was spelled out very clearly, and there was no doubt about who could manage Russian Empire. And what was most important: at the moment when the coronation took place, the king had to take an oath before the altar, an oath on the cross that he would sacredly observe the act of coronation. He was no longer an absolute monarch from that moment on. That was another great deed of Pavel Petrovich. Thus continues the reign of Paul 1.

If you look at the entire 18th century, it is a continuous chaos of murders and unrest, and the 19th century is a period of very stable Russian statehood. There were also regicides, but they were not a struggle for the throne, but came from outside.

Acts

The reign of Paul 1 is fanatical absolutism. Pavel Petrovich himself was a deeply religious person, but he perceived absolutism as a form given by God, which proceeded from the fact that God appoints one person as a “watchmaker” and the manager of that “clockwork” that is the state. Putting things in order, Pavel 1 made the years of ruling the country a “clockwork”. His "debugging", his management, his "factory" should be directed by him. Therefore, his will is absolute. Paul 1 was absolutely sure of this. And, trying to restore order, introduced a huge number of laws.

With stormy activity, Paul 1 marked the years of his reign and even every day with the introduction of a new state decree. And this, of course, brought chaos to the state administration, because it is impossible to fulfill such a number of laws. He was in charge of everything. He issued a law on succession to the throne and at the same time on how long trousers should be worn, issued a law that nannies should walk with the children entrusted to them at least such and such a time in winter and such and such a time in summer, forbade dancing a waltz, saying separate words. This is if you characterize the reign of Paul 1 briefly.

That is, he believed that people could not do anything at all if he did not tell them this. But if he says it, then everyone will do it. It is no accident that they always remember the words of Pavel, which he said to Prince Repnin, that "in Russia, a person means something when he speaks to me, and only as long as he speaks to me."

Internal Affairs

However, everything was not so simple. Neither in Russia nor in any other country will strange and illogical laws be enforced. The big problems of the country were the situation with serfdom and noble liberties. They are clearly connected to each other. The results of the reign of Paul 1 did not fundamentally change anything. The fact is that Peter III himself, Pavel's father, in February 1762 issues a decree on the liberties of the nobility. It must be recalled that, starting with the tax of Alexei Mikhailovich from the 17th century, all estates of the Russian state had to serve, and Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich himself called himself the same tax as any of his peasants. Only he has a royal tax, a nobleman has a military tax, a priest has a spiritual tax, a peasant has a peasant tax. But everyone is pulling the tax, everyone is the workers of one state. It was a 17th century idea. With this idea, Peter I inherited the state, and Peter III, under pressure from the nobility, signed a decree on the freedom of the nobility. This decree meant that the nobles could no longer serve. But the peasants, who were given to them as payment in kind for their work to the sovereign, and their lands remained the property of the nobles, who do not serve the state and the tsar. The lands and the very personality of the peasant were and remained the property of the nobleman. Catherine adopted a number of decrees that expanded the rights of nobles over their serfs. The results of the reign of Paul 1 show that the state has not yet departed from the schemes of the 17th century.

Foreign policy

Since 1798, Paul sought to crack down on the ideas of the French Revolution and the expansion of the "usurper". Together with a coalition of European states, military operations were carried out on the territory of Italy, Switzerland, in the Ionian and Mediterranean seas. But treacherous actions within the coalition led to a rapprochement between Russia and France. And this meant a break with England - a major buyer of grain and bread, which caused discontent among the nobles. During the reign of Paul 1, this turned out to be imprudent.

Asian hikes

To reduce the English possessions, Paul I and Napoleon planned a joint campaign to India. And Paul sent the Don army to conquer Bukhara and Khiva. After the death of Paul I, the army was withdrawn from there.

Reduction of noble liberties

Pavel Petrovich, being a supporter of absolutism, did not at all want the nobles to be independent of him. During the reign of Paul 1, the internal policy towards the nobility became tougher. It changes and restricts the laws on the liberties of the nobility, in particular, introduces corporal punishment for the nobles for criminal offenses and at the same time limits their rights to the peasants. Not in the sense that he abolishes serfdom. He was very fond of serfdom, believing that it brings order, certainty, correct relations between elders and younger ones. But peasants are people too. This means that he issues a decree that they should be free from work for the master on Sundays and holidays, and the rest of the week must be divided equally between the master and the needs of the peasants themselves. Three days the peasants work for themselves, three days - for the master. No one has ever followed this law.

Fear of violent death - the eternal nightmare of the Romanovs

Meanwhile, life for him unfolded very hard. Having suffered in his youth, he began to suspect that they wanted to do the same with him as with his unfortunate father. He began to suspect his second wife, Maria Feodorovna, that she wanted, like Catherine, to remove him from the throne.

Emperor Pavel Petrovich terminates all relations with her and converges with the Lopukhin family. But in any case, he now listens to his barber Kutaisov and Lopukhins and completely removes his family from himself. Alexander I in the last years of his father said that he “felt under an axe”, that now some terrible fate awaits him. Because of this, a conspiracy was woven. People were dissatisfied with the fact that Pavel Petrovich practically canceled all the laws of his mother, limited the rights of the nobility. The nobles and aristocrats agree with Alexander Pavlovich, the eldest son, that if he does not mind, then Paul I should be forced to step down from the throne and go into exile. Then Alexander I will take the throne of his father according to the law of succession to the throne, introduced by Paul himself. Alexander, apparently, did not refuse.

The last act of the tragedy

What happened on March 11, 1801 in the Engineering Castle in St. Petersburg did not at all coincide with these preliminary proposals. For some reason, some say because the conspirators were drunk, others claim that Paul resisted. He was killed that night in the Engineering Castle, which he built with all the precautions, expecting that there would be an assassination attempt on him. The further, the more he maniacally waited for a violent death, tried to prevent it, but could not.

Such is the reign of Paul 1 (summary). It is unlikely that his life can be called happy.

During the reign of Paul 1, domestic and foreign policy was assessed by contemporaries very negatively, negatively. Indeed, there was a lot of spontaneous, thoughtless in it. But it grew out of those character traits that his mother laid in him, and out of fear for his life.

At the beginning of the 19th century, the Russian throne suffered a terrible shock: on the March night of 1801, a group of guards conspirators led by the St. as a result of which the son of the sovereign Alexander ascended the throne.

A reign begun with murder

The mother of the murdered tsar - Catherine II - wanted to make him the successor of her progressive undertakings. That is why the main educator of Paul was N. Panin, an outstanding statesman of his time. But fate decreed otherwise. Paul wanted to lead his own line. He was proud and ambitious, like many rulers of Russia. The years of the reign of this monarch turned out to be short, but he managed to earn universal hatred.

It was not new for the brave guardsmen to overthrow rulers they did not like. Both the temporary worker Biron and the young Antonovich, the formal tsar of Russia, are examples of this. It happened that they even knocked the spirit out of the unlucky monarch - the blood of the murdered Tsar Peter III on their hands.

All Short story- from Peter 1 to Nicholas 2 - 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 impending conspiracy. Even without personally participating in the committed villainy, in this case he became, albeit passive, but a parricide, and that night, March 12, 1801, burned his conscience for the rest of his life.

Alexander 1: years of reign

When she crowned the head of Alexander I, he was twenty-four years old. Despite his youth, he had a progressive mind and carried out a number of moderate liberal reforms. According to his warehouse, Alexander was a representative, like his grandmother Catherine II. He did not encroach on the stronghold of serfdom, but saw the guarantee of progress in education. Under him, several privileged educational institutions were opened, including the famous Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum.

Through the labors of the young emperor, the system of state administration was transformed. In place of the old Petrine colleges, following the European model, ministries were established. A real attempt was even made to grant the subjects a constitution, but it remained only among the good intentions. Already in the second half of his reign, Alexander carried out a reform in the army, which supplemented the rather cumbersome recruiting system with the infamous Arakcheev military settlements.

A talented politician and a bad commander

The years of the reign of this monarch fell on the era of the Napoleonic wars. Despite the fact that the troops created in 1905 were officially headed by M. I. Kutuzov, all decisions were made personally by Alexander, and he bears the blame for the defeat of the Russian-Austrian army in the battle of Austerlitz. He was not an outstanding commander, but he had the gift of an outstanding politician.

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

Death that gave birth to a legend

Alexander 1, whose reign was accompanied by a turbulent domestic and foreign political life of the country, at the end of his 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 claiming that a coffin with the body of another person was delivered to the capital, and the sovereign himself, in remote forest monasteries, under the name of Elder Fyodor Kuzmich, was atoning for sin parricide, which twenty-four years ago elevated him to the pinnacle of power. Whether this version has a basis is unknown to this day.

A new reign that began with a riot

All who ruled after Paul 1 in Russia were monarchs of a new European type. This fully applies to Emperor Nicholas I, who succeeded his brother on the throne in 1825. Despite the rigidity of government inherent in Eastern despotism, 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, Nicholas I had the title of "Emperor of All Russia" sprinkled with shed blood. And again it was the guardsmen, this time openly speaking on December 14 at Senate Square capital Cities. To eradicate possible future troubles, Nikolai took radical measures, which subsequently created him a reputation as a gendarme and strangler of freedom. Under him, the notorious "Third Division" was founded - the secret police, which carried out total surveillance of dissidents.

His foreign policy was a complete reflection of his domestic one. 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 ineptly lost Crimean campaign, before reaching the end of which he died on February 18, 1855.

Tsar Reformer

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

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

Tsar peacemaker and counter-reformer

His son, also Alexander, who ascended the throne after the death of his father, deservedly received the nickname of the king-peacemaker among the people. Unique case in the history of the Russian autocracy - for all the years of his reign, the country did not wage a single war, and not a single one of its soldiers fell on the battlefield. By your convictions Alexander III was a Slavophil and a supporter of the "special path" of the development of Russia. This forced him to carry out a number of counter-reforms aimed at preserving the foundations of the former life, alien to foreign influences, in the country.

He passed away before reaching fifty years of age. Possessing a powerful physique and extraordinary energy, the king suffered from chronic kidney disease, which caused damage to the heart and blood vessels at the end of his life. His death on September 21, 1894 marked the beginning of the reign of the last representative of the Romanov dynasty. The name and patronymic of the emperor, who completed the three-hundred-year dynasty, is Nicholas II Alexandrovich.

Last of the dynasty

His coronation, which took place in 1896, was the cause of the tragedy that happened on 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 stampede formed, as a result of which 1379 people died and about 1000 were injured. Among the people, it was regarded as a bad omen, and a gloomy memory of the event was preserved throughout all the years of his reign.

Nicholas II, like all the rulers of Russia and Russia who preceded him, must be considered by us in the context of his century. It fell to his lot to rule a state that made up one sixth of the Earth in the most dramatic period of its history. These were the years when, along with the stormy economic development, social tension grew, resulting in three revolutions, the last of which became disastrous for both the reigning dynasty and the empire as a whole.

Rasputin's influence

But at the same time, he, like all the rulers of Russia and Russia, is responsible for the state of the state, which was the result of his reign. The catastrophe that ended the era of the Romanovs was largely caused by ill-conceived decisions in the field of internal and foreign policy This is the conclusion reached by most modern researchers.

Like the former rulers of Russia, whose years of rule were marked by rebellions and unrest, Nicholas II sought support both in military strength 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 found itself. The last years of the reign are characterized by a hectic succession of changing ministers and senior officials of the government. These were desperate attempts to bring the country out of the crisis, guided by the advice of the elder, inspired by his wife, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna.

The last empress of Russia

If we consider the list of empresses of Russia, we can see that many of them left a good memory of themselves in history. This includes Catherine who reigned in different years, and the last of them, Alexandra Feodorovna, had a chance to drink the bitter cup of popular hatred. She was unfoundedly accused of betrayal, and debauchery, and that it was she who 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, together with his family, was placed under house arrest in the Tsarskoye Selo Palace. Soon they were sent into exile in Tobolsk, and in 1918, by decision of the Bolsheviks royal family ended up in Yekaterinburg. There, in the basement of the Ipatiev house, on the night of July 17, 1918, the whole family was shot, along with the servants and Dr. Botkin who accompanied them.