After the reign of Catherine the Great, the ideas of
Enlightenment unleashed a new wave of call for reform. Explore the reign of the
last Tsars of the Romanov Dynasty.
Family Name: Romanovs
Country: Russia
Reign: 1613 – 1917
Contributions:
- Rebuild Russia from the Time of Trouble
- Westernized Russia
- Defended autocratic rule
- Developed many aspects of Russian life
Europe had been
shaken by the French Revolution and the ideas that propelled it. It made
Russian tsars aware of the dangers of this ideas. Some continued to adhere but
with cautiousness, but other acted to undermine it. The next century after
Catherine the Great spelled the end of the three hundred year old dynasty in
Russia.
Paul I
After the reign of
Catherine the Great, his son, Pavel Petrovich Romanov, whom she did not like
nor trust, succeeded as the new Romanov Tsar. Paul I’s rule rode a turbulent road.
Paul faced the threat of Napoleon Bonaparte as soon as he took the throne. He
led Russia against the French General sending the great Russian General
Alexander Suvarov.
On the other hand
back home, he changed the rules of succession of the Romanov Dynasty. From the
decree of Tsar Peter the Great where Tsars had the right of naming the heir,
Paul reverted it back to the system of primogeniture. He also barred women from
becoming monarchs of Russia, a way of taking vengeance upon his mother Catherine.
Paul, besides
changing the rules of succession, issued numerous draconian laws that made Russians
fearful of their Emperor. His reign of terror resulted to massive discontent
and eventually, to another palace coup, this time in favor of his son,
Alexander Pavlovich Romanov. In the 1801 Palace coup, the events led to the
death of Tsar Paul. Alexander, who knew the plot but never supported nor
stopped it, ascended to become the new Tsar.
Alexander I
Tsar Alexander I’s
reign saw the continuation of Catherine’s idea of a benevolent despot as well
as Russia’s emergence as a great power during the Napoleonic War. Napoleon
became the greatest threat to Russia. Alexander suffered a defeat against
Napoleon in the Battle of Austerlitz. Later on, Napoleon forced the Tsar to
sign a peace treaty with France in Tilsit. Nevertheless peace ended after
Alexander continued to support France’s enemies that led to Napoleon’s invasion
of Russia. Russian forces did a strategic retreat and imposed a scorched-earth
policy. When the French took Moscow, he painfully decided to burn the ancient
Russian capital. This forced Napoleon to withdraw under the cold and brutal
Russian winter. It ruined Napoleon’s Grande
Armee. Alexander then pursued Napoleon and joined by other European
countries in defeating Napoleon. In the end, Alexander led the allied forces in
their triumphant victory march into the city of Paris. Russia and Alexander’s
prestige skyrocketed.
After the final
defeat of Napoleon in Waterloo, Alexander played an active role in European
politics by forming a Holy Alliance composing of autocratic monarchs under his
idea of supporting fellow benevolent despot. However, in the early 1820’s, the Alliance
failure of Alexander’s objectives. It proved to be an instrument of re-imposition
of unjust autocracy and crushing liberal ideas he sought.
In the domestic front,
he too made serious mistakes that led to riots. His decision to create military
colonies. It aimed to make the army self-sufficient and its soldier’s families
to live together. It proved to be a disaster. Strict rules and abuses within
the colonies led to mutinies, which badly shaken Alexander’s belief in liberal
reforms. Emperor Alexander I passed away in 1825 in Taganrog during what he
hoped to be a vacation. Confusion in the succession followed.
Nicholas I
Decembrist Revolt
Alexander did not had
a son. And so the throne, instead of being badly wanted by the late Tsar’s
brothers, seemed like a ball being passed around. Before dying, Alexander
wanted to abdicate in favor of his brother Konstantin. Konstantin, however,
refused to accept the throne and so Alexander secretly wrote a will passing the
crown to their younger brother Nikolay Pavlovich Romanov or Nicholas. When the
Tsar died, Nicholas only knew that he would succeed as Tsar after Alexander’s
secret will went public. The short confusion in the succession gave liberal
groups to take the opportunity to start a revolution.
 |
| Decembrist Revolt by Vasily Timm |
Reign with an Iron Fist
Nicholas I’s reign
maintained stability and status quo with an iron fist. After the Decembrist Revolt, Nicholas suppressed any signs of liberalism and dissent. He highly
centralized the government to his chancellery office. He also began a program
of promoting what meant to become a Russian and started to Russianized many of
Russia’s minorities. Nicholas succeeded in maintaining political stability in the
light of the 1848 Revolutions that rocked most of Europe.
Russia, nevertheless,
faced a sad reality in 1853. Nicholas pushed Russian interest in the Black Sea
and attacked the weakening Ottoman Empire. United Kingdom and France wanted to
prevent further Russian expansion to the Black Sea and the possibility of
Russian entry in the Mediterranean. They declared war in support of the Ottoman
Turks. The Crimean War shoved to the face of Russia its backwardness compared
to the industrialized might of its counterparts. In 1855, broken hearted by the
defeats of Russia in Crimea led to the rapid decline of Tsar Nicholas’ health.
He later succumbed to pneumonia in the same year. His son, Alexander
Nikolayevich Romanov, took over.
Alexander II
The reign of Alexander
II became known as a liberal and eventful but a tragic reign. Unlike his
father, he grew up as a liberal, believing in the ideas of liberty and civil
rights. As his first act as Tsar, he ended the terrible Crimean War in 1856.
Following that, he made the most daring as well as a milestone act of his reign
and that of the history of Russia and the Romanovs.
Emancipation of the Serfs
 |
| Proclamation of the Emancipation Manifesto |
The Tsar, however,
failed in changing the Russian economy and society from a serf-based economy.
The aftermath of the emancipation brought disaster to countless freed serf that
were forced to buy bloated-priced lands from their landlords and to be drowned
in debt in order to purchase it. This resulted to the continuation and
worsening poverty of many Russians. The hardships of many Russians convinced
many radicals that change and development can only be achieved with the end of
the Tsarist regime. They plotted to assassinate Tsar Alexander II as a starting
point. Several attempts have been made in Alexander’s life but in 1881, radical
terrorist finally succeeded by bombing the Tsar’s carriage in the streets of
St. Petersburg. A new reactionary and absolutist reign followed under
Alexander Alexandrovich Romanov.
Alexander III
The reign of Tsar
Alexander III brought nothing but repression of liberal and anti-Tsarist ideas
and rapid industrialization to catch up with the west. After the tragic demise
of his predecessor, Alexander clamped down in leftist and liberal movements. Alexander
rejected a proposal by late Tsar Alexander II calling for the creation of a
legislative body to share power in governing the country. Under his reign,
absolute rule remained supreme.
In 1891, Tsar
Alexander III charged a railroad engineer, Sergei Witte, of the economy. Witte
brought Russia the Great Spurt, a sudden and rapid industrialization of
Russia’s economy bringing it in par with its western counterparts. However,
industrialization brought situations that breed discontent and later a revolution
that devoured the Romanovs. Peasants moved to cities and became exposed to radical
and socialist ideas that demanded the removal of the Tsars and the Romanovs.
The terrible conditions in factories and the prevailing poverty in the
countryside brought huge discontent to the Romanov rule. After 13 years of very
much uneventful reign, Alexander III passed away. Nikolay Alexandrovich Romanov
ascended to the throne in 1894.
Nicholas II
Nicholas II’s reign
saw the fall of the Romanov dynasty and the rise of Bolshevik Russia. The shy and
oblivious Tsar led his country into numerous disasters as well as scandals. In
1904 to 1905 he tried his hands in foreign affairs by attempting to expand
Russian dominance in the East by capturing Port Arthur in China and then
extending control to Korea. However, it resulted to the Russo-Japanese War that
brought nothing but disaster to Russia, when the upstart power Japan destroyed
Russia’s naval fleet.
Following the loss of
face and prestige, the Russian people, in dismay to their Tsar caused by the
war, called for reforms. It blew up into the Russian Revolution of 1905. Social unrest followed and the Tsars soldiers acted
without caution, open firing to numerous unarmed demonstrators. The negative
publicity as well as mounting public pressure resulted to the creation of a
legislative body called the Duma. The relation between the sovereign and the legislature
proved to be shaky between the Duma and the monarchy.
In 1907, Nicholas appointed
Peter Stolypin as Prime Minister. Stolypin enacted a massive agrarian reform
that significantly improved Russian agriculture and the economy as a whole. The
reform only ended with Stolypin’s untimely death in 1911. But Stolypin’s
appointment and reform became overshadowed by a scandal brought by a barbaric
sex addict Siberian mystic named Grigory Rasputin. Rasputin healed the
hemophiliac son of Nicholas and his wife Alexandra – Tsarevitch Alexei. The
healing blinded and turned them naïve to Rasputin’s nature. In the streets and
brothels of St. Petersburg, Rasputin became a towering figure and became oaf in
Russian society. The trust of Empress Alexandra over the Siberian brute
resulted to the further decline of Romanov’s prestige.
World War I made Tsar
Nicholas reign turn to worst. The war resulted to the deaths of hundreds of
thousands of Russians. In addition, it disrupted the economy, which led to
shortages in food supply. The inefficiency and the defeats in the battlefield
fueled revolutionaries within Russia who called for the end of the three
hundred year absolute Romanov rule. It exploded in 1917 under the slogan of
“Peace, Land, and Bread.”
Russian Revolution of 1917
The Russian
Revolution of 1917 concluded the reign of Tsar Nicholas II. Massive strikes in
factories and mutinies in military bases in St. Petersburg led to overthrow of
the Tsar. Nicholas II had no choice but to abdicate and pass over power to the
provisional government. They then became prisoners and moved through various
locations in Siberia. Months later, in October, the communist Bolsheviks under
Vladimir Lenin took power. In 1918, in wake of the civil war, Lenin issued the
execution of the Romanov family in their prison in Yekaterinburg. With the
death of Nicholas, came the end of three hundred years of Romanov and centuries
of Tsarist rule in Russia. A new era ushered in under the regime of the Soviet
Union.
Summing Up
The Romanov Dynasty
shaped Russia to its present. With the reign of Michael Romanov, Russia
preserved its freedom and existence from foreign powers and local usurpers. Peter
the Great’s reign brought Russia to a status of great power. Under Catherine
the Great, Russia blossomed as a cultural center. Under the reign of Tsar
Alexander I, Russia defended herself from Napoleon and her troops and Tsar triumphantly
marched in Paris. The reign of Nicholas I radicalized liberal and their call
for the end of the absolute rule of the Tsars, which became the issue for about
a century. Alexander II saw the end of serfdom that fueled further discontent against
the established society. And under the reign of Nicholas II, the Romanov saw
their final demise as the ruler of the largest country in the world.
With these
achievements that Romanov Dynasty filled about a half of Russian history books.
Their reign exemplified the best and the worst of a ruler. They showed the
characteristics of visionaries but also lack of will. Many of them, for
example, had the dream of abolishing of serfdom, but only one succeeded. Perhaps
due to cultural and social norms much of them failed. Some Romanov rulers
showed diligence but also excesses. Some showed openness to change but also
some showed caution or extreme reaction. The Romanovs indeed were human, they
showed their greatness and their worst. Eventually, history and the prevailing
condition took the worst of the Romanovs, which catalyzed to a bloody
revolution that toppled the Romanov Dynasty. Although their regime ended in
1917, much of Russia today came from the action of one family – the Romanovs –
rulers and autocrats of Russia for more than three hundred years.
Documentaries on the Romanovs
The rule of the Romanov Dynasty is an epic on itself. It is no surprise that numerous documentaries are dedicated to their history. One of the earliest is shown in the History Channel with the title Russia: The Land of the Tsars. It has 4 episodes and covered the history of Russia from the time of Kievan Rus and the arrival of the Orthodox Church up to the reign of the last Tsar Nicholas II. Although it covered most of Russia's history, it dedicates several episodes on to their rule.
Another great documentary about is titled The Romanovs: The History of the Russian Dynasty. released in 2013 and made by Channel One, Star Media and Babich Design Studio, provides a very comprehensive and well detailed history of the reign of the Romanov Dynasty, from the reign of Michael Romanov up to Nicholas II. In addition to scrupulous details, it also provides very dramatic and well-done reenactments that kept the documentary interesting and lively. It has a good combination of serious discussion and candid moments that shows the human side of the Romanovs. Other than documentaries specifically about the Romanovs, countless documentaries are made that focus on the rule and life of different Romanov Tsars, most especially Peter the Great, Catherine the Great and Nicholas II.
Explore also:
"Romanov
Dynasty". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2015. Web. 01 Aug. 2015. http://www.britannica.com/topic/Romanov-dynasty
Bushkovitch, Paul. "Romanov Dynasty (Russia)." Europe, 1450 to 1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World. 2004. Encyclopedia.com. (August 2, 2015). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3404900982.html
Hughes, Lindsey. "Succession, Law on." Encyclopedia of Russian History. 2004. Encyclopedia.com (August 2, 2015). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3404101325.html
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