1829 Emperor Czar Nicholas I Antique Russian 2 Kopeks Coin Imperial Eagle i56539

Item: i56539

 Authentic Coin of:

Russia

Nicholas I – Russian Emperor: 1 December 1825 – 2 March 1855

1829 KM AM Copper 2 Kopeks 28mm (13.13 grams)
Reference: C# 118.5
Royal coat of arms, the crowned imperial double eagle; below, AM 1829.
2 КОПѢEЙ K.M. with crown above; all within wreath.

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Nicholas 
I (Николай I Павлович,
r
Nikolai I Pavlovich; 6 July [O.S. 
25 June] 1796 – 2 March [O.S. 
18 February] 1855) was the
Emperor of Russia
from 1825 until 1855. He was 
also the
King of Poland
and
Grand Duke of Finland
. He is best known as a 
political conservative whose reign was marked by geographical expansion, 
repression of dissent, economic stagnation, poor administrative policies, a 
corrupt bureaucracy, and frequent wars that culminated in Russia’s disastrous 
defeat in the
Crimean War
of 1853-56. His biographer Nicholas 
Riasanovsky says that Nicholas displayed determination, singleness of purpose, 
and an iron will, along with a powerful sense of duty and a dedication to very 
hard work. He saw himself as a soldier – a junior officer totally consumed by 
spit and polish. A handsome man, he was highly nervous and aggressive. Trained 
as an engineer, he was a stickler for minute detail. His reign had an ideology 
called “Official Nationality” that was proclaimed officially in 1833. It was a 
reactionary policy based on orthodoxy in religion, autocracy in government, and 
Russian nationalism.

He was the younger brother of his predecessor,
Alexander I
. Nicholas inherited his brother’s 
throne despite the failed
Decembrist revolt
against him and went on to 
become the most reactionary of all Russian leaders. His aggressive foreign 
policy involved many expensive wars, having a disastrous effect on the empire’s 
finances.

He was successful against Russia’s neighbouring southern rivals as he seized 
the last territories in the
Caucasus
held by
Persia
(comprising modern day
Armenia
and
Azerbaijan
) by successfully ending the
Russo-Persian War (1826-1828)
. By now, Russia 
had gained what is now
Dagestan
,
Georgia
, Azerbaijan and Armenia from Persia, 
and had therefore at last gained the clear upper hand in the Caucasus, both 
geo-politically as well as territorially. He ended the
Russo-Turkish War (1828-1829)
successfully as 
well. Later on, however, he led Russia into the Crimean War (1853–56) with 
disastrous results. Historians emphasize that his micromanagement of the armies 
hindered his generals, as did his misguided strategy. Fuller notes that 
historians have frequently concluded that “the reign of Nicholas I was a 
catastrophic failure in both domestic and foreign policy.”^[2] 
On the eve of his death, the
Russian Empire
reached its geographical zenith, 
spanning over 20 million square kilometers (7.7 million square miles), but in 
desperate need of reform.

Early life and 
road to power

 

Nicholas was born in
Gatchina
to
Emperor Paul I
and
Empress Maria Feodorovna
. He was a brother of
Alexander I of Russia
and of
Grand Duke Constantine Pavlovich of Russia
.

Nicholas was not brought up to become the Emperor of Russia; he had two elder 
brothers. In 1825, when Alexander I died suddenly of
typhus
, Nicholas was caught between swearing 
allegiance to his second-eldest brother, Constantine Pavlovich, and accepting 
the throne for himself. The interregnum lasted until Constantine Pavlovich, who 
was in 
Warsaw
at that time, confirmed his refusal. 
Additionally, on 25 (13
Old Style
) December, Nicholas issued the 
manifesto proclaiming his accession to the throne. That manifesto retroactively 
named 1 December (19 November
Old Style
), the date of Alexander I’s death, as 
the beginning of his reign. During this confusion, a plot was hatched by some 
members of the military to overthrow Nicholas and to seize power. This led to 
the
Decembrist Revolt
on 26 (14
Old Style
) December 1825, an uprising Nicholas 
was successful in quickly suppressing.

Emperor and principles

 

Nicholas completely lacked his brother’s spiritual and intellectual breadth; 
he saw his role simply as that of a paternal
autocrat
ruling his people by whatever means 
necessary. 
Nicholas I began his reign on 14 December 1825,^[4] 
which fell on a Monday; Russian superstition held that Mondays were unlucky 
days. 
This particular Monday dawned very cold, with temperatures of −8 degrees 
Celsius. 
This was regarded by the Russian people as a bad omen for the coming reign. The 
accession of Nicholas I was marred by a demonstration of 3,000 young Imperial 
Army officers and other liberal-minded citizens. This demonstration was an 
attempt to force the government to accept a constitution and a representative 
form of government. Nicolas ordered the army out to smash the demonstration. The 
“uprising” was quickly put down and became known as the
Decembrist Revolt
. Having experienced the 
trauma of the Decembrist Revolt on the very first day of his reign, Nicholas I 
was determined to restrain Russian society. The
Third Section
of the
Imperial Chancellery
ran a huge network of 
spies and informers with the help of
Gendarmes
. The government exercised
censorship
and other forms of control over 
education, publishing, and all manifestations of public life.

Tsar Nicholas abolished several areas of local autonomy.
Bessarabia’s
autonomy was removed in 1828, 
Poland’s in 1830 and the Jewish
Qahal
was abolished in 1843. As an exception to 
this trend, 
Finland
was able to keep its autonomy partly 
due to Finnish soldiers’ loyal participation in crushing the
November Uprising
in Poland.

Russia’s first railway was opened in 1838, a 16-mile line between
St. Petersburg
and the suburban residence of
Tsarskoye Selo
. The second was the
Moscow – Saint Petersburg Railway
, built in 
1842–51. Nevertheless, by 1855 there were only 570 miles of Russian railways.

In 1833, the
Ministry of National Education
,
Sergey Uvarov
, devised a program of “Orthodoxy, 
Autocracy and Nationality” as the guiding principle of the regime. 
The people were to show loyalty to the unrestricted authority of the

tsar, to the traditions of the
Russian Orthodox Church
, and to the
Russian language
. These romantic and 
conservative principles outlined by Uvarov were also espoused by
Vasily Zhukovsky
, one of the tutors of the 
Grand Duke Alexander. 
The results of these
Slavophile
principles led, broadly speaking, to 
increasing repression of all classes, excessive censorship and surveillance of 
independent minded intellectuals like
Pushkin
and
Lermontov
and to the persecution of non-Russian 
languages and non-Orthodox religions.
Taras Shevchenko
, later to become known as the
national poet
of
Ukraine
, was exiled to
Siberia
by a direct order of Tsar Nicholas 
after composing a poem that mocked the Tsar, his wife, and his domestic 
policies. By order of the Tsar, Shevchenko was kept under strict surveillance 
and prevented from writing or painting.

From 1839, Tsar Nicholas also used a former
Byzantine Catholic
priest named
Joseph Semashko
as his agent to force Orthodoxy 
upon the
Eastern Rite Catholics
of
Ukraine
,
Belarus
, and
Lithuania
. This caused Tsar Nicholas to be 
condemned by a succession of
Roman Pontiffs
, the
Marquis de Custine
,
Charles Dickens
, 
and many Western governments. See also
Cantonists
.

Nicholas disliked
serfdom
and toyed with the idea of abolishing 
it in Russia, but declined to do so for reasons of state. He feared the 
aristocracy and believed they might turn against him if he abolished serfdom. 
However, he did make some efforts to improve the lot of the Crown Serfs (serfs 
owned by the government) with the help of his minister
Pavel Kiselev
. During most of his reign he 
tried to increase his control over the landowners and other influential groups 
in Russia. In 1831, Nicholas restricted the votes in the Noble Assembly to those 
with over 100 serfs, leaving 21,916 voters. 
In 1841, landless nobles were banned from selling
serfs
separate from the land. 
From 1845, attainment of the 5th highest rank (out of 14) in the
Table of Ranks
was required to be ennobled, 
previously it had been the 8th rank.

Culture

The official emphasis on
Russian nationalism
fueled a debate on Russia’s 
place in the world, the meaning of Russian history, and the future of Russia. 
One group, the
westernizers
, believed that Russia remained 
backward and primitive and could progress only through more Europeanization. 
Another group, the
Slavophiles
, enthusiastically favored the
Slavs
and their culture and customs, and had a 
distaste for
westerners
and their culture and customs.

The Slavophiles viewed
Slavic
philosophy as a source of wholeness in 
Russia and were sceptical of Western
rationalism
and materialism. Some of them 
believed that the Russian peasant commune, or
Mir
, offered an attractive alternative to 
Western capitalism and could make Russia a potential social and moral savior, 
thus representing a form of Russian
messianism
. However the ministry of education 
had a policy of closing philosophy faculties because of possible harmful 
effects.

In the wake of the Decembrist revolt, the tsar moved to protect the status 
quo by centralizing the educational system. He wanted to neutralize the threat 
of foreign ideas and what he ridiculed as “pseudo-knowledge.” However, his 
minister of education,
Sergei Uvarov
, quietly promoted academic 
freedom and autonomy, raised academic standards, improved facilities, and opened 
higher education to the middle classes. By 1848 the tsar, fearing the political 
upheavals in the West might uprisings in Europe, ended Uvarov’s innovations. 
The universities were small and closely monitored, especially the potentially 
dangerous philosophy departments. Their main mission was to train a loyal, 
athletic, masculinized senior bureaucracy that avoided the effeminacy of office 
work.

Despite the repressions of this period, Russia experienced a flowering of 
literature and the arts. Through the works of
Aleksandr Pushkin
,
Nikolai Gogol
,
Ivan Turgenev
and numerous others, Russian 
literature gained international stature and recognition.
Ballet
took root in Russia after its 
importation from France, and
classical music
became firmly established with 
the compositions of
Mikhail Glinka
(1804–1857).

Military and 
foreign policy

 

Nicholas lavished attention on his very large army; with a population of 
60-70 million people, the army included a million men. They had outdated 
equipment and tactics, but the tsar, who dressed like a soldier and surrounded 
himself with officers, gloried in the victory over Napoleon in 1812 and took 
enormous pride in its smartness on parade. The cavalry horses, for example, were 
only trained in parade formations, and did poorly in battle. The glitter and 
braid masked profound weaknesses that he did not see. He put generals in charge 
of most of his civilian agencies regardless of their qualifications. An agnostic 
who won fame in cavalry charges was made supervisor of Church affairs. The Army 
became the vehicle of upward social mobility for noble youths from non-Russian 
areas, such as Poland, the Baltic, Finland and Georgia. On the other hand, many 
miscreants, petty criminals and undesirables were punished by local officials by 
enlisting them for life in the Army. The conscription system was highly 
unpopular with people, as was the practice of forcing peasants to house the 
soldiers for six months of the year. Curtiss finds that “The pedantry of 
Nicholas’ military system, which stressed unthinking obedience and parade ground 
evolutions rather than combat training, produced ineffective commanders in time 
of war.” His commanders in the Crimean War were old and incompetent, and indeed 
so were his muskets as the colonels sold the best equipment and the best food.

For much of Nicholas’s reign, Russia was seen as a major military power, with 
considerable strength. At last the Crimean war at the end of his reign 
demonstrated to the world what no one had previously realized: Russia was 
militarily weak, technologically backward, and administratively incompetent. 
Despite his grand ambitions toward the south and Turkey, Russia had not built 
its railroad network in that direction, and communications were bad. The 
bureaucracy was riddled with graft, corruption and inefficiency and was 
unprepared for war. The Navy was weak and technologically backward; the Army, 
although very large, was good only for parades, suffered from colonels who 
pocketed their men’s pay, poor morale, and was even more out of touch with the 
latest technology as developed by Britain and France. By wars’ end, the Russian 
leadership was determined to reform the Army and the society. As Fuller notes, 
“Russia had been beaten on the Crimean peninsula, and the military feared that 
it would inevitably be beaten again unless steps were taken to surmount its 
military weakness.”

In foreign policy, Nicholas I acted as the protector of ruling legitimism and 
as guardian against revolution. It has often been noticed that such policies 
were linked with the
Metternich counter-revolutionary system
; 
indeed,
Austrian
special
ambassador

Count Karl Ludwig von Ficquelmont
was well 
known for his extensive
influence
over the tsar of whom he was a close 
friend. Nicholas’s offers to suppress revolution on 
the European continent, trying to follow the pattern set by his eldest brother, 
Tsar Alexander I, earned him the label of gendarme of Europe. Immediately 
on his succession Nicholas began to limit the liberties that existed under the
constitutional monarchy
in
Congress Poland
. In return, after the
November Uprising
broke out, in 1831 the

Polish parliament deposed Nicholas as king of Poland in response to 
his repeated curtailment of its constitutional rights. The Tsar reacted by 
sending Russian troops into Poland. Nicholas crushed the rebellion, abrogated 
the Polish constitution, reduced Poland to the status of a province,
Privislinsky Krai
, and embarked on a policy of 
repression towards Catholics. 
In the 1840s Nicholas reduced 64,000 Polish nobles to commoner status.

In 1848, when a
series of revolutions
convulsed Europe, 
Nicholas was in the forefront of reaction. In 1849, he helped the
Habsburgs
to suppress the
uprising in Hungary
, and he also urged
Prussia
not to adopt a liberal constitution.

While Nicholas was attempting to maintain the status quo in Europe, he 
adopted an aggressive policy toward the
Ottoman Empire
. Nicholas I was following the 
traditional Russian policy of resolving the so-called
Eastern Question
by seeking to partition the 
Ottoman Empire and establish a protectorate over the Orthodox population of the
Balkans
, still largely under Ottoman control in 
the 1820s. This move proved to be both costly and largely futile.

Russia fought a successful war against the Ottomans in 1828-29, but it did 
little to increase its power in Europe. Only a small Greek state became 
independent in the Balkans, with limited Russian influence. In the Caucacus, the 
Russians did not fare much better. It fought long, costly wars for some small 
territories that would not be pacified until the reign of Akexander II . In 
1833, Russia negotiated the
Treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi
with the Ottoman 
Empire. The major European parties mistakenly believed that the treaty contained 
a secret clause granting Russia the right to send warships through the
Bosporus
and
Dardanelles
straits. By the
London Straits Convention
of 1841, they 
affirmed Ottoman control over the straits and forbade any power, including 
Russia, to send warships through the straits. Buoyed up by his role in 
suppressing the revolutions of 1848 and his mistaken belief that he had British 
diplomatic support, Nicholas moved against the Ottomans, who declared war on 
Russia on 8 October 1853. On 30 November 1853,
Russian Admiral Nakhimov
caught the Turkish 
fleet in the harbor at Sinope and destroyed it.

In 1854, fearing the results of an Ottoman defeat by Russia, Britain,
France
, the
Kingdom of Sardinia
and the
Ottoman Empire
joined forces in the conflict 
known as the
Crimean War
to the Ottomans and Western 
Europeans, but often known in Russia as the Eastern War, Russian: 
Восточная война, Vostochnaya Vojna (March 1854 – February 1856). In April 1854, 
Austria signed a defensive pact with Prussia. 
Thus, Russia found herself in a war with the whole of Europe allied against her.

Austria offered the Ottomans diplomatic support, and
Prussia
remained neutral, thus leaving Russia 
without any allies on the continent. The European allies landed in
Crimea
and laid siege to the well-fortified 
Russian base at
Sebastopol
. The Russians lost battles at Alma 
in September 1854. 
This failure was followed by lost battles at Balaklava and Inkerman. 
After the prolonged
Siege of Sevastopol (1854–1855)
the base fell, 
exposing Russia’s inability to defend a major fortification on its own soil. On 
the death of Nicholas I, Alexander II became Tsar. On 15 January 1856, the new 
tsar took Russia out of the war on very unfavorable terms which included the 
loss of a naval fleet on the Black Sea.

Death

Nicholas died on 2 March 1855, during the Crimean War. He caught a chill and 
refused medical treatment and died of pneumonia, 
although there were rumors he committed suicide.

Legacy

There have been many damning verdicts on Nicholas’s rule and legacy. At the 
end of his life, one of his most devoted civil servants,
A.V. Nikitenko
, opined, “The main failing of 
the reign of Nicholas Pavlovich was that it was all a mistake.” 
However, from time to time, efforts are made to revive Nicholas’s reputation. 
Historian Barbara Jelavich points to many failures, including the “catastrophic 
state of Russian finances,” the badly equipped army, the inadequate 
transportation system, and a bureaucracy “which was characterized by graft, 
corruption, and inefficiency.”

Kiev University
was founded in 1834 by 
Nicholas. In 1854, there were 3600 university students in Russia, 1000 fewer 
than in 1848. Censorship was omnipresent; Historian Hugh Seton-Watson says, “The 
intellectual atmosphere remained oppressive until the end of the reign.”

As a traveler in Spain, Italy and Russia, the Frenchman
Marquis de Custine
said in his widely read book
Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia that, inside, 
Nicholas was a good person, and behaved as he did only because he believed he 
had to. “If the Emperor, has no more of mercy in his heart than he reveals in 
his policies, then I pity Russia; if, on the other hand, his true sentiments are 
really superior to his acts, then I pity the Emperor.”

Nicholas figures in an
urban legend
about the railroad from
Moscow to Saint Petersburg
. When it was planned 
in 1842, he supposedly demanded the shortest path be used despite major 
obstacles in the way. The story says he used a ruler to draw the straight line 
itself. However the false story became popular in Russia and Britain as an 
explanation of how badly the country was governed. By the 1870s, however, 
Russians were telling a different version, claiming the tsar was wise to 
overcome local interests that wanted the railway diverted this way and that. 
Actually what happened was that the road was laid out by engineers and he 
endorsed their advice to build in a straight line.

Ancestors

Titles and styles

• 6 July 1796 – 1 December 1825: His Imperial Highness Grand 
  Duke Nicholas Pavlovich of Russia
• 1 December 1825 – 2 March 1855: His Imperial Majesty The 
  Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias

Issue

On 13 July 1817, Nicholas married
Charlotte of Prussia
(1798–1860), who 
thereafter went by the name Alexandra Feodorovna. Charlotte’s parents were
Frederick William III of Prussia
and
Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz
. Nicholas and 
Charlotte were third cousins, as they were both great-great-grandchildren of
Frederick William I of Prussia
.

 

Illegitimate issue

Many sources 
state that Nicholas did not have an extramarital affair until after 25 years of 
marriage, in 1842, when the Empress’s doctors prohibited her from having sexual 
intercourse, due to her poor health and recurring heart attacks. Many facts dispute this claim. Nicholas 
fathered three known children with mistresses prior to 1842, including one with 
his most famous and well documented mistress,
Varvara Nelidova
.

With Anna-Maria Charlota de Rutenskiold (1791–1856)

• Youzia Koberwein (12 May 1825 – 23 February 1923)

With Varvara Yakovleva (1803–1831):

• Olga Carlovna Albrecht (10 July 1828 – 20 January 1898)

With Varvara Nelidova (d. 1897):

• Alexis Pashkine (17 April 1831 – 20 June 1863)

See also

Russian Empire portal

• History of Russia
• Imperial Russia
• Tsars of Russia family tree
• The Third Section
• 
  La Russie en 1839