Pavel 1 events. Paul I
The night from November 5 to 6, 1796 in St. Petersburg turned out to be restless. Empress Catherine II suffered a stroke. Everything happened so unexpectedly that she did not have time to make any orders about the heir.According to Peter's law on succession to the throne, the emperor had the right to appoint an heir at his own request. Catherine’s desire in this regard, although unspoken, was long known: she wanted to see her grandson Alexander on the throne. But, firstly, they could not (or did not want) to find an official will drawn up in favor of the Grand Duke. Secondly, 15-year-old Alexander himself did not express an active desire to reign. And thirdly, the empress had a legitimate son, Alexander’s father, Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich, whose name had not left the lips of the courtiers since the morning.
Pavel arrived in Zimny in the middle of the night, accompanied by hundreds of soldiers of the Gatchina regiment and immediately went into his mother’s bedroom to make sure that she was really dying. His entry into the palace was like an assault. The guards in German uniforms placed everywhere shocked the courtiers who were accustomed to elegant luxury recent years Catherine's court. The Empress was still alive while the heir and Bezborodko, locked in her office, burned some papers in the fireplace. There was noticeable excitement in the square under the palace windows. The townspeople were sad about the death of the “mother empress,” but noisily expressed their joy when they learned that Paul would become king. The same thing was heard in the soldiers' barracks. Only in the court environment it was completely sad. According to Countess Golovina, many, having learned about the death of Catherine and the accession of her son to the throne, tirelessly repeated: “The end has come for everything: both her and our well-being.” But in order to understand what kind of person ended up on the Russian throne on that November day in 1796, we need to take a closer look at the history of his life.
He waited 34 years
This story begins on September 20, 1754, when a long-awaited and even required event took place in the family of the heir to the Russian throne: the daughter of Peter I, Russian Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, had a great-nephew, Pavel. The grandmother was much more pleased with this than the child’s father, the Empress’s nephew, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp Karl-Peter-Ulrich (Grand Duke Peter Fedorovich) and even more so the newborn’s mother, Sophia-Frederica-Augusta, Princess of Anhalt-Zerbst (Grand Duchess Ekaterina Alekseevna ).The princess was discharged from Germany as a birthing machine. The car turned out to have a secret. From the first days of her arrival, the seedy Zerbst princess set herself the task of achieving supreme power in Russia. The ambitious German woman understood that with the birth of her son, her already weak hopes for the Russian throne would collapse. All subsequent relationships between mother and son developed like this - like the relationship of political opponents in the struggle for power. As for Elizabeth, she did everything possible to widen the gap between them: special signs of attention to the newborn, emphasized coldness towards the Grand Duchess, who had not been very pampered with attention before. The hint is clear: if you have produced what you ordered, you can leave the stage. Did Elizaveta Petrovna understand what she was doing? In any case, at the end of her reign, she changed her attitude towards her daughter-in-law, finally giving up on her nephew. She saw that the modest Zerbst princess had turned into an important political figure at the Russian court, and appreciated her efficiency and organizational talent. Elizabeth realized too late what a serious enemy she had created for her beloved grandson, but there was no time left to correct her mistakes.
Elizaveta Petrovna died on December 24, 1761, when Pavel was only 7 years old. These first seven years were probably the happiest of his life. The child grew up surrounded by the attention and care of numerous palace servants, mostly Russian. IN early childhood the Grand Duke rarely heard foreign speech. The Empress spoiled her grandson and spent a lot of time with him, especially in the last two years. The image of a kind Russian grandmother, who sometimes came to visit him even at night, remained forever in the memory of the Grand Duke. His father also visited him occasionally, almost always drunk. He looked at his son with a touch of sad tenderness. Their relationship could not be called close, but Pavel was offended to see how those around him openly neglected his father and laughed at him. This sympathy and pity for his father increased many times after his short reign, which ended with a palace coup in favor of Catherine.
The death of Elizabeth, the unexpected disappearance of Peter, and vague rumors about his violent death shocked the eight-year-old boy. Later, pity for the murdered father grew into real worship. Growing up, Pavel was very fond of reading Shakespearean tragedies and secretly compared himself to Prince Hamlet, called upon to avenge his father. But real life was complicated by the fact that the “Russian Hamlet” did not have a treacherous uncle and a deceived mother. The villain, who did not hide her involvement in the murder, was the mother herself.
 |
First of all, they tried to deprive the heir of any systematic education. The first mentor Pavel loved, Poroshin, was soon fired, and the new, skillfully selected teachers did not enlighten Pavel, but rather overloaded his childish mind with many incomprehensible and scattered details that did not give a clear idea of anything. In addition, many of them guessed about their role and boldly taught according to the principle “the more boring, the better.” Here, the teacher of “state sciences” Grigory Teplov was especially zealous, overwhelming the teenager with court cases and statistical reports. After these classes, all his life Pavel hated the rough, painstaking work with documents, trying to resolve any problem as quickly as possible, without delving into its essence. It is not surprising that after seven years of such “education,” supplemented by difficult impressions from rare meetings with his mother, who poured out “witty remarks” about his mental development, the child developed a capricious and irritable character. Rumors spread at court about the heir's wayward actions, and many seriously thought about the consequences of his possible reign. Ekaterina brilliantly won the first fight.
But Paul was too small to retaliate. He grew up under the supervision of the Russian diplomat Nikita Panin, who was chosen as a teacher by Elizabeth. Panin spent 13 years with the boy and sincerely became attached to him. Of all the Russian court nobility, he was best able to understand the reasons for the heir’s strange behavior and ardently supported the idea of transferring the throne to him.
Catherine, trying to quarrel her son, who had barely reached adulthood, with his mentor, finally stopped his studies and in 1773 autocratically married his son to the Hesse-Darmstadt Princess Wilhelmina (who received the name Natalya Alekseevna in baptism). However, the new Grand Duchess turned out to be a very determined woman and directly pushed Paul to seize power, which he refused. Panin was at the head of the conspiracy. Unfortunately for the heir, he was also a major freemason, the first Russian constitutionalist. The coup was doomed to fail. Catherine had too many admiring fans and volunteer assistants at court. When in 1776 the Empress learned that her son could ascend the throne, and even with a constitution, measures were taken immediately. Panin was removed from government affairs (he cannot be executed: he is too big a political figure), he was forbidden to see the heir. Grand Duchess Natalya died after an unsuccessful birth (presumably she was poisoned on the orders of the Empress). Six years later, Pavel also lost Panin. The Grand Duke himself went into exile or exile for 20 years - from St. Petersburg to Gatchina. He was no longer dangerous.
These 20 years finally shaped Paul's character. He was remarried to Princess Sophia of Württemberg (Maria Feodorovna) for the same purpose as his father had once done. Catherine took the two children born next - Alexander and Konstantin - from their parents and raised the eldest as the future heir. Occasionally, Catherine called her son to the capital to participate in the signing of diplomatic documents in order to once again humiliate him in the presence of others. Locked in Gatchina, he was completely deprived of access to even the most insignificant government affairs and tirelessly drilled his regiment on the parade ground - the only thing he could truly control. All the books that could be obtained were read. He was especially fascinated by historical treatises and novels about the times of European chivalry. The heir himself was sometimes not averse to playing in the Middle Ages. The fun is all the more forgivable because at the mother’s court, completely different games were in fashion. Each new favorite sought to outdo its predecessor in enlightened, refined cynicism. The heir had only one thing to do - wait. It was not the desire for power, but the constant fear of death at the hands of killers hired by his mother that tormented Pavel. Who knows, maybe in St. Petersburg the Empress was no less afraid of a palace coup? And maybe she wanted her son to die...
Meanwhile general position The empire, despite a number of brilliant foreign policy successes of Catherine II and her associates, remained very difficult. The 18th century in general was in many ways decisive for the fate of Russia. The reforms of Peter I put it among the leading world powers, advancing it a century forward in technical terms. However, the same reforms destroyed the ancient foundations of the Russian state - strong social and cultural connections between classes, in order to strengthen the state apparatus, opposing the interests of landowners and peasants. Serfdom finally transformed from a special “Moscow” form social organization(official service) into a standard aristocratic privilege. This situation was extremely unfair. After all, after the death of Peter, the Russian nobility bore less and less of the burdens of the service class, continuing to actively oppose universal equalization of rights. Moreover, the nobility, which since the time of Peter was overwhelmed by a stream Western European culture It became increasingly detached from Russia’s traditional values, less and less able to understand the needs and aspirations of its own people, arbitrarily interpreting them in the spirit of newfangled Western philosophical teachings. The culture of the upper and lower strata of the population already under Catherine began to develop separately, threatening to destroy national unity over time. Pugachev's uprising showed this very clearly. What could save Russia from an internal fault or at least push it aside?
The Orthodox Church, which usually united the Russian people in difficult times, since the time of Peter I, was almost deprived of the opportunity to seriously influence the development of events and the policies of state power. Moreover, she did not enjoy authority among the “enlightened class.” At the beginning of the 18th century, the monasteries were actually removed from the work of education and science, transferring it to new, “secular” structures (before that, the Church successfully carried out educational tasks for almost seven centuries!), and in the middle of the century the state took away from them the richest, inhabited by wealthy peasants land. It was taken away only in order to obtain a new resource to continue the policy of continuous land distributions to the military-noble corporation, which was growing by leaps and bounds. But if the previous, outlying distributions and redistributions of land really strengthened the state, then the instant destruction of dozens of the oldest cultural centers in non-Black Earth Russia Agriculture and trade (most fairs were timed to coincide with the holidays of the Orthodox monasteries that patronized them), which were at the same time centers of independent small credit, charity and broad social assistance, only led to further undermining of local markets and the economic power of the country as a whole.
The Russian language and national culture, which at one time made it possible to save the cultural integrity of Russia from fragmentation into principalities, were also not held in high esteem at court. What remained was the state, the endless strengthening of which was bequeathed by Peter to all his heirs. The machine of the bureaucratic apparatus launched by Peter had such power that in the future it was capable of crushing any class privileges and barriers. In addition, it relied on the only ancient principle, not violated by Peter and sacredly revered by the majority of the population of Russia - the principle of autocracy (unlimited sovereignty of the supreme power). But most of Peter's successors were too weak or indecisive to use this principle in its entirety. They obediently followed in the wake of noble class politics, cleverly using the contradictions between court groups in order to at least slightly strengthen their power. Catherine brought this maneuvering to perfection. The end of the 18th century is considered the “golden age of the Russian nobility.” It was stronger than ever and calm in the consciousness of its strength. But the question remained open: who, in the interests of the country, would risk disturbing this calm?
What did he want?
On November 7, 1796, the “golden age of the Russian nobility” ended. The emperor, who had his own ideas about the importance of classes and state interests, ascended the throne. In many ways, these ideas were constructed “by contradiction” - in opposition to the principles of Catherine. However, a lot was thought out independently; fortunately, 30 years were allotted for reflection. And most importantly, a large supply of energy had accumulated that had no outlet for a long time. So, redo everything your way and as soon as possible! Very naive, but not always meaningless.
Although Paul disliked the word “reform” no less than the word “revolution,” he never discounted the fact that since the time of Peter the Great, the Russian autocracy has always been at the forefront of change. Trying on the role of a feudal overlord‚ and later the chain of the Grand Master of the Order of Malta‚ Paul remained entirely a man of modern times‚ dreaming of an ideal state structure. The state must be transformed from an aristocratic freemen into a rigid hierarchical structure, headed by a king who has all possible powers of power. Estates, classes, social strata are gradually losing their special inalienable rights, completely submitting only to the autocrat, personifying God’s heavenly law and earthly state order. The aristocracy must gradually disappear, as well as the personally dependent peasantry. The class hierarchy must be replaced by equal subjects.
The French Revolution not only strengthened Paul's hostility to the philosophy of the 18th century Enlightenment, but also once again convinced him that the Russian state mechanism required serious changes. Catherine's enlightened despotism, in his opinion, slowly but surely led the country to destruction, provoking a social explosion, the formidable harbinger of which was the Pugachev rebellion. And in order to avoid this explosion, it was necessary not only to tighten the regime, but also to urgently reorganize the country’s governance system. Note: Paul was the only autocratic reformer after Peter who planned to start it “from above” in the literal sense of the word, that is, to curtail the rights of the aristocracy (in favor of the state). Of course, in such changes, the peasants at first remained silent extras; they were not going to be involved in management for a long time. But although, by order of Paul, it was forbidden to use the word “citizen” in printed publications, he, more than anyone else in the 18th century, tried to make peasants and townspeople citizens, taking them beyond the boundaries of the class system and “attaching” directly to the state.
The program was quite coherent, corresponding to its time, but did not take into account at all the ambitions of the Russian ruling layer. It was this tragic discrepancy, generated by the Gatchina isolation and the emotional unrest experienced, that was accepted by contemporaries, and after them by historians, as “barbaric savagery”, even madness. The then pillars of Russian social thought (with the exception of the amnestied Radishchev), frightened by the revolution, stood either for carrying out further reforms at the expense of the peasants, or not carrying them out at all. If at the end of the 18th century the concept of “totalitarianism” already existed, contemporaries would not have thought to apply it to Pavlov’s regime. But Paul's political program was no more utopian than the philosophy of his time. XVIII century - the century of prosperity social utopias. Diderot and Voltaire predicted the creation by enlightened monarchs of a unitary state based on the Social Contract and saw elements of their program in the reforms of the beginning of Catherine's reign. If you look closely, the real supporter of the idea of a single equal state was her son, who hated the French “enlightenment”. At the same time, his political practice turned out to be no more cruel than the democratic terror of the French Convention or the counter-revolutionary repressions of the Directory and Napoleon that followed.
The first “victim” of the transformations already in 1796 was the army. Many times already, scientists and journalists have examined the notorious “Gatchina legacy”: parades, wigs, sticks, etc. But it is worth remembering the disbanded recruitment of 1795, half of which was stolen by officers for their estates; about a complete audit of the army supply department, which revealed colossal theft and abuse; about the subsequent reduction in the military budget; on the transformation of the guard from court security into combat unit. (The entire personal officer corps was called to the review in 1797, which put an end to service on estates and the entry into regimental lists of unborn babies, like Pushkin’s Grinev.) The same endless parades and maneuvers marked the beginning of regular exercises of the Russian army (which was very useful later, in era of the Napoleonic Wars), which had previously been in winter quarters in the absence of war. Under Paul, the soldiers, of course, were driven more to the parade ground and punished more severely, but at the same time they finally began to be fed regularly and dressed warmly in the winter, which brought the emperor unprecedented popularity among the troops. But most of all the officers were outraged by the introduction of corporal punishment. Not for soldiers in general, but specifically for the noble class. It smelt of unhealthy class equality.They also tried to squeeze the landowners. For the first time, serfs began to take a personal oath to the emperor (previously, the landowner did this for them). When selling, it was forbidden to separate families. The famous decree-manifesto “on the three-day corvee” was issued, the text of which, in particular, read: “The Law of God, taught to us in the Decalogue, teaches us to dedicate the seventh day to God; why on this present day, glorified by the triumph of faith and on which we were honored to receive the sacred anointing and the royal wedding on our ancestral throne, we consider it our duty before the Creator of all good things, the Giver, to confirm throughout our entire empire about the exact and indispensable fulfillment of this law, commanding everyone to observe so that no one, under any circumstances, dares to force peasants to work on Sundays..."
Although there was no talk yet about the abolition or even serious limitation of serfdom, enlightened land and soul owners became worried: how could the government, even the royal one, interfere with how they dispose of their hereditary property? Catherine did not allow herself to do this! These gentlemen did not yet understand that the peasants were the main source of state income, and therefore it was unprofitable to ruin them. But it wouldn’t be a bad idea to force landowners to pay the costs of maintaining elected local government bodies, since they consist exclusively of the nobility. There was another attempt on the “sacred right of the noble class” - freedom from taxation.
Meanwhile, the overall tax burden has eased. The abolition of the grain tax (according to the Russian agronomist A.T. Bolotov, which produced “beneficial effects throughout the state”) was accompanied by the addition of arrears for 1797 and the preferential sale of salt (until the middle of the 19th century, salt was actually the national currency). As part of the fight against inflation, palace expenses were reduced by 10 (!) times, a significant part of the silver palace services was transferred to coins, which were put into circulation. At the same time, the unsecured mass was withdrawn from circulation at state expense paper money. Over five million rubles in banknotes were burned on Palace Square.
The officials were also in fear. Bribes (given openly under Catherine) were mercilessly eradicated. This was especially true of the capital’s apparatus, which was shaken by constant inspections. An unheard of thing: employees must not be late and be in their place the entire working day! The emperor himself got up at 5 am, listened to current reports and news, and then, together with his heirs, went to inspect the capital's institutions and guards units. The number of provinces and districts was reduced, and therefore the number of bureaucrats needed to fill the corresponding places.
The Orthodox Church also received certain hopes for a religious revival. The new emperor, unlike his mother, was not indifferent to Orthodoxy. His teacher and spiritual mentor, the future Metropolitan Platon (Levshin), who later crowned Paul to the throne, wrote about his faith this way: “The high pupil, fortunately, was always disposed towards piety, and reasoning and conversation regarding God and faith were always with him pleasant. This, according to the note, was introduced to him with milk by the late Empress Elizaveta Petrovna, who loved him dearly and raised him with very pious women assigned to her.”
According to some evidence, the emperor often showed traits of clairvoyance under the guise of foolishness. Thus, there is a case known from memoirs when Pavel Petrovich ordered an officer who had performed unsatisfactorily in military maneuvers to be sent to Siberia, but, bowing to the requests of those around him for clemency, he nevertheless exclaimed: “I feel that the man for whom you are asking - scoundrel! It was subsequently discovered that this officer killed his own mother. Another case: a guards officer who had a wife and children decided to take away a young girl. But she did not agree to go without a wedding. Then this officer’s comrade in the regiment dressed himself as a priest and played secret ritual. After some time, the woman, left with a child adopted by the seducer, having found out that her imaginary husband had a legitimate family, filed a complaint with the sovereign. “The Emperor found himself in an unhappy position,” recalled E.P. Yankova, - and made a wonderful decision: he ordered her kidnapper to be demoted and exiled, the young woman to be recognized as having the right to the surname of the seducer and their legitimate daughter, and the officer who married her to be tonsured a monk. The resolution said that “since he has an inclination towards spiritual life, he should be sent to a monastery and tonsured a monk.” The officer was taken somewhere far away and given a haircut. He was beside himself at such an unexpected outcome of his frivolous act and did not live at all like a monk, but then the grace of God touched his heart; he repented, came to his senses and, when he was no longer young, led a very strict life and was considered an experienced and very good old man.”
All this, however, did not prevent Paul from accepting the title of head of the Catholic Order of Malta. However, this was done not only for political reasons. This was an attempt to resurrect within the framework of the order (which, by the way, had never previously submitted to the Pope of Rome) the ancient Byzantine brotherhood of St. John the Baptist, from which the Jerusalem “Hospitaliers” once arose. In addition, it is worth noting that the Order of Malta, for the purpose of self-preservation, put itself under the protection of Russia and Emperor Paul. On October 12, 1799, the shrines of the order were solemnly brought to Gatchina: the right hand of St. John the Baptist, a particle of the Cross of the Lord and the Philermos Icon of the Mother of God. Russia possessed all these treasures until 1917.In general, Paul is the first emperor to soften in his policy the line of Peter I to infringe on the rights of the Church in the name of state interests. First of all, he strove to ensure that the priesthood had a more “important image and condition corresponding to the importance of its rank.” Thus, when the Holy Synod made a proposal to rid priests and deacons from corporal punishment, the emperor approved it (it did not have time to enter into legal force until 1801), continuing to adhere to the practice of restoring such punishments for noble officers.
Measures were taken to improve the life of the white clergy: for those on regular salaries, their salaries were increased, and where salaries were not established, parishioners were entrusted with the responsibility of processing the priestly allotments, which could be replaced by a corresponding grain contribution in kind or in cash. In 1797 and 1799, regular salaries from the treasury for the ecclesiastical department, according to annual state estimates, were doubled compared to the previous one. State subsidies to the clergy thus reached almost one million rubles. In addition, in 1797 the plots of land for bishops' houses were doubled. Additionally (for the first time since Catherine’s secularization!), mills, fishing grounds and other lands were allocated to bishops and monasteries. For the first time in the history of Russia, measures were legalized to provide for widows and orphans of the clergy.
Under Emperor Paul, the military clergy was allocated to a special department and received its own head - the protopresbyter of the army and navy. In general, to encourage more zealous performance of their service, the emperor introduced a procedure for awarding clergy with orders and signs of external distinction. (Now this order is deeply rooted in the Church, but then it caused some confusion.) At the personal initiative of the sovereign, an award pectoral cross was established. Before the revolution on back side All synodal crosses had the letter “P” - the initial of Pavel Petrovich. Under him, theological academies were also established in St. Petersburg and Kazan and several new seminaries.
Unexpectedly received some civil rights and such a large layer Russian society‚like schismatics. For the first time, the Emperor compromised on this issue and allowed loyal Old Believers to have their own houses of worship and serve in them according to ancient custom. The Old Believers (of course, not all), in turn, were ready to recognize the Synodal Church and accept priests from it. In 1800, the regulations on churches of the same faith were finally approved.
Peter's traditions of cooperation with the merchants were also revived. The establishment of the College of Commerce at the end of 1800 looked like the beginning of a global reform of management. Of course, 13 of its 23 members (more than half!) were chosen by merchants from among themselves. And this was at a time when noble elections were limited. Naturally, Alexander, having come to power (by the way, with the slogan of a constitution), was one of the first to cancel this democratic order.
But none of Paul’s heirs even thought of canceling the most important state act he adopted - the law of April 5, 1797 on succession to the throne. This law finally closed the fatal gap made by Peter's decree of 1722. From now on, inheritance of the throne (only through the male line!) acquired a clear legal character, and no Catherine or Anna could any longer lay claim to it on their own. The importance of the law is so great that Klyuchevsky, for example, called it “the first positive fundamental law in our legislation”, because it, strengthening the autocracy as an institution of power, limited the arbitrariness and ambitions of individuals, and served as a kind of prevention of possible coups and conspiracies.
Of course, next to the serious innovations, you can also notice a huge number of detailed details: the prohibition of certain types and styles of clothing, instructions on when citizens should get up and go to bed, how to drive and walk along the streets, what color to paint houses... And for violations of everything This means fines, arrests, dismissals. On the one hand, Teplov’s fatal lessons affected him: the emperor did not know how to separate small matters from large ones. On the other hand, what seems like small things to us (the style of hats) at the end of the 18th century had an important symbolic meaning and demonstrated to others a commitment to one or another ideological party. In the end, “sans-culottes” and “Phrygian caps” were by no means born in Russia.
Perhaps the main negative feature of Pavlovsk’s rule was the uneven trust in people, the inability to select friends and associates and arrange personnel. Everyone around him - from the heir to the throne Alexander to the last St. Petersburg lieutenant - was under suspicion. The emperor changed senior dignitaries so quickly that they did not have time to get up to speed. The slightest offense could result in disgrace. However, the emperor also knew how to be magnanimous: Radishchev was released from prison; the quarrel with Suvorov ended with Pavel asking for forgiveness (and then promoting the commander to generalissimo); Father's killer Alexei Orlov was given a “severe” punishment - to walk several blocks behind the coffin of his victim, taking off his hat.
Yet the emperor's personnel policy was highly unpredictable. The people most devoted to him lived in the same constant anxiety for their future as the notorious court scoundrels. By instilling unquestioning obedience, Paul often lost honest people in his circle. They were replaced by scoundrels, ready to carry out any hasty decree, caricaturing the imperial will. At first they were afraid of Paul, but then, seeing the endless stream of poorly executed decrees, they began to quietly laugh at him. Just 100 years ago, ridicule of such transformations would have cost the merrymakers dearly. But Paul did not have such indisputable authority as his great-grandfather, and he understood people worse. And Russia was no longer the same as under Peter: then it obediently shaved off its beards, now it was indignant at the ban on wearing round hats.
In general, the whole society was outraged. Memoirists later presented this mood as a single impulse, but the reasons for the indignation were often opposite. The combat officers of Suvorov's school were irritated by the new military doctrine; generals such as Bennigsen were worried about their income being cut from the treasury; the guards youth were dissatisfied with the new strict service regulations; the highest nobility of the empire - “Catherine’s eagles” - are deprived of the opportunity to mix state interests and personal gain, as in the old days; officials of lower rank still stole, but with great caution; City dwellers were angry at new decrees about when they must turn off the lights. The enlightened “new people” had the hardest time: they could not come to terms with the revival of autocratic principles, calls were heard to put an end to “Asian despotism” (who would have tried to say this under Peter!), but many clearly saw the injustices of the previous reign. Most of them were, after all, convinced monarchists; Paul could have found support for his reforms here, he just needed to be given more freedom in action, and not have his hands tied by constant petty orders. But the king, not used to trusting people, interfered in literally everything. He alone, without initiative assistants, wanted to manage his empire. At the end of the 18th century this was absolutely impossible.
Why didn't they love him?
Moreover, it was impossible to play the European diplomatic game on a knightly basis. Pavel began his foreign policy as a peacemaker: he canceled the upcoming invasion of France, the campaign in Persia, and the next raids of the Black Sea Fleet to the Turkish shores, but he was not in his power to cancel the all-European world fire. An advertisement in a Hamburg newspaper proposing to decide the fate of states by a duel between their monarchs and their first ministers as seconds caused general bewilderment. Napoleon then openly called Paul “the Russian Don Quixote”; the other heads of government remained silent.
Nevertheless, it was impossible to stand aside from the European conflict for long. Frightened European monarchies turned to Russia from all sides: requests for protection were brought by the Knights of Malta (whose island was already under the threat of French occupation); Austria and England needed an allied Russian army; even Turkey turned to Paul with a plea to protect its Mediterranean shores and Egypt from the French landing. The result was the second anti-French coalition of 1798–1799.
The Russian expeditionary force under the command of Suvorov was already ready to invade France in April 1799. But this did not fit with the plans of the allied Austrian government, which sought to round out its possessions at the expense of the “liberated” Italian territories. Suvorov was forced to submit, and by the beginning of August northern Italy was completely cleared of the French. The Republican armies were defeated and the fortress garrisons surrendered. The joint Russian-Turkish squadron under the command of the now canonized Admiral Fyodor Ushakov showed itself no less seriously, liberating the Ionian Islands off the coast of Greece from September 1798 to February 1799. (By the way, one of the reasons for the emperor’s consent to this campaign was the danger of the French desecrating the relics of St. Spyridon of Trimythous, which had been kept on the island of Corfu (Kerkyra) since the 15th century. Paul greatly revered St. Spyridon as the patron of his eldest son and heir Alexander. Almost impregnable the fortress of Corfu was taken by storm from the sea on February 18, 1799.) It is noteworthy that Ushakov established an independent republic on the islands he liberated (the archipelago was later occupied and held by the British for more than half a century) and organized elections of local authorities with the full approval of Paul, who showed amazing political tolerance here. Next, Ushakov’s squadron, having a minimum number of marines, carried out operations to liberate Palermo, Naples and all of southern Italy, which ended on September 30 with the rush of Russian sailors to Rome.Russia's coalition allies were frightened by such impressive military successes. They did not at all want to strengthen the authority of the Russian Empire at the expense of the French Republic. In September 1798, the Austrians left the Russian army in Switzerland alone with fresh, superior enemy forces, and only Suvorov’s military leadership saved it from complete destruction. On September 1, the Turkish squadron left Ushakov without warning. As for the British, their fleet, led by Nelson, blocked Malta and did not allow Russian ships to approach it. The “allies” showed their true colors. An angry Pavel recalled Suvorov and Ushakov from the Mediterranean.
In 1800, Paul concluded an anti-English alliance with Napoleon that was beneficial for Russia. France offered Russia Constantinople and the complete division of Turkey. The Baltic and Black Sea fleets were brought to full combat readiness. At the same time, with the approval of Napoleon, Orlov's 30,000-strong Cossack corps was moving towards India through the Kazakh steppes. England was faced with the most terrible threat since the days of Elizabeth I.
What if the interests of England and the internal Russian opposition coincided?.. British diplomacy in St. Petersburg used all its means and connections to stir up the smoldering internal conspiracy. The secret sums of the English embassy rained down on favorable soil. The dissatisfied finally found a common language: the army was represented by Bennigsen, the higher nobility by Zubov, and the pro-English bureaucracy by Nikita Panin (nephew of Pavel’s teacher). Panin brought the heir to the throne, Grand Duke Alexander, to participate in the conspiracy. Having learned about the possible abolition of the boring army regulations, dozens of young guards officers happily joined in. But the soul of the conspiracy was the favorite of the emperor, the Governor-General of St. Petersburg, Count von der Palen. Pavel before last day was confident in his loyalty.
The conspiracy very clearly illustrated the paradoxical situation that developed at the Pavlovsk court. The fact is that the emperor was not confident in anyone, but precisely because of this, he had to show his trust in fits and starts to generally random people. He had no friends, no like-minded people - only subjects, and not of the very first class. It was not possible to destroy the conspiracy as such also because it had always existed. The latent dissatisfaction of various noble groups with one or another government measures during Pavlov's reign reached dangerous heights. When anyone who disagrees is considered a conspirator in advance, it is psychologically easier for him to cross the line that separates passive rejection of change from active opposition to it. With all this, one must remember that there were still many “Catherine’s men” at court. The emperor’s anger was as terrible as it was fleeting, so Paul turned out to be incapable of any consistent repression. His gentle character was not suitable for that political system which he himself tried to introduce.
As a result, when after midnight on March 11, 1801, the conspirators broke into the Mikhailovsky Palace, there was not a single officer there who could defend the emperor. The main concern of the conspirators was to prevent soldiers from entering the palace. The sentries were removed from their posts by their superiors, and two lackeys had their heads smashed. In the bedroom they finished off Pavel in a few minutes. Like Peter III once, he was strangled with a long officer's scarf. Petersburg greeted the news of his death with pre-prepared fireworks and general rejoicing. As funny as it may seem, everyone rushed to show up on the streets in recently banned outfits. And in the main hall of the Winter Palace all the highest dignitaries of Russia gathered, the name of the young Emperor Alexander was already on everyone’s lips. A 23-year-old young man came out of the chamber and, to the joyful whisper of those present, solemnly said: “Father died of an apoplexy. With me everything will be the same as with my grandmother.”
These words seemed to be the posthumous and final victory of Catherine II over her son. The loser paid with his life. How should Russia pay?
The books of Russian historians available to the mass reader today evaluate Pavlovsk’s reign differently. For example, N.M. Karamzin, in his “Note on Ancient and New Russia” (1811), written in hot pursuit, said: “Let conspiracies intimidate sovereigns for the peace of the people!” In his opinion, no useful lessons can be learned from despotism; it can only be overthrown or endured with dignity. It turns out that the inconsistency of Pavlov’s decrees is nothing more than the tyranny of a tyrant? By the end of the 19th century, this point of view already seemed primitive. IN. Klyuchevsky wrote that “Paul’s reign was the time when a new program of activity was announced.” “Although,” he immediately made a reservation, “the points of this program were not only not implemented, but gradually even disappeared from it. Paul’s successors began to implement this program much more seriously and consistently.” N.K. Schilder, the first historian of Paul’s reign, also agreed that the anti-Catherine state-political orientation “continued to exist” throughout the first half of the 19th century, and “the continuity of Paul’s legends largely survived.” He blamed them for the military settlements, and for December 14, for the “knightly foreign policy”, and for the defeat of Russia in the Crimean War. The historical publicist Kazimir Valishevsky and the famous Russian writer Dmitry Merezhkovsky apparently held the same point of view. Only the work of M.V., published in a scanty edition during the First World War. Klochkova - the only one who has scrupulously studied Paul's legislative policy - counters these reproaches with the fact that it was under Paul that military reform began, preparing the army for the War of 1812, the first steps were taken in limiting serfdom, and the foundations of the legislative body of the Russian Empire were laid . In 1916, a movement even began in church circles to canonize the innocently murdered emperor. At least, his grave in the Peter and Paul Cathedral of St. Petersburg was considered miraculous among the common people and was constantly strewn with fresh flowers. There was even a special book in the cathedral in which miracles that occurred through prayers at this grave were recorded.
Left-liberal historians, and after them Soviet historians, tended to downplay the significance of Pavlov’s reign in the history of Russia. They, of course, did not feel any reverence for Catherine II, however, they viewed Paul only as a special case of a particularly cruel manifestation of absolutism (what “special cruelty” consisted of was usually kept silent), fundamentally not different from either his predecessors or his heirs. Only in the mid-1980s did N.Ya. Eidelman tried to understand the social meaning of Pavlov's conservative-reformist utopia. This author is also credited with rehabilitating the name of Paul in the eyes of the intelligentsia. Books published over the past 10–15 years basically summarize all the points of view expressed, without drawing particularly deep and new conclusions. Apparently, the final judgment about who exactly Emperor Pavel Petrovich was, as well as how realistic his political program was and what place it occupied in the subsequent Russian history, still to be endured. The Russian Federation also has to make such a judgment. Orthodox Church, again raising the question of the possibility of glorifying Paul I as a martyr for the faith.
I would like to once again draw attention to the fact that Paul was not only far-sighted or, on the contrary, unlucky statesman. Like the recently glorified martyr Emperor Nikolai Alexandrovich, Pavel Petrovich was, first of all, a man of a very tragic fate. Back in 1776, he wrote in a private letter: “For me there are no parties or interests other than the interests of the state, and with my character it’s hard for me to see that things are going wrong and that the reason for this is negligence and personal views. I would rather be hated for a just cause than loved for a wrong cause.” But the people around him, as a rule, did not even want to understand the reasons for his behavior. As for the posthumous reputation, until recently it was the worst after Ivan the Terrible. Of course, it is easier to explain a person’s actions that are illogical from our point of view by calling him an idiot or a villain. However, this is unlikely to be true. Therefore, I would like to end this article with a quote from the thoughts of the poet Vladislav Khodasevich: “When Russian society says that Paul’s death was retribution for his oppression, it forgets that he oppressed those who spread too widely, those strong and many-righted who should be constrained and curbed for the sake of the powerless and weak. Maybe this was his historical mistake. But what moral height does she have! He loved justice - we are unfair to him. He was a knight - killed from around the corner. We scold from around the corner...”
Emperor Paul 1 ruled the country for a little over four years. For such short term It is difficult to make fundamental changes in the course of a huge country, but the Russian autocrat tried his best, as if feeling how little time was allotted to him. However, his reforms among his contemporaries did not evoke approval, but mostly horror and indignation. It was rumored that the king was overcome by madness. Two centuries later, some things really seem like cruel tyranny, but some orders were ahead of their time.
Domestic policy
Strictly speaking, at 42 years old, he was not ready to become the emperor of a huge power. , who did not feel love for her son, removed him from all government affairs. At the same time, the heir to the throne received a better education. Pavel's impetuous nature was carried away by everything at once. In his aspirations, the emperor knew no limits and often reached the point of absurdity.
The first thing after the coronation for Paul was to restore justice to his father, Peter 3. His ashes were transferred to the imperial tomb and buried next to the deceased Catherine. A decree on succession to the throne was issued, canceling all Peter's amendments. Now the throne had to pass from father to son.
Paul greatly curtailed the privileges of the nobility favored by Catherine. Corporal punishment for this class was returned to legal practice, and new taxes were established. But it became much more difficult to complain and ask the sovereign - something went exclusively through self-government bodies, and something was completely banned.
Paul 1's passion was the army and, having received power, he began with zeal to restore order in it. A new uniform was introduced, and overcoats appeared for the first time. The officer lists were thoroughly cleaned up and the requirements were increased - now each officer bore criminal responsibility for the lives of his subordinates. Soldiers received the right to complain about their commanders, and for their courage they could receive a silver medal - the first military order for privates in Rus'. Nobles could enter the civil service only with special permission. Disciplinary requirements skyrocketed, and the army spent its days drilling.
Easements were made for national and religious minorities. In particular, Paul's decree allowed the construction of Old Believer churches.
The emperor's nightmare was revolutionary ideas from France, torn by coups. The most severe censorship was introduced, to the point that it was forbidden to import books and study at European universities.
Foreign policy
In foreign policy, Paul 1 was guided by two simple ideas - opposition to the French Revolution and support of the Order of Malta. From his youth, the Russian emperor was fascinated by the aesthetics of chivalry and was extremely flattered by the title of Grand Master he received. However, in reality, this semi-childish hobby served as a reason for the destruction of the old alliance and adventurous military campaigns.
At first, Pavel formally supported the anti-French coalition. The sack of Malta by Napoleon's army forced him to take active action. The allies were glad to receive the help of the Russian emperor. They insisted on participating in the campaign of the disgraced Suvorov, but after the rapid liberation of northern Italy, their opinions about further actions differed.
Meanwhile, England took possession of Malta, which had been recaptured from Napoleon. Pavel considered this a reason to withdraw from the coalition and sever diplomatic relations - the Mediterranean island should belong exclusively to the order and Russia, as its successor. Not long before this, the joint Russian-British rescue of the Netherlands from French occupation ended in failure, and the superiority of the royal merchant fleet simply irritated all northern neighbors. Meanwhile, Napoleon behaved very smartly: he wrote a very warm letter to the Russian emperor, and also sent home Russian prisoners of war who were in France, without any demands for exchange, etc. Moreover, he ordered to dress them at the expense of the French treasury in the uniform of their units. Such courtesy completely captivated Pavel 1. He abruptly changed direction foreign policy Russia, concluded an anti-English alliance with Bonaparte and even almost organized a campaign against the Indian possessions of the English crown, but...
There are many people in the world who call for something and then tear their hair out when it happens.
As soon as he ascended the throne, Paul 1 changed the order of succession to the throne in Russia, which had been in effect without changes since the time of Peter the Great. Paul 1 changed the position that the future monarch is determined by the will of the incumbent. From now on, only representatives of the ruling dynasty in the male line in order of seniority had rights to the throne. Thus began the internal policy of Emperor Paul 1.
The next stage of Paul 1’s actions within the country was the search for associates and winning the love and respect of most of the people. To achieve these goals, Paul 1 almost completely removed from power all the officials who served Empress Catherine. New officials loyal to Emperor Paul were appointed to the vacant positions. The domestic policy of Paul 1 continued to soften the living conditions of the peasants. First of all, the emperor repealed the law that prohibited peasants from complaining about the landowners. After this, all types of corporal punishment for peasants were abolished, all arrears from peasants were canceled, the amount of which at the time Pavle 1 came to power exceeded 7 million rubles. In addition, Paul 1 reduced corvee throughout the country. If earlier corvee (free work of peasants on the landowner's fields) was 6 days a week, now it should not exceed 3 days a week. The imperial decree also prohibited the involvement of peasants in corvee work on weekends, as well as on religious holidays.
The main events of the emperor's policy
The internal policy of Paul 1 continued with the solution of the food issue in the country. The country had extremely high prices for all types of food. To solve this problem, Paul 1 issued a decree according to which everyone was obliged to trade at reduced prices for food obtained from state reserves.
The new emperor tried to instill fear and respect for his person in everyone. As a result, mass repressions began in the country. At the same time, the emperor did not look at the rank or origin of the accused. Paul 1 was not interested in violations either; sometimes nobles who simply violated their dress code were exiled and deprived of all titles and privileges. Paul 1 liked to repeat that there are practically no noble people in his country, and those with whom the emperor deigns to speak are considered noble, and exactly as long as the emperor speaks to him. The domestic policy of Paul 1 was extremely cruel for the country's elite. The secret chancellery, which dealt with such cases, met almost without interruption. In total, during the reign of Emperor Paul 1, 721 cases were processed through the Secret Chancellery, which amounted to almost 180 cases per year. For example, during the reign of Empress Catherine 2, the secret chancellery met on average 25 times a year, investigating 1 case per convocation.
Controversy in domestic politics
The problem of studying the era of Paul 1 is that this emperor brought almost any undertaking to the point of insanity, when ideas were simultaneously implemented that were radically different from each other and which led to contradictions. That is why today they say that Paul’s internal policy was very contradictory and there was a lot of dark spots. For example:
- Attitude towards revolutionaries. Pavel 1 tried to show his loyalty to the revolutionaries, as a result of which he returned Radishchev, Kosciuszko, Novikov and others from exile. At the same time, he evilly persecutes everyone who has anything to do with the French Revolution.
- Politics in the army. The Emperor prohibits the admission of minors into the guard. This is an absolute plus, but at the same time the same emperor is reforming the army in the Prussian manner (the Prussian army has never been distinguished for its strength and skill).
- Peasant question. One of the main initiatives of the emperor's domestic policy was the decree on three-day corvee, which significantly limited the powers of serf owners. On the other hand, the emperor issues a decree and literally showers all landowners with new lands.
- Public administration. A law on succession to the throne is adopted (it had long been outdated and needed reform), but Paul simultaneously eliminated many colleges, which led to chaos within the country.
The domestic policy of Paul 1 also affected reforms in the army. True, they were not widespread and affected, first of all, the relationship between a soldier and an officer. Paul 1 prohibited cruel punishment of soldiers by officers. For violating this prohibition, the punishments for officers were the most severe and were no different from the punishments for soldiers who allowed themselves to insult an officer.
In whose interests did Paul 1 rule?
Paul 1 pursued internal policies to strengthen his power, and also tried to ease the role of the common man. The emperor's internal policy was carried out in the interests of ordinary categories of the population. Naturally, this displeased the major nobles, who regularly plotted against their emperor. As a result, the internal policy of Paul 1 became one of the components of a future conspiracy against the emperor. A conspiracy that cost Pavel 1 his life.
Coronation: |
|
Predecessor: |
Catherine II |
Successor: |
Alexander I |
Birth: |
|
Buried: |
Peter and Paul Cathedral |
Dynasty: |
Romanovs |
Admiral General |
|
Catherine II |
|
1. Natalya Alekseevna (Wilhelmina of Hesse) |
|
(from Natalya Alekseevna): there were no children (from Maria Feodorovna) sons: Alexander I, Konstantin Pavlovich, Nikolai I, Mikhail Pavlovich daughters: Alexandra Pavlovna, Elena Pavlovna, Maria Pavlovna, Ekaterina Pavlovna, Olga Pavlovna, Anna Pavlovna |
|
Autograph: |
|
Relations with Catherine II
Domestic policy
Foreign policy
Order of Malta
Conspiracy and death
Versions of the birth of Paul I
Military ranks and titles
Paul I in art
Literature
Cinema
Monuments to Paul I
Paul I (Pavel Petrovich; September 20 (October 1), 1754, Summer Palace of Elizabeth Petrovna, St. Petersburg - March 11 (23), 1801, Mikhailovsky Castle, St. Petersburg) - Emperor of All Russia from November 6, 1796, from the Romanov dynasty, son of Peter III Fedorovich and Catherine II Alekseevna.
Childhood, education and upbringing
Pavel was born on September 18 (October 1), 1754 in St. Petersburg, in the Summer Palace of Elizabeth Petrovna. Subsequently, this castle was destroyed, and in its place the Mikhailovsky Palace was built, in which Pavel was killed on March 10 (23), 1801.
On September 20, 1754, in the ninth year of marriage, Her Imperial Highness Grand Duchess Ekaterina Alekseevna finally had her first child. Empress Elizaveta Petrovna was present at the birth, Grand Duke Peter and the Shuvalov brothers. Elizaveta Petrovna immediately picked up the newborn baby, washed and sprinkled with holy water, and carried it into the hall to show the future heir to the courtiers. The Empress baptized the baby and ordered him to be named Paul. Catherine, like Peter III, were completely removed from raising their son.
Due to the vicissitudes of a merciless political struggle, Paul was essentially deprived of the love of those close to him. Of course, this affected the child’s psyche and his perception of the world. But, we should pay tribute to Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, she ordered to surround him with the best, in her opinion, teachers.
The first educator was the diplomat F.D. Bekhteev, who was obsessed with the spirit of all kinds of regulations, clear orders, and military discipline comparable to drill. This created in the impressionable boy’s mind that this is how everything happens in Everyday life. And he didn’t think about anything except soldiers’ marches and battles between battalions. Bekhteev came up with a special alphabet for the little prince, the letters of which were cast from lead in the form of soldiers. He began to print a small newspaper in which he talked about all, even the most insignificant, actions of Paul.
The birth of Paul was reflected in many odes written by the poets of that time.
In 1760, Elizaveta Petrovna appointed a new teacher for her grandson. He became, by her choice, Count Nikita Ivanovich Panin. He was a forty-two-year-old man who occupied a very prominent place at court. Possessing extensive knowledge, he had previously spent several years on a diplomatic career in Denmark and Sweden, where his worldview was formed. Having very close contacts with the Freemasons, he picked up Enlightenment ideas from them and even became a supporter of a constitutional monarchy. His brother Pyotr Ivanovich was a great local master of the Masonic order in Russia.
The first wariness towards the new teacher soon disappeared, and Pavel quickly became attached to him. Panin opened Russian and Western European literature to young Pavel. The young man was very willing to read, and in the next year he read quite a lot of books. He was well acquainted with Sumarokov, Lomonosov, Derzhavin, Racine, Corneille, Moliere, Werther, Cervantes, Voltaire and Rousseau. He was fluent in Latin, French and German, and loved mathematics.
His mental development proceeded without any deviations. One of Pavel’s younger mentors, Poroshin, kept a diary in which he noted all of little Pavel’s actions day after day. It does not show any deviations in mental development the personality of the future emperor, about whom numerous haters of Pavel Petrovich subsequently loved to talk.
On February 23, 1765, Poroshin wrote: “I read to His Highness Vertotov a story about the Order of the Knights of Malta. He then deigned to amuse himself and, tying the admiral’s flag to his cavalry, imagine himself as a Cavalier of Malta.”
Already in his youth, Paul began to be fascinated by the idea of chivalry, the idea of honor and glory. And in the military doctrine presented to his mother at the age of 20, who by that time was already the Empress of All Russia, he refused to wage an offensive war and explained his idea by the need to observe the principle of reasonable sufficiency, while all the efforts of the Empire should be aimed at creating internal order.
The Tsarevich's confessor and mentor was one of the best Russian preachers and theologians, Archimandrite, and later Metropolitan of Moscow Platon (Levshin). Thanks to his pastoral work and instructions in the law of God, Pavel Petrovich became a deeply religious, true Orthodox man for the rest of his short life. In Gatchina, until the revolution of 1917, they preserved a rug worn by Pavel Petrovich’s knees during his long night prayers.
Thus, we can notice that in his childhood, adolescence and youth, Paul received an excellent education, had a broad outlook, and even then came to knightly ideals and firmly believed in God. All this is reflected in his future policies, in his ideas and actions.
Relations with Catherine II
Immediately after birth, Pavel was removed from his mother. Catherine could see him very rarely and only with the permission of the Empress. When Paul was eight years old, his mother, Catherine, relying on the guard, carried out a coup, during which Paul's father, Emperor Peter III, was killed. Paul was to ascend the throne.
Catherine II removed Paul from interfering in any state affairs; he, in turn, condemned her entire way of life and did not accept the policies that she pursued.
Pavel believed that this policy was based on love of fame and pretense; he dreamed of introducing strictly legal governance in Russia under the auspices of the autocracy, limiting the rights of the nobility, and introducing the strictest, Prussian-style, discipline in the army. In the 1780s he became interested in Freemasonry.
The ever-increasing relationship between Paul and his mother, whom he suspected of complicity in the murder of his father, Peter III, led to the fact that Catherine II gave her son the Gatchina estate in 1783 (that is, she “removed” him from the capital). Here Pavel introduced customs that were sharply different from those in St. Petersburg. But in the absence of any other concerns, he concentrated all his efforts on creating the “Gatchina army”: several battalions placed under his command. Officers in full uniform, wigs, tight uniforms, impeccable order, punishment with spitzrutens for the slightest omissions and a ban on civilian habits.
In 1794, the Empress decided to remove her son from the throne and hand him over to her eldest grandson Alexander Pavlovich, but she met opposition from senior state dignitaries. The death of Catherine II on November 6, 1796 opened the way for Paul to the throne.
Domestic policy
Paul began his reign by changing all the orders of Catherine's rule. During his coronation, Paul announced a series of decrees. In particular, Paul canceled Peter's decree on the appointment by the emperor himself of his successor to the throne and established a clear system of succession to the throne. From that moment on, the throne could only be inherited through the male line; after the death of the emperor, it passed to the eldest son or the next oldest brother if there were no children. A woman could occupy the throne only if the male line was suppressed. With this decree, Paul excluded palace coups, when emperors were overthrown and erected by the force of the guard, the reason for which was the lack of a clear system of succession to the throne (which, however, did not prevent the palace coup on March 12, 1801, during which he himself was killed). Also, in accordance with this decree, a woman could not occupy the Russian throne, which excluded the possibility of temporary workers (who accompanied empresses in the 18th century) or a repetition of a situation similar to the one when Catherine II did not transfer the throne to Paul after he came of age.
Paul restored the system of collegiums, and attempts were made to stabilize the financial situation of the country (including the famous action of melting down palace services into coins).
With the manifesto on three-day corvee, he prohibited landowners from performing corvee on Sundays, holidays, and more than three days a week (the decree was almost not implemented locally).
He significantly narrowed the rights of the noble class compared to those granted by Catherine II, and the rules established in Gatchina were transferred to the entire Russian army. The most severe discipline and unpredictability of the emperor’s behavior led to massive dismissals of nobles from the army, especially the officers of the guard (out of 182 officers who served in the Horse Guards Regiment in 1786, only two had not resigned by 1801). All officers on the staff who did not appear by order at the military board to confirm their service were also dismissed.
Paul I started the military, as well as other reforms, not only out of his own whim. Russian army was not at the peak of her form, discipline in the regiments suffered, titles were handed out undeservedly: in particular, noble children were assigned to one or another regiment from birth. Many, having a rank and receiving a salary, did not serve at all (apparently, such officers were dismissed from the staff). For negligence and laxity, rough treatment of soldiers, the emperor personally tore off the epaulettes from officers and generals and sent them to Siberia. Paul I persecuted the theft of generals and embezzlement in the army. And Suvorov himself prescribed corporal punishment in his The science of winning(Whoever doesn’t take care of a soldier gets his wands, whoever doesn’t take care of himself gets his wands too), he’s also a supporter of the strictest discipline, but not meaningless drill. As a reformer, he decided to follow the example of Peter the Great: he took as a basis the model of the modern European army - the Prussian one. Military reform was not stopped even after the death of Paul.
During the reign of Paul I, the Arakcheevs, Kutaisovs, and Obolyaninovs, who were personally devoted to the emperor, rose to prominence.
Fearing the spread of the ideas of the French Revolution in Russia, Paul I banned young people from traveling abroad to study, the import of books was completely prohibited, even sheet music, and private printing houses were closed. The regulation of life went so far as to set a time when the fires in houses were supposed to be turned off. By special decrees, some words of the Russian language were removed from official use and replaced with others. Thus, among those seized were the words “citizen” and “fatherland” that had a political connotation (replaced with “everyman” and “state”, respectively), but a number of Paul’s linguistic decrees were not so transparent - for example, the word “detachment” was changed to “detachment” or “command”, “execute” to “execute”, and “doctor” to “doctor”.
Foreign policy
Paul's foreign policy was inconsistent. In 1798, Russia entered into an anti-French coalition with Great Britain, Austria, Turkey, and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. At the insistence of the allies, the disgraced A.V. Suvorov was appointed commander-in-chief of the Russian troops. Austrian troops were also transferred to his jurisdiction. Under the leadership of Suvorov, Northern Italy was liberated from French domination. In September 1799, the Russian army made Suvorov's famous crossing of the Alps. However, already in October of the same year, Russia broke the alliance with Austria due to the Austrians’ failure to fulfill allied obligations, and Russian troops were recalled from Europe.
Order of Malta
After Malta surrendered to the French without a fight in the summer of 1798, the Order of Malta was left without a grand master and without a seat. For help, the knights of the order turned to the Russian Emperor and Defender of the Order since 1797, Paul I.
On December 16, 1798, Paul I was elected Grand Master of the Order of Malta, and therefore the words “... and Grand Master of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem." The Order of St. John of Jerusalem was established in Russia. The Russian Order of St. John of Jerusalem and the Order of Malta were partially integrated. The image of the Maltese cross appeared on the Russian coat of arms.
Shortly before his murder, Paul sent the Don army - 22,507 people - on a campaign against India. The campaign was canceled immediately after the death of Paul by decree of Emperor Alexander I.
Conspiracy and death
Paul I was brutally beaten and strangled by officers in his own bedroom on the night of March 11, 1801 in the Mikhailovsky Castle. Participating in the conspiracy were Agramakov, N.P. Panin, vice-chancellor, L.L. Benningsen, commander of the Izyum Light Horse Regiment, P. A. Zubov (Catherine’s favorite), Palen, Governor-General of St. Petersburg, commanders of the Guards regiments: Semenovsky - N.I. Depreradovich, Kavalergardsky - F.P. Uvarov, Preobrazhensky - P.A. Talyzin, and according to some sources - wing- the emperor's adjutant, Count Pyotr Vasilyevich Golenishchev-Kutuzov, immediately after the coup was appointed commander of the Cavalry Regiment.
Initially, the overthrow of Paul and the accession of an English regent were planned. Perhaps the denunciation to the tsar was written by V.P. Meshchersky, the former chief of the St. Petersburg regiment stationed in Smolensk, perhaps by Prosecutor General P.Kh. Obolyaninov. In any case, the conspiracy was discovered, Lindener and Arakcheev were summoned, but this only accelerated the execution of the conspiracy. According to one version, Pavel was killed by Nikolai Zubov (Suvorov’s son-in-law, Platon Zubov’s older brother), who hit him with a golden snuffbox (a joke later circulated at court: “The Emperor died of an apoplectic blow to the temple with a snuffbox”). According to another version, Paul was strangled with a scarf or crushed by a group of conspirators who, leaning on the emperor and each other, did not know exactly what was happening. Mistaking one of the killers for his son Constantine, Pavel shouted: “Your Highness, are you here too? Have mercy! Air, Air!.. What have I done wrong to you?” These were his last words.
The funeral service and burial took place on March 23, Holy Saturday; committed by all members of the Holy Synod, headed by Metropolitan of St. Petersburg Ambrose (Podobedov).
Versions of the birth of Paul I
Due to the fact that Paul was born almost ten years after the wedding of Peter and Catherine, when many were already convinced of the futility of this marriage (and also under the influence of the free personal life of the empress in the future), there were persistent rumors that the real father Paul I was not Peter III, but the first favorite of Grand Duchess Ekaterina Alekseevna, Count Sergei Vasilyevich Saltykov.
Historical anecdote
The Romanovs themselves related to this legend
(about the fact that Paul I was not the son of Peter III)
with great humor. There is a memoir about
how Alexander III upon learning about her,
crossed himself: “Thank God, we are Russian!”
And having heard a refutation from historians, again
crossed himself: “Thank God we are legit!”
The memoirs of Catherine II contain an indirect indication of this. In the same memoirs one can find a hidden indication of how the desperate Empress Elizaveta Petrovna, so that the dynasty would not fade away, ordered the wife of her heir to give birth to a child, no matter who his genetic father would be. In this regard, after this instruction, the courtiers assigned to Catherine began to encourage her adultery. However, Catherine is quite crafty in her memoirs - there she explains that the long-term marriage did not produce offspring, since Peter had some obstacle, which, after the ultimatum given to her by Elizabeth, was eliminated by her friends, who performed a violent surgical operation on Peter, in due to which he was still able to conceive a child. The paternity of Catherine’s other children born during her husband’s lifetime is also doubtful: Grand Duchess Anna Petrovna (born 1757) was most likely the daughter of Poniatovsky, and Alexei Bobrinsky (born 1762) was the son of G. Orlov and was born in secret. More folklore and in line with traditional ideas about the “switched baby” is the story that Ekaterina Alekseevna allegedly gave birth to a stillborn child (or girl) and he was replaced by a certain “Chukhon” baby. They even pointed out who this girl grew up to be, “Catherine’s real daughter” - Countess Alexandra Branitskaya.
Family
Paul I was married twice:
- 1st wife: (from October 10, 1773, St. Petersburg) Natalya Alekseevna(1755-1776), born. Princess Augusta Wilhelmina Louise of Hesse-Darmstadt, daughter of Ludwig IX, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt. Died during childbirth with a baby.
- 2nd wife: (from October 7, 1776, St. Petersburg) Maria Fedorovna(1759-1828), born. Princess Sophia Dorothea of Württemberg, daughter of Frederick II Eugene, Duke of Württemberg. Had 10 children:
- Alexander I(1777-1825), Russian Emperor
- Konstantin Pavlovich(1779-1831), Grand Duke.
- Alexandra Pavlovna (1783-1801)
- Elena Pavlovna (1784-1803)
- Maria Pavlovna (1786-1859)
- Ekaterina Pavlovna (1788-1819)
- Olga Pavlovna (1792-1795)
- Anna Pavlovna (1795-1865)
- Nicholas I(1796-1855), Russian Emperor
- Mikhail Pavlovich(1798-1849), Grand Duke.
Illegitimate children:
- Great, Semyon Afanasyevich
- Inzov, Ivan Nikitich (according to one version)
- Marfa Pavlovna Musina-Yuryeva
Military ranks and titles
Colonel of the Life Cuirassier Regiment (July 4, 1762) (Russian Imperial Guard) Admiral General (December 20, 1762) (Imperial Russian Navy)
Paul I in art
Literature
- A masterpiece of Russian literature is the story by Yu. N. Tynyanov "Second Lieutenant Kizhe", based on an anecdote, but vividly conveying the atmosphere of the reign of Emperor Paul I.
- Alexandre Dumas - "Fencing Teacher". / Per. from fr. edited by O. V. Moiseenko. - True, 1984
- Dmitry Sergeevich Merezhkovsky - “Paul I” (“drama for reading”, the first part of the trilogy “The Kingdom of the Beast”), which tells about the conspiracy and murder of the emperor, where Paul himself appears as a despot and tyrant, and his killers as guardians for the good of Russia.
Cinema
- "Lieutenant Kizhe"(1934) - Mikhail Yanshin.
- "Suvorov"(1940) - film by Vsevolod Pudovkin with Apollo Yachnitsky as Pavel.
- "Ships storm the bastions"(1953) - Pavel Pavlenko
- "Bagration"(1985), played by Arnis Licitis
- "Assa"(1987) - a film by Sergei Solovyov with Dmitry Dolinin in the role of Pavel.
- "Emperor's Steps"(1990) - Alexander Filippenko.
- "Countess Sheremeteva"(1994), starring Yuri Verkun.
- "Poor, poor Paul"(2003) - film by Vitaly Melnikov with Viktor Sukhorukov in the title role.
- "Golden age"(2003) - Alexander Bashirov
- "Adjutants of Love"(2005), in the role - Avangard Leontyev.
- "Favorite"(2005), starring Vadim Skvirsky.
- "Maltese cross"(2007), played by Nikolai Leshchukov.
Monuments to Paul I
On the territory of the Russian Empire, at least six monuments were erected to Emperor Paul I:
- Vyborg. In the early 1800s, in Mon Repos Park, its then owner Baron Ludwig Nicolai, in gratitude to Paul I, erected a tall granite column with an explanatory inscription in Latin. The monument has been safely preserved.
- Gatchina. On the parade ground in front of the Great Gatchina Palace there is a monument to Paul I by I. Vitali, which is a bronze statue of the Emperor on a granite pedestal. Opened on August 1, 1851. The monument has been safely preserved.
- Gruzino, Novgorod region. On the territory of his estate, A. A. Arakcheev installed a cast-iron bust of Paul I on a cast-iron pedestal. The monument has not survived to this day.
- Mitava. In 1797, near the road to his Sorgenfrey estate, the landowner von Driesen erected a low stone obelisk in memory of Paul I, with an inscription on German. The fate of the monument after 1915 is unknown.
- Pavlovsk. On the parade ground in front of the Pavlovsk Palace there is a monument to Paul I by I. Vitali, which is a cast-iron statue of the Emperor on a brick pedestal covered with zinc sheets. Opened on June 29, 1872. The monument has been safely preserved.
- Spaso-Vifanovsky Monastery. In memory of the visit of Emperor Paul I and his wife Empress Maria Feodorovna to the monastery in 1797, an obelisk made of white marble, decorated with a marble plaque with an explanatory inscription, was built on its territory. The obelisk was installed in an open gazebo, supported by six columns, near the chambers of Metropolitan Plato. During the years of Soviet power, both the monument and the monastery were destroyed.
- Saint Petersburg. In 2003, a monument to Paul I was erected in the courtyard of the Mikhailovsky Castle by sculptor V. E. Gorevoy, architect V. P. Nalivaiko. Opened on May 27, 2003.
During her lifetime, Catherine actually removed Paul from power; their relationship was very cool. In 1794, she tried to deprive him of the right to inherit the throne and transfer power to her grandson. However, the empress was unable to carry out this intention.
Having become emperor, Paul changed the order that existed at Catherine's court. His policies in all areas were extremely inconsistent. He restored the abolished boards, changed the administrative division of Russia, reducing the number of provinces, and returned to the previous forms of government of the provinces of Russia. Paul deprived the nobility of their privileges, limited the effect of letters of grant, and constrained local self-government. In 1797, he established a standard for peasant labor (three days of corvée per week), this was the first limitation of landowner power. However, during the four years of his reign, he distributed more than 600 thousand peasants belonging to the state to the landowners.
In his activities, Paul I allowed extremes and pursued inappropriate policies. He banned the words “club”, “council”, “fatherland”, “citizen”. Banned the waltz and certain items of clothing. He amnestied prisoners for political reasons arrested under Catherine the 2nd, but at the same time continued the fight against revolutionary manifestations in society. In 1797-1799 he established the most severe censorship, banning 639 publications. On July 5, 1800, many printing houses were sealed for censorship inspection. Paul interfered in religious affairs, trying to introduce elements of Catholicism into Orthodoxy.
The emperor repealed the law prohibiting the purchase of peasants to work in enterprises. Without any justification, he restored the collegial system, abolished by Catherine the 2nd.
Among the innovations introduced by the emperor, the creation of the Medical-Surgical Academy, the Russian-American Company, and a school for military orphans stands out positively.
The Emperor attached great importance to regulations in military relations. The drill in the army acquired unprecedented proportions, which caused discontent in the guard and among senior officers.
In 1798, an anti-French coalition was created, which included England, Austria, Turkey and Russia. The Black Sea squadron under the command of F.F. was sent to the Mediterranean Sea. Ushakova. The Russian fleet liberated the Ionian Islands and Southern Italy from French occupation. In February 1799, a major battle took place for the island of Corfu, where a three-thousand-strong French garrison was defeated. Russian troops entered Naples and Rome.
In 1799, Russia began the land phase of the war. At the insistence of the Allies, command of the troops was entrusted. In a month and a half of fighting, Russian troops managed to oust the French from Northern Italy. Fearing the growth of Russian influence in Italy, Austria achieved the transfer of Suvorov’s troops to Switzerland. On August 31, 1799, to provide assistance to the troops of General A.M. Rimsky-Korsakov Suvorov made a heroic transition from Northern Italy through the Alps to Switzerland. Russian troops defeated the enemy in the battles of St. Gotthard and Devil's Bridge. But help was late, and Rimsky-Korsakov’s troops were defeated.
In 1800, Paul I changed the course of foreign policy. He ceases hostilities, recalls troops to Russia and breaks the alliance with England and Austria. Having made peace with France, Paul the 1st entered into an alliance with Prussia against Austria, as well as with Prussia, Switzerland and Denmark against England. The worsening relations with England caused discontent among the nobility, since England was Russia’s main partner in trade and the purchase of grain.
On the night of March 11-12, 1801, he interrupted plans for war against England. Paul 1 was killed as a result of this coup, organized by senior guards officers who did not forgive him for the oppression and the will taken away from them.
Loading...
