Emperor Alexander I was the grandson of Catherine the Great from her only son Pavel Petrovich and the German Princess Sophia of Württemberg, in Orthodoxy, Maria Fedorovna. He was born in St. Petersburg on December 25, 1777. Named in honor of Alexander Nevsky, the newborn prince was immediately taken away from his parents and brought up under the control of the royal grandmother, which greatly influenced the political views of the future autocrat.
Childhood and youth
All childhood of Alexander passed under the control of the reigning grandmother, he almost did not communicate with his parents, however, despite this, he, like Father Paul, loved and was well versed in military affairs. The tsesarevich served in Gatchina, at the age of 19 he was promoted to colonel.
Tsesarevich possessed insight, quickly grasped new knowledge and studied with pleasure. It was in him, and not in her son Pavel, that Catherine the Great saw the future Russian emperor, however, she could not sit him on the throne, bypassing her father.
At the age of 20, he became the Governor General of St. Petersburg and the chief of the Semenovsky Guards regiment. A year later, he begins to sit in the Senate.
Alexander was critical of the policies pursued by his father, Emperor Paul, so he became involved in a conspiracy whose goal was the removal of the emperor from the throne and the accession of Alexander. However, the condition of the crown prince was to preserve the life of his father, so the violent death of the latter brought the crown prince a sense of guilt for life.
Married life
The personal life of Alexander I was very eventful. The Czarevich’s marriage began early - at the age of 16 he was married to the fourteen-year-old Baden princess Louise Maria Augusta, who changed her name in Orthodoxy and became Elizaveta Alekseevna. The newlyweds were very close to each other, for which among the courtiers they received the nickname Cupid and Psyche. In the early years of marriage, the relationship between the spouses was very tender and touching, the Grand Duchess was very much loved and respected by the court, except for the mother-in-law of Maria Fedorovna. However, warm relations in the family soon changed to cool ones - the newlyweds had too different characters, in addition, Alexander Pavlovich often cheated on his wife.
The wife of Alexander I was modest, did not like luxury, was engaged in charity, balls and social events, she preferred walking and reading books.
Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna
For almost six years, the marriage of the Grand Duke did not bear fruit, and only in 1799 did children of Alexander I appear. The Grand Duchess gave birth to a daughter, Maria Alexandrovna. The birth of the baby led to an intra-family scandal in the imperial family. Alexander’s mother hinted that the child was not born from the prince, but from Prince Czartoryski, in a novel with which she suspected her daughter-in-law. In addition, the girl was born a brunette, and both parents were blond. Emperor Paul also hinted at the betrayal of his daughter-in-law. Tsarevich Alexander himself recognized his daughter and never spoke out about the possible betrayal of his wife. The happiness of fatherhood was short-lived; Grand Duchess Maria lived a little over a year and died in 1800. The death of her daughter briefly reconciled and brought the spouses together.
Grand Duchess Elizabeth Alexandrovna
Numerous novels moved away more and more from the crowned spouses, Alexander, without hiding, cohabited with Maria Naryshkina, and the Empress Elizabeth began an affair with Alexei Okhotnikov in 1803. In 1806, the wife of Alexander I gave birth to a daughter, Grand Duchess Elizabeth, despite the fact that the couple had not lived together for several years, the emperor recognized his daughter, which made the girl first in line for the Russian throne. The children of Alexander I did not please him for long. The second daughter died at the age of 18 months. After the death of Princess Elizabeth, the relationship of the couple became even cooler.
Love affair with Maria Naryshkina
Matrimonial life with Elizaveta Alekseevna in many respects did not work out due to the fifteen-year relationship of Alexander with the daughter of the Polish aristocrat M. Naryshkina, until the Chetvertinsky marriage. Alexander did not hide this connection, his family and all the courtiers knew about it, moreover, Maria Naryshkina herself, at every opportunity, tried to prick the emperor’s wife, hinting at an affair with Alexander. Over the years of a love affair, Alexander was credited with paternity of five of the six children of Naryshkina:
- Elizaveta Dmitrievna, born in 1803,
- Elizaveta Dmitrievna, born in 1804,
- Sofya Dmitrievna, born in 1808,
- Zinaida Dmitrievna, born in 1810,
- Emanuel Dmitrievich, born in 1813.
In 1813, the emperor broke up with Naryshkina, as he suspected her of having another man. The emperor suspected that Emanuel Naryshkin was not his son. After the separation between the former lovers, friendships remained. Of all the children of Maria and Alexander I, Sofia Naryshkina lived the longest. She died at age 16, on the eve of her wedding.
Illegitimate children of Alexander I
In addition to children from Maria Naryshkina, Emperor Alexander also had illegitimate children from other favorites.
- Nikolai Lukash, born in 1796 from Sofia Meshcherskaya;
- Maria, born in 1819 from Maria Turkestanova;
- Maria Alexandrovna Paris (1814), mother Margarita Josephine Weimer;
- Alexandrova Wilhelmina Alexandrina Paulina, born in 1816, mother unknown;
- Gustav Ehrenberg (1818), mother Elena Rautenshtrauh;
- Nikolay Isakov (1821), mother - Maria Karacharova.
The paternity of the last four children among researchers of the biography of the emperor remains controversial. Some historians generally doubt whether Alexander I had children.
Domestic Policy 1801-1815
Having ascended the throne in March 1801, Alexander I Pavlovich proclaimed that he would continue the policy of his grandmother Catherine the Great. In addition to the title of Russian emperor, Alexander was titled the Tsar of Poland from 1815, the Grand Duke of Finland from 1801 and the Protector of the Order of Malta from 1801.
Alexander I (from 1801 to 1825) began his reign with the development of radical reforms. The emperor abolished the Secret Expedition, banned the use of torture against prisoners, allowed to import books from abroad and open private printing houses in the country.
Alexander took the first step towards the abolition of serfdom by issuing a decree “On free cultivators”, and imposed a ban on the sale of peasants without land, but these measures did not make any significant changes.
Education Reforms
More fruitful were the reforms of Alexander in the education system. A clear gradation of educational institutions was introduced according to the level of educational programs, so county and parish schools, provincial gymnasiums and schools, universities appeared. Throughout 1804-1810 Kazan and Kharkov universities were opened, a pedagogical institute, the privileged Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum, was opened in St. Petersburg, and the Academy of Sciences was restored in the capital.
From the first days of the reign, the emperor surrounded himself with young educated people with progressive views. The lawyer Speransky became one of these; it was under his leadership that the Peter's Colleges in the Ministry were reformed. Speransky also began developing a project to reorganize the empire, which provided for the separation of powers and the creation of an elected representative body. Thus, the monarchy would be transformed into a constitutional one, however, the reform met with opposition from the political and aristocratic elites, therefore, it was not carried out.
Reforms of 1815-1825
Under the reign of Alexander I, the history of Russia has changed dramatically. The emperor was active in domestic politics at the beginning of his reign, but after 1815 they began to decline. In addition, each of his reforms met with fierce resistance from the Russian nobility. Since that time, no significant changes have occurred in the Russian Empire. In 1821-1822, the secret police were established in the army, secret organizations and Masonic lodges were banned.
Exceptions were the western provinces of the empire. In 1815, Alexander 1 granted the Polish kingdom a constitution, according to which Poland became a hereditary monarchy within Russia. In Poland, the bicameral Diet was preserved, which, together with the king, was the legislative body. The constitution was liberal in nature and in many ways resembled the French Charter and the Constitution of England. Also in Finland, the implementation of the constitutional law of 1772 was guaranteed, and the peasants of the Baltic states were freed from serfdom.
Military reform
After the victory over Napoleon, Alexander saw that the country needed a military reform, therefore, since 1815, Minister of War Arakcheev was tasked with developing her project. It implied the creation of military settlements as a new military-agricultural estate that would complement the army on an ongoing basis. The first such settlements were introduced in the Kherson and Novgorod provinces.
Foreign policy
The reign of Alexander I left its mark in foreign policy. In the first year of his reign, he concluded peace treaties with England and France, and in 1805-1807 became part of the French emperor Napoleon. The defeat at Austerlitz exacerbated the situation of Russia, which led to the signing of the Tilsit Peace with Napoleon in June 1807, which implied the creation of a defensive alliance of France and Russia.
More successful was the Russian-Turkish confrontation of 1806-1812, which ended with the signing of the Brest Peace, by which Bessarabia went to Russia.
The war with Sweden in 1808-1809 ended with the victory of Russia; under a peace treaty, the empire received Finland and the Aland Islands.
Also during the reign of Alexander during the Russo-Persian war, Azerbaijan, Imereti, Guria, Mengreli and Abkhazia were annexed to the empire. The empire gained the right to have its own Caspian fleet. Earlier, in 1801, Georgia became part of Russia, and in 1815 - the Duchy of Warsaw.
However, the greatest victory of Alexander is the victory in the Patriotic War of 1812, so it was he who led the anti-French coalition of 1813-1814. In March 1814, the Russian emperor entered Paris at the head of the coalition armies, he also became one of the leaders of the Vienna Congress to establish a new order in Europe. The popularity of the Russian emperor was enormous, in 1819 he became the godmother of the future Queen of England Victoria.
Death of the emperor
According to the official version, Emperor Alexander I Romanov died on November 19, 1825 in Taganrog from complications of inflammation of the brain. Such an early death of the emperor caused a lot of rumors and legends.
In 1825, the health of the emperor’s wife sharply worsened, doctors advised the southern climate, it was decided to go to Taganrog, the emperor decided to accompany his wife, whose relations have become very warm in recent years.
Being in the south, the emperor visited Novocherkassk and Crimea, on the way he caught a cold and died. Alexander was in good health and never hurt, so the death of the 48-year-old emperor became suspicious for many, and many considered his unexpected desire to accompany the empress on a trip suspicious too. In addition, the body of the king before the burial was not shown to the people, goodbye occurred with a closed coffin. Even more rumors arose and the quick death of the emperor’s wife - Elizabeth died six months later.
Emperor is an old man
In 1830-1840 they began to identify the deceased king with a certain old man, Fedor Kuzmich, who resembled the emperor in his features, and also possessed excellent manners that were not characteristic of a simple vagabond. Among the population there were rumors that the emperor’s double was buried, and the tsar himself lived under the name of the elder until 1864, while the empress Elizaveta Alekseevna herself was also identified with the hermit Vera Silent.
The question of whether Elder Fyodor Kuzmich and Alexander are one person is still not clear, only a genetic examination can put all the dots on the “i”.