Russian Imperial crisis after death of Tsar Alexander I
Death mask of Alexander I. Alexander's death launched a sequence of events that culminated in the Decembrist revolt and the accession of Nicholas I.
The Russian interregnum of 1825 began December 1 [O.S. November 19] with the death of Alexander I in Taganrog and lasted until the accession of Nicholas I and the suppression of the Decembrist revolt on December 26 [O.S. December 14]. In 1823 Alexander secretly removed his brother Constantine from the order of succession, after Constantine informed Alexander he had no intention of ruling the Empire, and appointed Nicholas heir presumptive. This unprecedented secrecy backfired with a dynastic crisis that placed the whole House of Romanov at peril. Only three men, apart from Alexander himself, were fully aware of his decision,[1] and none of them was present in the Winter Palace when the news of Alexander's death reached Saint Petersburg on December 9 [O.S. November 27] 1825.
Military governor Mikhail Miloradovich persuaded hesitant Nicholas to pledge allegiance to Constantine, who then lived in Warsaw as the viceroy of Poland. The State Council, faced with a legal Gordian Knot, concurred with Miloradovich; the civil government and the troops stationed in Saint Petersburg recognized Constantine as their sovereign – a sovereign who did not intend to reign. As The Times of London observed, the Russian Empire had "two self-denying Emperors and no active ruler".[2] Correspondence between Saint Petersburg and Warsaw, carried by mounted messengers, took two weeks. Constantine repeated his renunciation of the crown and blessed Nicholas as his sovereign but refused to come to Saint Petersburg, leaving the dangerous task of resolving the crisis to Nicholas alone.
Evidence of the brewing Decembrist revolt compelled Nicholas to act. In the first hour of December 26 [O.S. December 14] he proclaimed himself Emperor of All the Russias. By noon the civil government and most of the troops of Saint Petersburg pledged allegiance to Nicholas but the Decembrists incited three thousand soldiers in support of Constantine and took a stand on Senate Square. Nicholas crushed the revolt at a cost of 1,271 lives[3] and became an undisputed sovereign. He ruled the empire in an authoritarian reactionary manner for 29 years.
The first historic study of the interregnum, Modest von Korff's Accession of Nicholas I, was commissioned by Nicholas himself. Memoirists, historians and fiction authors sought alternative explanations of the apparently irrational behaviour of the Romanovs. Conspiracy theorists named Alexander, Nicholas, Miloradovich and Dowager Empress Maria, alone or in various alliances, as the driving forces behind the events of November–December 1825.
^Cite error: The named reference S388 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^Chapman, pp. 46-47.
^Nechkina, p. 117, analyzed different numbers from different sources. Nicholas released an estimate of 80 dead. The most credible report, according to Nechkina, was authored by S. N. Korsakov of Saint Petersburg police and counted 1,271 dead of whom 903 were civilians of low classes (Russian: чернь, "the mob").
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