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Nicholas I: Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias
The Indiana U. Press edition (1978) is cited in BCL3 . A scholarly biography that provides a view of Russian autocracy. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.
424 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1978
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
September 17, 2025
Apogee of Autocracy
Tsar Nicholas I of all the Russias was divisive in his lifetime as he has been in his death. Despised or worshipped, most nineteenth century Russians could not remain indifferent to him, he had a profound influence on everyone’s lives. W. Bruce Lincoln is up there with the greatest Russian historians and here has offered a much needed revisit to the emperor. First published in 1978, this book has remained the authority on a much neglected Tsar. As Lincoln explains much opinion on Nicholas is unflattering, historians have drawn their views of him from memoirs of intelligentsia figures such as Alexander Herzen or PV Annenkov and has led to biased, bitter accounts. Lincoln as such attempts to reset the balance and bring Nicholas back to where he belongs, more central. But as Lincoln explains, this is not an apology for Nicholas, just a fair assessment.
Nicholas I was the last tsar to hold absolute power in Russia and he has often been associated reactionary absolute oppression. During which political and cultural thought was completely choked to death. So much so that his Third Section was watching and informing on everyone, even his second son, without his knowledge. As Lincoln explains, Nicholas’ police state was set up like that centralised world of Louis XIV’s France, the only difference was that nineteenth century Russia was not last seventeenth century France. The world of Peter the Great was not of Nicholas I. Times had changed and society had become too complex to be managed in this way by one man. Nicholas was a strong ruler, who put duty before everything else, even family. When he knew he was dying, he took it with dignity and continued to do his duty to the end. However within a year his system collapsed.
Russia in the time of Nicholas I was a good time for many Russians. Russia was stable and predictable, she was at the pinnacle of her powers and the old order had few self doubts which would tear itself apart in the latter half of the nineteenth century. However, at the same time Russia was getting by left behind, apart from the huge censorship, which wasted a lot of time and energy and kept Russia back, she was not industrialising or modernising. With almost no railways, no industry apart from a meek cotton one and a military that used tactics and weaponry which belonging to the last century, Russia couldn’t keep up. Then there was the problem with serfdom where around 60 million subjects were bound to the land and the nobility. Nicholas recognised this system had to go, but didn’t know how to address it and hoped it would gradually be phased out. He faced the backlash from the nobility who relied on it and had murdered his father when they were unhappy with him and also the peasantry, who emancipated may have rioted, wanting more.
Nicholas ruled Russia for a long time and in the end it broke him. He essentially died from stress and exhaustion. Russia lost no battles until the defeats of the Crimean War, when he found Russia completely isolated from Europe. Lincoln does a good job in telling the story and showing that he was a loving family man, a man who he genuinely loved his wife, rare for a match made monarch. He was kind to his subjects when he met them, famously during his daily walks around St Petersburg, stopping and talking to all classes, giving them money and sometimes helping even more than that. Most others who met him admired him to some extent. But his system was flawed and out of date and this caused his son Alexander II to introduce the great reforms that he did. But in the end this was not enough and in trying to hold onto the role of an autocrat, all became dissatisfied. It was either too much or too little. When revolution came in 1917 it was the violent bloodbath that Nicholas had tried so hard to shield is people from. The ultimate expression of the tensions which had built up following his death.
This is truly a magnificent study of Nicholas I. From his birth under Catherine II, to the Napoleonic Wars, his strange accession and the Decemberist Revolt, to being the gendarme of Europe, the 1848 revolutions and finally the Crimean War. It is important to note, Nicholas said multiple times in his reign he had no desire for Ottoman territory and had no desire to see it destroyed, in fact a week Ottoman Empire suited him as it allowed his ships to flow through the Dardanelles, where the majority of Russian trade travelled. To find himself at war with most of Europe in 1852 was a misunderstanding of Nicholas as much as everything else. He was just from a bygone age. A much need addition to anyone’s book collection if you are interested in Russian or nineteenth century history!
Tsar Nicholas I of all the Russias was divisive in his lifetime as he has been in his death. Despised or worshipped, most nineteenth century Russians could not remain indifferent to him, he had a profound influence on everyone’s lives. W. Bruce Lincoln is up there with the greatest Russian historians and here has offered a much needed revisit to the emperor. First published in 1978, this book has remained the authority on a much neglected Tsar. As Lincoln explains much opinion on Nicholas is unflattering, historians have drawn their views of him from memoirs of intelligentsia figures such as Alexander Herzen or PV Annenkov and has led to biased, bitter accounts. Lincoln as such attempts to reset the balance and bring Nicholas back to where he belongs, more central. But as Lincoln explains, this is not an apology for Nicholas, just a fair assessment.
Nicholas I was the last tsar to hold absolute power in Russia and he has often been associated reactionary absolute oppression. During which political and cultural thought was completely choked to death. So much so that his Third Section was watching and informing on everyone, even his second son, without his knowledge. As Lincoln explains, Nicholas’ police state was set up like that centralised world of Louis XIV’s France, the only difference was that nineteenth century Russia was not last seventeenth century France. The world of Peter the Great was not of Nicholas I. Times had changed and society had become too complex to be managed in this way by one man. Nicholas was a strong ruler, who put duty before everything else, even family. When he knew he was dying, he took it with dignity and continued to do his duty to the end. However within a year his system collapsed.
Russia in the time of Nicholas I was a good time for many Russians. Russia was stable and predictable, she was at the pinnacle of her powers and the old order had few self doubts which would tear itself apart in the latter half of the nineteenth century. However, at the same time Russia was getting by left behind, apart from the huge censorship, which wasted a lot of time and energy and kept Russia back, she was not industrialising or modernising. With almost no railways, no industry apart from a meek cotton one and a military that used tactics and weaponry which belonging to the last century, Russia couldn’t keep up. Then there was the problem with serfdom where around 60 million subjects were bound to the land and the nobility. Nicholas recognised this system had to go, but didn’t know how to address it and hoped it would gradually be phased out. He faced the backlash from the nobility who relied on it and had murdered his father when they were unhappy with him and also the peasantry, who emancipated may have rioted, wanting more.
Nicholas ruled Russia for a long time and in the end it broke him. He essentially died from stress and exhaustion. Russia lost no battles until the defeats of the Crimean War, when he found Russia completely isolated from Europe. Lincoln does a good job in telling the story and showing that he was a loving family man, a man who he genuinely loved his wife, rare for a match made monarch. He was kind to his subjects when he met them, famously during his daily walks around St Petersburg, stopping and talking to all classes, giving them money and sometimes helping even more than that. Most others who met him admired him to some extent. But his system was flawed and out of date and this caused his son Alexander II to introduce the great reforms that he did. But in the end this was not enough and in trying to hold onto the role of an autocrat, all became dissatisfied. It was either too much or too little. When revolution came in 1917 it was the violent bloodbath that Nicholas had tried so hard to shield is people from. The ultimate expression of the tensions which had built up following his death.
This is truly a magnificent study of Nicholas I. From his birth under Catherine II, to the Napoleonic Wars, his strange accession and the Decemberist Revolt, to being the gendarme of Europe, the 1848 revolutions and finally the Crimean War. It is important to note, Nicholas said multiple times in his reign he had no desire for Ottoman territory and had no desire to see it destroyed, in fact a week Ottoman Empire suited him as it allowed his ships to flow through the Dardanelles, where the majority of Russian trade travelled. To find himself at war with most of Europe in 1852 was a misunderstanding of Nicholas as much as everything else. He was just from a bygone age. A much need addition to anyone’s book collection if you are interested in Russian or nineteenth century history!
September 24, 2013
The Emperor Nicholas I is often portrayed as a martinet. That he certainly was, but Bruce Lincoln also tacitly makes the case that he was a tragic figure, that his successes led to his failures (most of them only apparent after his death), that he was imprisoned himself with an overpowering sense of duty. He believed firmly—I am tempted to say devoutly—in both Russia and the institution of its monarchy to the point that he convinced himself that they were equivalent. His faith in autocracy as the ultimate guardian of order, essential to government and society, may be understandable, if not pardoned: his grandfather and father perished in court intrigue, and his own murky succession was achieved by the repression of a revolt. He may have in fact been prescient—his son was assassinated and his grandson and namesake was the Tsar who lost everything—Empire, family, and life. In fact, much later grim history is foreshadowed by Nicholas’ international policy. He crushed Poland, allied himself with the monarchies he considered reliable, Prussia and Austria, and supported the feeble Ottomans before he turned on them. One can already see the beginnings of the complex web of alliances and enmities that caused World War I in Nicholas’ world. And like that war, Nicholas' Crimean War resulted from the same kind of missteps and miscalculations amid shifting alliances. It also exposed the hollowness of the mighty Russian Army, an untrained mass without real guns or an industry to manufacture them. Nicholas’ domestic policy was similarly a case of good if misguided intentions. He was initially curious about his vast realm, but his fear led him to rely on a tiny group of advisors, to encourage the censors and the domestic spies. The conspiracy that earned Dostoevsky a cruel mock execution appears to have been a debating society that was falling apart of its own volition. But what evidently started in curiosity turned into fear by the end of his reign; he created the infamous security apparatus known as the Third Section, and his censors were unhinged: they banned Plato and Tacitus, and mentions of a republic in classical works. Their hands squeezed Russian culture so tight that, Lincoln finds, culture virtually ceased. In his reliance on the security apparatus, his capricious application of punishment, and his faith in his own system, he provides an eerily accurate forecast of the Soviets.
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April 25, 2021Should pair well with the Tynyanov I’m reading, and the Custine I’m neglecting.
March 8, 2014
After reading a biography of Alexander I, I had high hopes for Nicholas I. Alexander I had always seemed like such an enigmatic, fascinating person to me... until I read the Henri Troyat biography. I came away from that book with the feeling that Alexander was charismatic but a real narcissist with a God complex. Well... Nicholas I did not exactly light the world on fire, either. He was anti-change, anti-intellectual, anti-Western Europe, and encouraged bureaucracy and stifled creativity and original thought. He was so desperate to maintain the Romanov dynasty and was so sure in his convictions... there was a definite sincerity about him, but he set Russia back at least 100 years!
The author states in the first few pages that he wants to shed new light on Nicholas I's reign and present a comprehensive account in a historical context. He certainly does, but there is very little to like about Nicholas I.
What a shame that neither Alexander I nor Nicholas I inherited the brilliance of their grandmother, Catherine the Great.
The author states in the first few pages that he wants to shed new light on Nicholas I's reign and present a comprehensive account in a historical context. He certainly does, but there is very little to like about Nicholas I.
What a shame that neither Alexander I nor Nicholas I inherited the brilliance of their grandmother, Catherine the Great.
December 31, 2010
Lincoln really knows his stuff. He does a great job of engaging other scholars on the issue of Nicholas I, and showing that Russia's isolation, and history of absolute rule lead to the policies under Nicholas I that many consider backwards. Not so much the man himself, although Lincoln does not totally absolve him of blame.
May 3, 2018
Great book. Incredibly in-depth. Almost all original Russian sources. Shows how an autocratic regime ensures backwardness and decline. Ends here in the Crimean War (Who goes to war with inferior weaponry?) with far worse ahead...
December 14, 2024
I’ve been wanting to read more about the various monarchs of European countries that are on the edges of the period that most interests me (1870-1918) and for some there is a lot of material and others very little. Lincoln fills a gap for Nicholas I of Russia. This is the great grandfather of Nicholas II and the last Russian tsar that ruled with nearly no strife in his 29 year reign.
Nicholas was the last of three brothers who were meant to rule Russia. His eldest brother ruled as Alexander I (after a group of nobles killed his father Paul I). This was likely the plan of his grandmother Catherine the Great who always saw more potential in her grandsons than in her son.
Upon Alexander’s death, the throne should have fallen to his next oldest brother (he had no sons) Constantine. Constantine was a reprobate who led a life of dissipation in Warsaw with his morganatic wife. He had no interest in the throne and refused it outright.
However, as always in superstitious, ignorant Russia, there were those who thought a conspiracy was underfoot and as Nicholas took the throne a group of intellectual nobles used the common Russian ignorance and paranoia to try a revolution in December 1825. Hence they are known as the Decembrists and 22 were executed before Nicholas was firmly on his throne.
Nicholas was the last of three brothers who were meant to rule Russia. His eldest brother ruled as Alexander I (after a group of nobles killed his father Paul I). This was likely the plan of his grandmother Catherine the Great who always saw more potential in her grandsons than in her son.
Upon Alexander’s death, the throne should have fallen to his next oldest brother (he had no sons) Constantine. Constantine was a reprobate who led a life of dissipation in Warsaw with his morganatic wife. He had no interest in the throne and refused it outright.
However, as always in superstitious, ignorant Russia, there were those who thought a conspiracy was underfoot and as Nicholas took the throne a group of intellectual nobles used the common Russian ignorance and paranoia to try a revolution in December 1825. Hence they are known as the Decembrists and 22 were executed before Nicholas was firmly on his throne.
January 31, 2025
A nice survey of this impressive statesman, which covers his campaigns in Persia, and in the Balkan and Caucasus theatres of the Crimean War that people like Orlando Figes ignore. Also points out that, pace Orlando Figes, Russia had important economic reasons to keep the Straits open.
However, Lincoln is wrong to chastise Nicholas for not "modernising" Russia's roadways rapidly enough. Nicholas I was a contemporary of Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun and Andrew Jackson, none of who were able to get Congress to see the necessity of Henry Clay's American System of infrastructure.
However, Lincoln is wrong to chastise Nicholas for not "modernising" Russia's roadways rapidly enough. Nicholas I was a contemporary of Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun and Andrew Jackson, none of who were able to get Congress to see the necessity of Henry Clay's American System of infrastructure.
December 7, 2025
Just an fyi try to avoid reading this entire book in one day. Unless you happen to have an exam focusing on the book that you were neglecting, it would be much more enjoyable to take at a leisurely pace, allowing Lincoln to present his version of Nicholas without you wanting to hurl the book across the room.
I do appreciate the story he tells of Nicholas truly as a tragic figure, while also not neglecting to remind readers of the various faults and abuses of his reign.
I do appreciate the story he tells of Nicholas truly as a tragic figure, while also not neglecting to remind readers of the various faults and abuses of his reign.
November 1, 2022
Surprisingly [perhaps?] relevant in 2022.
How Russia should be governed - and how Russia's neighbors should regard it - are questions and problems that have as much immediacy now as they did two centuries ago during the reign (1825-1855) of Tsar Nicholas I.
How Russia should be governed - and how Russia's neighbors should regard it - are questions and problems that have as much immediacy now as they did two centuries ago during the reign (1825-1855) of Tsar Nicholas I.
September 29, 2023
Lord this took too long, good info but super dense.
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March 1, 2020Czytając bardziej ogólne opracowania dotyczące historii Rosji wyrobiłam sobie zdanie, że panowanie Mikołaja I to okres znienawidzonego i najbardziej reakcyjnego systemu, jaki w Rosji kiedykolwiek istniał - tak zresztą stwierdził sam Bazylow w swojej "Historii Rosji". Gdy zabrałam się za "Mikołaja I" Lincolna byłam zdziwiona, bo autor przedstawił mi troszeczkę inny obraz tego władcy. Na końcu możemy jednak przeczytać co sądzi na temat tej książki Wiktoria Śliwowska, autorka konkurencyjnego opracowania dotyczącego Mikołaja I:
"Jest rzeczą zaiste zdumiewającą, do jakiego stopnia fascynuje silna władza. Potrafi zauroczyć nawet po upływie wielu lat, mimo swych niezliczonych kompromitujących poczynań...
W. Bruce Lincoln nie jest pierwszym, który w sidła te - mimo stawianego oporu - zdaje się w jakiejś mierze wpadać. Mikołaj I miał swych apologetów za życia, miał ich także po śmierci".
Przeczytałam również książkę Wiktorii Śliwowskiej i jej opracowanie, przynajmniej moim zdaniem, lepiej oddaje ducha tamtych czasów.
W. Bruce Lincoln zakończy swoją książkę stwierdzeniem:
"Panowanie Mikołaja I było ostatnim okresem spokoju i bezpieczeństwa imperialnej Rosji. W pierwszych latach naszego wieku historyk rosyjski nazwie panowanie Mikołaja "apogeum samowładztwa". W latach osiemdziesiątych ubiegłego wieku baronowa Maria Frederiks, która spędziła dzieciństwo na dworze cesarskim, napisała zabarwione tęsknotą epitafium Rosji mikołajowskiej:
"Tyle tylko wiem, że za Mikołaja Pawłowicza Rosja była potężna i szlachetna. On umiał zachować czar jej przeszłości. Jego rycerskość, niezłomność i odwaga przysporzyły jej jeszcze większej chwały. Wszyscy skłaniali głowy przed nim i przed Rosją!".
Śliwowska zarzuca Lincolnowi, że w jego pracy dominują dworskie opowieści, mówiące o dobroci i wrażliwości cara, o jego odwadze i szlachetności, poczuciu obowiązku i pracowitości i tak dalej. Po przeczytaniu ostatniego zdania z pracy Lincolna trudno oprzeć się wrażeniu, że prawdopodobnie miała ona sporo racji. Mimo to warto zapoznać się również z tym opracowaniem, żeby wyrobić sobie własne zdanie na ten temat.
"Jest rzeczą zaiste zdumiewającą, do jakiego stopnia fascynuje silna władza. Potrafi zauroczyć nawet po upływie wielu lat, mimo swych niezliczonych kompromitujących poczynań...
W. Bruce Lincoln nie jest pierwszym, który w sidła te - mimo stawianego oporu - zdaje się w jakiejś mierze wpadać. Mikołaj I miał swych apologetów za życia, miał ich także po śmierci".
Przeczytałam również książkę Wiktorii Śliwowskiej i jej opracowanie, przynajmniej moim zdaniem, lepiej oddaje ducha tamtych czasów.
W. Bruce Lincoln zakończy swoją książkę stwierdzeniem:
"Panowanie Mikołaja I było ostatnim okresem spokoju i bezpieczeństwa imperialnej Rosji. W pierwszych latach naszego wieku historyk rosyjski nazwie panowanie Mikołaja "apogeum samowładztwa". W latach osiemdziesiątych ubiegłego wieku baronowa Maria Frederiks, która spędziła dzieciństwo na dworze cesarskim, napisała zabarwione tęsknotą epitafium Rosji mikołajowskiej:
"Tyle tylko wiem, że za Mikołaja Pawłowicza Rosja była potężna i szlachetna. On umiał zachować czar jej przeszłości. Jego rycerskość, niezłomność i odwaga przysporzyły jej jeszcze większej chwały. Wszyscy skłaniali głowy przed nim i przed Rosją!".
Śliwowska zarzuca Lincolnowi, że w jego pracy dominują dworskie opowieści, mówiące o dobroci i wrażliwości cara, o jego odwadze i szlachetności, poczuciu obowiązku i pracowitości i tak dalej. Po przeczytaniu ostatniego zdania z pracy Lincolna trudno oprzeć się wrażeniu, że prawdopodobnie miała ona sporo racji. Mimo to warto zapoznać się również z tym opracowaniem, żeby wyrobić sobie własne zdanie na ten temat.
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