Paul 1: Domestic and Foreign Policy, Years of Government

The story of Paul 1 really began with the fact that Empress Elizaveta Petrovna, the daughterless daughter of Peter the First and Catherine the First (who by origin was supposedly a Baltic peasant woman), without her own children, invited the future father of Paul to Russia. They were a native of the German city of Kiel, KP Ulrich Holstein-Gottorp, duke, who received the name of Peter at baptism. This fourteen-year-old boy (at the time of the invitation) was a nephew of Elizabeth and had the rights to both the Swedish and the Russian throne.

Who was the father of Paul the First - a mystery

King Paul 1, like all people, could not choose his parents. His future mother arrived in Russia from Prussia at the age of 15, following the recommendation of Friedrich II, as a potential bride for Duke Ulrich. Here she received the Orthodox name Catherine (Alekseevna), married in 1745 and only nine years later gave birth to her son Pavel. The story left a twofold opinion about the possible father of Paul the First. Some believe that Catherine hated her husband, so paternity is credited to Catherine's lover Sergei Saltykov. Others believe that Ulrich (Peter the Third) was still the father, since there is also an obvious portrait resemblance, and also it is known of Catherine's strong dislike of her son, who, perhaps, was born out of hatred of his father. Paul disliked his mother, too, throughout his life. Genetic examination of the remains of Paul has not yet been carried out, so it is not possible to pinpoint paternity for this Russian tsar.

Birth was celebrated throughout the year

The future emperor Paul 1 was devoid of parental love and attention since childhood, since his grandmother Elizabeth, right after his birth, took her son from Ekaterina and transferred her nannies and teachers to the care. He was a long-awaited child for the whole country, since after Peter the Great, Russian autocrats had problems with the continuity of power due to the lack of heirs. Celebrations and fireworks about his birth in Russia lasted a whole year.

The first victim of the palace conspiracy

Elizabeth thanked Catherine for the birth of a very large sum of money - 100 thousand rubles, but she showed her son only six months after his birth. Because of the lack of a mother and the stupidity of the too zealous staff who served him, Paul 1, whose internal and foreign policy was not logical in the future, grew very impressionable, painful and nervous. At the age of 8 (in 1862) the young prince lost his father, who, coming to power in 1861 after the death of Elizabeth Petrovna, was killed a year later as a result of the palace conspiracy.

More than thirty years before legal authority

King Pavel 1 received for his time a very decent education, which for many years he could not apply in practice. From the age of four, still under Elizabeth, he was taught literacy, then he mastered several foreign languages, knowledge in mathematics, applied sciences and history. Among his teachers were F. Bekhteev, S. Poroshin, N. Panin, and his laws were taught by the future Metropolitan of Moscow Platon. By right of birth Paul already in 1862 had the right to the throne, but his mother, instead of regency, came to power herself with the help of the guard, declared herself Catherine II and the 34-year rule.

Emperor Paul 1 was married twice. The first time - at age 19 on Augustine-Wilhelmine (Natalia Alekseevna), who died during childbirth with her child. The second time - in the year of the death of his first wife (at the insistence of Catherine) on Sofia-Augusta-Louise, the Württemberg princess (Maria Feodorovna), which will give Paul ten children. His older children will suffer the same fate as his own - they will be taken to their care by the reigning grandmother, and he will rarely see them. In addition to children born in a church marriage, Paul had a son, Semyon, from his first love - the maid of honor Sophia Ushakova and daughter from L. Bagart.

Mother wanted to deprive him of the throne

Pavel 1 Romanov ascended the throne at the age of 42, after the death of his mother (Catherine died of a stroke) in November 1796. By this time he had a set of views and habits that determined his future and the future of Russia until 1801. Thirteen years before Catherine's death, in 1783, he minimized his relationship with his mother (rumored that she wanted to deprive him of the right to the throne) and began building his own model of the state in Pavlovsk. At the age of 30, at the insistence of Catherine, he got acquainted with the works of Voltaire, Hume, Montesquieu and others. As a result, his point of view became the following: in the state there should be "bliss for everyone and for everyone", but only under monarchical form of government.

Coalitions with Europe during the reign

At the same time, in Gatchina, the emperor, eliminated at that time, was engaged in the training of military battalions. His love for military affairs and discipline will in part determine what will be the foreign policy of Paul 1. But she will be fairly peace-loving, compared with the time of Catherine II, but little-sequential. First, Paul fought against revolutionary France (with the participation of Suvorov AV) together with Britain, Turkey, Austria, etc., then broke off the alliance with Austria and withdrew troops from Europe. Attempts to go with the expedition together with England to the Netherlands were unsuccessful.

Paul 1 defended the Order of Malta

After in 1799 Bonaparte in France concentrated all power in his hands and the probability of spreading the revolution disappeared, he began to seek allies in other states. I found them, including in the person of the Russian emperor. At that time, the coalition of United Fleets was discussed with France. The foreign policy of Paul 1 in the period near the end of his reign was connected with the final formation of a coalition against Britain, which began to behave too aggressively at sea (attacked Malta, while Paul was the Grand Master of the Order of Malta). So, in 1800, a union was concluded between Russia and a number of European states, which conducted a policy of armed neutrality against Britain.

Utopian military projects

Paul 1, whose internal and foreign policy was not always clear even to his entourage, wanted to harm Britain and its Indian possessions at that time. He equipped an expedition to Central Asia from the Don army (about 22.5 thousand people) and set the task that they should go to the Indus and Ganges area and "disturb" the British there without touching those who oppose the British. By that time, even maps of that region did not exist, so the campaign to India was stopped in 1801, after the death of Paul, and the soldiers were returned from the steppes to Astrakhan, where they had already reached.

The reign of Paul 1 is marked by the fact that during these five years no foreign invasions were made to the territory of Russia, but no conquests were made either. In addition, the emperor, caring about the interests of the knights in Malta, almost drew the country into direct conflict with the most powerful sea power of that time - England. The English might have been his most important enemies, while he had a great sympathy for Prussia, considering the organization of the army and life in those lands as his ideal (which is not surprising given his origins).

Reduction of public debt by fire

Paul's domestic policy was aimed at trying to improve life and strengthen order in Russian reality. In particular, he believed that the treasury belongs to the country, and not to him personally, as the sovereign. Therefore, he gave instructions to smelt into the coins some silver sets from the Winter Palace and burn some of the paper money for two million rubles in order to reduce the national debt. He was more open to the people than his predecessors, and also followers, hung out a box on the fence of his palace to pass petitions in his name, where caricatures of the tsar himself and the lampoons often fell.

Strange ceremonies with dead bodies

The reign of Paul 1 was also marked by reforms in the army, where he introduced a uniform form, regulation, uniform armament, believing that at the time of his mother the army was not an army, but simply a mob. In general, historians believe that much of what Paul did, he did spitefully his deceased mother. There were even more than strange cases. For example, after coming to power, he extracted from the grave the remains of his murdered father Peter III. After that, the ashes of the father and the corpse of the mother were corrupted, laying the crown on the father's coffin, while his wife, Maria Feodorovna, laid another crown on the deceased Catherine. After that, both coffins were transported to the Peter and Paul Cathedral, while the murderer of Peter the Third, Earl of Orlov, carried the imperial crown before his coffin. Remains were buried with the indication of one date of burial.

Paul 1, the years of his reign were short-lived, due to such events, he gained a misunderstanding among many. And the innovations introduced by him in different spheres did not cause support from the environment. The emperor, demanded from all the execution of his duties. There is a history when he gave the rank of an officer to his orderly for the fact that the former himself did not carry his military ammunition. After such cases, discipline in the troops began to intensify. He tried hard to instil tough orders with Pavel and the civilian population by imposing bans on wearing certain styles of the dress and demanding to wear things of a German pattern of a certain color with a given collar size.

The internal policy of Paul 1 also touched upon the sphere of education, in which, as it is supposed, he contributed to the improvement of the position of the Russian language. After the accession to the throne, the emperor forbade florid phrases, ordering him to express himself in writing with utmost clarity and simplicity. He reduced the French influence on Russian society by banning books in this language (revolutionary, as he believed), forbade even playing cards. In addition, during his reign, it was decided to open many schools and colleges, restore the University in Dorpat, open the Medical and Surgical Academy in St. Petersburg. Among his companions were both gloomy individuals, like Arakcheev, and G. Derzhavin, A. Suvorov, N. Saltykov, M. Speransky, and others.

How the tsar helped the peasants

However, Paul 1, the years of his reign - 1796-1801, was rather unpopular, than popular with his contemporaries. Caring for the peasants, whom he reasonably considered the breadwinners of all other classes of society, he imposed a three-day corvee, freed the farmers from work on Sunday. This he incurred the discontent of the landowners, for example, in Russia, and the discontent of the peasants in Ukraine, where there was no corvee at that time, but she appeared for three days. The landlords were unhappy and forbidden to separate the peasant families during the sale, the ban on cruel treatment, the removal of duties from the peasants, to keep horses for the army and selling them at preferential prices bread and salt from state reserves. Paul 1, whose domestic and foreign policies were contradictory, simultaneously ordered the peasants to obey the landlords in everything in fear of punishment.

The infringement of the privileges of the nobility

The Russian autocrat tossed between bans and permits, which may have led to the subsequent murder of Paul 1. He closed all private printing houses so that he could not spread the ideas of the French revolution, but at the same time gave shelter to high-ranking French dignitaries, like Prince Conde or the future Ludwig Eighth . He forbade corporal punishment for the nobility, but he introduced for them 20 rubles from the soul and a tax on the maintenance of local government.

Short-term reign of Paul 1 included such events as the ban on resignation for noblemen who served less than a year, a ban on the filing of collective noble petitions, the abolition of noble assemblies in the provinces, and lawsuits against nobles who shirked from service. Also, the emperor allowed the state peasants to register themselves in philistines and merchants, which caused discontent among the latter.

Actually founded dog breeding in Russia

What kind of deeds has Pavel made history yet, whose domestic and foreign policies are a thirst for large-scale transformations? This Russian tsar allowed the construction of temples in the Old Believer faith (everywhere), forgave the Poles who participated in the Kosciuszko insurrection, began to procure abroad new breeds of dogs and sheep, having founded, in fact, dog breeding. Important is his law on succession to the throne, which excluded the possibility of ascension to the throne of women and established the order of regency.

However, for all positive moments, the emperor was unpopular among the people, which created the prerequisites for repeated attempts on his life. The murder of Paul 1 was committed by officers from several regiments in March 1801. It is believed that the conspiracy against the emperor was subsidized by the government of England, which did not want to strengthen Russia in the Maltese region. The involvement of his sons was not proved, but in the 19th century some restrictions were imposed on the study of the time of the reign of this emperor in Russia.