Tsar Nicholas II

“ I think, besides, that an erroneous opinion has been generally formed of the Tsar's character. He has been said and is still said to be a weak man. Now I should be inclined, on this point, to think with M. Loubet that Nicholas II's "weakness" is more apparent than real and that in him, as formerly in our Napoleon III, there is "a gentle obstinate" who has very strong ideas of his own, a being conscious of his power and proud of the glory of his name.
Nicholas II, at the time of his second visit to France, had met M. Loubet before. ”

“ I give a translation of this document which, by its nobility and the burning patriotism in every line, compelled the admiration of even the Czar’s enemies:
The Act of Abdication of the Czar Nicholas II.
By the grace of God, We, Nicholas II., Emperor of all the Russias, Tsar of Poland, Grand-Duke of Finland, etc., etc.... to all Our faithful subjects make known:
In these days of terrible struggle against the external enemy who has been trying for three years to impose his will upon Our Fatherland, God has willed that Russia should be faced with a new and formidable trial. ”

“ The same may be said of the empresses who succeeded Peter, for even under Catherine II reaction remained incomplete. In the reign of Alexander I closer supervision of the schools and of literature had begun; and attempts had been made at the radical extirpation of Voltairism. Nicholas, however, was the first tsar to adapt his mentality to religion (though not; indeed in every respect!) that he might be enabled to exploit the church effectixely for his own ends. At his court there was no place for Krüdener and other prophets; Photius was to rule men's minds. ”

“ Monarchy, and above all absolute monarchy, is no more than a manifestation of aristocracy. However absolute his power, the tsar is merely par inter pares, and in ultimate analysis, as Uvarov clearly indicates, loyalty is nothing but loyalty upon conditions.
Nicholas was well aware of this, hence his Alexandrine vacillation in these ostensibly humanitarian designs, which were in truth the outcome of economic considerations. For his dread of democracy, Kiselev was rewarded with the title of count, and a prudent calculation led Nicholas to favour the interests of the nobles. ”

“ Revolution was imminent. And Tsar Nicholas drove into the square in his little one-horse droschky—leaped out and mounted the church steps with those long, quick strides of his—turned, and threw open the gray great-coat, showing the glitter of the Orders he wore. Beneath the rim of the spiked helmet his sullen eyes blazed at his people.... His puffy cheeks had lost their crimson and were deadly pale.... He bellowed at the full pitch of that extraordinary voice of his: “Russians, to your knees!” and down they went.... No wonder they believed in their Tsar, those Ivans and Piotrs. ”

“ Russia will never be Protestant; Russia will never be juste-milieu; Russia will not make a revolution simply in order to get rid of Tsar Nicholas and to replace him by tsar-deputies, tsar-judges, and tsar-policemen.
Herzen now found himself able to explain certain undesirable historical facts quite in the slavophil manner.
Take tsarism, for example. Tsarism is not monarchy. European monarchy developed out of feudalism and Catholicism, and is animated by a peculiar social and religious ideal. The tsar is tsar for tsardom's sake. He is nothing more than an unlimited dictator. ”

“ I have already related how I exposed and defeated the insidious design concealed under the Peace Rescript of Nicholas II. Hardly had this audacious intrigue miscarried when Europe was startled to hear that the Ministers of the Imperial peacemaker had overthrown the ancient liberties of Finland, in order to swell the Finnish contingent to the armies of the Tsar.
This time I admit that I was deceived, like everybody else. The brutal frankness of the proceeding disarmed suspicion. When Russia openly declares herself a tyrant, it is difficult to believe she is dissembling. ”

“ The executions under Nicholas have not yet attained so high a figure, but (even if we leave the victims of the Japanese war out of consideration) more human lives than 89,000 have already been sacrificed by the fault of the government. Consider all the victims, beginning with the thousands who perished on the Hodynskoe Field at the coronation of Nicholas II; consider the premature deaths in Siberia and in the prisons; and consider all those who have been slaughtered in pogroms. . . . Does the tsar know all that is done in his name? ”

“ Theocratic cæsaropapism cannot be justified if it can be upheld only by such means—it cannot be true that the absolute tsar governs by God's grace, it cannot be true that God commends obedience towards the tsar, it cannot be true that such obedience is enjoined by conscience. The existence of the white terror under Nicholas proves that section four arbitrarily incorporated by him in the state fundamental laws, the section referring to the theocratic essence of the tsar's supreme authority, is false. Absolutism has no foundation either in religion or morals. ”

“ The Order of the Day to the Armies, in which Nicholas, bidding good-bye to his soldiers, proclaimed his unshaken loyalty to the sacred cause of Russia, and besought them never to lay down their arms to Germany, was suppressed by telegram{254} from the War Office in Petrograd. [6] Evil deeds come back to roost whence they have issued. The people who besmirched the Tsar to please the revolutionaries were themselves punished. One does not undermine the faith of a whole nation without destroying all authority. ”

“ Only the authority that granted the first electoral law, the historical authority of the Russian tsar, is adequate to abolish that law and replace it with a new one.
The Lord God had entrusted Us with monarchical authority over Our people. It is before His throne that We shall give account for the fate of the Russian realm. ”

“ The courtiers and bureaucrats in the immediate surroundings of the Tsar, men like Sipiaguin, Nicolas Maklakov, and Sabler, took advantage of these prepossessions in order to keep up a constant hostility against progressive reformers and western adaptations. But the most dangerous representative of mystic reaction was the Tsar's consort, the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna. ”

“ The psychologically interesting point about the above is that Tsar Nicholas, who helped prepare the World War and had already ordered mobilization, wished to recede at the last moment. My earnest, warning telegram, it seems, made him realize clearly for the first time the colossal responsibility which he was bringing upon himself by his warlike preparations. Therefore, he wished to stop the war machine, the murderer of entire peoples, which he had just set in motion. This would have been possible and peace might have been preserved if Sazonoff had not frustrated his wish. ”

“ Nettlau, 435
Nicholas I, Tsar of Russia, 67, 79, 82, 88, 105–108, 110–115, 117, 119–122, 125, 126, 128–133, 136, 140, 144, 147, 149, 161, 216, 217, 221, 224, 226, 231, 237, 242, 249, 253, 365, 303, 307, 308, 316, 325, 326, 336, 342, 348, 351, 354, 355, 360, 361, 369, 371, 375, 384, 385, 404, 412, 427, 430, 456
Nicholas II, Tsar of Russia, 67, 157, 170, 173, 186, 190, 191, 192, 315
Niebuhr, 216, 390
Nikita, 67
Nikitenko, 147
Nikon (Patriarch) , 46, 47, 48, 49, 54
Nil Sorskii, 44
Novalis, 317
Novgorodcev, 160
Novikov, 75, 89, 98, 330
Novosilcev, 85, 88, 89 ”

“ These liberal-minded men and true patriots—professors of the universities, literary men, and a very small number of young noblemen—lived mostly at Moscow, where the distance from the observing eye of the ruler and his court saved them from detection, although their secret influence pervaded the whole empire, and kept the flame of liberalism burning in the hearts of the intellectual élite. While Nicholas had thus succeeded in building up an Eastern despotism on the banks of the Neva, he endeavored at the same time to impress Europe with the idea of his unrivalled power. ”

“ After the details we have given, comments and arguments would be almost superfluous: it is easy to conceive how critical is the situation of the Russians in the Caucasian regions. For twenty years the Emperor Nicholas has expended all the military genius of his empire, shrinking from no sacrifice of men or money, and employing generals of the highest reputation, and yet the might of his sovereign will has broken down before the difficulties we have pointed out. The tribes of the mountain are, on the contrary, growing stronger every day. ”

“ Upon their return to Russia, the utter despotism of the tzar seemed more than ever hateful to them. Several conspiracies had been organized for his assassination, and now the plan was formed to assassinate the whole imperial family, and introduce a republic.
Nicholas was seriously alarmed by the danger which threatened, though he was fully conscious that his only safety was to be found in courage and energy. He accordingly made preparation for the administration of the oath of allegiance to the army. "I shall soon," said he, "be an emperor or a corpse." ”

“ With the personal failure of Nicholas II. this book has nothing to do. From the very first day that he had ascended the Throne of Russia it had been evident to any person gifted with the talent of observation that his reign was bound to end in disaster and in ruin; that all the work performed by his late father, who, after all, when things are well considered, had been a great man and a wise Sovereign, would very soon be destroyed by his want of character and of principle and by his abominable selfishness. ”

“ The czar began war upon the tribes dwelling in the mountains, but found that he had engaged in a very difficult enterprise. A soldier-priest named Schamyl defied the power of Russia for a quarter of a century. It cost Nicholas (p. 210) more in men and money to subdue the liberty-loving mountaineer, than all the wars he waged in Asia.
The year 1830, was one of great unrest in Europe. Nicholas was deeply angered when his friend Charles X of France was expelled. The revolution in Paris was the signal for a similar movement in the capital of Poland. ”

“ The Czar here was in the wrong. In the war on the Danube the Turks had been victorious. He insisted, however, that they should sue for peace, as if they were prostrate in defeat. On the other hand, the Four Powers proposed terms which did not imply that victory or defeat rested with either belligerent. The only defence that can be made for the obstinacy of the Emperor Nicholas in thus refusing to cross the golden bridge of{580} honourable retreat built for him by the Powers is, that the War Party in Russia was as rabid as the War Party in England. ”

“ Nikon introduced a number of reforms from the Greek church, thus increasing the hostility of the Old Russians, who distrusted the orthodoxy of the Greeks; whilst, since a number of Kiev scholars participated in the work of correction, the reforms came to be regarded as Roman Catholic in tendency. Nikon, in contrast with his predecessor Maxim, was church politician rather than reformer. A man of autocratic temperament, he made many enemies, so that he ultimately lost the favour of the tsar, who had hitherto followed him blindly. ”

“ Many people do not see or do not want to see the full extent of those demoniacal days; neither do they see the grandeur of the deeds performed by this great man, the Emperor Nicholas II.
Many thought that the Emperor was not powerful enough to bear the Russian crown. The world did not realize the strength it took to carry this burden of representing innumerable races. That alone would have broken the stamina of any ordinary man. The Emperor was made a constant victim, but the strength, loyalty, and superhuman power which made up this man, in contrast, were lacking in his contemporaries. ”

“ The career of Nicholas has been peaceable; and the empire has been undisturbed but by the guilty Circassian war, which yet seems to be carried on rather as a field of exercise for the Russian armies, than for purposes of conquest.
But all nations now require something to occupy the public mind; and an impression appears to be rising in Russia, that the residence of the sovereign should be transferred to Moscow. Nothing could be more likely to produce a national convulsion, and operate a total change on the European policy of Russia, and the relations of the northern courts. ”

“ The Emperor Nicholas was fond of choosing as his ministers and advisers men who were not likely to oppose any of his measures. The incompetency of his ministry was notorious both in Russia and other countries. When his successor, Alexander II., ascended the throne, he was asked why he did not retain the ministry of Nicholas instead of choosing a new one. He replied, "My father was a man of such transcendent ability that he could afford to surround himself with incompetent men; I feel my weakness, and must have the best talent in the Empire to assist me." ”

“ Nicholas, by several of his enactments, has enabled his son to rule with less difficulty than would otherwise have been the case. By the ruin of some of the principal nobles he has saved him from the worst enemies of his ancestors, who so frequently proved their destroyers; and by the creation of a wealthy middle class, every day improving in education and numbers, he has formed a strong body who find that it is their interest to support him. When it is no longer their interest so to do, the whole fabric of Russian government will crumble to the dust. ”

“ A few days before Nicholas's self-will brought him to his deathbed we saw him ride through the St. Petersburg streets with no pomp and no attendants, yet in as great pride as ever despotism gave a man. At his approach, nobles uncovered and looked docile, soldiers faced about and became statues, long-bearded peasants bowed to the ground with the air of men on whose vision a miracle flashes. ”