History of Russia in the 19th century. volume III

“The History of Russia in the 19th Century” by Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor Andrei Borisovich Zubov is not a chronological retelling of events, but a reflection on the reasons that brought the possibility of the death of “historical Russia” closer. The catastrophe of the early 20th century, Professor Zubov believes, has much deeper roots than is commonly thought. A careful study of these reasons helps not only to better understand the past, but also to explain the present.

The third volume is dedicated to the first period of the reign of Nikolai Pavlovich. The nature of “Knight Nicholas,” as he was called in childhood, “Don Quixote of autocracy,” as they later called him, was infused with the ideas of absolute conservatism of his mentors, the historian Nikolai Karamzin and General Matthias Lambsdorf: a person is of little importance, the state is valuable in itself. The inept, but at the same time pretentious foreign policy was paid at a certain price - the price of the blood of a Russian soldier, technical breakthroughs - at the cost of the torment and misfortunes of the common man. By the middle of the reign of Nicholas I, behind the external splendor of the Court and the power of a million-strong army, astute observers saw more and more clearly the stagnation and decline of a huge country shackled in the shackles of slavery.