Nicholas I versus Alexander I: Russia in the First Half of the 19th Century

Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History. 2024. Vol. 25. No. 4. P. 845–859.

Boltunova E.

In recent years, research on the Russian Empire has been increasingly focused on the reign of Nicholas I (1825–55). There has been a steady growth in the number of works dealing with his person, his views, and his policies long before February 2022. This focus on Nicholas resembles the Petrine turn of the late 1990s and early 2000s, when researchers looked at Peter the Great’s reforms and wars and similarly examined his political and social views. In this review article Ekaterina Boltunova observes the current academic literature on Russia in the First Half of the 19th Century dealing with the works of Sergei Firsov (Iakoŕ spaseniia: Pravoslavnaia tserkov́ i rossiiskoe gosudarstvo v epokhu Nikolaia (St. Petersburg, 2021), Patrick O’Meara (The Russian Nobility in the Age of Alexander I (New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2021), Paul Werth (1837: Russia’s Quiet Revolution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021) and Elise Kimerling Wirtschafter (From Victory to Peace: Russian Diplomacy after Napoleon. NY: Cornell University Press, 2021).

Keywords: историография, Александр I, Alexander I, Николай I, Nicholas I, historiograhy, Russia in the First Half of the 19th Century, история России первой половины XIX в.

Publication based on the results of: Russia’s Regional History of 18th – 20th centuries: socio-political, anthropological perspectives and agency relationships (2024)