Funeral Ceremonies of Alexander I (1826): Moscow, St. Petersburg, Warsaw

Новая и новейшая история. 2026. No. 6.

Boltunova E.

This article concludes a series examining how ceremonial practices articulated hierarchical representations of imperial space within the Russian Empire. It analyses the funeral and commemorative ceremonies organised in early 1826 in Moscow, St Petersburg, and Warsaw following the death of Emperor Alexander I, and reconstructs the differing spatial imaginaries of empire that these rituals produced and sustained at multiple levels. The analysis focuses in particular on the symbolic funeral staged in Warsaw after Alexander I had already been interred in the Peter and Paul Cathedral in St Petersburg. This delayed commemoration constituted not merely a repetition of funerary rites but a distinct political statement embedded in the specific legal and symbolic status of the Kingdom of Poland. A comparative reading of the contemporaneous ceremonial representations of empire reveals striking divergences in official perceptions of Russia across the provinces, the old capital, the imperial capital, and Warsaw. During the first quarter of the nineteenth century, much of the empire struggled to apprehend the composite figure of the monarch, formed from several overlapping roles and jurisdictions. Outside St Petersburg, observers often failed to recognise the transformation of the Tsar of Russia into an emperor and remained largely unaware of his position as King of Poland. Moscow alone attempted to articulate a coherent vision of itself and its surrounding territory within an explicitly imperial framework. By contrast, Warsaw received official permission to disregard the very existence of the Russian Empire and to commemorate Alexander I exclusively as a Polish monarch, a concession sanctioned personally by the emperor himself.

Keywords: Москва, Санкт-Петербург, Russian Empire, Российская империя, XIX век, Moscow, XIX century, Александр I, Alexander I, Варшава, political rituals, имперское пространство, St Petersburg, Царство Польское, политический ритуал, Warsaw, мемориальная культура, Funeral Ceremonies, Kingdom of Poland, Memorial Culture, похоронные церемонии, imperial space