Nicholas I and His Era

11 hrs. 9 min.

Language Russian

Author Mikhail Gershenzon

Narrator Lyudmila Pankratova

Description

Mikhail Gershenzon’s audiobook Nicholas I and His Era is a biography of one of the most odious leaders of the Russian state and of the era of his rule. Nicholas Romanov was not a soulless and stupid despot, as he is often portrayed in fiction. He was simply accustomed to subordinating everything to his principles and formulas, trying to fit everything into the framework that suited him. Having made a mistake, he never admitted it and stubbornly continued moving forward even in the wrong direction. The tsar was distinguished by a strange desire to be aware of everything happening in the country, right down to the construction of a barrack at some district station; he strove to bring everything into a state of symmetry and order. His greatest flaw is considered to be his lack of understanding of the mentality of the people inhabiting his state.

"A time of external slavery and internal liberation"—Herzen could not have defined this era more accurately... Nicholas was not the stupid and soulless despot he is usually portrayed as. The distinguishing feature of his character, by nature not at all bad, was unshakable fidelity to principles once adopted... A doctrinaire by nature, he stubbornly bent life to his formulas, and when life slipped from his hands, he blamed human disobedience for it... and unswervingly continued along the same path. He considered himself responsible for everything that was done in the state, wanted to know everything and direct everything—to know every quarrel between a marshal of the nobility and a governor, and to direct the construction of every guardhouse in a district town—and exhausted himself in futile efforts to embrace the unembraceable and bring life into symmetrical order... He is not an evil man—he loves Russia and serves its good with astonishing selflessness, but he does not know Russia, because he looks at it through the prism of his doctrine."

Contents:

Chapter I. Emperor Nicholas I
Chapter II. Nicholas I’s Associates
Chapter III. Administration
Chapter IV. Court and Executions
Chapter V. Serfdom
Chapter VI. The Army
Chapter VII. Press and School
Chapter VIII. The Third Section
Chapter IX. Social Movement under Nicholas I
Chapter X. Results