Paul I: Russian Hamlet or an oppressor on the throne?

October 1, 2017, marks the 263th anniversary of the birth of Emperor Paul I (1754—1801). The evidences from the Presidential Library stock offer a unique chance to examine his contradictory personality.

A child of Peter III and Catherine II is of great historians’ interest, being a theme of endless discussions. Some of them really consider him a tyrant, while the others — a reformer, trying to modernize Russia in some point in the European manner.

The Emperor's childhood was not easy at all. As it said in the 1902-year book Paul I: his family life, his favorites and his murder by F. V. Karatov, “As a child Paul has a brilliant character, with all the aspirations of the future good man: he was clever, frank, good-natured, diligent, painstaking, and only bad education made of him a cunning, withdrawn, gloomy, severe and despotic person…” “Paul’s childhood was very sad, but his upbringing was even worse.”

Paul I ascended to the throne with a sincere desire to do everything for the prosperity of his people, with all ready projects of the reforms that, in his opinion, should’ve been “healing” Russia, giving a new direction to its political and state being. In 1788, Paul, in order to avoid coups and intrigues, developed the Act of succession approved on the day of… the coronation [of Paul I] (published in 1797). The document excluded a possibility of removing legitimate heirs from the throne. The act also contained an important provision on the impossibility of accession to the Russian throne of a person who does not belong to the Orthodox Church. Determining a procedure of transition of the state authority in Russia law of Paul I has operated up to 1917.

As for financial well-being, the young monarch believed that the any national revenues belongs to the state, but not to the sovereign personally. He demanded to coordinate expenses with the state needs. Paul ordered to melt some of the silver sets of the Winter Palace into coins, to destroy up to two million rubles in assignations to reduce the state debt. With the decree on the three-day statute labor he forbade the work of peasants on weekends. The emperor also requested to restore the university in the Baltics (in Dorpat, current Tartu) and opened in St. Petersburg Medical and Surgical Academy, many public and specialized schools.

Paul's activities were versatile as far as he deeply loved Russia in his own personal way and wanted its prosperity, but did not quite know how to achieve it. Because at the time of Paul’s upbringing Catherine was keeping her son away of participation in discussion of state affairs.

At the same time, as Nikolay Shilder wrote in his 1901 historical and biographical essay The Emperor Paul the First: “The new reign from the its very beginning has became the negation of the previous one; the magnificent, lush Empresses’ courtyard has transformed into a huge corps de garde.” The attempts of the new monarch to reform the army and the state apparatus following the templates of the Prussian military system and the Prussian police state were unsuccessful. Paul's reforms in these areas caused resistance from both the higher administration and the lower classes: the repressions against the generalship and middle level officers were too cruel, which is documented in an electronic copy of The Highest administrative orders of the Emperor Paul I. 1800-1801. It could happen that “three full generals, three lieutenant generals, nine majors, 68 chief officers of the Guards regiments, 90 non-commissioned officers and 120 people of a single one Preobrazhensky Regiment were dismissed on the same day! And it was not explained, for what.” The introduction of an uncomfortable army uniform in the Prussian pattern caused a rumble among the servicemen.

However, in a number of memoirs of the period of the reign of Paul could be found another opinions about innovations in the army. For instance, in the Notes of Count E. F. Komarovsky its author — Russian general from infantry — remembers: “A way of our officer's life after the accession to the throne of the Emperor Paul I has completely changed. Under Empress Catherine II, we only care of going to society, the theaters, wearing the tailcoats, but suddenly found ourselves in the regimental court from a very morning till late night; and we all were trained as a recruits.”

When Paul enthroned, he already was 43, spent half his life in anxious expectation of the crown, because he feared that he could share his killed by the order of Catherine in Ropsha father’s fate. This family drama initially resembles a plot of Shakespeare's Hamlet, which afforded ground to some researchers to name Paul “the Russian Hamlet.”

The author of the released in St. Petersburg in 1899 biographical essay by Eugene Shumigorsky Paul I (1754-1801) wrote: “Severe, even cruel observance of the discipline and standing order seemed to Paul essential for protection himself from conspiracies, which he was extremely afraid, after a desire of Catherine to remove him from the throne indicated to him a danger that threatened him even inside of his own family.”

Assessment of the autocrat’s actions can be reviewed in an electronic copy of published in Leipzig in 1874 Materials for the biography of Emperor Paul I: “Deep, hardened dislike of everything that was established by Catherine made his impulses even more harmful and dangerous; <…> and most of all — his passion for explorations (obsolete, military training) and impulsive exacting for the slightest mistakes <…> have restored the army and all the nobility against him.” The letters of Emperor Paul I, collections of his decrees, concluded by him agreements, memoirs of courtiers, biographical researches and many other materials from the Presidential Library stock reflect growing dissatisfaction with the reign of the Emperor Paul I.

The conspiracy against him began and has been prepared practically from the first days of his reign. On the night of March 24 to March 25, 1801, the conspirators killed the Emperor in his new residence — Mikhailovsky Castle in St. Petersburg.

“The powerful ruler of the greatest power in the world, a man who was born with very good abilities, quite well educated and with noble motives was killed. Why did not all these qualities save him from bad? Because the first quality of a person should be an ability to manage his own passions, and then only he can control others. A much larger number of conspirators and a much more cautious conspiracy could not succeed in this murder, if there was not for that the general tacit approval of the whole capital, the common desire of the entire Russia,” — as concluded in the rare edition of Theodor Shiman of 1902 The murder of Paul I and the enthronement of the Nicholas I.