Nicholas I

Russian Empire state institutions Monarchy and royalism 1796–1855 ○ Natural causes

Russian emperor known as the "gendarme of Europe", who crushed the Polish uprising of 1830–1831 and the Hungarian revolution

Born in 1796 at Gatchina Palace, the ninth child of Grand Duke Paul (later Paul I), he came to the throne in 1825 on the death of his brother Alexander I and crushed the Decembrist revolt on its first day. Through the Third Section of the Imperial Chancellery and the gendarmes he ran a huge network of spies and informers against dissent, and in 1831 he crushed the November Uprising in Poland. His offers to suppress revolution on the Continent earned him the name "gendarme of Europe", and in 1848 he stood at the forefront of European reaction. In 1849, at Franz Joseph's request, he sent Paskevich's army to crush the Hungarian revolution, and he pressed Prussia not to adopt a liberal constitution. He died in 1855 during the Crimean War, which began with war against the Ottoman Empire in 1853 and exposed Russia's military and administrative backwardness.

Also known as: Nikolai I · Nicholas I of Russia