Mikhail Barclay de Tolly was of course not an ethnic Russian. Originally of Scottish origin, his family had settled in the Baltic provinces in the mid-seventeenth century. To most Russians he was just another Baltic German. During the 1812 campaign this made him the target of savage attacks and libels by many Russians. But Barclay’s advice to Alexander in February 1812 echoed exactly what the nationalists in the ‘Old Russian’ and ‘isolationist’ camp had been saying for many years. The best-known public figures in the ‘Old Russian’ camp were Admiral Aleksandr Shishkov in Petersburg and Count Fedor Rostopchin in Moscow. Russia’s leading historian, Nikolai Karamzin, and Serge Glinka, the editor of a patriotic journal, were close to Rostopchin. Karamzin was a scholar and a ‘public intellectual’, with no personal political ambitions. Though an admiral, Aleksandr Shishkov had not served afloat since 1797 and behaved much more like a professor than a military officer. A kind and generous person in his personal relations, he became a tiger when defending the cause to which he devoted much of his life, which was the preservation of the national purity of the Russian language and its ancient Slavonic roots from corruption by imported Western words and concepts.
Count Fedor Rostopchin shared the commitment of Karamzin and Shishkov to preserving Russian culture and values from foreign influences. The fictional stories he published between 1807 and 1812 all aimed at this goal and made a big impact. His fictional hero, Sila Bogatyrev, was a no-nonsense squire who stood up for traditional Russian values and thoroughly distrusted all foreigners. In his view, French tutors were corrupting Russian youth. Meanwhile the Russian state was being manipulated by the English and tricked by the French into sacrificing its blood and treasure for their interests. Unlike Karamzin and Shishkov, Rostopchin was extremely ambitious and a politician to his fingertips. A favourite of Paul I, he had been out of office ever since Paul’s death. Alexander distrusted the Russian nationalists and disliked their ideas. He particularly disliked Rostopchin. The count was indeed in many ways a ruthless and unpleasant man. Though a great nationalist, he had none of Karamzin’s or Glinka’s generous or warm feelings towards the ordinary Russian. On the contrary, in Rostopchin’s view ‘the rabble’ could never be trusted and must be ruled through repression and manipulation.
Rostopchin was a sharp and amusing conversationalist. He could be unguarded. It is said that he once commented that Austerlitz was God’s revenge on Alexander for the part he had played in his father’s overthrow. The emperor took his own high-mindedness very seriously and did not take kindly to sly comments at his expense. His father’s murder and his own role in the disaster at Austerlitz were the bitterest memories of his life. But Alexander too was an exquisite politician. He knew that he had to use even men he disliked, particularly at a moment of supreme crisis such as the impending war with Napoleon. However much he disliked Rostopchin and distrusted his ideas, Alexander knew that the count was an efficient and resolute administrator, and a skilful politician. Above all he was a fine propagandist, absolutely loyal to the regime but with a handle on the emotions of the masses, whose behaviour would matter greatly in the event of a war on Russian soil. In 1810 Rostopchin was given a senior position at court, though encouraged not to put in too many appearances. He was kept available in case of need.39
The person who brought Alexander and Rostopchin back into contact was the Grand Duchess Catherine. After her marriage, Catherine’s husband was appointed governor-general of three central Russian provinces in 1809. He and his wife took up residence in Tver, within easy distance of Moscow. Catherine’s salon in Tver attracted many intelligent and ambitious visitors, including Rostopchin and Karamzin. Her reputation as the most ‘Russian’ member of the imperial family was well known. It was she who commissioned Nikolai Karamzin to write his
Karamzin sharply criticized Russian foreign policy in Alexander’s reign. In his view, the empire had been dragged into quarrels which were not its concern and had often lost sight of its own interests. The crafty British were always alive to the possibility of getting other countries to bear the main burden of Britain’s ancestral struggle with France. As for the French and Austrians, whichever empire dominated European affairs would deride Russia and call it ‘an Asiatic country’. Apart from reflecting these deep-rooted Russian insecurities and resentments, Karamzin also made many specific criticisms. In the winter of 1806–7 either Bennigsen’s army should have been massively reinforced or Russia should have made peace with Napoleon. The actual peace treaty signed at Tilsit was a disaster. Russia’s overriding interest was that Poland must never be resurrected. Allowing the creation of the Duchy of Warsaw was a major error. To avoid this, no doubt Silesia would have had to be left to Napoleon and Prussia abandoned. This was unfortunate but in foreign affairs one had to consult one’s own self-interest alone. The alliance with France was fundamentally flawed.
Shall we deceive Napoleon? Facts are facts. He knows that inwardly we detest him, because we fear him; he had occasion to observe our more than questionable enthusiasm in the last Austrian war. This ambivalence of ours was not a new mistake, but an inescapable consequence of the position in which we had been put by the Tilsit peace. Is it easy to keep a promise to assist one’s natural enemy and to increase his power?40
If anything, the analysis of Alexander’s domestic policy was even more critical. Alexander had kept Catherine informed of his discussions with Speransky and some of this she had passed on to Karamzin. The core of his
Karamzin’s arguments made a lot of sense. Catherine II had ruled in harmony with the ‘political nation’, in other words the elites. In subsequent decades a bureaucratic monarchy was created without strong roots in society, even among the traditional elites. That was a major factor over the much longer term in the isolation and ultimate fall of the imperial regime. On the other hand, to the extent that Karamzin’s criticisms were directed against Speransky, they were mostly unfair. Russia was woefully under-governed. A much larger and more professional bureaucracy had to be developed if Russia was to flourish. Society could not control the growing bureaucratic machine by old-fashioned methods such as aristocrats hopping from positions at court into top posts in government. Only the rule of law and representative institutions could hope to achieve this goal, and Speransky – perhaps unknown to Karamzin – was planning to introduce them.
Even if he had known all Speransky’s plans, however, Karamzin would probably still have opposed them. Given the cultural level of the provincial gentry he might well have considered the introduction of representative assemblies premature. Certainly he would have argued that the eve of a great war with Napoleon was a mad moment at which to throw Russia into chaos by fundamental constitutional reform. Unlike most of Speransky’s opponents, Karamzin was in no way motivated by personal enmity or ambition. Nevertheless he would probably have pointed out to Alexander that most Russian nobles considered Speransky to be a Jacobin, a worshipper of Napoleon and a traitor, and that this was a very dangerous state of affairs on the eve of a war in which national unity was crucial and the war effort would depend enormously on the voluntary commitment of the Russian aristocracy and gentry.
In fact the emperor was far too good a politician not to understand this himself. In March 1812 Speransky was dismissed and sent into exile. In these weeks that preceded the outbreak of war Alexander was overworked and under great pressure. He also hated confrontations like the long private meeting with Speransky which preceded the latter’s removal. The emperor was also outraged by reports of snide comments by Speransky about his indecisiveness, faithfully passed on by the Petersburg grapevine. The result was a hysterical imperial outburst, culminating in a threat to have Speransky shot. Since Alexander sometimes enjoyed histrionics and on this occasion his audience was a rather dimwitted and deeply impressed German professor, we can take all this hysteria as the
