Alexander I., Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias (1801-25), was born in 1777. His father, Paul (q.v.), had no control over his education; it was conducted by his grandmother, the Empress Catharine, with the help chiefly of Laharpe, a Swiss; and the young prince was brought up in the most advanced and enlightened opinions of the 18th century. His mother was Maria of Württemberg. In 1793 he married Elizabeth of Baden, and, on the assassination of his father in 1801, succeeded him upon the throne. Alexander knew of the conspiracy to dethrone his father, but he was in no way privy to his murder. The young ruler seemed deeply penetrated with a sense of his obligation to make his people happy and to promote their civilisation and prosperity. Many changes were at once initiated. Education was promoted; the universities of Moscow, Vilna, and Dorpat were remodelled; and new ones were founded at Kazan, Kharkoff, and St Petersburg. Steps were taken for alleviating serfdom. The press-censorship was relaxed; and generally a milder system of law and administration was introduced.
The accession of Alexander was most distinctly felt in the conduct of foreign affairs. In 1801 he concluded a convention putting an end to hostilities with England. He next entered, along with France, into negotiations respecting the indemnification of the minor states in Germany and Italy; but discovering how little Napoleon intended any real compensation, he broke with France, and joined the coalition of 1805. He was present at the battle of Austerlitz, where the allied armies of Austria and Russia were defeated, and retired with the remains of his forces into Russia, declining to enter into the treaty that followed. Next year, he came forward as the ally of Prussia; but after the battles of Eylau and Friedland, in 1807, he was obliged to conclude the peace of Tilsit, in which he managed to prevent the restoration of the kingdom of Poland, and to mitigate the hard fate of the king of Prussia. During the war with France, Alexander had also to carry on hostilities with Persia and with Turkey.
In pursuance of the stipulations of Tilsit, Alexander acceded with his huge empire to the French continental system, thus altering entirely the foreign policy of Russia. He began by declaring war on England in 1808, and, attacking her ally Sweden, wrested from that country the province of Finland. In the war of France against Austria in 1809, Alexander took only a lukewarm part. Against the Porte he renewed the war, which was continued till the peace of Bucharest in 1812.
The unnatural alliance of Alexander with Napoleon could not, however, be maintained. The pressure of the continental system on the material resources of Russia, the despotic changes made by Napoleon, the augmentation of the duchy of Warsaw, the proffers of alliance by England and Sweden, awoke in Alexander the thought of a decisive contest against the subjugator of Europe and the disturber of the peace of the world. When this gigantic struggle at last began (1812), Russia brought into the field an army of 300,000 men. During the French invasion, Alexander was not present with his troops, but he took an active part in the great struggles of 1813 and 1814. At the occupation of Paris after the downfall of Napoleon in 1814, Alexander was the central figure of the politics and diplomacy of the time. His courtesy, humanity, and regard for the feelings and interests of the French, won for him a personal regard amounting to enthusiasm. He was received with the same feeling in London, which he visited after the treaty of Paris in June 1814. After a short residence in his own capital, he repaired to the Congress of Vienna. Here he laid claim to Poland as essential to the interests of Russia, but promised to confer on it a constitution. On the return of Napoleon from Elba, Alexander urged the energetic prosecution of the war against the common enemy; yet on this occasion, too, France owed much to his generosity.
In the end of October 1815, Alexander returned to his own dominions. Under his guidance, Russia had become the leading power on the Continent; the limits of the empire had extended; and notwithstanding the war, the earlier legislative reforms had begun to act favourably on the industry and wellbeing of the nation. At Paris, Alexander had met Madame Krüdener, who gave a new direction to his mind, and his French ideas gave place to a decided piety, with sympathies for Protestant and English ways of thinking. The British and Foreign Bible Society established itself at St Petersburg with great success. Alexander received a deputation of Quakers, and prayed and wept with them. The most important political outcome of this period was the Holy Alliance (q.v.), founded by Alexander, and accepted by all the leading Christian countries of Europe, except Britain. Many causes contributed to force Alexander into a reactionary course. He yielded to the influence of Metternich, the celebrated Austrian statesman, and the Holy Alliance became an instrument of political reaction throughout Europe. At home he adopted severe measures of repression, which were in entire contradiction to the principles of his youth.
The progress of the revolt in Greece brought the policy of the emperor into complete opposition to the deepest sympathies of the nation. The Russian people were profoundly interested in the Greek struggle; but the emperor condemned the rising as insurrection. The death of his only and much-loved natural daughter, the terrible inundation suffered by St Petersburg in 1824, in which he exposed himself to personal danger, and the alarm caused by a Russo-Polish conspiracy against all the members of the House of Romanof, contributed not a little to break the heart of the emperor, and completely destroy the composure of his mind. Weary with the burden of governing a vast empire, not yet ripe for the advanced views which he himself cherished, he commenced, in September 1825, a journey to the Crimea for the benefit of his health. He died at Taganrog, December 1, 1825. It is reported that about this time he was heard to repeat: 'And yet men may say of me what they please, I have lived and will die a republican.' The rumour that he had been poisoned is altogether groundless. Shortly before his death, he learned the details of the conspiracy which his brother and successor, Nicholas I. (q.v.), had to begin his reign by putting down. See Rambaud, Histoire de la Russie (Par. 1879; English trans. by L. B. Lang).