Foreign Observers of the Russian Political Crisis: The Case of the Interregnum of 1825

Abstract

The article examines the events of the Russian interregnum, which preceded the Decembrist revolt, as a phenomenon of European politics, as it focuses on analysing the reports and reasoning of foreign diplomats on the development of the dynastic crisis and the struggle between the Grand Dukes Nicholas and Constantine. These communications, on the one hand, determined the discussion of the Russian crisis in the press and could be used to interpret it. On the other hand, the study of this segment of the information field makes it possible to determine fairly accurately the motivation that European public opinion attributed to Constantine's actions and his bizarre behaviour in November–December 1825. This study takes a different approach to interpreting the logic of an event that shook the European continent than previous historiographical works have done. Drawing on a wide range of archival and published sources, as well as the French press which dominated European political discourse at the time, the author demonstrates that the key issue before Russia and Europe in the crisis in question was the possible emergence of an independent Polish state under the sceptre of one of the Romanovs.