The Monroe Doctrine and Russia: American Views of Czar Alexander I and Their Influence upon Early Russian-American Relations

Abstract

The history of early Russian-American relations has often been presented in a contradictory and conflicting fashion. This has occurred partly because the historical literature tended to have political or ideological biases after the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution and especially during the Cold War. The differing historical interpretations also have arisen because of the mysterious character of Czar Alexander I (r. 1801–1825). Historians have labeled him as an “enigmatic tsar,”“paternalistic reformer,” or “the sphinx.”1 At the beginning of his reign, Alexander was considered to be a liberal ruler. But as revolutions broke out in Spain, Portugal, Naples, and Piedmont during the early 1820s, he became increasingly conservative, even reactionary. Late in 1821, former U.S. President James Madison, an erstwhile admirer of the czar, wrote that he had “seen, not without some little disappointment, the latter developments of character in the Emperor Alexander.”2 In addition, it was not always easy for outside observers to trace Russian foreign-policy initiatives to Alexander, even though he was the most absolute monarch of the time in Europe. Contemporary and later scholars have often been unable to determine whether Russian diplomacy was propelled by the czar, his ministers, or the directors of the semi-official Russian-American Company, which had considerable economic interests in North America.3