He is mainly remembered as a reactionary whose controversial reign was marked by geographical expansion, centralisation of administrative policies, and repression of dissent both in Russia and among its neighbors.

In his public persona, stated Riasanovsky, "Nicholas I came to represent autocracy personified: infinitely majestic, determined and powerful, hard as stone, and relentless as fate.

"[2] Nicholas I was instrumental in helping to create an independent Greek state and resumed the Russian conquest of the Caucasus by seizing Iğdır Province and the remainder of modern-day Armenia and Azerbaijan from Qajar Iran during the Russo-Persian War (1826–1828).

Defunct Nicholas completely lacked his brother's spiritual and intellectual breadth; he saw his role simply as that of a paternal autocrat ruling his people by whatever means necessary.

As an exception to this trend, Finland was able to keep its autonomy partly due to Finnish soldiers' loyal participation in crushing the November Uprising in Poland.

It was a reactionary policy based on orthodoxy in religion, autocracy in government, and the state-founding role of the Russian nationality and equal citizen rights for all other peoples inhabiting Russia, with the exclusion of Jews.

[14] The results of these Slavophile principles led, broadly speaking, to increasing repression of all classes, excessive censorship, and surveillance of independent-minded intellectuals like Pushkin and Lermontov and to the persecution of non-Russian languages and non-Orthodox religions.

[citation needed] One group, the westernizers, believed that Russia remained backward and primitive and could progress only through adopting European culture and institutions.

Through the works of Aleksandr Pushkin, Nikolai Gogol, Ivan Turgenev and numerous others, Russian literature gained international stature and recognition.

They had outdated equipment and tactics, but the tsar, who dressed like a soldier and surrounded himself with officers, gloried in the victory over Napoleon in 1812 and took enormous pride in its smartness on parade.

Curtiss finds that "The pedantry of Nicholas's military system, which stressed unthinking obedience and parade ground evolutions rather than combat training, produced ineffective commanders in time of war."

I regard human life as service because everybody must serve.Nicholas was often exasperated by the slow pace of the Russian bureaucracy and had a marked preference for appointing generals and admirals to high government rank because of their perceived efficiency, overlooking or ignoring whether or not they were actually qualified for the role.

The most notorious case was Prince Alexander Sergeyevich Menshikov, a competent brigade commander in the Imperial Army who proved himself out of his depth as a Navy minister.

[42] Nicholas's offers to suppress revolution on the European continent, trying to follow the pattern set by his eldest brother, Alexander I, earned him the label of "gendarme of Europe".

Nicholas then petitioned the Prussian ambassador for Russian troops to be granted transit rights in order to march across Europe and restore Dutch hegemony over Belgium.

Nicholas made it clear he would only act if Prussia and Britain also participated as he feared that a Russian invasion of Belgium would cause a war with France.

[48] Nicholas hated Louis-Philippe, the self-styled Le roi citoyen ("the Citizen King") as a renegade nobleman and a "usurper", and his foreign policy starting in 1830 was primarily anti-French, based upon reviving the coalition that had existed during the Napoleonic era of Russia, Prussia, Austria and Britain, to isolate France.

[50] Britain was unwilling to join the anti-French coalition, but Nicholas was successful in cementing existing close ties with Austria and Prussia and the three imperial states regularly held joint military reviews during this time.

[52] After the November Uprising broke out, in 1831 the Polish parliament deposed Nicholas as king of Poland in response to his repeated curtailment of its constitutional rights.

Nicholas then proceeded to abrogate the Polish constitution in virtual entirety and reduced Poland to the status of a province called Vistula Land.

[59] The Russian Foreign Minister Karl Nesselrode wrote in letter to his ambassador in Constantinople Nikolai Muravyov that the victory of Muhammad Ali of Egypt over Mahmud II would lead to a new dynasty ruling the Ottoman Empire.

The major European parties mistakenly believed that the treaty contained a secret clause granting Russia the right to transit warships through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits.

Buoyed by his role in suppressing the revolutions of 1848 as well as his mistaken belief he could rely on British diplomatic support, Nicholas moved against the Ottomans, who declared war on Russia on 8 October 1853.

England threatens Greece to support the false claims of a miserable Jew and burns its fleet: that is a lawful action; but Russia demands a treaty to protect millions of Christians, and that is deemed to strengthen its position in the East at the expense of the balance of power.

We can expect nothing from the West but blind hatred and malice...Austria offered the Ottomans diplomatic support, and Prussia remained neutral, thus leaving Russia without any allies on the continent.

At the end of his life, one of his most devoted civil servants, Aleksandr Nikitenko, opined, "the main failing of the reign of Nicholas Pavlovich was that it was all a mistake.

"[73] In 1891 Lev Tolstoy popularised the nickname Николай Палкин (Nicholas the Stick) in reference to the late emperor's passion for military discipline.

[74] Historian Barbara Jelavich points to many failures, including the "catastrophic state of Russian finances", the badly-equipped army, the inadequate transportation system, and a bureaucracy "characterized by graft, corruption, and inefficiency".

"[76] The Frenchman Marquis de Custine wrote the widely-read travel book La Russie en 1839 (Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia).

[101] Many sources state that Nicholas did not have an extramarital affair until after 25 years of marriage, in 1842, when the Empress's doctors prohibited her from having sexual intercourse, due to her poor health and recurring heart attacks.