NICHOLAS I

born July 6 [June 25, old style], 1796, Tsarskoye Selo [now Pushkin], near St. Petersburg, Russia died March 2 [Feb. 18, O.S.], 1855, St. Petersburg Russian in full Nikolay Pavlovich Russian emperor (182555), often considered the personification of classic autocracy; for his reactionary policies, he has been called the emperor who froze Russia for 30 years. born 852, Constantinople died May 15, 925 byname Nicholas The Mystic Byzantine patriarch of Constantinople (901907; 912925), who contributed measurably to the attempted reunion of the Greek and Roman churches and who fomented the tetragamy controversy, or the question of a fourth marriage for the Eastern Orthodox. A close associate of the controversial patriarch Photius of Constantinople, Nicholas began his career in the Byzantine civil service but became a monk when Photius was deposed in 886. Named a secretary counsellor (Mysticus) by the emperor Leo VI (886912), Nicholas was appointed patriarch of Constantinople in 901. Having refused on grounds of religious legality and propriety to grant the Emperor's request for a dispensation to contract a fourth marriage after the death of his third wife, and declining to consult Pope Sergius III in the matter, Nicholas was banished to a monastery outside Constantinople. Recalled either by Leo in the last year of his reign, or by Emperor Alexander (912913), Nicholas was invited to act as regent for Prince Constantine VII. Because of his harsh retaliation against patriarch Euthymius, his successor during exile, Nicholas alienated many of the clergy and people, among them Leo's family, creating a rivalry between their respective supporters. During the rule of the emperor Romanus I Lecapenus (920944), Nicholas was reconciled with Patriarch Euthymius, thus ending the bitter internal struggle within the Eastern Orthodox Church. Nicholas' negotiations with Pope John X (914928) concerning cooperative union between Eastern and Western Christendom and an agreement over the ecclesiastical law of marriage for the Eastern Church inaugurated a rare period of harmony. In a synod (920) Nicholas issued a decree of union settling the tetragamy question by ordinarily limiting Greek Christians to three marriages but validating the fourth marriage of Leo VI for the good of the state in order to settle the imperial line of succession by a legitimate heir. Nicholas also engaged in various diplomatic affairs, as is evidenced by his letters on ByzantineBulgarian relations and concerning questions of Greek estates in Italy. He is revered as a saint by the Eastern Orthodox Church. born Oct. 7 [Sept. 25, old style], 1841, Njego, Montenegro died March 2, 1921, Antibes, Fr. Montenegrin in full Nikola Petrovic prince (18601910) and then king (191018) of Montenegro, who transformed his small principality into a sovereign European nation. Heir presumptive to his uncle Danilo II, who was childless, Nicholas came to the throne in August 1860 after Danilo's assassination. Educated abroad in Paris and Trieste, he was throughout his reign faced with the difficult task of popularizing Western ways. A strong prince and an outstanding leader, he fought the Turks in 1862 and again in 1876, when he conducted a brilliant campaign. At the Congress of Berlin (1878), Montenegro was doubled in size, with an outlet to the Adriatic, and recognized as a sovereign state. Alexander II of Russia, whose friendship with Nicholas dated back to a state visit to St. Petersburg in 1868, supplied him regularly with money and arms and at one point favoured his candidacy for the Serbian throne. A clever diplomat, Nicholas strengthened his dynastic connections through the marriages of his daughters: Elena married (1896) the future king of Italy, Victor Emmanuel III; Zorka married Peter Karageorgevic (1883) but died before he became king of Serbia; two other daughters married Russian grand dukes. In Balkan politics Nicholas conspired, sometimes with, and sometimes against, Serbian rulers, to create a South Slav state. Styling himself Royal Highness (December 1900), Nicholas became more despotic until he was forced to grant a constitution in 1905. Political dissension, nevertheless, continued, culminating in the Cetinje bomb plot against him (1907). On Aug. 28, 1910, Nicholas declared himself king. Hoping to gain prestige through the addition of new territories, he joined in the Balkan War of 191213 against Turkey; but his territorial acquisitions were disappointing. In World War I he supported Serbia against Austria-Hungary. Defeated, he concluded a separate peace in January 1916 and then went into exile in Italy. When the victorious Serbs entered Montenegro after the defeat of Austria-Hungary, Nicholas and his dynasty were formally deposed by a national assembly (Nov. 26, 1918), and Montenegro was joined to Serbia, later to become part of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (Yugoslavia). Additional reading The leading full account of Nicholas I and his reign, especially valuable on foreign relations and with numerous documentary appendixes, is Theodor Schiemann, Geschichte Russlands unter Kaiser Nikolaus I, 4 vol. (190419, reprinted 1969). W. Bruce Lincoln, Nicholas I, Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias (1978, reprinted 1989), is a valuable scholarly biography with bibliography. A readable popular study is Constantin de Grunwald, Tsar Nicholas I (1954; originally published in French, 1946). Nicholas Valentine Riasanovsky, Nicholas I and Official Nationality in Russia, 18251855 (1959, reissued 1969); and A.E. Presniakov, Emperor Nicholas I of Russia: The Apogee of Autocracy, 18251865 (1974; originally published in Russian, 1925), with an extended introduction by Riasanovsky, are also useful.