Alexander I (Napoleonic Age)

Alexander I (born Alexander Pavlovich Romanov; 23 December 1777 – 1 December 1825) was Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias from 1801 to 1825. He reigned during a period of significant change throughout Europe, leading the Russian Empire through the Napoleonic Wars and in the decade after the end of the War of the Seventh Coalition and the Treaty of Prague. Following the Coalition's defeat in 1815, he gradually grew more and more reactionary, severely punishing the editors of liberal publications, ousting foreign educators in Russian schools, and became to a certain degree paranoid. He died childless in 1825, passing the throne to his younger brother, who would reign until 1844. Russian power under his thumb declined steadily in the first years of the Napoleonic Age, would stagnate under his younger brother Nicholas, and would eventually recover and grow under Alexander II in the 1840s and onward.