"A History of Russia in the 19th Century" by Doctor of Historical Sciences and Professor Andrei Borisovich Zubov is not a chronological retelling of events, but a reflection on the causes that hastened the demise of "historical Russia." Professor Zubov believes that the catastrophe of the early 20th century has much deeper roots than is commonly believed. A careful study of these causes helps not only better understand the past but also explain the present.

The third volume is devoted to the first period of the reign of Nicholas Pavlovich. The nature of "Knight Nicholas," as he was called in childhood, the "Don Quixote of Autocracy," as he was later called, was infused with the absolute conservatism of his mentors, the historian Nikolai Karamzin and General Matthias Lambsdorff: the individual is insignificant, the state is intrinsically valuable. An inept yet pompous foreign policy was paid for at a well-known price—the blood of Russian soldiers, and technological breakthroughs at the cost of the suffering and hardships of the common man. By the middle of the reign of Nicholas I, behind the external splendor of the Court and the power of the million-strong army, insightful observers increasingly saw the stagnation and decline of a huge country, shackled in the shackles of slavery.