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NOW FOR YOUR VIEWING PLEASURE…
ANTIQUE / OLD
COIN
JETTON
RECHENPFENNIG / REICHPFENNIG
MINTED IN THE KINGDOM OF PRUSSIA, GERMANY
IN TRIBUTE TO
KAISER ALEXANDER VON RUSSLAND
ALEXANDER I OF RUSSIA
THE BRASS TOKEN
DEPICTS THE PRESIDING RULER
DECORATED - PROFILE FACING LEFT
REVERSE - AN EQUESTRIAN STATUE
WITH THE INSCRIPTION "OPTIMO PRINICIPI"
IN LATIN MEANING 'EXCELLENT SOURCE'
EXONUMIA MEASURES ABOUT 24mm
SHOWS MINIMAL AGE WEAR
CIRCA 1813 +/-
ULTRA RARE!!
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FYI
Alexander I of Russia (Russian: ????????? I ????????, Aleksandr I Pavlovich) (23 December [O.S. 12 December] 1777 – 1 December [O.S. 19 November] 1825), also known as Alexander the Blessed (Russian: ????????? ??????????????, Aleksandr Blagoslovennyi), served as Emperor of Russia from 23 March 1801 to 1 December 1825 and the first Russian King of Poland from 1815 to 1825. He was also the first Russian Grand Duke of Finland and Lithuania.
He was born in Saint Petersburg to Grand Duke Paul Petrovich, later Emperor Paul I, and Maria Feodorovna, daughter of The Duke of Württemberg. Alexander was the eldest of four brothers. He succeeded to the throne after his father was murdered, and ruled Russia during the chaotic period of the Napoleonic Wars. In the first half of his reign Alexander tried to introduce liberal reforms, while in the second half his conduct became much more arbitrary, which led to the revocation of many earlier reforms. In foreign policy Alexander gained some successes, mainly by his diplomatic skills and by winning several military campaigns. In particular, Russia acquired Finland and part of Poland under his rule. His sudden death in Taganrog, under allegedly suspicious circumstances, gave rise to rumors that Alexander in fact did not die in 1825, but instead chose to "disappear", living the rest of his life in anonymity.
Succession to the throne
Alexander I succeeded to the throne on 24 March 1801, and was crowned in the Kremlin on 15 September of that year.
Domestic Policy
At first, the Orthodox Church exercised little influence on the Emperor’s life. The young tsar was determined to reform the outdated, centralised systems of government that Russia relied upon.[citation needed] While retaining for a time the old ministers who had served and overthrown Emperor Paul, one of the first acts of his reign was to appoint the Private Committee, comprising young and enthusiastic friends of his own—Victor Kochubey, Nikolay Novosiltsev, Pavel Stroganov and Adam Jerzy Czartoryski—to draw up a plan of domestic reform, which was supposed to result in the establishment of a constitutional monarchy in accordance with the teachings of the Age of Enlightenment.
In a few years the liberal Mikhail Speransky became one of the Tsar’s closest advisors, and drew up many plans for elaborate reforms. By the Government reform of Alexander I the old Collegia were abolished and new Ministries created in their place, having at their head ministers responsible to the Crown. A Council of Ministers under the chairmanship of the Sovereign dealt with all interdepartmental matters.
The State Council was created in order to improve technique of legislation. It was intended to become the Second Chamber of representative legislature.
The Governing Senate was reorganized as the Supreme Court of the Empire. The codification of the laws initiated in 1801 was never carried out during his reign.
Also Alexander wanted to resolve another crucial issue in Russia—the future of the serfs, although this was not achieved until 1861 (during the reign of his nephew Alexander II). New law allowed all classes (the serfs excepted) to own land, the privilege that was previously confined to the nobility.
When Alexander's reign began, there were but three universities in Russia, at Moscow, Vilna (Vilnius), and Dorpat (Tartu). These were strengthened, and three others were founded at St. Petersburg, Kharkov, and Kazan. Literary and scientific bodies were established or encouraged, and the reign became noted for the aid lent to the sciences and arts by the Emperor and the wealthy nobility.
After 1815 the military settlements (farms worked by soldiers and their families under military control) were introduced, with the idea of making the army, or part of it, self-supporting economically and for providing it with recruits.
Views held by his contemporaries
Autocrat and "Jacobin", man of the world and mystic, he appeared to his contemporaries as a riddle which each read according to his own temperament. Napoleon Bonaparte thought him a "shifty Byzantine", and called him the Talma of the North, as ready to play any conspicuous part. To Metternich he was a madman to be humoured. Castlereagh, writing of him to Lord Liverpool, gives him credit for "grand qualities", but adds that he is "suspicious and undecided"; and to Jefferson he was a man of estimable character, disposed to do good, and expected to diffuse through the mass of the Russian people "a sense of their natural rights."
Alliances with other powers
Upon his accession, Alexander reversed the policy of his father, Paul, denounced the League of Armed Neutrality, and made peace with Britain (April 1801). At the same time he opened negotiations with Francis II of the Holy Roman Empire. Soon afterwards at Memel he entered into a close alliance with Prussia, not as he boasted from motives of policy, but in the spirit of true chivalry, out of friendship for the young King Frederick William III and his beautiful wife Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz.
The development of this alliance was interrupted by the short-lived peace of October 1801; and for a while it seemed as though France and Russia might come to an understanding. Carried away by the enthusiasm of La Harpe, who had returned to Russia from Paris, Alexander began openly to proclaim his admiration for French institutions and for the person of Napoleon Bonaparte. Soon, however, came a change. La Harpe, after a new visit to Paris, presented to the Tsar his Reflections on the True Nature of the Consul for Life, which, as Alexander said, tore the veil from his eyes, and revealed Bonaparte "as not a true patriot", but only as "the most famous tyrant the world has produced". Alexander's disillusionment was completed by the murder of the duc d'Enghien. The Russian court went into mourning for the last member of the House of Condé, and diplomatic relations with France were broken off.
Prussia
The brilliance of these new visions did not, however, blind Alexander to the obligations of friendship; and he refused to retain the Danubian principalities as the price for suffering a further dismemberment of Prussia. "We have made loyal war", he said, "we must make a loyal peace". It was not long before the first enthusiasm of Tilsit began to wane. The French remained in Prussia, the Russians on the Danube; and each accused the other of breach of faith. Meanwhile, however, the personal relations of Alexander and Napoleon were of the most cordial character; and it was hoped that a fresh meeting might adjust all differences between them. The meeting took place at Erfurt in October 1808 and resulted in a treaty which defined the common policy of the two Emperors. But Alexander's relations with Napoleon nonetheless suffered a change. He realised that in Napoleon sentiment never got the better of reason, that as a matter of fact he had never intended his proposed "grand enterprise" seriously, and had only used it to preoccupy the mind of the Tsar while he consolidated his own power in Central Europe. From this moment the French alliance was for Alexander also not a fraternal agreement to rule the world, but an affair of pure policy. He used it, in the first instance, to remove "the geographical enemy" from the gates of Saint Petersburg by wresting Finland from Sweden (1809); and he hoped by means of it to make the Danube the southern frontier of Russia.
Death
Tsar Alexander I became increasingly suspicious of those around him, especially after an attempt was made to kidnap him when he was on his way to the conference in Aachen, Germany.
In the autumn of 1825 the Emperor undertook a voyage to the south of Russia due to the increasing illness of his wife. During his trip he himself caught a cold which developed into typhus from which he died in the southern city of Taganrog on 19 November (O.S.)/ 1 December 1825. His wife died a few months later as the emperor's body was transported to Saint Petersburg for the funeral. He was interred at the Sts. Peter and Paul Cathedral of the Peter and Paul Fortress in Saint Petersburg on 13 March 1826.
Speculation has arisen since his reported death, that Emperor Alexander I actually faked his own death and that he fled to become a hermit. It is said that the Russian Orthodox Saint, St. Feodor Kuzmich is actually Emperor Alexander I. The Saint received a visit from the Emperor Alexander II a dozen years after the supposed death of Emperor Alexander I. The burial place of the Saint in Tomsk was later visited by Emperor Nicholas II in 1893. The Grand Duchess Olga, daughter of Emperor Alexander III also admitted that she was taught that Emperor Alexander I and Feodor Kuzmich were the same individual.
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