This lecture is based on Elise Wirtschafter’s recent book devoted to the conceptual history of Russian diplomacy in the aftermath of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. The book describes how Emperor Alexander I (ruled 1801–25) and his diplomatic agents understood European security as they worked to implement the edifice of pacification and peace constructed in 1814, 1815, and 1818. In response to developments across Europe and in Spanish America, Alexander I’s hopes for peace, pragmatic adaptability, and commitment to act in concert with the other great powers (Austria, Britain, France, and Prussia) came fully into focus. The book challenges characterizations of the monarch’s behavior as erratic and his foreign policy as heavy-handed and expansionist. Study of the Russian perspective on European order—and the perspectives of other less well-studied countries—reveals a multifaceted Restoration built upon concrete state interests, practices of Enlightenment reformism, and direct experience of revolution and war.

Wirtschafter’s book details how the empire’s diplomats, including the tsar diplomat, presented Russian foreign policy to the world, what they thought they were doing (or wanted others to think they were doing), and how they understood the commitment to act in concert (concerter), which they viewed as the primary guarantee of peace in Europe. Attention to the thinking that defined Russian foreign policy highlights dynamics of peacemaking and the strength of old regime institutions over more familiar themes such as empire building, ethno-nationalism, or the struggle between “progress” and “reaction.”