The reign of "Russian Hamlet" was short, but rich in reforms, including very specific ones.
Whiskers
Paul ascended the throne in 1796, bypassing rumors about the will of Catherine the Great, according to whom his eldest son, the future emperor Alexander I, was supposedly to take the throne. According to historians, Paul's reign looked senseless and unsuccessful. A characteristic feature of the five years of the Pavlovian empire was the struggle against free-thinking in completely unexpected directions. It seems that, when imposing prohibitions, Paul was just shouting "Eureka!" Every time. Getting rid of sideburns, cisterns, tanks is one of the sudden ideas, an unusual attempt to standardize thoughts. The emperor's hairdressing abilities were realized in the creation of a new hairstyle. Everyone pledged to wear a pigtail, comb their hair exclusively back and finally abandon the cisterns. First of all, Pavel tried on a new image for himself - and thus he was able to get rid of a good half of the complexes. The emperor was poor in facial hair. Paul is happy, but the people shaved their cisterns and thought even more. Each time has its own heroes. The exiled sideburns will return to the people together with the legislator of verbal and not only fashion, Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin. No joke - to be born in the year the sideburns were canceled.
Balls
The Russian people had a hard time during the Pavlovian five-year plan. Having ascended the throne, the new emperor radically marked the beginning of his reign: in 1797, Paul banned the waltz as an indecent dance. Why the favorite noble dance seemed obscene to the emperor remains a mystery. The decree of Paul I of December 1 seemed mysterious in general, among the now forbidden things were both sideburns and women's clothing (“wearing blue women's frock coats with red collars and a white skirt is prohibited”). What about dancing? A year later, the waltz returned to dance routine - the emperor fell in love. Anna Petrovna Lopukhina loved balls, and she considered the waltz the best dance. Pavel appreciated the privilege of keeping his partner so close and whispering in the lady's ear the appropriate nonsense. Contemporaries, by the way, attributed Paul's dislike of waltz to failure - the emperor fell in the dance.
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Beech
Another prohibition of the decree of 1797, another attempt by Paul to reason not only the minds of his subjects, but also tastes. On June 17, the curls and bangs disappeared.
Foreign literature
During his tenure as emperor, Paul fought against literature. Tightening of censorship by the hands of the ruler is nothing new in the history of Russia. Both Peter and Nicholas II tightened censorship. The mother of Paul I, against whose orders Pavel Petrovich fought zealously, exiled Radishchev, and his son Nikolai became famous thanks to the "cast-iron" charter. The emperor was facing a real threat, in France the revolution was victorious. Paul, the eradicator of free thinking, was frightened by the French bacillus. In 1800, on one of the borders of the Russian Empire, customs confiscated about 552 books, and rare state printing houses were working inside the country, and private ones were closed.
Departure
Coupled with the ban on foreign literature in 1800, young people lost their right to travel abroad. The ban on travel kept the heads of young people in the "house-building" order, eliminating unnecessary, extremely infectious freethinking. The French Revolution put the Russian Empire on quarantine.
The words
In the 17th century, the Russian Empire acquired the French language. Along with German, French was spoken and written. The use of French supplanted the love of German; emperors, nobles, and military men spoke French. Moreover, speaking Russian without using French was considered mauvais ton. Paul I received a decent education, and not only military, but also philological. The emperor loved literature, wrote and spoke in both German and French. The struggle against the widespread penetration of French speech into the life of the Russian Empire was an obvious consequence of fear. Pavel was afraid of revolutionary France and did not want to remember it. In 1800, French dresses disappeared, henceforth it was allowed to have only one coat of German cut. The words also disappeared. The usual ones - "citizen" and "fatherland" were replaced by "man in the street" and "state", and the word "detachment" was changed to "detachment". Turning away from France, Russia sought support from Old Fritz.
The form
Contemporaries noted the similarity of the profiles of Paul I and Frederick II the Great. Blood relatives - the king of Prussia and the Russian emperor were similar in disposition and preferences. Having rejected the influence of France, Paul found in the person of Frederick the Great not only an ally, but also a teacher. Looking back on the experience of Prussia, Pavel Petrovich carried out a reform of the army. New military districts were created, new regulations, the rights and obligations of servicemen were introduced, and barracks were built. Contemporaries did not appreciate the reform - drill and frunt caused indignation in the army itself. Pavel changed the clothes of the entire Russian army - the Potemkin uniform was replaced by the uniform of the army of Frederick the Great. The uniform, by the way, was considered archaic, and the young military did not want to go "in old" at all. However, the new uniform had one advantage - the overcoat. In 1812, Paul's overcoat saved the Russian army,warm and light, in cold conditions it aroused the envy of the French enemy.