title: Gender dysphoria

text: The causes of gender incongruence are unknown but a gender identity likely reflects genetic, biological, environmental, and cultural factors. Treatment for gender dysphoria may include supporting the individual's gender expression or their desire for hormone therapy or surgery. Treatment may also include counseling or psychotherapy.


title: Gender dysphoria

text: Some researchers and transgender people support declassification of the condition because they say the diagnosis pathologizes gender variance and reinforces the binary model of gender. Without the classification of gender dysphoria as a medical disorder, HRT and gender affirming surgery may be viewed as cosmetic treatments by health insurance, as opposed to medically necessary treatment, and may not be covered.


title: Gender dysphoria

text: Distress arising from an incongruence between a person's felt gender and assigned sex/gender (usually at birth) is the cardinal symptom of gender dysphoria.


title: Gender dysphoria

text: A 2018 review published in PLOS Global Public Health found however that gender dysphoria does not reflect sexual orientation or attraction. Another 2018 review published in Adolescent Health, Medicine, and Therapeutics likewise found no relation between sexual orientation and gender dysphoria. A 2021 review in Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience found no relation either, and stated that historically the two were often erroneously conflated.


title: Gender dysphoria

text: According to the British National Health Service, "gender dysphoria is not related to sexual orientation".


title: Gender dysphoria

text: According to the American Psychiatric Association, those who experience gender dysphoria later in life "often report having secretly hidden their gender dysphoric feelings from others when they were younger".


title: Gender dysphoria

text: Gender dysphoria in those assigned male at birth (AMAB) tends to follow one of two broad trajectories: early-onset or late-onset. Early-onset gender dysphoria is behaviorally visible in childhood. Sometimes gender dysphoria will stop for a while in this group and they will identify as gay or homosexual for a period of time, followed by recurrence of gender dysphoria. A 2016 review in the Archives of Sexual Behavior states this group is usually sexually attracted to members of their natal sex in adulthood, commonly identifying as heterosexual. Late-onset gender dysphoria does not include visible signs in early childhood, but some report having had wishes to be the opposite sex in childhood that they did not report to others. Likewise, according to the review, transgender people assigned male at birth who experience late-onset gender dysphoria will usually be attracted to women and may identify as lesbians or bisexual, while those with early-onset will usually be attracted to men. The review states a similar pattern occurs in those assigned female at birth (AFAB), with those experiencing early-onset GD being most likely to be attracted to women and those with late-onset being most likely to be attracted to men and identify as gay.


title: Gender dysphoria

text: Symptoms of GD in children include preferences for opposite sex-typical toys, games, or activities; great dislike of their own genitalia; and a strong preference for playmates of the opposite sex. Some children may also experience social isolation from their peers, anxiety, loneliness, and depression. In adolescents and adults, symptoms include the desire to be and to be treated as a different gender. Adults with GD are at increased risk for stress, isolation, anxiety, depression, poor self-esteem, and suicide. Transgender people are also at heightened risk for eating disorders and substance abuse.


title: Gender dysphoria

text: The specific causes of gender dysphoria remain unknown, and treatments targeting the etiology or pathogenesis of gender dysphoria do not exist. Evidence from studies of twins suggests that genetic factors play a role in the development of gender dysphoria. Gender identity is thought to likely reflect a complex interplay of biological, environmental, and cultural factors.


title: Gender dysphoria

text: The American Psychiatric Association permits a diagnosis of "gender dysphoria" in adolescents or adults if two or more of the following criteria are experienced for at least six months' duration:


title: Gender dysphoria

text: The DSM-5 moved this diagnosis out of the sexual disorders category and into a category of its own. The diagnosis was renamed from gender identity disorder to gender dysphoria, after criticisms that the former term was stigmatizing. Subtyping by sexual orientation was deleted. The diagnosis for children was separated from that for adults, as "gender dysphoria in children". The creation of a specific diagnosis for children reflects the lesser ability of children to have insight into what they are experiencing, or ability to express it if they have insight. "Other specified gender dysphoria" or "unspecified gender dysphoria" can be diagnosed if a person does not meet the criteria for gender dysphoria but still has clinically significant distress or impairment. Intersex people are now included in the diagnosis of GD.


title: Gender dysphoria

text: The International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) lists several disorders related to gender identity:


title: Gender dysphoria

text: The ICD-11, which came into effect on 1 January 2022, significantly revised classification of gender identity-related conditions. Under "conditions related to sexual health", the ICD-11 lists "gender incongruence", which is coded into three conditions:


title: Gender dysphoria

text: In addition, sexual maturation disorder has been removed, along with dual-role transvestism. ICD-11 defines gender incongruence as "a marked and persistent incongruence between an individual's experienced gender and the assigned sex", with no requirement for significant distress or impairment.


title: Gender dysphoria

text: Treatment for a person diagnosed with GD may include psychological counseling, supporting the individual's gender expression, or hormone therapy or surgery. This may involve physical transition resulting from medical interventions such as hormonal treatment, genital surgery, electrolysis or laser hair removal, chest/breast surgery, or other reconstructive surgeries. The goal of treatment may simply be to reduce problems resulting from the person's transgender status, for example, counseling the patient in order to reduce guilt associated with cross-dressing.


title: Gender dysphoria

text: Guidelines have been established to aid clinicians. The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) Standards of Care are used by some clinicians as treatment guidelines. Others use guidelines outlined in Gianna Israel and Donald Tarver's "Transgender Care". Guidelines for treatment generally follow a "harm reduction" model.


title: Gender dysphoria

text: Medical, scientific, and governmental organizations have opposed conversion therapy, defined as treatment viewing gender nonconformity as pathological and something to be changed, instead supporting approaches that affirm children's diverse gender identities. People are more likely to keep having gender dysphoria the more intense their gender dysphoria, cross-gendered behavior, and verbal identification with the desired/experienced gender are (i.e. stating that they "are" a different gender rather than "wish to be" a different gender).


title: Gender dysphoria

text: Professionals who treat gender dysphoria in children sometimes prescribe puberty blockers to delay the onset of puberty until a child is believed to be old enough to make an informed decision on whether hormonal or surgical gender reassignment is in their best interest. Short-term side effects of puberty blockers include headaches, fatigue, insomnia, muscle aches and changes in breast tissue, mood, and weight. Research on the long-term effects on brain development, cognitive function, fertility, and sexual function is limited.


title: Gender dysphoria

text: A review published in "Child and Adolescent Mental Health" found that puberty blockers are reversible, and that they are associated with such positive outcomes as decreased suicidality in adulthood, improved affect and psychological functioning, and improved social life.


title: Gender dysphoria

text: According to the American Psychiatric Association, "Due to the dynamic nature of puberty development, lack of gender-affirming interventions (i.e. social, psychological, and medical) is not a neutral decision; youth often experience worsening dysphoria and negative impact on mental health as the incongruent and unwanted puberty progresses. Trans-affirming treatment, such as the use of puberty suppression, is associated with the relief of emotional distress, and notable gains in psychosocial and emotional development, in trans and gender diverse youth".


title: Gender dysphoria

text: In its position statement published December 2020, the Endocrine Society stated that there is durable evidence for a biological underpinning to gender identity and that pubertal suppression, hormone therapy, and medically indicated surgery are effective and relatively safe when monitored appropriately and have been established as the standard of care. They noted a decrease in suicidal ideation among youth who have access to gender-affirming care and comparable levels of depression to cisgender peers among socially transitioned pre-pubertal youth. In its 2017 guideline on treating those with gender dysphoria, it recommends puberty blockers be started when the child has started puberty (Tanner Stage 2 for breast or genital development) and cross-sex hormones be started at 16, though they note "there may be compelling reasons to initiate sex hormone treatment prior to the age of 16 years in some adolescents with GD/gender incongruence". They recommend a multidisciplinary team of medical and mental health professionals manage the treatment for those under 18. They also recommend "monitoring clinical pubertal development every 3 to 6 months and laboratory parameters every 6 to 12 months during sex hormone treatment".


title: Gender dysphoria

text: The World Professional Association for Transgender Health's Standards of Care 8, published in 2022, declare puberty blocking medication as "medically necessary", and recommends them for usage in transgender adolescents once the patient has reached Tanner stage 2 of development, and state that longitudinal data shows improved outcomes for transgender patients who receive them. Some medical professionals disagree that adolescents are cognitively mature enough to make a decision with regard to hormone therapy or surgery, and advise that irreversible genital procedures should not be performed on individuals under the age of legal consent in their respective country.


title: Gender dysphoria

text: A review commissioned by the UK Department of Health found that there was very low certainty of quality of evidence about puberty blocker outcomes in terms of mental health, quality of life and impact on gender dysphoria. The Finnish government commissioned a review of the research evidence for treatment of minors and the Finnish Ministry of Health concluded that there are no research-based health care methods for minors with gender dysphoria. Nevertheless, they recommend the use of puberty blockers for minors on a case-by-case basis, and the American Academy of Pediatrics state that "pubertal suppression in children who identify as TGD [transgender and gender diverse] generally leads to improved psychological functioning in adolescence and young adulthood.".


title: Gender dysphoria

text: In the United States, several states have introduced or are considering legislation that would prohibit the use of puberty blockers in the treatment of transgender children. The American Medical Association, the Endocrine Society, the American Psychological Association, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the American Academy of Pediatrics oppose bans on puberty blockers for transgender children. In the UK, in the case of "Bell v Tavistock", an appeal court, overturning the original decision, ruled that children under 16 could give consent to receiving puberty blockers. In 2022, the National Board of Health and Welfare in Sweden issued new guidelines recommending that puberty blockers only be given in "exceptional cases" and said that their use was grounded in "uncertain science." Instead, they recommended child psychiatric treatment, psychosocial interventions, and suicide prevention measures to be offered by clinicians.


title: Gender dysphoria

text: Until the 1970s, psychotherapy was the primary treatment for gender dysphoria and generally was directed to helping the person adjust to their assigned sex. Psychotherapy is any therapeutic interaction that aims to treat a psychological problem. Psychotherapy may be used in addition to biological interventions, although some clinicians use only psychotherapy to treat gender dysphoria. Psychotherapeutic treatment of GD involves helping the patient to adapt to their gender incongruence or to explorative investigation of confounding co-occurring mental health issues. Attempts to alleviate GD by changing the patient's gender identity to reflect assigned sex have been ineffective and are regarded as conversion therapy by most health organizations.


title: Gender dysphoria

text: Biological treatments physically alter primary and secondary sex characteristics to reduce the discrepancy between an individual's physical body and gender identity. Biological treatments for GD are typically undertaken in conjunction with psychotherapy; however, the WPATH Standards of Care state that psychotherapy should not be an absolute requirement for biological treatments.


title: Gender dysphoria

text: Hormonal treatments have been shown to reduce a number of symptoms of psychiatric distress associated with gender dysphoria. A WPATH commissioned systematic review of the outcomes of hormone therapy "found evidence that gender-affirming hormone therapy may be associated with improvements in [quality of life] scores and decreases in depression and anxiety symptoms among transgender people." The strength of the evidence was low due to methodological limitations of the studies undertaken. Some literature suggests that gender-affirming surgery is associated with improvements in quality of life and decreased incidence of depression. Those who choose to undergo sex reassignment surgery report high satisfaction rates with the outcome, though these studies have limitations including risk of bias (lack of randomization, lack of controlled studies, self-reported outcomes) and high loss to follow up.


title: Gender dysphoria

text: For adolescents, much is unknown, including persistence. Disagreement among practitioners regarding treatment of adolescents is in part due to the lack of long-term data. Young people qualifying for biomedical treatment according to the Dutch model (including having GD from early childhood on which intensifies at puberty and absence of psychiatric comorbidities that could challenge diagnosis or treatment) found reduction in gender dysphoria, although limitations to these outcome studies have been noted, such as lack of controls or considering alternatives like psychotherapy.


title: Gender dysphoria

text: A review published in "Child and Adolescent Mental Health" found that puberty blockers are fully reversible, and that they are associated with such positive outcomes as decreased suicidality in adulthood, improved affect and psychological functioning, and improved social life.


title: Gender dysphoria

text: More rigorous studies are needed to assess the effectiveness, safety, and long-term benefits and risks of hormonal and surgical treatments. For instance, a 2020 Cochrane review found insufficient evidence to determine whether feminizing hormones were safe or effective. Several studies have found significant long-term psychological and psychiatric pathology after surgical treatments.


title: Gender dysphoria

text: In 2021, a review published in Plastic And Reconstructive Surgery found that less than 1% of people who undergo gender-affirming surgery regret the decision.


title: Gender dysphoria

text: Among youth, around 20% to 30% of individuals attending gender clinics meet the DSM criteria for an anxiety disorder. Gender dysphoria is also associated with an increased risk of eating disorders in transgender youth.


title: Gender dysphoria

text: A widely held view among clinicians is that there is an over-representation of neurodevelopmental conditions amongst individuals with GD, although this view has been questioned due to the low quality of evidence. Studies on children and adolescents with gender dysphoria have found a high prevalence of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) traits or a confirmed diagnosis of ASD. Adults with gender dysphoria attending specialist gender clinics have also been shown to have high rates of ASD traits or an autism diagnosis as well. It has been estimated that children with ASD were over four times as likely to be diagnosed with GD, with ASD being reported from 6% to over 20% of teens referring to gender identity services.


title: Gender dysphoria

text: Different studies have arrived at different conclusions about the prevalence of gender dysphoria. The DSM-5 estimates that about 0.005% to 0.014% of people assigned male at birth (that is, roughly one in 10,000) and 0.002% to 0.003% of people assigned female at birth (that is, two or three in every 100,000) are diagnosable with gender dysphoria.


title: Gender dysphoria

text: According to "Black's Medical Dictionary", gender dysphoria "occurs in one in 30,000 male births and one in 100,000 female births." Studies in European countries in the early 2000s found that about 1 in 12,000 natal male adults and 1 in 30,000 natal female adults seek out sex reassignment surgery. Studies of hormonal treatment or legal name change find higher prevalence than sex reassignment, with, for example a 2010 Swedish study finding that 1 in 7,750 adult natal males and 1 in 13,120 adult natal females requested a legal name change to a name of the opposite gender.


title: Gender dysphoria

text: Studies that measure transgender status by self-identification find even higher rates of gender identity different from sex assigned at birth (although some of those who identify as transgender or gender nonconforming may not experience clinically significant distress and so do not have gender dysphoria). A study in New Zealand found that 1 in 3,630 natal males and 1 in 22,714 natal females have changed their legal gender markers. A survey of Massachusetts adults found that 0.5% identify as transgender. A national survey in New Zealand of 8,500 randomly selected secondary school students from 91 randomly selected high schools found 1.2% of students responded "yes" to the question "Do you think you are transgender?". Outside of a clinical setting, the stability of transgender or non-binary identities is unknown.


title: Gender dysphoria

text: Research indicates people who transition in adulthood are up to three times more likely to be male assigned at birth, but that among people transitioning in childhood the sex ratio is close to 1:1. The prevalence of gender dysphoria in children is unknown due to the absence of formal prevalence studies.


title: Gender dysphoria

text: Neither the DSM-I (1952) nor the DSM-II (1968) contained a diagnosis analogous to gender dysphoria. Gender identity disorder first appeared as a diagnosis in the DSM-III (1980), where it appeared under "psychosexual disorders" but was used only for the childhood diagnosis. Adolescents and adults received a diagnosis of transsexualism (homosexual, heterosexual, or asexual type). The DSM-III-R (1987) added "Gender Identity Disorder of Adolescence and Adulthood, Non-Transsexual Type" (GIDAANT). DSM-V (2013) replaced gender identity disorder (GID) with gender dysphoria (GD) to avoid the stigma of the term "disorder".


title: Gender dysphoria

text: Researchers disagree about the nature of distress and impairment in people with GD. Some authors have suggested that people with GD suffer because they are stigmatized and victimized; and that, if society had less strict gender divisions, transgender people would suffer less.


title: Gender dysphoria

text: Some controversy surrounds the creation of the GD diagnosis, with Davy et al. stating that although the creators of the diagnosis state that it has rigorous scientific support, "it is impossible to scrutinize such claims, since the discussions, methodological processes, and promised field trials of the diagnosis have not been published."


title: Gender dysphoria

text: Some cultures have three or more defined genders. The existence of accepted social categories other than man or woman may alleviate the distress associated with cross-gender identity. For example, in Samoa, the "fa'afafine", a group of feminine males, are mostly socially accepted. The fa'afafine appear similar to transgender women in terms of their lifelong identities and gendered behavior, but experience far less distress than do transgender women in Western cultures. This suggests that the distress of gender dysphoria is mostly not caused by the cross-gender identity itself, but by difficulties encountered from social disapproval by one's culture. Overall, it is unclear whether or not gender dysphoria persists in cultures with third gender categories.


title: Gender dysphoria

text: The psychiatric diagnosis of gender identity disorder (now gender dysphoria) was introduced in DSM-III in 1980. Arlene Istar Lev and Deborah Rudacille have characterized the addition as a political maneuver to re-stigmatize homosexuality. (Homosexuality was declassified as a mental disorder in the DSM-II in 1974.) By contrast, Kenneth Zucker and Robert Spitzer argue that gender identity disorder was included in DSM-III because it "met the generally accepted criteria used by the framers of DSM-III for inclusion." Some researchers, including Spitzer and Paul J. Fink, contend that the behaviors and experiences seen in transsexualism are abnormal and constitute a dysfunction. The American Psychiatric Association stated that gender nonconformity is not the same thing as gender dysphoria, and that "gender nonconformity is not in itself a mental disorder. The critical element of gender dysphoria is the presence of clinically significant distress associated with the condition."


title: Gender dysphoria

text: Individuals with gender dysphoria may or may not regard their own cross-gender feelings and behaviors as a disorder. Advantages and disadvantages exist to classifying gender dysphoria as a disorder. Because gender dysphoria had been classified as a disorder in medical texts (such as the previous DSM manual, the DSM-IV-TR, under the name "gender identity disorder"), many insurance companies are willing to cover some of the expenses of sex reassignment therapy. Without the classification of gender dysphoria as a medical disorder, sex reassignment therapy may be viewed as a cosmetic treatment, rather than medically necessary treatment, and may not be covered. In the United States, transgender people are less likely than others to have health insurance, and often face hostility and insensitivity from healthcare providers. Gender dysphoria being a disorder also means it is covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act, which may aid transgender people in accessing legal protections they otherwise may be unable to. Some researchers and transgender people support declassification of the condition because they say the diagnosis pathologizes gender variance and reinforces the binary model of gender.


title: Gender dysphoria

text: An analysis of the Samoan third gender "fa'afafine" suggests that the DSM-IV-TR diagnostic component of distress is not inherent in the cross-gender identity; rather, it is related to social rejection and discrimination suffered by the individual. Psychology professor Darryl Hill insists that gender dysphoria is not a mental disorder, but rather that the diagnostic criteria reflect psychological distress in children that occurs when parents and others have trouble relating to their child's gender variance. Transgender people have often been harassed, socially excluded, and subjected to discrimination, abuse and violence, including murder.


title: Gender dysphoria

text: In December 2002, the British Lord Chancellor's office published a "Government Policy Concerning Transsexual People" document that categorically states, "What transsexualism is not ... It is not a mental illness." In May 2009, the government of France declared that a transsexual gender identity will no longer be classified as a psychiatric condition, but according to French trans rights organizations, beyond the impact of the announcement itself, nothing changed. Denmark made a similar statement in 2016.


title: Gender dysphoria

text: In the ICD-11, GID is reclassified as "gender incongruence", a condition related to sexual health. The working group responsible for this recategorization recommended keeping such a diagnosis in ICD-11 to preserve access to health services.


title: Gender dysphoria

text: "Gender euphoria" (GE) is a term for the satisfaction, enjoyment, or relief felt by trans and non-binary people when they feel their gender expression matches their personal gender identity. "Healthline" defines it as "feelings of alignment or joy about [one's] gender identity or expression," while "Psych Central" definition is "deep joy when your internal gender identity matches your gender expression." It is proposed that feelings of gender euphoria require societal acceptance of gender expression. In academics and the medical field, a consensus has not yet been reached on a precise definition of the term, as it has been mainly used within a social context. The first attempt to rigorously define gender euphoria through an online survey took place in 2021, conducted by Will Beischel, Stéphanie Gauvin, and Sari van Anders. "Transgender congruence" is also used to ascribe transgender individuals feeling genuine, authentic, and comfortable with their gender identity and external appearance.


title: Gender dysphoria

text: The term "gender euphoria" has been used by the transgender community since at least the mid-1970s. Originally, it referred to the feeling of joy arising from fulfilling a mix of gender roles, which was different from the concept of gender dysphoria, which is used to describe individuals who wished to medically transition to a different sex. In the 1980s, the term was published in trans contexts, coming up in interviews with trans people. For example, in a 1988 interview with a trans man, the subject states, "I think that day [Dr. Charles Ilhenfeld] administered my first shot of the 'wonder-drug' must have been one of the 'peak-experiences' of my life -- talk about 'gender euphoria'!" The interview indicates he is referring to testosterone.


title: Gender dysphoria

text: Others figures, including Mariette Pathy Allen and Virginia Prince have used the term in their work. In 1990, Virginia Prince used the phrase in trans magazine "Femme Mirror," ending an article with, "...from here on you can enjoy GENDER EUPHORIA - HAVE A GOOD LIFE!" Starting in 1991, a monthly newsletter named "Gender Euphoria" was released, featuring articles about transgender topics; Leslie Feinberg read the newsletter to better understand the transgender community. However, there are instances in which gender euphoria has been used with a different meaning, such as in 1979, when the Black feminist Michele Wallace used it to describe the male privilege present in Black men.


title: Gender dysphoria

text: The term has been embraced as part of a movement to stop pathologizing being transgender. In 1989, Mariette Pathy Allen published an unnamed transgender person's quote in her photography book "Transformations": "The shrinks may call it 'gender dysphoria,' but for some of us, it's gender 'euphoria,' and we're not going to apologize anymore!" In 1997, Patrick Califia described transgender activists picketing using signs that read "Gender Euphoria NOT Gender Dysphoria" and handing out "thousands of leaflets" at protests. The following year, in 1998, "Second Skins: The Body Narratives of Transsexuality" reported:


title: Gender dysphoria

text: Similarly, Florence Ashley has advocated for the medical field to focus on helping patients achieve gender euphoria, instead of treating patients on the basis of gender dysphoria. They argue that currently, in order for individuals to receive gender-affirming care they must be diagnosed with gender dysphoria, which is not always accessible and entails people must be experiencing significant distress before they can fully express their own gender identity. Ashley's stance that gender euphoria does not need to be preceded by a clinical diagnosis of gender dysphoria, and that gender euphoria is complex, is echoed by Elliot Tebbe and Stephanie Budge in their 2022 "Nature Reviews Psychology" article, in which they write, "Gender euphoria is not merely the absence of gender dysphoria, but rather a conglomeration of positive emotions and subjective well-being in response to being affirmed in one’s gender." The movement to focus on the positive side of gender expression was also advocated for in 1994, when the Scottish "TV/TS" periodical "The Tartan Skirt" wrote, "Let's accentuate the positive, discard the negative, and promote the new condition of 'Gender Euphoria.'"


title: Gender dysphoria

text: Gender euphoria has also been expressed through art. In 2019, the Midsumma festival in Australia hosted "Gender Euphoria," a cabaret focusing on "bliss" in transgender experiences, including musical, ballet, and burlesque performances. A reviewer described it as "triumphant – honest, unpretentious, touching, and a vital celebration." Moreover, photography in the East Village in Manhattan has served as means to express gender euphoria, contrasting fashion photography, which is said to reinforce the gender binary.


title: Nicholas I of Russia

text: Nicholas I ( – ) was Emperor of Russia, King of Congress Poland and Grand Duke of Finland. He was the third son of Paul I and younger brother of his predecessor, Alexander I. Nicholas inherited his brother's throne despite the failed Decembrist revolt against him. He is mainly remembered in history as a reactionary whose controversial reign was marked by geographical expansion, economic growth, and massive industrialisation on the one hand, and centralisation of administrative policies and repression of dissent on the other. Nicholas had a happy marriage that produced a large family; all of their seven children survived childhood.


title: Nicholas I of Russia

text: Nicholas's biographer Nicholas V. Riasanovsky said that he displayed determination, singleness of purpose, and an iron will, along with a powerful sense of duty and a dedication to very hard work. He saw himself as a soldier—a junior officer totally consumed by spit and polish. A handsome man, he was highly nervous and aggressive. Trained as an engineer, he was a stickler for minute detail. In his public persona, stated Riasanovsky, "Nicholas I came to represent autocracy personified: infinitely majestic, determined and powerful, hard as stone, and relentless as fate."


title: Nicholas I of Russia

text: Nicholas I was instrumental in helping to create an independent Greek state, and resumed the Russian conquest of the Caucasus by seizing Iğdır Province and the remainder of modern-day Armenia and Azerbaijan from Qajar Persia during the Russo-Persian War of 1826–1828. He ended the Russo-Turkish War (1828–29) successfully as well. Later on, however, he led Russia into the Crimean War (1853–1856), with disastrous results. Historians emphasize that his micromanagement of the armies hindered his generals, as did his misguided strategy. William C. Fuller notes that historians have frequently concluded that "the reign of Nicholas I was a catastrophic failure in both domestic and foreign policy." On the eve of his death, the Russian Empire reached its geographical zenith, spanning over 20 million square kilometers ( million square miles), but had a desperate need for reform.


title: Nicholas I of Russia

text: Nicholas was born at Gatchina Palace in Gatchina, the ninth child of Grand Duke Paul, heir to the Russian throne, and Grand Duchess Maria Feodorovna of Russia (née Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg). He had six older sisters and two older brothers, namely the future Emperor Alexander I of Russia and Grand Duke Constantine Pavlovich of Russia.


title: Nicholas I of Russia

text: Five months after Nicholas's birth, his grandmother, Catherine the Great, died and his parents became Emperor and Empress of Russia. In 1800, at the age of four years, Nicholas was named Grand Prior of Russia and entitled to wear the Maltese cross. Nicholas grew up to be a fine young man. Riasanovsky says of him that he is "the most handsome man in Europe, but also a charmer who enjoyed feminine company and was often at his best with the men."


title: Nicholas I of Russia

text: On 13 July 1817, Nicholas married Princess Charlotte of Prussia (1798–1860), who took the name Alexandra Feodorovna when she converted to Orthodoxy. Charlotte's parents were Frederick William III of Prussia and Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. Nicholas and Charlotte were third cousins, as they were both great-great-grandchildren of Frederick William I of Prussia.


title: Nicholas I of Russia

text: With two older brothers, it initially seemed unlikely Nicholas would ever become Tsar. By and by, as Alexander and Constantine both failed to produce legitimate sons, Nicholas first came to attention as being likely to rule one day, or at least that his children may succeed. In 1825, when Alexander I died suddenly of typhus, Nicholas was caught between swearing allegiance to Constantine and accepting the throne for himself. The interregnum lasted until Constantine, who was in Warsaw at that time, confirmed his refusal. Additionally, on 25 (13 Old Style) December, Nicholas issued the manifesto proclaiming his accession to the throne. That manifesto retroactively named 1 December (19 November Old Style), the date of Alexander I's death, as the beginning of his reign. During this confusion, a plot was hatched by some members of the military to overthrow Nicholas and seize power. This led to the Decembrist Revolt on 26 (14 Old Style) December 1825, an uprising Nicholas was successful in quickly suppressing.


title: Nicholas I of Russia

text: Nicholas completely lacked his brother's spiritual and intellectual breadth; he saw his role simply as that of a paternal autocrat ruling his people by whatever means necessary. Nicholas I began his reign on 14 December 1825 (old style), which fell on a Monday; Russian superstition held that Mondays were unlucky days. This particular Monday dawned very cold, with temperatures of −8 degrees Celsius. This was regarded by the Russian people as a bad omen for the coming reign. The accession of Nicholas I was marred by a demonstration of 3000 young Imperial Army officers and other liberal-minded citizens. This demonstration was an attempt to force the government to accept a constitution and a representative form of government. Nicholas ordered the army out to smash the demonstration. The "uprising" was quickly put down and became known as the Decembrist Revolt. Having experienced the trauma of the Decembrist Revolt on the very first day of his reign, Nicholas I was determined to restrain Russian society. The Third Section of the Imperial Chancellery ran a huge network of spies and informers with the help of Gendarmes. The government exercised censorship and other forms of control over education, publishing, and all manifestations of public life. He appointed Alexander Benckendorff to head this Chancellery. Benckendorff employed 300 gendarmes and 16 staff in his office. He began collecting informers and intercepting mail at a high rate. Soon, because of Benckendorff, the saying that it was impossible to sneeze in one's house before it is reported to the emperor, became Benckendorff's creed.


title: Nicholas I of Russia

text: Tsar Nicholas abolished several areas of local autonomy. Bessarabia's autonomy was removed in 1828, Poland's in 1830 and the Jewish Qahal was abolished in 1843. As an exception to this trend, Finland was able to keep its autonomy partly due to Finnish soldiers' loyal participation in crushing the November Uprising in Poland.


title: Nicholas I of Russia

text: Russia's first railway was open in 1837, a line between St. Petersburg and the suburban residence of Tsarskoye Selo. The second was the Saint Petersburg – Moscow Railway, built in 1842–51. Nevertheless, by 1855 there were only of Russian railways.


title: Nicholas I of Russia

text: In 1833, the Ministry of National Education, Sergey Uvarov, devised a program of "Orthodoxy, Autocracy and Nationality" as the guiding principle of the regime. It was a reactionary policy based on orthodoxy in religion, autocracy in government, and the state-founding role on the Russian nationality and equal citizen rights for all other peoples inhabiting Russia, with exclusion of Jews. The people were to show loyalty to the unrestricted authority of the tsar, to the traditions of the Russian Orthodox Church, and to the Russian language. These romantic and conservative principles outlined by Uvarov were also espoused by Vasily Zhukovsky, one of the tutors of the Grand Duke Alexander. The results of these Slavophile principles led, broadly speaking, to increasing repression of all classes, excessive censorship, and surveillance of independent minded intellectuals like Pushkin and Lermontov and to the persecution of non-Russian languages and non-Orthodox religions. Taras Shevchenko, later to become known as the national poet of Ukraine, was exiled to Siberia by a direct order of Tsar Nicholas after composing a poem that mocked the Tsar, his wife, and his domestic policies. By order of the Tsar, Shevchenko was kept under strict surveillance and prevented from writing or painting.


title: Nicholas I of Russia

text: From 1839, Tsar Nicholas also used a former Byzantine Catholic priest named Joseph Semashko as his agent to force Orthodoxy upon the Eastern Rite Catholics of Ukraine, Belarus, and Lithuania. This caused Tsar Nicholas to be condemned by a succession of Roman Pontiffs, the Marquis de Custine, Charles Dickens, and many Western governments. See also Cantonists.


title: Nicholas I of Russia

text: Nicholas disliked serfdom and toyed with the idea of abolishing it in Russia, but declined to do so for reasons of state. He feared the aristocracy and believed they might turn against him if he abolished serfdom. However, he did make some efforts to improve the lot of the Crown Serfs (serfs owned by the government) with the help of his minister Pavel Kiselyov. During most of his reign he tried to increase his control over the landowners and other influential groups in Russia. In 1831, Nicholas restricted the votes in the Noble Assembly to those with over 100 serfs, leaving 21,916 voters. In 1841, landless nobles were banned from selling serfs separate from the land. From 1845, attainment of the 5th highest rank (out of 14) in the Table of Ranks was required to be ennobled, previously it had been the 8th rank.


title: Nicholas I of Russia

text: Nicholas was crowned King of Poland in Warsaw on 12 (24) May 1829, in accordance with the Polish Constitution, a document he would not respect thereafter. He is the only Russian monarch ever crowned King of Polandalthough not the only one bestowed with the title.


title: Nicholas I of Russia

text: The official emphasis on Russian nationalism fueled a debate on Russia's place in the world, the meaning of Russian history, and the future of Russia. One group, the westernizers, believed that Russia remained backward and primitive and could progress only through more Europeanization. Another group, the Slavophiles, enthusiastically favored the Slavs and their culture and customs, and had a distaste for westerners and their culture and customs.


title: Nicholas I of Russia

text: The Slavophiles viewed Slavic philosophy as a source of wholeness in Russia and were sceptical of Western rationalism and materialism. Some of them believed that the Russian peasant commune, or Mir, offered an attractive alternative to Western capitalism and could make Russia a potential social and moral savior, thus representing a form of Russian messianism. However the ministry of education had a policy of closing philosophy faculties because of possible harmful effects.


title: Nicholas I of Russia

text: In the wake of the Decembrist revolt, the tsar moved to protect the status quo by centralizing the educational system. He wanted to neutralize the threat of foreign ideas and what he ridiculed as "pseudo-knowledge." However, his minister of education, Sergei Uvarov, quietly promoted academic freedom and autonomy, raised academic standards, improved facilities, and opened higher education to the middle classes. By 1848 the tsar, fearing the political upheavals in the West might inspire similar uprisings in Russia, ended Uvarov's innovations. The universities were small and closely monitored, especially the potentially dangerous philosophy departments. Their main mission was to train a loyal, athletic, masculinized senior bureaucracy that avoided the effeminacy of office work.


title: Nicholas I of Russia

text: The Imperial Academy of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg grew in importance by its recognition and support of artists. Nicholas I decided to control it personally. He overruled it regarding awarding ranks to artists. He reprimanded and humiliated artists whose works he found distasteful. The result was not better art, but just the reverse, compounded by fear and insecurity among members of the art community.


title: Nicholas I of Russia

text: Despite the repressions of this period, Russians outside official control produced a flowering of literature and the arts. Through the works of Aleksandr Pushkin, Nikolai Gogol, Ivan Turgenev and numerous others, Russian literature gained international stature and recognition. Ballet took root in Russia after its importation from France, and classical music became firmly established with the compositions of Mikhail Glinka (1804–1857).


title: Nicholas I of Russia

text: Minister of Finance Georg von Cancrin persuaded the emperor of the benefits of inviting Prussian scientist Alexander von Humboldt to Russia to investigate regions that could produce mineral wealth. The Russian government paid Humboldt's expenses for his eight-month expedition through Russia in 1829, which resulted in diamond finds in the Ural mountains. Humboldt published multiple volumes on his Russian expedition, which he dedicated to the tsar despite his increasing disapproval of the tsar's policies.


title: Nicholas I of Russia

text: In 1851 the Jewish population numbered at 2.4 million with 212,000 of them living in Russian controlled Poland territory. This made them one of the largest "inorodtsy" minorities in the Russian Empire.


title: Nicholas I of Russia

text: On 26 August 1827 the edict of military conscription ("Ustav rekrutskoi povinnosti") was introduced, which required Jewish boys to serve in the Russian military for 25 years from the age of 18. Before that many of them were forcibly conscripted into Cantonist schools since the age of 12, while being a Cantonist did not count into the time of military service. They were sent far away from their families to serve in the military so they would have difficulties practising Judaism and thus be Russified. The poorer village Jews, Jews without families and unmarried Jews were especially targeted for military service. Between 1827 and 1854 it is estimated that there were 70,000 Jews conscripted. Some of the Jews who were forcibly conscripted into the Russian military were, in the absence of connection to their families or community, compelled to convert to Christianity.


title: Nicholas I of Russia

text: Under Nicholas I, the Jewish agricultural colonisation of Ukraine continued with the transfer of Siberian Jews to Ukraine. In Ukraine, Jews were given land, but had to pay for it, which left very little to support their families. On the other hand, these Jews were exempt from forced military conscription.


title: Nicholas I of Russia

text: Under Nicholas I there were attempts to reform the education of Jews with the object of Russification. Study of the Talmud was disapproved of as it was seen as a text that encouraged Jewish segregation from Russian society. Nicholas I further toughened censorship of Jewish books in Yiddish and Hebrew by allowing these to be printed only in Zhitomir and Vilna.


title: Nicholas I of Russia

text: Nicolas' aggressive foreign policy involved many expensive wars, having a disastrous effect on the empire's finances. Nicholas lavished attention on his very large army; of a population of 60–70 million people, the army counted one million men. They had outdated equipment and tactics, but the tsar, who dressed like a soldier and surrounded himself with officers, gloried in the victory over Napoleon in 1812 and took enormous pride in its smartness on parade. The cavalry horses, for example, were only trained in parade formations, and did poorly in battle. The glitter and braid masked profound weaknesses that he did not see. He put generals in charge of most of his civilian agencies regardless of their qualifications. An agnostic who won fame in cavalry charges was made supervisor of Church affairs. The Army became the vehicle of upward social mobility for noble youths from non-Russian areas, such as Poland, the Baltic, Finland, and Georgia. On the other hand, many miscreants, petty criminals, and undesirables were punished by local officials by being enlisted for life in the Army. The conscription system was highly unpopular with people, as was the practice of forcing peasants to house the soldiers for six months of the year. Curtiss finds that "The pedantry of Nicholas's military system, which stressed unthinking obedience and parade ground evolutions rather than combat training, produced ineffective commanders in time of war." His commanders in the Crimean War were old and incompetent, and indeed so were his muskets as the colonels sold the best equipment and the best food.


title: Nicholas I of Russia

text: For much of Nicholas' reign, Russia was seen as a major military power, with considerable strength. The Crimean war, fought shortly before Nicholas' death, demonstrated to both Russia and the world what few had previously realized: Russia was militarily weak, technologically backward, and administratively incompetent. Despite his grand ambitions toward the south and Turkey, Russia had not built railroad network in that direction, and communications were bad. The bureaucracy was unprepared for war being riddled with graft, corruption, and inefficiency. The Navy had few competent officers, the rank and file were poorly trained and most importantly of its vessels were outdated; the Army, although very large, was good only for parades, suffered from colonels who pocketed their men's pay, poor morale, and was even more out of touch with the latest technology as developed by Britain and France. By the war's end, Russia's leaders were determined to reform their military and society. As Fuller notes, "Russia had been beaten on the Crimean peninsula, and the military feared that it would inevitably be beaten again unless steps were taken to surmount its military weakness."


title: Nicholas I of Russia

text: An intensely militaristic man, Nicholas regarded the Army as the best and greatest institution in Russia and as a model for society, saying:


title: Nicholas I of Russia

text: Nicholas was often exasperated by the slow pace of the Russian bureaucracy and had a marked preference for appointing generals and admirals to high government rank because of their perceived efficiency, overlooking or ignoring whether or not they were actually qualified for the role. Of the men who served as Nicholas's ministers, 61% had previously served as a general or an admiral. Nicholas liked to appoint generals who had seen combat, and at least 30 of the men who served as a minister under him had seen action in the wars against France, the Ottoman Empire, and Sweden. This proved to be something of a handicap in the sense that the sort of qualities that could make a man distinguished on the battlefields such as bravery did not necessarily make a man capable of running a ministry. The most notorious case was Prince Alexander Sergeyevich Menshikov, a competent brigade commander in the Imperial Army who proved himself out of his depth as a Navy minister. Of the Emperor's ministers, 78% were ethnic Russians, 9.6% were Baltic Germans while the rest were foreigners in Russian service. Of the men who served as ministers under Nicholas, 14 had graduated from university while another 14 had graduated from a "lycée" or a "gymnasium", the rest had all been educated by private tutors.


title: Nicholas I of Russia

text: In foreign policy, Nicholas I acted as the protector of ruling legitimism and as guardian against revolution. It has often been noted that such policies were linked with the Metternich counter-revolutionary system through the Austrian ambassador Count Karl Ludwig von Ficquelmont. Nicholas's offers to suppress revolution on the European continent, trying to follow the pattern set by his eldest brother, Alexander I, earned him the label of "gendarme of Europe".


title: Nicholas I of Russia

text: Immediately on his succession Nicholas began to limit the liberties that existed under the constitutional monarchy in Congress Poland. Nicholas was outraged when he learned of the Belgian revolt against the Dutch in 1830 and ordered the Russian Army to mobilize. Nicholas then petitioned the Prussian ambassador for Russian troops to be granted transit rights in order to march across Europe and restore Dutch hegemony over Belgium. But at the same time, a cholera epidemic was decimating the Russian Army and the revolt in Poland tied down Russian soldiers which might have been deployed against the Belgians. It seems likely that Nicholas's hawkish stance was not a sincere prelude towards invasion of the Low Countries, but rather an attempt to apply pressure on the other European powers. Nicholas made it clear he would only act if Prussia and Britain also participated as he feared that a Russian invasion of Belgium would cause a war with France. Even before the Poles rose up, Nicholas had cancelled his plans for invading Belgium as it became clear that neither Britain nor Prussia would join in while the French openly threatened war if Nicholas should march. In 1815, Nicholas arrived in France, where he stayed with the duc d'Orleans, who soon become one of his best friends, with the grand duke being impressed with duc's personal warmth, intelligence, manners and grace. For Nicholas the worst sort of characters were nobility who supported liberalism, and when the duc d'Orleans become the king of the French as Louis Philippe I in the July revolution of 1830, Nicholas took this as a personal betrayal, believing his friend had gone over as he saw it to the dark side of revolution and liberalism. Nicholas hated Louis-Philippe, the self-styled "Le roi citoyen" ("the Citizen King") as a renegade nobleman and an "usurper,” and his foreign policy starting in 1830 was primarily anti-French, based upon reviving the coalition that had existed during the Napoleonic Era of Russia, Prussia, Austria and Britain, to isolate France. Nicholas detested Louis-Philippe to the point that he refused to use his name, referring to him merely as "the usurper". Britain was unwilling to join the anti-French coalition, but Nicholas was successful in cementing existing close ties with Austria and Prussia and the three imperial states regularly held joint military reviews during this time. For much of the 1830s, a sort of "cold war" existed between the liberal "western bloc" of France and Britain vs. the reactionary "eastern bloc" of Austria, Prussia and Russia.


title: Nicholas I of Russia

text: After the November Uprising broke out, in 1831 the Polish parliament deposed Nicholas as king of Poland in response to his repeated curtailment of its constitutional rights. Nicholas reacted by sending Russian troops into Poland and brutally crushed the rebellion. Nicholas then proceeded to abrogate the Polish constitution in virtual entirety and reduced Poland to the status of a province called Vistula Land. Soon after, Nicholas embarked on a policy of repressing Polish culture beginning with suppressing the Polish Catholic Church. In the 1840s, Nicholas reduced 64,000 Polish nobles to commoner status.


title: Nicholas I of Russia

text: In 1848, when a series of revolutions convulsed Europe, Nicholas was at the forefront of reactionism. In 1849, he helped the Habsburgs to suppress the revolution in Hungary, and he also urged Prussia not to adopt a liberal constitution.


title: Nicholas I of Russia

text: While Nicholas was attempting to maintain the status quo in Europe, he followed a somewhat more aggressive policy toward the neighboring empires to the south, the Ottoman Empire and Persia. Nicholas was widely believed at the time to be following the traditional Russian policy of resolving the so-called Eastern Question by seeking to partition the Ottoman Empire and establish a protectorate over the Orthodox population of the Balkans, still largely under Ottoman control in the 1820s. In fact, Nicholas was deeply committed to upholding the status quo in Europe and feared any attempt to devour the decaying Ottoman Empire would both upset his ally Austria, which also had interests in the Balkans, and bring about an Anglo-French coalition in defense of the Ottomans. Furthermore, in the war of 1828–29, the Russians defeated the Ottomans in every battle fought in the field and advanced deep into the Balkans, but the Russians discovered that they lacked the necessary logistical strength to take Constantinople.


title: Nicholas I of Russia

text: Nicholas' policy towards the Ottoman Empire was to use the 1774 Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca which gave Russia a vague right as protector of Orthodox peoples in the Balkans, as a way of placing the Ottoman Empire into the Russian sphere of influence, which was felt to be a more achievable goal than conquering the entire Ottoman Empire. Nicholas actually wanted to preserve the Ottoman Empire as a stable but weak state that would be unable to stand up to Russia, which was felt to serve Russia's interests. Nicholas always thought of Russia as first and foremost a European power and regarded Europe as more important than the Middle East. The Russian Foreign Minister Karl Nesselrode wrote in letter to his ambassador in Constantinople Nikolai Muravyov that the victory of Muhammad Ali of Egypt over Mahmud II would lead to a new dynasty ruling the Ottoman Empire. Nesselrode continued that if the able Muhammad Ali became sultan then it "could, with the elevation of a new personage to the Turkish throne, revive new strength in that declining empire and distract our attention and forces from European affairs, and thus the monarch [Nicholas] is especially concerned to keep the sultan on his tottering throne." At the same time, Nicholas argued that because of the economic importance to Russia of the Turkish straits, through which Russia exports its grain, that Russia had the "right" to intervene in Ottoman affairs. In 1833, Nicholas told the Austrian ambassador Karl Ludwig von Ficquelmont that "Oriental affairs are above all a matter for Russia." At the same time that Nicholas claimed the Ottoman Empire was within the Russian sphere of influence, he made it clear that he had no interest in annexing the empire. At another meeting with Ficquelmont in 1833, Nicholas, speaking with the "Greek Project" of Catherine the Great in mind said: "I know everything that has been said of the projects of the Empress Catherine, and Russia has renounced the goal she had set out. I wish to maintain the Turkish empire... It if falls, I do not desire its debris. I need nothing." Ultimately, Nicholas's policies in the Near East proved to be both costly and largely futile.


title: Nicholas I of Russia

text: In 1826–28, Nicholas fought the Russo-Persian War (1826–28), which ended with Persia forced to cede its last remaining territories in the Caucasus. Russia had conquered all the territories of Iran in both the North Caucasus and South Caucasus, comprising modern-day Georgia, Dagestan, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, through the course of the 19th century. The treaty further conceded extraterritoriality to Russian subjects in Iran (capitulation). As Professor Virginia Aksan adds, the 1828 Treaty of Turkmenchay "removed Iran from the military equation."


title: Nicholas I of Russia

text: Russia fought a successful war against the Ottomans in 1828–29, but it did little to increase Russian power in Europe. Only a small Greek state became independent in the Balkans, with limited Russian influence. In 1833, Russia negotiated the Treaty of Unkiar-Skelessi with the Ottoman Empire. The major European parties mistakenly believed that the treaty contained a secret clause granting Russia the right to transit warships through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits. This misconception led to the London Straits Convention of 1841, which affirmed Ottoman control over the straits and forbade any power, including Russia, from sending warships through them. Buoyed by his role in suppressing the revolutions of 1848 as well as his mistaken belief he could rely on British diplomatic support, Nicholas moved against the Ottomans, who declared war on Russia on 8 October 1853. On 30 November, Russian Admiral Nakhimov caught the Turkish fleet in the harbor at Sinope and destroyed it.


title: Nicholas I of Russia

text: Fearing the results of a total Ottoman defeat by Russia, in 1854 Britain, France, the Kingdom of Sardinia formed a military coalition and joined forces with the Ottoman Empire against Russia. The preceding conflict became known as the Crimean War in the Ottoman Empire and Western Europe, but was labelled in Russia the "Eastern War" (Russian: Восточная война, "Vostochnaya Vojna"). In April 1854, Austria signed a defensive pact with Prussia. Thus, Russia found herself in a war with every Great Power of Europe either allied against her militarily or diplomatically.


title: Nicholas I of Russia

text: In 1853 Mikhail Pogodin, professor of history at Moscow University, wrote a memorandum to Nicholas. Nicholas himself read Pogodin's text and approvingly commented: "That is the whole point." According to historian Orlando Figes, "The memorandum clearly struck a chord with Nicholas, who shared Pogodin’s sense that Russia’s role as the protector of the Orthodox had not been recognized or understood and that Russia was unfairly treated by the West." Pogodin wrote:


title: Nicholas I of Russia

text: Austria offered the Ottomans diplomatic support, and Prussia remained neutral, thus leaving Russia without any allies on the continent. The European allies landed in Crimea and laid siege to the well-fortified Russian Sevastopol Naval Base. The Russians lost battles at Alma in September 1854 and then at Balaklava and Inkerman. After the prolonged Siege of Sevastopol (1854–55) the base fell, exposing Russia's inability to defend a major fortification on its own soil. On the death of Nicholas I, Alexander II became Tsar. On 15 January 1856, the new tsar took Russia out of the war on very unfavorable terms, which included the loss of a naval fleet on the Black Sea.


title: Nicholas I of Russia

text: Nicholas died on 2 March 1855, during the Crimean War, at the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg. He caught a chill, refused medical treatment and died of pneumonia, although there were rumors he was committing a passive suicide by refusing treatment. He was buried in the Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg. He reigned for 30 years, and was succeeded by his son Alexander II.


title: Nicholas I of Russia

text: There have been many damning verdicts on Nicholas' rule and legacy. At the end of his life, one of his most devoted civil servants, A.V. Nikitenko, opined, "the main failing of the reign of Nicholas Pavlovich was that it was all a mistake." However, from time to time, efforts are made to revive Nicholas's reputation. Historian Barbara Jelavich, on the other hand, points to many failures, including the "catastrophic state of Russian finances," the badly equipped army, the inadequate transportation system, and a bureaucracy "which was characterized by graft, corruption, and inefficiency."


title: Nicholas I of Russia

text: Kiev University was founded in 1834 by Nicholas. In 1854, there were 3600 university students in Russia, 1000 fewer than in 1848. Censorship was omnipresent; historian Hugh Seton-Watson says, "the intellectual atmosphere remained oppressive until the end of the reign."


title: Nicholas I of Russia

text: As a traveler in Spain, Italy and Russia, the Frenchman Marquis de Custine said in his widely read book "Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia" that, inside, Nicholas was a good person, and behaved as he did only because he believed he had to: "If the Emperor has no more of mercy in his heart than he reveals in his policies, then I pity Russia; if, on the other hand, his true sentiments are really superior to his acts, then I pity the Emperor."


title: Nicholas I of Russia

text: Nicholas figures in an urban legend about the Saint Petersburg–Moscow Railway. When it was planned in 1842, he supposedly demanded the shortest path be used despite major obstacles in the way. The story says he used a ruler to draw the straight line himself. However the false story became popular both at home and abroad as an explanation of how badly the country was governed. By the 1870s, however, Russians were telling a different version, claiming the tsar was wise to overcome local interests that wanted the railway diverted this way and that. What actually happened was that the road was laid out by engineers and he endorsed their advice to build in a straight line.


title: Nicholas I of Russia

text: Many sources state that Nicholas did not have an extramarital affair until after 25 years of marriage, in 1842, when the Empress's doctors prohibited her from having sexual intercourse, due to her poor health and recurring heart attacks. Many facts dispute this claim. Nicholas fathered three known children with mistresses prior to 1842, including one with his most famous and well documented mistress, Varvara Nelidova.


title: 2021–22 UEFA Europa League

text: The 2021–22 UEFA Europa League was the 51st season of Europe's secondary club football tournament organised by UEFA, and the 13th season since it was renamed from the UEFA Cup to the UEFA Europa League.


title: 2021–22 UEFA Europa League

text: Eintracht Frankfurt defeated Rangers in the final played at the Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán in Seville, Spain, 5–4 on penalties following a 1–1 draw after extra time, winning the competition for the second time in club history, and the first since 1980. The final was originally scheduled to be played at the Puskás Aréna in Budapest, Hungary. However, due to the postponement and relocation of the 2020 final, the final hosts were shifted back a year, with Budapest instead hosting the 2023 final. As winners, Eintracht Frankfurt automatically qualified for the 2022–23 UEFA Champions League group stage, and also earned the right to play against the winners of the 2021–22 UEFA Champions League, Real Madrid, in the 2022 UEFA Super Cup.


title: 2021–22 UEFA Europa League

text: This season was the first since 1999–2000 (the first season after the dissolution of the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup) where three major European club competitions (UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League, and the newly created UEFA Europa Conference League) take place, and the first outright where the Europa League (then the UEFA Cup) is the secondary competition of the three. As a result, major changes to the format of the Europa League were made. The number of teams in the group stage was reduced from 48 to 32 teams, and the number of teams participating in qualifying was also reduced significantly. The first round of the knockout phase also now involved only the group stage runners-up and the Champions League third-placed teams, with the group winners directly advancing to the round of 16.


title: 2021–22 UEFA Europa League

text: As the title holders Villarreal qualified for the 2021–22 UEFA Champions League, they were unable to defend their title as they advanced to the Champions League knockout stage, and were eliminated by Liverpool in the semi-finals.


title: 2021–22 UEFA Europa League

text: On 24 June 2021, UEFA approved the proposal to abolish the away goals rule in all UEFA club competitions, which had been used since 1965. Therefore, if in a two-legged tie, two teams scored the same number of aggregate goals, the winner of tie was not decided by the number of away goals scored by each team, but always by 30 minutes of extra time, and if the two teams scored the same number of goals in extra time, the winner was decided by a penalty shoot-out.


title: 2021–22 UEFA Europa League

text: A total of 58 teams from 33 of the 55 UEFA member associations participated in the 2021–22 UEFA Europa League. Among them, 16 associations had teams directly qualifying for the Europa League, while for the other 39 associations that did not have any teams directly qualifying, 17 of them had teams playing after being transferred from the Champions League (the only member association which could not have a participant was Liechtenstein, which did not organise a domestic league, and could only enter their cup winner into the Europa Conference League given their association ranking). The association ranking based on the UEFA country coefficients was used to determine the number of participating teams for each association:


title: 2021–22 UEFA Europa League

text: For the 2021–22 UEFA Europa League, the associations were allocated places according to their 2020 UEFA country coefficients, which took into account their performance in European competitions from 2015–16 to 2019–20.


title: 2021–22 UEFA Europa League

text: Apart from the allocation based on the country coefficients, associations could have additional teams participating in the Europa League, as noted below:


title: 2021–22 UEFA Europa League

text: The following is the access list for this season. In the default access list, the title holders of the Europa Conference League qualified for the group stage. However, since this berth was not used for this season, the following changes to the access list were made:


title: 2021–22 UEFA Europa League

text: The schedule of the competition was as follows. Matches were scheduled for Thursdays apart from the final, which took place on a Wednesday, though exceptionally could take place on Tuesdays or Wednesdays due to scheduling conflicts. Scheduled kick-off times starting from the group stage were 18:45 (instead of 18:55 previously) and 21:00 CEST/CET, though exceptionally could take place at 16:30 due to geographical reasons.


title: 2021–22 UEFA Europa League

text: All draws started at 13:00 or 13:30 CEST/CET and were held at the UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland. On 16 July 2021, UEFA announced that the group stage draw would be held in Istanbul, Turkey.


title: 2021–22 UEFA Europa League

text: The draw for the group stage was held on 27 August 2021, 12:00 CEST (13:00 TRT), in Istanbul, Turkey. The 32 teams were drawn into eight groups of four. For the draw, the teams were seeded into four pots, each of eight teams, based on their 2021 UEFA club coefficients. Teams from the same association could not be drawn into the same group. Prior to the draw, UEFA formed pairings of teams from the same association, including those playing in the Europa Conference League group stage (one pairing for associations with two or three teams, two pairings for associations with four or five teams), based on television audiences, where one team was drawn into Groups A–D and another team was drawn into Groups E–H, so that the two teams would have different kick-off times.


title: 2021–22 UEFA Europa League

text: The matches were played on 15–16 September, 30 September, 19–21 October, 4 November, 24–25 November, and 9 December 2021. The winners of each group advanced to the round of 16, while the runners-up advanced to the knockout round play-offs. The third-placed teams were transferred to the Europa Conference League knockout round play-offs, while the fourth-placed teams were eliminated from European competitions for the season.


title: 2021–22 UEFA Europa League

text: Brøndby and West Ham United made their debut appearances in the Europa League group stage (although Brøndby had previously appeared in the UEFA Cup group stage).


title: 2021–22 UEFA Europa League

text: In the knockout phase, teams played against each other over two legs on a home-and-away basis, except for the one-match final.


title: 2021 NFL season

text: The 2021 NFL season was the 102nd season of the National Football League (NFL). The season was the first to feature a 17-game regular season schedule as the league expanded the season from 16 games. The regular season started on September 9, 2021, with defending Super Bowl LV champion Tampa Bay defeating Dallas in the NFL Kickoff Game. The regular season ended on January 9, 2022. The playoffs started on January 15 and concluded with Super Bowl LVI, the league's championship game, at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, on February 13, with the Los Angeles Rams defeating Cincinnati.


title: 2021 NFL season

text: The 2021 NFL league year and trading period began on March 17. On March 15, teams were allowed to exercise options for 2021 on players with option clauses in their contracts, submit qualifying offers to their pending restricted free agents, and submit a Minimum Salary Tender to retain exclusive negotiating rights to their players with expiring 2020 contracts and fewer than three accrued seasons of free agent credit. Teams were required to be under the salary cap using the "top 51" definition (in which the 51 highest paid-players on the team's payroll must have a combined salary cap). On March 17, clubs were allowed to contact and begin contract negotiations with players whose contracts had expired and thus became unrestricted free agents.


title: 2021 NFL season

text: The 2021 NFL Draft was held in Cleveland from April 29 to May 1. Jacksonville, by virtue of having the worst record in , held the first overall selection and selected QB Trevor Lawrence out of Clemson.


title: 2021 NFL season

text: The NFL hired Maia Chaka as its second female official (joining Sarah Thomas) and first African-American female official.


title: 2021 NFL season

text: NFL Senior Vice President of Officiating Alberto Riveron retired, leaving two other senior vice presidents, Walt Anderson and Perry Fewell, to co-head the NFL's officiating department. Without Riveron, multiple people in the officiating department will be making the final decisions over replay reviews instead of a single person.


title: 2021 NFL season

text: Replay official Carl Madsen died on October 24. He was in his 12th season as a replay official, after an extended career as an on-field official.


title: 2021 NFL season

text: The league introduced COVID-19 protocols intended to encourage vaccination among players, coaches, and staff. On July 22, the NFL sent a memo warning teams that if a game that had been postponed due to COVID-19 outbreaks among unvaccinated players could not be rescheduled within the 18-week season schedule, the team responsible for the outbreak would be charged with a loss by forfeit, and be responsible for financial compensation to the other team, since teams typically do not get paid for cancelled games. On July 24, it was reported that the league will fine players $14,650 for each violation of COVID-19 protocol if they are unvaccinated.


title: 2021 NFL season

text: On July 23, the league announced the following temporary rules for would remain in place for 2021, allowing roster flexibility due to uncertainty regarding the pandemic.


title: 2021 NFL season

text: On August 30, the league and the National Football League Players Association (NFLPA) agreed to COVID testing protocols for the season. Fully vaccinated players were tested at least once per week and could opt for additional testing. Like in 2020, unvaccinated players were tested every day during the regular season and postseason except game days.


title: 2021 NFL season

text: The Pro Football Hall of Fame Game was played on August 5, as Pittsburgh defeated Dallas. The two teams were previously scheduled to play the 2020 game before it was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: 2021 NFL season

text: Corresponding with the expansion of the regular season to 17 games, the preseason was reduced to three games per team. NFC teams each hosted two preseason games and AFC teams each hosted one. There was a league-wide bye week the weekend of September 4–5, between the final preseason game and the start of the regular season.


title: 2021 NFL season

text: The August 28 game between Arizona and New Orleans was canceled due to Hurricane Ida. This was only the second time severe weather canceled a preseason game (a 2017 Dallas–Houston game was canceled due to Hurricane Harvey).


title: 2021 NFL season

text: The NFL released its regular season schedule on May 12. The season was played over an 18-week schedule beginning on September 9. Each of the league's 32 teams plays 17 games, with one bye week for each team. The regular season concluded on January 9, 2022; all games during the final weekend were intra-division games, as it has been since .


title: 2021 NFL season

text: The 2020 collective bargaining agreement (CBA) signed by team owners and the NFLPA allowed for an expansion of the regular season from 16 to 17 games. On March 30, 2021, owners approved the expanded schedule. The extra game was added to the existing scheduling formula. Each team continues to play the other three teams in its own division twice, one game against each of the four teams from a division in its own conference, one game against each of the four teams from a division in the other conference, and one game against each of the remaining two teams in its conference that finished in the same position in their respective divisions the previous season (e.g., the team that finished fourth in its division would play all three other teams in its conference that also finished fourth in their divisions).


title: 2021 NFL season

text: The added game is a fifth interconference matchup between divisions that had played each other two years earlier, based on the position in their respective divisions the previous season (e.g. the team that finished fourth in its division plays a club that finished fourth in a division of the other conference). AFC teams host the extra game in odd-numbered years, including 2021, with NFC teams getting the extra home game in even-numbered years.


title: 2021 NFL season

text: This section lists games that were moved or canceled because of severe weather, COVID-19 outbreaks, by way of flexible scheduling, or for other reasons, including games that were moved to Saturday. When the entire season schedule was released on May 12, the league announced that in Weeks 15 and 18, two games would be moved to their respective Saturdays.


title: 2021 NFL season

text: The 2021 playoffs began with the wild-card round, with three Wild Card games played in each conference. Wild card weekend took place from January 15–17, 2022. This marks the first time that the wild card games were played over three consecutive days. Two games were played on Saturday, three on Sunday, and one on Monday night, marking the first Monday playoff game since .


title: 2021 NFL season

text: In the divisional round, which was played on the weekend of January 22–23, the top seed in the conference played the lowest remaining seed and the other two remaining teams will play each other. The winners of those games advanced to the Conference Championships, which were played on January 30.


title: 2021 NFL season

text: Super Bowl LVI was held on February 13 at 6:30 p.m. EST on NBC at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California.


title: 2021 NFL season

text: The 11th Annual NFL Honors, saluting the best players and plays from 2021 season, was held on February 10, 2022, at the YouTube Theater in Inglewood, California.


title: 2021 NFL season

text: Aided by the availability of vaccines, by June 29 all 32 NFL teams had received approval to play their games with no restrictions on attendance. This comes after all games in were played with either a greatly reduced audience or no fans at all due to local or state public health orders or by team's ownership discretion. However, after a recent increase in cases due to the Delta variant, several teams implemented fan restrictions, mainly due to local or state-level public health restrictions for events being re-enacted in response to the increase, however this purely involves requirements for masking, testing, vaccination or any combination thereof and not on attendance.


title: 2021 NFL season

text: In addition, mascots, cheerleaders, and sideline reporters that were not allowed to be on the field in 2020 were allowed to return to the field for 2021.


title: 2021 NFL season

text: This was the eighth year under the current nine-year broadcast contracts with CBS, Fox, and NBC; and the eighth and final year under the current contract with ESPN/ABC. This included "cross-flexing" (switching) Sunday afternoon games between CBS and Fox before or during the season, regardless of the conference of the visiting team. NBC aired "Sunday Night Football", the Kickoff Game, and one Thanksgiving game. ESPN's rights to "Monday Night Football" were modified this season, allowing ABC to simulcast select games (Weeks 1, 14, and 15), as well as a new Saturday doubleheader in Week 18. "Thursday Night Football" aired on NFL Network, with Fox and Amazon simulcasting 11 games (weeks 5–15, excluding Thanksgiving, plus an afternoon game on Christmas Day).


title: 2021 NFL season

text: NBC televised Super Bowl LVI along with Telemundo Deportes which aired its first super bowl in Spanish on Broadcast Television. CBS was originally scheduled to broadcast the game under the current rotation. However, CBS traded the game to NBC in exchange for Super Bowl LV to avoid counterprogramming (as per an untold gentleman's agreement) by the 2022 Winter Olympics, as this was the first Super Bowl to be scheduled during an ongoing Olympic Games. NBC also holds the U.S. broadcast rights to the Olympics. Due to NBC's coverage of the 2020 Summer Olympics (held 2021), the network sold its broadcast rights to the Pro Football Hall of Fame Game to Fox.


title: 2021 NFL season

text: On March 18, the NFL announced its future television deals for 2023–2033, which will see CBS, Fox, and NBC maintain their existing Sunday packages with expanded digital rights for their streaming services (Paramount+, Tubi, and Peacock, respectively). "Thursday Night Football" will move exclusively to Amazon. ESPN also entered into a new agreement for "Monday Night Football" for 2022, adding the aforementioned Week 18 Saturday doubleheader beginning this season. It was later announced in May that Fox and NFL Network had opted out of its final season of "Thursday Night Football", so Amazon will take over TNF starting 2022. NBC maintained Spanish-language rights to "Sunday Night Football" for Universo, while its Spanish broadcast network Telemundo would air selected games, including NBC's primetime Wild Card games and Super Bowl LVI.


title: 2021 NFL season

text: On July 19, ESPN announced an agreement with Omaha Productions, the production company of Peyton Manning, to produce "Monday Night Football with Peyton and Eli", a supplemental telecast of "Monday Night Football" with Manning, his brother Eli, and guest celebrities for ten games each season on ESPN2 and ESPN+, from 2021 to 2023.


title: 2021 NFL season

text: For the second consecutive season, Nickelodeon will simulcast a wild-card playoff game with CBS, using the same youth-friendly broadcast modifications that were in place the previous season. Nickelodeon will also air a weekly NFL magazine program, "NFL Slimetime", throughout the season.


title: 2021 NFL season

text: On October 13, the league announced that the Monday Night Wild Card playoff game would be aired on ESPN and ABC, with ESPN2 and ESPN+ providing the “Peyton and Eli” broadcast.


title: Nikki Reed

text: Nicole Houston Reed (born May 17, 1988) is an American actress known for her portrayal of vampire Rosalie Hale in "The Twilight Saga" (2008–2012). She became known in 2003, after the release of the film "Thirteen", directed by Catherine Hardwicke, for which she was credited with Hardwicke as a co-writer of the screenplay, and in which she played a lead role. The film earned Reed an Independent Spirit Award for Best Debut Performance, as well as several nominations.


title: Nikki Reed

text: Nicole Houston Reed was born in West Los Angeles, California, to Cheryl Houston, a beautician, and to Seth Reed, a production designer. She has an older brother, Nathan August Reed, and a younger half-brother, Joey Reed. Her mother is a Christian of part Italian descent, whereas her father is Jewish. Reed was raised without religion and has identified as Jewish. She grew up around some Jewish practices, as her brother had a Bar Mitzvah.


title: Nikki Reed

text: Reed has said in numerous interviews that her early home life was "complicated". Her parents divorced when Reed was two, and she was raised by her mother. In 2002, when Reed was 14 years old, she moved out of her mother's house and began living on her own, mainly in apartments in the Los Angeles area. After "Thirteen"s success, Reed returned to Alexander Hamilton High School in Los Angeles, but dropped out again after a year. She said that "mothers who were sneaking into the school at lunchtime to confront and harass her about the film" were the reason for her departure. She earned a high school diploma through homeschooling.


title: Nikki Reed

text: Catherine Hardwicke, a friend of her mother's, invited her to work on a script with her, when Reed said she was interested in acting. They finished the script for the semi-autobiographical film "Thirteen" in six days. Producers asked Reed to play a role in the film because they had trouble casting it, as it was an "uncomfortable" role for most young actresses.


title: Nikki Reed

text: The film, also starring Evan Rachel Wood, was released in 2003 to positive reviews, gaining Reed some recognition in Hollywood as both a screenwriter and an actress. Following this, Reed was invited to appear on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" and serve as host on a number of award shows, including the "Young Hollywood Awards" (2003) and the "Independent Spirit Awards Nomination Show", followed by the West Independent Spirits Awards, both in 2004. Reed has repeatedly been cast as sexually advanced, precocious teenagers, including her character in "Lords of Dogtown" (2005), also directed by Hardwicke. In early 2006, she appeared on the series "The O.C.", playing Sadie, a new love interest for the character Ryan Atwood. Reed appeared on "The O.C." at the same time as future "Twilight" co-stars Cam Gigandet and Jackson Rathbone.


title: Nikki Reed

text: Reed said that her early decision to avoid acting in television series or in mainstream cinema was naïve. She had thought at the time they were not right for her, but had since gained valuable experience in them. She had a lead role in "Mini's First Time", which received a limited release in the United States on July 14, 2006. Reed played a teenager who, through seduction, involves her stepfather in a plot to murder her mother. Reed has noted that her character does not "understand the weight of consequence". She said she had enjoyed playing someone who she describes as "crass" and having a "trucker's mouth". Reed's character has sex scenes. As Reed was 16 at the time and legally unable to film such scenes in an explicit way, she was filmed from the back to hide her face. On February 12, 2008, it was announced that Reed would portray Rosalie Hale in the film adaption of "Twilight", the first book of a popular four-novel series. Directed by Catherine Hardwicke, it became an international success.


title: Nikki Reed

text: In 2010, Jason Mewes said that he was doing a movie called "K-11" with Reed and Kristen Stewart, also of "Twilight". The film, directed by Stewart's mother, takes place in a dorm of the Los Angeles County Jail. It was to feature both Stewart and Reed as female characters. Later that year, Reed said that she was no longer part of the project.


title: Nikki Reed

text: In July 2010, Reed joined the cast of the lady assassin action-drama "Catch .44," alongside Bruce Willis, Forest Whitaker and Malin Akerman. In November 2010, it was announced that Reed would star with Hayden Panettiere in the film "Downers Grove", a movie adaptation of Michael Hornburg's novel. The screenplay was written by Bret Easton Ellis, the novelist who wrote "The Rules of Attraction" and "American Psycho".


title: Nikki Reed

text: In December 2011, it was announced that Reed joined the cast of "Pawn", an indie crime thriller directed by David A. Armstrong. The film also stars Forest Whitaker, Ray Liotta, Common, Michael Chiklis, Sean Faris, Stephen Lang, Marton Csokas and Jessica Szohr. In July 2013, Reed joined the cast of the independent sports comedy "Balls Out," alongside Jake Lacy, Kate McKinnon, Beck Bennett and Jay Pharoah. The film is about a group of college friends who get together in their final year to play a game of intramural football. In 2019 she appeared in an episode of the Hulu original TV show "Dollface".


title: Nikki Reed

text: Reed recorded a song, "Now That I've Found You", with her then-husband Paul McDonald, which debuted on Ryan Seacrest's radio show on November 15, 2011. The couple released their first EP, "The Best Part", on October 29, 2012. Their song "All I've Ever Needed" is on .


title: Nikki Reed

text: In January 2013, Reed filmed Hanson's 2013 music video for their single, "Get the Girl Back", also with McDonald. The video was released in April 2013. Other well-known figures in the video include Kat Dennings, Drake Bell, Drew Seeley, Amy Paffrath, and Alex Beh.


title: Nikki Reed

text: Reed wrote a script set in New Zealand between the 1960s and the 1980s. She has said she feels more versatile than her typecasting in roles of "sexy bad girls". She has sometimes been told by producers that she is too "sexy" for a particular part. In November 2009, Reed directed a music video for her friend Sage while in London. Reed stated that they didn't have much time, or money, but she takes great pride in it.


title: Nikki Reed

text: In 2017, Reed and friend Morgan Bogle set up a sustainable jewelry brand BaYou With Love. The company works with Dell turning recycled technology into jewelry.


title: Nikki Reed

text: Reed met Paul McDonald, a singer-songwriter and former "American Idol" contestant, on the red carpet at the premiere of "Red Riding Hood" in March 2011. This moment was broadcast on an "American Idol" episode as part of a segment that showed the contestants attending the premiere. The couple began dating, and moved in together not long after. They confirmed their engagement in June 2011, and married on October 16, 2011, in Malibu, California. In March 2014, Reed and McDonald announced that they had separated after living apart for the previous six months due to "work obligations". Reed filed for divorce in May 2014, and the divorce was finalized on January 2, 2015.


title: Nikki Reed

text: Reed began dating actor Ian Somerhalder in mid-2014. They confirmed their engagement in February 2015, and married on April 26, 2015, in Malibu, California. On May 4, 2017, the couple announced via Instagram that Reed was pregnant with their first child. They had a daughter, Bodhi Soleil Reed Somerhalder, on July 25, 2017.


title: Nikki Reed

text: Reed is close friends with her "Twilight" co-star Jackson Rathbone and "Spy Kids" actress Alexa Vega, who was her matron of honor at her first wedding.


title: Nikki Reed

text: Reed teamed up with Staples and Do Something for their third Annual School Supply Drive in the summer of 2011. She is also an animal rights advocate. She volunteers at animal shelters in her free time and she designed a limited edition collar and leash for Gilt to benefit Aspca. On October 22, 2014, she was honored with the ASPCA Compassion Award for her contributions to animal welfare.


title: Member states of the United Nations

text: The United Nations member states are the sovereign states that are members of the United Nations (UN) and have equal representation in the UN General Assembly. The UN is the world's largest intergovernmental organization.


title: Member states of the United Nations

text: The criteria for admission of new members to the UN are set out in Chapter II, Article 4 of the UN Charter:


title: Member states of the United Nations

text: A recommendation for admission from the Security Council requires affirmative votes from at least nine of the council's fifteen members, with none of the five permanent members using their veto power. The Security Council's recommendation must then be approved in the General Assembly by a two-thirds majority vote.


title: Member states of the United Nations

text: In principle, only sovereign states can become UN members, and currently, all UN members are sovereign states. Although five members were not sovereign when they joined the UN, they all subsequently became fully independent between 1946 and 1991. Because a state can only be admitted to membership in the UN by the approval of the Security Council and the General Assembly, a number of states that are considered sovereign according to the Montevideo Convention are not members of the UN. This is because the UN does not consider them to possess sovereignty, mainly due to the lack of international recognition or due to opposition from one of the permanent members.


title: Member states of the United Nations

text: In addition to the member states, the UN also invites non-member states to become observer states at the UN General Assembly, allowing them to participate and speak in General Assembly meetings, but not vote. Observers are generally intergovernmental organizations and international organizations and entities whose statehood or sovereignty is not precisely defined.


title: Member states of the United Nations

text: The UN officially came into existence on 24 October 1945, after ratification of the United Nations Charter by the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (the Republic of China, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States) and a majority of the other signatories. A total of 51 original members (or founding members) joined that year; 50 of them signed the Charter at the United Nations Conference on International Organization in San Francisco on 26 June 1945, while Poland, which was not represented at the conference, signed it on 15 October 1945.


title: Member states of the United Nations

text: The original members of the United Nations were: China (then the Republic of China), France (then the Provisional Government), Russia (then the Soviet Union), the United Kingdom, the United States (these first five forming the Security Council), Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil (then the Vargas Era Brazil), Belarus (then the Byelorussian SSR), Canada, Chile (then the 1925–73 Presidential Republic), Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba (then the 1902–59 Republic), Czechoslovakia (then the Third Republic), Denmark, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt (then the Kingdom of Egypt), El Salvador, Ethiopia (then the Ethiopian Empire), Greece (then the Glücksburg Kingdom), Guatemala, Haiti (then the 1859–1957 Republic), Honduras, India, Iran (then the Pahlavi dynasty), Iraq (then the Kingdom of Iraq), Lebanon, Liberia, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand (then the Dominion of New Zealand), Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the Philippines (then the Commonwealth), Poland (then the Provisional Government of National Unity), Saudi Arabia, South Africa (then the Union of South Africa), Syria (then the Mandatory Republic), Turkey, Ukraine (then the Ukrainian SSR), Uruguay, Venezuela and Yugoslavia (then the Democratic Federal Yugoslavia).


title: Member states of the United Nations

text: Among the original members, 49 are either still UN members or had their memberships in the UN continued by a successor state "(see table below)"; for example, the membership of the Soviet Union was continued by the Russian Federation after its dissolution "(see the section Former members: Union of Soviet Socialist Republics)". The other two original members, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia (i.e., the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia), had been dissolved and their memberships in the UN not continued from 1992 by any one successor state "(see the sections Former members: Czechoslovakia and Former members: Yugoslavia)".


title: Member states of the United Nations

text: At the time of UN's founding, the seat of China in the UN was held by the Republic of China, but as a result of United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2758 in 1971, it is now held by the People's Republic of China "(see the section Former members: Republic of China (Taiwan))".


title: Member states of the United Nations

text: A number of the original members were not sovereign when they joined the UN, and only gained full independence later:


title: Member states of the United Nations

text: The current members and their dates of admission are listed below with their official designations used by the United Nations.


title: Member states of the United Nations

text: The alphabetical order by the member states' official designations is used to determine the seating arrangement of the General Assembly sessions, where a draw is held each year to select a member state as the starting point. Some member states use their full official names in their official designations and thus are sorted out of order from their common names: the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of Korea, the Republic of Moldova, and the United Republic of Tanzania.


title: Member states of the United Nations

text: The member states can be sorted by their official designations and dates of admission by clicking on the buttons in the header of the columns. See related sections on former members by clicking on the links in the column "See also".


title: Member states of the United Nations

text: The Republic of China (ROC) joined the UN as an original member on 24 October 1945, and as set out by the United Nations Charter, Chapter V, Article 23, became one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. In 1949, as a result of the Chinese Civil War, the Kuomintang-led ROC government lost effective control of mainland China and relocated to the island of Taiwan, and the Communist Party-led government of the People's Republic of China (PRC), declared on 1 October 1949, took control of mainland China. The UN was notified on 18 November 1949 of the formation of the Central People's Government of the People's Republic of China; however, the Government of the Republic of China continued to represent China at the UN, despite the small size of the ROC's jurisdiction of Taiwan and a number of smaller islands compared to the PRC's jurisdiction of mainland China. As both governments claimed to be the sole legitimate representative of China, proposals to effect a change in the representation of China in the UN were discussed but rejected for the next two decades, as the ROC was still recognized as the sole legitimate representative of China by a majority of UN members. Both sides rejected compromise proposals to allow both states to participate in the UN, based on the One-China policy.


title: Member states of the United Nations

text: By the 1970s, a shift had occurred in international diplomatic circles and the PRC had gained the upper hand in international diplomatic relations and recognition count. On 25 October 1971, the 21st time the United Nations General Assembly debated on the PRC's admission into the UN, United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2758 was adopted, by which it recognized that "the representatives of the Government of the People's Republic of China are the only lawful representatives of China to the United Nations and that the People's Republic of China is one of the five permanent members of the Security Council," and decided "to restore all its rights to the People's Republic of China and to recognize the representatives of its Government as the only legitimate representatives of China to the United Nations, and to expel forthwith the representatives of Chiang Kai-shek from the place which they unlawfully occupy at the United Nations and in all the organizations related to it." This effectively transferred the seat of China in the UN, including its permanent seat on the Security Council, from the ROC to the PRC, and expelled the ROC from the UN.


title: Member states of the United Nations

text: In addition to losing its seat in the UN, the UN Secretary-General concluded from the resolution that the General Assembly considered Taiwan to be a province of "China", which refers to the Greater China region. Consequently, the Secretary-General decided that it was not permitted for the ROC to become a party to treaties deposited with it.


title: Member states of the United Nations

text: In 1993 the ROC began campaigning to rejoin the UN separately from the People's Republic of China. A number of options were considered, including seeking membership in the specialized agencies, applying for observer status, applying for full membership, or having resolution 2758 revoked to reclaim the seat of China in the UN.