Alexandra (55 page)
Authors: Carolly Erickson
That Rasputin was an enthusiastic debauchee and a seducer is well established; that he recognized no restraining moral code seems very likely. But his flagrant transgressions did not define
him, nor did they tarnish his authenticity as a source of inspiration and healing and, despite all, his indefinable holiness.
24
.
Lifelong Passion
, pp. 314–5.
25
.
Ibid
., p. 331.
26
.
Ibid
., p. 331.
27
. Gleb Botkin,
The Real Romanovs
(New York, 1931), p. 123.
28
. Buxhoeveden, p. 172. Mouchanow, p. 185, claimed that Anna was the only one around Alix strong enough to stand up to the
‘bossing’ of Alix’s sister Ella.
29
.
Ibid
., pp. 170–2.
30
. Mouchanow, pp. 188–90. According to Mouchanow, Dondukov may have given Alix drugs which made her nervous
condition worse. But Mouchanow was hostile to the princess and her suggestion was tinged with malice.
Chapter 21
1
. According to Kokovtsov, the tsar demanded that ‘firm measures’ be taken ‘to bring the press to
order’ and to prohibit any reporting about Rasputin, while acknowledging that no law existed to bring the press under government censorship. Nicholas accused Stolypin of
‘weakness’
in regard to the press but in the end, convinced otherwise by Stolypin’s arguments, the tsar backed down. Kokovtsov, pp. 291–2.
2
. Pares, p. 236.
3
. Buxhoeveden, pp. 128–9.
4
.
Ibid
., p. 179.
5
.
Ibid.
, p. 180.
6
.
Lifelong Passion
, p. 343. In May of 1911 Nicky wrote that Alix was ‘still unwell, sometimes better, then
worse again’.
7
. Kokovtsov, p. 312.
8
. Mouchanow, p. 146.
9
.
The Last Diary of Tsaritsa Alexandra
, ed. Vladimir A. Kozlov and Vladimir M. Khrustalëv (New Haven and
London, 1997), pp. xv–xvi.
10
.
Lifelong Passion
, p. 350.
11
. Kokovtsov, p. 293, note.
12
.
Lifelong Passion
, p. 373.
13
. Kokovtsov, p. 290.
14
. Greg King,
The Last Empress: The Life and Times of Alexandra
(New York, 1994), pp. 187–8.
15
. Kokovtsov, pp. 296–7.
16
.
Ibid
., p. 296.
17
.
Lifelong Passion
, p. 351. Xenia’s diary records what Minnie told her of the conversation.
18
.
Ibid.
;
Nicholas and Alexandra: The Last Imperial Family
, p. 327.
19
. Kokovtsov, p. 296;
Lifelong Passion
, p. 351.
20
.
Nicholas and Alexandra: The Last Imperial Family
, p. 327.
Chapter 22
1
.
Lifelong Passion
, p. 351.
2
. Buxhoeveden, p. 129.
3
. Cited in Poliakov, pp. 152–3.
4
. Maria Rasputin,
My Father
, Reprint edition (New Hyde Park, New York, 1970), p. 70. In 1912 Maria wrote,
‘the heir seemed to be in better health, his crises of illness became less frequent and he had fewer haemorrhages, so that my father went less often to the palace.’
5
. George Buchanan, British ambassador to Russia, wrote in his memoirs that when he first met the tsar, they talked about
hunting, and Nicholas bragged that on his best day’s pheasant shooting he had brought down 1400 birds. Such inflated claims were characteristic of him. Buchanan,
My Mission to Russia and Other Diplomatic Memoirs
(Boston, 1923), I, p. 168.
6
. Maria Rasputin, p. 72 gives a different chronology from other sources for the exchange of telegrams. According to her
recollection, the empress’s telegram from Spala was received on October 26, while her father was at dinner. His return telegram arrived at Spala October 27.
7
. Petersburg in winter 1913 is described from memory in von Almedingen,
I Remember
, p. 161.
8
. Mouchanow, p. 158.
9
.
Ibid
., pp. 108–9.
10.
Ibid
., p. 123.
Chapter 23
1
. Mouchanow, p. 181.
2
. Buxhoeveden, p. 175.
3
.
Last Grand Duchess
, p. 130; Kokovtsov, p. 361.
4
. Salisbury, p. 233.
5
.
Lifelong Passion
, pp. 377, 383, 392, 394.
6
. Grand Duke Gavril Konstantinovich,
In the Marble Palace
(St Petersburg, 1993), p. 142.
7
. The military review is described in detail in Meriel Buchanan,
Dissolution of an Empire
(London, 1932), pp.
77–8.
8
. Paléologue, I, pp. 14, 24–5.
Chapter 24
1
. Buxhoeveden, p. 187. Beginning in 1913, Sophie Buxhoeveden’s biography of Alexandra became a record of her personal
experience at the court. Before 1913 she relied on information she was given by earlier ladies-in-waiting Elizabeth Obolensky and Marie Bariatinsky. The latter was among Alix’s closest
friends; after Marie left the court, she continued to correspond regularly with the empress and to visit her at Livadia. Although Sophie was loyal and admiring, she was not an uncritical
biographer, and she was an intelligent and shrewd observer. Her loyalty and admiration for the empress are evident throughout her long and detailed account.
2
. ‘If people speak to you about my “nerves” please strongly contradict it,’ Alix wrote to Marie
Bariatinsky in the fall of 1910. ‘They are as strong as ever, it’s the “over-tired heart” and nerves of the body and
nerves of the heart besides,
but the other nerves are very sound.’ Cited in King, pp. 176–7.
3
.
Education of a Princess
, pp. 196–7.
4
. Buxhoeveden, p. 232.
5
. Iroshnikov, p. 140; Buxhoeveden, pp. 126, 293.
6
. Buxhoeveden, p. 173.
7
. Mouchanow, pp. 201–2.
8
. Yusupov, p. 161.
9
. Cited in Pares, p. 355. Marie Pavlovna the younger speaking to Paléologue. Nicky’s cousin Sandro wrote that
Alix was ‘raised by her father . . . to hate the Kaiser,’ and that she had looked forward all her life to seeing Germany’s arrogance humbled in a war. ‘For me, for my uncles
and cousins, for anyone who ever met or talked to Alix,’ Sandro wrote, ‘the very suggestion of her “German sympathies” sounded monstrous and ridiculous.’
Once a
Grand Duke
, p. 271.
10
. Meriel Buchanan,
Dissolution
, p. 96.
11
. Alexandra,
Last Diary
, p. xvii.
12
.
The Letters of the Tsaritsa to the Tsar
(London, 1923; Reprint edition Stanford, California, 1973), p. 26.
13
. Buxhoeveden, p. 192. Though Alix and her daughters usually wore nurses’ uniforms, some hospital visits were made
in more conspicuous attire. Meriel Buchanan, who disliked the empress, wrote that early in 1915 Alix and two of her daughters came to visit the military hospital on Vassily Island where Meriel
herself was working, all wearing red velvet gowns. Meriel Buchanan,
Dissolution
, p. 125.
In her memoirs Marie Pavlovna, a critic of Alix, recalled that when the empress visited military hospitals, ‘there was something in her, eluding definition, that prevented her from
communicating her own genuine feelings and from comforting the person she addressed.’ Marie thought that the men didn’t understand Alix – who often mumbled – or when
they did understand her words, her meaning was obscure.
Marie noted how when Alix came to the field hospital where she herself worked, the soldiers watched her with ‘anxious, frightened eyes’, whereas the tsar, when he visited the
same men, ‘uplifted’ them and made them rapt with contentment. ‘In spite of his small stature,’ Marie wrote, ‘he always seemed taller than anyone else in the room,
and moved from bed to bed with an extraordinary dignity.’
Education of a Princess
, p. 194.
Chapter 25
1
. Buxhoeveden, p. 197 and note.
2
.
Letters of the Tsaritsa
, p. 3.
3
. Others in Alix’s confidence were Countess Fredericks, Lili Dehn and Countess Rehbinder. Sophie Buxhoeveden,
Elizabeth Schneider, Martha Mouchanow and Baron Fredericks were trusted staff members. In 1914 and 1915 Grand Duke Paul came to the palace, and Alix was for a time on good terms with him, though
how much actual information he brought her is hard to judge.
4
.
Lifelong Passion
, pp. 373–4 citing police reports; Salisbury, p. 263; Brian Moynahan,
Rasputin: The
Saint Who Sinned
(New York, 1997), pp. 215–6. The police called him ‘sexually psychopathic’.
5
. Moynahan, p. 212.
6
.
Letters of the Tsaritsa
, pp. 82, 84.
7
.
Ibid.
, p. 75.
8
. Pares, p. 335, thought that in the first ten months of the war nearly four million Russian soldiers were killed, wounded
and missing – a number larger than the entire British expeditionary force. Hélène Carrère d’Encausse,
Nicholas II: The Interrupted Transition
, trans.
George Holoch (New York and London, 2000), estimates that by early in 1915, 1.2 million troops had been killed, wounded or were missing or taken prisoner. Seven hundred thousand new recruits were
raised. d’Encausse, p. 174.
9
. Meriel Buchanan,
Dissolution
, p. 112; Buxhoeveden, p. 210.
10
.
Letters of the Tsaritsa
, p. 128.
11
.
Ibid.
, pp. 86–7.
12
.
Ibid.
, pp. 91, 100.
13
. Meriel Buchanan,
Dissolution
, pp. 127–9.
14
.
Letters of the Tsaritsa
, p. 114.
15
.
Ibid
., p. 68.
16
.
Ibid
., p. 68.
17
.
Ibid
., p. 104.
Chapter 26
The consequences of this ‘saturation’ can easily be imagined. Lewis Thomas wrote in
Notes of a Medicine Watcher
that, around 1910, many middle-aged and elderly women
were hopelessly addicted to the barbiturate compounds widely prescribed for ‘nerves’ at that time.
3
. Rumours that Ernie was in Russia, being kept hidden by Alix or Ella, were widespread. Sophie Buxhoeveden recalled that in
1916 she was asked ‘in all seriousness whether the Grand Duke of Hesse was not hidden in the cellars of the palace’. Buxhoeveden, pp. 224–5.
4
. Dehn, p. 142. The incident with the villagers, which Dehn describes, took place early in 1915.
5
. Alexandra’s letters to Nicky reassured him that ‘for sure your dear Father quite particularly prays for
you’. Just as Nicky had attempted to contact his father in seances held soon after his accession, and would again believe, in 1916, that occult messages from his father were being relayed to
him via Protopopov, so in 1915 he was probably seeking to contact Alexander III as he made up his mind to take command of the armed forces.
6
. Meriel Buchanan,
Dissolution
, p. 129.
7
. Iroshnikov, pp. 144–5.
8
. Moynahan, p. 261.
9
. Alexandra’s printed letters to her husband for the years 1914–16 consist mostly of daily happenings, news of
herself and the children, and warm reassurances of her devotion. The amount of space taken up by political and military matters is small, the references to Rasputin even fewer.
Though urgent in tone and sketchy in composition – she wrote in extreme haste, which was not surprising, given her extraordinarily full days – the letters were far from
incoherent or ‘hysterical’ – the word used most often to describe both the empress and her written messages.
Her overemotional, overanxious state is
evident, but the letters are far from being the work of a hysteric or a madwoman.
Chapter 27
1
. Yusupov, p. 213.
2
.
Nicholas and Alexandra: The Last Imperial Family,
p. 355.
3
.
Letters of the Tsaritsa
, p. 316.
4
. Kokovtsov, pp. 478–80. Kokovtsov thought that the tsar was ‘on the verge of some mental disturbance’ if
not ‘already in its power’. He appeared to be nervously ill, and ‘hardly knew what was happening to him’.
5
. d’Encausse, p. 198.
6
. It was common drawing room conversation in 1916 that the empress ought to be banished and that the emperor ought to be
forced to send her to the Crimea.
Education of a Princess
, p. 265. Yusupov was told that hatred of Alix had reached such an extreme that her life was in danger.
7
. d’Encausse, pp. 208–9.
8
.
Letters of the Tsaritsa
, p. 451, describes Alix’s visit to Novgorod, including the encounter with the aged
starets. Clearly the governor controlled every aspect of the visit, and may well have controlled the crowd that he ‘let come near’ the imperial party.
9
. Buxhoeveden, p. 223.