The Last Tsar: Emperor Michael II (28 page)

He, Nabokov and Shulgin now retreated into the bedroom of Princess Putyatina’s young daughter, with only a small school desk at which to write. The immediate problem which confronted the two lawyers was precisely that which had exercised Michael when he had first learned that he had been named Emperor: was that lawful?

Nabokov and Nolde did not need any prompting on that issue: both recognised from the outset that Nicholas’s manifesto contained ‘an incurable, intrinsic flaw’. At best it was doubtful law, and as Nabokov would say, ‘from the beginning Michael must necessarily have felt this’. Rightly, he judged that ‘it significantly weakened the position of the supporters of the monarchy. No doubt it also influenced Michael’s reasoning.’
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That said, Nabokov and Nolde were left in the same position as Michael: the political fact that Alexis had been bypassed and could not be restored in any practical sense, given the peril of present circumstances. Michael had been abandoned by the new government and they did not want to hear the lawyers telling them that Michael was not the Emperor in fact, and that Nicholas’s abdication manifesto was wrong and would have to be done all over again so that Alexis was Emperor and Michael the Regent.

They did not need Lvov and Shulgin to spell out the consequences of that: the Soviet would not only march into the apartment and arrest Michael, as they threatened to do, but arrest the whole government, leaving Kerensky to put together another one.

When Nabokov and Nolde began their task, handing out drafts of the manifesto to Matveev for perusal and approval by Michael, they began with the same preamble used by Nekrasov:
We, by God’s mercy, Michael II, Emperor and Autocrat of all the Russias…
They started off therefore on the premise that Michael was lawful Emperor, and that in abdicating he ‘commanded’ the people to obey the authority of the Provisional Government in which he was vesting his powers until a constituent assembly determined the form of government.

This formula gave legitimacy to the new government, which otherwise was simply there by licence of the Soviet. No one had elected the Provisional Government which represented only itself, and in that regard it had arguably less authority than the Soviet which could at least claim to have been endorsed by elected soldier and worker delegates.

Michael could make the new government official and legal, as no one else could, and therefore it was important that his manifesto be issued by him as Emperor. If he was not Emperor, he had no power to vest, and no authority to ‘command’ anyone. Of political necessity the new government needed Michael to give up the throne, but first they needed him to take it.

However, it was not going to be that simple. Michael was clear in his own mind about the position in which he had found himself. He had not inherited the throne. Alexis had been unlawfully bypassed and Michael proclaimed Emperor without his knowledge or consent. He had not willingly become Emperor and Nicholas had no right to pass the throne to him.

At the same time, there was nothing that could be done about that. The wrong could not be righted; it was far too late for that. The only issue therefore was how best to salvage the monarchy from the wreckage Nicholas had left in his wake.

For Michael there were two imperatives: keeping the monarchy in being until the Constituent Assembly decided the future status of Russia in six months’ time; and secondly, acting as Emperor for the single but vitally important purpose of providing legitimacy to the Provisional Government, and thereby ensuring the restoration of order and the continuation of the war.

That the government were demanding his abdication in order to appease the Soviet was a serious complication, but even so, he was not going to abdicate. Besides, if he did, who was going to succeed
him?
The throne ‘was never vacant’ — the law said that — and it followed therefore that if he abdicated, someone else would immediately become Emperor in his place. Kirill?

Nobody that morning seemed to have thought of that, but Nabokov and Nolde understood perfectly his argument. The problem was how to express all of it in a manifesto. Tearing up their first draft, and thereby consigning Nekrasov’s manifesto to the dustbin, they started again, with Michael darting in and out of the schoolroom to make sure that their new draft stayed in line with his wishes.

There was not much time, but fortunately they were both very good lawyers, and with Matveev they worked as a team which knew the difference between the small print and the telescope to the blind eye. The result was a manifesto which would make Michael Emperor without it saying that he had accepted the throne; that as Emperor he would vest all his powers in the new Provisional Government; and with that done he would wait in the wings until a future Constituent Assembly voted, as he hoped, for a constitutional monarchy and elected him. Meanwhile, he would not reign, but neither would he abdicate.

Despite the intense pressure on Michael and the lawyers in Millionnaya Street as evening drew in that day, his final manifesto said exactly what he wanted it to say, and it bore no resemblance whatsoever to the manifesto which Nekrasov had drafted that morning and which he had handed over after lunch. It said:

A heavy burden has been thrust upon me by the will of my brother, who has given over to me the Imperial Throne of Russia at a time of unprecedented warfare and popular disturbances.

Inspired like the entire people by the idea that what is most important is the welfare of the country, I have taken a firm decision to assume the Supreme Power only if such be the will of our great people, whose right it is to establish the form of government and the new basic laws of the Russian state by universal suffrage through its representatives in the Constituent Assembly.

Therefore, invoking the blessing of God, I beseech all the citizens of Russia to obey the Provisional Government, which has come into being on the initiative of the Duma and is vested with all the plenitude of power until the Constituent Assembly, to be convoked with the least possible delay by universal suffrage, direct, equal and secret voting, shall express the will of the people by its decision on the form of government.

MICHAEL.
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By this manifesto Michael made clear that the throne had been ‘thrust upon me’ not inherited, and that he was passing all his powers to the new Provisional Government until the future status of Russia was decided by a democratically-elected Constituent Assembly. He had changed the imperious word ‘command’ in the first version to ‘beseech’ and had removed all use of the imperial ‘We’, as well as the description of him as ‘Emperor and Autocrat’, but he had signed with the imperial
Michael
, rather than the grand ducal
Michael Aleksandrovich.

There was no precedent for a manifesto in these terms, and the Code of Laws, seemingly so essential a few hours earlier, had been closed and put aside as irrelevant to the necessity of the moment. But as Nabokov later commented, ‘we were not concerned with the juridical force of the formula but only its moral and political meaning’.
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In so saying, the credit for that went to Michael and his refusal to do what he was told by the new government. A lesser man would have meekly given in to the threats and intimidation of that morning. Michael did not, and while he would be powerless to affect what was to come, nonetheless he had pointed the country in the right direction. It would be for others to make sure they stayed on course.

As for the ‘abdication manifesto’ itself, curiously, for those who took the trouble to read it carefully, of the 122 Russian words meticulously written out at the school desk by Nabokov ‘in his beautiful handwriting’
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the one word which did not appear, as it did in Nicholas’s manifesto, was ‘abdicate’.

KERENSKY and Rodzyanko had returned to Millionnaya Street by the time the manifesto had been finalised, and they were present when Michael sat down at the school desk and put his signature on the document which, as Nolde would recall, ‘was in essence the only constitution during the period of existence of the Provisional Government’.
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Nabokov also recognised it as ‘the only Act which defined the limits of the Provisional Government’s authority’.
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When the British ambassador later asked Milyukov where the government derived its authority, he replied: ‘We have received it, by inheritance, from the Grand Duke’.
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To Nabokov, standing beside the school desk, Michael ‘appeared rather embarrassed and somewhat disconcerted’ as he came into the room, sat down and took up the pen. ‘I have no doubt that he was under a heavy strain,’ said Nabokov, ‘but he retained complete self-composure’.
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Nolde was also impressed, declaring Michael to have ‘acted with irreproachable tact and nobility’.
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Shulgin, watching him sign, thought to himself ‘what a good constitutional monarch he would make’.
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Even Paléologue, once persuaded by the Tsarskoe Selo camp to think him a weakling, would praise him next day, writing in his diary that ‘his composure and dignity never once deserted him’ and that his ‘patriotism, nobility and self-sacrifice were very touching.’
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The theatrical outburst, predictably, was left to Kerensky. ‘Believe me,’ he cried out, ‘that we will carry the precious vessel of your authority to the Constituent Assembly without spilling a drop of blood’.
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In fact, he would spill it all, but that no one could then foresee.

IT was only after the delegation returned to the Tauride Palace that the arguments began over the meaning of the manifesto. At Millionnaya Street there had been no time to study it. Professor Lomonosov had turned up from the transport ministry, belatedly bringing with him the original Nicholas manifesto hidden there; the intention was that it be published jointly with Michael’s. But should these be presented as Acts of two Emperors? Since the word ‘abdicate’ was missing from Michael’s, how was his manifesto to be described?

Because it was a political rather than a legal document, at midnight there was still no clear answer to the question of whether Michael had refused the crown or had abdicated, though no attention seems to have been paid to the point that he had done neither.

‘Foaming at the mouth, Milyukov and Nabokov tried to prove that the abdication of Michael could only have legal meaning if it was recognised that he had been Emperor.’
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It was not until 2 a.m. that agreement was reached — that he was Emperor — and Nabokov set about the final form in which the manifesto would appear, in the form judged best to appease the Soviet. At 3.50 a.m. it was taken away to the printers.
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Michael, the country would be told, having succeeded to the imperial throne after Nicholas’s abdication, had in turn abdicated. He had been Emperor, and was Emperor no more. That was simple. People could understand that, and one of them that evening was his brother in Mogilev.

He was just settling down after his return from Pskov when Alekseev came in with Rodzyanko’s wired version of what had happened in Millionnaya Street. Afterwards, Nicholas wrote in his diary:

Misha, it appears, has abdicated. His manifesto ends up by kowtowing to the Constituent Assembly, whose elections will take place in six months. God knows who gave him the idea of signing such rubbish.
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Given the wreckage which he had mindlessly left behind him and the impossible position in which he had placed his brother, his effrontery had an epic quality about it. Certainly, when he said much the same to his brother-in-law Sandro a few days later, Sandro confessed himself to be ‘speechless’.
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But what, finally, did Michael wearily say himself of that day as he prepared to retire to his makeshift bed? His diary entry for that Friday, March 3, was breathtaking in its brevity.

At 6 a.m. we were woken up by the telephone. It was a message from the new Minister of Justice Kerensky. It stated that the complete Council of Ministers would come to see me in an hour’s time. But actually they arrived only at half-past nine a.m...
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And that was all, from the man who had woken up that morning thinking he was Regent, and went to bed having been proclaimed Emperor.

MICHAEL left Millionnaya Street next morning, Saturday March 4, at eleven o’ clock, the first time he had set foot outside the apartment for four days. The previous afternoon, while waiting for the final draft of his manifesto, he had sent off a courier with a hastily-pencilled note to Natasha to tell her that he expected to return next morning. ‘Awfully busy and extremely exhausted,’ he had scribbled. ‘Will tell you many interesting things. I kiss you tenderly. All yours, Misha.’
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