Chapter 5
in which Empress Alexandra and Dowager Empress Maria argue over who will be mistress of the palace and of Russia
A NEW LOUSE
On 30 July 1904, the thirty-two-year-old Empress Alexandra (Alix) gives birth to a boy at the Peterhof estate outside Saint Petersburg. He is christened Alexei. The birth of a male heir is cause for celebration and the end of a distressing time for Alix, who has been driven to the brink of insanity.
The news even distracts her husband, Emperor Nicholas II, momentarily from his misadventure in the Far East. In order to raise army morale, all soldiers fighting in Manchuria are made nominal godfathers of the young tsarevich [son of the tsar]. For several weeks Nicholas does not leave his wife and child’s side, ignores his ministers, and spends a lot of time walking with his mother and picking mushrooms.
The birth comes two weeks after the assassination of Interior Minister Plehve in Saint Petersburg, but the emperor is in no hurry to appoint a successor; only one month later is a new name announced (a certain Prince Mirsky). Sergei Witte, the chairman of the Committee of Ministers, returns from a European tour and brings a letter from the Japanese ambassador in London. Witte advocates peace talks, noting that the sooner they start, the less severe the terms will be for Russia. His view is seconded by the commander of the garrison at Port Arthur, General Kondratenko, who writes to the emperor that peace talks could avoid some major unpleasantness. Emperor Nicholas leaves both letters unanswered.
Most of society rejoices at the news of the birth of an heir, but not all. The publisher Alexei Suvorin recalls the words of a furniture maker he spoke to shortly after the birth: “I was traveling by train from my dacha. Everyone was happily talking about the birth. Suddenly a gentleman spoke up loudly: ‘Russians are strange people. They discover a new louse on their head, yet they only rejoice at the prospect of being bitten by it.’ Everyone fell silent. It was incredible that anyone could speak so loosely and freely.” That same day Emperor Nicholas II writes a letter to his wife’s best friend, Princess Milica of Montenegro: “My dear Milica! Words are insufficient to thank God for His great mercy. Please convey our joy and gratitude … to Him. Everything has happened so quickly that I still do not understand it. The child is huge, with black hair and blue eyes. He is called Alexei. The Lord be with you all. Nicky.”
Despite the capital letter, “Him” refers not to God, but a French psychic and miracle-worker Nizier Philippe, who enjoyed a brief period of influence over the imperial couple.
The decade of married life preceding the birth of her son has been torment for the young empress. Only after giving birth to a male heir does she begin to feel more confident. Hitherto she has suffered in silence at the hands of the spiteful imperial court, but now she starts to retaliate for the sake of her son, whom she naturally assumes will one day ascend to the throne. Prior to 30 July 1904 Empress Alexandra has participated very little in Russian political life, but that now changes. She enters the political scene to defend the interests of her son, as she envisions them to be.
To understand the position of Empress Alexandra—the favorite granddaughter, future queen, wife of Jack the Ripper—one has to go back a quarter of a century. On 5 November 1878, the eldest daughter of Princess Alice of the United Kingdom (a.k.a. Princess Louis of Hesse), herself the daughter of Queen Victoria, complains of a stiff neck. The other children think that she has mumps and joke that it “will be funny if she infects everyone.” That evening the eldest daughter, fifteen-year-old Victoria, named after her grandmother, reads her younger brothers and sisters a bedtime story (ironically, Alice in Wonderland). In the morning Victoria is diagnosed with diphtheria. One by one the other children all succumb to the illness. They are six-year-old Alix, four-year-old Marie, and ten-year-old Ernst. Later their father, Duke Ludwig of Hesse, also falls sick.
On 16 November the youngest sibling dies. For two weeks Princess Alice conceals Marie’s death from the other children. On 7 December she herself falls ill and dies a week later.
The only member of the family not to fall ill is Alice and Ludwig’s second daughter, Elizabeth (known as Ella). At the time when the family is struck by the epidemic, she is visiting her grandmother Queen Victoria in London. After Alice’s death, Victoria takes in all her grandchildren. The now youngest, Alix, is her favorite. In London she acquires the nickname “Sunny.”
The beauty of the family, Ella goes on to capture the heart of almost every visiting prince. Even as a twelve-year-old, just before her mother’s death, Ella receives a proposal from the heir to the German throne, the future Kaiser Wilhelm II. But she refuses. In 1884, the now nineteen-year-old Ella marries the Russian Grand Duke Sergei, the younger brother of Emperor Alexander III. The wedding is held at the Winter Palace. It is then that Ella’s younger sister, Alix, first comes to Russia and meets the sixteen-year-old Nicky, the heir to the Russian throne. She is his second cousin on her father’s side.
Alix and Nicky like each other, but they are still children, and no one takes their feelings seriously, particularly as “Granny” Victoria is hatching her own grandiose plans. When her granddaughter turns sixteen, Queen Victoria, now very much attached to Alix, decides that she will succeed her as ruler of the British Empire.
Victoria’s heir at the time is her forty-eight-year-old son Edward, Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII. Since he is no longer in the flush of youth, the seventy-year-old Victoria is looking further down the line. Edward’s one-day successor is set to be his eldest son, Albert Victor (named in honor of both his grandparents, Victoria and Prince Albert), but the queen is dissatisfied with him. The prince has learning difficulties (including reading and writing), is bad-tempered, and leads a “dissolute lifestyle,” as his disapproving grandmother writes in a letter to her daughter. To make the potential heir more respectable, Victoria decides to find him a wife with a strong character, able to keep a tight rein on him. The role is ideally suited to her favorite granddaughter, Alix.
In 1889 Albert Victor, at Queen Victoria’s insistence, proposes to Alix. But soon afterwards the plan is derailed by scandal, and not just any scandal, but one that engulfs the British royal family. London police uncover a male brothel in Fitzrovia on Cleveland Street. At the time homosexuality is a criminal offence in Britain and its empire. An indirect victim is the writer Oscar Wilde, who alludes to the scandal in his 1890 novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. He will be imprisoned for “gross indecency” six years later.
Soon after the raid on Cleveland Street it turns out that this is no ordinary brothel. One of its clients is Lord Arthur Somerset, the head stableman of Prince Edward. The investigation is slow and sluggish, but details are leaked to the press bit by bit. No British newspaper dare mention the name of the highest-ranking suspect, but the leftpondian New York Times has no qualms, openly writing that Prince Albert Victor is implicated. The paper calls him a “stupid perverse boy” unfit for the British throne.
To this day British historians argue about whether Albert Victor used the services of rent boys or whether it was just slander (Oscar Wilde, for his part, believed the former). Either way, the scandal erupts right after Albert Victor’s proposal to Alix. She refuses. The prince immediately sets off on a long journey to India, while Alix departs for Russia to visit her elder sister Ella.
Ella’s marriage, incidentally, is not a happy one. A few years later, when her husband Grand Duke Sergei becomes governor-general of Moscow, the whole city starts gossiping about his alleged homosexuality (illegal in the Russian Empire, too). Ella’s fate unfurls in tragic fashion. After the murder of her husband she abandons high society and founds the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent in Moscow. Soon after the revolution Ella herself is brutally killed (and canonized almost a century later).
During a trip in the summer of 1889, the seventeen-year-old Alix again meets Nicky, the heir to the Russian throne. They strike up a platonic romance. Nicky’s parents, Emperor Alexander III and Empress Maria Feodorovna, dislike her so much that they bar her from the royal court and try to prevent her from seeing their son.
But Alix is nothing if not persistent. Back home in London, the German princess starts studying the Russian language and Russian literature, and even takes lessons in Orthodoxy from a priest at the church of the Russian Embassy in London.
Queen Victoria is less than overjoyed about her beloved Alix’s new hobby: she does not like Russia at all, in particular Alexander III. Nevertheless, she intercedes on behalf of her granddaughter, and at her request Ella goes to see her brother-in-law, Alexander III, and his wife, to clarify their attitude to the young Alix and her potential betrothal to Nicky. They reply that the twenty-two-year-old heir is too young for marriage, since he has yet to make a trip around the world to expand his horizons or perform military service. In any case, they assert, even if Alix and Nicky are fond of each other, such feelings between young cousins are commonplace and will soon pass.
The heir to the Russian throne soon sets sail on a global trip, and Alix is confirmed in the Church of England, although Queen Victoria initially delays the ceremony so as not to hinder her possible conversion to Orthodoxy.
It is only in 1893, when Alexander III’s health begins to fail, that his relatives raise the issue of the heir’s marriage. They ask Nicky’s opinion: he says that he dreams of marrying Alix.
THE BRIDE IN BLACK
In the spring of 1894 Nicholas attends the wedding of Albert, the elder brother of Alix, at the Veste Coburg in Bavaria, the ancestral home of the late husband of Queen Victoria. The wedding is organized by the queen herself, who is the groom’s grandmother and the doyenne of the family. Also present is Germany’s Wilhelm II. The heir to the Russian throne is accompanied by his uncles Sergei (with his wife Ella), Vladimir, and Pavel.
On the very first day, Nicky proposes to Alix, yet she refuses, saying that she no longer wants to convert from the Anglican Church to Orthodoxy. But Ella reassures her sister and persuades her to go ahead. The engagement is announced on 7 April, and Nicholas spends almost the whole summer in London with his bride, returning home in September. He only just manages to see his father, Alexander III, one last time before the latter’s untimely demise.
Alix is also summoned to Alexander’s deathbed in Crimea. She and Ella have to make the trip to Livadia Palace aboard an ordinary passenger train. Alexander III gives his blessing to the marriage, before passing away on 1 November 1894. The next day Alix converts to Orthodoxy. She wants to take the name of Catherine—in honor of another modest German princess who ascended to the Russian throne in the eighteenth century, to become Catherine the Great. But Nicky prefers the name Alexandra,* after the wife of Emperor Nicholas I, Alexandra Feodorovna. Alix does not demur.
The entire family travels with the deceased emperor’s hearse to Moscow and onwards to Saint Petersburg, where he is buried on 19 November. Just a week later, on 26 November, Nicholas and Alexandra are hastily crowned at the church of the Winter Palace.
“Our wedding seemed a continuation of the funeral liturgy for the late tsar, with just one difference: my dress was white, not black,” Alexandra writes to her sister.
Alexandra’s relationship with her mother-in-law is awkward. Maria Feodorovna is still quite young and active. Christened Princess Dagmar of Denmark, she is widowed at the age of forty-seven and has no plans to retire to the background. For her, Alix (now officially Alexandra Feodorovna) is a symbol of unwanted upheaval in her life. Along with the death of her husband, Alexander III, she has to cope with the arrival of this cold, unfamiliar woman who immediately takes her place as empress. “She arrived here with the coffin [of the tsar]. She spells misfortune,” residents in the capital say about Alix, calling her the “bride in black.” The now empress dowager, Maria Feodorovna, concurs.
Maria Feodorovna has no intention of ceding her role as lady of the court. During the early years of the reign of the now Tsar Nicholas II, the empress dowager takes pride of place. She is always on view at the head of any royal procession, arm-in-arm with her son, while Alexandra walks behind on the arm of one of the grand dukes. The influential society lady and general’s wife Alexandra Bogdanovich writes in her diary: “The young tsarina, who draws well, once sketched a picture of a boy on the throne (her husband) frolicking about. At his side was the queen mother, telling him not to mess about. The tsar was said to have been greatly offended by the drawing.”
Nor does Petersburg high society warm to Alexandra, continuing as it does to revolve around Maria Feodorovna. At receptions, she and even her husband Nicholas II are left in a corner talking to members of their entourage. The empress dowager is considered arrogant, although her haughtiness masks a certain shyness.
The only friends of the new empress are two Montenegrin princesses, Stana and Milica, the daughters of Prince Nikola of Montenegro, who were married off by the then Tsar Alexander III to “minor grand dukes” (according to Witte, who writes: “Back then, our grand dukes were breeding an entire herd”). Metropolitan society looks down its nose at the Montenegrins, for which reason Alexandra seeks their company.
“The Montenegrins didn’t just kowtow to the Empress. They displayed endless love and devotion to her. When the Empress fell ill with a gastrointestinal disease, the Montenegrins did not leave her side, even taking over some unpleasant duties from the housemaids. That way, they insinuated themselves into her favor and became her closest friends,” writes the somewhat-skeptical Witte.
On 3 November 1895, a year after the wedding, the empress gives birth to her first child—a girl, Olga. “Nicky and Alix are overjoyed at the birth of a daughter, but it’s a pity it’s not a son,” reads the diary of the tsar’s sister Xenia, who is very close to the imperial couple. “The joy is immense, while the disappointment of giving birth to a girl is fading from the realization that all is well,” writes Ella.
The birth itself has not been without complications. “You are aware of the terrible rumors that Alix is dangerously ill, cannot bear any more children and needs an operation,” Ella writes to her grandmother, Queen Victoria, shortly afterwards.
Yet a year later she is pregnant once more and gives birth to her second child on 29 May 1897. “This morning God gifted Their Majesties … a daughter. The news spread quickly. Everyone is disappointed. The hope was for a son,” writes Grand Duke Konstantin in his diary. The daughter is christened Tatiana.
On 14 June 1899, at Peterhof, a third daughter is born—Maria. Two weeks later news arrives from the Caucasus that the tsar’s younger brother, the twenty-eight-year-old Crown Prince Georgy, has died of tuberculosis. The new heir to the throne is the next brother in line, Mikhail. But officially the title of crown prince is not conferred upon him, for it is rumored at court that the superstitious Alix fears that it will jinx her chances of bearing a son.
A year later, in 1900, the life of the emperor himself hangs by a thread. Vacationing in Crimea, the thirty-year-old Nicholas II suffers flu complications. His doctor, who arrives late having traveled from Saint Petersburg, diagnoses Nicholas with typhoid and declares that he has not been treated adequately by local medics. His condition is so severe that an emergency meeting is held on the succession in case he dies. The meeting, held in Yalta, is attended by State Council Chairman Grand Duke Mikhail Nikolaevich (the tsar’s great uncle and the son of Nicholas I), Court Minister Baron Fredericks, Interior Minister Sipyagin, Foreign Minister Lamsdorf, and Finance Minister Witte. The latter recalls that there was nothing to discuss in his opinion—the emperor has no son, therefore by law the throne must pass to his younger brother, Grand Duke Mikhail.
“What if the empress is pregnant?” asks Baron Fredericks, who is very close to the imperial couple. Witte says that it would make no difference. An autocratic country cannot survive without an autocrat, so there must be no pause between the emperor’s death and the appearance of his successor. “What if the empress’s next child is a boy?” continues Fredericks, unappeased. Witte says that Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich, the younger brother of Nicholas, is a very honorable man and would be able to decide for himself whether to remain on the throne or abdicate in favor of his nephew. All those present agree. An ulterior motive comes from Witte’s close ties to Mikhail—he teaches economics to the young grand duke. Everyone in the room knows full well that the finance minister is lobbying for his “own” candidate.
A few days later War Minister Kuropatkin comes to see Witte. Striking his chest with his fist (according to the latter’s memoirs), the minister states that he will stand up for the empress. Witte notes sardonically that such is the duty of every citizen, including himself. Later he learns that the empress has been informed of the details of the meeting in Yalta. She will never forgive the finance minister.
Nicholas gradually recovers. Moreover, Alexandra really is pregnant and on 5 June 1901 at Peterhof gives birth to her fourth daughter, Anastasia.
It is a tragedy for the whole family. “Good Lord, what a disappointment! A fourth girl!” writes Grand Duchess Xenia. “Forgive me, Lord! Instead of joy, there was nothing but disappointment. Everyone was hoping for an heir, but now there is a fourth daughter,” sighs Grand Duke Konstantin. Alexandra herself is in despair.
The agitated emperor inquires of the grey cardinal Pobedonostsev as to whether it would be possible to appoint his eldest daughter, Olga, as his successor. Pobedonostsev replies in the negative: under current law it is not permitted. Emperor Paul I, who hated his mother Catherine the Great, passed a law according to which the title of sovereign can only be handed down through the male line. As a favor to the imperial couple, Witte investigates having the law amended.
After the birth of a fourth daughter, Empress Dowager Maria Feodorovna begins to talk openly about divorce, for if Alexandra cannot give birth to an heir, her son must choose another wife. The tsar genuinely loves his wife and does not even consider it, but the court gossip is too much for Alexandra to bear.
Maria Feodorovna might have gotten her way, had she not been distracted by an unexpected turn in her own personal life. The fifty-year-old widow of Alexander III falls in love with the Abkhazian Prince Georgy Shervashidze, the royal chamberlain. In 1902 they conclude a morganatic marriage, that is, a semi-official union in which Prince Shervashidze does not become a member of the imperial family (which, incidentally, does not prevent him from becoming one of the most powerful courtiers). The emperor’s new stepfather is privy to many issues that government ministers are not.
THE CHRIST OF LYON
Empress Alexandra seeks solace in religion and mysticism. She enjoys reading hagiographies about the lives of Orthodox saints, diligently places candles in front of icons, and performs esoteric church rituals more common of tsarinas in the days before Peter the Great. She is imbued with a belief in “God’s people”—recluses, hermits, and holy fools, who now form an endless stream into the royal residence, sometimes into her own chambers, where she converses with them for hours on end.
In 1900 Grand Duke Vladimir, the tsar’s uncle and the president of the Imperial Academy of Arts, makes the acquaintance of the preacher Nizier Philippe in France. Dr. Philippe, as his followers call him, heads a sect that considers him to be the reincarnation of Christ on Earth. Mysticism is in vogue at the Russian court, with many imperial family members drawn to spiritualism. The impressionable grand duke invites the “doctor” to Saint Petersburg.
In the Russian capital, Philippe acquires some fanatical acolytes, among them another of the tsar’s uncles, Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich. A military man, and one of the most experienced in the country at that, Nikolai is, nevertheless, something of a “mystical oddball.” According to Witte’s memoirs, he once told the finance minister that the sovereign is not human: “He is neither man nor God, but somewhere in between.”
Nikolai introduces Philippe to Alexandra’s Montenegrin princess friends, Stana and Milica, who in turn acquaint him with the tsar and tsarina. The French quack makes a great impression on Alexandra. Her only thought is to give birth to a son, and Dr. Philippe says that he will make it happen.
Witte recalls that there developed around Philippe a kind of “secret society of illuminati” consisting of the Montenegrin princesses, Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich, Peter Nikolaevich (Milica’s husband), and the imperial couple. This inner circle of admirers tries to conceal the activities of the French miracle-worker. Even inside the imperial family, many members do now know who or what he is.
Under the spell of the French preacher, Nicholas II asks his foreign minister to request the French government to confer a proper doctoral degree on Philippe, so that he can officially invite him to the imperial court. The French government declines the request, so the tsar awards the title of doctor himself.
War Minister Kuropatkin arranges for Philippe to sit an exam at the Saint Petersburg Military Medical Academy, whereupon in November 1901 the Frenchman receives the rank of state councilor by “secret order” (i.e., the award is not made public knowledge). “Philippe promptly ordered a military medical uniform from the official state tailor,” writes Witte.
The French guest holds not only spiritual, but also political conversations with the tsar and tsarina. He advises them not to introduce a constitution, since that would be the downfall of Russia. Grand Duke Sandro, who is more grounded than his relatives, recalls that Philippe “claimed that through the power of suggestion he was able to influence the sex of a child developing in its mother’s womb. He did not prescribe any medication that could be verified by the court physicians. The secret of his art lay in hypnosis. After two months of treatment, he announced that the Empress was with child.”
Following the conception in November 1901, the imperial couple decides to conceal Alexandra’s fifth pregnancy even from their closest relatives. Only in the spring, when the empress is visibly much stouter and no longer wearing a corset, is the pregnancy announced officially. However, on Philippe’s advice, the empress does not allow physicians to examine her until mid-August (i.e., until the end of the pregnancy).
Even the entreaties of the court obstetrician, Professor Ott, are ignored. “Rest assured, the child is fine,” she says. Ott recalls his amazement at Alexandra’s routine: almost every day at eleven o’clock in the evening she travels to Znamenka, the estate of Grand Duke Peter Nikolaevich, returning only at three in the morning. But the obstetrician dare not criticize her.
Dr. Philippe lives at the palace of Peter Nikolaevich, the brother of Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich and the husband of Milica, where he “watches over” the empress and assures her that everything is in order. Philippe enjoys colossal influence over the imperial couple. In July 1902 Nicholas II writes in his diary: “Mr. Philippe spoke to us and counseled us. How wonderful!!!” A few days later the empress writes to her husband, who is about to embark on a short trip to Germany for talks with Kaiser Wilhelm II: “Our dear friend will be by your side. He will help you to answer all Wilhelm’s questions.” Clearly, the doctor has become a political as well as medical adviser.
The birth is expected on or around 8 August, but the contractions do not begin. Only on 16 August does the empress summon Professor Ott when she starts bleeding. “She’s sitting upright but agitated, with drops of blood on her chemise. The Emperor is pacing around the room. He is very anxious and wants me to examine her,” recalls the doctor.
After the examination, the professor informs Alexandra that she is not pregnant. Only three days later is the diagnosis made: false pregnancy. It is a terrible blow to Alexandra’s psyche. Grand Duke Sandro recollects that she suffered a nervous breakdown. “We’ve all been utterly dejected since yesterday… Poor A.F. [Alexandra] was not pregnant,” Sandro writes to his wife, Grand Duchess Xenia.
The city is rife with rumors. It is said that the tsarina has “given birth to a monster with horns.” The censors hurry to remove a line from Rimsky-Korsakov’s brand new opera The Tale of Tsar Saltan, based on Alexander Pushkin’s poem, written in 1831:
Late last night inside the house,
Not to a son or daughter, frog or mouse
Did the tsarina give birth
But to a creature not of this Earth.
THE SAINT FROM SAROV
Yet the false pregnancy does not ruin Alexandra’s faith in the “Christ of Lyon.” Nicholas II, however, is presented with a report on the activities of Dr. Philippe, prepared by the French Interior Ministry, exposing him as a charlatan. But he says nothing about it to his wife. To the end of her life, the empress remembers him fondly and keeps his gifts: an icon with a bell and dried flowers. Nevertheless, Philippe leaves Russia.
Before leaving, he tells the empress of someone who can help her give birth to a son: Seraphim of Sarov, a renowned hermit monk from Nizhny Novgorod province, who (unfortunately) has been dead for seventy years. Soon after the death of Father Seraphim, a contemporary of Pushkin, the first stories appeared of his miracle-working: he fed on grass, could stand for weeks on a rock without moving, and was able to converse with animals. By the early twentieth century, Seraphim of Sarov is a legend and very popular among the people.
In autumn 1902 the imperial family invites Pobedonostsev for breakfast. The “minister of the church” is taken aback, since he has not met with the emperor in a domestic setting for a long time. Even more of a surprise is Nicholas’s request to canonize Seraphim of Sarov, and to do so by 2 January, the date of the future saint’s death. The legal scholar Pobedonostsev says that it is against the law, since such a decision can only be taken by the Holy Synod. “The sovereign can do anything!” objects Alexandra.
Witte says that she uttered these words on more than one occasion. And General Vasily Gurko, chief of staff of the Russian Imperial Army, writes in his memoirs that Empress Alexandra was not aware that the Russian tsar was bound by any laws. In her mind’s eye, the emperor’s will is law, both supreme and divine.
Nicholas does not gainsay his teacher Pobedonostsev, but later that evening sends him a letter (evidently dictated by his wife) stating that Seraphim of Sarov is to be canonized as soon as possible.
The Holy Synod dispatches a special commission to Nizhny Novgorod province to open the grave of Seraphim and inspect his remains. Orthodox canon states that a prerequisite for sainthood is the presence of imperishable relics. Unsurprisingly, the opening of the grave reveals nothing but Seraphim’s bones, causing a dilemma. All members of the Holy Synod are against the canonization, but everyone knows that the emperor’s order must be executed.
In the end, the Holy Synod announces the canonization date: 20 July 1903, Seraphim’s birthday. Better late than never. On receiving the Synod’s report, Emperor Nicholas II makes a note of his reaction: “I read [the report] with sincere joy and profound emotion.”
Meanwhile, in Saint Petersburg, anonymous leaflets are being distributed, signed by the unknown “Union Against Orthodoxy.” The leaflets state that the relics of Seraphim of Sarov are fake and threaten that “Union” activists are ready to open the grave once more to expose the deception. To counter this, on 22 June Metropolitan Anthony of Saint Petersburg writes an article in Suvorin’s newspaper New Time, asserting that the preservation of the skeleton is sufficient and the presence of imperishable relics is not a barrier to apotheosis. This scandalizes public opinion even further.
The ceremony on 20 July in Sarov, at which the relics are again inspected and this time venerated, is attended by sixteen members of the imperial family. Public interest is so great that Cossacks have to disperse the crowd with whips. The empress is in a state of bliss. At night she bathes in the healing spring of Saint Seraphim in Sarov forest and prays for an heir. Everyone says that the new saint is sure to give the emperor a son. The court press writes that the canonization of the “people’s saint” is a symbol of unity between society and the tsar.
Exactly one year after the canonization of Saint Seraphim, Alexandra’s wish is fulfilled and she at last gives birth to a boy. Nicholas II hangs a large portrait of the Sarov elder in his office and says to his inner circle: “Nothing will ever shake my belief in the sanctity and miracles of St. Seraphim. I have conclusive proof.”
The tsar and tsarina continue to correspond with Nizier Philippe, for Alexandra believes that it was his advice that helped her to give birth to an heir. In letters to her husband she still refers to him as “Our Friend.” Philippe dies in August 1905, a year after the birth of the heir. In his final letter he foretells that after his death Alexandra and Nicholas will find a new “Friend,” who will preach the Bible full of ecstasy and fire.
THE WANDERER FROM SIBERIA
In 1903 a peasant from the village of Pokrovskoe in Tobolsk province arrives in Saint Petersburg. He is thirty-five years old and has spent almost his whole life traveling from monastery to monastery. The monastery of John of Kronstadt makes a great impression on the stranger. He later recalls that, on crossing the threshold, he felt as if the monastery gates had severed all the defilements of his past life.
The wanderer’s name is Grigory Rasputin—just one of thousands of “God’s people” who make the journey each year to Saint Petersburg in the knowledge that society ladies are addicted to mysticism. Rasputin is the same age as Georgy Gapon and tries to wheedle his way into the same company. But whereas Gapon idolizes Tolstoy and dreams of social transformation, Rasputin’s role model is John of Kronstadt, a very popular but slightly less liberal man of the cloth.
Every morning John serves at Saint Andrew’s Cathedral in Kronstadt, twenty miles west of Saint Petersburg, before heading for the capital, where he visits the homes of the wealthy and prays for their health. John is accompanied by a huge entourage tasked with collecting donations and arranging the itinerary of the “celebrity father.” He visits dozens of homes each day. Each visit costs—and brings in—a lot of money. His large retinue deals with the bean-counting.
John of Kronstadt is a pop star of his own megachurch. To maximize his flock, he comes up with the idea of collective confession: thousands of people at once gather in his cathedral to confess, shouting out their sins.
One such collective confession is attended by Rasputin, and it makes a deep impression on him. Father John notices the stranger from Siberia. They meet, after which John invites his new acquaintance to live in the monastery.
Rasputin soon surpasses his host in terms of popularity and wealth. It is John who acquaints Rasputin with Bishop Theophan, spiritual councilor to the imperial family, who in 1904 takes him to the house of the Montenegrin princess Milica. Grigory Rasputin soon becomes another fashionable frequenter of the salons of rich ladies in search of mysticism.
CHAMPAGNE AND OYSTERS
In the summer of 1904 Anton Chekhov’s health is deteriorating. Tuberculosis has kept him in hospital in Moscow and in Crimea for much of the past few years. In June 1904 his wife, the Moscow Art Theatre actress Olga Knipper, takes him to Germany for treatment.
Since the start of the war with Japan, the once-apolitical Chekhov has been avidly following the news. A Russian victory, he tells his brother-in-law Viktor Knipper, is highly undesirable, since it would consolidate autocracy and set back the revolution. He voices the same opinion to Stanislavsky: “It’s terrible, but necessary. Let the Japanese give us a push in the right direction.”
Winter 1904 sees the premiere of The Cherry Orchard at the Moscow Art Theatre, after which Chekhov’s pen falls silent. On the night of 1–2 July 1904, at the resort of Badenweiler with his wife, he wakes up suddenly and calls for a doctor—and champagne. When the doctor arrives, he says in German “Ich sterbe,” and then the same to his wife in Russian, “Ya umirayu” (“I’m dying”). He takes a sip of champagne with the words, “I haven’t tasted that for a while,” before rolling over on his side and closing his eyes.
His body is taken to Moscow in a train carriage equipped with a refrigeration unit inscribed with the words “For the transportation of fresh oysters.” The writer Maxim Gorky is outraged: “This wonderful person, this magnificent artist, who spent his entire life battling vulgarity, finding it everywhere and shining a gently reproachful light on its rottenness, like that of the moon, Anton Pavlovich [Chekhov], who shuddered at all things trite and vulgar, was transported in a fridge for oysters. My heart is wrung and ready to howl with anger. He personally would not care if his body were transported in a basket for dirty linen, but I cannot forgive us, Russian society. It is this vulgarity of Russian life, its lack of culture, which so perturbed the deceased writer.”
Gorky goes to Chekhov’s funeral, along with Savva Morozov. During the procession, they decide to head off to Morozov’s place on Moscow’s Spiridonovka Street for a coffee and only then on to the cemetery. There, they walk around among the tombstones. “All in all, it’s a bit of a downer that life ends in putrefaction,” philosophizes the tycoon Morozov. “It’s untidy. There’s always cremation, yet they say combustion and decomposition are essentially the same thing. As for me, I’d prefer to explode like a stick of dynamite. I’m not afraid of death, only squeamish about it. I imagine death to be like falling into a compost pit.”
CROOKS AND THIEVES
The joy of the birth of Tsarevich Alexei is short-lived compared to the terrible news from the Far East, which continues unabated. The publisher Alexei Suvorin, a friend of the late Chekhov, notes in his diary entry for 6 August that the editors-in-chief of Russia’s leading newspapers were summoned to the Interior Ministry and asked to prepare public opinion for the imminent fall of Port Arthur.*
“It’s a frightful time,” writes Suvorin.
On 21 August 1904 it is reported that General Kuropatkin has surrendered Liaoyang fortress in southern Manchuria. The reasons for Russia’s military setbacks are manifold: abysmal preparation, a monstrous lack of coordination between the generals, and scant information on the number of enemy troops, to name a few. Captain Ignatiev says that the Russian officer corps considered prewar intelligence gathering to be something dirty and dishonorable, so army reconnaissance skills were minimal. Chinese scouts were hired instead, but many of them turned out to be Japanese spies, as did the interpreters.
Without delving too much into the detail, metropolitan society blames the defeats on specific individuals, primarily Kuropatkin. The public is incensed by news of Russia’s military failures in the Far East. Particular opprobrium is reserved for members of the imperial family: the defeat inflames talk of appalling levels of corruption on the part of the tsar’s relatives.
Even before the war started, the public was outraged by the staggeringly high cost of sending telegraphs to the Far East. Suvorin notes that one word cost eight roubles†, the reason being that Empress Dowager Maria Feodorovna insisted on a special tax for the benefit of the Great Northern Telegraph Company, which, like her, was of Danish origin.
Another target of gossip is Grand Duke Sandro, the minister of the merchant fleet and one of the architects of the Korean adventurism that led to the war. Even in the prewar period he held the reputation of being perhaps “the most venal of all the grand dukes” (according to Suvorin), an impressive achievement given the competition.
Whereas in peacetime many a blind eye has been turned to corruption, during the war attitudes harden and unbridled disgust is openly voiced. When the Russian Pacific Fleet is routed in the first months of fighting, the question arises as to where to get new ships. Sandro wants to buy Argentina’s fleet, but the deal falls through because the Argentines refuse to pay the grand duke a kickback worth 500 thousand roubles.‡
Yet the main object of universal hatred and the official culprit in the shameful defeat is Grand Duke Alexei, the commander-in-chief of the Russian Navy. His public appearances are explosive affairs. In October 1904, when his carriage is riding along Bolshaya Morskaya Street in Saint Petersburg, a crowd gathers along the roadside, shouting: “State thief!” and “Where’s our navy? Give us our fleet back!” The grand duke takes cover in a restaurant. Duly summoned, the city governor helps the tsar’s uncle get back home via the backstreets.*
All year the naval command ponders how to replace the Pacific Fleet. After the failure to purchase ships from Argentina, all eyes fall on its Baltic and Black Sea sisters. The Baltic Fleet, under the command of Admiral Zinovy Rozhestvensky, is the preferred option, but still the debate about whether to send it drags on for several months. It is a risky expedition, but finally Nicholas II announces, according to Witte, “with his characteristic optimism that Rozhestvensky will turn the war around, because Seraphim of Sarov has predicted that a peace agreement will be signed in Tokyo and only the yids and intelligentsia can think otherwise.”
The decision to dispatch the Baltic Fleet under Rozhestvensky is taken. As for the admiral himself, his opinion is thus: “The expedition is an arduous one, but if it be His Majestry’s order, I shall lead the fleet into battle against Japan.” Before Rozhestvensky sets sail, the emperor introduces him to the newborn heir to the throne, Tsarevich Alexei, and presents the admiral with a small icon of the now-holy Seraphim of Sarov.
“If I’d had a bit of civic courage,” writes the admiral a few years later, “I’d have shouted from the rooftops: safeguard the last vestiges of the Navy! Do not send it to its destruction! But I lacked the necessary spark.”
The fleet departs in October. After an accidental skirmish with British trawler boats (the Dogger Bank incident), Britain forbids the Russian ships from sailing through the Suez Canal, forcing them to skirt the southern tip of Africa. Only in spring the following year does the fleet reach Japan.
The European and American media are fully on the side of the Japanese. Russia and Russians are remorselessly caricatured, in particular sailors for alleged cowardice. Suvorin recalls that Punch magazine published a cartoon in the form of a job seeker’s notice: “Young man, ashamed to be Russian, seeks employment” with an editor’s note: “The word ‘young’ rules out Rozhestvensky. It’s probably the Tsarevich looking for a job.”
Never before has Alexei Suvorin, the publisher of New Time, the most pro-government newspaper in Russia, been so outspoken as in autumn 1904: “Does the government have friends? No. How can fools and blockheads, robbers and thieves have friends?”
PARIS CONGRESS
In late summer Peter Struve, the publisher of the magazine Liberation, encounters major problems: the German police begin an investigation at the request of their Russian counterparts. The entire editorial office has to up sticks immediately and relocate to Paris.
It is there that a general congress of Russian oppositionists soon takes place, involving everyone from moderate liberals to Marxist desperados. The diverse gathering includes Struve (from the Union of Liberation), the historian Pavel Milyukov (acting alone for now), and the Geneva Socialist-Revolutionaries (SRs) Yevgeny Azef and Boris Savinkov. The congress is organized and sponsored by the Finnish nationalist Konni Zilliacus. No one at the time knows how he is able to afford it, but it later transpires that Zilliacus is in receipt of direct funding from the Japanese General Staff for the purpose of promoting the revolutionary movement in Russia.
All participants agree that terror is what is needed. The assassination of Plehve is praised and Azef branded a hero. But it does not take long for the infighting to begin; the Finns and Poles demand autonomy and even independence from the Russian Empire, while the Russian revolutionaries are split: Struve supports their agenda, but not Milyukov. Nothing is resolved after nearly two hours of bitter wrangling, and the congress participants depart, leaving a raft of contradictory resolutions in their wake.
During the congress Ariadna Tyrkova, together with Struve and other members of the Union of Liberation in Paris, meets up with Azef. He is there on behalf of Gotz. “Why did you send this abominable specimen? You can smell he’s a spy a mile off,” writes the inexperienced young journalist to Gotz after the meeting. The leader of the SRs replies resentfully: “I encountered the rogue Zubatov in my youth, so I know a crafty spy when I see one. My recommendations are based on personal experience.” “Well,” replies Tyrkova sardonically, “I’m sure you are well versed in dealing with spies, but I do not relish the prospect.” Five years later the SRs will remember that the young Ariadna was the only person who exposed Azef at first glance—something that the party’s professional conspirators were unable to do.
But for now, the SRs still trust Azef, who is plotting more assassinations. The decision is taken to dispatch three groups to Saint Petersburg, Kiev, and Moscow. The target in Moscow is the city’s governor-general, Grand Duke Sergei. His assassination is assigned to Boris Savinkov.
After the assassination of Interior Minister Plehve, the question arises as to who will replace him in the firing line, quite literally. Witte feels that his hour has come to regain real power.
But one of the late Plehve’s accomplishments was to persuade Nicholas II not to trust Witte. Plehve has regularly supplied the emperor with reports denouncing Witte as a conspirator, a revolutionary, and a freemason. The latter himself asserts that Plehve’s briefcase (which survived its owner’s assassination) contained a report for the tsar alleging that Witte was involved in a plot to kill Nicholas II. The emperor did not fully believe Plehve’s claims, but became suspicious all the same.
The front-runner for the vacant post of interior minister is Boris Stürmer, a former member of the “Holy Militia,”* a metropolitan conservative, and Plehve’s ex-chief-of-staff. The emperor meets him and even signs a decree on his appointment as the new minister. But the tsar’s next visitor is his mother, Empress Dowager Maria Feodorovna, who persuades her son not to give the job to Plehve’s man.
She never liked the deceased minister and now convinces her son that his repressive policies only served to worsen the situation in Russia. Plehve tackled terrorism with prison and exile, and was blown up as a result. What Russia needs, says the empress dowager, is a skilled civil servant able to pacify society and avert a revolution. Maria Feodorovna recommends Prince Mirsky, a former chief of police and deputy of Sipyagin (Plehve’s predecessor). Having resigned after Plehve’s appointment, Mirsky moved to the western provinces, where his liberal reforms have so far produced excellent results. He should be the next minister for the sake of Tsarevich Alexei, says Maria Feodorovna.
Nicholas II never argues with his mother. In late August he summons Mirsky and offers him the post. The latter states quite bluntly that there needs to be a radical shift in government policy: “The situation has deteriorated so much that the government is effectively at war with Russia. The two must be reconciled, or else Russian society will split into the watchers and the watched, and then what?” he asks the tsar rhetorically. The prince says that as interior minister he would seek to relax censorship, adopt a law on religious tolerance, and soften the punishment for political crimes. The emperor agrees with everything.
In addition, Mirsky proposes not to punish workers for strikes and demonstrations, and calls for an expansion of self-government and more elected representatives. Once more, the emperor does not demur.
Lastly, Mirsky complains of poor health and his lack of public-speaking skills, fearing that it will hinder his work with other officials: “I can’t speak either,” replies Nicholas. The tsar promises to give the new minister a few months’ holiday every year to freshen up. However, the prince knows that such perks might be irrelevant: the previous two interior ministers, Sipyagin and Plehve, were assassinated twenty-five and twenty-seven months into the job, respectively.
A predecessor who did survive, the former Interior Minister Ivan Goremykin, tries to dissuade Mirsky: “You can’t trust him [the tsar]. He’s the most insincere man in the world.” But Mirsky accepts the job.
After taking office, the prince gives an interview to foreign correspondents in which he announces that the Russian government should be based on public trust. He then speaks to ministry staff, calling on them to form a “trusting relationship with public institutions and the population in general.” Mirsky is going to have problems after reading the interview. Indeed, Nicholas is very unhappy, and when the minister reports to him for the first time, on 22 September, the tsar demands that he give no more interviews.
The establishment soon starts to loathe Mirsky. No one more so than the governor-general of Moscow, Grand Duke Sergei, who is battling on all fronts with the Moscow zemstvo and will not hear of granting it greater rights. He is echoed by Pobedonostsev. When Mirsky lobbies for a new religious tolerance law, the old “minister of the church” reiterates that Mirsky’s ideas “will result in a massacre on the streets of Saint Petersburg and the provinces.” Mirsky seeks support from Witte, who seems to back his initiatives, but replies evasively that he (Witte) is now so out of favor with the tsar that his support will likely wreck Mirsky’s plans. In reality, Witte plots against the new minister and tries to derail all his proposals.
Saint Petersburg’s conservative elements are angered by the liberal minister. In autumn 1904 Russia’s twin capitals are simmering. In Saint Petersburg the aforementioned socialite and general’s wife Alexandra Bogdanovich writes in her diary that Mirsky’s liberal reforms will spark revolution.
Mirsky is accused of “tactlessness” for having received a deputation of Jews and promising equality for all nationalities of Russia. General Bogdanovich recalls that he saw a demonstration in Moscow with two red flags, one bearing the words “Down with the tsar,” the other “Down with the war.” His wife bewails that the history professor Yevgeny Tarle is giving lectures on the French Revolution, after which his students are “so roused that every Monday you can expect trouble.” A friend of the general and his wife, the might-have-been interior minister Boris Stürmer, is deeply “gloomy and upset about everything and says that we are heading for revolution. Even if we come to our senses and get rid of Mirsky, the old order is ruined.” (The real revolution, incidentally, is still thirteen years away and happens, ironically, after Stürmer’s premiership.)
In the end, Prince Mirsky’s fragile health fails and he suffers a nervous breakdown. While he is convalescing, the tsar issues an order to the minister stating explicitly that there shall be no change of policy. In Saint Petersburg it is said that Mirsky is on the verge of retirement, but once more the tsar’s mother, the empress dowager, steps in: “If Mirsky is pushed, I shall return to Copenhagen,” threatens the former Danish princess.
Prince Mirsky’s interview and the beginning of his reforms make an impression not only on Russia’s conservatives, but its liberals, too—wherever they may be, in exile or emigration. Peter Struve’s newspaper Liberation writes that Plehve’s successor will find it difficult to achieve reform, but Russian society is prepared to wait, because it understands that real change takes time.*
Just a week before Mirsky’s appointment, several zemstvo activists, led by Princes Shakhovsky and Dolgorukov, convene a large zemstvo congress in Moscow, such as the one that took place in 1902 at the apartment of Dmitry Shipov, the head of the Moscow zemstvo. They had wanted to convene it earlier, but all meetings were banned by Plehve.
The zemstvo representatives are impressed by Prince Mirsky’s performance. “The speech wafted across the country like a breath of fresh air,” recalls Shipov. District councils from across the country respond to Mirsky’s words with approving telegrams. Mirsky, for his part, asks the tsar’s permission to hold a zemstvo congress in Saint Petersburg. He explains that it will be a quite innocent gathering simply for participants to pool their experience and discuss everyday matters. Nicholas does not object.
The apparatchik Witte claims that he warned Mirsky right from the start that the congress would be a mistake. “The so-called intelligent people,” Witte allegedly told his younger colleague Mirsky, “only pretend to fight bureaucracy. But if you ask them what they mean by bureaucracy, they will answer ‘unlimited sovereign power.’ This congress is sure to end in misunderstanding. It is bound to adopt a resolution demanding a constitution, and instead of reconciliation between government and society, there will only be further aggravation.”
On learning that the tsar has consented to the congress, the zemstvo bureau decides to change the agenda completely and discuss political and economic issues. All members of the bureau, apart from Shipov, are members of the Union of Liberation and vote in favor of discussing the state system, the creation of a parliament, and the introduction of a constitution.
A month later Shipov receives a call from the Interior Ministry in Saint Petersburg to say that Prince Mirsky wants to discuss the forthcoming congress with him. Shipov replies that he is ready to come, but then the minister falls ill. The congress is scheduled for 6 November. Only on 25 October does Mirsky’s health allow him to receive the delegate from Moscow.
The interior minister gives Shipov a cordial welcome and proposes that they discuss the “upcoming conference of the chairmen of the provincial councils, the importance of which is greatly inflated, as if it were some kind of constituent assembly.” Shipov replies that Prince Mirsky is probably not aware of the new agenda and promptly shows it to him.
Mirsky is shocked. “I informed His Majesty that these meetings would not touch upon political issues or constitutional changes to our system,” says the bemused minister. “I agree with all the items and am ready to put my signature to them, but the raising of such an agenda is tantamount to my dismissal. If the congress goes ahead with this program, I have no doubt that I shall be discharged the next day,” Shipov recalls Mirsky’s words. “Personally I care little for the position I hold, but my departure could have undesirable consequences. My policies have made many enemies, who will take full advantage of my exit.”
Shipov advises Mirsky to show the congress agenda to the tsar as quickly as possible, so that the latter does not believe he has been deceived. Later that evening Mirsky tells his wife that he is fearful: “Today there was unpleasantness. The program is militant and demands a constitution.” The next day the minister is visited by Grand Duke Nicholas Mikhailovich, who warns that Mirsky’s enemies are becoming emboldened. The governor-general of Moscow, Grand Duke Sergei, is said to be “chomping at the bit.”
Shipov returns to Moscow and urgently convenes a meeting of bureau members from other cities. All those assembled say that the hullabaloo surrounding the congress is such that it cannot be put off—all the newspapers are writing about 6 November, the appointed date. However, because permission for the congress is likely to be withdrawn in light of the new agenda, the participants decide to hold it semi-officially—not in the building of the Saint Petersburg zemstvo, but in a private apartment.
On 31 October Shipov again travels to Saint Petersburg to see the minister and states that the zemstvo members have decided not to change anything. The next day Mirsky goes to see Nicholas II and tries to persuade him to involve the people’s elected representatives in the legal system, because the political situation is “very critical.” “Yes, that will allow them to sort out the veterinary issue,” replies Nicholas II, rather off topic. “Your Majesty, I am speaking not about that, but about their right to permanent participation in the lawmaking process. I would not be so persistent if the throne were secure, but given the terrorist movement, what situation might Russia find itself in?” continues Mirsky. But the tsar is unfazed. As a last resort, the minister recommends banning the zemstvo congress, with which the tsar immediately agrees.
In the evening Mirsky receives Shipov once more and informs him that the government cannot entrust the discussion of such important state matters to a “group of private individuals,” but also that private conversations in private homes cannot be banned and that the police will provide them with assistance.
Petersburg society is agitated. The general’s wife, Bogdanovich, writes in her diary that the forthcoming “zemstvo congress” is reminiscent of the Estates-General, which sprouted the French Revolution. As if to prove the point, the Saratov delegation bound for Saint Petersburg is seen off at the station to the accompaniment of the revolutionary La Marseillaise.
In the meantime, on 4 November, without waiting for the congress, Interior Minister Mirsky starts drafting his own program for the “internal transformation of the imperial order,” which he intends to present to the tsar.
At long last, the zemstvo representatives gather in Saint Petersburg on 6 November. The decisive third day is held inside the apartment of the law professor Vladimir Nabokov, the father of the future author of Lolita. They argue long and passionately about how the Russian state should be structured: whether a constituent assembly is required, or whether all changes can be made from the top down.
The congress adopts a program consisting of eleven points. The demands include: integrity of the individual and the home; freedom of conscience and religion; freedom of speech and the press; freedom of assembly and association; equal rights (civil and political) for all citizens of the Russian Empire, regardless of social estate or class; and local government in all parts of the Russian Empire.
“It’s terrible. They are giving advice when no one is asking for it,” Empress Dowager Maria Feodorovna says to Prince Mirsky about the congress.
On 11 November Mirsky receives Shipov and says that he personally will hand the congress resolution to the tsar. The zemstvo representatives depart Saint Petersburg, satisfied. The emperor meets the minister in good cheer after a successful hunt (he personally shot 144 of the 522 pheasants killed that day). The prince tries to resign, taking the blame for the congress, but the emperor does not let him.
Mirsky’s nerve is starting to fail. Grand Duke Nicholas Mikhailovich, the tsar’s uncle and a supporter of the reforms, warns him that storm clouds are gathering. Meanwhile, the less liberal governor-general of Moscow, Grand Duke Sergei, travels from the old capital to attend the birthday of the empress dowager with the intention of offering an ultimatum: either him or Mirsky. He is convinced that the minister is a revolutionary.
Suvorin is sure that the convalescent Prince Mirsky will achieve nothing: “He lacks not only the character, but the mind.” Saint Petersburg is whispering that a successor for Mirsky has already been found, but, as the diarist and general’s wife Bogdanovich is informed by Stürmer, the tsar has asked the prince to remain temporarily. General Bogdanovich himself goes to see the interior minister and tells him to his face that the zemstvo congress is nothing but a bunch of revolutionaries. Mirsky replies that they are good people, and that the real enemies of the state are “shitheads like Stürmer.”
THE “THIRD ELEMENT”
The successful “private meeting” in Saint Petersburg spurs the intelligentsia. At the time its members are known as the “third element”—after the fashion of drawing parallels with the French Revolution. In France, the driving force of the revolution was the Third Estate, that is, the bourgeoisie (the other two being the nobility and the clergy). In Russia, there is no bourgeoisie per se (in the sense of a fully formed class of small business owners), but there is a class of educated people who consider themselves to be the equivalent.
In some respects, the gathering in Saint Petersburg has achieved nothing, yet the fact that it has been widely proclaimed and not been punished is cause for celebration. (The exception is the law professor Vladimir Nabokov, whose home was used to draft the resolution; a week after the congress he is removed from his post at the Imperial College of Law.) Moreover, the congress’s resolution is printed all across the country, and most of its members become celebrities.
Similar “private meetings” are held all over the place, adjusted for scale. Urban intellectuals gather for drinks and snacks to toast the success of the zemstvo congress and adopt their own resolution. The “liberal banquet” campaign spreads across Russia: “It was like a dam bursting. In the space of just 2-3 months Russia was gripped by a newfound thirst for change. People are speaking loudly,” Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich, the president of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, writes in his diary. “Revolution seems to be knocking at the door. The talk of a constitution is becoming more open. It’s shameful and frightening.”
Even provincial marshals of the nobility* petition the tsar to demand government reforms. “They, too, have fallen under the influence of the zemstvo congress,” Nicholas dismisses them in conversation with Mirsky. “If you do not even trust the marshals of the nobility, whom are you going to rely upon? After all, they certainly cannot be accused of lacking conservatism,” replies the minister, somewhat reproachfully.
The workers are also fairly conservative at first. Gapon’s trade union organization is growing steadily, and he sets up a branch of his “tea-drinking” workers’ club near the Putilov factory in Saint Petersburg, which immediately attracts seven hundred members. The next few months see eight more branches opened, but their members are far removed from revolutionary ideas. During the blessing of one of the new affiliates (Gapon is a priest, after all), he notices that some workers kiss first the cross and then the hand of Saint Petersburg Governor Ivan Fullon. Gapon is outraged. When Fullon departs, he delivers a full-on lecture to the workers that the world is divided between the poor and the rich, and relations between them can never be good so long as this divide exists. Fullon is on the side of the rich and does not care about the poor. Gapon ends by saying that self-esteem and self-respect must be maintained at all times.
Gapon does well to avoid problems with the police. By October he has nine branches with five thousand members, rising by November to eleven and seven thousand, respectively. In November Gapon rejects the restrictions on nationalities prescribed in the state regulations, and openly invites Finns, Poles, and Jews to his “assemblies of Russian workers.”
The discussions at the assemblies rapidly turn political. Gapon invites new speakers and meets with members of the “Union of Liberation,” who recommend drafting a workers’ petition to the tsar. Many of Gapon’s comrades like the idea. After all, the marshals of the nobility have already done it, so why wait?
Gapon struggles to restrain the enthusiasm of his comrades. He is afraid that his brainchild will be banned by the authorities, and fears that a workers’ petition will simply drown in the general stream. He prefers to wait for a specific pretext to arise, believing that “the petition should be lodged at a critical moment, such as the fall of Port Arthur and or the rout of Rozhestvensky’s fleet, which seems inevitable.” Moreover, it will have more success if accompanied by a mass workers’ strike.
The political debate in Russia is moving so quickly and stormily that the revolutionaries in exile are out of touch. Ariadna Tyrkova recalls that the Paris-based Struve cannot sit still. Several times a day he runs to a newsstand to buy up all the latest papers to monitor the developments back home.
The monthly newspaper Revolutionary Russia is redundant. “Things are changing too fast,” Chernov says to his fellow revolutionary Gotz. “We can’t keep up here. We have to go back to Russia and immerse ourselves in the public mood.” Chernov believes that they should try to publish in the legal press: “Only that will work. Abroad, we are simply beating the air.”
“They’ll just arrest you one by one,” Gotz tries to dissuade his comrade. Chernov stands his ground and tables the matter with the central committee of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, but his senior comrades order him to remain put. Mikhail Gotz’s illness is progressing. The doctors have diagnosed a tumor in his spinal cord. He can no longer walk, moves only in a wheelchair, and cannot sleep without morphine.
Strikes break out in the autumn of 1904 not only in Saint Petersburg, but also in Moscow, where the skies had seemed relatively cloudless. That summer the governor-general of Moscow, Grand Duke Sergei, and the police chief Trepov write to Saint Petersburg to request that action be taken against Gapon. But all minds in the capital are focused on Plehve’s assassination and the advice goes unheeded. The grand duke becomes increasingly irate and accuses Mirsky of “criminal weakness,” blaming him for the disorder.
Of all the tsar’s relatives, Grand Duke Sergei and his wife Ella are the closest and most influential. Ella (whose Orthodox name is Elizabeth Feodorovna) is the elder sister of Empress Alexandra and the only member of the imperial family still trusted by the tsarina (Alix steers clear of her mother-in-law, the empress dowager, and simply hates her Aunt Miechen, for instance).
Grand Duke Sergei is only nine years older than Nicholas II and on very good terms with the emperor. This is the same man who in 1881 ventured to convey to his elder brother, Alexander III, a letter from Leo Tolstoy asking for their father’s regicides to be pardoned. He has changed a great deal since then. Besides favoring repression and opposing reform and the introduction of a constitution, he has also become deeply religious.
But that does not prevent Moscow society from gossiping about his homosexuality, alleging that all his adjutants are in fact male lovers. There is not a word about it in his diaries, while his wife Ella is one of the most beautiful women in Europe (so says the imperial court, partly to belittle her sister, Empress Alexandra). Moreover, unlike Alix, Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna speaks excellent Russian and is very popular with society.
Still, the severest blow to Sergei’s reputation is the Khodynka tragedy.* As governor-general of Moscow, he was responsible for the new tsar’s coronation in 1896. In Moscow he is even nicknamed “Prince Khodynka.” The two government commissions set up to investigate the tragedy reached opposite conclusions, as a result of which no one was ever punished. Only later do two officials, the head of the Moscow police and the minister of the court, tender their resignations.
Sergei and Ella have no children of their own, but they have custody of their nephew and niece. In 1902 Sergei’s younger brother, Grand Duke Pavel, without the permission of the emperor (his nephew), marries for a second time—to a divorcee. Knowing that Nicholas II will never give his consent to such a misalliance, Grand Duke Pavel marries in secret in Italy. Nicholas II subsequently punishes his uncle to exile abroad, and places the latter’s children, twelve-year-old Maria and eleven-year-old Dmitry, in the care of Uncle Sergei and Aunt Ella. The childless Moscow governor-general is overjoyed. He is very fond of his brother’s children, who even before the forced separation with their father have long been living with their aunt and uncle. Maria later recalls: “Despite the deep regret that my uncle had over his brother’s misalliance, he could not hide his joy at what were now his children. He said over and over again: ‘Now I am your father and you are my children.’ Dmitry and I sat side by side, staring blankly at him in silence.”
These effectively orphaned children (their mother, Princess Alexandra of Greece, died giving birth to Dmitry) will play a major role in the life of Nicholas II. The young Dmitry is set to become one of the assassins of Rasputin. But that is fourteen years down the line.
For now, they are getting used to permanent life in Moscow with Grand Duke Sergei. Grand Duchess Maria (“little Marie”) recalls that in 1903 the emperor arrived in Moscow for his Easter vacation. He was greeted by such an enthusiastic crowd that it was a miracle that the children, who were out for a walk with the tsar, were not trampled.
Just one year later the war with Japan has caused a violent shift in the public mood. In 1904, a crowd gathers under the windows of Grand Duke Sergei’s residence, not with the intention of expressing loyalty: “They started throwing bottles and stones at our windows. We had to call the police and put sentries along the pavement to protect the entrance to our palace,” recalls little Marie.
Arriving in Saint Petersburg in November 1904, Grand Duke Sergei, the man who nurtured the police chiefs Trepov and Zubatov, is angered by the new liberal practices and delivers his aforementioned ultimatum to the tsar: him or Mirsky. Nicholas II is known to hate being cornered and to punish anyone who demands resoluteness from him. As a result, Uncle Sergei is pensioned off and left only with the symbolic post of commander of the Moscow Military District. At the same time, Trepov tenders his resignation and asks to be sent to the front line in the Far East.
Yet the now-retired grand duke’s influence only increases, since the tsar always has more faith in persons with no public office. Throughout December Sergei is ever present in the emperor’s company.
On 24 November 1904, Interior Minister Mirsky presents the tsar with his own set of draft reforms. It is difficult to say who is the more agitated of the two: Prince Mirsky, who is being hounded by the metropolitan elite, or Emperor Nicholas II, who is being harassed by his own family. In addition to his mother and Uncle Sergei, all the senior Romanovs are weighing into the debate over governance and reform, including Alexander III’s brothers Vladimir (president of the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts and commander of the Saint Petersburg Military District) and Alexei (commander of the Imperial Navy), as well as the late tsar’s cousins Alexander (Sandro) and Nicholas Mikhailovich. Lastly, there is Empress Alexandra, who in late November asks her husband to introduce her to Prince Mirsky.
“If we do not press ahead with liberal reform, change will come in the shape of revolution,” the interior minister urges the empress, saying that most members of the nobility and the educated classes want the reforms to happen, but “without touching the autocracy.” Mirsky hopes to persuade the tsar and tsarina to meet society halfway, without the need to introduce a constitution. Alexandra replies that the proposed changes are “frightful” and need to be implemented very gradually: “The intelligentsia opposes Tsar Nicholas and his government, but the nation as a whole has always supported him and always will do,” she says, in response to which Mirsky notes that the opinion of the intelligentsia has greater value, since the people are very changeable—today they “can kill intellectuals for sake of the tsar, but tomorrow burn down royal palaces. They are a force of nature.”
But Nicholas II hates the intelligentsia. Mirsky recalls that during his spell as governor in Vilnius, he once mentioned the word “intelligentsia” in the presence of Nicholas II, who snapped that the word was detestable and should be expunged from the dictionary. According to Witte, the tsar deliberately took no interest in public opinion, because he believed that public opinion had been hijacked by the so-called intellectuals.
In his memoirs, General Mosolov, head of the imperial chancery, tells in detail about the “partition wall” theory, which was very popular with courtiers and the imperial couple at the time. According to this theory, for Russia to live in peace and harmony there must be a direct link between the sovereign and his subjects. The tsar stands above all social strata and possesses unlimited resources. He does not make mistakes and does not seek personal gain. His subjects live in the knowledge that the emperor does everything in his power to ensure that they receive their fair share of the country’s wealth. If something is wrong in society, it simply means that the emperor does not know about it.
The trouble is that there exist two forces that benefit from keeping the tsar uninformed. One part of the “wall” around the tsar is formed of the bureaucracy (including ministers); the second—the instigator of all unrest—is the intelligentsia. The intelligentsia’s dream is to become the bureaucracy under a new regime brought about by revolution. The task of the intelligentsia, the self-styled “third element,” is to use newspapers, pamphlets, lectures, and dubious foreign connections and money to distort the relationship between the benefactor and his people. The tsar rightly hates intellectuals, propagandists, agitators, and revolutionaries. The competing bureaucrats and intellectuals construct a wall of lies around “the good tsar,” immuring him inside his palace and preventing him from telling his subjects how much he loves them.
The empress adheres passionately to this point of view. For her, one of the primary motives for canonizing Seraphim of Sarov was to strengthen the bond between the tsar and the people. Yet the court is unaware of Alexandra’s growing political awareness. The conversation with Prince Mirsky marks her debut in the arena of politics.
Having examined Mirsky’s draft reforms, Nicholas is minded to endorse them. The document is moderate, especially compared to the resolution put forward by the zemstvo congress. It proposes that the State Council be partially elected (i.e., turned into a proto-parliament) and that the Old Believers be granted freedom of worship. At the same time, crucially, it seeks to preserve the autocratic system. But Nicholas does not immediately put pen to paper (perhaps he only pretended to endorse Mirsky’s plan). Instead, he decides to convene a plenary session of the Committee of Ministers. Nicholas II and Mirsky discuss who should be summoned. The emperor does not want the “freemason” Witte to be present, while Mirsky is disinclined to see Pobedonostsev, whom he despises for his know-all attitude. The tsar eventually agrees to invite Witte, but when Mirsky departs he sends Pobedonostsev a note: “Everything’s a mess. Come and help sort out the chaos.”
“I CONGRATULATE YOU, GENTLEMEN!”
November 28, 1904, sees another demonstration outside Saint Petersburg’s Kazan Cathedral, which is dispersed by police like the one three-and-a-half years before. All officials set to attend the session with the tsar on 2 December are unsettled by the new wave of unrest.
The first person whom Mirsky bumps into on the way to the meeting that will decide the fate of the reform program is Pobedonostsev. During the session, the latter delivers a coruscating speech against the reforms, accusing Mirsky of wanting to curb the monarchy’s powers—something that even the tsar himself has no right to do, for it would violate the oath he gave during his coronation. The emperor is not entitled to limit the authority bestowed upon him from above.
Interior Minister Mirsky remains mostly silent. After the first sitting, Nicholas instructs Witte to draft a new decree in place of Mirsky’s proposals.
“The bureaucracy has triumphed. The case against it has collapsed, and there is nothing left to do except build more prisons and tighten the screws,” Mirsky says to Interior Ministry staff after the meeting. He complains of being “marginalized” by Witte. However, the new draft is not much different from his own, which gives him hope.
Ahead of the final sitting scheduled for 8 December, the tension is rising palpably. On 5-6 December student riots break out in Moscow right in front of the house of Grand Duke Sergei.
Unexpectedly, the final sitting on 8 December is attended by the tsar’s uncles, Grand Dukes Sergei, Vladimir, and Alexei. The idea of reform seems to be dead and buried, but Count Dmitry Solsky, a member of the State Council, tables an amendment to create something like a lower house of parliament (he calls it the “first instance” of parliament), whose task would be to review laws before submission to the State Council. Solsky is backed first by Grand Duke Vladimir and then by the tsar, whereupon everyone agrees unanimously, including Grand Duke Sergei and Prince Mirsky, who diametrically oppose each other. According to Witte’s memoirs, the grandeur of the historical moment caused some ministers to shed a tear.
But the family drama does not end there. The next day the emperor is paid a visit by two of his most influential political advisers: Uncle Sergei and his mother. They hold a long discussion.
On 11 December Empress Dowager Maria Feodorovna informs Mirsky that she generally approves of the decree, expect for the paragraph about elections, which disturbs her greatly. That same evening Witte goes to see the tsar with his freshly drafted decree in hand. Grand Duke Sergei is there in the tsar’s office. Nicholas expresses concern and asks that the paragraph about elections be amended. Witte says that it is a precursor to a new constitution, but if the emperor does not wish to go down that path, the offending paragraph can simply be crossed out. Exchanging glances with Grand Duke Sergei, the tsar replies: “I will never agree to any representative form of government, for I consider it harmful to the people entrusted to me by God. Therefore, I shall follow your advice and cross out this paragraph.”
The emperor later pours out his soul to Pyotr Trubetskoy, the marshal of the nobility for Moscow. “Only autocracy can save Russia,” the tsar is alleged to have exclaimed. “The common man would not understand the idea of a constitution. He would think only that the tsar’s hands have been tied, and in this case, I congratulate you, gentlemen!”
Nicholas II agrees that Prince Mirsky should resign, but only a month later, in mid-January 1905. The prince is dispatched as governor-general of the Caucasus.
On 14 December the new decree, written by Witte, appears in print. It makes no mention of elections. Moreover, it is accompanied by a statement that the very idea of elected representatives having a role in government is “alien to the Russian people, who are loyal to the age-old foundations of the political system as it exists.” The decree also prohibits “liberal banquets” and other private meetings at which reforms might be discussed.
DEFEAT
On 21 December, the tsar and his brother Mikhail travel by train to Minsk to inspect military units bound for the Far East. On the train he receives the news that Port Arthur has fallen. The news does not come as a surprise: “Although it was foreseen, one had hoped that the army would prevail. Yet the defenders are heroes and did more than what might have been expected. It is God’s will!” reads the tsar’s diary.
His reaction stuns even his inner circle. “The news that dispirited all those who love their country was received by the tsar with indifference. He showed not the slightest trace of gloom,” the general’s wife Bogdanovich conveys the tsar’s attitude. “Sakharov [the war minister] started telling anecdotes, and there was no end to the chortling. Sakharov knows how to make the tsar laugh. How deplorable! God forbid that such behavior should become known to the people or [the tsar’s] enemies.”
A couple of days later Saint Petersburg learns of the fall of Port Arthur. “Its defenders ran out of shells, the soldiers are sick with scurvy and typhus, the wounded are multitudinous, Japanese bombs hit hospitals and injured them even more. We blew up our own forts and ships at port. It is a repeat of Sevastopol precisely 50 years on,” Grand Duke Konstantin describes the situation.
In December 1904, everyone is comparing Port Arthur to Sevastopol and the war with Japan to the Crimean War. For the past half-century the Crimean War has been a symbol of shame and humiliation. Emperor Nicholas I did not live to see the end of the war, dying after Russia’s failed assault on the city of Yevpatoria (he is rumored to have committed suicide). Sevastopol fell just six months after the tsar’s death. The excessive sangfroid of Nicholas II stands in sharp contrast to the anxiety and shock felt by his great-grandfather.
Alexei Suvorin writes that “never before have I thought that a revolution might happen in Russia, but now we have to consider the possibility.” Witte is dreading the arrival of spring: the Petersburg beau monde is sure that the fall of Port Arthur spells revolution.
* Despite the similarity, Alix is not short for Alexandra, but is a Germanic and Old French form of Alice.
* One hundred years later this practice will become even more widespread. In the early twenty-first century Kremlin administrators organize weekly meetings with editors-in-chief of major media outlets—usually on Fridays. At these meetings editors-in-chief receive detailed instructions on how to cover different events, even the minor ones.
† About $105.50 in 2017.
‡ About $6,591,666 in 2017.
* In the early twenty-first century corruption in the higher spheres still provokes the strongest protests. However, this does not concern military operations held by Russia. Sergey Fridinsky, Chief Military Prosecutor, prepared a report in 2017 about the inspection of the Ministry of Defense’s actions during the military operations in Syria. However, the results of this inspection were never published and didn’t even attract any public interest, whereas Prosecutor Fridinsky resigned immediately instead of reporting to the Federation Council.
* See chapter two.
* The reaction to the appointment of Mirsky and to his policy of trust in Russian society somewhat resembles the reaction to the presidency of Dmitry Medvedev who proclaimed, “Freedom is better than non-freedom.” Conservative officials considered his rhetoric strange and harmful, whereas the progressive part of the society saw it as too weak and inconsistent.
* Elected local representatives in pre-revolutionary Russia.
* See chapter two.
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