Epilogue
About the Authors
Fiction by Michael Phillips
Books by Judith Pella
A Cast of Characters
Anna Yevnovna Burenin
Princess Katrina Viktorovna (Fedorcenko) Remizov
Count Dmitri Gregorovich Remizov
Prince Sergei Viktorovich Fedorcenko
Lt. Mikhail Igorovich Grigorov (Misha)
In St. Petersburg
Prince Viktor Makhailovich Fedorcenko
Princess Natalia Vasilyovna Fedorcenko
Count Cyril Vlasenko—Chief of Third Section, the Secret Police
Tsar Alexander II Rominov
General Michael Loris-Melikov
Alexander Alexandrovich Rominov (Tsar Alexander III)
Pobedonostev—Alexander III’s tutor
Fedorcenko and Remizov Households
Eugenia Pavlovna Remizov—Dmitri’s mother
Mrs. Remington
Leo Moskalev
Nina Chomsky
Polya
Peter
Ivan
In Katyk
Yevno Pavlovich Burenin
Sophia Ilyanovna Burenin
Tanya
Vera
Ilya
Mariana Natalia Dmitrievna Remizov
Father Corygov
Revolutionaries and Friends
Paul Yevnovich Burenin (Pavlikov)
Basil Pyotrovich Anickin
Andrei Zhelyabov
Sophia Perovskaya
Stepniak
Ivan Remiga
Dr. Bobov
Evie
In the Army and in Siberia
Captain Rustaveli—Caspian Sea
General Skobelev—Caspian Sea
Lt. Plaksa—Dmitri’s friend
Kaplan—Sergei’s friend
Robbie Taggart—China
1
Anna traced over the handwritten signature on the title page for the eighth time that day:
S-E-R-G-E-I V-I-K-T-O-R-O-V-I-C-H F-E-D-O-R-C-E-N-K-O
Her fingers carefully followed the words he had written to her only a few hours earlier. As she sat alone in her room at last, after the afternoon’s succession of receptions, she stared at the words of the title, the author’s name, and the inscription written underneath them. Every time she actually tried to read the prized volume, the fictional Bagraev’s story paled alongside the pulsing reality of the words on the title page.
To my Anna Yevnovna, the familiar hand had written, with the deepest of my heart’s love and affection, and with great hope for our future together.
“My Anna,” she whispered. “My Anna!”
Slowly she closed the book and clasped it to her bosom, tenderly caressing the soft leather of its cover. This would be one of her treasured possessions, along with the Bible and gold cross of her father’s. She would keep it with her forever. She would treasure it forty years from now, even when it was old and ragged and she had read it a dozen times! She would show it to their children, and tell them that this was the first and most special of all their father’s many books. Although his name was famous throughout all of Russia, throughout all of Europe, this chosen volume, now ragged with years, was the first anyone in all of Moscow had been given. And he had given it to her—Anna Yevnovna, a mere servant girl!
Anna opened the volume again, and once more tried to read the story that had sprung from her beloved Sergei’s creative mind.
From the nobility came a youth of the Motherland, full of the optimism of his tender years. In his bosom beat a heart full of love for his country and all he thought it stood for. He came still half a boy, full of hope. When he returned, he would be a man whose hope was gone.
His name was Bagraev. This is his saga. He left his beloved St. Petersburg in the season of . . .
Anna could read no more.
Again she turned the pages back to the title page, gazing at the words—some printed by machine, some written by hand. She would read Sergei’s book. She would read it twice . . . three times! But tonight she was tired, and she would merely bask in the glow of seeing her name on its title page.
To my Anna Yevnovna.
2
The second half of 1880 brought several months of welcome peace to the Motherland of Russia.
Foreign battlefields were, if not quiet, at least not so noisy as to echo their din all the way northward to St. Petersburg. Scattered fighting was always in progress along the distant borders of an empire so enormous, particularly in southern Asia to the southeast of the Black Sea. But with the army returned from the Balkan War, most citizens paid these scattered outbreaks little heed.
At home the terrible bombing of the Winter Palace in February had precipitated such a crisis that good seemed at last to have resulted from it in the end. The close attempt on his life had finally induced Alexander II, tsar of Russia, to heed the clamoring voices crying for moderation and change.
Summoning to the capital the governor of Kharkov, General Michael Loris-Melikov, the tsar had given the general sweeping powers, made him head of the newly formed Supreme Executive Commission, and set into motion a detailed study of the most outlandish of Melikov’s proposals—granting the people of Russia a constitution, and changing the form of government to a constitutional monarchy.
Not all Alexander’s advisors were happy about the turn of events. Though cautious, moderates within the court were generally optimistic, both as to Melikov’s reasonable personality and with regard to his plan. Monarchists and conservatives, most notably Alexander’s own son, the tsarevich, doomed Melikov to failure in their own minds immediately. It could not be disputed, in any case, that Melikov had the tsar’s attention and sympathy—for now, at least. Alexander had a long history of double-mindedness, which was largely at the root of the country’s present difficulties, and which all of his advisors had to weigh within their minds when assessing their own personal loyalties.
Neither could it be disputed that initially Melikov’s leadership had squelched the rebellious fervor throughout the land. His immediate successes in rooting out and punishing terrorists had driven the movement sufficiently underground so as to make the streets of St. Petersburg safe again. How long such calm would last . . . one could only hope. But in this land it was unwise to make too many predictions. And it was prudent to keep one’s own counsel.
Whether the tsar would continue to favor the idea of constitutional reform was anyone’s guess.
In the meantime, aristocrats and noblemen, imperial ministers and advisors alike all found their own futures cloudy and uncertain. Russia was moving toward change, that much was evident.
Which direction it would take was not so clear.
Nor could anyone predict which direction the winds of personal fortune might be blowing a year from now. It was best to walk warily, watch one’s words, and not say too much that could be misconstrued at some later unpredictable moment.
1
Cyril Vlasenko, one-time boyarin over serfs, former magistrate and chief in Akulin and Pskov, and now police chief of the mighty Third Section in St. Petersburg, was not at all happy with the recent turn of events.
His long-coveted position in the government, which he had plotted and schemed and manipulated his hated cousin Viktor to obtain for him, had suddenly become tenuous at best. Loris-Melikov’s successful arrests of terrorists and rebel activists were making a fool of the police chief. It was gradually dawning on Vlasenko that Melikov fully intended to subjugate the power of the Third Section under the Ministry of Internal Affairs, usurping police powers himself, and thus bringing about the swift demise of the current chief.
But Vlasenko had bowed and scraped and groveled too long to attain his position to accept defeat without a fight!
Unfortunately, Melikov had become an imperial darling. All of St. Petersburg bowed to him. He was, for the time being, untouchable. Even if Vlasenko had some devilish stratagem up his sleeve—which in all candor he did not—it would be a dangerou
s game to try it now, especially against Melikov directly. The loathsome liberals had suddenly gained court favor and were making disturbing encroachments into the status quo. And at the root of it all was Melikov’s increasing pressure on the Crown to approve a constitutional government. The fool would make the Motherland into another weak-kneed milksop of a nation like America or Great Britain! What was his ultimate intent—to turn Russia into a democracy? The very thought that a land of ignorant peasants could rule itself without the strong iron hand of an autocrat was worse than laughable—it was absurd!
Yet . . . this was the hour when such idiotic liberal delusions were being listened to with favor. And therefore he had to watch his step.
Nor was Cyril the only conservative in fear of his job. Dmitri Tolstoy had been removed from the Ministry of Education and replaced as Procurator of the Holy Synod. Conservatives in positions like Vlasenko’s did not fear for their jobs without reason. Melikov had shown clearly enough that he intended to act, and it was also clear that the tsar would back him up.
In refilling the procuratorship, however, Melikov might well have made his first grave mistake. Cyril dared to hope it was a fatal one. In his desire to curry the favor of the tsarevich, Melikov handed the position over to the ultra-reactionary, quintessential imperialist Pobedonostev, the tsarevich’s tutor. The man was violently opposed to everything Melikov himself stood for, and the appointment was perplexing, even if delicious.
If Cyril were a patient man, he had only to sit back and watch the tsar’s darling destroy himself trying to play both ends against the middle. It would happen eventually.
But he was not a patient man, and he felt a sinking helplessness to do anything to speed up the process of Melikov’s fall or to protect his own position. Before the ax fell, he would resign and return to his estate to the south. But that would be an inglorious retreat after less than two years in the capital. Remaining in St. Petersburg in essential humiliation and powerlessness was not much better. But still, it did keep him close to the action, as it were, easily in reach of . . . well, in reach of anything which might come his way for use in discrediting Melikov or his liberal cronies.
Vlasenko half-suspected his cousin’s surreptitious hand in collusion with Melikov to discredit the police chief and see him ousted from power. Fedorcenko had never forgiven him for how he had used his position to gain entry into St. Petersburg’s portals of power in the first place. And although he had been successful, Cyril’s advancement did not put to rest his deep-seated resentment toward what he still considered the unfairly favored side of the family. Never far from Cyril’s conniving mind was the ongoing obsession to gain the upper hand, once and for all, over the thorn in his side—Viktor Fedorcenko. A year ago he had come close to seeing the man’s demise when Viktor’s moderate stand had begun to erode his favor with the tsar. But with Alexander’s vacillation, one never knew where the pendulum of fate would swing next. Now Viktor was hobnobbing with Melikov, and both had become the apple of the tsar’s eye. Why, Alexander had even attended the wedding of Viktor’s daughter! Cyril had been invited too—merely out of obligation, no doubt—but he had received little more than a passing nod from his snob of a relative.
But if Vlasenko could not make a frontal assault against the tsar’s new dictator Melikov, he’d be just as satisfied to strike in another direction. Indeed, considering the personal fulfillment it afforded, a blow at Viktor, if it could serve something of the same purpose, might be even more satisfying.
That is why he wasted no time when the little volume entitled A Soldier’s Glory fell into his hands.
The book was absolutely rife with sedition—couched innocuously, of course, in a tale of a youth’s coming of age in battle during the Crimean War. How the drivel ever passed the censors, Vlasenko had no idea. It was probably due to more of Melikov’s ineffectual liberal appointees, or, more likely, a few well-placed bribes on the part of one or both of the Princes Fedorcenko.
The tsar was afraid these days, yes. Afraid of the rebels, afraid of the public, afraid for his reputation. And in his fear he was succumbing to all the current liberal prattle. But Cyril doubted the tsar was addled enough to stand for seditious slander from the pen of the son of one of his highest governmental ministers. He was about to find out anyway.
2
Vlasenko had asked for and received an audience with the emperor. In truth, Cyril was not at all certain how the ruler of all Russia would take the chief’s news. Alexander might fly off in a rage at the no-account, two-faced Prince Fedorcenko—a man he thought loyal, only to be found harboring a rebel within his own home. The tsar might dismiss him at once and exile his son—exile both, if Cyril was lucky.
On the other hand, the situation could turn against Vlasenko himself. The tsar’s mind and heart was weighted with many serious dilemmas at the moment, not the least of which was his wife’s terminal illness. He might be annoyed at Vlasenko’s pettiness. He might even find the impetuousness of the younger Fedorcenko amusing. After all, the tsar’s own father had stunned Russian society years ago by granting official blessing to the muddled rebel Gogol.
Yes, it could blow up in his stony face. But Cyril reasoned that the way things were headed, he had little to lose.
When Alexander’s secretary Totiev approached him, Vlasenko was surprisingly calm, even somewhat self-assured, as well as a man might be who was holding a concealed dangerous weapon. The secretary showed Vlasenko into the tsar’s presence.
The emperor was in his study, seated behind his desk, several papers scattered out in front of him. Cyril fleetingly wondered if any of those sheets were early drafts of Melikov’s ridiculous constitution. But it was too early even for a driven fool like the Armenian dictator to have anything on paper yet. Cyril quickly shifted his thoughts to matters at hand.
“I have only a limited time,” said the tsar. “I hope you can present me your petition succinctly.”
“Most certainly, Your Majesty!” replied Vlasenko. “I am humbled that you were able to see me. And I would not presume to interfere upon your vital schedule if I felt the situation to which I have become party was a frivolous one.”
He paused and cleared his throat, waiting leave to continue.
“Please go on,” said Alexander, somewhat impatiently.
“This is such a delicate matter, Your Majesty,” said the chief, “and I must emphasize that my brevity ought not to be taken for flippancy.”
As Cyril stood before his emperor, he struck a fine pose of humility. “I have suffered much agony of mind and spirit,” he went on, “before determining that I must, in all loyalty to Your Highness, bring this matter to your attention, as distasteful as I find it to do so.”
He paused again, then lifted into full view the book he had been holding at his side. “I have come in regard to this book, published only this month, which recently came into my hands.”
The tsar reached across his desk and Cyril laid the book in the emperor’s hand. Alexander gave a quick perusal to the cover before opening the nicely bound leather boards and thumbing briefly through the pages.
“Hmm . . . Prince Fedorcenko’s son, is it not?” asked the tsar, half musing to himself.
“Yes, Your Majesty,” answered Cyril, although he immediately repented of his quick response. It was a bit too eager. He must watch himself.
“Do you have some complaint about the book?” asked the tsar.
“I have an acquaintance, Your Majesty, who is a censor. It happened across his desk, and having read it, he felt there were several . . . ah . . . a number of questionable passages.”
“And why not deal with it in the usual manner? Why do you come to me?”
“There are several reasons, Your Highness. Foremost, considering the authorship, we felt you would want to be apprised of the situation.”
“Yes . . . yes, that is true. What else?”
“This, Your Majesty, is the point where the matter becomes delicate,” Cyril went on, his tone sti
ll more somber and humble. “As you can see, the book has already been published. I do not believe it has been released yet to the general public, however. If you will note, on the title page, it was published out of Kiev. I imagine the author, or perhaps the publisher there, must have some connection or curried the favor of some censor, thus enabling the book to pass scrutiny. I would be loathe to think that either of the Princes Fedorcenko would have used their position or prestige to influence a governmental official in such a way. However . . .”
He let his sentence trail away as if it truly pained him to even speak the words of such a possibility.
The tsar eyed him a moment, weighing the words.
“What specifically do you find objectionable in the volume?” he asked at length, his tone too veiled even for the highly observant police chief to be able to detect the motive behind it.
“If you will permit me, Your Highness, it might be enlightening and beneficial for me to quote a passage or two. Then Your Esteemed Highness can be the judge.”
“Yes, by all means.” The tsar handed the book back to Vlasenko.
Having already marked several of the most inflammatory sections, Cyril opened quickly to one. He removed spectacles from his coat pocket, slipped them on, and began:
“‘The young Bagraev,’” he began, “‘saw much courage and bravery that day on the front lines. If only it could have been matched in the rear, upon a grassy knoll where men in gilded equipage worked strings as of marionettes and not human lives.’”
Vlasenko paused significantly. He then turned over several pages and continued in another passage:
“‘It was now night, and the deafening bursts of artillery had faded into a ghostly silence. The respite that should have brought rest to a mind tormented by death seemed only to inspire more confusion and dismay. Bagraev could only wait in fear for when it would begin all over again, wondering if he could pick up his weapon and act as the instrument of death for yet another in an endless string of meaningless days of agony.
The Russians Collection Page 78