The Romanov Sisters
Page 45
As for Katya’s fate, like that of her dear friend Anastasia, she would become a representative ‘victim of repression’ during the terrifying round-ups of perceived ‘enemies’ by the new Soviet state – and in particular those having any links to the imperial family. On 12 June 1927 she was arrested on a trumped-up charge of ‘counter-revolutionary activities’, under the notorious article 58 of the new Soviet Criminal Code. She was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment, without trial, by a three-man kangaroo court – or troika – on 18 August 1927 and sent to the Gulag in Central Asia. A few letters found their way to her family but said very little; and then they suddenly stopped. Katya died in the Gulag, one of many millions who perished during the Stalin years. In 2001 she was rehabilitated in the mass pardoning of political prisoners who died or were murdered during Stalin’s terror, instituted after the fall of communism.9
It was another six years, however – and only after considerable and protracted legal wrangling – before the Russian Prosecutor General’s office finally saw fit to rehabilitate Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia Romanova, their parents and brother, as ‘victims of political repressions’.10
Engagement photograph of the Tsarevich Nicholas and Princess Alix of Hesse, taken at Coburg, 1894.
The tsaritsa, now styled Alexandra Feodorovna, with three-year-old Grand Duchess Olga and her new-born sister Maria, 1899.
The tsarevich Alexey, aged about three, with a Box Brownie.
Guérin-Boutron chocolate company trade cards, 1906, featuring the Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia.
The Imperial Family on duty at the Catherine Palace, Tsarskoe Selo c. 1911.
A popular mass-produced image of the Imperial Family, from a Russian calendar c. 1908.
The tsaritsa in her lilac boudoir with Anastasia next to her and Tatiana seated (left) and Maria (right).
The Tsar allowing Anastasia a taste of his cigarette, Livadia 1912.
The four Romanov sisters running a stall at their mother’s annual charity bazaar on the quayside at Yalta, 1914.
Anastasia with members of the Imperial Entourage on board the launch of the Shtandart.
Olga and Tatiana visiting East Cowes, August 1909, chaperoned by Dr Evgeny Botkin and Sofya Tyutcheva.
Olga at her lessons with French teacher, Pierre Gilliard.
Anastasia in the schoolroom with her English teacher, Sydney Gibbes.
The four grand duchesses with their father. Left to right: Anastasia, Maria, Tatiana and Olga.
On board the Shtandart: Olga sitting next to Pavel Voronov, with whom she fell in love. Far right is Tatiana’s favourite tennis partner, Nikolay Rodionov, with Anastasia standing next to him.
Profile portraits of the four grand duchesses, taken in 1914 as reference for a cameo made of them for a Fabergé Easter egg given by Nicholas to Alexandra that year. Clockwise from top left: Olga, Tatiana, Anastasia, Maria.
Olga and Tatiana wearing formal court dress for official photographs taken for the Romanov Tercentenary, 1913.
The two older sisters wearing their regimental uniforms, Tatiana’s of the Voznesensk Uhlans and Olga’s of the Elizavetgrad Hussars.
Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich. As Nicholas II’s cousin he was, for a brief time in 1912, considered the ideal dynastic match for Grand Duchesss Olga by her parents.
Maria, Anastasia and Olga at one of their regular afternoon teas with officers from the Tsar’s Escort. Far right Anastasia’s favourite Viktor Zborovsky and seated next to him Olga’s Aksh – Alexander Shvedov.
Tatiana (left) and Olga (right) picking grapes with their father and Anna Vyrubova, probably in Nicholas’s vineyard at Massandra in the Crimea.
Tatiana in fancy dress, 1916.
Olga in fancy dress, 1916.
Maria in fancy dress, 1916.
Anastasia in fancy dress, 1916.
Olga and Tatiana receiving donations for the Russian war effort, St Petersburg.
Anastasia and Maria visiting wounded soldiers at their hospital at Feodorovsky Gorodok.
Tatiana bandaging a wounded officer – thought to be Dmitri Malama – supervised by Dr Vera Gedroits on her left and Valentina Chebotareva on her right.
Tatiana with Vladimir Kiknadze, who created quite an impression on her.
Olga and Tatiana changing dressings on a wounded soldier.
A very rare formal photograph of Maria and Olga, 1916.
Tatiana recuperating from typhoid fever, Livadia 1913.
Anastasia with shaven head, after her bout of measles. Taken in captivity, in the grounds of the Alexander Palace, June 1917.
The last photograph taken of Nicholas and Alexandra, in captivity at the Governor’s House, Tobolsk, late summer 1917.
Olga pulling Alexey on his sledge, Tobolsk, winter 1917–18.
Father Ivan Storozhev with his dog Daisy. Storozhev was one of the last people from the outside world to see the Romanov family before they were murdered.
Father Storozhev’s missal, in which he recorded conducting a final obednitsa for the Romanov family at the Ipatiev House, Ekaterinburg, 14 July 1918.
Acknowledgements
No book is ever the work of a lone author beavering away in splendid isolation and in this, my eleventh, I have more than ever before drawn on the knowledge, expertise, generosity and goodwill of a considerable number of people both here in the UK, and around the world.
I first began thinking about a book on the four Romanov sisters when researching and writing my book Ekaterinburg in 2007. They were in my head and my heart then, as I walked round the city, musing on their lives and personalities, and their tragic fate, with constant echoes of Chekhov’s Three Sisters in the background; the allusion to that great play is therefore deliberate. After Ekaterinburg was published in the UK in 2008 (in the USA as The Last Days of the Romanovs) I had the great good fortune to encounter the wonderful network of Romanov buffs on the Royalty Weekend circuit – a conference held annually in Ticehurst, East Sussex. From day one I met with nothing but kindness, interest and enthusiasm for my project and many offers to share material. The support for my book that began at Ticehurst continued as my own network of Romanov experts expanded, even during a hiatus when I feared the book might not, after all, be signed. What kept me going in my determination to write it was the friendship and stalwart support of two key people – Sue Woolmans and Ruth Abrahams – who believed in the book as passionately as I did and wanted to see me write it. My first and primary debt of gratitude therefore goes to them, not just for unstintingly sharing material, looking out for new information, sharing books, sending mountains of photocopies, photographs and emails full of nuggets of information, but also for never letting me think I could not do it.
During the research process many other people gave absolutely invaluable help: first and foremost Rudy de Casseres in Finland, who helped winkle out the most obscure references in rare and difficult-to-obtain Russian sources with great cheerfulness and persistence and who was a rigorous fact-checker in the final stages. Various people helped me with translations: Hannah Veale from German, Karen Roth from Danish, Trond Norén Isaksen from Swedish. Priscilla Sheringham kindly checked my French translations, and David Holohan and Natalya Kolosova my Russian. I emailed endless questions to many friends, historians and writers who all generously responded, sharing their thoughts and further information: Janet Ashton, Paul Gilbert of the Royal Russia web site, Coryne Hall, Griff Henniger, Michael Holman, Greg King, Ilana Miller, Geoffrey Munn at Wartski’s, Neil Studge Rees, Ian Shapiro, Richard Thornton, Frances Welch, Marion Wynn and Charlotte Zeepvat. Special thanks must go to Will Lee for sharing his considerable research on Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich and translations of some of Dmitri’s unpublished letters; to John Wimbles for passing on to me transcriptions of some of the wonderful letters of the Duchess of Saxe-Coburg – the product of his many years of diligent work in the Romanian Archives; to Sarah Miller for sharing hard to find sources and for much discussion of OTMA by e
mail; to Mark Andersen at the Chicago Public Library for helping track down old US magazine articles; to Phil Tomaselli for checking the National Archives at Kew for any further light on the aborted British asylum offer of 1917, and for advice on British involvement in the murder of Rasputin in 1916.
Many of the illustrations in this book were generously shared with me by two dedicated private collectors, Ruth Abrahams and Roger Short. Without their wonderful generosity I would not have been able to afford the range of illustrations that this book enjoys. I am also profoundly grateful to two other private individuals for making available to me their precious family archives: John Storojev for material on his grandfather Father Ivan Storozhev, and Victor Buchli for granting me special access to the Katia Zborovskaia Letters held at the Hoover Institution in California, as well as sharing much other valuable information and photographic material with me.
In 2011 I had the pleasure of a wonderful research trip to St Petersburg with Sue Woolmans, Karen Roth and Maggie Field, who shared in my enjoyment of all the wonderful places connected with the Romanov story and endured with good humour my frequent need to divert for cups of coffee. I am grateful to the GB–Russia Society for generously providing me with a grant towards the cost of this trip, and special thanks to Dr David Holohan, their talks organizer, for arranging it. In St Petersburg we were very well looked after by Pavel Bovichev, Vasili Khokhlov and his brother Evgeniy who answered endless questions and drove us around well beyond the call of duty, always with a smile. Pavel has continued to track down books for me in Russia and take reference photographs of locations in St Petersburg, for which I am extremely grateful.
I am, as ever, indebted to Pamela Clark, Registrar of the Royal Archives at Windsor, who with kindness and efficiency provided me with family letters as well as material relating to the Romanov visits to Balmoral and Cowes, and I am grateful for the permission of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II to quote from them. Nottingham Archives allowed access to Meriel Buchanan’s papers and the Imperial War Museum to those of Dorothy Seymour; the British Library for Alexandra’s letters to Bishop Boyd Carpenter; the Bodleian Library Special Collections for the Sydney Gibbes Papers. My thanks also must go to Tessa Dunlop for alerting me to material in the Romanian State Archives; to Stanley Rabinowitz at the Amherst Center for Russian Culture for access to the Roman Gul’ Archive; to Richard Davies at the Leeds Russian Archive for two happy days making a speculative search of much wonderful material held there; to Tanya Chebotarev for sending scans of the Mariia Vasil’evna Fedchenko Papers and the Mariia Aleksandrovna Vasil’chikova Memoirs from the Columbia University Archives; and most particularly to Carol Leadenham and Nicholas Siekierski at the Hoover Institution for helping me obtain access to the Katia Zborovskaia Papers. My wonderful researcher at Hoover, Ron Basich, did a most efficient job in checking and scanning a considerable amount of material on my behalf.
The text of The Romanov Sisters was read and commented upon at my request by Sue Woolmans, Ruth Abrahams, Rudy de Casseres and Chris Warwick: I am eternally grateful for their insightful comments, suggestions and corrections. Fellow writers and friends Christina Zaba and Fiona Mountain also read key sections and gave their views, and have offered their valuable positive support throughout the writing process.
I am deeply grateful to Charlie Viney for originally representing this book and his support in the research and writing process and to my agent Caroline Michel for her passion and commitment to the book’s continuing journey through the production process to publication and beyond. My publishers have been totally supportive and enthusiastic and a joy to work with: I am most grateful to Georgina Morley at Pan Macmillan in the UK for her guidance, scrupulous editing and energy, and her sensitivity to the book’s subject. I am particularly indebted to Editorial Manager Nicholas Blake for his patience and meticulous care in checking the text and seeing it safely through to press. Charlie Spicer at St Martin’s Press in the USA has for several years now given his solid support for my work and I greatly value his continuing friendship. My family as always has proudly supported my work; my brother Peter continues to maintain my web site and keep it up to date, for which my eternal thanks.
Living with the four Romanov sisters has been a particularly intense, emotional experience but also a very gratifying one. They – and Russia, for which I have an enduring love – have inspired me as a writer and I sincerely hope that I have done them, and their all too short lives, justice. I would welcome any new information, photographs or insightful comments on them that readers might care to share with me, either via my web site www.helenrappaport.com/ or via my agent at www.petersfraserdunlop.com/.
HELEN RAPPAPORT,
West Dorset, January, 2014
Notes
Abbreviations
ASM
Zvereva, Avgusteishie sestry miloserdiya
BL
British Library
Correspondence
Kleinpenning, Correspondence of the Empress Alexandra
DN I
Mironenko, Dnevniki Imperatora Nikolaya II, vol. I
Dnevniki
Khrustalev, Dnevniki Nikolaya … i … Aleksandry, 2 vols
DON
Diary of Grand Duchess Olga Nicolaievna, 1913
EEZ
Ekaterina Erastovna Zborovskaia letters, Hoover Institution
Fall
Steinberg and Khrustalev, Fall of the Romanovs
LD
Kozlov and Khrustalev, Last Diary of Tsaritsa Alexandra
LP
Maylunas, Lifelong Passion
Nikolay
Nikolay II Dnevnik [1913–1918]
NZ
Chebotareva, Novyi Zhurnal
PVP
Petr Vasilievich Petrov
RA
Royal Archives
SA
Fomin, Skorbnyi angel
SL
Bing, Secret Letters
WC
Fuhrmann, Wartime Correspondence
Prologue – The Room of the First and Last Door
1. The cat Zubrovka was given to Alexey at Stavka – Army HQ – in 1916 by General Voiekov, one of the tsar’s aides. See Bokhanov, Aleksandra Feodorovna, p. 286. There is, however, some confusion about its ownership. In her letters to Katya Zborovskaya, Anastasia refers to the cat as being Olga’s; see e.g. letter 8–9 June: ‘Olga’s cat has two kittens pretty enough to eat; one of them is red and the other is gray’; letter to Katya, 26 June: ‘Olga’s cat Zubrovka (the one from Mogilev, remember) … well she has two small kittens’. EEZ.
2. Natalya Soloveva, ‘La Tristesse Impériale’, p. 12.
3. See Long, Russian Revolution Aspects, p. 6; Kuchumov, Recollections, p. 19.
4. Guide to Tsarskoe Selo, 1934, @: http://www.alexanderpalace.org/palace/detskoye.html
5. See Zeepvat, Romanov Autumn, pp. 320–4.
6. Kelly, Mirror to Russia, p. 176.
7. Holmes, Traveler’s Russia, p. 238; Griffith, Seeing Soviet Russia, p. 67.
8. Kelly, Mirror to Russia, p. 178; see chapter 10.
9. Delafield, Straw without Bricks, p. 105; Kelly, Mirror to Russia, p. 178.
10. Bartlett, Riddle of Russia, p. 241.
11. Cerutti, Elisabeta, Ambassador’s Wife (London: Allen & Unwin, 1952), p. 99.
12. Bartlett, Riddle of Russia, p. 249.
13. Ibid.; Greenwall, Mirrors of Moscow, p. 182.
14. Marie Pavlovna, Things I Remember, p. 34.
15. Bartlett, Riddle of Russia, p. 248.
16. See Yakovlev, Aleksandrovsky dvorets, pp. 388–9, 393–5.
17. Greenwall, Mirrors of Moscow, p. 182.
18. Hapgood, ‘Russia’s Czarina’, p. 108.
19. Kuchumov, Recollections, pp. 20–2; Suzanne Massie, Pavlovsk: The Life of a Russian Palace (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1990), p. 178.
20. Bartlett, Riddle of Russia, p. 249.
21. Chebotareva, diary for 6 August, SA, pp. 587–8.
22. Saturday Review
159, 27 April 1935, p. 529.
One – Mother Love
1. Seawell, ‘Annual Visit’, p. 324; see also Miller, Four Graces, for the early life of these sisters.