The Romanov Sisters

by Helen Rappaport

  51. See also Dehn, Real Tsaritsa, p. 105; Fuhrmann, Rasputin, pp. 94–5, quoting GARF F612, op1, d 42, 1.5. It is impossible to know for certain the identity of Nikolay; he could have been one of any number of officers in the imperial entourage whom Olga saw in church on Sundays. Bearing in mind the frequency with which she saw him and was photographed with him on board the Shtandart, it has been suggested that Olga had developed a crush on Nikolay Sablin. But at twenty-nine, a trusted member of her father’s entourage, and almost twice Olga’s age, Sablin seems an unlikely candidate for such a young teenage girl.

  52. See @: http://traditio-ru.org/wiki/Письма_царских_дочерей_Григорию_Распутину/

  Eight – Royal Cousins

  1. Tyutcheva, ‘Za neskolko let’.

  2. Sablin, Desyat let, p. 145.

  3. Zeepvat, ‘One Summer’, p. 12.

  4. Anglo-Russian XII, 11 May 1909, p. 1265.

  5. Keith Neilson and Thomas Otte, The Permanent Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, 1854–1946 (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2009), p. 133.

  6. See ‘Petitions of protest against the visit to England of the Emperor of Russia’, RA PPTO/QV/ADD/PP3/39. The original letters of protest can be seen at the National Archives at Kew.

  7. ‘The Detective’, Nebraska State Journal, 9 October 1910; ‘Guarding the Tsar’, Daily Mirror, 3 August 1909.

  8. Lord Suffield, My Memories, 1830–1913 (London: Herbert Jenkins, 1913), p. 303.

  9. British press accounts were many and detailed; see e.g. Daily Mirror, 31 July to 5 August, which published numerous photographs. For a Russian view of the visit, see Spiridovich, Last Years, pp. 312–19 and Sablin, Desyat let, pp. 148–58.

  10. Richard Hough, Edward and Alexandra, p. 236.

  11. See: Sablin, Desyat let, p. 151; Alastair Forsyth, ‘Sovereigns and Steam Yachts: The Tsar at Cowes’, Country Life, 2 August 1984, pp. 310–12; ‘Cowes Week’, The Times, 7 August 1909.

  12. ‘The Cowes Week’, Isle of Wight County Press, 7 August 1909.

  13. RA QM/PRIV/CC25/39: 6 August 1909.

  14. When it was mooted that the Prince of Wales would attend Nicholas’s coronation in Moscow in 1896 a Russian official was said to have remarked, ‘We cannot very well manage to protect two Czars!’ See ‘Alien’s Letter from England’, Otago Witness, 29 September 1909.

  15. Anne Edwards, Matriarch: Queen Mary and the House of Windsor (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1984), p. 169.

  16. Duke of Windsor, A King’s Story (London: Prion Books, 1998), p. 129.

  17. ‘Cowes Regatta Week’, Otago Witness, 29 September 1909.

  18. Hough, Edward and Alexandra, p. 381.

  19. Sir Henry William Lucy, Diary of a Journalist, vol. 2, 1890–1914 (London: John Murray, 1921), p. 285.

  20. Correspondence, p. 284.

  21. Zimin, Detskiy mir, p. 381; see also Alexandra’s letter to Tatiana, 30 December 1909, LP, p. 307.

  22. Spirovich, Last Years, p. 322, though he refers to the doctor only as ‘M.X.’ [Monsieur X possibly]. See also Naryshkin-Kurakin, Under Three Tsars, pp. 192–3.

  23. Confirmed in Mackenzie Wallace, letter to Knollys, RA W/55/53, 7 August 1909. See also Spiridovich, Last Years, pp. 321–3.

  24. The suggestion is made by Zimin that many people suspected a lesbian undercurrent in Vyrubova’s behaviour towards Alexandra. Dr Fischer had sensed this and as a result was forced out, to be replaced by the more accommodating Botkin. See Zimin, Detskiy mir, pp. 380–3 and Bogdanovich, Tri poslednykh samoderzhtsa, p. 483.

  25. Almedingen, Empress Alexandra, p. 123.

  26. LP, p. 320.

  27. Spiridovich, Last Years, p. 347.

  28. Ibid.

  29. See Dorr, Inside the Russian Revolution, p. 113.

  30. Spiridovich, Last Years, p. 347.

  31. Almarik, @: http://www.erlib.com/Андрей_Амальрик/Распутин/9/

  32. Gregor Alexinski, Modern Russia (London: Fisher Unwin, 1915), p. 90.

  33. Spiridovich, Last Years, p. 409.

  34. Wheeler and Rives, Dome, p. 347. The now forgotten account of Post Wheeler and his wife Hallie Rives is exceptionally vivid for the years 1906–11 in St Petersburg.

  35. Ibid., pp. 342–3.

  36. Fraser, Red Russia, pp. 18, 19.

  37. Ibid., p. 20.

  38. Wheeler and Rives, Dome, p. 411.

  39. Ular, Russia from Within, pp. 71, 83. For a fascinating contemporary account of the grand dukes see pp. 71–100.

  40. Wheeler and Rives, Dome, p. 347.

  41. Considered highly erotic if not immoral, Three Weeks, published in 1907, was banned in many places. Some said it was loosely based on the Empress Alexandra but Glyn had certainly not had her in mind when writing it. See Joan Hardwick, Addicted to Romance: Life and Adventures of Elinor Glyn, London: André Deutsch, 1994, p. 155. The book sold 5 million copies and prompted the popular rhyme: ‘Would you like to sin / With Elinor Glyn / On a tiger skin? / Or would you prefer / To err with her / On some other fur?’

  42. Glyn, Elinor Glyn, p. 178.

  43. Glyn, Romantic Adventure, p. 180.

  44. Ibid., pp. 183, 182.

  45. Ibid., p. 182.

  46. Ibid., p. 184.

  47. Ibid.

  48. Ibid., p. 204.

  49. Ibid., pp. 194, 204–5. Tragically, Glyn’s original, and no doubt fascinating, diary of her time in Russia was destroyed in a house fire in 1956.

  50. Glyn’s novel His Hour, based on her Russian trip and published in October 1911, which she dedicated to Grand Duchess Vladimir, also reflected her own strong sense of impending disaster in Russia.

  51. Ibid., p. 347.

  52. Ibid., p. 354.

  53. Ibid.

  54. ‘A Former Lady in Waiting Tells of a Visit to Tsarskoe-Selo’, Washington Post, 2 May 1909.

  55. Wheeler and Rives, Dome, pp. 355–6.

  56. ‘A Visit to the Czar’, Cornhill Magazine 33, 1912, p. 747.

  57. Minzlov, ‘Home Life of the Romanoffs’, p. 164; Ryabinin, ‘Tsarskaya Semya v Krymu osen 1913 goda’, p. 83.

  58. LP, p. 330, letters of 7 and 11 March.

  59. LP, p. 334, 17 May 1910.

  60. Quoted in Titov, ‘OTMA’, p. 44. Anastasia destroyed all her diaries in 1917 but some notebooks survive in GARF, from which this quotation would appear to be taken.

  61. Bogdanovich, Tri poslednykh samoderzhtsa, pp. 506–7.

  62. See Sablin, Desyat let, pp. 215–16.

  63. Vyrubova, Memories, p. 63.

  64. LP p. 330; Bokhanov, Aleksandra Feodorovna, pp. 217–18.

  65. LP, p. 331; Naryshkin, Under Three Tsars, p. 196.

  66. LP, pp. 342–3.

  67. Ktorova, Minuvshee, p. 88; Dehn, Real Tsaritsa, p. 102.

  68. See Ktorova, Minuvshee, p. 87.

  69. Almedingen, Empress Alexandra, p. 125.

  Nine – In St Petersburg We Work, But at Livadia We Live

  1. SL, p. 254; Vyrubova, Memories, p. 50.

  2. King, ‘Requiem’, p. 106.

  3. Hunt, Flurried Years, p. 133.

  4. Ibid.

  5. Ibid., pp. 133–4.

  6. Baroness W. Knell, in Gleaner, 6 December 1910.

  7. Hough, Mountbatten, pp. 22–3. John Terraine, Life and Times of Lord Mountbatten (London: Arrow Books, 1980), p. 25.

  8. Poore, Memoirs of Emily Loch, p. 305. For Emily Loch’s account of this visit see pp. 302–11. In February 1912 Alexandra allowed pocket money of 5 roubles a month to be paid to the younger two girls. Zimin, Detskiy mir.

  9. Marie, Furstin zu Erbach-Schönberg, Reminiscences (London: Allen & Unwin, 1925), p. 358.

  10. Ibid., p. 359.

  11. Maria Vasil’chikova, Memoir, f. 14. See also Madeleine Zanotti, quoted in Radziwill, Nicholas II, p. 195. For the Nauheim visit see King, ‘Requiem’.

  12. Hough, Mountbatten, p. 23.

  13. Hough, Louis and Victoria, p. 262, letter, 29 December 1911.

  14. LP
, p. 335.

  15. Ibid., pp. 335–6.

  16. Buxhoeveden, Before the Storm, p. 288.

  17. ‘Tragedy of a Throne: Czarina Slowly Dying of Terror’, Straits Times, 6 January 1910.

  18. Advertiser, Adelaide, 12 January 1910.

  19. Wheeler and Rives, Dome, p. 405.

  20. Ibid.

  21. Ibid.

  22. Ibid., p. 406.

  23. Hall, Little Mother, p. 234.

  24. Wheeler and Rives, Dome, p. 407.

  25. Correspondence, 19 April, p. 290.

  26. Korshunova et al., Pisma … Elizaveta Feodorovny, p. 258.

  27. LP, p. 342.

  28. See letter of Prince Ioann Konstantinovich, 7 March 1903, Rossiiskiy arkhiv XV, p. 392.

  29. Sablin, Desyat let, p. 241.

  30. 19 August 1911 entry, Meriel Buchanan diary, BuB 6, MB Archive, Nottingham University. See also Correspondence, Alexandra’s letter to Onor, 13 August, p. 350.

  31. Ibid.

  32. Gavriil Konstantinovich, Marble Palace, p. 128.

  33. Ioann Konstantinovich, letters to his father, 2 November 1909 and 3 December 1910, Rossiskiy arhkiv, pp. 415–19.

  34. Bokhanov et al., Romanovs, p. 127.

  35. Correspondence, p. 351.

  36. For Tyucheva’s account of the assassination of Stolypin, see Tyutcheva, ‘Za neskolko let’.

  37. LP, p. 344.

  38. Tyutcheva, ‘Za neskolko let’.

  39. Correspondence, p. 351.

  40. Galina von Meck, ‘The Death of Stolypin’, in Michael Glenny and Norman Stone, The Other Russia (London: Faber & Faber, 1990).

  41. Correspondence, p. 351.

  42. Tyutcheva, ‘Za neskolko let’.

  43. Correspondence, p. 351.

  44. ‘The Creation of Nadezhda Isakovlevna Mandel’shtam’, in Helena Goscilo (ed.), Fruits of Her Plume: Essays on Contemporary Women’s Culture (New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1993), p. 90.

  45. Tyutcheva, ‘Za neskolko let’.

  46. Zeepvat, ‘Valet’s Story’, p. 304.

  47. Tyutcheva, ‘Za neskolko let’.

  48. William Eleroy Curtis, Around the Black Sea (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1911), p. 265.

  49. Buxhoeveden, Before the Storm, p. 294; Vyrubova, Memories, p. 37.

  50. Sergey Sazonov, introduction to Per Zhilyar, Imperator Nikolai II i ego semya (Vienna: Rus, 1921), p. vi. It is unclear whether this was said by Olga or Tatiana. See also Grabbe and Grabbe; Grabbe, Private World, p. 75.

  51. Kalinin and Zemlyanichenko, Romanovy i Krym, p. 80.

  52. See Vyrubova, Romanov Family Album, pp. 84–7.

  53. Vorres, Last Grand Duchess, p. 110; Vyrubova, Romanov Family Album, p. 103; Zimin, Vzroslyi mir, p. 323.

  54. Brewster, Anastasia’s Album, p. 30.

  55. Kalinin and Zemlyanichenko, ‘Taina Velikoi Knyazhny’, p. 243; Mikhail Korshunov, Taina tain moskovskikh (Moscow: Slovo, 1995), p. 266.

  56. Mossolov, At the Court, p. 61.

  57. See Victor Belyakov, ‘Russia’s Last Star: Nicholas II and Cinema’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television 15, no. 4, October 1995, pp. 517–24.

  58. Zemlyanichenko, Romanovy i Krym, p. 83.

  59. De Stoeckl, My Dear Marquis, p. 127. It has been suggested that this proposal was made later, but in the context of de Stoeckl’s memoir it is clearly 1911.

  60. See Sablin, Desyat let, p. 234.

  61. See Spiridovich, Les Dernières années, vol. 2, pp. 142–3.

  62. Mossolov, At the Court, p. 247.

  63. Girardin, Précepteur, p. 51.

  64. See Zimin, Tsarskie dengi; Mossolov, At the Court, p. 41.

  65. Spiridovich, Les Dernières années, vol. 2, p. 151.

  66. Vyrubova, Romanov Family Album, p. 86; see also Spiridovich, Les Dernières années, vol. 2, pp. 148–9.

  67. De Stoeckl, Not All Vanity, p. 119.

  68. Vyrubova, Romanov Family Album, p. 86.

  69. Spiridovich, Les Dernières années, vol. 2, p. 151.

  70. Titov, ‘OTMA’, p. 33. There are 12 volumes of Olga’s diaries in GARF dating from 1905 to 1917, but many of them are incomplete or with brief entries and 1910 is missing. Only the first few pages of her 1917 diary survive.

  71. For an account of the ball, see Kamarovskaya, Vospominaniya, pp. 173–6; Spiridovich, Les Dernières années, vol. 2, pp. 150, 151.

  72. De Stoeckl, Not All Vanity, p. 120; Kamarovskaya, Vospominaniya, pp. 173–6.

  73. Mossolov, At the Court, p. 61.

  74. Vyrubova, Romanov Family Album, p. 86.

  75. Naryshkin-Kurakin, Under Three Tsars, p. 201.

  76. Vyrubova, Memories, p. 44.

  Ten – Cupid by the Thrones

  1. Sir Valentine Chirol, ‘In Many Lands. III: Glimpse of Russia before the War’, Manchester Guardian, 15 August 1928.

  2. Rasputin, Rasputin My Father, pp. 75–6.

  3. Bowra, Memories, pp. 65–6.

  4. Natalya Soboleva, ‘La Tristesse Impériale’.

  5. Vyrubova, Memories, p. 64.

  6. Hall, Little Mother, p. 238.

  7. It has been argued that the letters were faked but both Anna Vyrubova and Vladimir Kokovtsov saw them and had no doubt of their authenticity. See Kokovtsov, Iz moego proshlogo, vol. 2, pp. 20, 27, 42–4; Moe, Prelude, pp. 204–7; Vyrubova, Memories, p. 65.

  8. For Tyutcheva’s independent line see Bogdanovich, Tri poslednykh samoderzhtsa, p. 511. See also Bokhanov, Aleksandra Feodorovna, pp. 217–19 for a very damning, and perhaps biased, take on Tyutcheva.

  9. Vyrubova, Memories, p. 65.

  10. LP, pp. 331–2.

  11. Ibid., p. 351; Buxhoeveden, Life and Tragedy, p. 152.

  12. Ibid., pp. 152–3.

  13. GARF in Moscow holds 616 folios of letters written by Tyutcheva to Anastasia during 1911–16.

  14. Zimin, Detskiy mir, p. 75; LP, p. 331.

  15. Vyrubova, Memories, p. 81; Vorres, Last Grand Duchess, p. 141; Bokhanov, Aleksandra Feodorovna, p. 220.

  16. See Correspondence, letter to Ernie, 29 July 1912, p. 312; Zimin, Detskiy mir, p. 75.

  17. Correspondence, p. 317.

  18. Ibid., pp. 354–5.

  19. For Wallinson, see the front-page story, ‘Kings and Emperors Like Their American Dentists’, The Call, San Francisco, 15 November 1903.

  20. This expenditure covered May 1909 to May 1910 but is representative of the kind of money spent on the sisters’ wardrobes. Quotation courtesy of Bob Atchison, @: http://www.alexanderpalace.org/palace/mexpenses.html

  21. King, ‘Livadia’, p. 23.

  22. Ibid., p. 21.

  23. Buxhoeveden, Before the Storm, p. 296; Buxhoeveden, Life and Tragedy, p. 180.

  24. For Alexandra’s and the children’s charitable work in Livadia see King, ‘Livadia’, p. 25; King, Court of the Last Tsar, p. 450; Zimin, Detskiy mir, p. 322; Vyrubova, Memories, pp. 34–7, 46; Spiridovich, Les Dernières années, pp. 145–6; Buxhoeveden, Before the Storm, pp. 293–6.

  25. Sablin, Desyat let, p. 257.

  26. Ibid.

  27. Vyrubova, Memories, p. 46.

  28. Ibid., p. 80.

  29. Hackney Express, 19 September 1903; The Times, 18 September 1911.

  30. Bokhanov et al., Romanovs, p. 124.

  31. Washington Post, 25 June 1911.

  32. ‘Won’t Wed Czar’s Daughter’, Washington Post, 30 November 1913.

  33. Radzinsky, Last Tsar, p. 106.

  34. Marie, Grand Duchess of Russia, Princess in Exile (London: Cassell, 1932), p. 71.

  35. See Harris, ‘Succession Prospects’, pp. 75–6.

  36. Letter to Nicholas, 16 October 1911 (translation courtesy of Will Lee); V. I. Nevsky ed., Nikolai II i velikie knyazya, Leningrad: Gosudarstvennoe izdatelstvo, 1925, p. 46.

  37. Lisa Davidson, profile of Dmitri Pavlovich @: http://www.alexanderpalace.org/palace/Dmitri.html

  38. TS letter to Marie Pavlovna, 4 May 1908 (translation courtesy of Will Lee).

  39. Spirido
vich, Les Dernières années, vol. 2, p. 186.

  40. Bogdanovich, Tri poslednykh samoderzhtsa, p. 510.

  41. ‘Cupid by the Thrones’, Washington Post, 21 July 1912.

  42. Meriel Buchanan journal, August 1912, f. 33.

  43. For the Dmitri/Yusupov relationship, see Moe, Prelude, pp. 238–9 (information on Dmitri Pavlovich’s gambling from Will Lee).

  44. DON, p. 9; Meriel Buchanan journal, f. 42.

  45. See Rounding, Alix and Nicky, p. 190; Wortman, Scenarios, pp. 380–2.

  46. SL, pp. 270–1.

  47. Nekliudoff, Diplomatic Reminiscences (London: John Murray, 1920), p. 73.

  48. See Wortman, Scenarios, pp. 381–2; Bokhanov, Aleksandra Feodorovna, pp. 217–18.

  Eleven – The Little One Will Not Die

  1. Correspondence, 15 September 1912, p. 360.

  2. Botkin, Real Romanovs, pp. 73–4.

  3. De Stoeckl, My Dear Marquis, p. 125.

  4. TS Letter, 7 February 1910, from Tsarskoe Selo to his sister Marie Pavlovna (translation courtesy of Will Lee). It is interesting to note that in their book about their battle with their own son’s severe haemophilia, authors Robert K. Massie and Suzanne Massie also asserted that ‘relatively speaking, Alexis was a mild haemophiliac … The difference was that once the Tsarevich began to bleed, nothing could stop the hemorrhage’ – in other words his form of the condition would not be life-threatening today; it was the inability of medical science at the time to treat it that was the problem; Robert Massie and Suzanne Massie, Journey (New York: Knopf, 1975), p. 114.