THE YEAR 1913 MARKED THE THREE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF the reign of the Romanov dynasty in Russia, an occasion that called for special celebrations. But ominous signs emanated from the people during the tsar’s tours around the country. Count Kokovtsov saw this, and admitted that “I was impressed by the lack of enthusiasm and smallness of the crowds.” Kokovtsov noticed that this happened “everywhere” the tsar went. Only at Kostroma, on the Volga, was there “anything approaching enthusiasm at the sight of the Tsar and his family”1
At this time, Tsarina Alexandra reflected on her life and was unhappy with what she found—at forty-one, her childbearing days just about over, her physical strength taxed, and above all, worried to death about her hemophiliac son. Alix was also deeply unpopular in the country she loved. Little wonder then that the tsarina confessed in one of her heart-to-heart talks with Anna Viroubova, comparing her newly married life to her current situation, “I was so happy then, so well and strong. Now I am a wreck.”2 This was not to say that Alix was unhappy with Nicholas or their family. On the contrary, her family remained the one bright spot in a difficult life.
Having spent so much time at their mother’s side, by the time they grew into young women, the grand duchesses had inherited a great deal of their mother’s generosity of spirit. Alexandra Feodorovna may have gained notoriety for her obsessive belief in Rasputin, her domineering influence over Nicholas II, and her haughtiness, but among the good qualities she possessed which remain largely unknown or ignored was her own sense of giving, seen clearly in her nursing of Russia’s wounded and dying soldiers.
Alexandra was not someone who demanded complete undivided attention from everyone around her. She was generous to those she befriended and almost always touched by those who suffered. Like any mother, she wished only to protect, comfort, and nurture those in need. “I like the internal being,” she once told a friend, “and that attracts me with great force. As you know, I am of the preacher type. I want to help others in life, to help them to fight their battles and bear their crosses.”3
Alexandra Feodorovna also reached out to people in need on whom she could exercise Christian charity. Anna Viroubova was one such individual; Alexandra saw her more as a child in need of guidance. Another was Sonia Oberliani, a lady of the court, who though only in her twenties, died after a long and painful illness. The tsarina cared for Sonia for years, even closing her eyes when the young woman died. Alexandra saw these people, who became her friends, not as burdens to be endured but as gifts from the Lord, who had answered her prayers. “That is my daily prayer,” she once wrote to a friend, “that God should just send me the sorrowing, and give me the possibility to be a help to them, through His infinite mercy.”4
Her daughters followed in the tsarina’s footsteps. The grand duchesses Olga, Tatiana, Marie, and Anastasia, who collectively gave gifts and signed themselves “OTMA,” grew into attractive young women. Often dressed alike, the girls were largely raised by Alexandra herself, with the help of Russian and English nurses. Alexandra chose to keep her girls cloistered from much of the pernicious influence of other members of the Romanov clan, and so they naturally grew to be close to their parents and brother, Alexei. A. A. Mossolov, the head of the Court Chancellery for sixteen years, concluded that the children seemed “entirely satisfied with their life; it hardly occurred to them that they might agitate for other distractions.”5
Intimates of the imperial family pronounced the girls simple and unaffected beings, who delighted in one another’s presence and in making their brother and parents happy. “It is not possible to imagine more charming, pure and high-minded girls,” concluded one family friend, the Baroness Sophie Buxhoeveden. “The Empress really brought up her daughters herself, and her work was well done.” The two eldest shared one bedroom and the two youngest another. They slept on spartan camp beds in unpretentious rooms decorated in white and green. In time, all four became the best of friends.
As they emerged from adolescence into young adulthood, their own personalities came to the fore. The eldest, Olga Nicolaevna, closest to her father, was one who “took life seriously” and possessed “unusual strength of character.”7 Of medium height, with chestnut-blond hair and blue eyes, Olga had a pleasant face and was “said to be ‘incapable of hiding her soul.’ “8
Tatiana, the second eldest and the tsarina’s favorite daughter, taller than Olga, exhibited a more refined, dignified bearing and had “a highly developed sense of her position as the daughter of the Tsar.”9 Sometimes referred to by her siblings as “the Governess” because of her ability to make decisions, Tatiana was “very reserved and quiet, and difficult to govern.”10 She also stood out as the family beauty. Hers was an exotic, almost Eurasian kind of beauty, with her dark hair, pale skin, and alluring gray eyes. For all her reserve, Tatiana Nicolaevna was self-assured and confident, allowing her to relish the attention aroused by her stunning looks.
Marie, the third daughter, was an artist with an inborn talent for drawing. Of the four girls, Marie outdid them all when it came to one outstanding physical trait: her eyes, which were so “magnificent” that they were called “Marie’s saucers” by her admiring cousins.11 A strong and energetic girl, she was also bright, but “the least studious” of the sisters.12
The last daughter, brown-haired Anastasia, was the family clown. Forever in the shadow of her more glamorous sisters, constantly battling to shed her baby fat and reach her sisters’ height, Anastasia came into her own through her gift of mimicry. Never shy, always game for a good joke, Tsarina Alexandra’s youngest daughter was the very antithesis of her reserved mother. An independent spirit, Anastasia “more than her sisters…chafed under the narrowness of her environment and used her comic sense in revolt against it.”13
In temperament, Anastasia most resembled her brother, Alexei. Anastasia’s irrepressible high spirits caused ripples of laugher from her audience. Mugging for the camera by pulling outrageous faces was not unusual for this young girl whose name would one day be famous the world over. Years after her death, millions would wonder if a mysterious stranger known as Anna Anderson was, in fact, the Grand Duchess Anastasia. Anderson’s case would become a cause célèbre until, after her own death, DNA tests revealed she was not the dead grand duchess after all.
The Tsarevitch Alexei, the sickly heir and only son, quickly became his mother’s favorite. For Alexandra, Alexei symbolized everything that was good, since he represented “the direct result of prayer, the Divine condescension of God, the crowning joy of her marriage.”14 Without ignoring her daughters, who remained close to her, Alexandra lavished attention and affection upon the son who was always shadowed by disease and death. And her devotion was reciprocated, as her old friend Lili Dehn saw firsthand when she accompanied the tsarina to Alexei’s room to say his bedtime prayers and wish him good night. As Lili, her husband, and Alexandra were preparing to leave the room, Alexei turned off the light over his bed, leaving them all in darkness.
“Why have you done this, Baby?” asked the puzzled tsarina.
“Oh,” answered Alexei, “it’s only light for me, Mama, when you are here. It’s always quite dark when you have gone.”15
Tsarina Alexandra’s family was her pride and joy. With the passage of time, she came to appreciate more fully their presence and the help they increasingly lent to their reclusive and sick mother. Alexandra stressed this in a letter written in 1913: “My children are growing up so fast & are such real little comforters to us—the older ones often replace me at functions & go about a great deal with their father—they are all 5 touching in their care for me—my family life is one blessed ray of sunshine excepting the anxiety for our Boy”
With their eldest children of marriageable age, Tsarina Alexandra of Russia and Crown Princess Marie of Romania found themselves contemplating the possibility that their families might be united through the marriage of Prince Carol and Grand Duchess Olga. Far from merely an attempt to see two reigning houses united through marri
age, the hoped-for nuptials were meant to further Russian-Romanian relations.
The scheme to get the young couple to notice each other began in earnest in late 1913, when Nando, Missy, and their son journeyed to Tsarkoe Selo. Prince Carol had already caused his parents anxiety. The boy was deeply scarred by a childhood spent under the watchful eye of King Carol I and Queen Elisabeth, who had succeeded in cunningly transferring his loyalties from his parents and, in particular, from his mother, to the king and queen. This laid the groundwork for Carol’s future behavior. Moreover, because Carol was “overcontrolled by the King and overindulged by Carmen Sylva, he received no discipline at all during the brief intervals he spent uninterruptedly with his mother.”17
Though well meaning, because he truly cared about his namesake, King Carol I failed abysmally as a surrogate parent to his great-nephew. His cruelty in wrenching the boy from his mother was followed by the appointment of a spiteful and malevolent governess. Even more disastrous was the choice of a disturbed male tutor, who appears to have harbored an obsessive desire for the boy. To lure young Carol away from his mother further, the tutor stoked the prince’s hatred of Barbo Stirbey the man who was his mother’s great love. The tutor then craftily turned Carol’s intense personal animosity for Stirbey toward the political arena as well, “lapping over to include Stirbey’s brother-in-law and intimate, the Liberal Prime Minister Ion Bratianu.”18
It took the concerted efforts of Marie, Ferdinand, and two court doctors to convince King Carol to dismiss the young man’s tutor. By the time the king agreed, the damage was already done. The future King of Romania was a deeply flawed human being, who would never be able to escape his sordid upbringing. Ferdinand and Marie had hoped that a proper military training in Germany would help cure their son. The side trip to Russia arose during Carol’s military studies.
When the Romanian royal family stayed in Russia, Carol and Olga proved indifferent to each other. As for Missy, she found a subdued imperial family holding court. The crown princess saw that “Tsarkoye Selo was looked upon as a sick man refusing every doctor and every help. And it was always Alix’s name which was mentioned as the chief stumbling-block.”19
It was clear that the two cousins, polar opposites in temperament and views, would not hit it off. According to Missy, Alix
managed to put an insuperable distance between her world and yours.…She made you, in fact, feel an intruding outsider, which is of all sensations the most chilling and uncomfortable.
When she talked, it was almost in a whisper and hardly moving her lips as though it were too much trouble to pronounce a word aloud. Although there is little difference in age between us, she had a way of making me feel as though I were not even grown up!20
Nevertheless, when it came time to consider the all-important issue of their children’s possible marriage, even Marie conceded that Alexandra proved gracious. After lunch, the two women discussed their children’s future. “In all fairness towards Alix,” said Marie, “she did not make conversation difficult and talked very quietly, like a reasonable mother.” Keeping the interests of their children at heart, both concluded that Carol and Olga “must decide for themselves.” Marie was glad that the audience was over. “At that hour we were simply two mothers, mutually relieved that ‘we had it out.’ I felt that I had done my duty, the rest was in the hands of Fate.”21
When the time came to take leave of her cousin, Missy found it a relief. “To part from Alix was not difficult, she made leave-taking quite easy,” she recalled. “Her life was like a closed chamber, peopled with strange imaginations and still stranger individuals, into which no outsider had entry. No fiery sword at the gates of the Garden of Eden could have been more forbidding than her tight-lipped smile which brought two unwilling dimples to her cheeks, dimples completely out of place in so austere a face. No, it was no grief to leave Alix.”22
In the end of their stay at Tsarskoe Selo, Carol and Olga had not “discovered” each other. The much-hoped-for attraction between them never materialized. A second opportunity was arranged so that the young people could meet once again. In June 1914, the Russian imperial family paid a courtesy visit to the Romanian royal family at the port of Constanza on the Black Sea. It was a lightning visit, lasting but a day The hope was that at the end of that fateful day, Carol and Olga might become engaged and, through their marriage, cement Russian-Romanian relations.
Before setting off for their Romanian visit, the imperial family had settled on a leisurely holiday in the Crimea through April and May. The Crimea, home of the Tartars, had long been a favorite vacation destination for the Romanovs. Located eleven hundred miles south of St. Petersburg, surrounded by the Black Sea, the Crimean peninsula provided a lush paradise for those fortunate enough to spend part of the year in this remote Russian hideaway.
Though instability had raged through their empire for years, though their hold on the throne remained tenuous, the fact that the tsar and tsarina built a large, expensive palace at Livadia, far from the capital, indicates that they had not lost all hope their reign might last for some time. The finished confection, incorporating elements of Byzantine and Gothic styles, took only seventeen months to build. So enchanted were they with Livadia, and so happy were the four girls with their Black Sea retreat, that one family friend said they “spoke of it as their real home.”23 But the time at Livadia would be short-lived, lasting only through the “the autumns of 1911 and 1913 and the springs of 1912 and 1914.”24
The highlight of the family’s stay centered upon the Easter celebrations, which marked the high point in the Orthodox calendar. In celebration of Christ’s resurrection, the imperial family were out in force to greet the household, soldiers, and local schoolchildren, often exchanging Easter kisses and eggs.
Alexandra’s Easter eggs came from the famed shop of Peter Carl Fabergé. Every year, in a gesture of love, Tsar Nicholas presented his wife with some of the most spectacular works of art ever created by Fabergé. Among the most dazzling was the Imperial Fifteenth-Anniversary Egg (1911), which depicted major events in the tsar’s reign and contained portraits of the couple’s children, all framed in green enamel; gold and diamonds bordered each portrait.
Despite the relaxing holiday spirit that pervaded their visits to Livadia, duty called. Moved by the need to modernize and improve conditions in the Crimean tubercular facilities, Tsarina Alexandra and her children actively participated in large bazaars and events set up to raise money for the region’s patients. One such popular and festive occasion was known as White Flower Day. The grand duchesses, dressed alike in simple white outfits with matching summer hats, along with Alexei in his sailor suit, sold white flowers to the enthusiastic townspeople.
These events afforded a rare opportunity for the people to come close to their imperial family.
Crowds of ordinary Russians flocked to the table where their tsarina presided. Before them were flowers or needlework for sale, often embroidered by Alexandra herself, which were eagerly snatched up. Rarely had Tsarina Alexandra come face to face with so many adoring Russians. Excitement reached fever pitch when the tsarevitch joined his mother at these bazaars. During one held at Yalta, the tsarevitch’s impishness made a strong impression on another little boy. Decades later, as an old man of eighty-nine, Dmitri Likhachev delighted in retelling his encounter with Alexei. With a glint in his eye, Likhachev recounted:
There were round white marquees with stalls and literally two steps away from me was [the] heir. He turned out to be a very jolly boy, a very mischievous boy. He was pulling presents out of large sacks…and presenting them to the winners.
“Oh, I can’t find anything, I can’t find anything,” [said Alexei] searching for [a] gift. But of course, they [the sacks] were filled with gifts. And then he said, “Oh this one is heavy, so heavy. I can’t lift it.” He wanted to tease an elderly gentleman standing there. And then he pulled out a bottle of champagne!25
This rare firsthand account from an outsider is a power
ful reminder of the joy the tsarevitch must have brought his mother, father, and sisters. All the more wrenching, then, to imagine the tsarina’s emotions as she sat by helpless during those agonizing times when Alexei suffered intensely from the hemophilia she had transmitted to him.
On 13 June 1914, Nicholas and Alexandra, with their children in tow, boarded the Standart at Yalta, arriving next morning at the Black Sea port of Constanza. Grand Duchess Olga, well aware of the real reason for their trip, confronted Pierre Gilliard. When he indirectly confirmed her suspicions, Olga blurted: “All right! But if I don’t wish it, it won’t happen. Papa has promised not to make me…and I don’t want to leave Russia.”
“But you could come back as often as you like,” Gilliard pointed out.
“I should still be a foreigner in my own country. I’m a Russian, and mean to remain a Russian!”2 With those words, Olga Nicolaevna sealed her fate. She was indeed to remain a Russian to the bitter end.
At the first sight of the impressive Russian ships gliding majestically on the Black Sea toward them, Romanians at Constanza were convulsed with excitement. The grand duchesses, meanwhile, had taken it upon themselves to ensure that none of them would capture Prince Carol’s attentions. During their holiday in the Crimea, the girls had soaked up the sun so that, far from showing off pale creamy complexions, they were, as Marie of Romania noted, “exceedingly sunburnt.” And because they were not dressed in the height of fashion, “the Roumanians, very critical as to looks and clothes, did not much admire them.”27
From the moment they arrived at Constanza, the Romanovs were subjected to an intense round of activities. Marie had noticed that Alix was not finding the visit easy. The crown princess saw that the tsarina made “brave efforts to be as gracious as possible, but it did not come easily to her and her face was very flushed.”28
Born to Rule: Five Reigning Consorts, Granddaughters of Queen Victoria Page 27