Nicholas and Alexandra: The Tragic, Compelling Story of the Last Tsar and his Family

by Robert K. Massie

  In public, Grand Duchess Tatiana regularly outshone her older sister. Her piano technique was better than Olga’s although she practiced less and cared less. With her good looks and self-assurance, she was far more anxious than Olga to go out into society. Among the five children, it was Tatiana who made the decisions; her younger sisters and brother called her “the Governess.” If a favor was needed, all the children agreed that “Tatiana must ask Papa to grant it.” Surprisingly, Olga did not mind being managed by Tatiana; the two, in fact, were devoted to each other.

  Marie, the third daughter, was the prettiest of the four. She had red cheeks, thick, light brown hair and dark blue eyes so large that they were known in the family as “Marie’s saucers.” As a small child, she was chubby and glowing with health. In adolescence, she was merry and flirtatious. Marie liked to paint, but she was too lazy and gay to apply herself seriously. What Marie—whom everyone called “Mashka”—liked most was to talk about marriage and children. More than one observer has noted that, had she not been the daughter of the Tsar, this strong, warmhearted girl would have made some man an excellent wife.

  Anastasia, the youngest daughter, destined to become the most famous of the children of Nicholas II, was a short, dumpy, blue-eyed child renowned in her family chiefly as a wag. When the saluting cannon on the Imperial yacht fired at sunset, Anastasia liked to retreat into a corner, stick her fingers into her ears, widen her eyes and loll her tongue in mock terror. Witty and vivacious, Anastasia also had a streak of stubbornness, mischief and impertinence. The same gift of ear and tongue that made her quickest to pick up a perfect accent in foreign languages also equipped her admirably as a mimic. Comically, sometimes cuttingly, the little girl aped precisely the speech and mannerisms of those about her.

  Anastasia, the enfant terrible, was also a tomboy. She climbed trees to dizzying heights, refusing to come down until specifically commanded by her father. She rarely cried. Her aunt and godmother, Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna, remembered a time when Anastasia was teasing so ruthlessly that she slapped the child. The little girl’s face went crimson, but instead of crying, she ran out of the room without uttering a sound. Sometimes Anastasia’s practical jokes got out of hand. Once in a snowball fight, she rolled a rock into a snowball and threw it at Tatiana. The missile hit Tatiana in the face and knocked her, stunned, to the ground. Truly frightened at last, Anastasia broke down and cried.

  As daughters of the Tsar, cloistered at Tsarskoe Selo without a normal range of friends and acquaintances, the four young Grand Duchesses were even closer to each other than most sisters. Olga, the eldest, was only six years older than Anastasia, the youngest. In adolescence, the four proclaimed their unity by choosing for themselves a single autograph, OTMA, derived from the first letter of each of their names. As OTMA, they jointly gave gifts and signed letters. They shared dresses and jewels. On one occasion, Baroness Buxhoeveden, one of the Empress’s ladies-in-waiting, was dressing for a ball when the sisters decided that her jewels were inappropriate. Tatiana rushed off and reappeared with some ruby brooches of her own. When the Baroness refused them, Tatiana was surprised. “We sisters always borrow from each other when we think the jewels of one will suit the dress of the other,” she said.

  Rank meant little to the girls. They worked alongside their maids in making their own beds and straightening their rooms. Often, they visited the maids in their quarters and played with their children. When they gave instructions, it was never as a command. Instead, the Grand Duchesses said, “If it isn’t too difficult for you, my mother asks you to come.” Within the household, they were addressed in simple Russian fashion, using their names and patronyms: Olga Nicolaievna, Tatiana Nicolaievna. When they were addressed in public by their full ceremonial titles, the girls were embarrassed. Once at a meeting of a committee of which Tatiana was honorary president, Baroness Buxhoeveden began by saying, “May it please Your Imperial Highness …” Tatiana stared in astonishment and, when the Baroness sat down, kicked her violently under the table. “Are you crazy to speak to me like that?” she whispered.

  Cut off from other children, knowing little about the outside world, they took the keenest interest in the people and affairs of the household. They knew the names of the Cossacks of the Tsar’s escort and of the sailors on the Imperial yacht. Talking freely to these men, they learned the names of their wives and children. They listened to letters, looked at photographs and made small gifts. As children they each had an allowance of only nine dollars a month to spend on notepaper and perfume. When they gave a present, it meant sacrificing something they wanted for themselves.

  In their youthful aunt Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna, the girls had an intimate friend and benefactress. Every Saturday she came from St. Petersburg to spend the day with her nieces at Tsarskoe Selo. Convinced that the girls needed to get away from the palace, she persuaded the Empress to let her take them into town. Accordingly, every Sunday morning, the aunt and her four excited nieces boarded a train for the capital. Their first stop was a formal luncheon with their grandmother, the Dowager Empress, at the Anitchkov Palace. From there they went on to tea, games and dancing at Olga Alexandrovna’s house. Other young people were always present. “The girls enjoyed every minute of it,” wrote the Grand Duchess over fifty years later. “Especially my dear god-daughter [Anastasia]. Why I can still hear her laughter rippling all over the room. Dancing, music, games—why she threw herself wholeheartedly into them all.” The day ended when one of the Empress’s ladies-in-waiting arrived to take the girls back to Tsarskoe Selo.

  In the palace, the two oldest girls shared a bedroom and were known generally as “The Big Pair.” Marie and Anastasia shared another bedroom and were called “The Little Pair.” When they were children, the Empress dressed them by pairs, the two oldest and the two youngest wearing matching dresses. As they grew up, the sisters gradually made changes in the spare surroundings arranged for them by their parents. The camp beds remained, but icons, paintings and photographs went up along the walls. Frilly dressing tables and couches with green and white embroidered cushions were installed. A large room, divided by a curtain, was used by all four as a combination bath and dressing room. Half the room was filled with wardrobes; behind the curtain stood a large bath of solid silver. In their teens, the girls stopped taking cold baths in the morning and began taking warm baths at night with perfumed bath water. All four girls used Coty perfumes. Olga preferred “Rose Thé,” Tatiana favored “Jasmin de Corse,” Anastasia stayed faithfully with “Violette” and Marie, who tried many scents, always came back to “Lilas.”

  As Olga and Tatiana grew older, they played a more serious role at public functions. Although in private they still referred to their parents as “Mama” and “Papa,” in public they referred to “the Empress” and “the Emperor.” Each of the girls was colonel-in-chief of an elite regiment. Wearing its uniform with a broad skirt and boots, they attended military reviews sitting side-saddle on their horses, riding behind the Tsar. Escorted by their father, they began attending theatres and concerts. Carefully chaperoned, they were allowed to play tennis, ride and dance with eligible young officers. At twenty, Olga obtained the use of part of her large fortune and began to respond to appeals for charity. Seeing a child on crutches when she was out for a drive, Olga inquired and found that the parents were too poor to afford treatment. Quietly, Olga began putting aside a monthly allowance to pay the bills.

  Nicholas and Alexandra intended that both their older daughters should make their official debuts in 1914 when Olga was nineteen and Tatiana seventeen. But the war intervened and the plans were canceled. The girls remained secluded with the family at Tsarskoe Selo. By 1917, the four daughters of Nicholas II had blossomed into young women whose talents and personalities were, as fate decreed, never to be unfolded and revealed.

  “Alexis was the center of this united family, the focus of all its hopes and affections,” wrote Pierre Gilliard. “His sisters worshipped him. He was his parent
s’ pride and joy. When he was well, the palace was transformed. Everyone and everything in it seemed bathed in sunshine.”

  The Tsarevich was a handsome little boy with blue eyes and golden curls which later turned to auburn and became quite straight. From the beginning, he was a happy, high-spirited infant, and his parents never missed an opportunity to show him off. When the baby was only a few months old, the Tsar met A. A. Mosolov, director of the Court Chancellery, just outside the nursery. “I don’t think that you have yet seen my dear little Tsarevich,” said Nicholas. “Come along and I will show him to you.”

  “We went in,” said Mosolov. “The baby was being given his daily bath. He was lustily kicking out in the water…. The Tsar took the child out of his bath towels and put his little feet in the hollow of his hand, supporting him with the other arm. There he was, naked, chubby, rosy—a wonderful boy!”

  “Don’t you think he’s a beauty?” said the Tsar, beaming.

  Next day Nicholas said proudly to the Empress, “Yesterday I had the Tsarevich on parade before Mosolov.”

  In the spring following his birth, the Empress took Alexis for rides in her carriage and was delighted to see the people along the road bowing and smiling before the tiny Heir. When he was still less than a year old, his father took him to a review of the Preobrajensky Regiment. The soldiers gave the baby a mighty “Hurrah!” and Alexis responded with delighted laughter.

  From the beginning, the disease of hemophilia hung over this sunny child like a dark cloud. The first ominous evidence had appeared at six weeks, when the boy bled from his navel. As he began to crawl and toddle, the evidence grew stronger: his tumbles caused large, dark blue swellings on his legs and arms. When he was three and a half, a blow on the face brought a swelling which completely closed both eyes. From London, Empress Marie wrote in alarm: “[I heard] that poor little Alexei fell on his forehead and his face was so swollen that it was dreadful to look at him and his eyes were closed. Poor boy, it is terrible, I can imagine how frightened you were. But what did he stumble against? I hope that it is all over now and that his charming little face has not suffered from it.” Three weeks later, Nicholas was able to write back: “Thank God the bumps and bruises have left no trace. He is as well and cheerful as his sisters. I constantly work with them in the garden.”

  Medically, hemophilia meant that the Tsarevich’s blood did not clot normally. Any bump or bruise rupturing a tiny blood vessel beneath the skin could begin the slow seepage of blood into surrounding muscle and tissue. Instead of clotting quickly as it would in a normal person, the blood continued to flow unchecked for hours, making a swelling or hematoma as big as a grapefruit. Eventually, when the skin was hard and tight, filled with blood like a balloon, pressure slowed the hemorrhage and a clot finally formed. Then, gradually, a process of re-absorption took place, with the skin turning from a shiny purple to a mottled yellowish-green.

  A simple scratch on the Tsarevich’s finger was not dangerous. Minor external cuts and scratches anywhere on the surface of the body were treated by pressure and tight bandaging which pinched off the blood and allowed the flesh to heal over. Exceptions, of course, were hemorrhages from the inside of the mouth or nose—areas which could not be bandaged. Once, although no pain was involved, the Tsarevich almost died from a nosebleed.

  The worst pain and the permanent crippling effects of Alexis’s hemophilia came from bleeding into the joints. Blood entering the confined space of an ankle, knee or elbow joint caused pressure on the nerves and brought nightmarish pain. Sometimes the cause of the injury was apparent, sometimes not. In either case, Alexis awakened in the morning to call, “Mama, I can’t walk today,” or “Mama, I can’t bend my elbow.” At first, as the limb flexed, leaving the largest possible area in the joint socket for the incoming fluids, the pain was small Then, as this space filled up, it began to hurt. Morphine was available, but because of its destructive habit-forming quality, the Tsarevich was never given the drug. His only release from pain was fainting.

  Once inside the joint, the blood had a corrosive effect, destroying bone, cartilage and tissue. As the bone formation changed, the limbs locked in a rigid, bent position. The best therapy for this condition was constant exercise and massage, but it was undertaken at the risk of once again beginning the hemorrhage. As a result, Alexis’s normal treatment included a grim catalogue of heavy iron orthopedic devices which, along with constant hot mud baths, were designed to straighten his limbs. Needless to say, each such episode meant weeks in bed.*

  The combination of exalted rank and hemophilia saw to it that Alexis grew up under a degree of care rarely lavished on any child. While he was very young, nurses surrounded him every minute. When he was five, his doctors suggested that he be given a pair of male companions and bodyguards. Two sailors from the Imperial Navy, named Derevenko and Nagorny, were selected and assigned to protect the Tsarevich from harm. When Alexis was ill, they acted as nurses. “Derevenko was so patient and resourceful, that he often did wonders in alleviating the pain,” wrote Anna Vyrubova, an intimate friend of the Empress. “I can still hear the plaintive voice of Alexis begging the big sailor, ‘Lift my arm,’ ‘Put up my leg,’ ‘Warm my hands,’ and I can see the patient, calm-eyed man working for hours to give comfort to the little pain-wracked limbs.”

  Hemophilia is a fickle disease, and for weeks, sometimes months, Alexis seemed as well as any child. By nature he was as noisy, lively and mischievous as Anastasia. As a toddler, he liked to scoot down the hall and break into his sisters’ classroom, interrupting their lessons, only to be carried off, arms waving. As a child of three or four, he often made appearances at the table, making the round from place to place to shake hands and chatter with each guest. Once he plunged beneath the table, pulled off the slipper of one of the maids-of-honor and carried it proudly as a trophy to his father. Nicholas sternly ordered him to put it back, and the Tsarevich disappeared again under the table. Suddenly the lady screamed. Before replacing the slipper on her foot, Alexis had inserted into its toe an enormous ripe strawberry. Thereafter, for several weeks he was not allowed at the dinner table.

  “He thoroughly enjoyed life—when it let him—and he was a happy, romping boy,” wrote Gilliard. “He was very simple in his tastes and he entertained no false satisfaction because he was the Heir; there was nothing he thought less about.” Like any small boy’s, his pockets were filled with string, nails and pebbles. Within the family, he obeyed his older sisters and wore their outgrown nightgowns. Nevertheless, outside the family, Alexis understood that he was more important than his sisters. In public, it was he who sat or stood beside his father. He was the one greeted by shouts of “The Heir!” and the one whom people crowded around and often tried to touch. When a deputation of peasants brought him a gift, they dropped to their knees. Gilliard asked him why he received them thus, and Alexis replied, “I don’t know. Derevenko says it must be so.” Told that a group of officers of his regiment had arrived to call on him, he interrupted a romp with his sisters. “Now girls, run away,” the six-year-old boy said, “I am busy. Someone has just called to see me on business.”

  Sometimes, impressed by the deference shown him, Alexis was rude. At six, he walked into the waiting room of his father’s study and found the Foreign Minister, Alexander Izvolsky, waiting to see the Tsar. Izvolsky remained seated. Alexis marched up to the Minister and said in a loud voice, “When the Heir to the Russian Throne enters a room, people must get up.” More often, he was gracious. To one of his mother’s ladies-in-waiting who had done him a favor, the Tsarevich extended his hand in an exact imitation of his father and said with a smile, “It is really nice of you, you know.” As he grew older, he became sensitive to the subtleties of rank and etiquette. At nine, he sent a collection of his favorite jingles to Gleb Botkin, the doctor’s son, who drew well. Along with the jingles he sent a note, “To illustrate and write the jingles under the drawings. Alexis.” Then, before handing the note to Dr. Botkin to take to Gleb, Alexis ab
ruptly crossed out his signature. “If I send that paper to Gleb with my signature on it, then it would be an order which Gleb would have to obey,” the Tsarevich explained. “But I mean it only as a request and he doesn’t have to do it if he doesn’t want to.”

  As Alexis grew older, his parents carefully explained to him the need to avoid bumps and blows. Yet, being an active child, Alexis was attracted to the very things that involved the greatest danger. “Can’t I have my own bicycle?” he would beg his mother. “Alexei, you know you can’t.” “May I please play tennis?” “Dear, you know you mustn’t.” Then, with a gush of tears, Alexis would cry, “Why can other boys have everything and I nothing?” There were times when Alexis simply ignored all restraints and did as he pleased. This risk-taking behavior, common enough among hemophiliac boys to be medically labeled the “Daredevil reaction,” was compounded of many things: rebellion against constant overprotection, a subconscious need to prove invulnerability to harm and, most important, the simple desire to be and play like a normal child.

  Once, at seven, he appeared in the middle of a review of the palace guard, riding a secretly borrowed bicycle across the parade ground. The astonished Tsar promptly halted the review and ordered every man to pursue, surround and capture the wobbling vehicle and its delighted novice rider. At a children’s party at which movies had been shown, Alexis suddenly led the children on top of the tables and began leaping wildly from table to table. When Derevenko and others tried to calm him, he shouted gaily, “All grown-ups have to go,” and tried to push them out the door.

  By deluging him with expensive gifts, his parents hoped to make him forget the games he was forbidden to play. His room was filled with elaborate toys: There were “great railways with dolls in the carriages as passengers, with barriers, stations, buildings and signal boxes, flashing engines and marvelous signalling apparatus, whole battalions of tin soldiers, models of towns with church towers and domes, floating models of ships, perfectly equipped factories with doll workers and mines in exact imitation of the real thing, with miners ascending and descending. All the toys were mechanically operated and the little Prince had only to press a button to set the workers in motion, to drive the warships up and down the tank, to set the churchbells ringing and the soldiers marching.”