AS Dimitri had done, Natasha moved to Paris in 1927 ‘since life in London is three times more expensive than in France’.20 She had sent George to Harrow, one of the best-known public schools in Britain, and he completed his last year there in July of that year, just before his seventeenth birthday. In Paris, Natasha enrolled him in the exclusive, and equally expensive, École des Roches at Verneuil, fifty miles outside the capital; he would go on from there to the Sorbonne.
George brought with him to France his prized Norton motorcycle which he insisted on driving at high speed, much to the terror of Natasha. He had now grown to be as tall as his father, with the same slim figure. ‘He was uncannily like Uncle Misha’, thought Tata. He had the same look about him; his voice was similar; he even walked in much the same way.
Some émigrés within the divided Russian colony in Paris mentioned his name as the ‘true successor’ to the imperial throne in preference to the discredited and disliked Kirill but ‘George treated the claims made on his behalf with indifference, tinged with amusement’.21
It was in Paris that George, but not his mother, became the first beneficiary of the various interests which, on paper, sustained Natasha’s hopes of financial security in the future. In 1928 the Dowager Empress died three years after the death of her sister, the Dowager Queen Alexandra. Hvidore, the Danish property which they jointly owned, was sold. King George V and his sisters waived their claims; the proceeds, amounting to the equivalent of $57,000 in the values of the day — some $500,000 today — were therefore divided equally between Michael’s two sisters, Xenia and Olga, and his son George. It was a very handsome legacy and a more-than-welcome windfall. For George, with almost $20,000 in his bank, he could feel himself a rather rich young man. He put some ten per cent of it immediately into the purchase of a brand-new Sports Chrysler motor car.22 In July 1931, having finished his final examinations at the Sorbonne, he decided to celebrate with a holiday in the south of France. He and a Dutch friend planned to drive to Cannes, George promising Natasha that he would be back in two weeks, in time for his twenty-first birthday.
Having waved them goodbye, Natasha was playing bezique that afternoon with friends when the telephone rang in the hallway of her rented apartment at 5 rue Copernic, off the Place Victor Hugo. The Chrysler had skidded on the road near Sens, and crashed into a tree. The Dutch boy, who had been at the wheel, was killed; George was in hospital; both thighs were broken and he had severe internal injuries.
Distraught, Natasha took the first train southwards, arriving at the hospital in Sens just before midnight. She sat by his bedside all night, but there was no hope for him. George died without recovering consciousness at 11.30 a.m. on Tuesday, July 21, 1931. His body was brought back to Paris and buried in the fashionable cemetery at Passy, near the Trocadero. Hundreds attended the funeral, with Dimitri heading the procession behind the coffin, followed by a black-veiled Natasha.23
Natasha had bought two plots lying side by side at Passy, George was laid in one; the other she reserved for herself but not as the princess she had been styled three years earlier. On the cemetery receipt the name she gave was simply Mme De Brassow. So much for her view of Emperor Kirill.
THERE would be little left for Natasha after that. ‘Oh Misha! Oh, Georgie!’ she would weep in private. At 51 she was still beautiful though her hair was snow-white, but her life was over. The end would come 20 years later, but even that in itself spoke volumes about its emptiness. Then penniless and living alone in the tiny attic room of an apartment at 11 rue Monsieur on the Left Bank, her landlady threw her out when it was discovered that Natasha had cancer. Taken to the Laënneck, the nearby charity hospital in the rue de Sevres in the 7th arrondissement she died at 3.50 pm on January 23, 1952.24 The only clue to her identity among her pathetic effects was a faded Russian birth certificate dated 71 years earlier and naming her as plain Nathalie Sheremetevskaya — the name duly typed onto her death certificate.
However, as word spread in the dwindling band of Russian émigrés in Paris that Princess Brasova had died, they did what they could to give her burial the dignity denied her death. They took her to Passy to lie beside her beloved son George. Their grave is marked by a Russian cross of stone, above a chest-tomb of green-and-black marble, with the simple, gold-lettered inscription: Fils et Epouse de S.A.I. Grand Duc Michel de Russie.
And in far-away Perm they would not forget either. Although Michael’s grave has never been found, a chapel to his memory and honour now stands in the wood where he was murdered, and there is a plaque to him on the wall of the hotel from which he was abducted. And interest increases: in 2010, the then Senator for St Petersburg, Viktor Yevtukhov — promoted deputy Minister of Justice in February 2011 — said: ‘We should know more about this man and remember him, because this memory can give our society the ethical foundation we need’. Better late than never.
Many years ago, in 1927 when he was building a literary reputation in Riga, Vladimir Gushchik, the sometime Bolshevik commissar in Gatchina who had so admired Michael, wrote an epitaph for him in his book Taina Gatchinskogo dvortsa, and it is one which could well stand today:
And now, remembering this man, I wonder how You, Russia, will wash away his innocent blood? Will you ultimately be able to redeem the death of Michael the Last? 25
Romanovs murdered by the Bolsheviks, 1918-1919
June 12/13, 1918, Perm
Grand Duke Michael Aleksandrovich (Emperor Michael II)
July 16/17, 1918, Ekaterinburg
Grand Duke Nicholas Alexandrovich (ex-Emperor Nicholas II)
Grand Duchess Alexandra Fedorov (ex-Empress Alexandra)
Grand Duke Alexis Nikolaeovich, aged 14 (ex-Tsarevich)
Grand Duchess Olga, aged 23
Grand Duchess Tatiana, aged 21
Grand Duchess Marie, aged 19
Grand Duchess Anastasia, aged 17
July 17/18, 1918, Alapaevsk
Grand Duke Serge Mikhailovich, aged 64
Grand Duchess Elizabeth (Ella), aged 54
Prince Ioann Konstantinovich, aged 32
Prince Konstantin Konstaninovich (brother), aged 27
Prince Igor Konstantinovich (brother), aged 24
Prince Vladimir Paley (son, Grand Duke Paul below), aged 21
January 19, 1919, Fortress of SS Peter & Paul
Grand Duke Paul Aleksandrovich, aged 58
Grand Duke Dimitri Konstantinovich, aged 58
Grand Duke Nicholas Mikhailovich (Bimbo), aged 60
Grand Duke George Mikhailovich, aged 55
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
AT the 90th anniversary of Michael’s death in Perm, in June 2008, I went there to join in the ceremonies to mark that day, little knowing what to expect. I was both astonished and delighted at the scale of the events, and by the thousands who turned out to honour his memory. Forgotten? Clearly not in Perm, where he was murdered in 1918 but is still revered by many. It was those three days of marches, of church services, of concerts, and of an academic conference to discuss his life, which seemed its own proof that Michael was dead but not gone. And that the more Russia knows about him, the greater the hope that it can bridge that gap between the Soviet version of history, and the reality. Hence this book.
However, this would not have been possible without the long research that had gone into a prior book, of which I was co-author with my wife Rosemary, Michael & Natasha. And as then, the many people and institutions we thanked deserve thanks again.
In Russia, I remain enormously grateful to all those at the State Archive of the Russian Federation in Moscow who gave us such enormous help over many months — the director, Sergei Mironenko, the deputy director Alya Barkovets, and the historian Vladimir Khrustalev, in particular. As ever, I also remain in the debt of Dr Aschen Mikoyan, of Moscow University, whose grandfather was chairman of the Supreme Soviet, and who spent many months editing some 3,000 pages of letters and documents about Michael. I shall always remember her blurting out — ‘how could we
have done this to him!’ — and I know that many other Russians now feel the same. I must also pay tribute to the unfailing ‘detective work’ of Dr Aleksandr Ushakov, who found documents that added considerably to an understanding of Michael and his times, as did Dr Sergei Romanyuk in researching documents in other Moscow archives. The staff at the Russian State Historical Archive in St Petersburg were equally helpful as were those at Gatchina Palace, as well as in the Perm archives.
In England, Richard Davies, archivist at the Leeds Russian Archives at the University of Leeds, is someone to whom I shall ever remain grateful, for his archive possesses a wealth of personal documentation on Michael, generously given to it by Natasha’s grand-daughter by her first marriage, Pauline Gray.
In the United States, there are several institutions which have invaluable source material on the period covered here, including the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and the Houghton Library, Harvard University. At Columbia University, we had Michael’s war diaries 1915-1918 translated for the first time.
In Europe, given the amount of time that Michael spent there, the trail inevitably follows in his footsteps — Paris, Vienna, Cannes, Berlin, Copenhagen, Switzerland. A great many people helped in tracing him, not least Professor Dr Ferdinand Opll at the Stadt-und Landsarchiv in Vienna, who provided more information about Michael’s marriage than the embarrassed and out-witted Okhrana managed to do afterwards in 1912. Again, each and everyone is to be thanked.
Finally, I should pay tribute to Dr Vladislav Krasnov, born in Perm, but now a senior American academic, for his enthusiasm in promoting the memory of Michael in his home city and beyond. It was he and his committee who erected a memorial plaque to Michael on the walls of the hotel in Perm from which he was abducted in June, 1918 — still now much as it was then — and since then they have taken their cause to St Petersburg and Moscow. It is to their credit. No one loved his country more than Michael. If one day his country will come to embrace him also, then his brutal death in a dark wood might prove not to be the end of his story.
CHAPTER NOTES
MA = Michael
NS= Natasha
MA’ s diary — Michael’s diary 1915-1918
N = Nicholas II (letters) or in ‘N’s diary’
AF = Empress Alexandra
DE = Dowager Empress Marie Federovna
GAPO = State Archive Perm District
GARF = State Archive, Russian Federation, Moscow
LRA = Leeds Russian Archive, University of Leeds
PRO = Public Record Office, London
RA = Royal Archives, Windsor
Vienna SLA = Wiener Stadt-und Landsarchiv
Dates are according to Russian calendar, unless shown in italics
1. Love and Duty
1. Vassili, p 105
2. Alexander, Once a Grand Duke, p 78
3. Witte, Memoirs p 19
4. Alexander, p 80
5. Ibid p 168-9
6. Nicholas II, Journal Intime. (hereafter N’s diary) p 125
7. Vassili, p 105
8. Alexander p 161
9. Nicholas of Greece, p 181
10. Polovtsov, pp 126-7
11. Melgunov, p 229
12. Mossolov, p 95
13. Ibid
14. Grand Duke Konstantin K’s diary, February 26, 1904, cited Maylunas/Mironenko p 240
15. Dillon, p 41
16. Buxhoeveden, p 92
17. Mossolov, p 33
18. Witte, p 194
19. Ibid
20. Chavchavadze, p 107, Radziwill, Secrets, pp 44-6
21. Sullivan, p 181
22. Gelardi, pp 91-3.115
23. Chavchavadze, p 235
24. Ibid, 242
25. Radziwill, Secrets, p 60
26. Ibid, pp 69-70; Chavchavadze, p128
27. Kleinmichel, pp 66-8
28. N to DE , October 20, 1902, p 170
29. Vorres, p 115
30. Observer, London, October 7, 1906. The story also appeared in The Sunday Times, and Reynold News, London.
31. The Times, London, November 5, 1908
2. A Scandalous Exile
1. State Archive of the Moscow Region, f. 2170-8-1-64;.Vsya Moskva; Moscow Historical Archive, f.179-24-237-15
2. Natasha’s father was still registered as living in the Vozdvizhenka apartment eighteen years later in 1924
3. 13. MA to NS, November 3, 1909, GARF 622/12
4. MA to NS, July 28, 1909, GARF 622/09
5. Letter to Natasha’s granddaughter Pauline Gray, December 17, 1973, LRA MS 1363/136
6. Trubetskoi, 4, p 110
7. NS to MA, August 8, 1911, GARF 668/76
8. Radziwill, Secrets, p 92
9. Trubetskoi 4, p 110
10. Ibid
11. Majolier, p 35
12. Trubetskoi, 4, p 117
13. Okhrana report, September 6,1911, cited Maylunas/Mironenko, p 345
14. Ibid, December 17, 1912, pp 364-5
15. MA to N, October 6, 1912, GARF 601/1301
16. MA to N, October 14, 1912, GARF ibid
17. St Savva marriage register, No 35, 1912, Vienna SLA
18. Paléologue, February 10, 1916, Vol II, p 172
19. Marriage register, Vienna SLA
20. Ibid
21. Ibid
22. Okhrana Paris report December 17, 1912, cited Maylunas/Mironenko pp 364-5
23. N to DE, November 21, 1912 cited Maylunas/Mironenko, p 363
24. N to DE November 7 1912, Letters, p 283-4
25. Ibid
26. The ten-point memorandum is undated andunsigned, but was clearly written in early November 1912; Fredericks was the court minister responsible for matters relating to the Grand Dukes. GARF 601/1301 f.175-6
27. MA to N, November 16, 1912, GARF 601/1301. MA’s ‘terms’ were attached to this letter.
28. N to DE, November 21, 1912, Letters, p 285
29. George V to N, December 16, 1912, cited Maylunas/Mironenko p 363
30. British ambassador to Sir Edward Grey, January 16, 1913, PRO/FO 371/1743
31. Ibid
32. Ibid January 4, 1913
33. Ibid January 16, 1913
34. Mossolov, p 65
35. Radziwill, Secrets, p 94
36. MA to N, November 1, 1912, GARF 601/1301
37. Majolier, p 81
38. MA to N, April 23, 1914, f. ibid
39. Polovtsov, p 115
40. Natasha’s documents, LRA 1363/72
41. Majolier, p 46
3. A Brief Peace
1. Vorres, p 64
2. Queen Victoria’s Journal, October 8, 1899, RA
3. Majolier, p 82
4. Xenia’s diary July 12, 1913, cited Maylunas/Mironenko p 379
5. Ibid
6. Ibid
7. DE to N, July 27, 1913, Letters, pp 287-8
8. Knebworth House archive
9. Majolier, p 43
10. MA to N, March 8, 1914, f. ibid
11. MA accounts, 1914-1916, Paddockhurst Estate Office
12. Chavchavadze, p 178
13. George V to N, 6, 1912, GARF 601
14. The Times, London, December 30, 1913, January 10, 1914, May 13,1 1914.
15. Natasha continued to use her coronet notepaper when she returned to Russia, notwithstanding that she had no title.GARF 668/77-8
16. The Times, London, January 10, 1914
17. Ibid, December 2, 1913
18. On May 9, 1914, LRA 1363/39
19. May 19, 1914, ibid
20. Ibid, 1363/386
21. Majolier, p 47
22. Gray, p 38
23 The Times, London, July17, 1914
24 Majolier, p 49
25. Ibid, p 42
26. George V’s diary, RA, although for security reasons the departure was not recorded in the Court Circular until August 20, 1914
27. Yousoupoff, Lost Splendour, p 180
28. Poutiatine
29. Majolier, p 53
/> 4. War Hero
1. The Times, London, January 17, 1913
2. Lincoln, p 76
3. Ibid, p 83
4. Kournakoff, p 55
5. Polovtsov, p 115
6. Ibid, p 127
7. Kournakoff, p 80
8. Polovtssov, pp 116-7
9. Kournakoff, p 55
10. Polovtsov, pp 126-7
11. Paléologue, Vol 1 p 302
12. N to AF, Letters, October 27, 1914, p 10
13. Polovtsov, p 138
14. Paléologue, February 10, 1916. Vol II p 172
15. MA to N, November 15, 1914, GARF 601/1301
16. Polovtsov, p 134
17. Ibid, p 132
18. Poutiatine
19. MA’s Diary, January 2, 1915
20. MA to NS, January 16, 1915, GARF 622/20
21. Ibid January 15, 1915
22. Ibid, January 20, 1915
23. Ibid, January 22, 1915
24. N to AF, November 19, 1914, p 14
25. MA to NS, January 22, 1915, GARF 622/20
26. Ibid, February 16, 1915
27. Ibid, February 4, 1915
28. Ibid, January 22, 1915
29. MA’s Diary, January 21-2, 1915
30. Ibid, February 9, 1915
31. MA to NS, February 16, 1915, GARF 668/78
32. Polovtsov, p 135
33. Ibid, p 138
34. Fund of the Imperial Russian Cavalry, Hoover Institution archives
35. Krylov, ‘Istoricheskie miniatyury’, Moskva, Moscow, 3, 1990
36. Radziwill, Secrets, p 96
37. Alexander, p 303
38. Polovtsov, p 138
39. Gushchik, pp 12-13
40. Ibid, pp 28-9
41. MA’s diary, April 17, 1915
42. N to AF, March 3, 1915, p.32
43. AF to N, Letters, p 54
44. MA to N, March 14, 1915, f. ibid
45. Imperial ukase of March 26, 1915, cited Jaques Ferrand, Il est toujours des Romanov! Paris, 1995, p 25
The Last Tsar: Emperor Michael II Page 31