Alexandra
Page 41
2. Lifelong Passion, p. 583.
3. Two photos of the interior of the governor’s mansion in Tobolsk are in Buxhoeveden, facing p. 322. Dr Botkin’s daughter wrote that the Ipatiev house in Ekaterinburg was ‘totally unlike the governor’s house in Tobolsk, where the large rooms and hall were more like a country palace’. Nicholas and Alexandra: The Last Imperial Family, p. 372. Nicholas wrote in his diary ‘the house is good and clean’.
4. Buxhoeveden, p. 312.
5. Ibid., p. 313.
6. Lifelong Passion, pp. 591–2.
7. Buxhoeveden, p. 311.
8. Lifelong Passion, p. 587.
9. Education of a Princess, p. 341.
10. Lifelong Passion, p. 591.
11. ‘He is still close to us,’ she wrote after Father Gregory’s death. Moynahan, p. 346.
12. The rescue effort is discussed in Paul Bulygin, ‘The Sorrowful Quest,’ in The Murder of the Romanovs (London, 1935), pp. 198–9, 216, and Paul Bykov, The Last Days of Tsardom (London, 1934), p. 57.
Alix had a code book with her at Tobolsk, and later took it with her to Ekaterinburg, where it was found after her death. It was the key to a cypher she and Nicky had used in 1894, when they were sending telegrams to each other.
Soloviev was accused of being a Bolshevik whose aim was not to rescue the Romanovs but to block any possible rescue plans made by members of the former imperial family, or by friends. He was arrested when the Romanovs were sent to Ekaterinburg.
13. The letter Markov carried back to Germany from Tobolsk was seen by witnesses who claimed to recognize Alix’s handwriting. King, p. 333.
14. Buxhoeveden, p. 314.
15. Lifelong Passion, p. 593.
16. King, pp. 330–1.
Chapter 33
1. Alix began her diary on New Year’s Day according to the Julian calendar, which was still officially in use in Russia until February 1/14, 1918, when the Gregorian calendar was adopted by the Bolshevik government. By January 3/16, Alix was assigning a double date to each entry, noting both the Julian and Gregorian dates, which were thirteen days apart. The diary was written primarily in English, with occasional Russian words or phrases. It has been published as The Last Diary of Tsaritsa Alexandra, ed. Vladimir A. Kozlov and Vladimir M. Khrustalëv (New Haven, 1997).
2. Buxhoeveden, pp. 322–3.
3. Nicky wrote to Xenia late in January, 1918, that newspapers were not on sale in the town every day, and that when they did come, they contained nothing but ‘new horrors, being perpetrated on our poor Russia’.
4. Alexandra, Last Diary, p. 30 note. Soloviev made encoded copies of Alix’s letters and notes and burned the originals.
5. Ibid., p. 32 note.
6. Lifelong Passion, p. 607.
7. Ibid., p. 607.
8. Alexandra, Last Diary, p. 77 note.
9. Ibid., p. 77. On March 25, 1918, Alix passed a large cigarette-holder, some other items and a note to Sergei Markov who walked past the governor’s mansion and saw the family watching from the windows. Alix ‘nodded to him cautiously.’
10. King, p. 331, citing Foreign Office transcripts. The opposition of Lloyd George was no doubt a factor in the abandonment of the rescue effort.
11. Buxhoeveden, pp. 325–6, describes the mayhem caused by the Red Guards. Sophie Buxhoeveden was living in a rented house in Tobolsk at the time, having been refused permission to join the household in the governor’s mansion.
12. Ibid., p. 326.
13. Alexandra, Last Diary, p. 95. The course of Alexei’s attack in April, 1918, is charted in Buxhoeveden, p. 327, Last Diary, pp. 95ff, and Lifelong Passion, pp. 610ff, where the dates given differ from those in Alix’s diary.
14. Alexandra, Last Diary, p. 96.
15. Ibid., p. 97.
16. Buxhoeveden, p. 327.
17. Alexandra, Last Diary, p. 79. Alix believed that there were three hundred officers at Tiumen pledged to take part in a rescue effort. Boris Soloviev and his wife Maria managed to escape Russia via Vladivostok and lived, impoverished, in Europe, where Boris worked as a car washer and night porter. After Boris’s death in 1926, Maria worked as a dancer in Montmartre to support her two daughters.
18. Lifelong Passion, p. 606.
19. ‘I long to warm and comfort others,’ Alix wrote to Anna Vyrubov, ‘but alas, I do not feel drawn to those around me here. I am cold towards them and this, too, is wrong of me.’ Lifelong Passion, p. 606.
Chapter 34
1. Maria Toutelberg described the crisis in testimony to Judge Sokolov during his official investigation. Buxhoeveden, p. 329, note.
2. Alexandra, Last Diary, p. 109.
3. Ibid., p. 112. Alix wrote that they got to the train at midnight; Nicky put the time at ten o’clock. Lifelong Passion, p. 616.
4. Alexandra, Last Diary, p. 112.
5. Ibid., p. 117.
6. Ibid., p. 117 note and Buxhoeveden, pp. 333–4. Buxhoeveden’s source of information was Chemodurov, who was taken from the Ipatiev house on May 24, 1918, and imprisoned but afterwards liberated by the White Army. Buxhoeveden herself eventually managed to escape to safety via Japan. In her biography of Alexandra she gives a slightly different version of this exchange between Nicky and the commissar.
7. Ibid., p. 121, note.
8. Ibid., p. 144.
9. Ibid., p. 144.
10. Buxhoeveden, p. 341.
11. Alexandra, Last Diary, pp. 166 and 165, note.
12. Isaac Don Levine, Eyewitness to History (New York, 1973), p. 138. This letter and the others that reached the Romanovs in the last days of June, 1918, were written by Cheka officials, most likely by Peter Voikov and Alexander Beloborodov, chairman of the Ural Regional Soviet, in order to elicit responses that could then be used to prove that the family was engaged in a conspiracy with would-be rescuers. The letters and responses were seen as justification for eliminating the family.
13. Levine, p. 139. The editors of The Last Diary of Tsaritsa Alexandra, p. 176, note, estimate that this letter arrived between June 21 and 25.
14. Although the leading officials in the Cheka were aware of the false information being given to the Romanovs, it is not certain whether the Ipatiev guards had been alerted to what the family was being told, and to their expectation of imminent rescue.
Chapter 35
1. Levine, p. 139.
2. Alexandra, Last Diary, p. 186. Yurovsky noted in his memoirs that he allowed Alexei to keep his watch.
3. The tutor Gibbs estimated that this jewellery was worth a hundred thousand pounds. Anthony Summers and Tom Mangold, The File on the Tsar (New York, 1976), p. 78.
4. Ibid., p. 49.
5. Alexandra, Last Diary, p. 197, note.
6. In 1918, arsenic was at times prescribed for both nervous disorders and rheumatism. Though arsenic was notorious as a poison, arsenic compounds were also ingested as a tonic, and in some parts of Austria arsenic was eaten regularly. Alix’s strong pains are noted in Last Diary, pp. 192–3, 195–6.
7. Victor Alexandrov, The End of the Romanovs (London, 1966), p. 217.
8. Buxhoeveden, p. 327.
9. Lifelong Passion, p. 633.
10. Ibid., p. 634.
11. This account of the Romanovs’ final hour is taken from Yurovsky’s description of what happened, in Nicholas and Alexandra: The Last Imperial Family, p. 381. Other accounts differ in details.
12. Tatiana’s Pekinese Jimmy perished with the family in the early morning of July 17. Alexei’s spaniel Joy was found at the Ipatiev house on the day following the executions, and was taken in by one of the guards. Summers and Mangold, p. 53. Of the third dog, Ortipo, which the family brought from Tsarskoe Selo to Tobolsk, and perhaps to Ekaterinburg, there is no record. Many secondary books give erroneous information about the family dogs.
List of Works Cited
Note to the reader: The following brief bibliography includes only works cited in footnotes.
Alexander Michaelovich. Once a Grand Duke. Garden
City, New York: Doubleday, 1932.
Alexandra Feodorovna. The Last Diary of Tsaritsa Alexandra. ed. Vladimir A. Kozlov and Vladimir M. Khrustalëv. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1997.
—— The Letters of the Tsaritsa to the Tsar. London, 1923. Reprint Stanford, California: Hoover Institution Press, 1973.
Alexandrov, Victor. The End of the Romanovs. London: Hutchinson, 1966.
Almedingen, Edith von. An Unbroken Unity: A Memoir of the Grand Duchess Serge of Russia. London: Bodley Head, 1964.
—— I Remember St Petersburg. London: Longmans Young, 1969.
—— The Empress Alexandra, 1872-1918: A Study. London: Hutchinson, 1961.
Battiscombe, Georgina. Queen Alexandra. London: Constable, 1969.
Benckendorff, Count Paul. Last Days at Tsarskoe Selo. Being the Personal Notes and Memoirs of Count Paul Benckendorff Telling of the Last Sojourn of the Emperor and Empress of Russia at Tsarskoe Selo from March 1 to August 1, 1917. trans. Maurice Baring. London: Heinemann, 1927.
Billington, James. The Icon and the Axe. New York: Knopf, 1966.
Botkin, Gleb. The Real Romanovs. New York: Revell, 1931.
Buchanan, Sir George. My Mission to Russia and Other Diplomatic Memoirs. Boston: Little Brown, 1923.
Buchanan, Meriel. Dissolution of an Empire. London: Murray, 1932.
—— Queen Victoria’s Relations. London: Cassell, 1954.
Bulygin, Paul. The Murder of the Romanovs. London: Hutchinson, 1935.
Buxhoeveden, Baroness Sophie. The Life and Tragedy of Alexandra Feodorovna, Empress of Russia. A Biography. London, New York and Toronto: Longmans Green, 1928.
Bykov, Paul. The Last Days of Tsardom. London: Martin Lawrence, 1934.
Dehn, Lili. The Real Tsaritsa. London: Thornton Butterworth, 1922. Reprint by Royalty Digest, 1995.
d’Encausse, Hélène Carrère. Nicholas II: The Interrupted Transition. trans. George Holoch. New York and London: Holmes and Meier, 2000.
Dumas, Alexandre. Adventures in Czarist Russia. trans. and ed. A.E. Murch. London: Peter Owen, 1960.
Epton, Nina. Victoria and Her Daughters. New York: Norton, 1971.
Gilliard, Pierre. Thirteen Years at the Russian Imperial Court. trans. F. Appleby Holt. London: Hutchinson, 1921.
Iroshnikov, Mikhail P. et al. The Sunset of the Romanov Dynasty. Moscow: Terra Publishing Center, 1992.
King, Greg. The Last Empress: The Life and Times of Alexandra. New York: Carol Publishing Group, 1994.
Kokovtsov, Count. Out of My Past. trans. Laura Matveev. ed. H.H. Fisher. London: Oxford University Press and Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1935.
Kurth, Peter. The Lost World of Nicholas and Alexandra. Boston: Little Brown, 1995.
Levine, Isaac Don. Eyewitness to History. New York: Hawthorn Books, 1973.
Marie Pavlovna. Education of a Princess. trans. Russell Lord. New York: Viking Press, 1931.
Massie, Suzanne. Land of the Firebird: The Beauty of Old Russia. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1980.
Maylunas, Andrei and Sergei Mironenko. A Lifelong Passion: Nicholas and Alexandra: Their Own Story. New York: Doubleday, 1997.
Mossolov, Alexander. At the Court of the Last Tsar. London: Methuen, 1935.
Mouchanow, Marfa. My Empress: Twenty-Three Years of Intimate Life with the Empress of all the Russias from Her Marriage to the Day of her Exile. New York: John Lane, 1918.
Moynahan, Brian. Rasputin: The Saint Who Sinned. New York: Random House, 1997.
Mironenko, Sergei. Nicholas and Alexandra: The Last Imperial Family of Tsarist Russia. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1998.
Packard, Jerrold M. Victoria’s Daughters. New York: St Martin’s Press, 1998.
Paléologue, Maurice. An Ambassador’s Memoirs. 3 vols. New York: Doran, 1924-ß5.
Pares, Bernard. My Russian Memoirs. London: Jonathan Cape, 1931.
—— The Fall of the Russian Monarchy. New York: Vintage, 1961.
Poliakov, Vladimir. The Tragic Bride: The Story of the Empress Alexandra. New York: Appleton, 1927.
Pope-Hennessy, James. Queen Mary. New York: Knopf, 1960.
Radzinsky, Edvard. The Rasputin File. trans. Judson Rosengrant. New York: Doubleday, 2000.
Rasputin, Maria. My Father. Reprint. New Hyde Park, New York: University Books, 1970.
Salisbury, Harrison. Black Night, White Snow: Russia’s Revolutions 1905-1917. New York: Doubleday, 1978.
Sazonov, Serge. Fateful Years. New York: Stokes, 1928.
Summers, Anthony and Tom Mangold. The File on the Tsar. New York: Harper and Row, 1976.
Victoria, Empress of Germany. The Empress Frederick Writes to Sophie: Letters 1889-1901. ed. Arthur Gould Lee. London: Faber, 1955.
Victoria, Queen. Advice to a Granddaughter: Letters from Queen Victoria to Princess Victoria of Hesse. Selected by Richard Hough. London: Heinemann, 1975.
—— Letters of Queen Victoria from the Archives of the House of Brandenburg-Prussia. trans. Mrs J. Pudney and Lord Sudley. ed. Hector Bolitho. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1938.
—— Queen Victoria in Her Letters and Journals: A Selection. ed. Christopher Hibbert. New York: Viking Penguin, 1985.
Vorres, Ian. The Last Grand Duchess. New York: Scribner, 1965.
Vyrubov, Anna. Souvenirs de ma Vie. Paris: Payot, 1927.
Yusupov, Prince Felix. Lost Splendor. trans. Ann Green and Nicholas Katkov. New York: Putnam, 1953.
Alexandra as a young girl.
Young Alexandra knew her own mind, and resisted an arranged marriage.
A formal portrait of the young Alexandra and Nicholas.
The Romanovs with Queen Victoria, Alexandra’s grandmother, and Prince Edward, later Edward VII.
Alexandra as a young wife.
Alexandra and the Tsarevich Alexei.
Tsarina Alexandra, melancholy and ill.
Alexandra’s deep devotion to her son Alexei only increased when he survived near-fatal attacks of haemophilia.
Alexandra and her daughters were trained as nurses and worked long hours in military hospitals.
Alexandra and her daughters Olga, Tatiana, Marie and Anastasia.
Incapacitated by severe pain, Alexandra often took the air in a wheelchair.
The Romanovs at Livadia in the Crimea in 1914.
Index
Academy of Sciences ref 1
Admiralty ref 1, ref 2, ref 3
Akulina, Sister ref 1
Albert, Prince ref 1, ref 2
Alexander, Father ref 1
Alexander II, Tsar ref 1, ref 2, ref 3
Alexander III, Tsar ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4, ref 5, ref 6, ref 7, ref 8, ref 9, ref 10
Alexander Palace ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4, ref 5
see also Tsarskoe Selo
Alexander, Uncle ref 1
Alexandra, Princess of Wales (sister of Minnie) ref 1, ref 2
Alexandra, Tsarina (‘Alicky’; ‘Alix’)
and abdication of Nicholas ref 1
arrest of ref 1
attends sister Ella’s wedding ref 1
attends Uncle Arthur’s wedding ref 1
attitude towards Bloody Sunday ref 1
attitude towards Germany ref 1, ref 2
believes Alexei will become Tsar ref 1
birth of children ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4, ref 5
caricature drawings by ref 1
charitable work of ref 1
contacted by Nicholas after 1917 revolution ref 1, ref 2
coronation of ref 1
correspondence of see under recipient name
courtship by Nicholas ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4, ref 5
death of father ref 1
death of mother ref 1
death threats to ref 1, ref 2
and death of Tsar Alexander III ref 1
destroys correspondence ref 1
diary-keeping ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4
education of ref 1
emigration plans ref 1
engagem
ent to Nicholas ref 1
European tour (1896) ref 1
execution of ref 1
faith in people ref 1, ref 2, ref 3
falls in love with Nicholas ref 1, ref 2, ref 3
financial cutbacks of ref 1, ref 2
funeral of ref 1
hides jewels ref 1, ref 2, ref 3
hobbies of ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4, ref 5, ref 6, ref 7
hostility towards ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4, ref 5, ref 6, ref 7, ref 8, ref 9, ref 10
ill health of ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4, ref 5, ref 6, ref 7, ref 8, ref 9, ref 10, ref 11, ref 12, ref 13, ref 14, ref 15, ref 16, ref 17, ref 18, ref 19, ref 20, ref 21, ref 22, ref 23, ref 24, ref 25, ref 26, ref 27, ref 28
imprisoned at Alexander Palace ref 1
imprisoned at Ekaterinburg ref 1
imprisoned at Tobolsk ref 1
influence over Nicholas ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4, ref 5, ref 6, ref 7, ref 8, ref 9, ref 10
intellectual pursuits of ref 1
interrogated by Kerensky ref 1
isolation of ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4, ref 5, ref 6, ref 7, ref 8, ref 9
leadership skills of ref 1, ref 2
leaves Alexander Palace after revolution ref 1
loyalty to Nicholas ref 1, ref 2, ref 3
marries Nicholas ref 1
match-making for ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4, ref 5
meets Nicholas for first time ref 1
meets Provisional Government ref 1
miscarries child ref 1
as mother ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4, ref 5, ref 6, ref 7, ref 8
mourns Father Gregory (‘Rasputin’) ref 1
and mutiny at Alexander Palace ref 1
need for orderliness ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4
nursing work ref 1, ref 2
and occultism ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4, ref 5
patriotism of ref 1
personal characteristics ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4, ref 5, ref 6, ref 7, ref 8
phantom pregnancy ref 1, ref 2