Alexander II

by Edvard Radzinsky

  In her will she asked to be buried in a simple white dress without the royal crown. “I also wish, if it is possible, to have no autopsy.” Most of the time, she slept. She also began having hallucinations, seeing beloved faces and talking to them. She would realize that it was her imagination and stop.

  On the night of May 21, the tsar wanted to go to Tsarskoye Selo, where Katya and the children were living. He visited the empress and her condition worried him. He spoke with Dr. Botkin, wondering whether he should stay in town. “The revered Botkin declared with the confidence typical of doctors that he vouched for the tsaritsa’s life for that night…. However, it was during that night that the angel of death came for her very quietly, while the palace slept…. A solitary death was the final chord in a life so far from vanity and earthly fame,” wrote Tolstaya.

  No one was with her when she died. Her chamber lady Makushina came in at eight and found the empress. The emperor was informed that she had died quietly, without pain, in her sleep.

  In the morning War Minister Milyutin came for his daily report to Alexander in Tsarskoye Selo. He learned that the tsar had just been told of the empress’s death and had left for St. Petersburg by special train.

  “I hurried back to town, where I was commanded to come to the Winter Palace. It was after eleven when I entered with my report. The tsar was sad and nervous, but he had the patience to listen to my usual report.”

  During his conference, Makushina came in “with various rings and other pieces of jewelry that the empress usually wore. The tsar went through them himself and decided which to place on the corpse and which he wanted to keep as mementos.”

  After her death, besides her will, they found just one letter, addressed to the tsar and written long ago. She had saved it. In it, she thanked Alexander for her happy life with him.

  Mourning was declared in St. Petersburg. While the members of the Romanov family waited to see Alexander’s next steps, there was agitation in Moscow—but for another reason. The long-anticipated unveiling of a monument to Pushkin approached, and the organizers feared that the ceremonies and festivities would have to be postponed because of the mourning. In the end, the mourning period was not long or strict (for which there were good reasons), and the tsar permitted the festivities in Moscow.

  Besides writers, professors, and representatives of the press, ambassadors from almost every public organization in the country, including choral societies, came to Moscow. There were numerous deputations with church banners and wreaths, and the halls were filled with crowds of admirers of the famous authors participating in the events.

  The political spring that began with the appointment of Loris-Melikov had reinvigorated society, and the Pushkin festivities were a sign of that awakening. The occasion took three days. On the third, final day, Fedor Dostoevsky gave a speech about Pushkin. It remains one of the greatest and loveliest legends in the history of Russian literature.

  Reading the speech today is not the same as experiencing what occurred in the auditorium. “When he finished his speech, there was a moment of silence, and then, like a dam bursting, came unprecedented elation. Applause, shouts, banging of chairs—it all blended into one sound. Many wept, turning to strangers with exclamations and greetings; many rushed to the stage, where lay a young man who had passed out from the overwhelming emotions he experienced. Almost everyone was in a state that if the orator had called on them, they would have followed him anywhere. This must have been the effect Savoranola had on crowds in the distant past.”

  The reminiscences of all witnesses are the same: “When he concluded, something incredible began…there wasn’t a person who wasn’t clapping, banging, or shouting ‘bravo’ in a frenzy…women waved their hankies hysterically…people jumped up on chairs, the better to shout and wave their kerchiefs from there…hats and top hats flew into the air. People embraced universally. A young man in ecstasy rushed to Dostoevsky on the stage and fell in a nervous faint…. Then severalcharming college girls came out with a huge laurel wreath…God knows where they got it.”

  “After Dostoevsky the head of the Moscow Slavophiles, Ivan Sergeyevich Aksakov, was supposed to speak. But he…announced that he was in no shape to speak after Fedor Mikhailovich.”

  What created this triumph? First, it was Dostoevsky himself, “a hypnotic man.” He came out to speak, with rounded shoulders, not very tall, head bent, tired eyes, hesitant gestures, and quiet voice. His face was unattractive and sickly pale, with a sparse reddish beard. The light chestnut hair with a reddish cast was thin and soft, carefully slicked back with pomade.

  He began dryly, as if wound tight, with no movements, not a single gesture; only his thin, bloodless lips moved nervously when he spoke. But gradually, he was completely transformed. His small light brown eyes expanded and glowed. His arm moved imperiously. The audience, entranced by the hypnotic power of his words, could not pull away from those eyes, from the gesturing hand of the prophet.

  The magnificent moment of that speech is not all that has vanished. The other component of his outstanding success is also gone—the burning topicality of the speech. It was desperately needed by the society divided by enmity; it was a uniting speech, so rarely popular in Russia. Speaking about Pushkin, Dostoevsky naturally spoke of his own times. He addressed a crazed Russia vacillating at the brink. He spoke of the tragedy of Aleko, the protagonist of Pushkin’s narrative poem The Gypsies, the proud murderer who dreamed of freedom and who (as Dostoevsky wrote in Diary of a Writer) “needed universal happiness…he would not accept anything less.” The audience knew that he was addressing other murderers who also believed that they were killing for the sake of freedom and who also dreamed of universal happiness.

  He entreated them: “Humble yourself, proud man, and only then will you be free!” “Labor, idler!” He addressed those wretches who had forgotten what productive labor was, devoting their talents and youth to revenge and killing.

  “These young wastrels who every day eat bread made with another’s labor, do they have the right to any pride? If you take any of those possessed people and ask them what, finally, are their contributions to society, what tangible efforts permit them to live this way, there will be none. The great majority of them are parasites or semiparasites,” wrote a contemporary meanly about the young terrorists.

  But that was the point: In Dostoevsky’s speech there was no anger. No reproach. Only love for the lost, only one fervent prayer—to repent, to unite, and love one another.

  With this love he appealed to the two ever-hostile camps, the Westernizers and Slavophiles, who called their war “holy.” He told them there was no point in fighting each other, since there were no contradictions in their views. “‘We must be Russian and be proud of it,’ the Slavophiles say. But to become a true Russian, you must be the brother of all men…for the destiny of the Russian is indubitably European, universal, as the Westernizers dream…. Oh, the nations of Europe, they do not even know how dear they are to us!”

  Uniting all in love, forgiveness, and humility before God was what the writer begged Russia to do. This stunned the audience, used to endless arguments, debates, and malice. The Pushkin speech was Dostoevsky’s anointment as a prophet in the eyes of Russians.

  At the end of the year, Pobedonostsev tried to bring Dostoevsky into the Anichkov Palace party. He arranged a meeting of the writer with the tsarevich and tsarevna.

  On December 16, 1880, Dostoevsky came to the palace. While there, Dostoevsky consistently violated all the rules of court etiquette. He stood whenever he wanted, he spoke first, and in departure he turned his back on the tsarevich, instead of backing out of his presence. “This is probably the only instance in the life of the future Alexander III that he was treated like an ordinary mortal,” Dostoevsky’s daughter wrote.

  It’s unlikely that this “inner freedom” would have pleased the heir. And it’s unlikely that Dostoevsky did not know that. The writer remembered the words of his beloved Pushkin: “Spare us more th
an all sorrows the master’s wrath and the master’s love.” A wild steed cannot live in a political enclosure. It was impossible for free thought. It was impossible for the writer who wrote, “I have only one moral model—Christ.”

  The denouement of Alexander’s private intrigues came sooner than expected in St. Petersburg. The tsar waited until after the memorial services on the fortieth day after the empress’s death and then he summoned Adlerberg. The minister of the court heard what he had feared. The tsar announced that he had decided to marry Katya. The games between the tsar and the minister, the secret of Polichinelle, were over.

  Adlerberg tried to persuade him against it: The official year of mourning had only begun, this was a challenge to the Romanov family, to religion, to custom. The response was, “I am the sovereign and the only judge of my actions.” The tsar ordered him to organize the wedding and to take part in the ceremony.

  He was in a hurry to wed. He valued every day he lived without an assassination attempt. What if they killed him or he died on his own? Katya and the children would be left with nothing.

  One romantic element remained: They married in secret.

  The wedding took place on July 6, 1880, at 3:00 P.M. in Tsarskoye Selo. He led the bride into the room where a field altar had been set up. The senior priest of the Winter Palace, Father Ksenofont Yakovlevich Nikolsky, officiated. There were only a few people present, the tsar’s closest associates, Adlerberg and two adjutant generals, Eduard Baranov and Alexander Ryleev. They held the wedding crowns over the heads of the bride and groom during the ceremony.

  The guests were uncomfortable, but the tsar was in excellent spirits, joking and clearly happy. He wore the pale blue Hussars uniform and she a formal wedding gown.

  The witnesses signed the marriage certificate: “On the sixth of July eighteen hundred eighty, at three o’clock in the afternoon, in the field church of the Tsarskoye Selo Palace, His Imperial Majesty of All Russia Alexander Nikolayevich deigned to enter a second time into a legal marriage with lady-in-waiting Princess Ekaterina Mikhailovna Dolgorukaya. We, the undersigned, were witnesses to the marriage and have written this certificate and confirm it with our signatures, July 6, 1880.”

  It was signed: “Adjutant General Count Alexander Vladimirovich Adlerberg. Adjutant General Eduard Trofimovich Baranov. Adjutant General Alexander Mikhailovich Ryleev.”

  After the ceremony, the tsar invited his wife for a carriage ride. The weather was perfect and he felt at peace. Now he did not have to worry about the future.

  By the next morning, of course, the court knew. The ladies-in-waiting of the late empress were stunned and angered. The witnesses had to justify their behavior by explaining they were commanded to do so. The news traveled instantly from Tsarskoye Selo to St. Petersburg. Mme Bogdanovich recorded her “profound indignation” in her diary. The general reaction was “the old emperor has immediately forgotten his poor wife and married a young debauched woman.”

  The two-faced Janus didn’t get it, yet again. The despot Peter the Great could marry a cook and make her an empress—precisely because he was a despot. Alexander, who wanted to rule European-style, had to think about public perception all the time. But he had been brought up by his father, and he could not get used to the idea of public accountability.

  That night she slept in the palace, in his bed, and he sat at his desk and finalized formalities. He signed the necessary decree: “To the Government Senate: Having entered a second time into a legal marriage, with Princess Ekaterina Mikhailovna Dolgorukaya, we command her to be named Princess Yuryevskaya with the title Serene Princess. We command that the same name with the same title be given to our children: our son, Georgii, our daughters Olga and Ekaterina, and also to any others that might be born subsequently, and we confer upon them all the rights of legitimate children in accordance with art. 14 of the empire’s basic laws and art. 147 of the Statutes on the Imperial Family.

  “Alexander.

  “Tsarskoye Selo 6 July 1880.”

  Their children, Georgii, Olga, and two-year-old Ekaterina, born in 1878, became serene princes. But according to the Statutes on the Imperial Family, “Children of a marriage between a person of the imperial family with a person without the appropriate qualifications, that is, not of royal or ruling family, do not have the right to the throne.” The rules for morganatic marriage were clear. That should have appeased the court and the heir.

  But they all knew that this was an autocratic state and the laws were changed by the sovereigns. “There is no will but the tsar’s,” as General Cherevin, friend of the heir, liked to say.

  The next morning Loris-Melikov was summoned to Tsarskoye Selo. Alexander informed the count of his new marriage and told him it had to be kept secret for now. He added, “I know how loyal you are to me. From now on you must be just as loyal to my wife and my children.” Then Alexander switched to current affairs. But after that, Katya, now the serene princess Yuryevskaya, was often present during their meetings. The count understood that the tsar was showing him that this was the future empress. The title of serene princess was only the first step. Wise Loris-Melikov sometimes consulted with her before his meetings with the tsar—he knew how much it pleased him.

  The heir, who had been at a spa in Gapsal, Estonia, returned to St. Petersburg, where he was immediately told the “secret.” He was stunned. Deeply religious and monogamous, he never did understand his father’s sinful life, but now, for Alexander to marry before the mourning period was over was too much.

  Three days later the emperor summoned his son to Tsarskoye Selo. He told him about his marriage and explained his reasoning. The heir found the reasons shameful. The autocrat of Russia was afraid of being killed by a band of villains he was unable to control. They had forced the divinely anointed ruler to violate church laws. They were controlling his actions.

  The heir was told that the marriage would be kept secret until the year’s mourning was over. And that Princess Yuryevskaya and her children naturally had no rights to the throne and that she would never overstep her modest role.

  At their first meeting, the wife of the emperor, Serene Princess Yuryevskaya, kissed the hand of the tsarevna, as was required by the etiquette for morganatic spouses.

  The summer of I88O passed tranquilly. August began, and there were still no attempts on his life. But there was trouble brewing at court and in the Romanov family. The grand duchesses, the wives of his brothers, were old women and they remained outraged by his marriage. Clearly they feared it would set a bad example. Their ladies-in-waiting and those of the late empress kept inventing terrible stories about “the odalisque.” They even managed to find that the great beauty wasn’t beautiful at all—and poorly brought up, at that.

  Things got worse. Adlerberg told them that she dared to discuss state affairs with Loris-Melikov, and this gave rise to the rumor that would find its way into their memoirs and move into the works of many historians: The emperor had turned into a useless old man who was bossed by his young and stupid wife and the sly Armenian general.

  The rumor grew stronger as it became more evident to the camarilla which way the emperor was leading the country. Princess Yuryevskaya was turned into a forerunner of Rasputin. Like Rasputin, she divided the Romanov family, and the opposition used her image to undermine the tsar’s prestige.

  Alexander ignored the family rebellion because his main goal had been achieved. He stopped the country from going over the brink into the abyss. His decision to bank on reform had been justified. Loris-Melikov reported the joyous tidings: It was time to disband the Supreme Administrative Commission.

  The news was announced on August 6. Russia was returning to normal life and Count Loris-Melikov was giving up his dictatorial powers. At the same time the main symbol of oppression of public life, the Third Department of His Majesty’s Chancellery, was being destroyed.

  To replace it, the powerful Ministry of Internal Affairs was created, with a Police Department within it. The functions an
d personnel of the Third Department were moved there. Count Loris-Melikov was appointed as the new minister of internal affairs, of course, and he also became chief of the Gendarme Corps.

  It was mid-August. The tsar was preparing to leave the city for his traditional vacation in the Crimea, in the Livadia Palace. Before leaving, he accomplished an extremely important separation of his son from the opposition. Loris-Melikov and the emperor met with the heir. Alexander knew that for all his stubbornness, the heir was a weakling, easily broken.

  Loris-Melikov had the floor, and he explained to the tsarevich that reprisals only led to an increase in the influence of the revolutionaries, while the new policy had made the public turn toward the regime. The Fox Tail knew how to put things extremely simply, unlike the complex perorations of Pobedonostsev. The emperor was menacingly and significantly silent. That evening Loris-Melikov wrote to Mme Shebeko, Dolgorukaya’s dearest friend, “As far as I can judge, the report I made today to the heir did not make a poor impression on him. Thank the Lord!”

  Loris-Melikov was too modest. The tsarevich had once again become the obedient heir, as had been his father, his grandfather, and his great-grandfather. He was the executor of his father’s will.

  Now Alexander could leave St. Petersburg to the tsarevich’s care. The emperor took Loris-Melikov with him. In Livadia they would work on the greatest transformation, the final goal. In blessedly gorgeous surroundings, far from the capital fraught with strife, he wanted to think through his most risky project. He wanted to make reality out of Count Geiden’s phrase: “To preserve autocracy you must limit it.” It was the lifelong dream of Kostya and the liberal bureaucrats.