Alexander II

by Edvard Radzinsky

  On the morning of August 17, the emperor returned to St. Petersburg from Tsarskoye Selo, planning to leave for Livadia that evening. A carriage awaited him at the train station, and surrounded by an escort of Cossacks, the tsar set off for the Winter Palace. The usual journey took the imperial cavalcade over the Kamenny Bridge.

  Certain young people had started boating frequently under that bridge. They included fat, round-faced Alexander Mikhailov (who after Kvyatkovsky’s arrest had become the sole leader of People’s Will), the tall and bearded Zhelyabov, who was head of the fighters, and the pleasant intellectual in pince-nez, the chief dynamiter Kibalchich. Mikhailov had come up with this plan. He felt pressured to act fast, because it was clear that Loris-Melikov was moving public opinion in favor of the regime. Terrorism was losing its popularity.

  Kibalchich himself made the calculations: 250 pounds of dynamite were placed under the supports of the bridge. This would lift the tsar’s carriage into the air, along with the bridge itself. In waterproof rubber cushions, the dynamite had been lowered to the bottom of the river. The wires were brought out to the plank dock by the shore where women did laundry. There, the terrorists would join the wires of their latest gift for the tsar.

  On August 17, the royal carriage approached the bridge, completely surrounded by the Cossack escort. The horses galloped, and the carriage and men on horseback seemed to fly over the bridge. There was no explosion.

  This time the explanation was quite prosaic: One of the main team members had overslept. The terrorist Teterka had no watch, and he reached the bridge after the carriage had passed over it.

  God had saved the tsar once again. If the gypsy’s prediction were to be believed, two attempts on his life stood between the tsar and his death.

  Late in the evening of August 17, the imperial train left for the Crimea. Princess Yuryevskaya and the children were brought to the station. Since their marriage, she went everywhere with him, to Tsarskoye Selo and Peterhof. She told him that after the explosion on the train, she would not let him go alone. If he were to die, they would all die with him. Previously, she had traveled in a separate railroad car, and the officials accompanying the tsar pretended not to know who the lady was.

  But now a tiny revolution occurred—the princess and children were escorted to the tsar’s car. She took the compartment that had been the empress’s. The retinue was flabbergasted. The marriage was supposed to be kept secret for a year. An even greater surprise occurred in Livadia. The princess did not depart, as usual, for the small villa in Byuk-Sarai. Instead, she moved into the Livadia Palace with the tsar. He had her move into the apartments of the late empress. Now, the retinue realized what Loris-Melikov had seen earlier. There would be a new empress.

  They were together all the time in Livadia. They went for rides in his carriage, they rode horseback, they played with the children on the grounds, and in the evening they sat together on the upper veranda, cuddling and gazing at the sea.

  They were together when Loris-Melikov came to discuss the coming constitution and the end of autocracy. On August 30, the main executor of the reform, its public face, cavalry general, adjutant general, and minister of internal affairs, Count Loris-Melikov was given the empire’s highest honor, the Order of St. Andrew.

  The emperor strengthened his loyal associate before the outrage of the court and the powerful retrogrades descended upon him.

  They worked on the project every day. Ministers were summoned to Livadia. It was a plan for elected representatives from the zemstvos and towns to participate in the legislative work of the State Council. This was what he had long ago asked Minister Valuyev to elaborate, what he had discussed with Kostya before the Winter Palace bombing, and had not done. But now, he was ready.

  This reform, modest by European standards, was revolutionary for Russia. For the first time a European principle was being introduced into the highest state institution—the principle of popular representation. A principle hated by his father. For the first time, elected representatives would be able to participate in the discussion of new laws.

  Elections would undermine the very concept of autocracy, the holy of holies. The transformed State Council could not be considered a parliament, but it could be the embryo and forerunner of one. In Russian history, this reform came to be known as the Constitution of Loris-Melikov.

  It was not yet a constitution, but as the emperor would tell the heir, “We are moving toward a constitution.” This is how they prepared for the next blow against their Asiatic past. It was the path toward Europe.

  But once he had decided on this project, the tsar began his old game, vacillating, hesitating, tormenting himself and everyone around him. But Loris-Melikov had figured out his psychology. The tsar wanted everyone to insist and force him. Loris-Melikov and Katya kept after Alexander.

  The tsarevich came with his family to visit the tsar in Livadia, and saw that Katya had been moved into his late mother’s rooms. The tsarevich was offended, and the wise tsarevna understood that something serious was afoot. These were the hateful princess’s first steps to the throne. The tsarevna made the heir even more upset, so that he told his father that the situation was intolerable. He was going to Denmark to stay with the tsarevna’s family. Alexander replied like a true autocrat: “Then you will no longer be the heir to the throne.”

  The son’s rebellion was quelled. The tsarevich, gritting his teeth, had to be polite to the princess. His father took pity on him and spared his feelings. Every Sunday the emperor had the ministers brought to Livadia to dine with him. That Sunday his son and the tsarevna sat next to the tsar. But the following Sunday the tsarevich and tsarevna were sent for a long walk to visit the grand dukes, whose palaces were nearby, while Princess Yuryevskaya sat next to the tsar at the dinner table. The tsar introduced her to the ministers. She was becoming more of an empress every day.

  The heir took his family back to St. Petersburg.

  Everything was going well, but premonitions disturbed him. Despite all of Loris-Melikov’s success, there was something ominous in the quiet. The closer they were to returning to St. Petersburg, the more he thought of death.

  On September 11, the emperor sent instructions from Livadia to have 3,302,900 rubles transferred to the State Bank for the account of Ekaterina Mikhailovna Dolgorukaya. He wrote: “I give the right to her alone to use this capital in my lifetime and after my death.”

  In early November he wrote from Livadia to his son, who had left. “Dear Sasha, In the event of my death I entrust my wife and children to your care. Your friendly disposition toward them, which you displayed from the very first and which was a true joy for us, makes me believe that you will not abandon them and will be their patron and kind advisor…. In my wife’s lifetime, our children must be only under her guardianship. But if Almighty God calls her before they reach their majority, I wish General Ryleev, or another person of his choice and with your approval, to be appointed as their guardian. My wife did not inherit anything from her family. Thus, all property that she now owns, including real estate, has been acquired by her personally, and her family has no rights to this property…. Until our marriage is announced, the capital I put in the State Bank for her, belongs to my wife by force of the document I gave her.

  “This is my last will, and I am certain that you will execute it diligently. God’s blessings upon you! Don’t forget me and pray for your Pa, who loves you tenderly.”

  He knew that his son was kind, and that after receiving that letter, would take care of her and the children.

  On November 12, the emperor decided to return to St. Petersburg. Loris-Melikov’s department was on the alert and the police found an infernal machine under the railroad bed near the Lozovaya station. The People’s Will were still active, but Russia’s police were finally improving.

  The tsar was leaving Livadia for the last time. As usual, he stopped over in Moscow. Princess Yuryevskaya lived with him in the Nikolayevsky Palace, where he was born.


  On November 21 at noon the imperial train arrived from Moscow in St. Petersburg. Usually, he was greeted by the whole Romanov family upon his return from the Crimea. But the ceremony prescribed for such an official welcome required his morganatic wife to follow in the procession behind all the grand duchesses. He did not permit her to be humiliated this way. The formal welcome was canceled. He commanded the train to be stopped at a small station near St. Petersburg, and he had his meeting with the Romanovs in his car.

  When they reached the capital, the emperor, the princess, and their children left the train, got in a carriage surrounded by Cossacks, and headed for the Winter Palace. A new present awaited her there. Instead of the pathetic three rooms in which she had lived, now a magnificent apartment was made ready for her—a habitat fit for an empress.

  Work on the project proceeded quickly. In January 1881 the tsar received a report from Loris-Melikov with a draft. He read it and expressed no objections. That meant it was almost done. The tsar decided to convene a secret commission for a special session to polish the text.

  “My dear Ekaterina Fedorovna,” wrote Pobedonostsev hopelessly to Tyutcheva. “Another year has passed, a difficult and terrible one, leaving lots of broken pieces. Loris is a master at manipulating and charming…. He created two bases for himself with amazing speed—both in the Winter Palace and in Anichkov Palace. He became indispensable to the tsar, a security screen. He eased access to the tsar for the heir and gave him ready answers to all his questions, Ariadne’s thread to follow out of any labyrinth. Upon the death of the empress, he grew even stronger, because he untangled an even more difficult knot in the tangled family and found a third base of support in that woman…. This fateful reign is pulling toward a fatal fall into an abyss. Forgive this man, O Lord, he knows not what he does, and now he knows even less. Now you can’t see anything in him except [debauched Assyrian King] Sardanapal…I am pained and ashamed, it sickens me to look at him, and I sense that he does not like or trust me. I hurry to conclude this letter so to give to someone for you…. May God preserve you.”

  Such letters could not be trusted to the post. Loris-Melikov had instituted total surveillance. The police read all mail, even spoiling a chess game played by mail between Moscow and St. Petersburg, because they thought the chess moves were code. Letters like this had to go with trusted travelers, and there were many trusted people around Pobedonostsev.

  The tsar continued introducing his wife to the high officials. Madly in love, he could not imagine that everyone else did not share his delight in her. He invited Pobedonostsev. Naturally, a description of the meeting was sent to Ekaterina Tyutcheva in Moscow. “She wore a black silk dress, only slightly open, with a diamond star on a velvet ribbon around her neck. The tsar looked pleased and happy and was voluble. She sat on the tsar’s right and I on his left. Next to her was Loris-Melikov, with whom she kept talking in a low voice…. I found her unpleasant and very vulgar. I see no beauty in her. However, her complexion is very fine. The eyes, by themselves, would be attractive, I suppose, only her gaze has no depth—the kind in which transparency and naïveté meet with lifelessness and stupidity…. How it irks me to see her in the place of the dear, wise, and graceful empress!”

  He managed to find the beautiful woman vulgar and ugly, as did all the elderly ladies-in-waiting of the late empress. “How it irks me to see her in the place of the dear, wise, and graceful empress!” That was the refrain of the aging court of Alexander II. But the besotted emperor continued bringing the Romanov family together with the princess.

  The tsar’s brother, Grand Duke Mikhail Nikolayevich, viceroy in the Caucasus, was invited to one of the family receptions. Later his son, Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich, recalled: “On Sunday evening the members of the imperial family met at the Winter Palace around the dinner table to meet Princess Yuryevskaya. The voice of the master of ceremonies after he banged three times with the ivory-handled staff was uncertain: ‘His Majesty and Serene Princess Yuryevskaya.’

  The grand duchesses were not warmly welcoming. “My mother looked to one side, the tsarevna Maria Fedorovna looked at the floor. The emperor walked in quickly, leading a pretty young woman by the hand. He nodded cheerfully at my father and looked searchingly at the mighty figure of the heir.

  “Counting on the complete loyalty of his brother (our father), he had no illusions regarding the views of the heir on his second marriage.

  “Princess Yuryevskaya graciously responded to the polite bows from the Grand Duchesses and Dukes and sat next to the Emperor in the chair of the late empress.

  “The many years of living together had not decreased their mutual adoration. At sixty-four, Emperor Alexander II behaved with her like an eighteen-year-old boy. He whispered words of encouragement in her small ear. He asked whether she liked the wines. He agreed with everything she said. He watched us all with a friendly smile, as if inviting us to rejoice in his happiness, he joked with me and my brothers….

  “Full of curiosity, I did not take my eyes off Princess Yuryevskaya. I liked the expression of her sad face and the radiant glow from her light hair. It was obvious that she was nervous. She turned to the emperor frequently, and he patted her arm soothingly. She certainly would have conquered the hearts of all the men, but the women were watching them, and all her attempts to take part in the general conversation were met with polite, cold silence. I pitied her and could not understand why they treated her scornfully for falling in love with a handsome, jolly, and kind man who to her misfortune was the Emperor of All Russia.

  “At the end of the meal the governess brought in their three children.

  “‘And here’s my Goga!’ the emperor exclaimed proudly, picking up a merry little boy and putting him on his shoulder. ‘Tell us, Goga, what is your name?’

  “‘My name is Prince Georgy Alexandrovich Yuryevsky,’ Goga replied and started playing the emperor’s side-whiskers, tugging at them with his little fingers.

  “‘I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, Prince Yuryevsky!’ joked the tsar. ‘And wouldn’t you like to become a grand duke, young man?’

  “‘Sasha, for God’s sake, drop it!’ the princess said anxiously.

  “With that joke, Alexander II rather clumsily tested his relatives on the question of adopting his morganatic children. Princess Yuryevskaya was extremely embarrassed, and for the first time forgot court etiquette and called the tsar, her spouse, by a diminutive in the hearing of others.

  “On the trip back from the Winter Palace, we witnessed a new argument between our parents: ‘Whatever you may say,’ my mother declared, ‘I will never recognize that adventuress. I hate her! She is despicable. How dare she in the presence of the entire imperial family call your brother Sasha.’

  “My father sighed and shook his head in despair. ‘You still do not wish to understand, my dear,’ he replied meekly, ‘good or bad, she is married to the sovereign. Since when have women been forbidden to use a diminutive for their legal husbands in the presence of others? Do you call me Your Imperial Highness?’

  “‘How can you make such stupid comparison!’ said my mother with tears in her eyes. ‘I haven’t broken anyone’s family. I married you with the consent of my parents and yours. I am not planning the destruction of the empire!’”

  They would later accuse Rasputin of the same evil intentions.

  The Romanov family understood his question, “And wouldn’t you like to become a grand duke, young man?” They knew Alexander’s character; he would not put up with the current situation, when the emperor’s wife had to give way to grand dukes and duchesses and sit at the end of the table between the prince of Oldenburg and Duke Nicolas of Leichtenberg. He would have to crown her empress. And that would make his son a grand duke. And if that happened, would the next step follow? Would he want to give Russia a new heir instead of the son he did not love?

  Their fears were not groundless. The daughter of Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna, whose name was also Ekaterina Mikhailovna, like
Katya, soon related that the tsar, playing with little Goga, said, “This is a real Russian. He, at least, has only Russian blood flowing in him.”

  Then came more troubling information. Allegedly the tsar said, “At least there will be a tsar with Russian blood on the Russian throne.” They also repeated Loris-Melikov’s servile words: “When the Russian people meet Your Majesty’s son, they will say as one, ‘This is our man.’”

  Aware of the danger, the tsarevich became even more obedient. During a discussion of the Loris-Melikov project, the tsarevich expressed his total agreement with the will of his father. On January 17, Loris-Melikov returned from a conversation with the heir at Anichkov Palace and told Princess Yuryevskaya triumphantly: “Now the heir is completely with us.”

  The tsar appointed the heir head of the secret special session that would complete the elaboration of the project. As he had in the days of the emancipation, Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich took a very active part in this project, becoming chairman of the State Council, where the reform was to take place.

  But the tsar was frightened by the combination of Kostya’s enthusiasm and Loris-Melikov’s energy. He was wary of their dangerous impatience. Alexander planned to watch carefully the elections of the representatives of the zemstvos and cities to the State Council. He said, “All of Louis XVI’s problems began when he convened the notables. The notables were rebels.”

  Despite all his doubts, on February 17, Alexander II approved the report of the special session and wrote: “Execute.” The new reform would live.

  On February 19, they celebrated the anniversary of his first major reform. A quarter century had passed since he had emancipated the serfs. There were more rumors of terrorist actions, and many wealthy people left St. Petersburg. The festivities were unmarred. The tsar appeared with his children on the balcony, the band played “God Save the Tsar.” Then came the artillery salute, followed by the tsar’s Grand Entrance. The five hundred people of his retinue awaited Alexander.