On September 22 (October 6, New Style) I went in the evening to a
lecture in a church. At that time every non-Bolshevist spent as many
hours every day as possible in the churches, praying or listening to
words of hope and comfort from the priests. The church was, in fact, the
only home of peace and rest in the whole of the distracted country. That
particular night in church I met some old friends who invited me to go
home with them rather than walk the long and dreary, even the dangerous
way back to my lodgings. I stayed with my friends that night, and the
next morning early I went to mass in the little church where Father John
of Kronstadt lies buried. I reached home about midday, and found the
place in the possession of soldiers, two of whom had waited the entire
night to arrest me, this time as a hostage, the White Army being
reported within a few miles of Petrograd. My sick mother prepared me a
little food, made a parcel of my scanty linen, and once more we bade
each other the despairing farewell of two who knew that they might never
meet again on earth. I was quickly conveyed to the headquarters of the
Chekha where I was greeted with the exultant welcome: “Aha! Here we have
the bird who has dared to stay out a whole night.”
Thrust into the old filthy, ill-smelling cell room I found a spot near a
dirty window from which I could get a far glimpse of the golden dome of
St. Isaac’s Cathedral. During my whole term in this place I kept my eyes
and my whole mind on that golden dome, trying to forget the hell that
whirled around me. The woman in charge of the room was a Finnish girl
who had committed the crime of trying to run away to Finland. She was a
stenographer and clerk, and the Chekha used her by night as an office
assistant. Whether by nature or by association she had become as hard
and as ruthless as her captors, and her imprisonment had many
mitigations. It was her pleasant duty to make out the lists of those
who, twice a week, were taken to Kronstadt to be shot, and her reports
on the subject which she confided regularly to her chosen comrade, a
Georgian dancer named Menabde, were enough to sicken even those of us
who had become accustomed to wholesale slaughter of unoffending human
beings. We heard little else except death and threats of death in this
place. There was an official named Boze in the prison, and often we
heard him screeching through the telephone to his wife that he would be
late to dinner that night because he had a load of “game” to get off to
Kronstadt. Under such conditions pity and sympathy become strangely
dulled. On occasions when I was sent to the kitchens for hot water I
used to get glimpses of the “game,” huddled wretchedly in their seats or
restlessly pacing their cells--waiting. Often when I returned with the
water I found the seats and the cells empty, and although my heart sank
and my senses swam, I never felt the screaming horror a normal person
would have felt. This dulling of the emotions, I suppose, is nature’s
way of keeping the mind from giving way entirely. Of course nature took
away all human dignity and self-respect, this, too, in mercy. Any
prisoner who went to the kitchens was greeted with jeers and foul abuse
from the cooks who threw us handfuls of potato parings and withered
cabbage leaves, quite as one would throw bones to dogs. Like dogs we
eagerly snatched at these leavings, because the prisoners’ regular
rations were nothing half as palatable, being mostly wormy dried fish
and a disgusting substitute for bread.
One day I was called up for examination, and this time a real surprise
awaited me. My judge was an Esthonian named Otto, not altogether a
brutal man, as it turned out. As I approached his desk he regarded me
grimly and without a word handed me a letter, unsigned, and reading
about as follows: “To the Lady in Waiting, Anna Viroubova. You are the
only one who can save us from this terrible Bolshevik administration, as
you are at the head of a great organization fully equipped with guns and
ammunition.” Sternly the Esthonian judge commanded me to tell him the
truth about the organization of which I was the head. Of course I told
him that the whole thing was an invention, and he astonished me by
saying that although the letter had been posted to my address he had
very much doubted its verity. Then he asked, almost gently: “Are you
very hungry?” Taken off my guard as much by the kindness as by the
prospect of food, I fell against the desk murmuring only half aloud:
“Hungry? Yes, oh, yes.” Whereupon he opened a drawer of his desk and
handed me a large piece of fresh, sweet bread. “Go now,” he said, “and
I will discuss your case with my colleague Vikman. In the evening we
will see you again.”
At eleven that night I was again summoned, this time before the two men.
The Esthonian, still kind and courteous, gave me a glass of steaming
tea, which did much to lend me courage. Both he and Vikman then put me
through a searching examination especially about my relations, real and
assumed, with the Imperial Family and with persons of the Court. At
three in the morning they released me, more dead than alive with
fatigue, Otto telling me heartily that he thought I would be set free
within a few days. Vikman, however, declared that my case would have to
be referred to Moscow and that I need not expect an early release. I
went back to my evil cage expecting nothing. I knew, that the threat of
the White Army advance filled with terror the whole Bolshevist
population, and that in case of actual battle no life outside the slim
Communist ranks would be worth the smallest scrap of their worthless
paper money.
Very shortly after my return to the cell room I began to hear my name
whispered from one wretched woman to another, and I accepted this
without much emotion as a prelude to a boat journey to Kronstadt. Early
on a certain morning a soldier approached the door and bawled out:
“Tanieva, you to Moscow.” I happened to be exceedingly ill that day, but
mechanically I picked up my little handkerchief containing my few
possessions, including a Bible, and followed the escort of two soldiers
down the steep steps, as I believed, to my death. Perhaps they had
orders to take me to Kronstadt, I cannot be sure of that, but I do know
that the route we followed did not lead to the Moscow station. We had
walked but a short distance when one of the soldiers said to the other:
“What’s the good of two of us bothering with one lame woman? I’ll take
care of her and you can go along. It will soon be over anyway.” Nothing
loath the other soldier, glad to get out of anything resembling work,
took himself off while I, in charge of one armed man, mounted the
crowded tram and rode on toward an unknown destination. At a certain
point we had to change trams, and here occurred an incident so
extraordinary that I almost hesitate to strain the credulity of a
non-Russian reader by relating it. The second tram had been delayed for
some reason, and a considerable crowd of passengers was waiting for it
on the street corner. My soldier stood at my side waiting with the rest,
but soon he became impatient. Ordering me not to move an inch in his
absence, he ran down the street a short distance to see if the tram were
in sight. As soon as he turned his back, people in the crowd began to
speak to me. A girl in whom I recognized a former acquaintance asked me
where I was going, and when I told her she took a bracelet I gave her
and promised to carry it, with news of my fate, to my poor mother. An
officer of the old army came up to me saying: “Are you not Anna
Alexandrovna?” And when I said yes, he too asked me where I was being
taken. “Kronstadt, I think,” I answered, but he said: “Who knows?” and
pressed into my hands a roll of bills saying that they might be of use
to me.
Other people surrounded me, mostly strangers, but two of them women
whom I had often seen at mass in the small church of Father John. They
said: “Why should you be shot? The soldier has not come back. Run while
the chance is yours. Father John will surely help you.” Encouraged by
their sympathy, yet hardly knowing what I was doing, I limped off on my
crutch much faster than I could have believed possible, the whole
street-corner crowd spreading out to shield my flight. I limped and
stumbled down Michel Street as far as the Nevski Prospekt weeping and
praying all the time: “God save me! God save me!” until I reached the
old shopping arcade known as the Gostiny Dvor. Here I caught sight of my
soldier running in frantic pursuit of his escaped prisoner. It seemed
all over with me then but I crouched in a corner of the deserted
building and miraculously the soldier ran on without seeing me. As soon
as I thought it at all safe I crept out of the old arcade and turned
into the Zagorodny Prospekt, where I found a solitary cab. “Take me
quickly,” I cried to the ischvostik. “My mother is dying.” The man
replied indifferently that he had a fare waiting, but I thrust into his
hands the entire roll of bills given me by the friendly officer, at the
same time climbing into the drosky.
Said the ischvostik, “Where shall I drive you?” I gasped out the address
of a friend in the suburbs of the city, and the man lashed his
half-starved animal into a walk. After what seemed to me many hours we
reached the place, I rang the doorbell and fell across the threshold in
a dead faint.
My friend and her husband courageously took me in, fed, warmed me, and
put me to bed. They even dared to send word to my mother that I was for
the moment safe from pursuit, but they warned her not to come near the
house as soldiers would certainly be watching her every movement. As a
matter of fact my mother was visited by Red soldiers, arrested in her
bed, and closely guarded for three weeks. Our maid also was arrested, as
was everyone who came to the house. The old Berchick who had spent
almost his entire lifetime in the service of our family was taken ill
during this period and died. For five days his body lay uncoffined in
the house, the Bolshevist authorities refusing him a burial permit. It
was for my mother an interval of utter despair, since in addition to the
death of Berchick she lived in constant fear of my rearrest. In the
opinion of the Bolshevist soldiers, however, I had escaped to the White
Army, and photographs of me were posted conspicuously in all the railway
stations.
The kind friends who had taken me in dared not for their lives keep me
long, and wishing them nothing of harm I set out on a dark night without
a kopeck in my pockets and with no certain idea where I could find a
bed. I had in mind a religious hostel, a place where a few students, men
and women, lived under the chaperonage of an old nun. There I went,
begging them for Christ’s sake to take me in, and there I was hidden for
five perilous days. A girl student volunteered to go to see my mother,
and go she did, but when hours passed, a day passed, and she did not
return, a panic of fear seized all of us, and rather than expose these
kind people to risk of imprisonment and death I voluntarily left the
place. What else could I do?
How shall I describe the horrors of the next few months? Like a hunted
animal I crept from one shelter to another, always leaving when it
seemed at all possible that my protectors might be punished for their
charity. Four nights I spent in the cell of an old nun whom I knew, but
pitying her fears I put on the black head kerchief of a peasant woman
and started in a cab, on borrowed money, for the house of a friend near
the Alexandra Lavra on the outskirts of the town. All unknown to me a
decree had that day been issued that no one could ride in a cab without
written permission from the authorities. Consequently before we had
traveled half the journey the cab was stopped by two women police,
fierce creatures armed with rifles, who called out to the ischvostik:
“Halt! We arrest you and your passenger.” Hastily I crammed all the
money I had into the ischvostik’s hand and begged the women to let me go
as I had just been discharged from hospital and knew nothing of the new
rule. Oddly enough they let us drive on, but very soon the ischvostik,
sick with terror, stopped his horse and told me that he would take me no
further. I got out and staggered on through the muddy snow, for it was
now late in the autumn of 1919. A former officer whom I had once known
well met and recognizing me asked if he might not accompany me to my
destination. “No, no,” I cried. “It would be madness for you to be seen
with me. I cannot explain, only go, go, as fast as you can.” I staggered
on, dripping with rain until I reached my friend’s house. To my now
customary greeting: “I am running away. Will you hide me?” she replied:
“Come in. I have two others.” Thus did brave Russians in those days risk
their lives to save those of others. Under her protection I lived ten
days, and in her house I met a woman, a servant in one of the Communist
kitchens, who having access to food and supplies, afterwards more than
once saved me from starvation.
From one such kindly haven to another I fled in the dead of night. Once
I was received in the home of an English woman who out of her scanty
stores gave me warm stockings, gloves, and a sweater. Another day or two
I spent in the rooms of a dressmaker whose husband was an unwilling
soldier in the Red Army. Once I ventured back to the student hostel,
where they welcomed me and fed me well, one of their number having just
returned from the country with a stock of smuggled food. Here I had news
from my dear mother from the girl who had gone to her on my behalf, and
had, after ten days’ detention by the Chekha, got back to the hostel.
Some members of the Chekha, she informed me, looked forward to shooting
me instantly when I was caught, but others said that it was certain that
I was with the White Army and would never be caught.
From the hostel I sought a paid lodging with the family of a former
member of the orchestra of the Imperial Theater. These people, however,
were very mercenary and would receive me only on advance payment of a
large sum of money. Almost everything my mother and I had owned had been
sold long before, but I retained a pendant of aquamarines and diamonds,
a wedding present from the Empress, safely hidden in the house of a
friend. This I had sold for fifty thousand rubles, giving half the money
to the musician’s wife in return for a few days’ shelter in a wretchedly
dirty, unheated room. Here I had to cut my hair short to get rid of
vermin, and feeling unable to endure the hole I left it. Yet finding my
next lodgings even worse, I returned, and here in the midst of
discomfort and bitter cold, I had the joy of meeting my mother and also
my aunt Lashkeroff, who brought me the welcome news that they thought
they had at last found me a permanently safe retreat. It was miles from
where I was staying, and I had to walk every step of the way, but when I
arrived I found my hostess a lovely woman belonging to the Salvation
Army. Gladly would I have stayed with her indefinitely but that was
impossible as I had no passport and the police began to haunt the
neighborhood. She did not abandon me for all that, but got me a new
shelter in the home of a good priest and his wife. From here I was
handed on from one to another of the priest’s parishioners to whom he
confided the story of my harried career. Once an Esthonian woman told me
that her sister had found a Finnish woman who, for a good price, was
willing to take fugitives over the frontier, and she strongly advised me
to attempt the flight. Some instinct forbade, and it turned out a good
instinct, for the Finnish woman, after taking the money, had abandoned
the Esthonian’s poor sister in the midst of a wood, from which she had
to return, empty of purse and in deadly peril of arrest.
Cutting the story of my fugitive existence short, I finally found
something like a permanent abode in the tiny and happily obscure
woodland cottage of a working engineer, who kindly offered to take me in
to his bachelor quarters a mile or two outside of Petrograd. Here I
became once more the happy possessor of a passport, true not in my own
name but perfectly legal otherwise. In Russia when a girl marries she
gives up her passport to the priest, receiving a new one in the name of
her husband. My kind old priest gave one of these maiden passports to
the engineer, at the same time reporting to the Commissar of his
neighborhood that such a passport had been lost. This was to prevent any
possible trouble or inquiry. The Commissar obligingly gave the priest a
duplicate, signed and sealed by Bolshevist authority. Now again I was a
human being, for no one in Russia can be said to have any identity
unless he is in possession of a passport. Mine described me as a
teacher, and as such I was henceforth entitled to the Communist rations.
For the time being I was less a teacher than an unskilled household
servant, for naturally I wanted to do everything possible to repay the
good engineer for affording me a safe shelter. I knew nothing whatever
of cooking or housework, yet I attempted to do both. The engineer
himself was absent all day, but when he returned at night he carried in
wood enough to last twenty-four hours, and also water which had to be
brought from a great distance. Food, of course, was very scarce. My
mother and the friendly priest brought all they could, but even so I
would often have suffered had it not been for my old acquaintance, the
woman who worked in the Communist kitchen. And here I have to tell
another incident which may seem impossible to some readers. One day I
was sitting in the little house in the wood, feeling as secure as an
escaped prisoner can feel, when I heard a sudden loud knocking at the
door. There was no possible place where I could hide, but I sat
absolutely still in my chair, hardly breathing for fear of disclosing
the fact that the house was not empty. Again came the knocking at the
door, this time louder and more peremptory than before. Realizing that
it was useless to resist, I arose and with a prayer on my lips, I went
to the door and opened it. No one was there. Nothing was in sight save
the wintry trees and the frozen path that led to the highway. But yes!
There almost at the end of the path stood the shivering figure of a
little girl, the daughter of the woman in the Communist kitchen.
“Oh!” she cried, seeing me in the doorway. “I have been looking
everywhere for your house and I could not find it.”
“But you knocked,” I said.
“No, I didn’t,” declared the child. “I haven’t been near the house. I
just this minute turned into the pathway to get out of the wind. I’m so
glad I’ve found you. Mother has sent you something.”
Who knocked at my door twice? The wind? It never did before or
afterwards. If you believe in Providence, as I do, you may agree with me
that God did not intend me at that time to starve in the depths of a
desolate forest. If you prefer another explanation seek it.
In January, 1920, my kind friend the engineer told me reluctantly that
he was about to marry and that the tiny room I occupied would have to
be given up. I had not the remotest idea where I was to go. Above all
things I desired to embrace a religious life, but in those perilous days
no convent in Petrograd dared receive me. The convents were constantly
being raided, and the younger nuns were frequently taken out and forced
to work on the streets. No religious house could shelter a fugitive even
though she possessed a false passport. Again I became a vagrant,
spending a night here, a day there, sleeping in any refuge that opened
to me. Towards the end of March I again found a home in the house of a
priest and his wife who were as parents to me, and to whom I owe a
lifetime of gratitude. Here I found not only safety but work, that
blessed anodyne against all trouble. My passport, as I have said,
described me as a teacher, and a teacher I now became, thanks to my new
friends, who found me plenty of pupils among the working-class children
of the neighborhood. I taught them the simple elements, and to children
of the more intellectual classes languages and music. My pay was in
food, but food in the Bolshevist paradise is worth much more than money,
so I was completely satisfied.
By this time my appearance was so changed that I lost all fear of the
police or the Chekha. One day when I was slowly walking the long
distance across the river to my favorite church, the resting place of
Father John, a motor car stopped in my path and I recognized as its
occupant the Chekha inquisitor Boze, the man who had several times been
my brutal jailer. “Grazhdanka (Citizeness),” he addressed me, “please
tell me where to find ----” he named a street and number whither he was
bound, doubtless on some errand of terror. Giving him the direction, I
moved on as fast as my crippled legs could carry me, but I need not have
been afraid for he did not know me at all.
So went the year 1920, my mother and I and the good priest’s family
often discussing the possibilities of escape from the increasing
starvation, death, and terror which everywhere surrounded us. People did
escape, we knew, but how were we to do it--two women, one old and the
other lame? It seemed altogether impossible. Besides, we had almost
nothing with which to buy our way out of the country. My only shoes were
homemade affairs of carpet, and I was so careful of them that often when
walking I took them off and carried them in my hands to preserve them.
Another thing, beset with dangers as we were in Russia we were no longer
hungry, because I had an increasing number of pupils, and each one meant
a tiny portion of food and firewood for my mother, my friends, and
myself. But here is a strange and a universally human thing. Food and
warmth do not bring content to prisoners, they create courage, and when
one day in late October we received a letter from my sister, safe in a
near-by country which I may not name, the flame of adventure blazed up
in the soul of my brave little mother and in my own heart. My sister
suggested the possibility of our getting out by one of the ways that
persist in flourishing in spite of Bolshevism and the Chekha, and she
offered us, if we succeeded in escaping, the shelter of her own home. I
cannot reveal any detail of those secret ways of escape, because they
still exist, and must not in any way be placed in jeopardy. Enough it is
to say that Petrograd is separated from Finland by only a few versts of
land, carefully guarded, and by a narrow arm of the Baltic Sea which
cannot be quite as successfully guarded. In winter this water freezes,
not as unsalted water freezes, smooth and thick and safe for passage,
but in rough and treacherous hummocks of mixed ice and snow, with
unexpected gaps of half-frozen water opening here and there between the
ice masses. Still, the icy Baltic does at times admit of sledge passage,
and there are men who make a business of taking over--for a price far
beyond what most Russians can afford--refugees who have friends waiting
for them in Finland or in countries to the west and south. Sometimes Red
soldiers have to be bribed, and often they sell out the people whose
money they accept. Sometimes also the men who contract to take refugees
over the ice betray their passengers to the Bolshevik guards. Any way
you look at it, escape from Bolshevik Russia is about as perilous as
going unarmed into a tiger’s cage. Yet people dare it, and we did.
It was about the first of December in our calendar, in the year 1920,
when we received a second smuggled letter from my sister: “Be ready
whenever we send for you.” For that promised summons we waited in
desperate suspense until two days after Christmas. Then to my mother’s
lodging came a fisherman and his little boy with the whispered news that
we were to go with them on the day following. My mother found means of
sending the news to our friend the priest, and he brought it to me.
“Tomorrow at four o’clock you go abroad.”
The next day at the appointed hour my mother and I, two shivering
creatures facing death, but ready, met at a small railway station
leading along the Baltic shores. The fisherman’s son was also at the
station, but obeying instructions, we did not notice him but simply
followed wherever he led. Our train journey was short, and at five
o’clock, pitch dark in the Russian winter, we alighted at a poor
village, following the boy who carried on his back a bag of potatoes.
Alas! In the darkness and confusion we lost him, and stood in the icy
cold like lost souls, not knowing where to turn. Suddenly out of the
shadows a peasant woman approached us. “Are you looking for a boy with a
bag of potatoes?” she said in a low voice, and to our frightened assent
she murmured: “Follow me.” We followed, although, for all we knew, it
was to a Chekha prison. Anybody in Russia may be Chekha, the friend who
invites you to dinner, the man who buys your last jewel, the woman who
offers to guide you over an unknown road. You can trust no one,
consequently, when you must, you trust anyone. We followed the peasant
woman into a dim hut, and there we found two fishermen who assured us
that they were ready that night to take us across the frozen Baltic to a
village on the Finnish side. Their horses and sledges, they told us,
were safely hidden, but they would be ready to take us and three other
fugitives, a lady, a child, and a maid, as soon as we could safely
venture to leave the village. As luck would have it there was a festival
and a dance going on that night, and we had to sit in that stifling hut
in complete silence until two o’clock. Also we had to pay for our
shelter and escape one hundred thousand rubles, which my mother had
secured by selling her last treasure, a pearl necklace.
When the last peasant had gone to bed and silence wrapped the village,
we stole out through the mud and the snow, and got into the rough
sledge. Hardly had we struck the rough ice of the Baltic when the sledge
overturned, waking the child who, silent before, now began to cry and to
beg to go home. The little thing spoke only French and I can still hear
him repeating over and over again in a high baby voice which he did not
know imperiled the lives of all of us: “Maman, Maman, à la maison, à la
maison.” For six hours we drove thus, slowly and cautiously over the
rotten ice, one of the men driving, and the other running ahead with a
long pole testing the ice for a safe pathway. Often we stopped to listen
for possible sentinels, and once in the neighborhood of Kronstadt we had
such a fright that I wonder the men dared go farther. Plainly to our
ears came the grinding of machinery, and we knew that where there was
machinery there were men. We stopped long and listened, until our driver
suddenly remembered that the noise was that of an ice breaker several
miles out of our highway. By this time I was so stiff and drowsy with
cold, so nearly frozen, in fact, that I hardly cared what happened to
us. Seeing my wretched state, one of the men took off an extra pair of
woolen socks he wore and slipped them on my feet. The unknown lady who
accompanied us also spared me a warm wrap, and by rubbing and holding
me close to their bodies they kept me alive. At eight o’clock of a pale
winter morning they lifted me out of the sledge and with the others I
stood trembling on the snowy shores of Finland.
“Now you are out of Sovdepia” (Soviet land), said the fishermen
cheerfully, “but we are not safe yet, for the Finnish police may catch
us and send us back.” Hurriedly we climbed the hill to the cottage of
one of the smugglers. Here we met his wife, who, gray with fear, came
out to meet her husband after his night of peril on the ice. The woman
gave us hot coffee, bread, and cheese, but she would not keep us long in
her house. We knew that we must report as soon as possible at the
quarantine station, and we knew, besides, that the sorely tried Finnish
authorities would not be any too glad to see us coming. Do not blame the
Finns for this. Every Russian refugee is a burden on their slender
resources, and too often a pretended refugee is merely a Bolshevik agent
sent to stir up trouble among disaffected workmen. However, on this
occasion the Finns received our wretched group with infinite kindness,
and made us comfortable during the required period we spent in the
quarantine station. Then we went to our separate destinations, all of us
to poverty, obscurity, homesickness, to that sunless clime which waits
the exile wherever he may go. In the country where my mother and I
finally arrived we found my sister, happier than ourselves, because she
left Russia before the great horror began, thus saving part of her
fortune. My sister gave us food, clothing, a lodging. Except for her
bounty we had lost everything we ever owned, home, friends,
possessions, country, for Russians now have no country, no flag, no
place in the wide world. The best any of us can hope for is an obscure
corner in some foreign land where we can earn enough to buy our daily
bread, and a quiet place in which to pray every day of our lives: “God
save Russia.”
I am told, although I can hardly believe it, that in other lands, even
in free America, there are beings so deluded that they wish to bring
about revolution and Bolshevism. I do not wish for any of them the long
nightmare of suffering that I, one of millions, have suffered under
revolution and Bolshevism. I pray only that there may be revealed to
them the fate of the betrayed who have died and are dying under the
criminal administration of the Provisional Government and, later, of
Lenine and his fanatical followers. If they can be made to know only in
part what my poor, ravished country is today, they will forget their
delusions and pray with the exiles: “God save Russia.”
APPENDIX A
THE TRUTH CONCERNING THE RUSSIAN IMPERIAL FAMILY
Statement of Vladimir Michailovitch Roudneff, appointed by Minister
of Justice Kerensky Special High Commissioner for Revision and
Investigation of the actions of Ministers and other High Personages
of the Imperial Government.
“I was acting as Procureur of the Court of Assizes of Ekaterinoslav when
I received orders from Minister of Justice Kerensky to become a member
of the High Commission of Inquiry charged with an examination of the
acts and abuses of ministers and other high personages of the former
Government. While working with this Commission in Petrograd I was
especially assigned to examination of sources of secret influences at
Court which were known as Dark Forces. My work with the Commission
lasted until August, 1917, when I was forced to leave because the
President, Mourvavieff, insisted upon my making reports of a plainly
prejudicial character.
“As an Attorney General (_juge d’instruction_) I had access to all
documents, and the right to be present at the examination of all
witnesses, with the view of establishing impartially the part played by
persons accused by society and the public press of exerting influence on
foreign and domestic politics. I was assigned to read all the papers and
letters found in the Winter Palace, the palace at Tsarskoe Selo, and at
Peterhof, especially the personal correspondence of the Emperor and
Empress, certain of the Grand Dukes, and also the correspondence seized
in the course of examination of the house of Archbishop Varnava, also of
Countess S. S. Ignatieff, Dr. Badmaeff, Voyeikoff, and Anna Viroubova,
and also to the relations existing between the Imperial family and the
German Imperial family. Being aware of the importance of my inquiry in
throwing light on historical events preceding and following the
Revolution, I made copies of all documents and letters, _dossiers_, and
statements of witnesses. In leaving Petrograd I took with me all these
copies, concealing them in my home in Ekaterinoslav, but it is probable
that these documents were destroyed when the Bolsheviki raided my house.
If by happy chance I find that they still exist I shall certainly
publish them in full, without any comments of my own.
“In the meantime I consider it my duty to write a short account of the
principal persons who were accused of being Dark Forces. I must,
however, warn the reader that as I write from memory some details may
escape my mind. When I went to Petrograd to begin my work with the High
Commission I admit that I was influenced by all the pamphlets and
newspaper articles on the subject of the Rasputine influence, and other
rumors and gossip, and I began my work under the domination of
preconceived prejudices. But careful and impartial investigation soon
forced me to the opinion that these rumors and newspaper accounts were
based on slender foundations.
“The most interesting person charged with exercising a malign influence
on political affairs was Gregory Rasputine, therefore this person was
the central figure of my investigations. The account of the surveillance
under which he lived, up to the very day of his death, is of great
importance. This surveillance was exercised by the ordinary as well as
the secret police, special agents noting all his goings and comings,
some of these agents being disguised as policemen or as servants.
Everything concerning the movements of Rasputine was carefully recorded
every day. If he left his house, even for an hour or two, the moment of
his departure and his return was noted, and also every person he met on
the road.
“The secret agents kept strict account of all people he met and of all
who visited him. In cases where the names of these persons were not
known their full descriptions were taken. After having read all papers
and examined many witnesses I reached the conclusion that Rasputine was
a person more complex and less comprehensible than had been previously
represented. In studying his personality I naturally paid attention to
the chronological order of circumstances which finally opened to the man
the doors of the Tsar’s palace, and I discovered that the first
preliminary was his acquaintance with the well known, pious, and learned
churchmen Bishops Theofan and Hermogen. I noted also that it was
afterwards due to the influence of Rasputine that these two great
pillars of the Orthodox Church fell into disfavor. He was the cause of
the relegation of Hermogen to the Monastery of Saratoff, and of the
disgrace (demotion) of Theofan, after these two archbishops, discovering
Rasputine’s low instincts, openly turned against him. All the evidence
pointed to the conclusion that in the inner life of Rasputine, a simple
peasant of the Government of Tobolsk, there occurred suddenly a complete
change transforming him and turning him toward Christ. Only in this way
can I explain to myself his intimacy with these two remarkable bishops.
This hypothesis is moreover confirmed by Rasputine’s story of his
journey to the Holy Land. This book is marked by extreme naïveté,
simplicity, and sincerity. On the recommendation of the exalted
churchmen mentioned, Rasputine was received by the Grand Duchesses
Anastasie Nicholaevna and Melitza Nicholaevna, and it was through them
that he made the acquaintance of Mme. Viroubova, _née_ Tanieff, then
maid of honor. He made a deep impression on this very religiously
inclined woman, and gained at last an entry to the Imperial Palace. It
was then that awoke in him his worst instincts, hitherto repressed, and
it was then that he began adroitly to exploit the religious fervor
possessed by very high personages. It must be admitted that he played
his part with astonishing cleverness. Correspondence bearing on the
subject and the testimony of various witnesses prove that Rasputine
refused all subsidies, gratuities, and even honors which were freely
offered him by their Majesties, indicating thus his integrity, his
disinterestedness, and his profound devotion to the Throne, insisting
that he was an intercessor for the Imperial family before God’s throne.
He alleged that everyone envied him his position, that he was surrounded
by intriguers and slanderers, and that therefore evil reports concerning
him were unworthy of belief. The only favor he accepted was the rental
of his lodgings, paid by the personal Chancellor of his Majesty. He also
accepted presents made by the hands of the Imperial family, such as
shirts, waist-bands, etc.
“Rasputine had free entry to the apartments of the Emperor, saying
prayers, addressing the Emperor and Empress with the familiar ‘thou,’
and greeting them in the Siberian peasant manner (with a kiss). It is
known that he warned the Emperor, ‘My death shall be thine also,’ and
that at Court he was regarded as a man gifted with the power of
forecasting events. His predictions were couched in mysterious phrases
like those of the Pythons of antiquity.
“Rasputine’s income was derived from numerous persons who desired
positions and money, and used Rasputine as their intermediary with the
Emperor. Rasputine asked favors for his clients, promising, if these
were granted, all kinds of blessings to the Imperial family and to
Russia.
“To this must be added that Rasputine possessed within himself a strange
power by which he was able to exercise hypnotic suggestion. I have been
able to establish the fact that he cured by hypnotism the disease of St.
Vitus Dance which afflicted the son of one of his friends, Simanovitch.
The young man was a student in the College of Commerce, and his malady
completely disappeared after two séances in which Rasputine plunged the
patient into hypnotic slumbers.
“Another case establishing the hypnotic power of Rasputine may be noted.
During the winter of 1914-15 he was called to the house of the
superintendent of railways in Tsarskoe Selo where lay, entirely
unconscious, Anna Alexandrovna Viroubova, who had been seriously injured
in a railroad accident. She was suffering from broken legs and a
fracture of the skull. Their Majesties were in the room when Rasputine
arrived, and he, simply raising his arms, said to the unconscious woman:
‘Anushka, open your eyes,’ which she instantly did, looking
intelligently around her. This naturally made a deep impression on
everyone present, including their Majesties, and it served to increase
the prestige of Rasputine. Although Rasputine could barely read and
write, he was far from being an inferior person. He had a keen and
observant intellect, and a rare faculty of reading the character of any
person with whom he came in contact. The rudeness and exaggerated
simplicity of his bearing, which lent him the appearance of a common
peasant, served to remind observers of his humble origin and his lack of
culture.
“As so much was bruited in the public press about the immorality of
Rasputine, the closest attention was given to this phase of his
question. From the reports of the secret police it was proved that his
love affairs consisted solely in night orgies with music-hall singers
and an occasional petitioner. It is on record that when he was drunk he
sometimes hinted of intimacies in higher circles, especially in those
circles through which he had risen to power, but of his relations with
women of high society nothing was established, either by police records
or by information acquired by the commission. In the papers of the
Bishop Varnava was found a telegram from Rasputine as follows: ‘My dear,
I cannot come, my silly women are shedding tears and won’t let me go.’
As for the accusation that in Siberia Rasputine was accustomed to bathe
in company with women, and that he was affiliated with the ‘Khlysty’
sect, the Extraordinary Commission referred these charges to
Gramoglassoff, professor in the Ecclesiastical Academy (of Moscow), who
after examination of all the evidence, testified that among peasants of
many parts of Siberia the common bath was a usual custom, and that he
found no evidence in the writings or preachings of Rasputine of any
affiliation with the ‘Khlysty’ doctrines.
“Rasputine was a man of large heart. He kept open house, and his
lodgings were always crowded with a curiously mixed company living at
his expense. To acquire the aureole of a benefactor, to follow the
precepts of the Gospels according to which the generous hand is always
filled, Rasputine took the money offered by his petitioners, but he gave
generously to the poor and to people of the lower classes who begged his
assistance. Thus he built up a reputation of being at once a generous
and a disinterested man. Besides these alms Rasputine spent large sums
in restaurants, cafés, music halls, and in the streets, so that when he
died he left practically nothing. The investigation disclosed an immense
amount of evidence concerning the petitions carried by Rasputine to
Court, but all these, as has been said, referred merely to applications
for positions, favors, railway concessions, and the like.
Notwithstanding his great influence at Court not a single indication of
Rasputine’s political activity was disclosed.
“Many proofs of his influence were found in the papers of General
Voyeikoff, Commandant of the Palace, as for example the following: ‘My
dear, Arrange this affair. Gregory.’ These letters were annotated by
Voyeikoff, with the names and addresses of the petitioners, the nature
of their demands, the results of their applications, and the date of the
replies. Many letters of the same kind were found among the papers of
President of the Council of Ministers, Sturmer, and of other high
personages. All the letters concerned themselves exclusively with favors
and protection for the people in whom Rasputine interested himself. He
had special names for various persons with whom he was in frequent
contact. Sturmer was called ‘The Old Man,’ Archbishop Varnava
‘Butterfly,’ the Emperor ‘Papa,’ and the Empress ‘Mama.’ The nickname of
Varnava, ‘Butterfly,’ was found in a letter to Mme. Viroubova.
“The inquiry into the influence of Rasputine on the Imperial family was
intensive, but it was definitely established that that influence had its
source in the profound religious sentiments of their Majesties, joined
to their conviction that Rasputine was a saint, and was the sole
intermediary between God and the Emperor, as well as of all Russia. The
Imperial family believed that they saw proofs of his sanctity in his
psychic power over certain persons of the Court, such as bringing back
to life and consciousness the desperately injured Mme. Viroubova, whose
case has been described; also in his undoubtedly benign influence on the
health of the heir, and on a whole series of fulfilled forecasting of
events.
“It is evident that sly and unscrupulous people did everything in their
power to profit by Rasputine’s influence on the Imperial family, thus
waking up in the man his worst instincts. This is particularly true of
the former Minister of the Interior, A. N. Khvostoff and of Belezky,
Director of the Police Department. To consolidate their position at
Court they came to an understanding with Rasputine whereby they agreed
to pay him, out of the private funds of the Police Department, the sum
of three thousand rubles monthly, besides other sums, that he might
require, provided he helped them to place candidates agreeable to them.
Rasputine accepted these conditions, and for three months filled his
engagements, but finding that the arrangement was not advantageous to
himself, returned to his independent manner of work. Khvostoff, fearing
that Rasputine would betray him, began openly to oppose him. He knew
that he stood well with the Imperial family, and he counted also on the
coöperation of the Duma, of which he was a member, and in which
Rasputine was cordially hated. This put Belezky in a difficult position,
because he doubted Khvostoff’s power at Court, and he had no doubt at
all concerning Rasputine’s power. Belezky decided therefore to betray
his chief, and range himself on the side of Rasputine. His object was,
to use the words of Rasputine himself, to throw down the Khvostoff
ministry. The struggle between these two officials culminated in the
famous plot against the life of Rasputine, which created such a
sensation in the press during the year 1916. The plot was laid by
Belezky in the following manner. An engineer named Heine, owner of
several private gambling houses in Petrograd, was hired to go to
Christiania to meet the unfrocked monk Illiador Troufanoff, a former
friend of Rasputine. The result of this journey was a series of
telegrams addressed to Heine and signed by Illiador covertly alluding to
a conspiracy against the life of Rasputine. In one of these telegrams it
was stated that the forty men engaged in the conspiracy were
dissatisfied to wait longer, and it was necessary to send them
immediately thirty thousand rubles. These telegrams, coming in war time
from a neutral country, were delivered to the police, only after having
been read being passed on to the person addressed. Finally, after
receiving all the telegrams, Heine presented himself to Rasputine in the
guise of a repentant sinner, giving him full details of the plot, in
which he owned himself concerned, but which he vowed Khvostoff to be the
leading spirit. The result was that Rasputine took the story to the
Imperial family, and the dismissal of Khvostoff quickly followed. It is
an interesting fact that Heine’s telegrams from Christiania mentioned a
number of names of persons living in Tsaritzine, former friends of
Illiador, who were supposed to be in Christiania busy with the details
of the plot. The evidence given at the inquiry proved beyond doubt that
the persons concerned had never left their homes.
“Personally the official Khvostoff was highly esteemed by both the
Emperor and the Empress, they believing him to be sincerely religious,
and devoted to the interests of the Imperial family and to Russia, but
the evidence shows that he was really devoted only to his personal
interests. He once invited the head of the Gendarmerie, General
Komissaroff, to go with him in civilian dress, and to introduce
Rasputine to the Metropolitan Pitirim. They were received by a novice
who went to the Metropolitan’s study to announce them. When the
Metropolitan appeared Rasputine introduced General Komissaroff, and
disagreeable as it was to see a gendarme officer in his house, his
Eminence invited the men to follow him into his study. There they
discovered Khvostoff sitting on a sofa. Seeing Rasputine Khvostoff
laughed rather nervously, but continued his conversation with the
Metropolitan, then, rising to take his departure, asked General
Komissaroff to drive home with him. Komissaroff found himself in an
awkward position, and when Khvostoff suddenly asked him if he understood
the affair he answered in the negative. ‘Well,’ said Khvostoff, ‘it is
now clear in what relation Pitirim stands with Rasputine. When you were
announced he was just telling me that he had nothing in common with
Rasputine, and that the person who was waiting to see him was an eminent
Georgian. “Permit me,” he said, “to leave you for a few minutes.” Now we
see who the “eminent Georgian” really was.’ This was testified to by
Komissaroff himself.
“Of all the ministers Khvostoff was the closest to Rasputine. Rumors of
the intimate relations between Sturmer and Rasputine were found to be
without foundation. There was between them, it is true, a friendship.
Sturmer understood Rasputine’s great influence, and did what he could to
advance the interests of his clients. He sent fruit, wine, and
delicacies to Rasputine, but there is no evidence that he allowed him to
influence political affairs. The relations between Rasputine and
Protopopoff, who, for some reason, Rasputine called ‘Kalinine’ were no
more intimate, although Protopopoff liked Rasputine, and it is certain
that Rasputine defended Protopopoff when the position of the latter was
menaced. This was done usually in the absence of the Sovereigns,
Rasputine addressing himself to the Empress, at the same time uttering
predictions.
“Protopopoff distinguished himself by an extraordinary lack of will
power, representing at different times quite opposing organizations. He
was even at one time elected vice-president of the Duma. Protopopoff has
publicly been accused of initiating and carrying out an attempt to put
down the popular uprising of the first days of the Revolution. He is
accused of having placed machine guns on the roofs of houses to shoot
down the armed insurgents. However, the _juge d’instruction_
Jousvik-Kompaneitz, after having interrogated many witnesses, and
examining all the machine guns found in the streets of Petrograd in the
first days of the Revolution, has testified that all the machine guns
belonged to different regiments, and none, not even those found on the
roofs of houses, to the police. Generally speaking, there were no
machine guns on roofs, except those placed there at the beginning of the
war as a defense against airplane attacks. It must be said that during
the critical days of February, 1917, Protopopoff showed a complete
incapacity, and from the legal point of view, his absolutely criminal
weakness. Among his papers were found intimate and even affectionate
letters from Rasputine, but not one letter contained anything more than
recommendations in favor of his protégés. Nor in the papers of any other
high personages were found letters of different tenor signed by
Rasputine. Both press and public seem to have been persuaded that
Rasputine was very intimate with two political adventurers, Dr. Badmaeff
and Prince Andronnikoff, and that through him these men were able to
exercise wide political influence. Evidence has established, however,
that these rumors were without any foundation. The two adventurers were,
in fact, nothing more than the hangers-on of Rasputine, glad to gather
up the crumbs from his table, and falsely representing to their clients
that they had influence over Rasputine, and through him influence at
Court.”
(Here follows at some length the result of the High Commission’s inquiry
into the activities of Dr. Badmaeff and Prince Andronnikoff, but as they
have nothing whatever to do with this history they are omitted. A. V.)
“Badmaeff was the physician of Minister Protopopoff, but the Imperial
family had no confidence in his methods--any more than had
Rasputine--and in an examination of the servants of the Imperial
household, it was demonstrated clearly that the Thibetan doctor had
never been called in his professional capacity to the apartments of the
Emperor’s children.
“General Voyeikoff, Commandant of the Palace, I examined many times in
the Fortress of Petropavlosk where he was imprisoned. He did not play a
very powerful rôle at Court, but according to letters from his wife,
daughter of Court Minister Fredericks, covering the years 1914-15, and
found in his house, he was esteemed by the Imperial family as a man
devoted to the throne, an impression which I, after several interviews
with him, did not share. From letters of Voyeikoff to his wife it is
plain that he was hostile to Rasputine. In certain of the letters he
calls Rasputine the evil genius of the Imperial family and of Russia,
and he believed that his intimacy at Court discredited the throne and
gave strength to humors and opinions and slanderous stories by which the
anti-Government party profited. Nevertheless he took full advantage of
the influence of Rasputine. He had not the courage to reject his
petitions, which is proved by the annotations in his handwriting on the
letters of Rasputine.”
(High Commissioner Roudneff adds that, in his opinion, Voyeikoff thought
badly of Rasputine, and that his wife hated the man, but that neither of
them communicated their views to the Imperial family. A. V.)
“Having heard a great deal of the exceptional influence at Court of Mme.
Viroubova, and of her relations with Rasputine, and having read and
believed what was said about her in society and the press, I must admit
that when I went to examine her in the Fortress of Petropavlosk I was
frankly prejudiced against her. This hostility remained with me up to
the moment of her entrance into the office of the Fortress under the
escort of two soldiers. As she entered the room I was struck with the
expression of her eyes, an expression of more than earthly gentleness
and meekness. This first impression was confirmed in all my subsequent
interviews with her. From the first conversation which I had with her I
became convinced that, given her individuality and her character, she
could never have had any influence on politics either foreign or
domestic. I believe this in the first place because of the essentially
feminine point of view shown by her on all political matters of which we
talked, and in the second place because of her loquacity and her
complete incapacity to keep secret even facts which might reflect on
herself. I became convinced that to ask Mme. Viroubova to keep anything
a secret was equivalent to proclaiming it from the housetops, because
anything that she thought important she felt impelled to communicate,
not only to friends but to possible foes. Noting these two
characteristics of Mme. Viroubova, I asked myself two questions--why she
stood in close relations with Rasputine, and what was the secret of her
intimacy with the Imperial family.
“I found the answer to the first question in conversations with the
parents of Mme. Viroubova, M. Tanieff, chief of the private Chancellory
of his Majesty, and his wife, _née_ Countess Tolstoy. From them I
learned of an episode in the life of their daughter which, in my
opinion, explained why Rasputine obtained later such an influence over
the will of the young woman. At the age of thirteen Mme. Viroubova fell
gravely ill of typhus, the illness being complicated with peritonitis,
and her condition, according to the physicians, was desperate. Her
parents called to her bedside the famous priest, Father John of
Kronstadt. Following his prayers the illness took a favorable turn, and
the young girl was soon pronounced out of danger. This made a deep
impression on her mind, and thereafter strongly inclined her to a
religious life.
“Mme. Viroubova first met Rasputine in the house of the Grand Duchess
Melitza Nicholaevna (wife of Grand Duke Peter), and that meeting was not
a happy event. The Grand Duchess had prepared Mme. Viroubova for the
meeting by conversations on the subject of religion, and had given her
certain French books on occult subjects. Later the Grand Duchess invited
Mme. Viroubova to her house, promising to introduce her to a great
intercessor before God in favor of Russia, a man who possessed gifts of
prophecy, and the faculty of curing the sick. This interview by Mme.
Viroubova, then Mlle. Tanieff, made a great impression on the young
woman who was then on the eve of marriage with Lieutenant Viroubova.
Rasputine spoke only on religious subjects, and when the young girl
asked him if he approved her marriage he answered allegorically saying
that the pathway of life was strewn not only with roses but with thorns,
and that man progressed towards perfection only through sufferings and
trials.
“The marriage of Mme. Viroubova was from the first unhappy. According to
the testimony of Mme. Tanieff, the man was completely impotent, addicted
to perverted practices and saddistic habits, causing her daughter the
most frightful moral sufferings and physical disgust. Nevertheless,
believing in the Biblical injunction ‘Whom God hath joined let no man
put asunder,’ Mme. Viroubova for a time kept her sufferings a secret
even from her parents, and only after she had been nearly killed by her
husband did she reveal to them the tragedy of her marriage. The result
was, of course, a divorce. The testimony of Mme. Tanieff concerning the
moral character of her son-in-law was confirmed by a medical examination
of Mme. Viroubova, ordered by the Commission of Inquiry, and by which
was established the virginity of the young woman. This examination was
held in May, 1917. In consequence of her shocking marital experience the
religious inclinations of Mme. Viroubova were increased and were
developed into something approaching religious mania. She became the
purest and most sincere admirer of Rasputine, who, up to the last day of
his life, she considered a holy man, and one completely disinterested
from every worldly point of view.
“In regard to the question of the intimacy of Mme. Viroubova with the
Imperial family, I concluded that it had its roots in the wholly
different mentalities of the Empress and Mme. Viroubova, that attraction
of opposites which so often seems necessary to complete a balance. The
two women were entirely different, and yet they had many things in
common. Both, for example, were devotedly fond of music, and as the
Empress possessed an agreeable contralto voice and Mme. Viroubova a good
soprano, they occupied many leisure hours singing duets.
“Such were the conditions which produced in the minds of persons
ignorant of the nature of the intimacy between the Empress and Mme.
Viroubova, belief in the exceptional influence of Mme. Viroubova on
Court affairs. As has been said, Mme. Viroubova possessed no such
influence, nor could she have possessed it. The Empress dominated the
intelligence and the will of Mme. Viroubova, but the attachment between
the two women was very strong. The religious instincts deeply rooted in
their two natures explains the tragedy of their veneration of Rasputine.
The relations between the Empress and Mme. Viroubova could be likened to
those of a mother and daughter, nothing more.
“My opinions regarding the moral qualities of Mme. Viroubova, resulting
from interviews with her in the Fortress of Petropavlosk and in the
Winter Palace were entirely confirmed by the forgiving and Christian
spirit displayed by her towards those who had caused her, in the course
of her imprisonment, the most horrible suffering. Of the insults and
tortures to which she was subjected in the Fortress I did not learn, in
the first instance, from Mme. Viroubova herself, but from her mother.
Only on direct examination did Mme. Viroubova confirm her mother’s
testimony, and even then she spoke calmly and with astonishing meekness,
saying that her persecutors should not be blamed too severely because
they did not realize what they were doing. These tortures of the prison
guards, such as spitting in her face, dealing her blows on the head and
body, accusing her of being the mistress of the Emperor and of
Rasputine, tearing off her clothes and threatening to murder a sick
woman who could walk only with the aid of crutches, caused the
Commission of Inquiry to transfer the prisoner to a house formerly
occupied by the Director of the Gendarmerie (House of Detention). The
testimony of Mme. Viroubova presented a complete contrast to that of
Prince Andronnikoff. Her statements were all candid and sincere, and
their truth was subsequently established beyond doubt by documentary
evidence. The only fault I found with Mme. Viroubova was her tendency to
wordiness, and her amazing habit of skipping from one subject to
another, without regard to the fact that she might be hurting her own
cause. Mme. Viroubova appears to have interceded at Court for various
persons, but her petitions were received with a certain distrust because
of her known goodness and her simplicity of mind.
“The character of the Empress Alexandra was shown clearly in her
correspondence with the Emperor and with Mme. Viroubova. This
correspondence, in French and English, is filled with sentiments of
affection for her husband and children. The Empress occupied herself
personally with the education of her children, and she often indicates
in her letters that it is desirable not to spoil them or to give them
habits of luxury. The correspondence reveals also the deep piety of the
Empress. In her letters to her husband she often describes her emotions
during religious services, and speaks of the peace and tranquillity of
her soul after prayer. Hardly ever, in the course of this long
correspondence, are any allusions made to politics. The letters concern
intimate and family affairs only. In passages in which Rasputine is
mentioned she speaks of him as ‘that holy man,’ and shows that she
considers him one sent of God, a prophet, and a man who prays sincerely
for the Imperial family. Through the whole correspondence, which covers
a period of ten years, I found not one single letter written in German.
According to the testimony of Court adherents I have proof that before
the War German was never spoken at Court. Because of public rumors of
the sympathy of the Empress for Germany and of the existence in the
Palace at Tsarskoe Selo of private wires to Berlin, I made a careful
examination of the apartments of the Imperial family, and I found no
indications at all of communications between the Imperial household of
Russia and the Imperial household of Germany. I also examined the rumors
concerning the beneficence of the Empress towards the German wounded and
prisoners of War, and I found that the Empress showed compassion for the
sufferings of Germans and Russians alike, without distinction, desiring
to fulfill the injunction of Christ who said that whoever visited the
sick and suffering also visited Himself.
“For these reasons, and above all on account of the frail health of the
Empress, who suffered from a disease of the heart, the Imperial family
led a very retired life, which favored the development, especially in
the Empress, of extreme piety. Inspired by her devotion the Empress
introduced into certain churches attached to the Court a régime of
monastic services, and followed with delight, in spite of her ill
health, up to the very end, masses which lasted for hours on end. This
same excessive religious zeal was the foundation for her admiration for
Gregory Rasputine, who, possessing an extraordinary power of suggestion,
exercised an undeniably salutary effect on the invalid Tsarevitch.
Because of her extreme piety the Empress was in no proper state of mind
to understand the real source of the amazing influence of Rasputine on
the health of the Heir, and she believed the explanation to be due, not
at all to hypnotism, but to the celestial gifts which Rasputine owed to
the sanctity of his life.
“A year and a half before the Revolution of 1917, the former monk,
Illiador Troufanoff, sent his wife from Christiania to Petrograd with
the proposal that the Imperial family purchase the manuscript of his
book, which later appeared under the title of ‘The Holy Devil,’ in which
the relations of the Imperial family with Rasputine were scandalously
represented. The Police Department interested itself in the matter, and
at its own imminent risk entered into negotiations with the wife of
Illiador concerning the purchase of the manuscript for which Illiador
demanded, I am assured, sixty thousand rubles. The affair was finally
submitted to the Empress Alexandra who repudiated with indignation the
vile proposition of Illiador, saying that ‘white could never be made
black, and that an innocent person could never be assoiled.’
“In terminating this inquiry I believe it necessary to repeat that
Bishops Theofan and Hermogen contributed importantly to the introduction
of Rasputine at Court. It was because of their recommendations that the
Empress, in the beginning, received Rasputine cordially and confidently.
Her sentiments towards him were fortified only by the reasons indicated
in the course of this document.”
APPENDIX B
Copy of certificate of acquittal of Anna Viroubova issued by the High
Commission of Inquiry, August, 1917.
Ministry of Justice
The High Commission of Inquiry into the acts and abuses of Ministers and
other High Personages of the Former Government.
25th of August, 1917.
No. 3285
Petrograd
Winter Palace
Tel. 1-38-20 and 186.
(Seal)
_Testimonial_
This testimonial delivered to Anna Alexandrovna Viroubova at the end of
the investigation of the High Commission of Inquiry, certifies that she
was found not guilty and that she will not again be called to judgment.
This statement is given under the signature and seal of the President of
the High Commission.
(_Signed_) N. MOURVAVIEFF.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Happily many of these photographs were later recovered and appear
among illustrations of this volume.
[2] So little did any of the Allied rulers and statesmen anticipate the
World War that in July, 1914, President Poincaré accompanied the French
fleet on its cruise to the Baltic. Many festivities were arranged for
him, and he was regally entertained by the Emperor. When receiving the
ambassadors President Poincaré spoke gravely of the troubled political
situation, but he said nothing to indicate that he expected war.
[3] Previous to the War and the impending revolution the Empress had
had very little to do with politics, but it is true that when affairs
became desperate she did what she rightly could to advise her husband.
[4] This is the same Cyril Vladimirovitch who has recently proclaimed
himself “Head of the Romanoff Family and Guardian of the Throne.”
[5] See Appendix B.
[6] Finland had not then separated from the old Russian Empire.
[7] The snapshot taken of me by Mr. Gibbs soon after I was released
from the fortress.
[8] Rasputine.
[9] This was the house and the room I occupied in my stay in Tobolsk on
my second visit to Siberia.
[10] Baroness Buxhoevden, lady in waiting.
[11] The Empress Alexandra Feodorovna was always a strict vegetarian.
[12] Groten and Linevitch were the two aides-de-camp who were so
devoted to the family during the trying period before the Revolution.
Afterwards they were denied entrance to the palace.
[13] Brest-Litovsk.
[14] Anniversary of Rasputine’s assassination.
[15] A wounded officer and friend.
[16] A well-known marine officer.
[17] Presumably the Soviet Government.
[18] Isa, Baroness Buxhoevden, lady in waiting.
[19] Miss Schneider.
[20] Sister of the Emperor.
[21] Grand Duchess Marie Pavlovna.
[22] Princess Galatzine.
[23] Rasputine foresaw this correctly and the Grand Duke of Hesse
retains his old home in peace.
[24] Western readers perhaps do not know how indispensable is vocal
music in Russian church services where no organ is permitted. All
priests are trained musicians, and there is much congregational singing.
[25] By this the Empress meant that the secret messenger would give me
particulars she dared not write in her letter.
[26] To a convent as they desired.
[27] All purely personal letters were burned in the palace at Tsarskoe
Selo as soon as the news of the Emperor’s abdication reached us, the
Empress being determined that her most sacred possessions should not be
made public by the Provisional Government. She never recovered from the
grief of destroying her youthful love letters, which were more to her
than the most costly jewels she possessed, the richest of any sovereign
in Europe. To me this is a singular revelation of the real character of
the Empress.
End of Project Gutenberg's Memories of the Russian Court, by Anna Viroubova