THE CZARINA, ALEXANDRA FEODOROVNA
The Czarina, Alexandra Feodorovna, formerly Alice of Hesse, and fourth
child of the Grand Duke Ludwig of Hesse and Alice of England, youngest
daughter of Queen Victoria, was born at Darmstadt on June 6th, 1872. She
lost her mother early in life, and was largely brought up at the English
Court, where she soon became the favourite granddaughter of Queen
Victoria, who bestowed on the blonde “Alix” all the tender affection she
had had for her mother.[8]
At the age of seventeen the young princess paid a prolonged visit to
Russia, staying with her elder sister Elisabeth, who had married the
Grand-Duke Sergius Alexandrovitch, a brother of the Czar Alexander III.
She took an active part in Court life, appeared at reviews, receptions,
and balls, and being very pretty was made a great fuss of.
Everybody regarded her as the prospective mate of the Heir to the
Throne, but, contrary to general expectation, Alice of Hesse returned to
Darmstadt and nothing had been said. Did she not like the idea? It is
certainly a fact that five years later, when the official proposal
arrived, she showed signs of hesitation.
However, the betrothal took place at Darmstadt during the summer of
1894, and was followed by a visit to the Court of England. The Russian
Heir at once returned to his country. A few months later she was obliged
to leave suddenly for Livadia, where Alexander III. was dying. She was
present when his end came, and with the Imperial family accompanied the
coffin in which the mortal remains of the dead Emperor were carried to
St. Petersburg.
The body was taken from Nicholas station to the Cathedral of St. Peter
and St. Paul on a dull November day. A huge crowd was assembled on the
route of the funeral cortège as it moved through the melting snow and
mud with which the streets were covered. In the crowd women crossed
themselves piously and could be heard murmuring, in allusion to the
young Czarina, “She has come to us behind a coffin. She brings
misfortune with her.”
It certainly seemed as if from the start sorrow was dodging the steps of
her whose light heart and beauty had earned her the nickname of
“Sunshine” in her girlhood.
On November 26th, thus within a month of Alexander’s death, the marriage
was celebrated amidst the general mourning. A year later the Czarina
gave birth to her first child--a daughter who was named Olga.
The coronation of the young sovereigns took place in Moscow on May 14th,
1896. Fate seemed already to have marked them down. It will be
remembered that the celebrations were the occasion of a terrible
accident which cost the lives of a large number of people. The peasants,
who had come from all parts, had assembled in masses during the night in
Hodinskoïe meadows, where gifts were to be distributed. As a result of
bad organisation there was a panic, and more than two thousand people
were trodden to death or suffocated in the mud by the terror-stricken
crowd.
When the Czar and Czarina went to Hodinskoïe meadows next morning they
had heard nothing whatever of the terrible catastrophe. They were not
told the truth until they returned to the city subsequently, and they
never knew the whole truth. Did not those concerned realise that by
acting thus they were depriving the Imperial couple of a chance to show
their grief and sympathy and making their behaviour odious because it
seemed sheer indifference to public misfortune?
Several years of domestic bliss followed, and Fate seemed to have
loosened its grip.
Yet the task of the young Czarina was no easy one. She had to learn all
that it meant to be an empress, and that at the most etiquette ridden
Court in Europe and the scene of the worst forms of intrigue and
coterie. Accustomed to the simple life of Darmstadt, and having
experienced at the strict and formal English Court only such restraint
as affected a young and popular princess who was there merely on a
visit, she must have felt at sea with her new obligations and dazzled by
an existence of which all the proportions had suddenly changed. Her
sense of duty and her burning desire to devote herself to the welfare of
the millions whose Czarina she had become fired her ambitions, but at
the same time checked her natural impulses.
Yet her only thought was to win the hearts of her subjects.
Unfortunately she did not know how to show it, and the innate timidity
from which she suffered was wont to play the traitor to her kind
intentions. She very soon realised how impotent she was to gain sympathy
and understanding. Her frank and spontaneous nature was speedily
repelled by the icy conventions of her environment. Her impulses came
up against the prevalent inertia about her,[9] and when in return for
her confidence she asked for intelligent devotion and real good will,
those with whom she dealt took refuge in the easy zeal of the polite
formalities of Courts.
In spite of all her efforts, she never succeeded in being merely amiable
and acquiring the art which consists of flitting gracefully but
superficially over all manner of subjects. The fact is that the Czarina
was nothing if not sincere. Every word from her lips was the true
expression of her real feelings. Finding herself misunderstood, she
quickly drew back into her shell. Her natural pride was wounded. She
appeared less and less at the ceremonies and receptions she regarded as
an intolerable nuisance. She adopted a habit of distant reserve which
was taken for haughtiness and contempt. But those who came in contact
with her in moments of distress knew what a sensitive spirit, what a
longing for affection, was concealed behind that apparent coldness. She
had accepted her new religion with entire sincerity, and found it a
great source of comfort in hours of trouble and anguish; but above all,
it was the affection of her family which nourished her love, and she was
never really happy except when she was with them.
* * * * *
The birth of Olga Nicolaïevna had been followed by that of three other
fine and healthy daughters who were their parents’ delight. It was not
an unmixed delight, however, for the secret desire of their hearts--to
have a son and heir--had not yet been fulfilled. The birth of Anastasie
Nicolaïevna, the last of the Grand-Duchesses, had at first been a
terrible disappointment ... and the years were slipping by. At last, on
August 12th, 1904, when the Russo-Japanese War was at its height, the
Czarina gave birth to the son they so ardently desired. Their joy knew
no bounds. It seemed as if all the sorrows of the past were forgotten
and that an era of happiness was about to open for them.
Alas! it was but a short respite, and was followed by worse misfortunes:
first the January massacre in front of the Winter Palace--the memory of
which was to haunt them like a horrible nightmare for the rest of their
days--and then the lamentable conclusion of the Russo-Japanese War. In
those dark days their only consolation was their beloved son, and it had
not taken long, alas! to discover that the Czarevitch had hæmophilia.
From that moment the mother’s life was simply one dreadful agony. She
had already made the acquaintance of that terrible disease; she knew
that an uncle, one of her brothers, and two of her nephews had died of
it. From her childhood she had heard it spoken of as a dreadful and
mysterious thing against which men were powerless. And now her only son,
the child she loved more than anything else on earth, was affected!
Death would watch him, follow him at every step, and carry him off one
day like so many boys in his family. She must fight! She must save him
at any cost! It was impossible for science to be impotent. The means of
saving must exist, and they must be found. Doctors, surgeons,
specialists were consulted. But every kind of treatment was tried in
vain.
When the mother realised that no human aid could save, her last hope was
in God. He alone could perform the miracle. But she must be worthy of
His intervention. She was naturally of a pious nature, and she devoted
herself wholly to the Orthodox religion with the ardour and
determination she brought to everything. Life at Court became strict, if
not austere. Festivities were eschewed, and the number of occasions on
which the sovereigns had to appear in public was reduced to a minimum.
The family gradually became isolated from the Court and lived to itself,
so to speak.
Between each of the attacks, however, the boy came back to life,
recovered his health, forgot his sufferings, and resumed his fun and his
games. At these times it was impossible to credit that he was the victim
of an implacable disease which might carry him off at any moment. Every
time the Czarina saw him with red cheeks, or heard his merry laugh, or
watched his frolics, her heart would fill with an immense hope, and she
would say: “God has heard me. He has pitied my sorrow at last.” Then the
disease would suddenly swoop down on the boy, stretch him once more on
his bed of pain and take him to the gates of death.
The months passed, the expected miracle did not happen, and the cruel,
ruthless attacks followed hard on each other’s heels. The most fervent
prayers had not brought the divine revelation so passionately implored.
The last hope had failed. A sense of endless despair filled the
Czarina’s soul: it seemed as if the whole world were deserting her.[10]
It was then that Rasputin, a simple Siberian peasant, was brought to
her, and he said: “Believe in the power of my prayers; believe in my
help and your son will live!”
The mother clung to the hope he gave her as a drowning man seizes an
outstretched hand. She believed in him with all the strength that was
in her. As a matter of fact, she had been convinced for a long time that
the saviour of Russia and the dynasty would come from the people, and
she thought that this humble _moujik_ had been sent by God to save him
who was the hope of the nation. The intensity of her faith did the rest,
and by a simple process of auto-suggestion, which was helped by certain
perfectly casual coincidences, she persuaded herself that her son’s life
was in this man’s hands.
Rasputin had realised the state of mind of the despairing mother who was
broken down by the strain of her struggle and seemed to have touched the
limit of human suffering. He knew how to extract the fullest advantage
from it, and with a diabolical cunning he succeeded in associating his
own life, so to speak, with that of the child.
This moral hold of Rasputin on the Czarina cannot possibly be understood
unless one is familiar with the part played in the religious life of the
Orthodox world by those men who are neither priests nor monks--though
people habitually, and quite inaccurately, speak of the “monk”
Rasputin--and are called _stranniki_ or _startsi_.
The _strannik_ is a pilgrim who wanders from monastery to monastery and
church to church, seeking the truth and living on the charity of the
faithful. He may thus travel right across the Russian Empire, led by his
fancy or attracted by the reputation for holiness enjoyed by particular
places or persons.
The _staretz_ is an ascetic who usually lives in a monastery, though
sometimes in solitude--a kind of guide of souls to whom one has recourse
in moments of trouble or suffering. Quite frequently a _staretz_ is an
ex-_strannik_ who has given up his old wandering life and taken up an
abode in which to end his days in prayer and meditation.
Dostoïevsky gives the following description of him in _The Brothers
Karamazof_:
“The _staretz_ is he who takes your soul and will and makes them
his. When you select your _staretz_ you surrender your will, you
give it him in utter submission, in full renunciation. He who takes
this burden upon him, who accepts this terrible school of life,
does so of his own free will in the hope that after a long trial he
will be able to conquer himself and become his own master
sufficiently to attain complete freedom by a life of
obedience--that is to say, get rid of self and avoid the fate of
those who have lived their lives without succeeding in sufficing
unto themselves.”
God gives the _staretz_ the indications which are requisite for one’s
welfare and communicates the means by which one must be brought back to
safety.
On earth the _staretz_ is the guardian of truth and the ideal. He is
also the repository of the sacred tradition which must be transmitted
from _staretz_ to _staretz_ until the reign of justice and light shall
come.
Several of these _startsi_ have risen to remarkable heights of modern
grandeur and become saints of the Orthodox Church.
The influence of these men, who live as a kind of unofficial clergy, is
still very considerable in Russia. In the provinces and open country it
is even greater than that of the priests and monks.
The conversion of the Czarina had been a genuine act of faith. The
Orthodox religion had fully responded to her mystical aspirations, and
her imagination must have been captured by its archaic and naïve
ritual. She had accepted it with all the ardour of the neophyte. In her
eyes Rasputin had all the prestige and sanctity of a _staretz_.
Such was the nature of the feelings the Czarina entertained for
Rasputin--feelings ignobly travestied by calumny. They had their source
in maternal love, the noblest passion which can fill a mother’s heart.
Fate willed that he who wore the halo of a saint should be nothing but a
low and perverse creature, and that, as we shall soon see, this man’s
evil influence was one of the principal causes of which the effect was
the death of those who thought they could regard him as their saviour.