Nicholas and Alexandra (2 page)

sixteen   
The Holy Devil
                                                 
194

seventeen   
"We Want a Great Russia"
                             
204

eighteen     
The Romanov Dynasty
                                     
223

nineteen
The Long Summer of 1914
                               
238

PART THREE

twenty
For the Defense of Holy Russia
                       
263

TWENTY-ONE
Stttvkd
                                                                         279

twenty-two
"Poor Fellows, They Are Ready to Give

Their Lives for a Smile"
                               
293

twenty-three
The Fateful Deception
                                       
308

twenty-four
The Government Disintegrates
                         
327

twenty-five
The Prince and the Peasant
                             
351

twenty-six
Last Winter at Tsarskoe Selo
                           
364

twenty-seven
Revolution: March 1917
                                   
377

twenty-eight
Abdication
                                                         
389

twenty-nine
The Empress Alone
                                           
406

PART FOUR

thirty
Citizen Romanov
                                               
421 thirty-one
"His Majesty's Government

Does Not Insist"
                                             
436

thirty-two
Siberia
                                                                 
449

thirty-three
Good Russian Men
                                           
463

thirty-four
Ekaterinburg
                                                       
481

Epilogue
                                                             
493

Genealogy of Nicholas and Alexandra
                                       
510

Acknowledgments
                                                                         
513

Notes
                                                                                               
515

Bibliography
                                                                                   
563

Illustrations

FOLLOW PAGE 268

Nicholas II
                                             
Courtesy of Thames and Hudson Ltd

Empress Alexandra

Courtesy of Mrs. Merritveather Post Collection, Hillwood, Washington, B.C.

The Tsarevich Alexis

Nicholas's family
                                                   
Underwood & Underwood

Mathilde Kschessinska
                                     
Courtesy of
Saturday Review

The Grand Tour
                                                                     
N. Teliatnikow

Alix
before her first ball

Nicholas II and the Prince of Wales

Alexandra and her daughters
                     
Beinecke Library, Yale University

The
Standart
                                             
Beinecke Library, Yale University

Pierre Gilliard and Alexis
                           
Beinecke Library, Yale University

Nicholas and Alexandra aboard the
Standart

Beinecke Library, Yale University Picknicking on the coast of Finland
           
Beinecke Library, Yale University

Derevenko and Alexis
                                 
Beinecke Library, Yale University

The Tsar
                                                     
Beinecke Library, Yale University

The Empress
                                               
Beinecke Library, Yale University

Nicholas with his officers
                           
Beinecke Library, Yale University

Nicholas with Alexis
                                   
Beinecke Library, Yale University

Alexandra in her mauve boudoir
               
Beinecke Library, Yale University

Alexandra with Alexis
                                 
Beinecke Library, Yale University

Ngomy and Alexis
                                   
Beinecke Library, Yale University

Derevenko and Alexis
                                 
Beinecke Library, Yale University

Livadia: Pierre Gilliard, Olga, Tatiana
   
Beinecke Library, Yale University

At Spala: Alexandra
                               
Beinecke Library, Yale University

After Spala: Alexis
                                 
Beinecke Library, Yale University

Gregory Rasputin
                                                                         
Culver

Nicholas and Alexis during the war
               
Underwood & Underwood

In a hospital: Olga, Tatiana, Alexandra

Beinecke Library, Yale University

The Tsar with Grand Duke Nicholas
                                       
Combine

Anastasia

Marie, Tatiana, Olga
                               
Beinecke Library, Yale University

Nicholas, Alexis, Tatiana
                                         
Radio Times Hidton

The Empress
                                         
Beinecke Library, Yale University

Imprisoned at Tsarskoe Selo
                                           
N. Teliatnikow

Cast of Characters

COUNT VLADIMIR FREDERICKS
Minister of the Imperial Court
COUNT PAUL BENCKENDORFF
Grand Marshal of the Imperial Court, Fredericks' subordinate
DR. EUGENE BOTKIN
Court physician. Botkin attended primarily the Empress Alexandra
DR. FEDOROV
A doctor who cared for the Tsarevich Alexis
DR. VLADIMIR DEREVENKO
A doctor permanently assigned to the Tsarevich Alexis
FIERRE GILLIARD
Swiss tutor of the Tsarevich Alexis
ANNA VYRUBOVA
The Empress Alexandra's closest friend and confidante
DEREVENKO

A sailor assigned to watch the Tsarevich Alexis night and day. No relation to Dr. Derevenko

MATHILDE KSCHESSINSKA

Ballerina. Mistress of Nicholas II before his marriage

GREGORY RASPUTIN

A Siberian peasant

ALEXANDER KERENSKY

Prime Minister of the Provisional Government, 1917

Vladimir Ulyanov (Lenin)

First leader of the Soviet State

PART ONE

NOTE

The titles
emperor
and
tsar,
and
empress
and
tsaritsa,
are all correct and are used interchangeably in this book,
emperor
was a higher rank, first taken by Peter the Great, but Nicholas II, a Slavophile, preferred the older, more Russian title,
tsar.

Dates in Russian history can be confusing. Until 1918, Russia adhered to the old Julian calendar. In the nineteenth century, this calender was twelve days behind the Gregorian calender used almost everywhere else. In the twentieth century, the Russian calender fell thirteen days behind. In this book, all dates are given according to the newer, Gregorian calender, except those specifically indicated as Old Style (O.S.).

Every Russian has three names: his first or Christian name; the name of his father with
vich
added (meaning
son of) ;
and his family name. Thus, Nicholas was Nicholas Alexandrovich Romanov. For women, the second name is their father's with
evna
or
ovna (daughter of)
added. The Tsar's youngest daughter was Anastasia Nicolaevna.

CHAPTER ONE

1894:
Imperial Russia

From the Baltic city of St. Petersburg, built on a river marsh in a far northern corner of the empire, the Tsar ruled Russia. So immense were the Tsar's dominions that, as night began to fall along their western borders, day already was breaking on their Pacific coast. Between these distant frontiers lay a continent, one sixth of the land surface of the globe. Through the depth of Russia's winters, millions of tall pine trees stood silent under heavy snows. In the summer, clusters of white-trunked birch trees rustled their silvery leaves in the slanting rays of the afternoon sun. Rivers, wide and flat, flowed peacefully through the grassy plains of European Russia toward a limitless southern horizon. Eastward, in Siberia, even mightier rivers rolled north to the Arctic, sweeping through forests where no human had ever been, and across desolate marshes of frozen tundra.

Here and there, thinly scattered across the broad land, lived the one hundred and thirty million subjects of the Tsar: not only Slavs but Baits, Jews, Germans, Georgians, Armenians, Uzbeks and Tartars. Some were clustered in provincial cities and towns, dominated by onion-shaped church domes rising above the white-walled houses. Many more lived in straggling villages of unpainted log huts. Next to doorways, a few sunflowers might grow. Geese and pigs wandered freely through the muddy street. Both men and women worked all summer, planting and scything the high silken grain before the coming of the first September frost. For six interminable months of winter, the open country became a wasteland of freezing whiteness. Inside their huts, in an atmosphere thick with the aroma of steaming clothes and boiling tea, the peasants sat around their huge clay stoves and argued and pondered the dark mysteries of nature and God.