Alix and Nicky

For the first time since Robert Massie’s classic Nicholas and Alexandra, comes a penetrating and deeply personal study of the lives of the last Russian Tsar and Tsarina that gives profound psychological insight into their marriage and how it shaped the events that engulfed them

Few characters in history are as fascinating or controversial as Nicholas and Alexandra. From their assionate love to their horrifying execution, they are alternately viewed as innocent victims of Bolshevik assassins or blamed for causing the Revolution themselves.

Much has already been written about their lives. But acting as a curator of the many conflicting histories, acclaimed author Virginia Rounding offers a different kind of biography, with an intimate look that probes the souls of these unforgettable figures, and tells the story of their passion and its consequences for Russia. Through newly revealed letters and diaries, Rounding explores the Empress’s ill health, examines the enigmatic triangular relationship between Nicky, Alix and her confidante Ania Vyrubova, and looks anew at the reasons behind their reliance on the infamous Rasputin. Her conclusions are surprising.

With eloquence and compassion, Rounding makes these characters come alive, presenting them in all their complexity and ardor, guiding the reader into their vanished world.

VIRGINIA ROUNDING is a translator and writer who lives in London. She studied Russian at the University of London. She is the author of the critically acclaimedCatherine the Great and Grandes Horizontales.

Praise for Catherine the Great:

“An engrossing bio. [Grade:] A” –Entertainment Weekly

“A vivid portrait of a sensual and intellectual woman.” –Washington PostPraise for Catherine the Great:

Setting the Scene: The Romanov Tercentenary
1913

The final curtain is about to drop,
Some fool in the gallery still clasps his hands;
Around their bonfires, cabmen stamp and hop.
Somebody's carriage! Off they go. The end.

-Osip Mandelstam, 1913 (tr. Robert Tracy)


AT NINE O'CLOCK on the morning of May 19, 1913, the firing of cannon, the clashing of cathedral bells, and the cheering of expectant crowds welcomed the stately appearance of the steamship Mezhen, flying the imperial flag with its double-headed eagle, steaming up the Volga to the city of Kostroma, birthplace of the three-hundred-year-old Romanov dynasty. As the Mezhen slowly approached the specially constructed landing stage, a procession bearing the wonder-working icon of the Fyodorovsky Virgin emerged from the Cathedral of the Assumption, golden vestments glinting in the occasional rays of morning sun breaking through the clouds. Everyone on the imperial ship crossed themselves, as both procession and ship advanced slowly toward the Ipatyev Monastery, the very place from which Mikhail Romanov was summoned in 1613 to become the Tsar of Russia.
At a quarter to ten the imperial family-Tsar (or Emperor) Nicholas II; his wife the Tsarina (or Empress) Alexandra; their four daughters, the Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia; and their son, the Tsarevich, Alexei-disembarked, to be greeted by the city's official delegation and offered bread and salt, traditional symbols of hospitality. They then climbed into the waiting cars and were driven the short distance to the monastery, the road flanked by a double line of soldiers, holding back the dense crowds.
At the monastery, the Emperor was greeted by another procession, this one headed by Tikhon, the Archbishop of Kostroma and Galich. Here were also gathered representatives of the local peasantry and descendants of those who had come to beg Mikhail Romanov to accept the throne, at the end of the "Time of Troubles," three hundred years earlier. They carried objects dating from that momentous occasion, including a cross and an icon that the Emperor and his family duly kissed. They then followed the procession into the grounds of the monastery and toward the Cathedral of the Trinity, in front of which they found other members of the wider imperial family, the array of tall, imposing, and bearded Grand Dukes, most in military uniform, with their assorted wives, mothers, and children. The Empress and her son, both afflicted with physical ailments and unable to stand for long periods, went straight inside the cathedral, while all the other members of the family and their retinue set off again, this time to meet the procession coming from the town with the wonder-working icon, followed by a crowd of thousands. Absolute silence fell as Tsar and procession came face-to-face, broken only by the discordant clashing of the ancient monastery bells.
The Emperor crossed himself, right to left in the Orthodox fashion, and kissed the holy icon, as did his daughters. Then all entered the cathedral to hear the liturgy, followed by a Te Deum. After the lengthy service Nicholas and his daughters went to visit the house of Tsar Mikhail, which had been turned into a museum for the occasion, and where many objects that had belonged to the first Tsar were on display. The Empress was not feeling well enough to go to the museum, and remained in the cathedral with her sister, the Grand Duchess Elisabeth (known to the family as Ella), dressed as usual in her elegant grey habit, as the abbess of her own order of nuns. After a series of farewells, the immediate family returned on board the Mezhen, where they lunched in private.
This brief glimpse of the imperial family afforded to the citizenry and ecclesiastical dignitaries of Kostroma, when the last in the line of Romanov tsars came to venerate the memory of the first, can be examined, like a photograph, to reveal much about the apparently straightforward scene. Central to it is the figure of the forty-five-year-old Tsar himself. Slighter than many of his Romanov uncles and cousins, of medium height, his brown beard and moustache carefully tended, his face lined-sometimes he could look very weary, though the creases around his eyes also came from laughter-nearly always in military uniform and often with a cigarette in his hand, he presented a picture of affable dignity. Very conscious of his own status as autocrat, anointed by God, he nevertheless appeared modest and-overwhelmingly-charming. So many people who met Nicholas (or Nicky, as he was known within the family), whether friend or foe, testify to that charm. "With his usual simplicity and friendliness," wrote his Prime Minister, Vladimir Kokovtsov. "A rare kindness of heart," commented Foreign Minister Sergei Sazonov. "A charm that attracted all who came near him," wrote British Ambassador Sir George Buchanan, who added that he always felt he was talking "with a friend and not the Emperor." "Charming in the kindly simplicity of his ways," said his niece's husband, Felix Yusupov. Nicholas's eyes, in particular, attracted people to him. His cousin, Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich (a poet, also known by his initials "KR") wrote of "that clear, deep, expressive look [that] cannot fail but charm and enchant." Yet the color of these attractive eyes seems to be in dispute. His early biographer Sergei Oldenburg refers to his "large radiant grey eyes" which "peered directly into one's soul and lent power to his words"; Hélène Vacaresco, who met Nicky when he was still Tsarevich, also wrote of his "large grey eyes." The English historian and scholar Sir Bernard Pares, on the other hand, who also met the Tsar, refers to the "beauty of his frank blue eyes." More strangely, Kokovtsov, who had the chance to stare into those eyes many times, writes that they were "usually of a velvety dark brown." In Serov's famous portrait, painted in 1900, the eyes are a grey-blue, matching the color of his uniform.
Charm-the art of pleasing other people, and the desire to please-seems never to have been a characteristic of Empress Alexandra Fyodorovna (Alix or Alicky to friends and family). Though possessed of many fine qualities (the chief of which consisted in wholeheartedness and utter loyalty toward any cause, or person, in which she believed), she was also afflicted by self-consciousness and an extreme shyness, which led her to hold herself aloof. Footage that has survived of her at public ceremonies shows her repeatedly bowing her head at the crowds-but stiffly, like a puppet, and only from the neck. Even taking into account the jerky nature of early film, she looks strained, unnatural, ill at ease-quite unlike her genial husband. An attractive woman with fine features and auburn-tinged hair, she was too tense, her mouth too set, her gait too rigid, for her natural endowments to be fully appreciated. And at intervals throughout her life-almost constantly from 1908-Alix had been an invalid, spending much of her time lying down (as can be seen in the family photograph albums) and frequently absent from public occasions. The Romanov tercentenary was important enough for her to make an effort to overcome her physical debility and participate, but even here she could not do so fully. And so, despite her great attachment both to her husband and to the Russian people, she remains at a distance, detached, in her own private space.
As is so often the case, Nicholas and Alexandra's strengths were also their weaknesses. Alix's wholeheartedness and loyalty made her inflexible, unable to adapt to changing circumstances, and tenacious in clinging to those in whom she put her faith, unwilling even to consider opinions contrary to the ones she had decided to adopt. Conversely, it was Nicky's desire to please, to charm, that contributed to his reputation for indecision, so anxious was he to make each person he received feel that he had treated them well and listened to them attentively. It was not until after a person had left his presence that he could act in opposition to what he had just heard-and had appeared to agree with. On August 15, 1905 the English journalist W. T. Stead met with Nicky's mother, Dowager Empress Maria Fyodorovna, and rather daringly told her a story that had been going the rounds:
Once two Ministers came to see the Emperor. He received first one and then the other in the presence of his wife. Minister No. 1 brought a long elaborate report, full of all the wearisome platitudes of such official documents. ("Yes, indeed," said [Maria Fyodorovna].) He read it to the close and finished up setting forth definite recommendations that this, that and the other should be done. The Tsar listened attentively and then said: "Thank you so much for your excellent report. I have heard it with much pleasure and your recommendations are exactly in accord with my conclusions." Exit Minister No.1 in high glee. Enter Minister No. 2. Another long wearisome report concluding with definite recommendations to do this, that and the other which are exactly opposed to the recommendations of Minister No. 1. The Tsar listened attentively and then said: "Thank you so much ('Oh, how wicked,' [Maria Fyodorovna] cried.) for your admirable paper. I have heard it with much pleasure and your recommendations are exactly in accord with my own conclusions." Exit Minister No. 2 in high glee. Then the Empress said to her husband: "But this is nonsense. These two Ministers have proposed exactly opposite things and you know it is impossible to agree with both of them." And the Emperor said: "My dear. You are quite right. I absolutely agree with you." And then they both burst out laughing.
Having to negotiate the claims represented by both parents were their five children. Olga, Tatiana, and Maria, and to a lesser extent Anastasia and Alexei, all shared something of their father's need to please, and both parents had inculcated in them a strong sense of duty. This conflicted with a natural desire to assert their own feelings and sense of independence, and as a result their relationship with their mother could be both stifling and, at times, stormy. Of the five, the youngest girl, Anastasia (who, at the time of the visit to Kostroma, was almost twelve years old), seemed the most free of their mother's rather repressive influence. She adored her father (so did they all, but Anastasia's letters to her "golden, good, darling Papa" are among the most effusive; "Love you always, everywhere," she writes in a letter dated May 8, 1913), and she seems largely to have avoided the fate shared by her sisters of being the one to keep her mother company when she was not feeling well enough to join in family activities. She was a mischievous, tomboyish child, often to be found up a tree or hiding in a cupboard. She still enjoyed playing with toys, taking particular delight in a variety of little flasks and pots given to her and her brother by one of the imperial doctors. She had no trace of her mother's shyness; "If you happened to be sitting next to her at table," recorded one court official, "you had constantly to be ready for some unexpected question. She was bolder than her sisters and very witty." She was also, according to one of the tutors of the imperial children, Pierre Gilliard, "extremely idle, though with the idleness of a gifted child." The sister nearest to her in age and her usual companion, Maria, was far less sure of herself. A very sweet and loving girl, with something of the devotion of an affectionate family dog (her sisters rather cruelly dubbed her "fat little bowwow"), she was sturdy and pretty, with "large and beautiful grey eyes" and "a happy Russian face." She had a very good memory and whenever the girls needed to remember something, they allotted the task to her. The oldest sister, Olga, was, at seventeen, a complex character, less amenable and tractable than at first appeared, more than capable of holding her own in conversation. Pierre Gilliard considered her very gifted intellectually-far more so than her sisters-and was disappointed that she did not make the most of these gifts. She was also a very talented musician-a talent inherited from her mother-and possessed the ability to play the piano by ear. She showed little inclination to move from girlhood into adulthood, and took no particular trouble over her appearance. The daughter most attentive toward Alix was the second oldest, the sixteen-year-old Tatiana. She was in many ways most like her mother (in appearance she resembled her maternal grandmother, Princess Alice of Hesse)-reserved, sensitive, her self-restraint rather ineffectively concealing a desire to take the lead, to control others as she controlled herself. Her sisters recognized this controlling tendency in her by nicknaming her "the governess."
In Kostroma, as throughout the tercentenary celebrations, the girls' duty lay in accompanying their father as much as possible, bolstering the idealized image of the imperial family, rather than tending their invalid mother, which task was relegated on this occasion to their aunt, the Grand Duchess Elisabeth. Alix herself, in a letter written a few months earlier to her old friend Bishop William Boyd Carpenter, formerly a chaplain to Queen Victoria, alludes to the public role her daughters are beginning to assume on her behalf: "My children are growing up so fast and are such real little comforters to us-the elder ones often replace me at functions and go about a great deal with their Father-they are all five touching in their care for me-my family life is one blessed ray of sunshine excepting the anxiety for our Boy." The four girls were dressed in their trademark identical white dresses and picture hats (though they did take care to personalize their outfits through the judicious addition of a ribbon or other minor detail); it was chilly enough on the visit to Kostroma, however, for them to need to cover their summer dresses with warm dark coats for at least part of the time. The two eldest were now considered old enough to wear their hair up, though Tatiana had recently had hers cut off after she had contracted typhoid fever as a result of drinking contaminated water at the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg.
Also staying behind with Alix, rather than engaging in all the activities at Kostroma, was the boy about whom she was so anxious, the eight-year-old heir to the throne, Alexei. A boisterous and energetic child when well-a fact that in itself caused his mother endless anxiety-he already had a strong sense of himself as the future Tsar, and his natural inclination would have been to be alongside his father. But, a sufferer from hemophilia, he had nearly died following a series of minor accidents the previous autumn, and was still not able to walk normally. So although he did his best to keep up with his siblings, he had to spend part of his time lying or sitting next to his mother. In some ways this was no hardship, as each enjoyed the other's company. Despite his illness and the constraints it placed upon him, the little boy was of a very sunny temperament and loved by all. "Alexei Nikolaevich was the centre of this united family," recalled Pierre Gilliard, "the focus of all its hopes and affections. His sisters worshipped him and he was his parents' pride and joy. When he was well the palace was, as it were, transformed."
Curiosity, at least as much as adulation, had brought the crowds to the landing stage at Kostroma (this was one of the few places on the triumphal progress that year where the crowds seemed genuinely enthusiastic and of a good size), for the chance to glimpse the Tsar and his family in the flesh was rare. Portraits and photographs of the imperial family abounded, but the images were carefully controlled (this being one aspect of public relations in which the Empress took an active interest-particularly as it did not involve actually having to meet anyone). The family had spent the earlier part of 1913 at Tsarskoe Selo, fifteen miles outside St. Petersburg, in the intimacy of their own apartments in the Alexander Palace. Existence at Tsarskoe Selo, and at the other royal palaces, was highly ordered. For the children, it was dominated by lessons and outdoor activities; for the Tsar it was similar, except that for lessons was substituted work. The children's lessons generally began at nine o'clock in the morning and continued for two hours, before a break of one hour that usually involved a walk, ride, or drive (depending on the time of year and the weather). More lessons followed, until lunch at one. Two hours of every afternoon were spent outside, the Tsar joining in his children's exercise and play whenever he had time-which was not, in fact, very often, for he was extremely conscientious over his work and his ministers tended to deluge him with reports; he also insisted on performing quite menial tasks himself and refused to employ a personal secretary. When the girls were not undertaking physical activity or lessons, they would be engaged in reading, needlework, or some other improving pastime-for their mother, a Victorian by conviction as well as by descent, believed in the adage "The devil makes work for idle hands," and hated to see her daughters sitting around doing nothing. Except when prevented by ill health, she applied the same stricture to herself; even when lying on her sofa, she would be busy writing letters, stitching, or reading. The girls also drew and painted, and loved amateur dramatics. Anastasia was given to more original occupations; in 1913 she was preoccupied with breeding worms.
This period, this year in particular, was a vibrant one in Russia; both the economy and the arts were flourishing, new ideas were in the air, and there was a sense that anything could happen. Against this background-when one looks beyond the palace gates to see something of what was going on in the two Russian capitals-the private life of the imperial family can appear remarkably circumscribed and insular. Many of Olga and Tatiana's contemporaries were desperately trying to achieve the perfect physique and (imaginary) flawless complexion of the famous ballerinas, such as Tamara Karsavina and Anna Pavlova, by applying the cold creams, scents, and soaps constantly advertized in Russian middle-class magazines of the period, such as Field and Town and Country. And, rather than amateur dramatics and needlework, it was the tango that fascinated the fashionable young ladies of Moscow. "Our faces are like the screech of the streetcar warning the hurrying passersby, like the drunken sounds of the great tango," declared the cubo-futurist manifesto of 1913 called Why We Paint Ourselves. Several avant-garde artists (including David Burliuk, Natalia Goncharova, and Mikhail Larionov) had taken to painting the jagged, geometric forms of so-called rayonist art on their faces and other body parts and then walking around the city streets, in an attempt to shock and make (literal) exhibitions of themselves. Late in the year the futurist film Drama in the Futurists' Cabaret No. 13 was made, and December saw the production of the cubo-futurist antiopera, Victory over the Sun, in St. Petersburg's Luna Park. The libretto of this notorious piece was written by the radical Futurist poet Alexei Kruchenykh with a prologue by fellow Futurist Velimir Khlebnikov; the music was by avant-garde composer Mikhail Matushin and the costumes and sets designed by the artist Kasimir Malevich. "Some actors spoke only with vowels, others only with consonants, while blinding lights and ear-splitting sounds rocked through the theatre in an effort to give man 'victory over the sun': freedom from all dependence on the traditional order of the world." The performances were sponsored by the Union of Youth and, along with Mayakovsky's tragedy Vladimir Mayakovsky, were the sensation of the season, selling out despite the extremely high prices. All this was indeed worlds away from the domestic entertainments at Tsarskoe Selo, where the girls performed extracts from the French classics for their own close circle where "traditional order" reigned supreme, and where the reading matter of even the seventeen-year-old Olga was carefully censored by her tutor. In Paris The Rite of Spring was premiered by the Ballets Russes, featuring the legendary Vaslav Nijinsky, while in Russia Leon Bakst designed the costumes for the ballet Jeux, which concerned a flirtation during a game of tennis. Late in 1913 Vsevolod Meyerhold opened a new studio in St. Petersburg, where actors and students of drama explored experimental theater and where Meyerhold adopted his alternative persona of "Doctor Dapertutto" to distinguish his experimental from his official self as director of the imperial theater. In the field of literature, notable events of 1913 included the publication in book form (it had previously appeared as a newspaper serialization) of Andrei Bely's symbolist novel Petersburg, and of Osip Mandelstam's first collection of verse, Stone. The journal Argus, which specialized in accounts of exotic and far-flung adventures (including that of Captain Scott's to the Antarctic) appeared for the first time. And during that year the writer Maxim Gorky returned to St. Petersburg from exile.
1913 was also a year marked by technological progress and vision; to name but three examples, experimental shafts were dug in Moscow to explore the feasibility of an underground railway, the Romanov irrigation canal was opened in the steppe of Samarkand, and Captain Boris A. Vilkitsky took two icebreakers on the Arctic Ocean Hydrographic Expedition, during which a huge uncharted archipelago was discovered, which he named Nicholas II Land. (It is now known as Severnaya Zemlya, or Northern Land.) The economy was buoyant, there had been bumper harvests in the previous two years, and the state treasury was in very good shape. Five years earlier, the then prime minister Pyotr Stolypin had said: "Give us twenty years of peace, domestic and foreign, and you will not recognize contemporary Russia," and it looked as though his prediction was on the way to being fulfilled. On the other side of the coin, however, there were over twenty-five thousand homeless people in St. Petersburg, the populations of both the capital and of Moscow, the old capital, having nearly doubled since the beginning of the century.