Once A Grand Duke by Alexander Grand Duke of Russia. Alexander Mikhailovich
son of Peter the Great?
EMPEROR ALEXANDER III, FATHER-IN-LAW OF GRAND DUKE ALEXANDER, IN 1888
THE IMPERIAL FAMILY OF RUSSIA IN 1888. ON THE BALCONY, LEFT TO RIGHT: GRAND DUCHESS XENIA, EMPEROR ALEXANDER III HOLDING GRAND DUCHESS OLGA ON HIS SHOULDER, HEIR APPARENT AND THE FUTURE CZAR NICHOLAS II, EMPRESS MARIE. BELOW, LEFT TO RIGHT: GRAND DUKE GEORGE ALEXANDROVICH (“GEORGIE”) AND GRAND DUKE MICHAEL ALEXANDROVICH (“MISHA”).
GRAND DUKE SERGEI MICHAILOVICH
GRAND DUKE NICHOLAS MICHAILOVICH
GRAND DUKE GEORGE MICHAILOVICH
THE THREE BROTHERS OF GRAND DUKE ALEXANDER WHO WERE ASSASSINATED BY THE BOLSHEVIKS.
Our family doctor tried in vain to remind the superstitious scandalmongers that the medical science of the eighteenth century did not know how to fight smallpox, and that the young Emperor would have passed away in any event had he been engaged to the “luckiest” girl in the world. The gossipers appreciated his learned zeal but went ahead with their campaign. They thought it would require a greater eloquence than his to explain why the outburst of the present terroristic activities had coincided with the beginning of the romance of Alexander II.
“My dear doctor,” said a titled lady of wide acquaintances, “with all due respect to the miracles of modern science, I really cannot see how the men of your profession could stop the nihilists from throwing bombs in the direction pointed out by our great Dictator . . .”
The last remark referred to General Loris-Melikoff whose conciliatory policies had aroused a storm of indignation in the ranks of the unemployed statesmen and the unrecognized saviors of the country. His spectacular career provided an inexhaustible topic for the fashionable tea parties. A brave commander of an army corps and an assistant of my father during the Russian-Turkish War in 1877-1878, he was described by the whisperers as the Man Friday of Princess Yourievskaya. Appointed to a post equivalent in importance to that of Prime Minister of England, he enjoyed the unlimited confidence of the Czar but his deep affection for the sovereign, no doubt, handicapped his actions: in a death-fight with the forces of anarchy he constantly kept in mind the pathetic vision of a pair of lovers in the Winter Palace begging him to prolong their short moments of happiness. The classical phrase about a man who knows the better way but prefers to follow the worst would have perfectly fitted the plight of this honest soldier. After a long period of hesitancy he decided to take the advice of a woman in love and to extend an olive branch to the nihilists. That in turn precipitated the tragic climax. The revolutionaries—a small fraction of the population of the larger cities—doubled their demands and threatened open revolt. The loyal supporters of the throne shrugged their shoulders in dismay and stepped aside. The people—one hundred twenty million peasants spread all over the empire—said that the landlords had hired an Armenian general to kill the Russian Czar because he had liberated the serfs!
A surprising conclusion but a logical one considering that outside of St. Petersburg, Moscow and a half dozen provincial towns where the daily papers were printed, the whole empire lived on rumors, and the grapevine telegraph provided the only channel for the spreading of political news. A well-known leader of the radical intelligentsia, Feodor Rodicheff, wrote in his memoirs that each time an important official was killed by the nihilists in the capital, the villagers reacted by burning the estate of a family suspected of revolutionary sympathies.
A cynical ruler could have easily used this singular mentality of the peasants for the purpose of upholding the principle of absolute monarchy, but the graduates of the Imperial Military Academy never were taught the fine art of governmental cynicism. On the eve of the New Year of 1881 General Loris-Melikoff placed on the desk of the Czar a project of radical reforms, which borrowed most of its ideas from the constitutions of England and France.
5
A series of festivities was planned for the month of January. The long illness of the late Empress and the uncertainty of Princess Yourievskaya’s position had deprived the court of its pleasures for several years, so now the Emperor gave orders to arrange a magnificent state ball.
The enormous halls of the Winter Palace—so high that one could not see the ceilings—were decorated with orchids and other tropical flowers brought from the imperial hothouses; endless rows of palm trees were placed along the main stairway and in the mirrored corridors. Eight hundred attendants worked for two weeks putting everything in readiness, while the court caterers prepared to do their very best in the line of refreshments and various delicacies.
The end of the period of mourning gave a chance to the grand duchesses and the ladies of the court to display their priceless diamond diadems, pearl necklaces, emerald bracelets, sapphire brooches, and ruby rings, shining brightly in the light of the colossal chandeliers of the palace, against the impressive background of the glittering uniforms of the foreign ambassadors, courtiers, officers of the Guard regiments and visiting Oriental potentates.
I often speculate as to what happened to all this gorgeous jewelry. Is it being kept in the dark safes of the wholesale dealers in Amsterdam, London and Paris, or am I to see some day the famous sapphires of my mother decorating the arms of a gracious hostess in Park Avenue? I likewise wonder whether any of the two thousand odd men and women present on that January night in the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg could have foreseen that my cousin Nicky, pulling me by the sleeve to come and admire a real Persian Shah, would be shot in a cellar in Siberia thirty-seven years later?
Permitted to wear my uniform of colonel of the 73rd Krimsky Regiment, I strutted past the gigantic troopers of the Chevalier-Guards wearing helmets surmounted by the imperial double-headed eagle and stationed at the entrances to the halls. All during the evening I tried to keep away from my parents so that an inappropriate remark should not shatter my illusions of grandeur.
The arrival of the Emperor and Princess Yourievskaya accompanied by the elder grand dukes and the dignitaries of the court, gave the signal for the commencement of the ball. According to the etiquette it started with the polonaise, the Czar walking in the first pair with the wife of the heir apparent—a concession he had agreed to at the very last moment—and the grand dukes following in the order of priority. As there were not enough grand duchesses to be paired with the younger members of the imperial family, I had to dance with an elderly lady-in-waiting who remembered the childhood of my father.
Our procession—for the polonaise was really not a dance in the modern meaning of the word—had to pass through all the halls, with six chamberlains in front of us announcing our approach. We circled the palace three times, after which the dancing began in every hall, quadrille, waltz and mazurka being the only dances approved by etiquette.
As the clock struck midnight the dancing stopped and the Czar led the procession, in the same order as before, to the supper-tables. There was considerable speculation as to whether Princess Yourievskaya would actually sit down or follow the tradition of the sovereigns who always remained standing, walking from table to table and talking to the guests. To the utmost consternation of my dancing partner she did accompany the Emperor on his rounds of hospitality, but her face was twitching and her lips were tightly drawn.
Everybody noticed that General Loris-Melikoff left the room frequently. Each time on his return he approached the Czar and said a few words to him, no doubt reporting on the