The Family Romanov: Murder, Rebellion and the Fall of Imperial Russia

Chapter 6 begins in fall 1908, when Sydney Gibbes arrives at the Royal Palace to tutor the three eldest grand duchesses in English. Gibbes has been told that the royal children “‘generally behaved like young savages’” (88), and he discovers that the girls are not receiving much of an education at all. Fleming explains that according to many members of the tsar’s court, the children’s “‘intellectual development was very bad’” (89), as the empress was not overly concerned with their education.

Trouble beings for Gibbes and fellow tutors such as French instructor Pierre Gilliard’s when the youngest grand duchess, Anastasia, starts receiving lessons at 8 years old. Anastasia is, according to a friend of the Romanovs, “‘a true genius in naughtiness’” (91); she threatens to spill ink all over her tutor’s shirt, and then bribes him with flowers to increase her grades. Anastasia despises school; in a letter to a friend, she describes a math problem as “‘pig and filth’” (92).

Meanwhile Alexei, still too young for school, is also “full of mischief” (93), despite his illness. He plays jokes, such as stealing a guest’s slipper and hiding a strawberry inside it, and because he is his parents’ cherished “‘Sunbeam’” (93), he is rarely punished. Still, Alexei is tortured by the fact he can’t play outside like other boys; “‘Why can other boys have everything and I nothing?’” he laments (94).

The entire Romanov family shares a love of photography, and as the children grow older, they spend many evenings filling photo albums. Every summer, the family travels south by imperial train on “the royal progress” (97), although the empress has become increasingly “sickly” (98) and often shuts herself away from her children. The chapter ends with the girls hoping their “‘darling Mama’” (99) will soon recover and join her family again.

In the middle of this chapter, Fleming includes a letter to a newspaper from a young shop girl, Aizenshtein, published in 1908. Describing the common plights of shop workers in St. Petersburg, Aizenshtein presents a strong contrast to the grand duchesses’ lives of luxury and ease. As Aizenshtein says, these teenage girls work thirteen- to fifteen-hour days for low wages, and are paid so infrequently they must “‘go to the boss each day and beg him for enough money for food’” (97).

By 1911, despite his “‘coarse’” peasant mannerisms and appearance, Rasputin has become “all the rage” in St. Petersburg (100). Wealthy women flock to his apartment, drawn to the promise of “something new and exciting” (100), even though Rasputin insults the women, grabbing and kissing them. Eventually, rumors spread and Rasputin becomes known as a “lecherous imposter” (101). While the nobles now spurn him, the tsar and tsarista maintain their faith in Rasputin, who stays “on his best behavior” around the royal family (101).

Prime Minister Peter Stolypin, doubting Rasputin’s motives, orders a full investigation. While the resulting report is “lost to history” (102), it may have claimed Rasputin molested women. Whatever the report’s contents, Nicholas “refuse[s] to believe it” (102) and forces Stolypin to meet with Rasputin. During the meeting, Rasputin appears to set some kind of “spell” on the minister: as Stolypin later reports, the starets “‘mumbled mysterious and inarticulate words from the Scriptures […] and made strange movements with his hands’” (103). When Nicholas still refuses to deal with the holy man, Stolypin acts without his monarch’s permission to exile Rasputin from St. Petersburg. Empress Alexandra is distraught, so Nicholas attempts to diffuse the situation by funding Rasputin’s journey to the Holy Land.

In September of 1911, the royal family and ministers, Stolypin among them, travel to Kiev for the dedication of a statue to the tsar’s grandfather. Rasputin goes to Kiev as well, trailing the royals without an invitation, and proclaims that “‘death is after’” Stolypin (104). Nicholas and his two eldest daughters attend an opera in the tsar’s honor, and a young man pulls out a gun and fires, killing Stolypin, who is sitting in the front row. The murderer, Dmitri Bogrov, is executed without any investigation of his crime, but Alexandra is sure of why Stolypin dies: “‘Those who offend Our Friend’”—Rasputin—“‘may no longer count on divine protection,’” she says (106). A few weeks later, Olga attends her first ball held for her sixteenth birthday, a lovely moment in a world, Fleming says, that’s “growing increasingly dark” (107).

In late 1911, copies of letters from the Romanovs to Rasputin make their way around St. Petersburg; Rasputin himself has given them away while boasting of his imperial connections. Empress Alexandra has written “‘I kiss you warmly’” (108), leading the public to believe the tsaritsa is having an affair with the starets, though in fact the empress uses such “gushing” language with everyone (108). Now furious with Rasputin, the empress refuses to see him, and he returns to his Siberian home.

In August 1912, while the royal family is vacationing in Poland, the empress—against her better judgment—lets Alexei go rowing and he hits an oarlock with his upper thigh. He recovers, but two weeks later, Alexei suddenly becomes “‘almost unconscious with pain’” (110), and Dr. Botkin discovers blood has been seeping into his leg and abdomen since the accident. The doctor can do nothing, and Alexandra is sure her son is dying. After eleven days, she sends a desperate telegram to Rasputin, who replies that “‘the Little One will not die’” (112). Twenty-four hours later, Alexei’s bleeding miraculously stops, and the empress is sure Rasputin has divinely intervened. Rasputin, cementing his power over the royals, pronounces that the tsarevitch “‘will live only as long as I am alive’” (112).

By 1913, the grand duchesses are teenagers, aside from 12-year-old, “short and chubby” Anastasia (123), but members of the court lament all four girls’ “emotional immaturity” (123), as their mother keeps them isolated from the outside world. At the same time, 1913 marks the 300th anniversary of Romanov rule, and the royals plan an “extravagant” celebration in St. Petersburg (115), in order to improve the tsar’s public image.

The anniversary begins with a service at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan, but Rasputin takes a seat meant for Duma members, and a vicious fight breaks out between the Rasputin and Duma president Michael Rodzianko. Once Rasputin leaves, young Alexei—whose hemophilia is still kept secret—is carried in, sparking new concern among the onlookers. What’s more, the tsar and tsaritsa appear strikingly nervous; the tsar clearly “no longer [feels] safe even among his most loyal subjects” (118).

After the celebration, tutors Pierre Gilliard, who is aware of Alexei’s illness, and Sydney Gibbes, who isn’t, begin tutoring 8-year-old Alexei. The tsarevitch proves as difficult a student as his sisters, having, as Gilliard says, a “‘mute hostility’” (119) and even attempting to cut his teacher’s hair. At the same time, Gilliard notes that because of Alexei’s own suffering, he is “‘sensitive to the suffering in others’” (120).

The chapter ends with a description of “a different kind of education” (120) for a working-class boy in St. Petersburg: 8-year-old Nicholas Griaznov’s ordeal as a shop owner’s apprentice. Instead of teaching the boy, the shop owner views him and other apprentices as “cheap labor” (120), and overworks and even abuses them. Nicholas’s father writes a letter to the newspaper New Russia, complaining that the shop owner refuses to give his son back until the apprenticeship ends, due to the “‘expense’” (121) already taken in “‘training the boy’” (121), and that the owner believes he has the right to beat the boy. The shop owner, Kasatskin, responds in another letter to the paper, saying the Russian economy leaves him no choice but to participate in “‘this system of buying and selling children’” (122), and that the newspaper should attack the system, rather than the shop owners themselves.