House of Romanov

“ Every rat is exceedingly nervous and tries to disappear from the Palace under some pretext or other, and the Palace is deserted.
Kerensky is coming there very often, usually with his milk-fed A.D.C.... This man wants to be generous, he wants to be square, in fact,—he wants to be magnificent. He calls the Emperor "Colonel Romanov," or "Nikolai Alexandrovich." Never says, "Your Majesty." He feels sure that he is beloved in Tsarskoye, and that they speak of him with tears of gratitude, admiring his justice and his manners. ”

“ The sufferings of the Romanovs in Ipatiev’s house were so terrible that it is not seemly to misrepresent them, as some writers have done, in sordid fashion. I have the inventory of the house and its contents, signed by Ipatiev and the Komisars; I have the procès-verbal of Sergeiev’s inspection, made within a fortnight of the murder; lastly, I have the evidence of my own eyes. The house itself contained every comfort and convenience: electric light, excellent stoves, a well appointed bath-room and lavatory, electric bells everywhere, plenty of good and even luxurious furniture. ”

“ The princes Mstislavski and Pojarski, it appears, refused the crown; the election of Prince Dmitri Trubetskoi failed, and the other candidates were set aside for various reasons. After much hesitation the name of Michael Romanov was put forward; a young man sixteen years of age, personally unknown, but recommended by the virtues of his father, Philaretes, and in whose behalf the boyars had been canvassed by the patriarch Hermogenes, the holy martyr to the national cause. The Romanovs were connected through the female branch with this ancient dynasty. ”

“ May a Romanoff worthy of the name that he bears rally the real Russia—she who endures and is silent, not being able to do more for the moment—and so make of her again a great power worthy of respect and gaining it, the terror of her ignoble neighbour, Germany—and not her vassal. ”

“ However little Russian blood may be running at present in the veins of the Romanoff family, there is no question about the thoroughly Russian character of the persons most concerned. Born and bred in Russia, it would be strange if the men were otherwise than national in their feelings; and as for the women who have been married into the Imperial family, they seem to have left everything behind them when they came to make their homes in Muscovy. ”

“ On our way to Kostroma we sailed on the Volga. People lined the shores, some even wading into the water up to their waists. When our boat developed some trouble and while the repairs were being made, the people thronged the shores and sang “God Save the Tsar.” The Imperial party was delayed in reaching Kostroma. It was in this terraced city overlooking the Volga River that the Romanov dynasty had its official beginning, and now a special ceremony was to be held to celebrate the three hundredth anniversary of the Romanov reign. ”

“ In April a flash of the brutal Romanoff temper lit Moscow once more. Alexis Dolgoruki and his family were arrested and convicted of causing the death of the late Tsar. The aged father went to Siberia, the younger men were knouted and exiled, and the young Catherine, the betrothed of Peter II, was, with a refinement of cruelty, sent to the very spot in the frozen north where Menshikoff’s daughter, the earlier aspirant to the crown, had lamented her bitter disappointment. The great proud family was shattered to atoms. ”

“ A thousand souls are camped at St. Romanof, in a rude hamlet, with the usual paint and fence. Each house stands by itself, with its own yard and garden, vines, and melon-beds, guarded by a savage dog. The type is Malo-Russ, the complexion yellow and Tartar-like; the teeth are very fine, the eyes are burning with hidden fire. Men and boys all ride, and every child appears to possess a horse. Yet half the men are nursing babies, while the women are doing the heavier kinds of work. ”

“ The Romanoff family seemed to be an especial source of danger, and the chief representative of that family, Feodor Romanoff, was thrust into a monastery and buried under the monkish title of Philaret. His wife was compelled to enter a nunnery and assume the name of Marfa.
The scattered feeling of discontent at length gathered round the person of a singular adventurer. In the summer of 1604 the news spread through Russia that Dmitri, the third son of Ivan the Terrible, was not dead, but was approaching Moscow with a Polish army to oust the usurper and put an end to their miseries. ”

“ On the first floor of the house were only four small, low rooms. The wife's apartments were above, reached by a flight of steep, narrow stairs. The furniture would send a "modern antique" dealer into ecstasies. The cradle and toys of the young Romanoff have been preserved, as well as the book out of which he learned to read.
"I wonder why this door was made so low," said Judith, as we were obliged to bend our backs nearly double in passing from one room to another.
"The great man had a deal of trouble with his boyars," replied George. ”

“ Regarding the ultimate disposal of the two prisoners, stories circulate just as numerous and varied as the stories of their escape. I need not cite them. It suffices that the Grand Duke Michael, gentlest of men, to whom all thought of power and even of ambition was repugnant, disappeared to be seen no more.
Perm and its vicinity was destined to witness other tragedies full of horror. Many other members of the Romanov family had been interned there including (1) the Grand Duchess Elizabeth, sainted sister of the Empress, venerated by grateful Muscovites while Alexandra was disliked ”

“ Traitors and pretenders vanished before it; foreign invaders were driven from city to city. Moscow was recovered, and, in 1613, a great council of the clergy and people, in harmonious accord, renounced allegiance to Vladislas, and acclaimed Michael Romanoff, son of Philaret, as tsar. When Moscow was retaken Ignatius had fled to Poland for safety, and, in the absence of a patriarch, Michael was crowned by three metropolitans, one of whom, Jonah of the Steeps, was placed in charge of the patriarchate until more tranquil times might permit a regular election of a head of the Church. ”

“ The following report of the proceedings is taken from the Bolshevist paper Pravda:—
“‘The Revolutionary Tribunal has considered the case of the murder of the late Tsar Nicholas Romanov, his wife, the Princess of Hesse, their daughters Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia, and{329} their suite. In all eleven persons were assassinated. Of the twenty-eight persons accused three were members of the Ekaterinburg Soviet—Grusinov, Yakhontov, and Malutin; among the accused were also two women, Maria Apraksina and Elizaveta Mironova. ”

“ The party must realise that it was no more than a minority, and could be nothing else. There is no revolutionary mass; the mass has always been led by minorities. The party must therefore abandon its centralist organisation; Azev was the product of centralisation, The greatest enemy, in truth the only enemy, of socialism (not only in Russia but elsewhere as well) is autocracy. In concrete terms, the Romanov dynasty is everywhere the prop of reaction; it must therefore be the first object of attack, and must first of all be annihilated. The autocracy, too, is only a minority. ”

“ One July morning the Imperial Family were called together with the principal Court and State functionaries in all haste to Peterhof. The long-expected event was at hand, and a few hours would decide as to the future of the Romanoff dynasty. People with anxious faces thronged the vast halls of the Palace, waiting for news which seemed to be very long in coming. ”

“ The Romanov regime was conquered almost without a fight,—naturally enough, since the entire people had become tired of its rule and had decided that it was harmful and unnecessary, and that the country would be better off without it. ”

“ Not all the sovereigns since Michael Romanoff have been great. More than one has been deficient in private virtue. In some there flowed not a drop of Slavic blood. But they all bore the test of being supremely Russian, only Russian, at the core. Save the execrated two, each down to the accession of Nicolas II, in 1894, contributed his full share to Russian power and prestige, both at home and abroad. Like the concentric rings of an oak tree were the territorial accretions of the Russian Em- pire. ”

“ Till lately she has been living at Moscow, carefully concealing the secret of her romantic origin; but, through no act of her own, the story, by some means or other, has transpired.
“The Czar Paul is said to be convinced by documentary evidence of her legitimacy and Imperial lineage, a matter to him of grave import, since, as there is no Salic law in Russia, if the rule of primogeniture be followed, this grand-daughter of Ivan VI., as the eldest surviving representative of the House of Romanoff, should now be wearing the diadem of the Czars. ”

“ After lunch Andrev fetched me, and an official showed us all over the Tsar’s palace. There were exquisite small rooms with vaulted ceilings and frescoed walls, from which it was evident that the stage scenery in the Russian operas had been copied. There were still traces of red bunting and appeals to the workers of the world to unite in the colossal room, over-decorated with gold, which was the Throne Room of the Romanoffs, and in which the Third International had its last meeting.
The modern apartments in the new wing are bad architecture and in bad taste, but everything is left undisturbed. ”

“ The bust was one of Maurice de Saxe.
THE STORY OF PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD STUART
The royal families of Europe are widely known, yet not all of them are equally renowned. Thus, the house of Romanoff, although comparatively young, stands out to the mind with a sort of barbaric power, more vividly than the Austrian house of Hapsburg, which is the oldest reigning family in Europe, tracing its beginnings backward until they are lost in the Dark Ages. The Hohenzollerns of Prussia are comparatively modern, so far as concerns their royalty. ”

“ Suppose, for example, some European Power claims new territory on the ground of geographical position. Why, ask the Roumanians, should we be hemmed in as we are on every side? Why should not the plains on both sides of the Danube guarded by the Balkans and the Carpathians constitute a strong realm, one and indivisible, with the great river flowing as an artery through its centre? The answer is, Russia! If an v of the Great Powers had insisted upon such a readjustment in the East, she would have opposed it, for is not Bulgaria her last stepping-stone to Constantinople? ”

“ The man was a self-seeker; he saw in the captivity of the Romanovs an opportunity to advance his own and his son’s interests. He indulged in all manner of demonstrations of “loyalty”—bell-ring{372}ing and prayers—without regard to their effect upon the captives and their gaolers. As a matter of fact, they did much harm to the family.
The accusation brought against him by Soloviev appears to be borne out in part by the discovery of a certain quantity of articles belonging to the Imperial family in his (Vasiliev’s) house. ”

“ Consequently the description of the Government of Russia as 'despotism tempered by assassination' is not so very far from the truth.
"It is sometimes said that the Romanoff family is more German than Russian, in consequence of the marriages of the emperors with German princesses. Peter the Great was pure Russian; his son Alexis, father of Peter II., married a German princess, and their daughter Anne married a German duke. Anne and the German duke were the parents of Peter III., the husband of Catherine II. ”

“ No matter what reproaches could have been addressed to the Romanoffs in the past, no matter the injustices and the cruelties they had committed in the course of their family history, there is one thing which cannot be taken away from them, and that is that they have all of them been strong and courageous men, incapable of trembling before the attacks of any enemies, however powerful, or before the fury of a revolted mob. ”

“ They had been, after all, together with the future of the Romanoff dynasty, a great race that had produced great men and they deserved to have, as their last crowned descendant, some one better than Nicholas II. had proved to be. They had often been cruel, more frequently even unjust; they had never respected what the world is used to venerate and to esteem; they had shown themselves hard in regard to their subjects; but they had made out of dark, ignorant Russia an immense{296} Empire on which even more immense hopes had been built. ”

“ The plow is no less essential than the trowel. The period after Boris had been for Russia the period of the wholesome plow. The harvest was far off. But the name Romanoff was going to stand for another Russia, not like the old Russia of Kief, nor yet the new Russia of Moscow; but another and a Europeanized Russia, in which, after long struggles, the Slavonic and half-Asiatic giant was going to tear down the walls of separation, escape from his barbarism, and compel Europe to share with him her civilization. ”

“ Then the Roumanians wake up to find the Russians beginning to hem them in on three sides; while, again, newspaper readers are horrified by a revelation of the rapacious passions which some dignify by the title of ‘principle of nationality,’ and others denounce as criminal ‘lust of land,’ that are on the verge of outbreak at Athens and Sofia, at St. Petersburg, at Belgrade, at Vienna, at Paris, and even at Rome. ”