The Romanovs: A Lifelong Passion Part One

This is my favorite picture of the Romanov family. Seated left to right are the Tsarina Alexandra, Tsar Nicholas II, and Anastasia, the youngest daughter. The Tsarevich and heir Alexei is seated in the front. Standing in the back are the Grand Duchesses Maria, Tatiana, and Olga. I'm not as certain of their identies, so if I mislabeled them I apologize. Sorry.

As a child, my favorite story was the myths surrounding the last tsar and his daughter Anastasia. The family was supposedly mass murdered with several servants by the Bolsheviks on July 16, 1918, and buried in a mass grave somewhere in the wilderness of Ekaterinburg. This story was part of my own family's past. My grandfather and his parents came from Russia during the upheaval that was the Bolshevik revolution. My grandfather was just a child and he would tell my mother about the last tsar and his family. When I could read, I devoured everything I could find and could not get enough. Being half Russian, just added to the intrigue. Recently, I read A Lifetime Passion: Nicholas and Alexandra Their Own Story compiled by Andrei Maylunas and Sergei Mironenko. Together, these men compiled the personal writings of the Romanov family and extended family, government officials, police reports, and other various documents to retell the famous story through the eyes of the participants. It served to reignite my passion and fascination with this tragic historical story that is surrounded by mysteries and intrigue.

Emperor Nicholas II of Russia, or Nicky, was born in 1868 on May 6. He was the son of Emperor Alexander III and Empress Marie Dagmar. As the oldest son and also the first-born child, he was the tsarevich or heir to his father's throne. He had two brothers: George, or Georgy; Mikhail, or Misha; and two sisters: Xenia and Olga.

He was 16 when he first met Alexandra, or Princess Alice of Hesse. Alexandra was born ion May 25, 1872 to Alice and Ludwig of Hesse, and was the granddaughter of Queen Victoria and Albert Saxe-Coburg of England. She had six siblings: Victoria or Toria, Elizabth or Ella, Irene, Ernst, Frederick and Mary. Although, Frederick died when he was two years old and Mary was four when she passed on. The year Nicky and Alix met was 1884. She had traveled to Russia with her family to see her sister Ella marry Nicholas' uncle Sergei Alexandrovich (Alexandrovich means son of Alexander, so he is Nicky's father's brother).

In his diary, Tsarevich Nicholas describes playing with the 12-year-old Alix and feelings of sadness that she will not be staying. "We went completely wild on the maypole. Everyone roared with laughter at the sight of Xenia running with her skirts hitched up. We got covered in sand and we slid through hoops onto the ground. We returned home exhausted, filthy and soaked through with sweat.. .I am very sad that the Darmstadts are going tomorrow and even more so that dearest Alix is leaving me." Throughout his life, Nicholas kept a diary, writing in it every day religiously. Alix also kept a diary and they often wrote to each other.

They did not meet again until 1889, when Alexandra arrived in Russia to visit her sister Ella. This is when their five-year courtship began and the letter writing started up with a ferocity of romance and sadness at their separation. Throughout their lives these letters show their complete love and devotion for each other. They are the proof that Alexandra never loved anyone else, and neither did Nicholas. The letters always kept them connected while Nicholas was away being Emperor and leading the troops during the war with Germany. Their true love and devotion would last until their untimely demise in 1918.It is their loving relationship that I myself aspire to achieve with my own husband.

It's sad that they almost didn't get married, because Alexandra, who was raised Protestant could not bring herself to convert to Russian Orthodox. Nicky describes it in a letter to Empress Marie, his mother, written on April 10th, 1894,

"I had a long and difficult conversation with Alix, during which I tried to explain to her that she could not do otherwise than to give her consent! She was crying the whole time, and only answered from time to time in a whisper: 'No! I cannot' . . .Although this conversation went on for more than two hours, it ended in nothing, because neither of us would give in to each other. The next morning, we talked more calmly"

It was Ella who finally convinced her, because she had converted to Russian Orthodoxy eight years after her marriage to Sergei.In the same letter, Nicholas is elated.

"The first thing she said was. . .that she agreed! Oh God, what happened to me then! I started to cry like a child, and so did she, only her expression immediately changed: her face brightened and took on an aura of peace."

On April 20, 1894, Alix left Nicholas again to travel to Windsor Castle to see Queen Victoria, her granny, before her wedding. They relied on letters filled with soft romantic words to keep their relationship alive during this brief separation. They are reunited on June 8, 1894 in England and she returns to Russia in July of that same year for another visit.

They are married on November 14, 1894. Nicholas' father died on October 20 of that same year and Nicholas needed to be ordained and married quickly. Alix arrived for the funeral and was anointed with the holy (Russian Orthodox) oils on October 21 during a small family communion service. They are married a month later in the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, Tsarkoe Selo. Nicholas writes a diary entry on the event.

"The day of my wedding!. . .I put on the Hussar uniform and drove with Misha to the Winter Palace. . .The whole Nevsky was lined with troops waiting for Mama to drive past with Alix. While she was being dressed in the Malachite Hall, we all waited in the Arabian Room. At ten to one the procession set off for the big church, from where I returned a married man! My best men were: Misha, Georgie, Kyril and Sergei. In the Malachite Hall we were presented with a huge silver swan from the family. After changing, Alix sat with me in a carriage harnessed in the Russian manner with a postilion, and we rode to the Kazan cathedral. There were so many people on the streets, it was almost impossible to pass!"

Unfortunately, the marriage did not meet with public approval. The Russian populace was upset that the ceremony so quickly followed Alexander's death. However, Nicholas was persistent and married life agreed with him. He was an excellent husband and father. These early years of their marriage were by far their happiest. Most impressive was Nicholas' excitement over each child's birth. He wrote detailed entries including time of birth, length and weight for each of his children. Olga was born in 1895, Tatiana in 1897, Maria in 1899 and Anastasia in 1901. It was Alexandra who suffered the stress of producing a male heir. This culminated in a phantom pregnancy in 1902.

In a letter Xenia, Nicholas' sister, writes "This morning A. F.[Alix] had a minor miscarriage - if it could be called a miscarriage at all!- that is to say a tiny ovule came out! Yesterday evening she had pains, and at night too, by morning it was all over." A lot of mystery surrounds this miscarriage, This book asserts that she was visited by a faith healer psychic named PHilippe who gave her a treatment which would guarantee a son. In Russia, many believe that this faith-healer was a money-hungry fraud and blame her for the miscarriage. Another book written by James Blair Lovell claims Alexandra gave birth to a girl while heavily drugged with narcotics. The tiny baby was sent to live with a Dutch family in Denmark.

Alexandra's prayers were answered on Friday, July 30, 1904. At 1:15 p.m. the Heir Tsarevich Alexei Nicholaevich was born weighing 4660 grams (about 10 lbs) and measuring 58 cm (23 inch)in length, 38 cm around the head and 39 cm around the chest.However, the birth of the heir would bring about Alexandra's own physical and mental downfall. Instead of the answer to her prayers and a blessing, Alexei would be the largest source of stress in her life.

Alexei, a hemophiliac, suffered his first bleed on Sept. 8, when the newborn started to bleed from the navel. It did not stop until the family surgeon Fedorov applied a bandage. Alix writes, "How painful it is to live through such moments of anxiety"

It is Maria Pavlovna, one of Nicholas' cousins, that is the first to mention hemophilia. She writes: "My uncle and aunt undoubtedly knew that the child was born suffering and that from his birth he carried in him the seeds of an incurable illness, haemophilia - a tendency to bleed easily, an inability of the blood to clot quickly. . .Nobody ever knew what emotions were aroused in them by this horrible certainty, but from that moment, troubled and apprehensive, the Empress' character underwent a change, and her health, physical as well as moral, altered."

Alexandra was no stranger to the disease. It was she who carried the damaged gene. Her brother Friedrich died from it at the age of four, her uncle Prince Leopold, and her nephew Heinrich also died of it. Although it never points out when they realized their son had the disease, it soon dominated their lives as well as the lives of their daughters. Alexei was loved by every member of the royal family, but his condition had to be kept secret. It was believed that Tsars were the sons of Gods, so Alexei's physical weakness challenged this belief and could bring down the monarchy. The heir would never become Tsar, and the family lived in terror that he would die or the public would discover his weakness.

Several doctors were called in to treat Alexei. They included: Dr. Federov, a royal surgeon;Professor Ott; Dr. Girsh, a royal surgeon; Dr. Rauchfus, the family pediatrician; Ev Botkin, a family physician; Dr. Ostrogorsky, another family pediatrician; Nanny Derevenko, Alexei's personal nurse; Dr. Derevenko, no relation to Nany; Dr. Poliakov, Alexei's doctor who specialized in cauterizing wounds; Dr. Isakianz; Dr. Badmaieu; a Tibetan doctor and godson of Nicholas' father; and Dr. Serg Peter, who suggests the family take Alexei to the Crimea before they are arrested and imprisoned. In addition, Alexei had two companions who were hired to protect, look after him, carry him, and keep him entertained when he was bed-ridden.

But it was Rasputin who finally brought the family a bit of peace. He struck when they were most vulnerable, distraught over their son's incurable illness. Revered as a holy man, Rasputin was the only person who could quell the bleeding episodes. He gave Alexandra faith and held her together for awhile providing spiritual support for the entire family in their time of need. He was also another piece of the mysteries that brought about their downfall.

check out A Lifelong Passion: Nicholas and Alexandra Their Own Story or any of the books below. I've devoured all of them and the ones listed are my personal favorites. The most informative and easiest to read. So escape back in time to the Russian Revolution and relive the story of the Romanov family. I promise you won't regret it.