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Living Section of the San Bernardino SUN May 30, 2004 Issue 
Romanov Autumn: Stories from the Last Century of Imperial Russia By Charlotte Zeepvat Sutton Publishing Ltd., 2000 
Revisiting the Romanovs "Romanov Autumn: Stories from the Last Century of Imperial Russia" by Charlotte Zeepvat is not just another book about the life and death of the last imperial family of Russia. It is a book about the personal and family lives of the Romanovs in the century before the fall of the dynasty. It repeats only a small part of the general stories already known about them. Primarily, it is the stories of the Romanov women - their lives as wives and mothers and their remarkable influences on the Romanov czars and grand dukes they married and raised. They were predominantly German princesses born Sophies or Charlottes or Maries who upon marriage and conversion into Russian Orthodoxy became the indistinguishable from one another Maria Feodorvnas or Alexandra Feodorovnas or Maria Alexandrovnas and somehow, miraculously as if by osmosis, became more Slavic than many Russians. This book shows us czars and tsaritsas who frequently were reluctant to wear the crown, married for love, preferred simple family life to grandeur and opulence and were devoted parents. The author portrays the czars not as cruel autocrats but as family men who were unable to find a balance between reform and traditional imperial rule. This is when the wives and the mothers came in. They had enormous influence on the policies of their husbands and sons, the future tsars. Decline - so imperceptible in its early stages - set in for the Romanovs in 1817 - exactly a century before the Russian Revolution. Alexander I died mysteriously. To this day it is speculated that he had staged his own death in order to free himself from the burden of being a tsar and devote himself to his increasing Orthodox spiritualism and mysticism. Alexander's children had died in infancy. Konstantin, the next in line, would have nothing to do with the crown. He was divorced and in a second morganatic marriage. He was only too happy to sign away his right to the succession. Next in line was Nicholas who also did not want the crown. In fact, after the news of the death of Alexander I, Nicholas led the imperial guard in swearing allegiance to Konstantin. Decline - so imperceptible in its early stages - set in for the Romanovs in 1817 - exactly a century before the Russian Revolution. Alexander I died mysteriously. To this day it is speculated that he had staged his own death in order to free himself from the burden of being a tsar and devote himself to his increasing Orthodox spiritualism and mysticism. Alexander's children had died in infancy. Konstantin, the next in line, would have nothing to do with the crown. He was divorced and in a second morganatic marriage. He was only too happy to sign away his right to the succession. Next in line was Nicholas who also did not want the crown. In fact, after the news of the death of Alexander I, Nicholas led the imperial guard in swearing allegiance to Konstantin. Nicholas was first and foremost a family man. His mother Maria Feodorvna, the former Sophie of Wurttemberg and Catherine the Great's daughter-in-law, had an indelible influence on her large brood. Nikolai (Nicholas) and the future tsaritsa Alexandra Feodorovna (Charlotte of Prussia) fell in love mutually when they met at the Congress of Berlin and remained devoted to each other and their children throughout their lives. Nicholas I became tsar at the time of the Decembrist Uprising. The Decembrists were Russians of noble families who wanted the tzar to institute European reforms. But instead, Nicholas I crushed the uprising leaving a terrible legacy of repression. Alexandra Feodorovna survived Nicholas I by five years. Regardless of her warnings to her son against reform, tsar Alexander II freed the serfs and waged war on the Turks to free the Balkan Christian Slavs from Ottoman oppression. Although he was a reformer and became known as the Tsar-Liberator, Alexander II was assassinated by anarchists. But it is his wife, tsaritsa Maria Alexandrovna, the former Marie of Hesse-Darmstadt, who is credited with pushing for the liberal reforms of his reign. Upon meeting for the first time Alexander II and Maria Alexandrovna were immediately smitten with each other. They too were devoted to their large family and suffered terribly at the loss of their first child and later the loss of the beloved by all Russia heir, the tsesarevich Nikolai. This unexpected death pushed younger brother Alexander, reluctant and totally unprepared, into becoming the heir. Maria Alexandrovna's health declined and although she and Alexander continued to be devoted to their children and grandchildren, Alexander became smitten with a young student from the Smolny (a school for ladies of noble lineage) whom he married after the tsaritsa's death. At the time of his tragic death Nikolai was engaged to the Danish princess Dagmar. In the tradition of Russian imperial princes, both had been smitten with each other. After his death everyone expected Alexander to marry his dead brother's fiancée. Thus, Dagmar became tsaritsa Maria Feodorovna, the mother of Nicholas II. The story of the second Nicholas and Alexandra is familiar. Of much greater interest are the lives and the intrigues of the other members of the imperial family. Grand Prince Konstantin (brother of Alexander II), encouraged or rather pushed by his wife Grand Princess Alexandra Iosifovna (the former Alexandra of Saxe-Altenburg) was that rare Romanov who hankered after the crown. Rumors flew that he had been involved in the plot to assassinate his brother. The suspicions about his involvement in many other plots to bring him closer to the crown would haunt him to the end of his life. Then there are the stories of Alexander II's children from his second marriage and of the rest of the imperial family who either perished in the Revolution or scattered all over the world living the remaining years of their lives as paupers immured in gilded memories. Ophelia Georgiev Roop Library Director San Bernardino Public Library |
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