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« on: February 04, 2004, 11:28:04 AM »
Robert,
While alot of what you said is correct, it isn't necessarily "accurate" in your interpretations. Many people reading history forget to put what they read back into the context of the time. Remember that Victorian women were usually educated only in learning domestic and household activities. Queen Victoria advocated Anglo-German standards, and she raised and influenced all of her children and grandchildren in that same way: "Kitchen, Children and Church" were the most important education. Given the limitation of those standards, the Imperial children were well educated, learning four languages simultaneously, art, music, literature and dance, not to mention Romanov family history, Russian history and world history. Olga was an accomplished pianist who was said by some who had met her that she could play any song she heard once perfectly. Don't forget that each Grand Duchess would lead her own military Regiment, and Olga and Tatiana loved to learn the history and exploits and traditions of their Regiments.
To be fair, they could all be, to some extent, lazy students however. Remember that virtually from birth, each had a staff and appointment calendar and fully scheduled day. From getting up until going to bed they were watched, guarded, tended and supervised. There was no time in the day for unsupervised and unstructured play and interaction together so in the classroom they tended to be unruly. Outside the classroom, they would rather try to play or do nothing, instead study when they had the time.
To say that "In all, a very isolated, insular life, which left them unprepared for what was to come" misses an important point: They were under constant threat of harm daily by the Revolutionary terrorists. We must remember the incredible stress that had to have created. They knew about Uncle Serge being blown to bits as well as their Great Grandfather. They were all in the theater when Stolypin was murdered, and it was Tatiana who saw the shooting and slammed the door to the box to protect her father. Their travel schedule was often erraticly changed without notice by the Secret Police learning of threats and assassination attempts, and the children all knew full well of what was going on. They were watched 24/7 by police guards when outside Palace walls.
The Family travelled extensively together, Finland, Livadia, England, Denmark, Moscow, and all over Russia and elsewhere. The Children were attending many events and meeting many people. However, they sometimes appeared to act immature and childish in public, which lead some people to assume they were less intelligent than they were.
Alexandra expected the girls to always stay busy with something productive, like sewing, needlwork, painting or reading. In the evenings when together as a family they did play games, they loved the board games of the period, a game called "Lotto", played music and yes had jigsaw puzzles. They loved photography and had cameras and albums full of their photos. They had records and a gramophone, and watched the latest silent movies from Europe and the US. They read books, magazines and newspapers from all over Europe and the US, and even had a subscription to National Geographic Magazine.
Nicholas took many of the official ceremonies quite seriously, but don't forget that any public official forced to attend some ceremony almost daily will not always be at full attention all the time. As for Alexandra, she found many such events tiresome because she was often sick and they literally tired her out too much or she was staying behind to care for a sick child or two. Also, she had five pregnancies all with long and difficult recoveries, and so was out of public sight for long times and she insisted on nursing each child herself. She was long faulted for not being social and public like Marie Feodrovna, but to her, her husband and family came before everything else, and she strove to create a warm, stable and secure environment for them to combat the stresses and strains of their life.
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