In Tsarskoye Selo, under arrest. Summer 1917.
We were so happy to see this one photo.
http://s019.radikal.ru/i639/1311/03/131281cf2bf5.jpgFor this photo, we can even furnish an exact date: June 27, 1917.
And tell the fascinating story behind it.
That photo also appears in Lili Dehn's book, opposite p. 208. The size there is quite small, and the quality is not the best, so that you can barely make out that it is a little rabbit that the Empress is holding in her hand.
This present copy is much better.
Among the Imperial letters written to Lili Dehn, now kept at the Beinecke Library of Yale University, is a postcard with one large section cut out. The paper now forms an "L" shape. It was only later that we realized what had happened.
The Imperial family pasted a copy of this photo onto a blank postcard which they sent to Lili Dehn. She later cut the photograph off to use as an illustration for her book, and the cut-off piece was never reunited with the rest of the postcard.
Thus, the back side is missing a section of text corresponding to the size of the photograph which was on the front.
But, there was enough left to enable us to reconstruct the full text.
On June 30, 1917, Grand Duchess Maria Nicholaevna wrote to Lili Dehn: "...I took this snapshot in the park three days ago. Mama is holding a little rabbit which Alexis' dog [Joy] almost killed..."
And on June 28, Tsarevich Alexis Nicholaevich himself wrote to his former tutor, P. V. Petrov: "Joy is a murder!!! He strangled two pheasants and a baby rabbit..."
Inok Nikolai
