Behavior/Manners/Temper

[AlexeiLVR]

Here, can people post things that Alexei did that wern't so great! or maybe things that he did that were good!

Thank you!

[otmafan]

If you look through the threads I think you can find a lot of Alexei's manners and behaviours.  

[AlexeiLVR]

ya but otmafan i started this thread so we can organize them and not have to search through threads to find examples of his manners and behaviour!

[otmafan]

ya but otmafan i started this thread so we can organize them and not have to search through threads to find examples of his manners and behaviour!

No problem. I just wanted to let you know.

[Sarai_Porretta]

The meanest thing I have ever read he did was the incident found in Fate of the Romanovs, where an eyewitness who lived near Livadia described how the heir “liked to greet people who bowed to him with a bloody nose by hitting them in the face as they bowed,” and when he was not allowed to do that, he greeted them with “very bad language” instead.

[Lanie]

I kind of question both of those statements. First of all, how could a sick, little boy like Alexei be able to hit someone hard enough to make their nose bleed and not suffer a bleeding attack himself from the force? Here he could suffer greatly from a simple bump on the knee, yet he somehow managed not to trigger an attack by a forceful punch? It seems strange. Also, I wonder where exactly he heard "bad" words in order to repeat them. Remember Olga at a young age didn't understand them and had underlined some in a schoolbook for Gillard to go over with her. If she didn't understand such language, how did Alexei?

Perhaps during the war since I've read that Anastasia especially picked up pretty coarse language and jokes from the soldiers they were taking care of!  Maybe she passed it on to Alexei, I wouldn't be surprised...

[Lanie]

I dunno.  When I get home (I'm at school) I'll check my copy of FOTR and see who was the one who said this, etc.

[JaneEyre5381]

I also read somewhere (can't remember where at the moment) that Aleksey enjoyed being in the company of solders and sailors when little.  He may have picked up sone inappropriate language then.  This is just my guess, as always, I'm open to corrections.

[Janet_W.]

Children will always want to flaunt questionable language and get under the skin of adults  . . . I know I sure did! Mine was picked up from my schoolmates; Alexei had numerous chances to pick up questionable language from his troup of male cousins--who, from what I've read, behaved just like you'd expect any troup of boys to behave (pardon my sexism!)--as well as from the boys sent over to play with him, plus overheard language from the sailors and so forth.

OTMA, being sheltered Grand Duchesses and perceived as such, were less likely to be exposed to this type of thing. The two eldest girls, in particular, probably heard nary a whisper of bad language for many, many years . . . not, I'm guessing, until their hospital work. On the other hand, Marie and, in particular, Anastasia, would have been more likely to hear and imitate bad language. Older children are raised according to their parents' ideals . . . by the time the younger ones come along, those ideals have become flexible! And Anastasia loved to shock people, including her more proper elder sisters.

Olga didn't know that French expletive which she underlined and then innocently asked her father about, but I would imagine that by her teenage years she'd heard a few Russian expletives. Hearing and using can be two different things, though.  

[AlexeiLVR]

You have a good point AnastasiaFan!

[Pravoslavnaya]

I kind of question both of those statements. First of all, how could a sick, little boy like Alexei be able to hit someone hard enough to make their nose bleed and not suffer a bleeding attack himself from the force? Here he could suffer greatly from a simple bump on the knee, yet he somehow managed not to trigger an attack by a forceful punch? It seems strange. Also, I wonder where exactly he heard "bad" words in order to repeat them. Remember Olga at a young age didn't understand them and had underlined some in a schoolbook for Gillard to go over with her. If she didn't understand such language, how did Alexei?

I think it might be extremely helpful were we to see the original text of the quote from Le Tsarevitch:  Enfant Martyr by Eugenie de Grece, in its own context, in French.  A number of people have brought this particular instance quoted in FOTR.  Realizing that as was stated in another thread that the authors had no intent to cast aspersions on Alexei Nikolaevich, and that some people have picked up on this particular passage lately, perhaps getting as close as possible to the source material itself may cast some light on whether a small boy could physically do this.

[Lanie]

They obviously knew swear words--at least, Tatiana did, for in a letter on this site she talks about "the damned mosquitoes".

FOTR cites the Alexei using bad language as from Ekaterina Mikhailovna Frolova-Bagreeva whose family had a dacha near Livadia.

[Georgiy]

Of course they'd have known Russian (and possibly) English rude words. The word Olga didn't know was a French word - merde - which is a colourful way of saying faeces.

[AlexeiLVR]

I heard lots of you talking about FOTR, whats FOTR?

[Dashkova]

Well, who knows. I kind of question the bad language,  since all the Imperial children were around sailors their whole lives yet Olga (for example) still didn't understand certain bad words. However, I really question the story of him giving people bloody noses. Like I said, I just can't see him hitting someone with such force and not getting hurt himself, considering his condition.

It has also been written (in a number of sources) that Alexei did *not* hemmorage every single time he took a spill, ran into something, or other activity/accident.  It seems it could come from the slightest bump and yet on other occasions he might fall down rather hard and nothing would come of it.  Therefore, for a time there is every possibility (even probability) that he bloodied noses.  It doesn't take much of a blow to make that happen in many people.

And who knows?  Maybe he *did* suffer at least one attack from such behavior.  It's not like the truth of the matter would have been officially recorded.  And also just as likely that if an attack did take place as a result of "nose bloodying" he would have ceased the behavior out of self-preservation.