However, I think Alexandra's reasons for her almost mystical attachment to autocracy ran deeper than just spousal encouragement.
I have always believed that Alexandra was deeply mortified at her failure for so many years to provide an heir...when the heir at long last arrived, he was afflicted with the disease she brought into the Romanov dynasty.
Given her inability to support the dynasty in her most critical function of producing a healthy heir, I think Alexandra psychologically compensated by becoming an ardent supporter in other ways. But this support took quite an ironic form. The real way to support autocracy -- and her husband -- was to assist him in keeping the ties strong between the monarchy on one hand and the nobility and the senior civil service on the other. Instead, she encouraged Nicholas to retreat from public life and to wall off the autocracy from those classes of society who were the lifeblood of its support. She joined Nicholas in fantasizing a mystical bond between the Little Father and the masses of the peasantry that no one else in educated society took seriously . . . and she came to believe this support by the peasant masses could bridge the autocracy over the chasm that she helped open between Nicholas and the classes that really mattered.
I agree to an extent with this theory, Tsarfan. The
thesis you have laid out here somewhat reflects Robert
K. Massie's ideas about what brought down the empire.
The problem that I have with it is that Alexandra
seems to have held this attitude from the beginning --
rather than it developing as the years went by. Her
"ardent support" seems to have been present from the
start. She was very protective of Nicholas -- that
is for sure. But I doubt she contributed much to his
attitudes toward reform. I've never heard anyone
claim that she was an influence in his famous
"Sensless Dreams" speech of 1895, for example. That
was entirely his own doing.
As far as responsibility for the retreat of the
Imperial Family from public life, Alexandra must take
some of the blame for that. There's no doubt about
that. But there was also the ever-present fear of
assassination, which seems to have taken hold after
1905. This seems to have been a factor, too, in the retreat from public life.
This is, I think, the critical difference between Alexandra and Marie. Both were willing, with nary a blink, to turn their backs on their own political heritages. But Marie gave meaningful support to her husband's goals, while Alexandra worked -- perhaps unwittingly and for reasons somewhat beyond her control -- against her husband's and the autocracy's interests.
Marie understood the mix of power, elevation, pomp -- and carefully-managed engagement with key classes of society -- off which autocracy fed. In fact, she was probably better at managing that mix than Alexander himself. But Alexandra utterly misunderstood the mix.
I agree completely. I think you've hit the nail on
the head here. Except that perhaps Marie's
understanding may have been more instinctive rather
than explicit. I suspect that she just liked to have
a good time, to be honest with you.
The nobility might have been wrong in thinking that Alexandra was haughty and censorious. The extended imperial family might have been wrong in thinking that Alexandra exercised undue influence over Nicholas. The urban classes might have been wrong in thinking that Rasputin was engaged in sexual escapades inside the Alexander Palace. The masses of Russian soldiers might have been wrong in thinking Alexandra was a German spy.
But ultimately the perceptions became far more important than the reality. Revolutions don't pause to make a judicial examination of the facts. They are driven by mass disillusionment and popular perceptions. And the fact was that many of the popular perceptions that helped oust the Romanovs from their throne began in the salons of St. Petersburg, with Alexandra as the protagonist. For this, at least some of the blame must be laid at Alexandra's feet.
So true. Here is what Grand Duke Andrei wrote on September 6, 1915 regarding a surprise visit to his mother Marie Pavlovna, from Alexandra:
A few days ago Alix came to have tea with Mama at Tsarskoe Selo...It should be noted that this is the first time in 20 years that Alix has been to visit Mama without Nicky....
Mama repeated several times that Alix had made a profound impression on her. Here was very real despair; Alix looked at things exactly as we do, and everything that she said was clear, affirmative and true.
This episode in our family life is important, in that it gave us the possibility of understanding Alix. Almost the whole of her life in our country has been veiled in a shadowy incomprehensible aura. Nobody really knew her, in fact, or understood her, and the guesses or supposition that were made, became in time an array of the most varied legends.
We saw her in a new light, and realized that many of the legends are false, and that she is on the right path...