Author Topic: Abdication and Alexandra  (Read 28732 times)

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ilyala

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Re: Abdication and Alexandra
« Reply #45 on: May 25, 2006, 03:39:19 PM »
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Ilyala, there's a certain futility to arguing "what ifs" in history. It's an interesting intellectual game but actually doesn't shed any real light on what happened. Yes, the Russian tsars could have followed Alexander II's lead and been reforming tsars as opposed to repressive ones or, best case scenario, been like Nicholas II after the Revolution of 1905, that is, reluctant reformers but reformers nonetheless. But that's the point, I believe. Nicholas did make an effort to institute broad-sweeping reforms in Russia. He was not completely obtuse, he was willing to compromise in certain areas, for a certain length of time, given sufficient external pressure to do so.

But the whole point is that Russia's radical intelligentsia, the Bolsheviks and SRs primarily, no longer saw political compromise as a viable option. They wanted total revolution at any price, at whatever cost to the upper and middle classes and indeed to the entire existing order, which they wanted to overthrow for a brave and entirely brand new world. The irony is that Russia's revolutionaries had moved beyond compromise long, long before the autocracy showed itself willing to compromise. And they were certainly not swayed by the Russian tsar's willingness to make concessions towards democratic reform... no doubt because democracy was not what these revolutionaries had in mind!

Of course it's true, these very same radicals might not have won the final battle if it had not been for World War I. That was probably the final, fatal factor in the seemingly eternal stand-off between the Russian tsar and the Russian radicals. But as it turned out in this battle only one party could emerge victorious and alive. That was the all-or-nothing dogma, that was the extremist ideology of Lenin and his crew. They were a blood-thirsty lot, you have only to read their original works. Absolutely no compromise with the ruling powers... only total destruction of the ruling class.    

...i said it before and i say it again: i do not blame the russian revolution on nicholas the 2nd. it would have happened anyway at some point. just like the anti-communist revolutions of 1989 could have been seen coming a long time before they happened by whoever wanted to look. however, just like the romanians in 1989 killed ceausescu because of ceausescu and not because they didn't want communism anymore (why did michael gorbachov live to tell the tale? see my point?), the russian people killed nicholas because of nicholas and not because of autocracy. that is all i'm saying. your arguments are good by taking the blame from nicholas about the revolution. but i never blamed him of that.

Elisabeth

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Re: Abdication and Alexandra
« Reply #46 on: May 26, 2006, 10:37:26 AM »
Ilyala, the last Communist ruler of Russia is not a good example for the point you are trying to make because Gorbachev was essentially overthrown by a democratically elected leader, Yeltsin, and not by a coup d'état led by a tiny and elitist revolutionary group espousing principles of terrorism and absolutism, as the Bolsheviks who overthrew Kerensky's provisional government were... I wonder if I am simply not explaining well and that is why you keep missing the gist of my argument. What I am trying to say is, in the simplest terms, that ANY tsar, no matter how liberal and reforming, who ended up in the hands of the Bolsheviks would have been killed, probably without even the preliminary of a trial. This is because the Bolsheviks advocated terrorism against the ruling classes and did not balk at exterminating their "class enemies" to the extent it was possible. I agree, Nicholas II was not a good ruler, but whether he was good or bad made little difference to his ultimate fate once Lenin took power. IMHO you are underestimating the role of ideology in the attitude of the Bolsheviks towards the IF.

Ceausescu is not a good example, either, because again, he was not overthrown by a select revolutionary party of conspirators espousing terrorism and carrying within it the seeds of totalitarianism. He was overthrown by a mass movement of the Romanian people who had no single revolutionary ideology but were on the contrary bound together by a mass hatred of the totalitarian Communist system. Furthermore, IMO it is unfair to compare Nicholas II with Ceausescu. Nicholas Romanov was a well-intentioned and honorable man, if a weak and indecisive ruler, whereas Ceausescu was a murderous crook, plain and simple. It's like comparing Edward VIII with Al Capone, it just doesn't wash.

Offline Louis_Charles

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Re: Abdication and Alexandra
« Reply #47 on: May 27, 2006, 11:38:39 AM »
A very good post, Elisabeth, especially in terms of the lack of resemblance to Gorbachev and Ceau-I'm-going-to-spell-it-wrong-so-I-will-stop-now.

My only cavil is the use of the word "ideology" to describe the motivations for the murders. I agree that Bolsheviks killed anyone and everyone who stood in their way, simply because they stood in their way. In that regard the Bolshevik ruling class --- much smaller and more difficult to crack than the Imperial ruling class --- reminds me of a Chicago mob in the 1920s on a much grander scale, and I wouldn't credit the mob with an "ideology". They (the Bolshevik leaders) were murderous thugs.

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Offline RichC

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Re: Abdication and Alexandra
« Reply #48 on: May 27, 2006, 01:18:38 PM »
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also, alix was a german princess raised by her grandmother who was a constitutional monarch. the most important constitutional monarch, actually. the fact that this princess once she got to russia could not understand anything other than absolute rule is absolutely impossible for me to understand! she was the one who protested when nicholas was urged to call the duma by saying: 'that is impossible! nicky is an absolute monarch!'. had she been a russian noble, educated with millions of serfs at her feet, maybe i would have understood. but she was raised by the most constitutional monarch there was! how could she close her eyes to the option of constitutional monarchy?


Let's try to look at it another way.  Let's look at one of Queen Victoria's daughters, who became Empress of a foreign country and see how she fared.  Queen Victoria's oldest daughter, Victoria (Vicky) married the German crown prince in 1858 and for the next 40 years did her best to bring about liberal reform in Germany.  She did all she could to remake the German government into a facsimile of the British monarchial system.  And why not?  Afterall, hadn't Vicky had been raised by the "most important" constitutional monarch at the time?  Wasn't Britain's wealth and power growing by leaps and bounds during her mother's glorious reign?  Didn't Queen Victoria reign over an Empire over which the sun never set?

So, Vicky (who by all accounts had an unusually bright intellect) waltzed into Berlin and worked night and day to bring about liberal reform in Germany.  Well, guess what?  It didn't work.  Her heavy-handed efforts were so deeply resented that she pretty much accomplished the exact opposite of what she had planned.

Empress Frederick died realizing that she had failed miserably at trying to liberalize Germany.  Her initial belief that she could just remake Germany into a carbon copy of England was her undoing.  How naive!  Of course, Empress Frederick was merely a crown princess for most of that time;  who knows what would have happened if she had had more time to reign with her husband?  But she was unable to even inculcate her liberal values into her own children.

So, now, in 1894, Alix of Hesse goes to Russia, and in no time becomes the Empress.  She sees that Russia is a very different country from England, Germany, France or any other Western nation.  Very different.  She learns that Russia has a particular form of government (autocracy) that has been in place since at least the 16th century.  The government did not change under Peter the Great and his reforms, it did not change under Catherine the Great and her expansion, it held together under Napoleon's invasion, it did not change when Alexaner II freed the serfs.  The country is at least 10X the size of any other European nation.  It has a completely different culture and religion -- in fact the religion is closely tied to Russia's national identity.  They don't even use the Roman alphabet.  

Empress Alexandra embraced all of this.  She did not come to Russia to remake the country or mold it into another Western European nation.  I believe she thought, "This is my new country, I'm going to try to adapt to its ways and customs."  Who the hell is she to think she can come in and change everything.  She fought for the status quo, which was what was in place when she arrived on the scene.  And maintaining the status quo had always seemed to be the best way to preserve the peace.

Russia was not then, was not subsequently, and is not now a democratic country.  It never will be.  Nicholas and Alexandra knew that, which is more than can be said for most of the people on this board.  

Did Nicholas and Alexandra make mistakes?  YES

Did those mistakes help lead Russia into revolution?  YES

Did their failure to embrace western style constitutional reform lead to the revolution?  NO


Offline Tsarfan

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Re: Abdication and Alexandra
« Reply #49 on: May 27, 2006, 09:54:54 PM »
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Did their failure to embrace western style constitutional reform lead to the revolution?  NO

RichC, I think your discussion of Vicky's experience in Germany is quite apt and makes a convincing case for the hopelessness of any attempts Alexandra might have undertaken to turn Russia onto a more liberal path by her own initiative.

However, I think one has to keep the 1905 Revolution in mind.  While I agree that western-style constitutional government might not have been the right recipe for Russia, there was a budding movement for Russian-style constitutional government that Nicholas, Alexandra, and the entire Imperial family despised and worked to suppress.

I was recently reading Greg King's Court of the Last Tsar, in which King described Nicholas' determination to block any representatives from the State Council and the Duma from participation in the centenniel celebration of the Battle of Borodino.  This was one of a series of actions Nicholas began to take with increasing frequency as he began to recover his balance after 1905.  His aim was clearly to marginalize any form of representative institutions and to remind the Russian people of their autocratic heritage . . . a heritage which was losing its power at the start of the twentieth century to extract unquestioning obedience, at least from the educated classes.

After Radzinsky's protests to the Master of Ceremonies about the Borodino centenniel were turned back, Radzinsky angrily countered that it was not Masters of Ceremonies that had turned the tide against Napoleon, but the Russian people.  The implications of that comment were beginning to become dangerous to ignore, even in Russia.


Offline RichC

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Re: Abdication and Alexandra
« Reply #50 on: May 28, 2006, 01:23:18 AM »
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Did their failure to embrace western style constitutional reform lead to the revolution?  NO

RichC, I think your discussion of Vicky's experience in Germany is quite apt and makes a convincing case for the hopelessness of any attempts Alexandra might have undertaken to turn Russia onto a more liberal path by her own initiative.

However, I think one has to keep the 1905 Revolution in mind.  While I agree that western-style constitutional government might not have been the right recipe for Russia, there was a budding movement for Russian-style constitutional government that Nicholas, Alexandra, and the entire Imperial family despised and worked to suppress.

Tsarfan, my main idea here is that whatever Alexandra thought is really beside the point and I get so tired of people on this board who want to assign so much of the blame to her for the fall of the Russian monarchy when the blame really lies elsewhere.

Also, the "desire" for freedom among the Russian people was really a desire for good leadership -- that's what was lacking and what led to the 1905 revolution.  

But I agree with you that a "Russian-style" constitutional government was what was needed by 1905.  Nicholas' ministers convinced him to take that route and he did.  To learn more about what Nicholas thought about his role and the role of a constitution, I recently read selections of the minutes of the meetings of the Council of Ministers, over which Nicholas presided, in April 1906.  The Fundamental Laws were being revised and the big question was whether to refer to the sovereign's powers as "unlimited" in the new draft.  I think the transcript is quite fascinating as it shows how Nicholas viewed himself and his position as Emperor.




ilyala

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Re: Abdication and Alexandra
« Reply #51 on: May 28, 2006, 04:40:01 PM »
first of all i believe that had emperror frederick been healthy at the time his father died and had he reigned longer (much longer, some 10-20 years), he would have made a lot of changes. not only because he was influenced by his wife but because he agreed with her. a carbon copy of england germany would have not become, because i don't think frederick wanted that. i do believe he saw the english system as an inspiration but i'm sure he would was flexible enough to know that some changes had to be made for it to apply well to germany and he would have made them.

nicholas, unlike frederick, needed a little more convincing. but i'm sure it could have been done. but alix not only did not try to inspire some sort of understanding of constitutional monarchy in him. she 100% embraced the russian system. had it worked well in russia, she could have said to herself 'well this is what works and this is what i'm accepting.' but it wasn't working! the russian people was rebelling! and she, instead of telling nicholas something like 'you know, in other countries democracy works, maybe we should try some reforms' she said 'nicholas cannot call the duma! he's an autocrat!'. when it was obvious that autocracy was not working anymore.

fighting to turn russia into england would have been just as futile. fighting to turn any other country but england into england is completely futile. english democracy is english democracy, french is different, american is different, spanish is different, you name it. that does not mean that the french cannot have a democracy with simmilar ideas, and same goes for other countries. she didn't have to copy the english laws and apply them to the russians. she had to at least try to open nicholas' mind towards constitutional mind. instead, she did the exact opposite: she supported his narrow-minded thinking. nicholas felt supported and went on. until there was nothing to be done anymore.

and no, i don't think he would have been killed anyway. king michael of romania was deposed by the communists in 1947 and yet he's still alive today. in my opinion, the difference was the fact that the romanian people were sympathetic with michael and the communists were not strong enough to face that. and in 1917 the communist russians were not that strong either. had they felt that the killing of the imperial family was going to cause a riot, they wouldn't have done it. but they knew that it wouldn't, that except for friends and family, the death of the imperial family caused at best feelings of pity and most of the times indifference. people shrugged and said 'oh well...'. and, again, that is their own fault.

Offline RichC

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Re: Abdication and Alexandra
« Reply #52 on: May 28, 2006, 07:09:58 PM »
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nicholas, unlike frederick, needed a little more convincing. but i'm sure it could have been done. but alix not only did not try to inspire some sort of understanding of constitutional monarchy in him. she 100% embraced the russian system. had it worked well in russia, she could have said to herself 'well this is what works and this is what i'm accepting.' but it wasn't working! the russian people was rebelling! and she, instead of telling nicholas something like 'you know, in other countries democracy works, maybe we should try some reforms' she said 'nicholas cannot call the duma! he's an autocrat!'. when it was obvious that autocracy was not working anymore.

Empress Alexandra saw her role as a support to her husband.  She supported him in his own already deeply held convictions.  This was always the case throughout Nicholas' reign -- except once -- that I can think of -- and that was when she argued with him over going to war with Germany in late July 1914; an argument she lost...  

She always supported him and encouraged him -- even to the detriment of the country.  
 

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she had to at least try to open nicholas' mind towards constitutional mind. instead, she did the exact opposite: she supported his narrow-minded thinking. nicholas felt supported and went on. until there was nothing to be done anymore.

She did not see her role as that of trying to change Nicholas' mind about these things.  You need to stop harping on that.  If you want to blame her, then you need to assign blame also to Empress Maria for not doing anything to influence her husband, Tsar Alexander III toward a more constitutional form of government.  Why does "dear Minnie" always seem to get off the hook in these discussions while Alexandra is hung out to dry?  Denmark was a constitutional monarchy.  What did she ever try to do to mitigate the iron rule of her husband, whose reign was FAR more repressive than anything Nicholas ever hoped for?





Tania

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Re: Abdication and Alexandra
« Reply #53 on: May 28, 2006, 09:13:32 PM »
Dear RichC,

Thank You !  

Tatiana+

Offline Tsarfan

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Re: Abdication and Alexandra
« Reply #54 on: May 30, 2006, 09:29:48 AM »
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Empress Alexandra saw her role as a support to her husband.  She supported him in his own already deeply held convictions . . . .

She did not see her role as that of trying to change Nicholas' mind about these things.  You need to stop harping on that.  If you want to blame her, then you need to assign blame also to Empress Maria for not doing anything to influence her husband, Tsar Alexander III toward a more constitutional form of government.  Why does "dear Minnie" always seem to get off the hook in these discussions while Alexandra is hung out to dry?  Denmark was a constitutional monarchy.  What did she ever try to do to mitigate the iron rule of her husband, whose reign was FAR more repressive than anything Nicholas ever hoped for?

I agree that Alexandra saw it as her duty to support Nicholas in his role at Autocrat.  And I certainly think the point about Empress Marie is very well taken.  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, while Xenia was popping out male children left and right.  (This was, of course, in the days before people knew that the father's "contribution" was the primary determinant of offspring gender.)  Then, 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.

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.

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.

ilyala

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Re: Abdication and Alexandra
« Reply #55 on: May 30, 2006, 02:23:50 PM »
i totally agree with you, tsarfan.

i also want to point out that alexander and nicholas were two different people. and minnie, even if she had tried to influence her husband, would have, no doubt, failed. i'm not so sure about alexandra.

Offline Tsarfan

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Re: Abdication and Alexandra
« Reply #56 on: May 30, 2006, 04:30:02 PM »
I obviously lay more blame at Alexandra's door than does RichC . . . but I also think RichC is right about Nicholas' determination, quite of his own accord, to maintain autocracy any way he could.

Without being wise, Nicholas was quite crafty.  And the strategy of his later reign to marginalize the Duma was one I feel he would have pursued in full measure even had Alexandra tried to prod him onto another course.  It requires much more finesse to share power than to exercise it unilaterally.  Being a realtively weak man who was easily intimidated by intelligence in others, Nicholas probably sensed he could ultimately maintain no influence whatsoever in a real power-sharing arrangement with representative institutions.  Even the few constitutional monarchs who could -- such as Elizabeth I -- ultimately succeeded only in slowing down the inexorable shift of power over time toward the representative institutions of government.

A lot has been made over the years of Alexandra's identifying herself with Marie Antoinette.  I suspect the more crucial lesson Nicholas and Alexandra took away from the French Revolution was a sound understanding of how quickly Louis XVI lost control of events after the calling of the Estates General and how utterly he failed at maintaining the royal voice in the cacophony that followed.

I have always been of the view that the only hope the Romanov dynasty had of avoiding revolution in 1917 was lost in its failure to embrace the constitutional experiment after 1905.  But I nurse no delusions that the Romanov dynasty would have remained a strong voice in the constitutional mix indefinitely into the future.  To do so would have required a level of astuteness that could never have been sustained with the random luck of primogeniture succession determining the rulers.  

Offline RichC

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Re: Abdication and Alexandra
« Reply #57 on: May 30, 2006, 08:03:41 PM »
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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.

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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.  

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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...




Offline RichC

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Re: Abdication and Alexandra
« Reply #58 on: May 30, 2006, 08:13:41 PM »
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I obviously lay more blame at Alexandra's door than does RichC . . . but I also think RichC is right about Nicholas' determination, quite of his own accord, to maintain autocracy any way he could.

Without being wise, Nicholas was quite crafty.  And the strategy of his later reign to marginalize the Duma was one I feel he would have pursued in full measure even had Alexandra tried to prod him onto another course.  

Yes, this is what I mean.  You don't see many posts on this board that describe Nicholas II as "crafty" but you sure see them in spades when it comes to Alexandra.  We need to move away from the stereotypes of "dear, sweet Nicky" and "mean, old Alix".




Elisabeth

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Re: Abdication and Alexandra
« Reply #59 on: June 01, 2006, 09:47:08 AM »
Nicholas II was not only "crafty," but also, according to his biographer Dominic Lieven, extremely strong-willed and obstinate when it came to the principle of autocracy. Despite the urgings of the bulk of the educated Russian people and even his own ministers, he remained recalcitrant on this point to the very end of his reign (and perhaps even beyond). Maybe his obstinacy did indeed have something to do with the "lessons" he had drawn from the example of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. Nevertheless, what still astonishes me is that he didn't realize how much was at stake in the Russian setting. Terrorism was a real and ever-present threat long before 1905. The revolutionaries had tried to blow up the entire Romanov family at a dinner at the Winter Palace during Alexander II's reign - surely they wouldn't balk at trying to assassinate not only Nicholas and Alexandra but also their children??? Wasn't some sort of political compromise paramount to the imperial family's best interests, indeed, their very own physical survival?... But perhaps that's yet another reason why both Nicholas and Alexandra held so steadfast and stalwartly to the autocratic principle - because they were convinced that any sort of compromise with the forces of liberalism was the equivalent of opening the door to an onslaught of revolutionary terrorism?

I do think it's difficult to underestimate the degree of mutual hostility, fear and misunderstanding between the tsar and the forces of change in his empire. On some level Nicholas must have identified all "liberal" change with the forces of (radical) revolutionary violence against his own family. Remember he witnessed the horrific death of his grandfather, Alexander II, by revolutionary terrorists, and he would doubtless have heard endless stories from his various relations about the Narodnaia Volia's many previous attempts to murder Alexander II. Additionally, think of the bombing of the imperial train at Borki and consider how this must have affected the young Nicholas.

As for Alexandra, I remember reading the diary of an English lady-in-waiting to Queen Victoria who described the Hessian princess as a complete "cow," ready for breeding and totally uninterested in politics. This English lady believed that Russia would have been better served by a German princess on the lines of Empress Victoria, the Queen of England's daughter. IMO to the extent that Alexandra ever took an interest in politics it was from a purely personal (stereotypically "feminine") perspective - she wanted only to preserve the autocracy intact for her son Alexei. But since Nicholas was of exactly the same mind as his wife it's rather difficult to see how Alexandra could have "influenced" him in this regard. What it boils down to is that if Nicholas and Alexandra were not always in agreement upon the means by which their end could be achieved (i.e., the preservation of autocracy), they were nevertheless always in agreement upon the necessity of that desired end.

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