The Romanov Sisters (Four Sisters) (15 page)

THE HOPE OF RUSSIA

again conspicuous in St Petersburg, overseeing groups of women

gathered to make clothing and sort linen and bandages for the

hospital trains in the ballrooms of the Winter Palace. Just as Queen

Victoria and her daughters had sat knitting and sewing during the

Crimean War of 1854–6, so Alexandra and her four daughters

crocheted caps and knitted scarves for the troops; and young though

she was, Anastasia proved herself extraordinarily adept at frame

knitting.37 The girls also helped Margaretta Eagar fold and stamp

piles of letter-forms for wounded troops to write home to their

families on.

As the months passed and the birth of the tsaritsa’s fifth baby

approached, the foreign press inevitably was awash with speculation.

‘That great events may hinge on small ones is, unfortunately, a

truism’, observed an editorial in the
Bystander
:

A few days will decide whether the Czarina is to be the most

popular woman in Russia, or regarded by the great bulk of the

people as a castaway – under the special wrath of God. It is said

that she prays night and day that the coming child may prove a

son in order that she may win the hearts of her husband’s people

by giving an heir to the sovereignty of All the Russias. Just at

this minute the Czarina – waiting for the mysterious decision of

God and Nature – is one of the most pitiful figures in Europe,

all the more so that her position allows her no shelter from the

sympathy or curiosity of the world.38

‘Royal and imperial families make themselves very unhappy over

matters American families never think of’, observed another edito-

rial commenting on the simple, unspoilt lives of the consistently

overlooked imperial daughters. ‘There are four of these little girls.

They are bright, intelligent children, but nobody in Russia wants

them, unless it be their parents.’ In the midst of so much specula-

tion, there was no doubt how much Nicholas and Alexandra loved

their daughters – their ‘little four leaved clover’ as Alexandra

described them. ‘Our girlies are our joy and happiness, each so

different in face and Character.’ She and Nicholas firmly believed

that ‘Children are the apostles of God, which day after day He sends

us, to speak of love, peace and hope’.39 But, as Edith Almedingen

observed: ‘However beloved by their parents, the four little girls

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were just four prefaces to an exciting book which would not begin

until their brother was born.’ 40

*

The onset of Alexandra’s fifth labour came very quickly indeed, at

Peterhof on 30 July 1904. Ella and Sergey had been visiting from

Moscow when, over lunch, Alexandra suddenly experienced strong

labour pains and quickly retreated upstairs. Barely half an hour later, at 1.15 p.m., she gave birth to a large boy weighing 11½ lb (5.2 kg).

She felt extremely well and looked radiant and soon after was happily breastfeeding.41

At long last the cannon of the Peter and Paul Fortress in St

Petersburg were able to boom out the 301 volleys across the River

Neva announcing the birth of a
naslednik
– an heir – the first to be born to a reigning monarch (rather than a tsarevich) since the

seventeenth century. People stopped in their tracks to count the

number of volleys, which came every six seconds. ‘The aspect of

the streets’ suddenly changed, as the St Petersburg correspondent

of the
Daily Express
reported on the paper’s front page: ‘National flags seemed to spring from every quarter, and in five minutes after

the 102nd gun had boomed out its glad tidings the whole city was

ablaze with flags. Work automatically stopped for the day and the

people gave themselves over to public rejoicing.’ That evening the

streets were bright with electric illuminations of the imperial twin-

headed eagle and Romanov crowns; orchestras played in the parks,

constantly repeating the National Anthem. Later, in many of the

capital’s best restaurants the champagne flowed freely ‘at the expense of the proprietors’.42

‘We were nearly deafened by the church bells ringing all day’,

remembered Baroness Sofya Buxhoeveden, a visitor to court.43

Nicholas and Alexandra’s prayers had been answered; it was ‘an

unforgettable, great day for us’, the tsar recorded in his diary. ‘I am sure it was Seraphim who brought it about’, remarked his sister

Olga.44 The happy parents blessed the day they had met Maître

Philippe: ‘Please, somehow or other, pass on our gratitude and joy

. . . to Him’, Nicholas wrote to Militza.45

The general feeling elsewhere was that ‘the birth of an heir after

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all these anxious years of disappointed hopes changes the destinies

of Russia’; for Nicholas it was certainly a dramatically charged

moment that brought renewed optimism in time of war. ‘I am more

happy at the birth of a son and heir than at a victory of my troops,

for now I face the future calmly and without alarm; knowing by this

sign that the war will be brought to a happy conclusion.’46 With

this in mind, and as a morale-booster, Nicholas named the entire

Russian army fighting in Manchuria as Alexey’s godfathers. An

imperial manifesto followed, granting numerous political conces-

sions, abolishing corporal punishment for the peasantry and armed

forces and remitting fines for a wide range of offences. A political

amnesty was issued to prisoners (excepting those convicted of

murder) and a fund set up for military and naval scholarships.47

*

With his large blue eyes and head of golden curls the little tsarevich was the most beautiful of babies. They named him Alexey after the

second Romanov tsar, Alexey I (who ruled 1645–76), father of Peter

the Great, the name coming from the Greek meaning ‘helper’ or

‘defender’. Russia had had enough Alexanders and Nicholases, said

the tsar. Unlike his charismatic son, who had looked to the West

for inspiration, Alexey I had been a pious tsar in the tradition of

old Muscovite Russia – the kind of traditional monarch that Nicholas

and Alexandra wished their son to be. An official announcement

was soon published revoking the nomination of Grand Duke Mikhail

as successor: ‘From now on, in accordance with the Fundamental

Laws of the Empire, the Imperial title of Heir Tsarevich, and all

the rights pertaining to it, belong to Our Son Alexei.’48 In celebra-

tion Nicholas took his three eldest daughters to a
Te Deum
at the chapel of the Lower Dacha, as hundreds of telegrams and letters of

congratulation flooded into Peterhof. Dr Ott and Madame Günst

were once more handsomely rewarded for their services; the doctor

this time receiving a blue-enamel box by Fabergé set with rose-cut

diamonds in addition to his handsome fee.49

Like his sisters Alexey had a Russian wet-nurse and it was Mariya

Geringer’s special duty to ensure that she was given plenty of good

food. On one occasion she asked the nurse how her appetite was.

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‘What sort of appetite can I have,’ she complained, ‘when there is

nothing salted or pickled?’ The wet-nurse may have grumbled about

the plain food on offer but ‘this did not prevent her from doubling

her weight, as she would eat everything on the table and leave not

a scrap’. After Alexey was weaned, the nurse received a pension and

numerous gifts; her child back in the village received presents too

and at Christmas and Easter and her name day a grateful Alexandra

would continue to remember her boy’s wet-nurse with money and

other gifts.50

On the occasion of Alexey’s christening twelve days later, an

enlarged cortège of carriages wound its way a fifth time to the

imperial chapel at Peterhof. Mistress of the robes Mariya Golytsina

was once more entrusted with carrying the Romanov baby to the

font on a golden cushion, but by now elderly, she feared she might

drop the precious boy. As a precaution an improvised gold sling

attached the cushion to her shoulder and she wore non-slip rubber-

soled shoes. The baby’s older sisters, nine-year-old Olga and seven-

year-old Tatiana, were there in the procession – Olga as one of his

godmothers – and clearly enjoying their first taste of formal public

ceremonial. They looked especially beautiful, dressed in child-size

versions of full Russian court dresses of blue satin with silver-thread embroidery and buttons and silver shoes. They also wore miniature

versions of the order of St Catherine and blue velvet
kokoshniki

decorated with pearls and silver bows. The two proud sisters rose

to the importance of the occasion: ‘Olga blushed with pride when,

holding a corner of Alexey’s cushion, she walked with Maria

Feodorovna to the font’ and she and Tatiana ‘allowed themselves

to relax into a smile only when they passed a group of still smaller

children, their two tiny sisters, and several little cousins, standing near a doorway and gazing open-mouthed as the procession passed’.51

Although still very young, Olga created a deep impression on

one of her Romanov cousins that day. Sixteen-year-old Prince Ioann

Konstantinovich – or Ioannchik as everyone called him – was

besotted with her, as he told his mother:

I was so enraptured by her I can’t even describe it. It was like a

wildfire fanned by the wind. Her hair was waving, her eyes were

sparkling, well, I can’t even begin to describe it!! The problem

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is that I am too young for such thoughts and, moreover, that

she is the Tsar’s daughter and, God forbid, they might think that

I am doing it for some ulterior motive.

Ioannchik would continue to nurse a deep attachment to Olga

and the hope of marrying her (which had first entered his head, he

said, in 1900) for several years to come.52

Baroness Buxhoeveden was impressed with the two older girls

that day; they remained as ‘solemn as judges’, throughout the four-

hour ceremony, during which several noticed that, as he was being

anointed with holy oil, the little baby ‘raised his hand and extended his fingers as though pronouncing a blessing’. Such inadvertent

religious symbolism did not pass unnoticed by the Orthodox faithful:

‘Everyone said that it was a very good omen, and that he would

prove to be a father to his people.’53 The birth of this one precious little boy provided a field day for soothsayers and omen seekers,

although some were deeply malevolent. For even now, the worst

kind of superstitious nonsense was being put about that the little

tsarevich was in a fact a changeling – substituted by Nicholas and

Alexandra for an unwanted fifth daughter who had been spirited

away.54

A rather more balanced line was taken outside Russia, where

Alexey’s was the most talked-about royal birth in a century. Many

were relieved for Alexandra’s sake as much as for the tsar’s; ‘the

Empress will acquire a prestige that will exalt her influence above

that of the Dowager Empress. She is the mother of a man-child!’

wrote one tongue-in-cheek American commentator, pointing up the

increasingly difficult position Alexandra had been in – as a grand-

daughter of Queen Victoria living in a ‘semi-savage’, Asiatic country where rampant superstition prevented any compassion being shown

for her misfortune in repeatedly producing girls.55 A former American ambassador to Russia was not alone in repeating the view that such

was the bad feeling towards Alexandra up till that point that ‘if the last had been a girl . . . there would possibly have been demand for

the Tsar to take another wife in order to obtain an heir’.56

Some observers abroad objected to the sexual discrimination

being exercised against the four Romanov daughters, denigrating

the fact that they had merited only 101 gun salutes each, as opposed

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to 301 for a boy. The US journal
Broad Views
thought the tsar’s four young daughters more than capable of ‘guarantee[ing] the security

of the succession’:

If the present Czar had reverted to the idea of Peter the Great,

and had declared the Grand Duchess Olga heiress to the throne

irrespective even of any future little brothers . . . the Russian

people might have reflected that in a few years more, for Olga

has now attained the advanced age of nine, the Czar would be

supported by an heiress old enough to wield the scepter, if he

himself should lose his life to the Nihilists. As it is, the birth of the infant who has already, regardless of humour, been made a

Colonel of Hussars, will merely guarantee the evils of a long

regency in that far from impossible event.57

Within the larger Romanov family not everyone was delighted

by the new arrival. The American military attaché Thomas Bentley