Episode 6
Nicholas 1
3 min 70 sec.
46:24 – 47:20The love of his youth, Empress Elizabeth came to his rescue. For many years they’d lived separately as strangers but now he recognized in her a loyal friend with whom he could talk about anything.
When Elizabeth was diagnosed with Tuberculosis, Alexander decided they must leave St. Petersburg and it’s damp climate as soon as possible. He wrote to his old friend Prince Volkhonsky – “soon will move to Crimea and live as private subjects. I’ve served 25 years, after the soldiers are entitled to retire".
47:21 – 49:05He did not go to Crimea, but to the southern city of Taganrog instead. The Emperor had visited it once and liked it. Hurried preparations were made for the arrival of the royal couple.
Alexander left first to prepare everything for his wife’s arrival. He moved into a single storey stone mansion. On Grecheskaya street he swept the garden pass himself. He helped to hang _______ on the wall and moved the furniture into place. And then Elizabeth arrived, they enjoyed a quiet peaceful life. They went for walks, greeting those they knew. They read their favorite books. They prayed together. Alexander seemed rejuvenated as if he had been given a second chance at life. But all the while he remained Emperor, Alexander’s strange carefree behavior would come at the price. It was soon to become the pretext for a tragic and bloody revolt. But Alexander did not live to see that. His sudden idyll lasted only 2 month.
On November the 19th after a short illness he died. The Empress Elizabeth died 6 months later.
49:09 – 50:15The Emperors sudden death threw many into confusion. There were rumors that Alexander had faked his death and gone into hiding somewhere. Ten years later reports emerged of a mysterious old man named Feodor Kuzmich, who lived in a village near Tomsk in Siberia. He was well educated, spoke several foreign languages. He was extremely _____ He refused ever to discuss his earlier life. The old man was tall, broad shouldered and like Alexander deaf in one ear. Kuzmich died in 1864 and was buried in the grounds of the Tomsk Monastery. His headstone reads “This is the grave of the great Feodor Kuzmich”.
The rumors that Kuzmich was in fact Alexander remained to this day neither proved nor disproved.
50:19 -51:00Two years before his death Alexander had talked to his younger brother Grand duke Nicholas of his intention to abdicate in his favor. Nicholas’s wife wrote in he diary “speaking to us about his abdication, the Emperor said – how I will rejoice when I see you driving pass me I’ll mingle in the crowd. With the rest of them should hurray!!!”
Episode 7Chapter One – Nicholas 1 Pavlovich7 min, 70 sec.
2:10 – 2:44When Nicholas was 5, his father the Emperor Paul was brutally murdered by conspirators. The children remembered it well. The youngest brother Michael was playing on his own. He built a train of tiny carriages, and used it to carry toy soldier to a putty plant, then buried him in the earth. When asked what he was doing, he answered – “I’m burying my father”.
2:45 – 3:48After Paul’s death in 1801, his eldest son 84 year old Alexander became the Emperor. The second brother Konstantin became the new heir to the throne. The third brother Nicholas wasn’t expected to inherit the throne. He grew up under the strict care of his mother Maria, the dowager empress. At the age of 17 Nicholas and his younger brother Michael were allowed to travel abroad. Years later he recalled “That’s when we started to live, stepping from childhood into the light of life. It was in Berlin that I saw for the first time the girl I wanted to spend the rest of life with”. The 16 year old Princess Charlotte of Prussia, daughter of the king was an ideal match for the ground duke. They were married 2 years later and Charlotte took the Russian name – Alexandra Feodorovna.
3:50 – 5:58Grand duke Nickolas was latter appointed chief inspector of the core of engineers and commander of the guards engineer battalion. Everyday he rose early for prayer and morning exercise, performing complex bare hands drill with the musket. The rest of the day was spent on writing orders and reports and carrying out expectations.
Nicholas’s older brother Alexander the first often hinted that he’d planned to leave the throne to Nicholas, since their middle brother Konstantin had _______. And 2 weeks later, Konstantin’s renunciation of the throne arrived from Poland. It was a unique case in the world history. Instead of quarreling for the throne, two Romanov brothers were insisting it belonged to the other. Earl Langeron later paid them a sabtle French Compliment “The Romanovs are so noble, they do not ascend but descend to the throne’’. But the resulting confusion was dangerous and encouraged the secret radical society – “The Decembrists’’ to make their move.
6:00 – 6:48The Decembrists were made up of liberal minded guard officers and nobles, who wished to reform the Monarchy and free Russia serves.
It’s members included many high ranking Aristocrats Members of it’s northern society led by Nikita Muraviev favoured a Constitutional Monarchy while members of the southern society under Pavel Pestel wanted to abolish the Monarch and redistribute the land. They planned to carry out a military coup. The more radical conspirates Rideev and Pestel talked of killing the entire Romanovs family including the Princesses living abroad and their children, so no one could ever lay claim to the Russian throne again.
6:49 – 9:26The troops were due to swear their oath of loyalty to the new emperor on December 1412. The evening before, Nicholas visited Nicholovsky Castle, where his father had been murdered . When he returned he asked his wife to die with honour if need be. At 11:20 Nicholas was for the Moscow guard regiments and had refused to swear to oath and had marched to Senate square. At 11:30 the Emperor went to the square with the loyal Palace guard. At 12:20 General Miloradovich tried to talk to the rebel troops, but was shot dead by Decembrists.
At 1 pm 900 rebel guardsmen approached the winter Palace. At 1:20 pm Nicholas sent a Bishop to reason with the soldiers but no body listened to him. At 2 pm there were 3,000 rebel troops in the square. Loyal troops were arriving all the time, but Nicholas continued to delay. At 10 past 4 the canon opened fire on the rebels. The young Empress Alexandra could see the senate square filled with people. At the sound of the first volley she write “I fell to my knees in a small study and prayed like never before’’.
The strain of that day affected Alexandra for the rest of her life. Her health suffered. Already thin, she lost more weight and became frequently ill.
The Emperor ordered the first blast of great shots be fired over the heads of the rebel soldiers, but the next volley was fired straight into the crowd.
When the smoke cleared, the death toll stood at 1 General, 18 officers, 282 soldiers and 1.170 civilians, including 79 women and 150 children. _________ A total of 1271 dead.
9:31 – 10:44679 people were investigated following the decemberists’ revolt, but most turned out to have no connection to the secret societies that had organized the coup.
Of those finally put on trial, 112 lost their titles and all of their property rights. 99 were exiled to Siberia, 36 of those to labour Camps, 9 officers were demoted to the ranks, 36 were sentenced to death, 31 by beheading and 5 by quartering.
Emperor Nicholas himself mitigated many of the sentences and in the end only 5 decembrists were executed. They included ring leaders such as Pestel and the Poet Rileev and the man who’d shot General Miloradovich. Quartering was commuted to hanging.
The Emperor himself paid an allowance to the widows of the executed men. Their families continued to receive payments from the office of the general staff for 20 years while their children were put through school at public expence.
