Rasputin's Importance To History, Part Two

(Slightly edited and updated with a Word History on October 15, 2014)

The Tsar and his family lived a fairly isolated life; this was especially so, because Alexandra was extremely shy and not fond of social events, which were therefore limited, even more so, after she began having children (she had five children between November 1895 and August 1904). She was insecure, and since she had had little time to learn the Russian language before her marriage to Nicholas, she preferred to use Russian as little as possible. This gave many Russians the impression that she didn’t like Russia. She and Nicholas conversed in English, and if I remember right, at times in her native German, as Nicholas was fluent in German (his grandmother was German). When Nicholas was away so much during World War I, the two exchanged letters in English and Alexandra kept her diary in English. Alexandra conversed with her children in English and taught them German, while Nicholas conversed with the children in Russian.

Alexandra’s preference for friends did not sit well with the Imperial Court. In a society where the nobles and aristocracy dominated, the people of high society wanted to be seen as being close to the Tsar and Tsarina; it was status and it was intensely sought after. Alexandra chose, however, to rarely see many people of high society. She was undoubtedly influenced very much by her grandmother, Queen Victoria, as Alexandra’s mother, Alice, Victoria’s daughter, died when Alexandra was only six. Queen Victoria promptly took charge of arranging for her granddaughter’s education, and Alix, her given name, spent long periods in England with her grandmother. There’s little question that Queen Victoria instilled a sense of “noblesse oblige” in her granddaughter; that is, given her status in society, she had a special duty to help others in less fortunate circumstances. The English monarchy had evolved into a constitutional monarchy over the centuries, but in Russia, such was not the case, and people of high status, and especially the Imperial family, were expected to flaunt their positions and exert power. When Alexandra tried to get women of high society to sew and knit clothes for the poor, few participated, as they saw such things as beneath them. Later, during World War I, Alexandra worked as a nurse in a hospital set up for wounded soldiers in one of the Romanov palaces. She also had her daughters trained in nursing, but the public didn’t appreciate this act of sacrifice by their Tsarina, as it was seen as being beneath the dignity of the Russian Tsarina to tend to badly wounded dirty men, crawling with lice. Early on, right after Nicholas's father died, superstitious Russians talked about the omen of Alexandra arriving in Russia behind a coffin.

The Tsar's son, Alexei, had occasional bouts with bleeding and with no cure available, Alexandra's fanatical religious side took over. She prayed often, as just about any parent would do under the same circumstances. The whole matter of the heir's illness was kept secret, with only a handful of people knowing the exact nature of his condition. Even many of the household personnel in the Tsar's many palaces did not know what was wrong with the boy, only that he was periodically ill.

The Imperial couple was introduced to a peasant who had come to St. Petersburg from western Siberia. He was a "starets," that is, a "holy man" and "spiritual adviser," but not an official in any capacity of the Russian Orthodox Church. At the time, circa 1905, he was gaining a reputation in the capitol as a devout religious figure, and relatives of the Tsar thought the Imperial couple might be interested in meeting this mysterious man. It wasn't long before he won over Alexandra, and during one of Alexei's bleeding episodes, Rasputin was brought to the boy and seemed to miraculously stop the child's bleeding. Alexandra, so filled with blame about passing this defective gene to her son, and so caught up in her religiosity, began to believe that her many prayers had been answered, and only with Rasputin's help from God could her son be kept alive. It was a relationship that would, over time, help bring down the Romanov Dynasty.

To be continued in "Part Three" ....

WORD HISTORY:
Heir-This word, related to "heredity," goes back to the Indo European root "ghe," which had the notion of "go, leave."  This gave its Latin offspring "heres," meaning "heir;" that is, "one left behind." This passed to Old French, a heavily Latin-based language, as "eir/oir," "seemingly" dependent upon dialect. The word came to England with the Normans and became "heir," and was borrowed by English in the late 1200s.