We All Love A Mystery: Anastasia

This was originally published in 2007, but I've updated it very slightly, and I've added a "Word History" and the photo of Robert K. Massie's book below.  

I'm going to write this just for the fun of it, and I'm not going to go back and refresh my memory, so keep in mind, this is from memory... MY memory!!! If that isn't an alarm.... Anyway, if you're interested in the subject, or if you just want to check old Randy's facts, there are a lot of books and articles available in libraries, and probably even online.

It is said that we all love a mystery, if you don't believe me, just check the title of this blog. One of the mysteries of the 20th Century was the story of a woman known as "Anna Anderson." Anna Anderson "claimed" to be the daughter of Tsar Nicholas II and the Empress Alexandra. The story went on for decades, and it so captured the public attention, that it spawned a hit movie during the 1950s, starring Ingrid Bergman, and a television mini series in the 1980s, starring Amy Irving. I should note, the Ingrid Bergman movie was for the most part fiction, and was just loosely based upon the Anna Anderson story. The television mini series was more factual, but, in my opinion, was much too skewed toward Anderson's side of the story, especially when compared to evidence that has come about since the filming of the series. All of this "disclaimer" stuff being said....

First a little background:

In July of 1918, the Tsar, his family, and some servants were executed by a Bolshevik execution squad in Ekaterinburg, in the Ural Mountains' area of Russia. The Bolsheviks (later known as "Communists") were never terribly open about the executions, and this all prompted sensational stories to crop up, ala Elvis sitings, and President Kennedy living in South America, undoubtedly next door to Hitler, another person "known" to have gone to South America (hey, maybe its the weather there?). The Bolshevik government did admit to executing the Tsar (or Czar, if you prefer), but they played it very cagey about the rest of the Czar's family. Over time, some of the Bolsheviks involved directly in the case wrote articles and books on the subject. The basic gist of these stories was that after the executions, the bodies were hauled off, and eventually, two bodies were burned, or at least they attempted to burn them. If I recall correctly, the stories all agreed that the Tsar's son, Alexei, had been one of the bodies that had been burned. The other body, a female, was even said to have been the Empress Alexandra herself, but most often, stories named either Maria or Anastasia, both were daughters of the Tsar and Tsarina. With such discrepancies, this was an open invitation to "conspiracy theories" and to people claiming to be various persons from the Tsar's family.

Circa 1920, in Berlin, Germany, a woman was fished out of one of the many canals in the city. She was hospitalized for quite some time. At some point, she was looking at a magazine that had a story about the Tsar and his family. She showed another lady, I believe another patient, if I remember right, a picture of the Tsar's family, and then asked the lady if she thought she resembled any of the Tsar's daughters. The lady mentioned Maria, and at some point, the woman said that she was Maria. Later, she changed the story and said she was Anastasia. Well, all of this caused a great stir. This "Anastasia" had numerous scars and this certainly began to give some sort of credence to her claim.

Essentially, her story was this:

One of the Bolshevik guards, whom she said was named Tschaikovsky (no music jokes, please!), rescued her from the execution, as she was only badly wounded. He and some of his family, including his mother, gathered together some belongings in a wagon, and, along with the sick and wounded daughter of the Tsar, headed off from the Ural Mountains to Rumania. Now, this journey was not exactly like going by covered wagon from Dallas to Forth Worth in 1875, but it had to be something more on the order of 1200 to 1500 miles. Eventually, they reached Bucharest, the Rumanian capital. The woman said that by that time, she was pregnant with Tschaikovsky's child. They got married in Bucharest, she gave birth (to a boy, I believe), Tschaikovsky was killed one night in a street fight, and she gave the baby up for adoption. She decided to go to Berlin to see her mother's relatives, but she was despondent and jumped into the canal. (The Empress Alexandra was a German by birth, being born as "Alix," a princess of Hessen. Her well known grandmother, however, was Queen Victoria of England, who, by the way, was also the grandmother of Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm II).

Over time, the story captured lots of press attention, and this newly found "Anastasia" drew some supporters for her claim. Some of these supporters were financially well off, and they took to supporting her in many ways. Over the years, she was in mental institutions on and off, as her behavior, often times even towards her benefactors, was bizarre, and included her running naked on the roof of an upscale apartment building or hotel. Eventually, she came to the United States, and it was then, if I recall, that she began to call herself "Anna Anderson," as a cover to keep the press and other people from learning her true identity. Many times, she seemed disinterested in proving to anyone who she claimed to be. She returned to Europe and lived in various areas of Germany, including the Black Forest region, where she lived in a rundown cottage and had something like 20 or 30 cats!!! The property smelled so bad, the neighbors complained to the authorities. Later still, she came back to the United States and married a man by the name of Jack Manahan in Virginia. Manahan has been said to have been a bit eccentric himself. She passed away in Virginia in like 1984, and her body was cremated. Manahan died like about two years later.

During her time back in Germany, which included World War II, she filed legal action in the German courts for her claim to be "Anastasia," and thus to be declared a legal heir to the Tsar. The initial action came prior to WWII, but the war interrupted the proceedings, which took up again after the war, continuing until like the 1970s!!! (I just don't recall when the case finally closed, but I believe it was the longest legal case in German history.) During the long legal affair, her ears were compared to photos of the Grand Duchess Anastasia, and many "experts" claimed that they matched. In the end, the court ruled that it had neither been proven that she was or was not Anastasia. Back to square one!

One of the contentious issues was the woman's ability to speak, or not speak, fluent Russian. The Grand Duchess Anastasia, and indeed all of the Tsar's children, spoke Russian with their father, and English with their mother. (By the way, Nicholas and Alexandra conversed in English!) The children were tutored in French by a Swiss teacher, and their own mother tutored them in German. During the many years of this whole episode, a few people claimed that they heard the woman speaking Russian. Most often, she told people that she refused to speak Russian, as Russians murdered her family. Many people agreed that she could understand Russian, even if she didn't offer to speak it.

With the fall of Communism in Russia, some people came forward claiming to have found the grave site of the Tsar and his family. In the early 1990s, the area was excavated, and skeletons were found. All sorts of testing was conducted, including DNA tests, and scientists and most folks were satisfied that the skeletons were indeed those of the Imperial family and servants; that is, the Imperial family minus two skeletons. (Did anybody check the closet?) Scientists concluded that Alexei's skeleton was NOT present. Some scientists concluded that the other missing skeleton was that of Maria, while other scientists concluded that it was Anastasia's skeleton that was missing. To my knowledge, that issue has never been clarified. Well, this sent the still present supporters of Anna Anderson into ecstasy, as with one female daughter being unaccounted for, this only helped their claim that she had in fact been Anastasia. With Anderson dead, and her body cremated, DNA testing seemed impossible.

Researchers found that Anna Anderson had had surgery in Virginia in the late 1970s or thereabouts. The surgery involved the removal of a section of her intestine. The hospital kept tissue samples from surgeries to help in research, and they had done so with Anderson's intestine. DNA testing showed that Anderson was NOT the Grand Duchess Anastasia. Her supporters, still persistent, wondered if the tissue sample could have been switched in some way over the years. The hospital procedures were examined up, down and sideways, and again, most scientists and historians were satisfied that the sample was indeed from Anna Anderson. Now, if I remember right, these tissue samples were not labeled out-and-out with the person's name, but with some kind of code number, which then had further cross references.

Then came even more devastating news to Anderson's supporters. Some background first: During the 1920s, after Anderson had claimed to be Anastasia, the Romanov and Hessen families sought to check out the woman's story. Alexandra's brother, Ernst, the Grand Duke of Hessen, hired a detective agency. After a while, it was reported that the woman claiming to be Anastasia was a missing Polish factory worker, named Franziska Schanzkowska. At one point, relatives of Schanzkowska were brought in, and a brother, standing a little distance from the woman, said that she was his sister, Franziska. Later, when asked to put his signature to an affidavit stating that the woman was his missing sister, he declined and said that he'd been mistaken in identifying the woman as his sister. Also at some point, I believe during the court proceedings in Germany, a woman from the Berlin area was brought in and testified that she had been the landlady for a woman by the name of Franziska Schanzkowska, who worked in a munitions factory during World War I. The woman had been severely wounded when she dropped a grenade or some sort of explosive device, actually killing a co-worker. The woman left home one day and never returned, but the landlady read of the mysterious woman fetched from the canal a few days later, noting that Schanzkowska was wearing the same type of clothing described in the newspaper story. She also supposedly identified a picture of the woman as Schanzkowska.

Well, after the DNA tests on the intestinal tissue convinced most people that Anderson was not Anastasia, the remaining question was, "Who was she?" After Alexandra's brother, Ernst, had hired the detective and the Schanzkowska woman was put forward as the claimant's real name, the Hessens and the Romanovs basically didn't bother much with the case again. Apparently, they were satisfied that the woman was not their relative. Unlike in the Ingrid Bergman movie, Anastasia's grandmother (Tsar Nicholas' mother) NEVER met with the woman.

In the 1990s, a grand nephew of Franziska Schanzkowska was located in Hamburg. He gave blood, and his DNA matched the tissue sample's DNA from the hospital. Further, after Jack Manahan died, many of his belongings were sold. A woman bought a book, and said that when she got the book home and went through it, an envelope was tucked inside. The envelope had "Anastasia's hair" written on the front. Inside were some hair follicles. The handwriting on the envelope was determined to have been Manahan's. DNA was able to be extracted from the hair follicles, and it too matched the intestinal tissue from the hospital. Anderson's supporters were devastated. Even with all of the evidence, some still claimed that the evidence had in some way been tampered with, and that Anderson's general demeanor was such that she could not possibly have been a Polish factory worker of peasant heritage. Over the years, too, supporters from different generations said that she could not have known some of the intimate details of the Imperial family without having been there as Anastasia.

Besides the grenade dropped in the munitions plant, Anderson also dropped another bomb later on. She claimed that Alexandra's brother, Ernst, aka Ernie, came to visit them during World War One! Now, during World War One, Russia and Germany were enemies! Ernie was a Grand Duke, and a general in the German Army. To cross lines and visit the Tsar and his sister would have been treason, unless of course, it was approved by none other than Kaiser Wilhelm, who was a cousin to both Nicholas* and Alexandra. Ernie's diaries made no mention of any such visit, nor was any such record found in the Russian or German archives, nor did Nicholas make any mention of such an occasion in his diaries. During the war, there was speculation that Russia and Germany might try to reach some peace accord, but no record of such has been found that involved Ernie. Further, Ernie was stationed on the Western Front (France/Belgium) for the entire war, if I remember correctly; not that he couldn't have been sent eastward quickly for a brief meeting with the Tsar. Then again, there was that nasty thing of having to get through the Russian lines and then back to the German lines. Such a problem would have required many people having some knowledge of what was going on, and no one ever surfaced with such information.

As to Franziska Schanzkowska, she was born in the Posen area (Poznan, in Polish). At the time of her birth, Posen was within the boundaries of Germany. Many people in the area had a passing knowledge of German, as Posen had been under German domination for more than a century. During much of Anderson's life, she used German as her main language, but later she learned English, at least to some extent, and she used this broken English to converse. As to Russian, there is no definite proof that she ever spoke the language, a little, or "like a native," as one supporter claimed. Polish and Russian are both Slavic languages, and not all that different, which is perhaps why she could UNDERSTAND Russian, but not speak it to answer back. As a cover, or perhaps in her own mixed up mind (even many of her supporters admitted she had mental problems, but they always attributed these problems to the terrible ordeal she'd been through during the executions and the aftermath), she said that she'd never speak Russian again, as Russians had murdered her family.

Just one last thing, if a grave with a communist had been uncovered, would it have contained a "Red skeleton?"


 * For a couple of centuries, the Russian Romanov dynasty had frequently married directly into German noble families, or they were related to German nobles in other ways. For instance, Tsar Nicholas' mother, Marie, was the daughter of the king of Denmark, but he too was a German prince, and her mother was a princess from Hessen, just as her future daughter-in-law Alexandra would be.

 

Photo is of the originally released edition of Robert K. Massie's "The Romanovs: The Final Chapter, published by Random House, 1995, which I bought when it was released. The dust jacket is a little worn now.

WORD HISTORY:

Lye-This noun for the alkali liquid used for cleaning (also in dried form in more modern times), is distantly related to "lavatory." ^ It goes back to Indo European "leue," which had the notion of "wash, cleanse." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "laugo," meaning "bathe, wash," but also by extension, "the solution used to bathe, soap." This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "leag," meaning "alkaline liquid for washing." Eventually the "g" sound died out in English, leaving the modern form "lye," and "lye soap" was commonly used for washing for many centuries. The other Germanic languages have: German "Lauge" (lye), Low German Saxon and Dutch "loog" (lye), Icelandic "laug" (bathing pool), Norwegian "laug" (antiquated for "bath"), Swedish "lög," (antiquated for "bath"), Danish "lørdag" (literally "wash day" =Saturday, Swedish has "lördag" and Norwegian has "lørdag," and Icelandic has "Laugardagur"). I could not find a form in Frisian.  

^ "Lavatory" is a borrowing by English, but it originally meant "sink with flowing water," which shows the connection to "cleaning, washing," but that meaning also later led to the connection to "wash room" or "bathroom," although in my time, many plumbers still called the bathroom sink the "lav."

Nicholas And Alexandra, The Movie and History, Part Two/End

Russian law required the autocratic ruler to be male, unless all possible male heirs were deceased or unable to assume the throne. This all came about in the late 1790s under Tsar Paul I, the son of Empress Catherine the Great and "supposedly" Tsar Peter III, the grandson of Peter the Great.* While eldest sons of rulers "often, but not always," took the thrones to replace their fathers, Paul, the only son of Peter III, was not guaranteed to succeed his father by law at that time, and his mother, Catherine, had the necessary support and became Empress and Tsarina of Russia when Peter III was assassinated, likely with the support of Catherine, after only a few months as Tsar. Catherine ruled for more than three decades, leaving her embittered son's hatred of her to fester. Not long after assuming the throne, Paul issued the new law about succession. This is important, because Nicholas and Alexandra had four daughters during the early years of their marriage, making them, and the nation, anxious about a direct heir for Nicholas, but if Nicholas had no son, the throne would have passed to another branch of the Romanov family. The desire to perpetuate Nicholas's direct line led Alexandra to begin associations with people who were thought to be able to bring about male children. Hey, I'm not making this up. While Alexandra had resisted conversion to Russian Orthodoxy, once she chose to do so and marry Nicholas, she increasingly became a religious fanatic. The movie begins with the birth of the couple's only son, Alexei. Within just a short time, however, it was found the boy was suffering from hemophilia, an affliction where most external wounds are not usually life threatening, but where internal bleeding can cause excruciating pain and possibly death. The defective gene is carried and passed along in the female line to some, but not all, males.** The "guilt" carried by some mothers is a tremendous emotional burden, and this was so with Alexandra. The boy's condition consumed much of Alexandra's energy at times, and added to her intense shyness and judgmental nature, she very much limited herself to a few friends, none of whom were really from the upper reaches of Russian society, which caused tremendous resentment toward her from that high society, where being associated with the Tsarina was a status symbol. With Nicholas's mother being relatively young when her husband died, she often became the center of attention, as unlike Alexandra, she loved social functions, which only showed others how distant and cold Alexandra was. With no reservoir of good will from others, this proved to be a problem later when Alexandra was heavily criticized by many, including many in high society.  

With no medical treatment for the boy's condition, Alexandra turned even more to her religious beliefs to sustain her and to keep her son alive. She eventually was introduced to a peasant holy man from western Siberia, Grigory Rasputin. This man was thought by some to have tremendous healing powers through a special connection to God, and through the years he was called upon to bring the young Russian heir out of his bouts of bleeding. One thing you must understand, the Russian public, and very few people even around the imperial family, knew the nature of Alexei's illness, as it was a closely guarded secret. This never allowed the Russian people to express sympathy with Alexandra, nor to understand her association with Rasputin. Rasputin was not an official of the Russian Orthodox Church, nor was he an official of the Russian government, thus he is a highly controversial figure in history, for while there are some official records about him from those times, much of the other information about him comes from personal stories and recollections from people who knew him, or "knew of him." As I mentioned in "Part One," Russian society was highly stratified, and the idea that the Tsarina, and even the Tsar himself, to some extent, would associate so closely with a peasant was a scandalous story to begin with, but stories about Rasputin's earlier life, as well as his contemporary life, circulated and cast a major shadow over the dynasty, as those stories often had to do with promiscuous sexual adventures, conflicts with religious leaders and later with drunkenness. I'm not sure the movie quite conveys the importance of Rasputin to undermining the dynasty's prestige, although it does try.

The film has several very good scenes, including "something of a reenactment" of what came to be called "Bloody Sunday," where thousands of workers peacefully marched from various parts of the capital of St. Petersburg in order to present a petition to the Tsar about dealing with their wretched working and living conditions. Police and military units opened fire, killing and wounding many, and while Nicholas had not authorized the slaughter, it brought many Russians to call the Tsar, "Bloody Nicholas," which was used to some extent to recruit revolutionaries to overthrow the government. A revolution broke out, but was gradually suppressed, although the Tsar finally relented and signed off on reforms, including the establishment of a body of elected representatives, called the "Duma," which began to place limits on his power, thus beginning a move into constitutional monarchy. After peace was restored, however, Nicholas began to retreat from some of these reforms, but with peace, some land reforms which began to give some peasants control over their own land, and a large presence of secret police (the "Okhrana"), the dynasty seemed to have righted itself, so much so, that the film veers off to show a demoralized Lenin living in exile, pining for what he believes is a never to be revolution.

Russian involvement in World War One gradually brought turmoil to Russia and to the dynasty, as defeats mounted, the lack of weapons and ammunition became acute and a lack of food, especially in the major cities, brought hungry people to question the authority of the Tsar. The Tsar made an ill-fated choice to take direct control of the Russian army, although in reality it was more symbolic, but by remaining at the military headquarters for long periods, he was gone from the capital, leaving Alexandra in charge of day to day governmental matters. Remember, Alexandra was born a German, and with Russian armies suffering devastating defeats at the hands of the Germans, Russians looked for a reason, a reason which seemed all too obvious to many; that is, Alexandra was a German spy, passing along valuable military information to her cousin Kaiser Wilhelm II (remember both were grandchildren of Queen Victoria). Further, her association with Rasputin, who had taken to heavy drinking, tainted matters even more, as he associated with people thought to be German agents by some. Those in government who criticized Rasputin soon earned the enmity of Alexandra, who saw in the, by then, famous peasant, the only way to keep her son alive. Government officials were replaced at an alarming rate, all with Nicholas's consent, but the public saw the changes as Rasputin dictating to the Tsarina, who was in the public mind, running the country. Many of the changes proved unpopular, as men were appointed who had no confidence from the elected representatives of the Duma. Revolution moved closer and closer.  

In another of the great scenes of the film, Nicholas's mother travels to see him at his headquarters. This scene never happened in real life, but it is used by the script writers to depict the real historical attempts by several Romanov family members to convince Nicholas of the changes he needed to make, including the sending of Alexandra to their vacation palace in the Crimea*** to keep her from real and perceived meddling in governmental matters. No question about it, Nicholas had great difficulty opposing his wife. In the movie, Nicholas's mother questions all of the replacements to the officials by incompetents, as well as telling her son how she wished his father were still alive, because, "he knew how to be a tsar." There's the unfavorable comparison to his father. She also tells her son that his father would have known how to deal with Rasputin, which brings a defense of the peasant by Nicholas, but his mother's further questioning of Alexandra's close association with Rasputin brings the admission by Nicholas that his wife "needs him (Rasputin)," and that she believes "he keeps my son alive." In my opinion, this whole scene, which is more extensive than I have noted here, sums up Nicholas's rule in just a few minutes. Not long thereafter, Rasputin is killed in a conspiracy involving Nicholas's nephew, Grand Duke Dmitry, and his friend, Prince Felix Yusupov. The Duma celebrates, but the problems don't go away. Revolution breaks out and Nicholas's train is halted as he tries to get back to his family at one of their palaces just outside St. Petersburg.**** Faced by representatives of the Duma, Nicholas abdicates, and in a legally questionable move, abdicates for his son, thus ending the Romanov dynasty. There is a great deal of historical basis for these film scenes.

Nicholas is allowed to return to his family and they are held as prisoners at the palace until they are sent off to Siberia by the "Provisional Government," as the replacement government was called. In the meantime, Lenin is helped to enter Russia by the Germans, with whom he promises to make peace, as Russia still remained at war at that time. The Bolsheviks plan and execute a revolution of their own against the Provisional Government, whose unpopular decision to continue the war undermines their hold on power. The Bolsheviks overthrow the government and new revolutionary guards are sent to take control of the Romanov family in Siberia. Again, all of these scenes have basis in history, as does the end, as the family is awakened and told they are leaving. They are led to the basement of the house and as they wait, the door opens and Bolshevik guards enter and begin firing. When the movie was filmed, the bodies of the family had not been located, but in more recent times the remains of Nicholas, Alexandra, their five children, a doctor and three servants have all been recovered and identified by DNA and other tests.*****

There are many books and articles about the Romanovs and specifically about Nicholas and Alexandra, but I consulted: "Nicholas and Alexandra," by Robert K. Massie,originally published by Atheneum, New York, 1967, with an edition published in 2000 by Ballantine, New York, and another edition published by Random House, New York in 2011.

* The actual father of Paul has long been in question. For one recent perspective see:  "Catherine the Great, Portrait of a Woman," by Robert K. Massie, published by Random House, New York, 2011.

** Queen Victoria had four sons, with only one, Leopold, suffering the from the bleeding disorder.

*** This palace, Livadia, near Yalta, was later used near the end of World War Two for the meeting of the "Big Three," Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt, often called, "the Yalta Conference." .

**** Because of the German name of the capital, early in the war the official name of the city was changed to the Russian form, "Petrograd."

***** The movie does not have the servants with the family. Also, there has been a dispute between some scientists over which remains are the Tsar's daughter Maria, and which belong to daughter Anastasia. The bulk of the remains were recovered in the early 1990s, but the remains of the last two children, including Alexei and one daughter (either Maria or Anastasia) were recovered and identified just a few years ago, not far from the location which had held the other remains. The Bolsheviks had long said they had buried two of the bodies separate from the others.

Photo of the 1999 Columbia Pictures DVD

WORD HISTORY:
Tarry-This word, related to "tear" (the form pronounced as if "tare," and meaning "rip"), and now generally meaning "stay somewhere, linger," goes back to Indo European "deregh" (from the root "der"=tear, rip, flay), with the notion of "pull, tear," with the additional meaning "excite, irritate," a meaning that "may" come from the idea of tugging at someone "irritating" them ("exciting," in the broad sense). This sense seems to only have been retained in the West Germanic branch of Old Germanic,^ as "tergjan(an)," with the same general meanings. This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "tirgan" (the Brothers Grimm^^ also give it as "tyrgan"), which meant "excite, worry, irritate" ("worry'' is something that "tugs" at your mind, and also "irritates"), as obviously the former secondary meaning of Old Germanic was retained as the primary meaning in English, although the "pull" meaning "may" have remained among the common people, as the word eventually became "terien" (before the modern version) and the meaning retained the "irritate" meaning, and thus by extension, "to tease, to harass," but also "to delay, to hesitate," perhaps from the old notion of "pulling, tugging;" thus "holding back, delaying." The modern word certainly conveys the sense of "linger for a certain purpose, or expectation," thus that purpose "pulls at" one, keeping one from moving on. Relatives in other Germanic languages: German has "zergen," which is now somewhat dated, but means, "to provoke, to bring to anger;" Low German Saxon "targen," meaning "to provoke;" Dutch "tergen," meaning "to provoke, to taunt." West Frisian once had "tergje," which might still be used by some, but is no longer common from what I've been able to find, and Danish, Norwegian and Swedish (all from the North Germanic branch of Germanic) borrowed forms from Low German, although the Danish form, "terge," has apparently died out, and the Swedish form, "targa," has either died out or is purely dialectal, while Norwegian "terge/terga," means "rile;" that is, "provoke."

^ The main modern languages of the West Germanic branch of Germanic are: English, German, Low German, Dutch, West Frisian, East Frisian (only a small number of speakers still exist), and North Frisian (a very small number of speakers).

^^ While most of us likely think of fairy tales when we see "the Brothers Grimm," the brothers also compiled an extensive German dictionary, complete with many word histories, often including the links of those words to English and other Germanic languages, which they began publishing in the mid 1800s.  

"Nicholas And Alexandra," The Movie and History, Part One

This beautifully filmed 1971 movie, directed by Franklin Schaffner, who also directed "Patton," is "based" upon actual historical events as presented in the 1967 book of the same name by Robert K. Massie. Massie was motivated to write the book, as his son had hemophilia, just as Nicholas and Alexandra's son, Alexei, who had been afflicted with hemophilia in the early 1900s. Many years ago when I was in college, I had daytime classes, as well as some evening classes. One of the movie theaters a few blocks away had matinees on certain days with low price admission, and if there was a movie that interested me showing, I'd go there between classes. It's been so long ago I can't remember the price, but it could well have been like fifty or seventy-five cents, but remember, this was the early 1970s in money value. Anyway, that's how I first saw "Nicholas and Alexandra," although they may have charged a little more for admission to see it. The movie is more than three hours long and is available on DVD.

History shows us that Nicholas was not prepared to become the Tsar of Russia, as his father, Tsar Alexander III, was a huge man, who some have said was symbolic of the "Russian bear." He was physically strong, but also strong and confident in his beliefs, and he acted decisively when so required. This all led people to believe he would continue as Tsar for many more years, but at the age of only 49, Alexander III took ill with kidney disease and died within a few months. This brought his eldest son Nicholas to the throne of Russia at the age of 26. While Alexander III was a big man, Nicholas took after his much smaller mother, Marie, who was a Danish princess. Throughout his life Nicholas found himself being unfavorably compared to his father, both in physical stature and ruling stature, a fact mentioned in the movie.

Alexandra, her Russian name, as her real name was "Alix," a German rendering of her mother's name, Alice, was born as a princess and a Lutheran in the German Grand Duchy of Hessen und bei Rhein, at Darmstadt. Her mother died when Alix was only six years old. This brought her maternal grandmother to assume the duties of providing for the young girl's education through tutors and, to a great extent, for her general upbringing. Who was her grandmother? None other than Queen Victoria of England, as Alice had been her daughter. So as some historians have pointed out, Alix was born a German, but raised more as an Englishwoman. She spent much time with her grandmother in England, where the queen taught her about "noblesse oblige;" that is, the idea that noble birth requires the person to act responsibly and with charity toward those less fortunate. It was a concept Alix continued to pursue to a "selective" extent when she became Tsarina of Russia, but with limited success. It is important to remember, Alix was born in Germany, a "limited" constitutional monarchy, where the Kaiser (emperor) was "somewhat limited" in his authority by the elected representatives of the Reichstag (the German parliament), and she spent long periods of time in England with her grandmother, where the British monarchy was much more of a constitutional monarchy, and where Parliament had much more say. So she had seen and experienced democracy to varying degrees. When she married Nicholas, she married into an "autocracy" (see Word History below); that is, a nation governed by someone with unlimited power. There was NO legislative body of representatives elected by the Russian people at the time of Alix's arrival in Russia, although that did come, but not until much later.

Alexander III's death not only brought an unprepared Nicholas to the Russian throne, it brought the hurried marriage of Nicholas and Alix. Alix had at first turned down Nicholas's marriage proposal, as in order to marry him, Russian law required that she would have to convert to Russian Orthodoxy. She eventually relented, and she was rushed through her religious instruction, but more especially her learning of the Russian language was not far enough along for her to feel confident in its use.* This began a division with her Russian subjects right from the start, as Alix suffered from what some have described as pathological shyness (depicted in the movie), and the insecurity of her limited knowledge of Russian left her appearing cold and haughty to many Russians. Further, Russian society was dominated by a very small number of nobles and aristocrats, and that society had little, if anything, in common with her upbringing in Germany and England. Her "Victorian" values were neither appreciated nor welcomed by Russian high society, where extramarital affairs were commonplace and pretty much expected. She later tried to form sewing and knitting circles to make clothing for the poor, but the whole thing was not a great success, as many Russian society women had disdain for such an idea. In the Russian high society, the nobility and the aristocrats flaunted their wealth and power.

The rest in "Part Two" ...

* Like English, Russian is an Indo European language, but from the Slavic branch, so further down the family tree of English, which is from the Germanic branch. Further, Russian uses the Cyrillic alphabet. While her Russian improved over time, Alix and Nicholas conversed in English! As I recall, she spoke to her children in English and German, and indeed often instructed them in both languages. Nicholas spoke to his children in Russian. Nicholas was related to English royalty, as his mother's sister was married to Queen Victoria's son Edward, who would later become King Edward VII (of cigar fame), when his mother passed away. Hopefully not to confuse you, but in case you haven't noticed, Edward was Alix's uncle, as he was her mother's brother. Nicholas was also closely connected to the German nobility, as both of his grandmothers were Germans, and both, like his wife Alix, were from Hessen!  
 
Photo from the Columbia Pictures DVD

WORD HISTORY:
Autocrat-This compound word, meaning "a person with absolute/total power," was borrowed from French circa 1800. The word had come from Greek "autokrates," which meant "ruling singly, ruling by oneself." This came from Greek "autos," a word of uncertain derivation, meaning "self," and "kratia," which meant "rule," from Greek "kratos," which meant "power, strength." This came from Indo European "kretis" ("power/strength") from the root "ker/kre," which had the notion of "hard," giving the further notion of "strength," and thus, "power."

The German Question, Part Seventy-Five

Very minor editing, 9/22/15

"Kaiser Wilhelm & World War I" Part Two/E "The Germans At War"

"The Discontent Of Stalemate"

Kaiser Wilhelm had been born with a withered left hand.* Perhaps this weakness made him showcase a more strutting militaristic persona, but during the war, his overall lack of military prowess made him recede ever further into the more symbolic role of Kaiser as supreme commander, leaving the actual military affairs and even many governmental affairs to the professionals.** Wilhelm made many public appearances and visited military units to help bolster morale, but Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg and his aide, General Erich Ludendorff, gained more and more power as Wilhelm deferred to them, and some historians even go so far as to say that these two men, and not Wilhelm, were actually running Germany during the last two years of war.

Perhaps Tsar Nicholas II should have taken a note from his distant cousin, the Kaiser, but unlike Wilhelm, Nicholas had actively served in a regiment in his early adulthood. He loved military life and he loved being around the troops. With the Russian armies finally dug in against the German and Austro-Hungarian armies after terrible losses,*** the Tsar made a fateful decision; he relieved his cousin, also named Nicholas (known to the family as "Nikolasha"), as commander-in-chief of the army, and he took charge of the army personally, although actual conduct of military matters were left to a professional staff. The decision had dire consequences. Before this time, fairly or unfairly, the public could blame "the generals" for the defeats, but with the Tsar now "in charge," full responsibility was his. Further, with the Tsar at the military headquarters hundreds of miles from the capital of St. Petersburg, he left his German-born wife in charge of day-to-day governmental matters. With Russia at war with Germany, the Russian public, stunned by the catastrophic defeat of the Russian armies in East Prussia, looked for reasons why Russia had not already defeated Germany and Austria-Hungary. Over the centuries, many Germans had settled in Russia, now, people with German sounding names became the object of hatred, accused of being spies for their ancestral homeland. This state of mind went right up to the Tsarina Alexandra.**** Rumors circulated that Alexandra was passing important information on to her first cousin, Kaiser Wilhelm (a grandson of Queen Victoria). In addition, her association with Grigori Rasputin brought more disrepute to the monarchy.^ Many in the public believed Rasputin, through the Tsarina, had access to secret information about Russian military plans. It was believed he then passed along this information to German agents, who then paid him handsomely for the secrets. Rasputin's exploits, some real, some imagined, were big stories to the Russian public, and the country's newspapers were more than willing to print Rasputin stories for a public eager for any tidbit about him.

Meanwhile, in far off Zurich (Zürich, in German), Switzerland, a Marxist revolutionary writer, theorist, and leader, Vladimir Lenin, was monitoring the reports of events from his native Russia. Lenin was not his real name, as he was born Vladimir Ulyanov. In Russia prior to Tsar Nicholas II's granting of a "limited" constitution (and even somewhat thereafter), writings critical of the government were cause for arrest. Ulyanov wrote under the pseudonym "Lenin," and he kept that as his "cover name" to avoid the secret police, just as many revolutionary leaders did (for example, Stalin's real family name was "Dzughashvili" or "Jughashvili," depending upon transliteration method.) The revolutionaries took advantage of the Russian military defeats, and of Alexandra's association with Rasputin, to spread as much discontent as possible. With Russia's armies terribly short of ammunition and provisions, and with an inadequate railway net, the whole Russian supply system, especially to the cities, began to go into cardiac arrest, making the job of the revolutionaries that much easier. Strikes and protests mounted. Military units became highly unreliable, some even in open rebellion. Eventually the situation became so serious in St. Petersburg, police and military units joined the protesters, and Nicholas decided to return to the capital to restore order. On his way back, his train was stopped and he was forced to abdicate. Revolution had come! A "provisional government" under Alexander Kerensky came to power. With starvation a distinct possibility for many Russians, especially in the cities, the Kerensky government promised not bread, but war, as the new government reassured their nervous French and British allies that Russia would remain in the war. Lenin was still watching. (You may wonder why I've included so much information about Russia, when this series is about Germany, but the major events in Russia had an impact on the course of the war and Germany, and the next part will clarify why this is so important. The main thing to remember is, the Allies needed Russia to remain in the war to keep the two front war going against Germany and Austria-Hungary.)

* The many photos taken of Wilhelm during his life almost always had his left hand concealed in some way, frequently by a glove.

** Wilhelm's last minute wavering about support of Austria-Hungary against Serbia and his attempts to avoid war made some German military and governmental leaders skeptical (some might say "contemptuous") of him.

***Remember, even though German rail could adeptly transfer troops back and forth between the Western and Eastern Fronts, once the Germans failed to knock France out of the war, Germany could not send enough troops against Russia to defeat her, bloodied though Russia had been early on in the war. Austria-Hungary also had its hands full, not only against Russia, but against Serbia, and then Italy. With forces divided against so many nations, the outlook for a Central Powers' victory was relatively dim, although the Allies also seemed in much the same spot; thus there was military stalemate, with only the number of casualties and victims of the war escalating.

****Born as a princess in the German state of Hessen, her given name was "Alix," the German rendering of her mother's name, Alice. Alice was the daughter of Queen Victoria of Britain and Alice died while Alix was still a young child. "Grandmother" Queen Victoria took charge of Alix's education and much of her upbringing, and the girl shared her time between Hessen (in the city of Darmstadt) and England. So, while Alix was "German-born," she was actually something of an Englishwoman, and indeed, she and Nicholas conversed in English, not Russian. The English part of her heritage was a matter not really known to the average Russian. Upon her conversion to Russian Orthodoxy, which was required for her to marry Nicholas, she was given the name "Alexandra."

^ For more on Rasputin, I did a nine part series on him (Parts 1-8 + Conclusion). You can access "Part One" here:
http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2008/04/rasputins-importance-to-history.html
 

 WORD HISTORY:
Gather-This word goes back to Indo European "ghedh," which had the notion of "unify, unite, join, keep together." This spawned the Old Germanic offshoot "gaduronan," which continued the meaning "bring together, unite; thus also, 'gather.' " This gave Anglo-Saxon (Old English) "gadrian/gaedrian," with much the same basic meaning. Later it was spelled "gaderen," but gradually the "d" sound came to be pronounced as "th," and this brought about the modern spelling. The other West Germanic languages have (or had) words related to "gather;" German has "Gatte" ("husband"), "Gattin" ("wife"), both terms being a bit "socially high," and the idea of "uniting" lies behind them. German also has "begatten," which means "to mate," for animals, and ahh...ahh... "to mate" for humans. In "old times," it meant "to get married, or paired;" thus the related terms "Gatte" and "Gattin," above. While strikingly similar to English "beget/begat," and with similar meaning, if you get my drift, they are not related. Interestingly too, just as with English, most sources show the root word itself was once spelled with a "d" in German, but also just like in English, the sound changed, in the case of German to "t," as they do not have the "th" sound of English. Dutch has "vergaderen," with the meaning "to gather, to assemble in one place." Frisian once had "gadia," meaning "to unite," but apparently it has died out, with no descendants, so I assume the Frisians did not read up on German "begatten" or English "beget." English once had "gaed," another derivative of the Old Germanic form, and it meant "companion, fellowship," but it too has died out, which brings us back to "begatten" and...oh never mind!

The German Question, Part Sixty-Six

"Kaiser Wilhelm & World War I" Part One/A "Europe Moves Toward War"
"The Tinderbox Of Aging Empires"

The (Second) German Empire ("Reich") was the neighbor of a number of aging empires that were so much in decline, they threatened to come apart at the seams, and this then could precipitate a general European war. The Ottoman (Turkish) Empire had been around since about 1300, with widespread territories in the Middle East, North Africa, and southeastern Europe; that is, the general region known as the Balkans. Throughout their empire, the Ottomans faced challenges from their multi-ethnic subjects who wanted independence. In the Balkans, an area with much mountainous and rough terrain, the population tended to be split into groups where each saw itself as a separate entity. To this day, the region is very divided, and it has been the center of unrest and fighting.* The Turks had mingled with the local population over the centuries, and some of these people had converted to Islam from Christianity, with the Christian population also being divided (often bitterly) largely between Orthodox and Roman Catholic.

In the northern part of the Balkans were territories of Germany's foremost ally, Austria-Hungary. Germany's connection to Austria-Hungary, and that troubled empire's connection to the powder keg of the Balkans, threatened to draw Germany into any conflict in this highly volatile region. Like the Ottoman Empire, Austria-Hungary (aka, the "Austro-Hungarian Empire") had similar problems with its many ethnic groups. The former multi-ethnic Austrian Empire had been divided between Austria and Hungary in 1867, with each ruling numerous ethnic groups, but joined together by the Habsburg emperor, who was simultaneously "King of Hungary." The division of the empire had quieted the Hungarian population, but it did little to satisfy the other ethnic groups, which looked to the "Hungarian model" as a solution to their own desire for some sort of independence.** Austria-Hungary was ruled by Kaiser Franz Josef I, who seemingly ruled from the time of the Crucifixion, but who, in reality, ruled for 68 years!

Russia, or more precisely the Russian Empire, lay to the east of Germany, where Germany's majority Polish areas bordered Russia's even larger Polish area and Polish population. Here was another multi-ethnic entity, with all sorts of peoples and religions, and a land troubled by the threat of revolution, mainly from its very own Russian population.*** Tsar Alexander III had ruled the empire with an iron hand. He was a huge man, whom historians often cite as the symbol of "the Russian bear." This powerful man died at the early age of 49, from kidney disease ("nephritis"). The Russian throne passed to his eldest son, Nicholas, who ruled as "Nicholas II." Nicholas did not inherit his father's immense size, but rather took after his dainty mother; one of the unfavorable comparisons to his father that followed him throughout his life. Nicholas was married to German princess, Alix von Hessen (Alix of Hesse),**** who is better known by her given Russian name, Alexandra.

Kaiser Wilhelm II was a grandson of England's Queen Victoria, his mother having been the queen's daughter and namesake, Victoria. Alexandra too was a grandchild of Queen Victoria, her mother having been the queen's daughter, Alice, thus making Wilhelm and Alexandra first cousins. Kaiser Wilhelm and Nicholas were second cousins, once removed, each being descended from former King of Prussia, Friedrich Wilhelm III.***** (A Word History is below the notes)

* The terrain certainly made it easy for each of these groups, like Albanians, Serbians and Croatians, to develop a sense of "ethnic identity" and to remain somewhat separate. The terrain has also made it difficult for invaders to really control the area, and in fact, the rugged terrain and the hearty people of the Balkans are famous for bedeviling occupying military forces.

** What I mean here by "Hungarian model" is, some leaders of the other ethnic groups saw the possibility of further dividing the empire into other portions, where they would get regional independence, but would still be bound together at the top by the Habsburg emperor (who by the way carried the title "Kaiser").

*** Tsar Alexander II (grandfather of Nicholas II) was assassinated in 1881, when a revolutionary threw a bomb at his feet after he had left his metal-plated carriage. He was carried into his palace, where he died shortly thereafter.

**** Hessen (usually rendered as "Hesse" in English) was a grand duchy of Germany, ruled by a grand duke.

***** The "once removed" simply means they were "removed" (distanced) by a generation; that is, they were of different generations. The children of your parents' brothers and sisters are your first cousins, but the children of your grandparents' brothers and sisters are your first cousins, once removed. Most of my cousins wish I were just plain removed. haha ... Wait, what the hell am I laughing about?

WORD HISTORY: 
Knock-It seems that most linguists believe this word to be an original Germanic concoction, imitative of "a sound." Old English had slight dialectal variations in "cnocian" and "cnucian," which later became "knokken," before the modern spelling. Remember, the "cn/kn" was pronounced in times past. It certainly seems that German "Knack" (the "a" is pronounced like the "a" in father) as in "Knackwurst" (usually spelled Knockwurst, in English) is really the same word. In German it means the sound of a "snap or crack," and it was applied to the sausage because of the "snap" sound made when biting into the casing.

Some Comments About Nicholas & Alexandra

Just a few comments about Tsar Nicholas and Tsarina Alexandra:

Nicholas was not all that passionate about being Tsar. His diaries, kept for much of his life, survived the Bolsheviks. His daily observations, full of details about the weather and family life, seem to tell the story of a man who wished to be more of a country gentleman and family man than a tsar. For a man who had so much power, Nicholas actually wrote remarkably little about governing on a day-to-basis, or even at times about the major events taking place in his vast empire. He was only in his mid 20s when his father, Alexander III, died, and he was terribly unprepared for the duties he had to assume. For the most part, this was not his fault, as those in the Romanov family and in high level government positions assumed that Alexander III would be tsar for many, many more years than actually happened, as Alexander, a true bear of a man, died at the age of only 49.

The death of the Tsar also had a major impact on Alexandra (Alexandra being her Russian name, as the German born Tsarina's given name was "Alix," the closest German rendering of her mother's name, Alice, a daughter of England's Queen Victoria), as her wedding plans were moved up, since Nicholas wanted to marry her as he began his rule of the Russian Empire. Just as Nicholas was not prepared to become Tsar, so too was Alexandra unprepared to assume her new role as Tsarina. Her religious instruction had to be hastened along (she was a Lutheran by birth***), so that she could convert to Russian Orthodoxy as required of any spouse of a Tsar. Further, she had not fully learned the Russian language, nor even the overall customs of the Russian people. These problems only further complicated Alexandra's intense shyness. This all came to play a part in how the Russian nobility and the Russian public perceived their new Tsarina. Further, Alexander III's wife, Marie (a daughter of the King of Denmark), was still a fairly young woman when her husband died (I believe she was 47), and she had a very outgoing personality, and was highly popular with the nobility and the public (interestingly, she was a small woman, especially when compared to her almost gigantic husband. Nicholas took after his mother.) Many historians and people from that era have commented on the tremendous contrast in personalities and public popularity between Alexandra and Marie.

Tsar Alexander III was much feared, including by many of the revolutionary groups which had proliferated during the 1800s.### When Nicholas became Tsar, these groups took on new life, especially somewhat later, as Nicholas seemed nowhere near as firm as his father had been. Nicholas chose to go to war with Japan over Korea in 1904. It was a disastrous decision and nearly brought an end to his rule back then.+++ Anti-war sentiment grew, as the public saw no end in sight for the disastrous war, a war which they had difficulty understanding. Strikes began to take place, and the violent revolutionary movements received many new recruits for their causes. Eventually, a true revolution broke out, but much of the "action" remained in the countryside, rather than in most of the cities. The Tsar and his family basically remained "confined" to their palace on the outskirts of St. Petersburg, as fear of attacks on the Tsar by revolutionaries remained high, even after the revolution died out. Nicholas was finally persuaded to give in and grant some basic rights, which slowly but surely diffused the violence in the country. The result, however, was that the Imperial family never traveled as freely thereafter, and this only served to divide the Tsar and Tsarina from their subjects even more, although Alexandra was undoubtedly just as happy, since public appearances were not something she especially enjoyed. The Imperial couple spent a good deal of time with their children and regardless of any faults the two may have had, they were devoted parents.

When the heir to the Russian throne, Alexei, was born, it was discovered that he had "the bleeding disease;" that is, hemophilia. The boy's condition was kept as a closely guarded secret, and when the Tsarina called upon Rasputin to help her ill son, the public didn't understand why such a man as Rasputin was invited into the palace; thus, the rumors began to circulate that he was having a sexual affair with Alexandra. The problem was, the Tsar and the few advisers who knew of the boy's illness felt that they could never make the boy's condition known to the public, because many Russians saw the tsar as "semi-divine." To admit that the heir had a defective gene and an incurable ailment that was likely to end his life before adulthood, would have undermined the already shaky dynasty. On the other hand, some historians have speculated that the Tsar and Tsarina should have made the heir's condition known, and that the Russian public would then have given them deep sympathy and understanding. We shall never know.


*** When Nicholas first asked Alix of Hessen to marry him, she turned him down, as she refused to change religions. Various people tried to convince her to convert, perhaps the most influential being her own sister, Ella, who had married Tsar Alexander's brother, Sergei, who was therefore an uncle to Nicholas. Ella had converted to Russian Orthodoxy and it seems that she was the person who really convinced Alix to convert.


### Some revolutionary groups wanted democratic and social reforms; others were out and out ruthless, with their ultimate goals somewhat unclear, except that they seemed to desire the fall of the dynasty. They also believed in and practiced killing by any means.


+++ Japan was not seen as a major military power at that time, and Nicholas and some of his advisers thought that Russia could score an easy victory over the Japanese, thus solidifying public support for the monarchy, and to be quite honest, diverting attention from other issues that were gaining support among many in the public, like basic freedoms and an elected assembly. The Japanese inflicted some staggering defeats on the Russian military in the Far East. One of the problems for the Russians was the sheer distance between the Russian industrial and population centers, which were in European Russia, and the area where the fighting took place, which was in Korea, a distance of thousands of miles. There was only one rail line, and if I remember correctly, it was not totally complete, and in mountainous areas, trains were frequently delayed by snow. The Russian Army suffered thousands of casualties, and Nicholas and his military advisers decided to send the vast bulk of the Russian European Fleet all the way to the Far East to crush the Japanese Fleet and thus prevent Japan from conveying men and supplies from their island nation to the Korean peninsula. After the long voyage of thousands of miles, the Japanese virtually destroyed the Russian Fleet.


Related blogs:

http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2007/07/we-all-love-mystery.html

http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2007/07/some-additions-to-we-all-love-mystery.html

http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2007/10/update-on-mystery.html


http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2008/04/rasputins-importance-to-history.html

Rasputin's Importance to History, Conclusion

Edited and updated with a Word History October 20, 2014

With Rasputin dead, the public and the members of the Duma (Russian parliament) rejoiced. The problem was, Rasputin was only one of the symptoms of the inadequacy of the Tsar to deal with the problems facing Russia. Most times the Tsar was hundreds of miles away at the military headquarters, known as Stavka, which left the "German Tsarina" in charge of the day-to-day affairs of government. The railway system was by then so inadequate, that it could not deliver food, ammunition, equipment, and other supplies to the troops at the front, and simultaneously deliver even the basics to the cities where food shortages had become extremely serious.

Not long before Rasputin's death, he told some associates that he had a "premonition" of death. Of course, to his supporters, his "supernatural powers" were never in question, and the fact that Rasputin spoke about dying was an ominous sign to them. In reality, Rasputin was hated by many Russians, especially those in the nobility and aristocracy, and it didn't take someone with the brain of Einstein to figure out that many of those same Russians wanted him dead, especially after less drastic means had failed. Further, the conspirators couldn't keep their mouths shut and it seems that the general nature of their plot was hardly a well kept secret in the capitol. A number of historians speculate that with his many contacts, Rasputin undoubtedly got wind that something was afoot involving people close to or even related to the Tsar. Rasputin wrote a letter to the Tsarina that was given to the grieving Alexandra after Rasputin's body was discovered in the river. Essentially the letter told her that he felt that he would be murdered and it made a prediction: if his murderers were from the common people, the Tsar and his family would be safe and Russia would overcome any difficulties, and the monarchy would continue for many years to come. If, on the other hand, the murderers were from the Tsar's family (Grand Duke Dimitri was the Tsar's cousin and Prince Yusupov was married to the Tsar's niece), then, within two years, the Tsar would lose his throne and he and his family would be "killed by the Russian people." The Tsarina, a "true believer," was terrified.

Rasputin's supporters and other people who believe in supernatural nonsense have pointed to this letter as confirmation about Rasputin's ability to see the future. First and foremost, Rasputin WAS very perceptive. Unlike the out-of-touch Tsar and Tsarina, Rasputin saw how the country was spiraling out of control and how the situation had created fear in the public and out and out contempt for the Tsarist government. He certainly was well aware that the nobility absolutely detested him, if for no other reason than that he had access to the palace, but more likely, because he had the Tsarina's ear, and she had the ear of the Tsar. He, a common peasant, had the "seeming" power that they coveted. (I say "seeming," because it is difficult to say how much Rasputin DEFINITELY influenced decisions at the top, but certainly at least somewhat.) It hardly took a genius to figure out that the nobility wanted him dead, especially when the Tsar could not be brought to send Rasputin into exile in Siberia. Further, Rasputin and the nobility saw how the country was tilting more and more toward revolution. Many in the upper classes feared and openly talked about revolution being inevitable, barring major changes by the Tsar, such as exiling Rasputin, keeping the Tsarina out of governmental matters, and the Tsar taking firm control of governing, even ruthlessly,* to right the listing ship of state. I just want to make clear that while it was Alexandra's doing that kept Rasputin in public view, not all blame belongs on her, as it was the Tsar's failure to take the necessary step to keep Rasputin from even appearing to influence governmental decisions by sending him back to his home in Siberia, and that would have meant also keeping his wife out of governmental affairs.

So much is just not documented about Rasputin's life, even his life in the capitol and around the palace, as what certainly would have been the best source about his relationship with the imperial family, the Tsarina Alexandra's diary, was destroyed by her as the revolution broke out.** The Tsar's diary survived, but Nicholas really didn't cover much of his governance in detail in his entries.***

If you have followed this series here, I hope it encourages you to check out more about this historical subject. There was a VERY good movie made about the subject, "Nicholas and Alexandra," released in the early 1970s. It didn't do especially well in America, as unfortunately, many Americans aren't much interested in the history of other countries (maybe not even our own???), and you do need a little knowledge about that era of Russian history to really appreciate the movie. Hey, now that you have a little background, the movie is available on DVD. It is really pretty accurate, too. Naturally it has some historical events compressed to fit the time element of the movie, but those scenes do a good job of making the point. There is a great scene that really captures the essence of the Tsar's inability to use his power to rule the country. In real life, this scene never actually happened, but it still makes the point. It has the Tsar's mother visiting him at the military headquarters as the country was coming apart. The writers have combined a number of visits by other historical persons, who tried to get the Tsar to act, into this one great scene. This is a bit of paraphrasing of the scene: His mother tells Nicholas that she has come to congratulate him. As the situation is a mess, Nicholas asks what she wants to congratulate him for. She gives a very sarcastic answer about how he's succeeded in finding people, seemingly from Russia's lunatic asylums, to fill top positions in his government, and how they are the least qualified people in the country. The real crux of the matter is when she tells "Nicky," as his mother called him, that she wishes his father were still alive. Nicholas was always a bit sensitive in real life about comparison to his huge, bear-like father, who was NEVER afraid to wield power. When he tells his mother not to bring up his father, she retorts that his father knew how to be a Tsar; that he would have defeated the Germans, burned Vienna down (Vienna was the capitol of Austria-Hungary, another Russian enemy in World War I), shot the strikers (the war and food shortages had caused many strikes across the country), and that he would certainly have known how to deal with Rasputin. OUCH!!! Nicholas immediately says that Rasputin is a man of God who keeps his son alive, but his mother quickly asks him if he really believes that. Nicholas sheepishly says that "Sunny" believes it ("Sunny" was Alexandra's nickname since childhood). His mother immediately tells Nicholas, "Hang him!" She tells him that if he doesn't hang Rasputin that he will destroy the country and that millions of Russians will die and all because Nicholas can't say "no" to his wife. There's more to the scene, but it does such a great job of condensing the whole matter of the Tsar's inability to deal with reality.

Rasputin is important to history because, even if he didn't have as much power and influence in actual fact, the public thought he did. His scandalous behavior, even if some of it was exaggerated by the press, was also believed by the general public, and it cast much doubt upon the Tsar's judgment and on the public's confidence in his ability to rule. Further, the public perception that Alexandra was having an affair with this peasant (and she hadn't been all that popular to start with), further undermined the monarchy, especially when the Tsarina was left to run the day to day government during much of World War One. The public then assumed, with at least some justification, that Rasputin was making many of the decisions, as Rasputin did brag in public about his special relationship with the imperial couple, and especially with the Tsarina, although he never really indicated a physical relationship with her. Perhaps more importantly, Rasputin reinforced in the Tsarina Alexandra her own notion of retaining as much of the Tsar's governing powers as possible, even though this went contrary to the views of many elected representatives and of some, likely a substantial, and growing, element of the public. He reassured her already preconceived idea of how loved she and the Tsar were by what she considered the real Russian people, as exemplified by Rasputin, a Siberian peasant. Now, Rasputin did not bring down the Romanovs all by himself, but he certainly gave the 300 year old dynasty a big push toward the cliff, as his own actions and reputation tarnished public respect for the Tsar and the tsarist system

If the monarchy had fallen and Russia had become some shining example of democracy and social fairness, history probably wouldn't care as much about him, but that didn't happen. Instead, the Bolsheviks ended up overthrowing the original revolutionary government in their own revolution, and there were ruthless and vengeful people among the Bolsheviks, willing to do anything to firmly establish their power. The tsarist system had filled many with bitterness and hatred, and it came roaring to the forefront when they took over. Much blood was spilled, including that of the entire imperial family, and many other Romanovs, nobles and aristocrats, as well as that of anyone suspected of opposing Bolshevik rule. Plus, there was really a Russian civil war for a couple of years, between the Bolsheviks and pro-monarchists, before the Bolsheviks finally gained total control, as well as a war with Poland for a couple of years beginning in 1919. Bolshevik/Communist rule may have brought down the rule of the wealthy, but it came at a severe price in freedom, as many a Soviet citizen paid with his or her life, or spent periods in Soviet prisons or labor camps. All subsequent events of Soviet rule, including the domination of eastern Europe after World War Two until circa 1990, trace back to the fall of the Tsar. That's why Rasputin is important to history.

There are many books about Rasputin, and even more books on the Russia of that time period, including about Nicholas and Alexandra. Books about Rasputin range from what I feel are serious historical works, by authors who presented their cases based on their own interpretations and perspectives of the information they researched on Rasputin, as many things about the man are really opinions, with some actual documentation upon which to base those opinions. There are also books that present lots of "claims" about Rasputin, and lots of scandal stories, but in my opinion, they rely too much on questionable sources. I've read so many books about this subject, that I did much of this series from memory, but I did check certain details and reread some passages to refresh my memory on some events (hey, I'm not Einstein!). It's difficult to credit certain books or articles (there was also a television documentary or two in the 1990s, as the fall of Communism had reinvigorated a desire to study that period in Russian history), except to list the actual books I've read, even though I may not have consulted each of these when I did the series. (I consulted this book) "The Rasputin File," by Edvard Radzinsky, published by Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, a division of Random House Inc., New York, 2000; "The Man Who Killed Rasputin-Prince Youssoupov and The Murder That Helped Bring Down The Russian Empire, by Greg King, published by Carol Publishing Group, Secaucus, N.J., 1995; "Rasputin-A Life" by Joseph T. Fuhrmann, published by Praeger, New York, 1990; (I consulted this book) "Rasputin-Rascal Master," by Jane Oakley, published by St. Martins Press, New York, 1989; "Rasputin-The Saint Who Sinned," by Brian Moynahan, published by Random House, New York, 1997; (I consulted this book) "The Life And Times of Grigorii Rasputin," by Alex De Jonge," published by Coward, McCann and Geoghegan, New York, 1982, (I consulted this book) "The Last Empress-The Life and Times of Alexandra Feodorovna, Tsarina of Russia," by Greg King, published by Birch Lane Press/Carol Publishing Group, New York/Secaucus, N.J., 1994.
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* Keep in mind, Russia was NOT a real democracy, although the manifesto signed in 1905 by Nicholas had granted some basic rights. The Tsar had almost all power and the Russian people expected him to use it, even ruthlessly, to save the country. In some of the post-Communist period interviews of Russians still alive from the Tsarist era, it was interesting that a few people even mentioned how Nicholas was just too weak, and that he had power, but refused to use it. And a couple of these people had been Bolsheviks!!!

** Many Americans think only of the Russian Revolution as the revolution that brought the Bolsheviks (later called Communists) to power. This is not completely true. There was a revolution in March of 1917 that actually deposed the Tsar. He abdicated when his train was stopped by revolutionaries while heading back to the capitol. At first he wanted to abdicate in favor of his son, Alexei, but after consulting with the boy's physician, he abdicated for both he and his son, with the hope that his brother, Michael, would take the throne, but Michael did not; thus ending the monarchy. When I say brother, I mean the Tsar's brother, to make that clear, as again, Alexei was the Tsar's only son. The revolutionaries had planned to keep the monarchy at that time, and the government, that was called the "Provisional Government," and headed by Alexander Kerensky, hoped to hold elections to establish a democratic government. The Provisional Government's support of the unpopular war caused it to lose the confidence of many Russians and gave the Bolsheviks an opening later in the year to overthrow the government and establish a Bolshevik government in a second revolution, and it is that revolution that is known to many Americans, at least vaguely.

*** The Tsarina began keeping another diary and that diary survived her execution. It includes much about the family's captivity, first as prisoners of the Provisional Government and then as prisoners of the Bolsheviks.

WORD HISTORY:
Beard-This word, most commonly used for rather extensive facial hair, goes back to Indo European "bhard-ha," which meant "beard." This gave Old Germanic "bardaz," with the same meaning. ^ This then gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "beard" (likely pronounced back then like, "bee-ard"). Relatives in the other Germanic languages: German "Bart," Low German Saxon "Boort," Dutch "baard," West Frisian "burd."

^ I'm a bit curious as to why none of the languages from the North Germanic branch (primarily Icelandic, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish) of Germanic have forms of the word. Did it die out so long ago, there is no record of any such word? East Germanic (Gothic, Vandalic, Burgundian) had a form, but the East Germanic languages have all died out.

Rasputin's Importance To History, Part 8, Rasputin's Death

Slightly edited and updated with a Word History October 18, 2014.

As conditions worsened throughout Russia, especially the food shortage in the cities, people in the nobility and the Romanov family began to plead with the Tsar to take action by sending Rasputin back to Siberia and sharing more power with the elected parliament, known in Russia as the "Duma." By sharing power, the feeling was that it would take some of the pressure off of the Tsar, as at the time, anything that went wrong was blamed on the Tsar and the government (And correctly!!! You can't have virtually all of the power and none or little of the blame when things go wrong.) There was also the plea for him to limit Alexandra's influence and involvement in governmental affairs, often with the suggestion of sending her to their summer vacation palace in the Crimea, "Livadia." The Tsar refused to act.

Likewise, some in the nobility and the Romanov family tried to get Alexandra to rid herself of Rasputin. Even her own sister, Ella,* visited to try to bring Alexandra to her senses, but without success. The two sisters parted, never to see one another again. A princess from one of the wealthiest families in Russia, the Yusupovs, came to see the Tsarina, only to be led out of her presence by a servant who was summoned by Alexandra once the princess even dared to mention that something had to be done about Rasputin.** The Tsarina told the princess that she hoped never to see her again, a wish that was fulfilled.

Met with inaction by the Tsar and the Tsarina, others began to plot to take matters into their own hands. Prince Felix Yusupov (who was married to the Tsar's niece), Grand Duke Dimitri Pavlovich Romanov (the Tsar's cousin, who had essentially been raised by Nicholas and Alexandra), and Vladimir Purishkevich, an ultra right wing zealot and politician, devised a plan to lure Rasputin to one of Yusupov's palaces in the capitol and to kill him there. In December 1916 they were able to implement their plan. I'm not going to go into all of the details, as just as with so many other things about Rasputin's life, the particulars about his death are also in question. Supposedly, the trio provided Rasputin with cakes and wine laced with poison (cyanide). The problem was, when Rasputin ate some of the cakes and drank some wine, he did not die, although he seemed to have some labored breathing. Here again, this whole situation has caused great debate. Did the conspirators use enough poison? Had the poison lost potency? (Hey, nothing worse than spoiled poison!) I'm not a scientist, but all joking aside, from what I understand, cyanide can indeed lose potency. When Hitler planned to commit suicide in 1945, he first tested the batch of cyanide he had on his dog to make sure it was effective, which it was. So, it seems that the cyanide used by the conspirators on Rasputin was not strong enough. At first, when they saw that Rasputin survived the poison, they truly began to believe that Rasputin was a holy devil, possessed by supernatural powers.

As time passed and Rasputin did not die, Prince Yusupov took a pistol and shot Rasputin, who fell to the floor, apparently dead. The prince ran up the stairs screaming to the other two conspirators who were waiting there, that he had killed Rasputin. Upon return to Rasputin's "corpse," he saw Rasputin move. Supposedly Rasputin spoke to him, threatening to tell the Tsarina the whole story as he made his way out of the palace. The other two conspirators, joined also by the prince, took shots at Rasputin. How many of these shots actually hit him, and where they hit his body, is again a detail that is debated. The trio claimed that Rasputin should have been dead, and that his survival showed his evil supernatural powers. They beat him until he was supposedly dead. His bound body was taken by car and dumped into the river. A few days later the body was discovered and supposedly an examination showed that Rasputin had still been alive when tossed into the icy water and that he had drowned. Supposedly he got loose from some of the rope used to tie his body and he made a sign of the cross as he died, with his partially frozen arm and hand still in that position when the body was recovered.*** Again, to the believers that Rasputin had evil supernatural powers, this only confirmed that he was a holy devil. The story is disputed by others, with some saying that he was indeed dead when dumped into the river, and others saying that while he did die by drowning, that the position of his arm and hand was simply his attempt to free himself from the rope and get to the surface. I guess you could say, "The devil is in the details." (Oh Randy, you're funny!) Regardless of the details, Rasputin was dead.

To be continued in the last part  ...

* Ella had been married to one of Nicholas's uncles, Sergei, a brother of Nicholas's father, who was assassinated many years before by revolutionaries (he was literally blown to pieces by a bomb). Ella eventually became a nun, and was such when she came to see her sister about Rasputin. Ella was killed by the Bolsheviks after the revolution, when they threw her and some others down a mine shaft while they were still alive! Grenades were tossed in afterward, but autopsies on the later recovered bodies suggested that some of the victims had died from wounds, but others died of starvation.

** Note that Alexandra referred to Rasputin as "our friend" when talking with or writing to her husband. She never called him "Rasputin." If I remember correctly, to others she frequently, but not necessarily always, referred to him as "Father Grigory."

*** All of this "seems" a bit far fetched to me, like something scripted for a movie, but I can't say some or all of it is untrue. There are photographs taken by the police of Rasputin's battered face and his raised arm, but whether he was making a sign of the cross I can't say.

WORD HISTORY:
Siberia-This word came to be applied to the Asian lands that gradually came under Russian control beginning in the late 1500s, with major expansion of Russian control thereafter. Its ultimate origin is unclear,^ but it goes back to the Tatar (also often "Tartar") occupation of what became an area in the southern part of western Siberia in the late 13th Century. The Tatars spoke (and speak) a Turkic language, and they still exist today, although there are strong dialects involved in the overall language now, as they didn't remain together, but rather split into groups settling in various regions of Siberia and European Russia. The Tatars called this settlement the Khanate of "Sibir." A Khanate is an area ruled by a Khan. Russian borrowed the word "Sibir," and it remained the name of that specific region, but expanded in geographic meaning along with the expansion of Russian control further into Asia. It "seems" English borrowed the word as "Siberia" in the earlier 1800s. Since European Russia was the center of the Russian Empire's power, political prisoners were often banished to Siberia by the Tsarist governments in the 1800s, as the area was generally very sparsely populated. During the Soviet Union era, the Soviets established labor camps (prisons) in Siberia for opponents and those suspected of being opponents, thus the Western European and American idea of "being sent to Siberia," likely the usage of the word most recalled by many English speakers. During the latter stages of World War Two, Nazi propaganda tried to frightened Germans into resisting the approaching Soviet armies with the slogan, "Sieg oder Sibirien" ("Victory or Siberia").  

^ A "possible" source is the combination of two old Turkic words, "su," which meant "water," and "beri" (or "biri"), which meant "wilds," in the sense "wilderness." The settlement of the Khanate of Sibir came at the junction of two rivers (later called the Tobol and Irtysh).

Rasputin's Importance To History, Part 7

One of the most controversial topics about Rasputin was his "seeming" ability to stop the bleeding in the Tsar's hemophiliac son, Alexei. There were people who believed (and those who still do believe) that Rasputin had some kind of supernatural powers, and others who felt that he used some sort of trickery, including hypnosis (and likewise, there are people who still believe this), and still others who believed he had an accomplice inside the palace who helped him by administering a mysterious drug to the boy, and then Rasputin would appear just as the drug took effect. My own opinion, for what it's worth, is that as to "supernatural" powers, I don't believe in any such nonsense. There may well be things in life that appear to have some supernatural cause, but enough research will show that there is some more natural explanation (Now what brings about that natural cause is open to debate.) As to an accomplice, I doubt it. As to a mysterious drug, I doubt that, too, as such a drug could have made any person possessing it a very wealthy person. To me, the explanation is more simple. Initially, Rasputin wanted status by being introduced to the imperial family. In order to improve that status and become even closer with the Tsar and Tsarina, he saw an opportunity in their son's illness. Whether he knew what the illness was at first, I doubt it, as hemophilia was not a common affliction. One thing Rasputin did know and understand was people; that is, personalities, and the desire by people to believe in supernatural forces that could counter what had been assumed to be incurable. His first "healing" of the boy could well have been a roll of the dice. He had nothing to lose. If I come to the bedside of a very ill person, say a prayer, make the sign of the cross, and in a time, the person's condition begins to improve, did I do this, or was it a process that was already underway, and I just got the credit for it? I believe the latter. That is not to say that later on, when Alexei had other bleeding incidents that Rasputin's presence did not indeed calm the boy and provide comfort to him, and especially to his mother, thus helping to control the bleeding. This is what many doctors have attributed to Rasputin's "healing" of Alexei. Again, you have to keep in mind that once Rasputin was given credit for saving the boy by the Tsarina, there was no turning back. At the next bleeding episode, what was he to do, say that he couldn't help Alexei? Rasputin derived any "power" and status he had by virtue of his association with the Tsarina and her belief that he could keep her son alive. His whole position would have been lost. The same was true with the next episode, and the next, and the next. There was no incentive for Rasputin NOT to answer the Tsarina's calls or telegrams, nor was there any reason for him to say that he couldn't help the boy.

The most famous "healing" episode, and the one that totally solidified Rasputin's position with the Tsarina came when the imperial family was at one of their hunting lodges in Poland.* Alexei injured his leg getting into or out of a boat. At first, it was thought that the injury was not serious, but the internal bleeding grew ever worse, and the boy lingered for several days in terrible pain, as the swelling from the blood literally disfigured his leg and caused terrible pain in his lower abdomen. The boy had to be fitted with a special leg brace after his recovery, so severe had his leg been damaged. The Tsarina was beside herself. Each cry of pain by the boy terrified her, and she rarely left his bedside, nor did she sleep much for days. Some of the people present claimed that Alexandra's hair had a gray tinge to it after these days at her son's bedside.

Rasputin was at his home in western Siberia at that time. A trip to Poland would have taken many days by train, which was the most effective means of long distance transport in those times. The Tsarina sent a telegram to his village and Rasputin replied to her. The exact text of his reply has been "quoted" in a variety of ways, and if I remember correctly, the telegram did not survive those times, as far as is known. The gist of Rasputin's reply was that the Tsarina should not let the doctors** bother the boy anymore, and that the boy would recover. Within about a day, Alexei's condition improved, and after a time he recovered, although with the severely bent leg, as I mentioned above.

Doctor's have speculated to this day about what actually happened in Poland. Most have said that if anything, Rasputin gave good advice in his telegram to the Tsarina; that is, keep the doctors away! Keep in mind, this was the heir to the throne of the Russian Empire. Any doctor would have felt the need to try to do something, anything, even though knowing that not much could actually be done (with the knowledge of those times). All of this fussing and Alexandra's sobbing and terror stricken appearance would unnerve anyone, let alone a small boy in terrible pain. The speculation is, that when the doctor's were withdrawn, and Alexandra had been noticeably calmed just by receiving Rasputin's reply, the boy also calmed down, allowing the natural healing process to take place.

To be continued in "Part Eight" ...

* Technically during that time, there was no Poland as a nation, only as a geographical description. Most of what had been Poland (including Warsaw) was then a part of Russia, with a smaller section being part of Germany, and an even smaller section being part of Austria-Hungary.

** Several specialists had been ordered to Poland from St. Petersburg.

WORD HISTORY:
Poland-This word for the eastern European country goes back to Indo European "pel," which had the notion of "flat, spread out." This gave its Old Slavic offspring "pole," which meant "plain, field." The Old Slavic form produced "Polans," the name of a Slavic tribe, with the more literal meaning, "people of the plains/fields." The Slavic form also later gave Polish (a Slavic language) "polje," with the meaning "field." The area where the Polans lived was called in Polish "Polanie," and the neighboring Germans picked up the word as "Polen," likely more from the Slavic tribe name "Polans." English seems to have borrowed the word from German, more than likely from Low German,^ in the 1500s, but likely owing to a misunderstanding of the "len" ending of the Low German form, assumed it to be equivalent to "land;" thus, "Poland."

^ Many of the Germans coming into contact with the Slavic tribes in what became Poland were Low German speakers. Since standard German, which is mainly derived from High German dialect, also uses "Polen," I "assume" it got the word from Low German, but I could not find confirmation of that.