Читать книгу Twelve Diseases that Changed Our World - Irwin W. Sherman - Страница 11

Alix first met the Tsarevich Nicholas when she was 12 years of age; 5 years later, they met again and fell in love; they married in 1894, 1 week after the death of Nicholas' father, Tsar Alexander III. Although hemophilia had already been recognized in Victoria's descendants (her son Prince Leopold Duke of Albany died of hemophilia, as did her grandson Frederick of Hesse), the risk was largely unappreciated and/or the value of marrying into a powerful royal house (and a potential ally) took precedence over prudence. On her marriage to the 26-year-old Tsar Nicholas II, Alix took the name Alexandra Feodorovna. Their first four children, born between 1895 and 1901, were girls; this made Alexandra increasingly neurotic since the first duty of a Tsarina was to maintain the House of Romanov by producing a male heir. In 1904, they had a son, Alexis. Alexandra soon discovered that the Tsarevich Alexis was bleeding excessively from the umbilicus and that he had inherited hemophilia. The fragile health of her longed-for son caused her to become more and more withdrawn. She dwelt morbidly on the fact that she had transmitted the disease to her heir. Alexis' condition was kept secret from everyone except close family and their physicians because such a defect would have been regarded as a sign of divine displeasure since the Tsar was both head of the Church and leader of the Russian people. In the summer of 1907, Alexandra was introduced to a “holy man,” the monk Gregorii Rasputin (who was born in Siberia in about 1860 to 1865). Rasputin's appearance and demeanor were those of a disheveled vagrant; in addition, he was debauched, alcoholic, coarse, lecherous, and a rapist. He was, however, a charismatic man and a great hypnotist. He recognized and encouraged the Tsarina's fascination for the Russian spirit and her desire to be the soul-mother of its simple people. More importantly, he was able to soothe and calm the distressed and sometimes hysterical Alexis during bouts of hemophilia and hence help stop the bleeding. Increasingly the Tsar and Tsarina came to depend on him. Indeed, in 1907 Alexis recovered from a near-death experience when Rasputin simply stood at the foot of the bed and prayed; he never once touched the child. Again, in 1912, when Alexis was 8 years old, he was bruised while playing in a bathtub and hemorrhaging began. Alexandra once again contacted Rasputin, who responded by telegram that all would be well, and almost miraculously Alexis began to recover. As a result, Rasputin enjoyed increasing personal and political influence with the Tsar and Tsarina, influence which he did not hesitate to take advantage of.

The assassination of Archduke Ferdinand and his wife Sophie in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914 by a Serbian extremist signaled the beginning of the Russian Revolution and the end of the House of Romanov. Three days before Ferdinand, heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, was shot dead, Alexis had slipped on a ladder on his father's yacht, sustaining an injury that resulted in excessive bleeding around the ankles. To complicate matters further, Rasputin had been stabbed in his hometown in Siberia and was unable to minister to the seriously ill Tsarevich. Regarding the international situation, Rasputin wrote from his sick bed: “Let Papa [Nicholas] not plan for war, for with war will come the end of Russia and yourselves and you will lose to the last man.” For once, Nicholas ignored Rasputin's advice and mobilized the army against Austria. As a result of the Triple Alliance between Germany, Austria, and Italy, this action meant that Tsar Nicholas of Russia was at war with his cousin-in-law Wilhelm II of Germany, who in turn was at war with his cousin King George V of Great Britain. In the first year, Russia lost 4 million men. After the Tsar took over as Commander-in-Chief in 1916, the results were even more disastrous, and Nicholas was seen as personally responsible. Nicholas' position as Commander-in-Chief took him away from St. Petersburg, and Alexandra was left to govern in his absence. While she ruled the country, Rasputin ruled her. He prevailed upon her to make several government appointments, and the positions were filled by individuals who turned out to be unfit for their duties. The turnover rate among these officials was high, adding instability to incompetence. Both Rasputin and Alexandra were hated by the Russian people, not least because of Alexandra's German origins, which led to accusations that she was a traitor. An increasingly high mortality rate among the soldiers at the front, as well as Alexandra's urging that liberal reforms be abandoned and the Tsar become more autocratic, led to even further hatred of the Tsar by the Russian people. In December 1916, in an attempt to free the Tsar and Tsarina from Rasputin's influence, Prince Youssoupov and Grand Duke Pavlovitch, the Tsar's nephew, assassinated Rasputin. They were punished by being exiled, an action that drove a wedge between Nicholas and the rest of the Romanov family.

Early in 1917, conditions in St. Petersburg deteriorated even further: food and fuel were scarce, people had to queue for hours in the bitter cold to buy bread, and revolution began to brew in the streets. Nicholas ordered, “I command that the disorders in the capital shall be stopped tomorrow as they are inadvisable at the heavy time of war with Germany and Austria.” The troops were no longer on his side and did not respond; the soldiers who were garrisoned in St. Petersburg were of no help since they were already consorting with the revolutionaries. The rebellious crowds took over the city, and a provisional government was established. The provisional government attempted to maintain the Romanov dynasty as a constitutional as opposed to an autocratic monarchy by demanding that Nicholas abdicate in favor of the Tsarevich Alexis, with Grand Duke Michael (the Tsar's brother) as Regent; the Army commanders also urged Nicholas to abdicate. Because of his unpopularity and recent ill health, he eventually agreed. However, instead of abdicating in favor of his son, he assigned the throne to his brother Grand Duke Michael and excluded the frail Tsarevich from the succession. The new government, which had been prepared to accept Alexis as a constitutional monarch, feared that Grand Duke Michael might prove to be as autocratic as Tsar Nicholas. Sensing this, Michael abdicated a day after being named Tsar. Anarchy resulted, and the Bolshevik Party, which promised bread, land, and peace, rose to power. As the various political parties struggled for power, the country descended into civil war, and the provisional government feared for the safety of the imperial family. In the spring of 1917, the government approached Great Britain with a request to grant asylum to Nicholas and his family, but the Tsar's cousin, George V, declined. The Tsar and his family were then sent to Tobolsk in Siberia, and in April 1918, after the Bolsheviks had seized power, they were transferred to Yekaterinburg in the Urals. They remained confined at Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg until the summer of 1918. On 16 July 1918, Nicholas, Alexandra, their five children, their physician, and three servants were taken to the basement, where they were assassinated in a hail of bullets by a Bolshevik firing squad. The Romanov dynasty, which had lasted for over 300 years, had come to an end. It is possible that had the Tsarevich been healthy enough to be named as constitutional monarch after the abdication of his father, the political system might have stabilized and the Bolshevik revolution might have been avoided.