The Family Romanov: Murder, Rebellion and the Fall of Imperial Russia

Chapter 1 of The Family Romanov opens with the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881. 13-year-old Nicholas, who will become the last tsar of Russia, witnesses the death of his “beloved grandfather” (18) and the upheaval that follows, as Nicolas’s father, Alexander III, rejects Alexander II’s progressive reforms. Exacting revenge for the tsar’s assassination, Alexander III vows that the people of Russia will “‘feel the whip’” (18)—a threat that, as ruler of the Russian autocracy, he is equipped to carry out.

By the late 1800s, Alexander and Nicholas’s family, the Romanovs, have ruled Russia for nearly 300 years, with an absolute power they believe has been granted to them by God. A huge, “bearlike” man (20) with an “‘iron fist’” (21), Tsar Alexander III lives up to his family’s legacy. Nicholas, in contrast, grows into a “shy and gentle” (20), physically-diminutive young man who likes to read and play tennis. Disapproving of his “‘girlie’” son (21), Alexander doesn’t involve Nicholas in politics, and Nicholas learns to hide his lifelong sense of “inadequa[cy]” (22).

Meanwhile, in Hesse-Darmstadt, now part of Germany, Princess Alix Victoria Helena Louise Beatrice loses her mother at 6 years old. The princess, once so happy she was nicknamed “Sunny,” becomes “‘strangely empty of tenderness’” (22) after her mother’s death—and her severity is only compounded by an education from her grandmother, Queen Victoria of England, who instills “proper” English values in young Alix (23).

In 1884, when Nicholas is 16 and Alix is 12, Alix visits Russia for a wedding and the two become fast friends. Five years later, Alix again travels to St. Petersburg and Nicholas courts her in earnest, but after six weeks she returns home. In the following five years, Nicholas, now a junior army officer who still has “no official responsibilities” (26), often corresponds with Alix. In 1894, the two reunite at a wedding in Germany, and Nicholas proposes. Alix worries about converting to Russian Orthodoxy, as is required of the Russian monarchy, but ends up embracing her new faith to the point that she “surround[s] herself” with religious icons, seeking out “the miraculous and the mystical” (28).

Alexander III develops kidney disease and dies on November 1, 1894, and Nicholas, “terrified” (29) by his new role as tsar, rushes his wedding to Alix so he can rely on her support. Alix, renamed Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, does indeed bolster Nicholas with her stronger, more forceful character: telling him she wears “‘invisible trousers’” (29), she encourages him not to let others overlook him. Yet while Alexandra is “‘warm and affectionate’” in private (30), she is stiff and shy in public, and becomes increasingly uncomfortable in social situations. Finally, Alexandra and Nicholas break with royal tradition to “escape the ‘spider’s net’ of society” (31-32) by moving to the Imperial Park at Tsarkoe Selo. In their fancifully-decorated country palace, the couple find it “‘inexpressibly wonderful’” (34) to live in complete isolation—but in so doing, they “los[e] touch” (34) with the citizens they are meant to rule.

This chapter includes another excerpt from Senka’s autobiography, where he describes his childhood in the village of Gusevo. Senka is among the four of eighteen children in his family to survive to adulthood, and he lives in fear of his “‘despotic,’” often drunk father (24). After his mother’s death, Senka obtains his father’s permission to move to Moscow at age 14, and here the excerpt ends. 

In 1895, Empress Alexandra becomes pregnant and the couple wishes for a son, as only males can claim the Russian throne. On November 16, 1895, Alexandra gives birth, but to a girl—grand duchess Olga Nikolaevna. However, the couple still falls in love with their “‘precious little one’” (36), and remains sure they’ll have a boy in the future.

In May 1896, a year after Alexander III’s death, Nicholas and Alexandra visit Moscow for their official coronation as tsar and tsaritsa. Hundreds of thousands of peasants also attend the coronation, expecting the feasts and gifts they’re usually offered, yet a rumor spreads that there aren’t enough gifts and the crowd panics. In the resulting stampede, about 1400 people are crushed to death. Nicholas, “deeply distressed” (38), tries to cancel the ball that evening, but his uncle convinces him not to. Thus Nicholas and Alexandra appear to be dancing “‘on top of the corpses’” (38), as one reporter puts it. Though Nicholas and Alexandra visit hospitals and offer reparations to the deceased’s families, Russian citizens still consider the tragedy “a bad omen” (38).

The following year, on June 10, 1897, the royal couple has a second daughter, grand duchess Tatiana Nikolaevna. While Alexandra worries about the birth of another girl, Nicholas writes in his diary that “‘the Lord blessed us with a daughter’” (39). Yet by the birth of their third daughter, Marie Nikolaevna, on June 26, 1899, even Nicholas is “alarmed” (41).

When Alexandra is pregnant with her fourth child, she seeks help from a French mystic named Philippe, whom she’s heard can alter the gender of an unborn baby. Yet in June 1901 she gives birth to a fourth girl, grand duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna. This time, not only the royals but all of Russia is despondent—even the New York Times declares “‘Russian People Again Disappointed’” (43).

Chapter 2 also incorporates a traditional lullaby collected by Russian author Olga Semyonova around the turn of the 20th century, illustrating how poor Russian mothers of the era distanced themselves from the babies they couldn’t properly care for: “‘I’ll make you suffer even more,/ I won’t give you anything to eat./ I won’t make a bed for you’” (40).

Chapter 3 opens with a description of the four grand duchesses: “the Big Pair,” Olga and Tatiana, and “the Little Pair,” Marie and Anastasia (45). The chapter details their daily life in the early 1900s. As part of Romanov tradition, the girls learn “self-discipline” (45) by sleeping on army cots and taking cold baths every morning, but they still lead “comfortabl[e] […]predictabl[e]” lives (46) spent playing in the park, lunching with the tsar, and taking tea with both parents.

Meanwhile, Alexandra continues to seek the help of “Dr.” Philippe, who tricks her into believing she’s pregnant. When the pregnancy proves false, Philippe makes one more demand on the royals, asking them to canonize a holy man named Seraphim as a saint and pray to him. After doing so, Alexandra finally gives birth to a son, Alexei Nikolaevich, on August 12, 1904. The miracle “cement[s] her belief in mysticism” (53), particularly as Phillipe tells the empress that in the future, “‘…you will have another friend like me who will speak to you of God’” (53).

When Alexei is only six weeks old, the royal family discovers he has hemophilia, an incurable and potentially-deadly disease in which blood does not clot normally. Internal bleeding is particularly dangerous for hemophiliacs, and so Alexei must not engage in any activity that might lead to bleeding or bruising; in short, his ever-present caretakers must keep him “from doing the things boys naturally did” (55). Hemophilia is carried by women but only strikes males, and since Alexandra’s own brother died of the illness, she knows she’s passed it on to her son. Her guilt causes her to retreat further into her Orthodox faith, praying for hours and filling Alexei’s nursery with religious icons. Moreover, the tsar and tsaritsa choose to hide their son’s illness, and in doing so isolate themselves further from the world outside the “protective bubble” of their country palace (56).

Also included in Chapter 3 is an excerpt from Maxim Gorky’s My Childhood, describing his youth in an industrial Russian city in the late 19th century. Maxim (then known as Alexei), his grandparents, mother, and baby brother all live in “‘two dim cellar rooms’” (48), and 9-year-old Alexei works as a junk collector. As the excerpt ends, Alexei’s grandfather tells him, “‘there’s no room for you here,’” so, as Alexei puts it, “‘out into the world [he] went’” (51).

By 1905, many factory workers have learned to read and, according to one worker, have “‘caught sight of a new life’” (60) that includes a fair government. On January 22, 1905, priest George Gapon leads a march to the tsar’s Winter Palace, where they will offer the tsar a petition “‘to seek justice and protection’” (60). Nicholas, however, is not at the palace, and has ordered soldiers to meet the 120,000 peaceful marchers. When the crowd surges forward, the soldiers fire, killing as many as 200 citizens. Up until this point, most Russians have retained their faith in the tsar, instead blaming lower officials for injustices; however, after this Bloody Sunday, they see Nicholas as “‘a common murderer’” (62) and vow to take revenge. Nicholas himself mourns the deaths, but believes his soldiers were only doing their duty.

Bloody Sunday, along with Nicholas’s instance on keeping “his head in the sand” (63) and ignoring the commoners’ plight, launches what Nicholas’s mother terms “‘the year of nightmares’” (63). By October 1905, so many workers are striking that society has “ground to a standstill” (64). The St. Petersburg Soviet, a workers’ organization, insists an elected legislature called a Duma be established, but Nicholas simply outlaws the soviet and other workers’ councils.

Prime Minister Count Sergei Witte warns Nicholas that he faces two alternatives: a bloody revolution, or giving in to the commoners’ demands. Nicholas, however, believes Russia needs “an even stricter autocracy” (66), and that the people’s suffering is a just punishment from God. Only when Nicholas’s cousin, a military commander, threatens to commit suicide does the tsar agree to establish a Duma. He signs the October Manifesto, stating that this elected legislature will have the right to veto new laws—a huge “concession” of his own absolute power (66). In response, the citizens celebrate a change they hope will usher in "a free Russia" (67).