WEBVTT - S4 – Interview 4: Helen Rappaport 0:00:01.120 --> 0:00:04.360 Welcomed Unobscured, a production of I Heart Radio and Aaron Minky. 0:00:07.560 --> 0:00:10.920 Our final guest for Unobscured Season four is Helen Rappaport. 0:00:11.360 --> 0:00:14.040 When we wanted to understand the inner workings and daily 0:00:14.080 --> 0:00:16.919 life of the Romanov household, there was no question who 0:00:16.960 --> 0:00:20.159 that person should be. Helen Rappaport is a fellow of 0:00:20.200 --> 0:00:23.319 the Royal Historical Society and her many books are the 0:00:23.360 --> 0:00:26.439 best there is when it comes to Nicholas, Alexandra and 0:00:26.480 --> 0:00:29.680 their children. And of course Dr Rappaport is also a 0:00:29.720 --> 0:00:32.559 brilliant writer. As others have already said, she is a 0:00:32.680 --> 0:00:36.640 rare combination of talents, deep and sensitive insight expressed in 0:00:36.680 --> 0:00:39.560 a clear and fresh style. For many years, she has 0:00:39.600 --> 0:00:43.600 presented and consulted for TV and audio projects and translated 0:00:43.680 --> 0:00:47.120 Russian works for the theater. Her signature is to express 0:00:47.159 --> 0:00:49.839 both the fact and the feeling of the past, and 0:00:49.960 --> 0:00:52.640 we're so glad she joined us to do that once again. 0:00:52.840 --> 0:00:57.360 Here Unobscured writer Karl Nellis talked with Dr Rappaport about 0:00:57.360 --> 0:01:00.080 the Romanov family and it's a privilege to all for 0:01:00.160 --> 0:01:03.120 their conversation in full. So we end this season of 0:01:03.200 --> 0:01:08.120 Unobscured where we began with Nicholas, Alexandra, their dynasty and 0:01:08.160 --> 0:01:12.319 their downfall. This is the Unobscured Interview series for season four. 0:01:12.959 --> 0:01:22.479 I'm Aaron Manky for Unobscured Podcast. I'm Carl Nellis, and 0:01:22.560 --> 0:01:26.200 today we have the privilege of talking with Dr Helen Rappaport, 0:01:27.040 --> 0:01:32.839 distinguished historian who has written a small library of excellent books, 0:01:32.959 --> 0:01:36.679 including a few on the Romanovs and and their period, 0:01:36.680 --> 0:01:41.000 their time, their lives in Russia. Uh. Dr Rappaport is 0:01:41.160 --> 0:01:44.680 a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and she's still writing. 0:01:45.480 --> 0:01:49.240 She has a new book coming out called After the Romanovs, 0:01:49.320 --> 0:01:51.920 Russian Exiles and Paris that will be out soon from St. 0:01:51.960 --> 0:01:55.640 Martin's Press. I'm excited to read that, as well as 0:01:55.680 --> 0:01:59.440 the books that I've already read. UH. From her. Dr Rappaport, 0:01:59.520 --> 0:02:01.400 thank you so much. It's an honor to have you 0:02:01.400 --> 0:02:07.400 on Unobscured. Thank you for asking me so I'm delighted 0:02:07.840 --> 0:02:11.160 to talk with you because of how valuable your work 0:02:11.200 --> 0:02:14.480 has been in our process of researching and understanding the 0:02:14.520 --> 0:02:20.079 lives of Nicholas and Alexandra, their children, their time. Um. 0:02:20.120 --> 0:02:23.880 You've written so many landmark books on Russian history. For 0:02:23.880 --> 0:02:28.400 for English readers, what what drew you to the last 0:02:28.480 --> 0:02:32.959 Romanance in particular? Well, it's it's interesting how I got 0:02:33.000 --> 0:02:37.240 into the Romanos, because it was actually by accident. When 0:02:37.280 --> 0:02:42.840 I first started being interested in and wanting to write history, 0:02:43.240 --> 0:02:45.560 it had never crossed my mind to do the Roman 0:02:45.560 --> 0:02:47.760 I was, I guess, because I thought it was all 0:02:47.800 --> 0:02:50.880 a bit saccharine and chocolate boxy, you know, all those 0:02:51.240 --> 0:02:54.280 romantic pictures of girls in frocks and big hats and 0:02:54.320 --> 0:02:58.560 all the playing and ceremony didn't appeal to me. Um. 0:02:58.600 --> 0:03:01.200 It was an agent was with at the time when 0:03:01.200 --> 0:03:05.320 we were sitting discussing what book I was going to 0:03:05.440 --> 0:03:09.400 do next during a horrible hiatus between books, and we 0:03:09.400 --> 0:03:11.840 were kind of stumped a bit, and he said, well, 0:03:11.919 --> 0:03:15.520 why don't you do the Romanos And I said, oh, no, no, no, 0:03:15.600 --> 0:03:17.839 it doesn't appeal to me at all. I mean, it's 0:03:17.880 --> 0:03:20.359 too chintsey for me. And he said, we'll go away 0:03:20.400 --> 0:03:24.160 and think about it. And actually he gave me a 0:03:24.280 --> 0:03:29.880 very good hook for exploring the Romanos, to which for 0:03:30.000 --> 0:03:33.240 which I'm eternally grateful, because I said to him, I 0:03:33.240 --> 0:03:37.200 don't want to do a whole great, big comprehensive biography 0:03:37.240 --> 0:03:39.760 of the Romanos or a huge study of the rain 0:03:39.840 --> 0:03:42.680 I said, I'm much more interested in the detail and 0:03:42.880 --> 0:03:45.920 some particular point in the story. And so I said, well, 0:03:45.920 --> 0:03:47.840 why don't you look at the end of their lives? 0:03:49.000 --> 0:03:52.320 And when I went away and looked and homed in 0:03:52.400 --> 0:03:55.480 and focused on the very end of their lives, I 0:03:55.880 --> 0:03:59.680 pretty much from when they were imprisoned at the Alexander Palace, 0:03:59.760 --> 0:04:04.400 and and I honed it in even closer to the 0:04:04.480 --> 0:04:07.600 last two weeks of their lives in a Cashemberg in 0:04:07.640 --> 0:04:10.000 the party of house. I suddenly realized there was a 0:04:10.040 --> 0:04:15.200 really interesting and exciting scenario there that had never been explored, 0:04:15.280 --> 0:04:19.520 which was looking at the family really close up. How 0:04:19.600 --> 0:04:22.040 were they, what was going through their minds? How did 0:04:22.040 --> 0:04:27.160 they deal with captivity? What were the tensions being trapped 0:04:27.160 --> 0:04:31.880 in a house in western Siberia, knowing that probably the 0:04:31.920 --> 0:04:35.159 writing was on the wall. So my interest in them 0:04:35.200 --> 0:04:38.840 began with that very brief period at the very very 0:04:38.960 --> 0:04:41.520 end of their lives, the last two weeks. And it 0:04:41.640 --> 0:04:45.919 was while I was writing that book that I first 0:04:45.960 --> 0:04:49.800 began to develop a sense of those poor not poor, 0:04:49.880 --> 0:04:53.840 I shouldn't call them, Paul, Those lovely four girls locked 0:04:53.839 --> 0:04:57.479 away in that house, and and there's their lives cut 0:04:57.560 --> 0:05:02.600 short so cruelly, and I began to feel that they 0:05:02.600 --> 0:05:07.400 had never really enjoyed an identity in books about the Romanos. 0:05:07.520 --> 0:05:10.440 It had always till then been about the mother and 0:05:10.480 --> 0:05:14.480 the father and the hemophiliac brothers. So at that point, 0:05:14.560 --> 0:05:16.760 when I finished a cashion Berg, I felt there was 0:05:16.839 --> 0:05:20.000 more to look at, and that took me into the 0:05:20.080 --> 0:05:25.680 next book, which was exploring almost really exploring the domestic 0:05:25.800 --> 0:05:28.400 life of their own nos, what was it like behind 0:05:28.440 --> 0:05:32.599 the scenes for them as a family, And then the 0:05:32.720 --> 0:05:36.520 third book really led on from that because the one 0:05:36.640 --> 0:05:40.640 niggling thing I still felt I had not explored at 0:05:40.680 --> 0:05:42.880 the end of two books on the rown Nos was 0:05:43.520 --> 0:05:47.200 why couldn't they be saved? Why could no one get 0:05:47.200 --> 0:05:50.240 them out of Russia? And I felt too that that 0:05:50.600 --> 0:05:54.320 had been rather sort of skimmed over in existing books, 0:05:54.800 --> 0:05:59.080 also partly because of lack of documentary evidence being made 0:05:59.080 --> 0:06:01.800 available by the Ashan's at the time. So that took 0:06:01.839 --> 0:06:04.600 me to my third book, which is exploring why they 0:06:04.600 --> 0:06:08.080 couldn't get them out. So by accident, I've kind of 0:06:08.080 --> 0:06:13.680 written three books about them. M hm, Well and what 0:06:13.760 --> 0:06:18.120 you do get into exploring their domestic world. It is 0:06:18.200 --> 0:06:23.480 so moving beyond the the political presence of the czar, 0:06:23.880 --> 0:06:26.800 you know, the empress and what they were doing. The 0:06:27.120 --> 0:06:33.080 way that you explore the daily lives, the routines, the 0:06:33.080 --> 0:06:38.320 the close relationships within the family, challenges with health, things 0:06:38.320 --> 0:06:41.520 that I've never read before. I really appreciated the way 0:06:41.520 --> 0:06:45.520 that you render all of that in your books. Well, 0:06:45.560 --> 0:06:50.239 thank you, So let's go. Let's start with with Nicholas 0:06:50.240 --> 0:06:52.360 and Alexander and then come forward and I really hope 0:06:52.360 --> 0:06:55.279 we'll spend a lot of time with with the girls 0:06:55.360 --> 0:06:59.400 and and the household once once the children are all there. 0:06:59.480 --> 0:07:05.120 But starting with Nicholas and Alexandra, when you started looking 0:07:05.120 --> 0:07:07.800 at them, were there were there aspects of them as people, 0:07:08.120 --> 0:07:14.840 their personalities that that caught your interest or imagination. Well, 0:07:14.880 --> 0:07:18.200 I think what was most interesting about them initially was 0:07:18.280 --> 0:07:22.520 the fact that, unlike actually every European royal couple, they 0:07:22.600 --> 0:07:26.400 actually were allowed to marry for love, which was a 0:07:26.520 --> 0:07:29.680 very rare thing. When you look at Queen Victorian busily 0:07:29.800 --> 0:07:33.720 arranging the dynastic unions all her children and her grandchildren 0:07:33.760 --> 0:07:37.920 and them all into marrying and marrying cousins and second cousins. 0:07:38.320 --> 0:07:44.160 The almost unique thing about Nicholas and Alexandra was it 0:07:44.200 --> 0:07:48.000 was a long protracted love that began when she was 0:07:48.040 --> 0:07:51.720 only about twelve years old when Nicholas first saw her, 0:07:51.840 --> 0:07:55.520 and he kind of carried the torch for her until 0:07:55.800 --> 0:08:02.320 she was until they met again in oberg In. So 0:08:03.200 --> 0:08:07.360 it wasn't an enduring affection between them. It wasn't something 0:08:07.400 --> 0:08:11.320 they would pushed into as a dynastic union, nor was 0:08:11.360 --> 0:08:13.960 it a sort of spur of the moment love affair. 0:08:14.480 --> 0:08:17.119 It was something that had been growing for a long time, 0:08:17.160 --> 0:08:22.440 and of course she initially was deeply resistant to agreeing 0:08:22.480 --> 0:08:25.440 to marry him, even though she loved Nicholas. It was 0:08:25.480 --> 0:08:30.840 a very genuine love between them because of her Lutheran faith, 0:08:30.960 --> 0:08:34.720 and that was a real obstacle at first, so that 0:08:34.720 --> 0:08:38.640 that had to be overcome. A family prejudice also had 0:08:38.679 --> 0:08:42.160 to be overcome, in the sense that Queen Victoria was 0:08:42.320 --> 0:08:46.959 pretty adamant initially at the thought of her precious granddaughter 0:08:47.960 --> 0:08:53.720 Alexandra Alicki as they called her, marrying into the Russian throne. 0:08:54.080 --> 0:09:00.240 Queen Victoria was absolutely against the idea of Alicki areing 0:09:00.760 --> 0:09:05.040 Nikki young Nicholas at Sarayevitch of Russia because she felt 0:09:05.120 --> 0:09:08.800 Russia was very unstable, very unsafe. I mean, even then 0:09:08.800 --> 0:09:11.520 by the eighteen eighties and nineties there was his history 0:09:11.520 --> 0:09:17.200 of political assassination and um, you know, Nicholas's own grandfather 0:09:17.320 --> 0:09:21.040 had been murdered by revolutionaries, so they had to overcome 0:09:21.120 --> 0:09:26.440 quite a lot of obstacles. And we're an utterly devoted couple, 0:09:26.960 --> 0:09:29.839 and so that it did interest me and intrigued me 0:09:31.200 --> 0:09:34.839 because of course Alexandra, um, for those who are new 0:09:35.280 --> 0:09:39.800 to the topic and these um, these people. Of course, 0:09:39.840 --> 0:09:44.280 Alexander was not Russian, and she was Lutheran. Can you 0:09:44.320 --> 0:09:47.800 say a little bit more about why her being Lutheran 0:09:48.440 --> 0:09:52.040 made it a difficult choice to marry Nicholas. The problem 0:09:52.200 --> 0:09:57.520 for Alexandra, as a German Lutheran from Hessa by Ryan, 0:09:58.440 --> 0:10:01.680 was that to marry the Sallyevich of Russia, the rule 0:10:01.720 --> 0:10:05.320 of Russia, there was one absolute rule that had to 0:10:05.360 --> 0:10:10.960 be observed, and it was a requirement for marriage, and 0:10:11.000 --> 0:10:14.760 that was she would have to convert to Russian Orthodoxy. 0:10:14.840 --> 0:10:17.840 There is no way she could have retained her Lutheran 0:10:18.240 --> 0:10:23.199 German Lutheran faith and be a future Sari Saris of Russia. 0:10:23.800 --> 0:10:30.160 So this was hugely challenging period for her because she 0:10:30.200 --> 0:10:33.320 loved Nikki, but she did not want to abandon her 0:10:33.400 --> 0:10:38.040 Lutheran faith. Alexandra had all been always been pretty religious 0:10:38.080 --> 0:10:43.560 and pious and very observant. So it was a really, 0:10:43.720 --> 0:10:48.480 really difficult period because eventually it was her sister Ella 0:10:48.600 --> 0:10:54.280 who helped persuade her, because Ella, too, like alex Alexandra, 0:10:54.840 --> 0:10:58.679 married a Russian. She married Grand Dukes Sergey, but without 0:10:58.760 --> 0:11:03.240 all the AGONI sing about adopting the Russian authox faith, 0:11:03.440 --> 0:11:08.920 Ella embraced it pretty much immediately and then persuaded Alexandra 0:11:09.040 --> 0:11:12.559 to also do likewise, so she couldn't have married the 0:11:12.640 --> 0:11:18.520 Sadievitch unless she had adopted Russian orthodoxy. Mm hmm, what's 0:11:19.400 --> 0:11:23.200 And of course, then the the interesting thing that happens 0:11:23.360 --> 0:11:26.920 is that she becomes more Orthodox than the Orthodox. You know, 0:11:27.040 --> 0:11:31.199 sometimes people who adopted or embrace the new religion become 0:11:31.320 --> 0:11:35.760 even more almost fanatical about their new religion as converts 0:11:36.240 --> 0:11:38.679 than if they had been born into it. So she 0:11:38.679 --> 0:11:45.360 she ended her life being profoundly Russian Orthodox. That's beautiful, 0:11:45.400 --> 0:11:51.040 that's perfect. Um. On Nicholas's side, how did he see? 0:11:51.200 --> 0:11:54.400 So that's a great kind of point of contrast, because 0:11:54.440 --> 0:11:57.520 of course he was born not just into Russian Orthodoxy, 0:11:57.520 --> 0:12:02.840 but into the Roman dynasty. Yeah. So if alex is 0:12:02.840 --> 0:12:05.640 at first hesitant and then over the course of her 0:12:05.679 --> 0:12:09.840 time becomes deeply devoted to Russian Orthodoxy and of course 0:12:09.960 --> 0:12:15.680 her family, how did Nicholas approach this legacy that he 0:12:15.760 --> 0:12:19.160 inherits his role as are his place place in the 0:12:19.200 --> 0:12:22.000 Russian Church, in the Romanov family? What did it look 0:12:22.040 --> 0:12:25.720 like from Nicholas's perspective, Well, of course Nicholas originally had 0:12:25.760 --> 0:12:28.040 he had an older brother who should have been so, 0:12:28.320 --> 0:12:33.240 but who died young. Uh. And then, to make matters worse, 0:12:34.480 --> 0:12:40.480 he was thrust into onto the throne unexpectedly when his 0:12:40.640 --> 0:12:45.040 father fell sick with kidney disease, when Alexander the third 0:12:45.200 --> 0:12:48.120 fell ill with kidney disease and died in his forties. 0:12:48.600 --> 0:12:51.440 Now that the problem from for Nicholas right from day 0:12:51.440 --> 0:12:56.280 one was that he should probably had another twenty years 0:12:56.400 --> 0:13:00.800 to prepare for becoming zare So he hadn't learned the 0:13:00.800 --> 0:13:05.240 tools of the trade, He hadn't learned states craft, state craft. 0:13:05.520 --> 0:13:09.720 He was timid and frightened and terrified of the enormous 0:13:09.760 --> 0:13:14.680 responsibility of becoming Zar in his twenties, when of course 0:13:14.760 --> 0:13:18.000 he would have expected it becomes our maybe in his forties. 0:13:18.080 --> 0:13:22.280 So but he took it very very seriously and in 0:13:22.320 --> 0:13:27.200 a very kind of dogmatic and rather narrow way in 0:13:27.280 --> 0:13:33.199 that he simply a decided or a declared rather from 0:13:33.240 --> 0:13:35.800 the moment he became z. But he would preserve the 0:13:35.840 --> 0:13:40.080 autocracy handed to him by his father, Alexander the third, 0:13:40.520 --> 0:13:44.400 exactly as passed down to him. And he was always 0:13:44.520 --> 0:13:49.920 deeply stubborn about not changing anything in the way in 0:13:49.960 --> 0:13:54.760 which Sardom operated as handed down to him. So he 0:13:54.960 --> 0:13:59.400 was never an innovative or forward thinkings are He stuck 0:13:59.720 --> 0:14:03.560 very much to the old way of doing things that 0:14:03.720 --> 0:14:09.720 his father had done before. And you mentioned that Alexandra 0:14:09.840 --> 0:14:14.040 coming in was a deeply pious Christian as a Lutheran, 0:14:14.559 --> 0:14:17.280 and then she joins this family and this new faith. 0:14:18.800 --> 0:14:21.480 Can you say a few words about how her faith 0:14:21.560 --> 0:14:25.640 related to this sense of what it meant to be 0:14:25.680 --> 0:14:31.040 as are? You know? Was she devoted to autocracy as 0:14:31.040 --> 0:14:36.160 a matter of faith? Absolutely? I mean in Russia, autocracy 0:14:36.280 --> 0:14:42.040 and orthodoxy went absolutely hand in hand that that they 0:14:42.080 --> 0:14:45.800 were the cornerstone I mean to be czar, you had 0:14:45.840 --> 0:14:51.640 to be Orthodox, and they had this absolutely implacable belief 0:14:52.160 --> 0:14:54.800 that in the divine right of the czar, pretty much 0:14:54.840 --> 0:14:57.800 like the divine right of kings even in Britain back 0:14:57.800 --> 0:15:02.000 in the seventeenth century. So you know, it was a 0:15:02.000 --> 0:15:08.120 god given role that Nicholas had this duty to perform, 0:15:08.160 --> 0:15:11.400 and he had to perform it in the absolute traditional 0:15:11.440 --> 0:15:14.440 manner in which it had been handed down to him. 0:15:14.480 --> 0:15:20.560 And Alexandra very much believed in this idea that they 0:15:20.720 --> 0:15:24.000 were a little mother and little father of the nation, 0:15:24.400 --> 0:15:28.360 the martush Bartuska, as they were called by the peasantry, 0:15:28.560 --> 0:15:34.200 and that the peasantry looked up to them unquestionably with 0:15:34.400 --> 0:15:39.520 unquestionable loyalty and devotion. And she believed that stubbornly right 0:15:39.560 --> 0:15:42.680 to the very end, that the people really loved them. 0:15:42.720 --> 0:15:45.880 And of course, by the time the revolution, many of 0:15:45.880 --> 0:15:48.800 the people didn't love them at all anymore, and the 0:15:49.200 --> 0:15:55.800 whole kind of a gloss of the protective fathers nar 0:15:56.000 --> 0:16:00.840 had completely gone and being tarnished. But they both believed 0:16:01.080 --> 0:16:05.520 in this god given right to rule and to protect 0:16:05.640 --> 0:16:10.320 the throne and pass it down to their beloved son 0:16:12.680 --> 0:16:15.200 m So that says a little bit about how they 0:16:15.200 --> 0:16:22.000 saw their relationship to the people. In your writing, there's 0:16:22.000 --> 0:16:27.120 a really interesting turn when Alexandra first enters Russia and 0:16:27.200 --> 0:16:31.880 Russian society, where she also has to navigate relationships with 0:16:32.440 --> 0:16:37.680 the Russian court. And you know, maybe she has this 0:16:38.840 --> 0:16:43.000 adamant devotion to autocracy and the sense that it's a 0:16:43.040 --> 0:16:46.200 divine legacy over the people. But it seems she makes 0:16:46.240 --> 0:16:51.560 a mistake, a misstep, maybe with Grand Duchess Vladimir. Well, 0:16:51.640 --> 0:16:54.080 I wouldn't say it was a misstep. I think part 0:16:54.160 --> 0:16:59.440 of the problem was Grand Duchess Vladimia, along with the 0:16:59.520 --> 0:17:04.000 Dodger Empress Maria Fjorda Rovna, had been the duyennes of 0:17:04.640 --> 0:17:08.879 high society in Russia and Saint Petersburg, and Vladimir in 0:17:08.920 --> 0:17:14.600 particular was stunningly wealthy, had the most magnificent jewels, probably 0:17:14.960 --> 0:17:19.680 as magnificent as the Zarisa herself, and she was kind 0:17:19.680 --> 0:17:23.879 of Queen Bee of Russian society. Now along comes a 0:17:24.040 --> 0:17:29.560 new young Zarisa um and Vladima expects her to take 0:17:29.600 --> 0:17:33.000 her place in society and be up there hob nobbing 0:17:33.000 --> 0:17:37.280 with the aristocracy and making appearances in Petersburg and you know, 0:17:37.359 --> 0:17:40.600 going to all the right balls and receptions and this, 0:17:40.760 --> 0:17:45.080 that and the other, And from day one Alexandra stubbornly 0:17:45.200 --> 0:17:50.040 resisted all that. She really really did not want to 0:17:50.080 --> 0:17:54.240 be part of Saint Petersburg society. She was extremely reserved, 0:17:54.720 --> 0:18:01.040 almost hostile to what she perceived as very headonistic, aristocratic, 0:18:01.520 --> 0:18:06.280 indulgent society in the big city, in the capital city. 0:18:06.440 --> 0:18:11.320 She didn't want to have a family and bring up 0:18:11.320 --> 0:18:15.919 a family in that environment. So Vladimia was very disapproving 0:18:16.440 --> 0:18:20.520 of Alexander not taking a proper place in society, and 0:18:20.560 --> 0:18:23.920 they did rub each other up the wrong way, particularly 0:18:23.960 --> 0:18:29.000 as Grand Duchess. Vladimia also and her husband, who was 0:18:29.400 --> 0:18:34.680 the most senior Russian Grand Duke, had always had aspirations 0:18:34.720 --> 0:18:37.560 to the throne coming down to them and their their 0:18:37.640 --> 0:18:42.240 children if an air was never produced. So there was 0:18:42.280 --> 0:18:47.879 a certain animosity and antagonism between them. Um, and it 0:18:47.960 --> 0:18:51.040 got worse. But it didn't get worse really until later 0:18:51.080 --> 0:18:55.400 on in the rain. Could you say a few more 0:18:55.480 --> 0:18:59.480 words about the urgency felt by Nicholas and Alexandra to 0:18:59.640 --> 0:19:03.920 produce a male heir. Oh, it was enormous. The pressure 0:19:04.040 --> 0:19:10.320 on them was particularly on Alexandra, I mean her role really, 0:19:10.560 --> 0:19:13.000 I mean, okay, but she had this, she had the 0:19:13.040 --> 0:19:16.840 good fortune to marry for love. But her role essentially 0:19:16.880 --> 0:19:20.240 once she was di Itza was to produce a male heir, 0:19:20.440 --> 0:19:25.479 because in Russia the throne was passed down by male 0:19:26.119 --> 0:19:29.800 children only. This law had been brought in by Sir 0:19:29.920 --> 0:19:32.400 Paul the First because he had hated his mother, Catherine 0:19:32.440 --> 0:19:35.880 the Great so much he wanted to ban women from 0:19:35.880 --> 0:19:38.960 ever inheriting the Russian throne, so he brought in the 0:19:39.040 --> 0:19:42.600 law that it had to go through the male line 0:19:43.000 --> 0:19:46.520 until all male lines in the Romanov family being exhausted 0:19:46.920 --> 0:19:51.280 before it could pass to a woman. So the pressure 0:19:51.320 --> 0:19:54.560 on Alexandra from day one, first of all, was to 0:19:54.600 --> 0:19:59.680 produce children, but particularly to produce a boy. And I 0:19:59.800 --> 0:20:06.119 think gets almost impossible to imagine the enormous emotional and 0:20:06.200 --> 0:20:10.359 psychological pressure on her over a period of ten years 0:20:11.119 --> 0:20:15.199 to produce a boy and to keep having girls. Uh, 0:20:15.440 --> 0:20:20.000 and not only that difficult pregnancies, big babies. I mean, 0:20:20.440 --> 0:20:25.200 she must have suffered physical agonies producing those four girls 0:20:25.200 --> 0:20:31.200 in in fairly quick succession. And then finally this longed 0:20:31.359 --> 0:20:34.960 for boy. And of course all the church bells rang 0:20:35.119 --> 0:20:38.560 and gun salutes were fired all over Russia, and everyone 0:20:38.680 --> 0:20:43.919 was celebrating the Birthard Sarayevitch and then this horrendous tragedy 0:20:44.000 --> 0:20:49.119 befalls them. Now, this longed for beautiful child, and he 0:20:49.320 --> 0:20:53.360 was a very beautiful baby turns out to be hemophilia. 0:20:56.200 --> 0:21:02.679 Mm hmm yeah. Um. To stay with Alexandra for a moment, 0:21:03.200 --> 0:21:06.600 you movingly describe her many ailments over the course of 0:21:06.640 --> 0:21:12.879 her life, from lar pregnancy, sciatica, heart trouble, headaches of 0:21:12.960 --> 0:21:17.199 facial graia, and eventually you note that she kind of 0:21:17.240 --> 0:21:23.439 embraces invalid life as a burden from God. Um. Can 0:21:23.480 --> 0:21:26.240 you describe kind of when she began to experience these 0:21:26.240 --> 0:21:29.840 health challenges where they related to the pressure and stresses 0:21:29.880 --> 0:21:33.439 of the Russian court? Um? And then how did they 0:21:33.440 --> 0:21:37.159 manifest kind of in her day to day life. Well, 0:21:37.960 --> 0:21:42.959 to begin with, I think Alexandra clearly was plagued with 0:21:43.119 --> 0:21:47.280 sciatica from her teens. Because one thing that is very 0:21:47.320 --> 0:21:51.080 interesting when when I looked into the detail of her 0:21:51.119 --> 0:21:55.399 courtship with Nicholas, was that between her mother dying in 0:21:55.480 --> 0:21:59.720 eight she's spent a lot of time back and forth 0:21:59.720 --> 0:22:02.280 doing England, spent a lot of time with Queen Victoria 0:22:02.800 --> 0:22:05.000 when it was announced she was going to marry Nikki 0:22:05.080 --> 0:22:08.840 in April eight four after they got engaged in Coburg 0:22:09.560 --> 0:22:12.400 at a family wedding. That one of the first things 0:22:12.520 --> 0:22:16.560 Queen Victoria arranged when Alexander went back to England with 0:22:16.600 --> 0:22:20.760 her to prepare, you know, for her a future wedding, 0:22:21.440 --> 0:22:25.320 was to get her to Harrogate in Yorkshire for treatment 0:22:25.640 --> 0:22:29.640 for this crippling scietic pain she suffered from. So she 0:22:29.760 --> 0:22:33.720 was sent to Harrogate for a water cure, and and 0:22:33.880 --> 0:22:36.480 that was the first, probably of many later on in 0:22:36.920 --> 0:22:39.760 her life, after she'd had the children. They she went 0:22:40.400 --> 0:22:44.480 more than once, I think, to bad Noihan in Germany 0:22:44.520 --> 0:22:47.680 for again for water cures. So she had always had 0:22:47.720 --> 0:22:52.200 the scietica And I cannot imagine how painful her pregnancies 0:22:52.280 --> 0:22:56.719 must have been. Suffering from sciatic pain and carrying you know, 0:22:56.840 --> 0:23:01.160 ten eleven pound babies to term. She must have been 0:23:01.280 --> 0:23:05.760 dreadfully um consumed by pain at times, and she was 0:23:06.040 --> 0:23:08.800 often I had to be lying down. But on top 0:23:08.840 --> 0:23:12.920 of that, I think a lot of her problems may 0:23:13.600 --> 0:23:16.120 we can't be sure, because there's never any very good 0:23:16.200 --> 0:23:19.560 medical reports about her, and if they were, they were never, 0:23:19.800 --> 0:23:22.840 you know, they were never shared. The documents weren't shared, 0:23:22.880 --> 0:23:26.680 although I did find one that I managed to access. 0:23:27.000 --> 0:23:29.439 I think, you know, it's difficult to judge at what 0:23:29.560 --> 0:23:33.199 point a lot of her problems became psychosomatic as a 0:23:33.240 --> 0:23:37.399 way of avoiding having to go into society. Because time 0:23:37.440 --> 0:23:40.320 and again, I, you know, I saw letters and comments 0:23:40.440 --> 0:23:43.400 or diaries from the girls or members of court. Oh, 0:23:43.440 --> 0:23:45.560 you know, the family would do to go to the 0:23:45.560 --> 0:23:49.920 theater or to something, and Alexander would either drop out 0:23:50.119 --> 0:23:53.280 or go home early because she wasn't feeling well. And 0:23:53.359 --> 0:23:56.560 she was all the always the party pooper, you know, 0:23:57.160 --> 0:24:01.119 the one who you know was indisposed. And so time 0:24:01.160 --> 0:24:05.199 again you see Nicholas taking his girls to the ballet 0:24:05.680 --> 0:24:09.520 or to the opera without their mother, and Alexandra just 0:24:09.840 --> 0:24:15.200 wasn't a presence socially at all. Alexandra, time and time again, 0:24:15.280 --> 0:24:18.600 the girls would say a little note so in their diaries, O, 0:24:18.840 --> 0:24:20.879 mother couldn't come down to lunch because she had a 0:24:20.960 --> 0:24:24.239 headache and she wasn't feeling very well. They lived with 0:24:24.320 --> 0:24:27.480 a sick mother to the point where I think their 0:24:27.560 --> 0:24:30.920 young lives were almost blighted by it. Those girls were 0:24:30.960 --> 0:24:34.520 her care, as as simple as that, and I think 0:24:34.560 --> 0:24:38.640 as time went on, you have to wonder the extent 0:24:38.720 --> 0:24:43.119 to which Alexandra exploited her indisposition and this thing she 0:24:43.200 --> 0:24:47.800 kept claiming about having, you know, her heart beating too fast, 0:24:48.000 --> 0:24:52.960 and then she genuinely had terrible ear infections and me 0:24:53.280 --> 0:24:57.399 grains and oh gosh, there wasn't almost any complaints she 0:24:57.440 --> 0:25:02.400 didn't at sometime suffer from. So that kind of colored 0:25:03.200 --> 0:25:07.879 family life, I think more than perhaps we realize. MM. 0:25:08.520 --> 0:25:13.280 So you've mentioned diaries and medical reports, and of course 0:25:13.320 --> 0:25:18.560 one of the other forms of records that interested readers 0:25:18.600 --> 0:25:22.600 probably know about are the numerous letters that Nicholas and 0:25:22.640 --> 0:25:29.119 Alexandra wrote to each other. Because because they wrote in English, right, well, 0:25:29.600 --> 0:25:31.480 there is a big gap in the letters. We have 0:25:31.560 --> 0:25:35.840 to be careful saying that the real correspondence between Nicholas 0:25:35.880 --> 0:25:40.240 and Alexandra that survives is the warriors correspondence, and only 0:25:40.320 --> 0:25:43.480 by a fluke, because Nicholas didn't get around to destroying 0:25:43.520 --> 0:25:48.320 all the letters Alexandra wrote to him. So the wartime 0:25:48.359 --> 0:25:53.600 correspondence is predominantly her long haranguing letters to Nicholas telling 0:25:53.680 --> 0:25:55.880 him to do this, that and the other, and complaining 0:25:55.920 --> 0:25:59.760 about the girls being hormonal and argumentative and um, you know, 0:25:59.800 --> 0:26:02.600 it's telling him to sack this minister and higher that minister. 0:26:03.000 --> 0:26:07.919 The Warrior letters are very revealing of her controlling influence 0:26:08.000 --> 0:26:11.360 over him. But there there isn't much prior to that, 0:26:11.440 --> 0:26:16.240 because once the revolution broke and Alexandra and the children 0:26:17.080 --> 0:26:22.840 were underplaced under house arrested at Sasol at the Alexander Palace, 0:26:22.920 --> 0:26:27.040 Nicholas was away at the front of army headquarters. Once 0:26:27.119 --> 0:26:32.840 they were locked away there, Alexandra started burning all her journals, 0:26:32.920 --> 0:26:35.480 her letters. The girls burned an awful lot of stuff 0:26:35.520 --> 0:26:38.720 as well. Tragically, she burned all the letters she had 0:26:38.720 --> 0:26:42.199 from Queen Victoria. There was I mean, everything went up 0:26:42.200 --> 0:26:45.560 in smoke except her diaries for the last year or 0:26:45.560 --> 0:26:48.840 so of her life. So we've lost a huge amount. 0:26:49.440 --> 0:26:54.800 But the Warrior Warrior letters between predominantly her letters Nicholas, 0:26:54.840 --> 0:27:01.439 as I said, are fascinating in what they reveal. Mm hm. 0:27:04.080 --> 0:27:07.639 So let's go back to early in their marriage because 0:27:07.680 --> 0:27:12.000 one of these figures that might seem strange, uh and 0:27:12.000 --> 0:27:16.760 and might not have entered the story for someone who 0:27:16.760 --> 0:27:22.800 has briefly read about them, is the figure of Monsieur Philippe. Yes, well, 0:27:22.840 --> 0:27:27.160 he was the kind of precursor to rescue what happened 0:27:27.200 --> 0:27:32.200 with Alexandra being so so desperate and as a woman 0:27:32.280 --> 0:27:35.880 and a mother myself, I can't understand that sense of desperation, 0:27:36.320 --> 0:27:40.720 the disappointment of a fourth daughter when she knows the 0:27:40.760 --> 0:27:44.840 precures and expectations that she's got to produce a son 0:27:44.880 --> 0:27:48.720 and heir. What did she do? She started going to 0:27:48.840 --> 0:27:56.040 alternative practitioners, to an assortment of seer's faith heil as, quacks, gurus, 0:27:56.080 --> 0:27:59.200 all kinds of people were kind of suggested to her 0:27:59.240 --> 0:28:03.280 and pushed in her direction because she, more than Nicholas, 0:28:03.320 --> 0:28:09.359 was clutching at stores, desperate, desperate to find help or 0:28:09.480 --> 0:28:13.440 away of ensuring she had a male heir. And at 0:28:13.480 --> 0:28:18.240 one point she was introduced to Monsieur Philly met Philly 0:28:18.560 --> 0:28:23.439 by fellow relatives within the Romanov family who had also 0:28:23.560 --> 0:28:28.320