Speaker 1: Welcomed Unobscured, a production of I Heart Radio and Aaron Minky.
Speaker 1: Our final guest for Unobscured Season four is Helen Rappaport.
Speaker 1: When we wanted to understand the inner workings and daily
Speaker 1: life of the Romanov household, there was no question who
Speaker 1: that person should be. Helen Rappaport is a fellow of
Speaker 1: the Royal Historical Society and her many books are the
Speaker 1: best there is when it comes to Nicholas, Alexandra and
Speaker 1: their children. And of course Dr Rappaport is also a
Speaker 1: brilliant writer. As others have already said, she is a
Speaker 1: rare combination of talents, deep and sensitive insight expressed in
Speaker 1: a clear and fresh style. For many years, she has
Speaker 1: presented and consulted for TV and audio projects and translated
Speaker 1: Russian works for the theater. Her signature is to express
Speaker 1: both the fact and the feeling of the past, and
Speaker 1: we're so glad she joined us to do that once again.
Speaker 1: Here Unobscured writer Karl Nellis talked with Dr Rappaport about
Speaker 1: the Romanov family and it's a privilege to all for
Speaker 1: their conversation in full. So we end this season of
Speaker 1: Unobscured where we began with Nicholas, Alexandra, their dynasty and
Speaker 1: their downfall. This is the Unobscured Interview series for season four.
Speaker 1: I'm Aaron Manky for Unobscured Podcast. I'm Carl Nellis, and
Speaker 1: today we have the privilege of talking with Dr Helen Rappaport,
Speaker 1: distinguished historian who has written a small library of excellent books,
Speaker 1: including a few on the Romanovs and and their period,
Speaker 1: their time, their lives in Russia. Uh. Dr Rappaport is
Speaker 1: a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and she's still writing.
Speaker 1: She has a new book coming out called After the Romanovs,
Speaker 1: Russian Exiles and Paris that will be out soon from St.
Speaker 1: Martin's Press. I'm excited to read that, as well as
Speaker 1: the books that I've already read. UH. From her. Dr Rappaport,
Speaker 1: thank you so much. It's an honor to have you
Speaker 1: on Unobscured. Thank you for asking me so I'm delighted
Speaker 1: to talk with you because of how valuable your work
Speaker 1: has been in our process of researching and understanding the
Speaker 1: lives of Nicholas and Alexandra, their children, their time. Um.
Speaker 1: You've written so many landmark books on Russian history. For
Speaker 1: for English readers, what what drew you to the last
Speaker 1: Romanance in particular? Well, it's it's interesting how I got
Speaker 1: into the Romanos, because it was actually by accident. When
Speaker 1: I first started being interested in and wanting to write history,
Speaker 1: it had never crossed my mind to do the Roman
Speaker 1: I was, I guess, because I thought it was all
Speaker 1: a bit saccharine and chocolate boxy, you know, all those
Speaker 1: romantic pictures of girls in frocks and big hats and
Speaker 1: all the playing and ceremony didn't appeal to me. Um.
Speaker 1: It was an agent was with at the time when
Speaker 1: we were sitting discussing what book I was going to
Speaker 1: do next during a horrible hiatus between books, and we
Speaker 1: were kind of stumped a bit, and he said, well,
Speaker 1: why don't you do the Romanos And I said, oh, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: it doesn't appeal to me at all. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: too chintsey for me. And he said, we'll go away
Speaker 1: and think about it. And actually he gave me a
Speaker 1: very good hook for exploring the Romanos, to which for
Speaker 1: which I'm eternally grateful, because I said to him, I
Speaker 1: don't want to do a whole great, big comprehensive biography
Speaker 1: of the Romanos or a huge study of the rain
Speaker 1: I said, I'm much more interested in the detail and
Speaker 1: some particular point in the story. And so I said, well,
Speaker 1: why don't you look at the end of their lives?
Speaker 1: And when I went away and looked and homed in
Speaker 1: and focused on the very end of their lives, I
Speaker 1: pretty much from when they were imprisoned at the Alexander Palace,
Speaker 1: and and I honed it in even closer to the
Speaker 1: last two weeks of their lives in a Cashemberg in
Speaker 1: the party of house. I suddenly realized there was a
Speaker 1: really interesting and exciting scenario there that had never been explored,
Speaker 1: which was looking at the family really close up. How
Speaker 1: were they, what was going through their minds? How did
Speaker 1: they deal with captivity? What were the tensions being trapped
Speaker 1: in a house in western Siberia, knowing that probably the
Speaker 1: writing was on the wall. So my interest in them
Speaker 1: began with that very brief period at the very very
Speaker 1: end of their lives, the last two weeks. And it
Speaker 1: was while I was writing that book that I first
Speaker 1: began to develop a sense of those poor not poor,
Speaker 1: I shouldn't call them, Paul, Those lovely four girls locked
Speaker 1: away in that house, and and there's their lives cut
Speaker 1: short so cruelly, and I began to feel that they
Speaker 1: had never really enjoyed an identity in books about the Romanos.
Speaker 1: It had always till then been about the mother and
Speaker 1: the father and the hemophiliac brothers. So at that point,
Speaker 1: when I finished a cashion Berg, I felt there was
Speaker 1: more to look at, and that took me into the
Speaker 1: next book, which was exploring almost really exploring the domestic
Speaker 1: life of their own nos, what was it like behind
Speaker 1: the scenes for them as a family, And then the
Speaker 1: third book really led on from that because the one
Speaker 1: niggling thing I still felt I had not explored at
Speaker 1: the end of two books on the rown Nos was
Speaker 1: why couldn't they be saved? Why could no one get
Speaker 1: them out of Russia? And I felt too that that
Speaker 1: had been rather sort of skimmed over in existing books,
Speaker 1: also partly because of lack of documentary evidence being made
Speaker 1: available by the Ashan's at the time. So that took
Speaker 1: me to my third book, which is exploring why they
Speaker 1: couldn't get them out. So by accident, I've kind of
Speaker 1: written three books about them. M hm, Well and what
Speaker 1: you do get into exploring their domestic world. It is
Speaker 1: so moving beyond the the political presence of the czar,
Speaker 1: you know, the empress and what they were doing. The
Speaker 1: way that you explore the daily lives, the routines, the
Speaker 1: the close relationships within the family, challenges with health, things
Speaker 1: that I've never read before. I really appreciated the way
Speaker 1: that you render all of that in your books. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you, So let's go. Let's start with with Nicholas
Speaker 1: and Alexander and then come forward and I really hope
Speaker 1: we'll spend a lot of time with with the girls
Speaker 1: and and the household once once the children are all there.
Speaker 1: But starting with Nicholas and Alexandra, when you started looking
Speaker 1: at them, were there were there aspects of them as people,
Speaker 1: their personalities that that caught your interest or imagination. Well,
Speaker 1: I think what was most interesting about them initially was
Speaker 1: the fact that, unlike actually every European royal couple, they
Speaker 1: actually were allowed to marry for love, which was a
Speaker 1: very rare thing. When you look at Queen Victorian busily
Speaker 1: arranging the dynastic unions all her children and her grandchildren
Speaker 1: and them all into marrying and marrying cousins and second cousins.
Speaker 1: The almost unique thing about Nicholas and Alexandra was it
Speaker 1: was a long protracted love that began when she was
Speaker 1: only about twelve years old when Nicholas first saw her,
Speaker 1: and he kind of carried the torch for her until
Speaker 1: she was until they met again in oberg In. So
Speaker 1: it wasn't an enduring affection between them. It wasn't something
Speaker 1: they would pushed into as a dynastic union, nor was
Speaker 1: it a sort of spur of the moment love affair.
Speaker 1: It was something that had been growing for a long time,
Speaker 1: and of course she initially was deeply resistant to agreeing
Speaker 1: to marry him, even though she loved Nicholas. It was
Speaker 1: a very genuine love between them because of her Lutheran faith,
Speaker 1: and that was a real obstacle at first, so that
Speaker 1: that had to be overcome. A family prejudice also had
Speaker 1: to be overcome, in the sense that Queen Victoria was
Speaker 1: pretty adamant initially at the thought of her precious granddaughter
Speaker 1: Alexandra Alicki as they called her, marrying into the Russian throne.
Speaker 1: Queen Victoria was absolutely against the idea of Alicki areing
Speaker 1: Nikki young Nicholas at Sarayevitch of Russia because she felt
Speaker 1: Russia was very unstable, very unsafe. I mean, even then
Speaker 1: by the eighteen eighties and nineties there was his history
Speaker 1: of political assassination and um, you know, Nicholas's own grandfather
Speaker 1: had been murdered by revolutionaries, so they had to overcome
Speaker 1: quite a lot of obstacles. And we're an utterly devoted couple,
Speaker 1: and so that it did interest me and intrigued me
Speaker 1: because of course Alexandra, um, for those who are new
Speaker 1: to the topic and these um, these people. Of course,
Speaker 1: Alexander was not Russian, and she was Lutheran. Can you
Speaker 1: say a little bit more about why her being Lutheran
Speaker 1: made it a difficult choice to marry Nicholas. The problem
Speaker 1: for Alexandra, as a German Lutheran from Hessa by Ryan,
Speaker 1: was that to marry the Sallyevich of Russia, the rule
Speaker 1: of Russia, there was one absolute rule that had to
Speaker 1: be observed, and it was a requirement for marriage, and
Speaker 1: that was she would have to convert to Russian Orthodoxy.
Speaker 1: There is no way she could have retained her Lutheran
Speaker 1: German Lutheran faith and be a future Sari Saris of Russia.
Speaker 1: So this was hugely challenging period for her because she
Speaker 1: loved Nikki, but she did not want to abandon her
Speaker 1: Lutheran faith. Alexandra had all been always been pretty religious
Speaker 1: and pious and very observant. So it was a really,
Speaker 1: really difficult period because eventually it was her sister Ella
Speaker 1: who helped persuade her, because Ella, too, like alex Alexandra,
Speaker 1: married a Russian. She married Grand Dukes Sergey, but without
Speaker 1: all the AGONI sing about adopting the Russian authox faith,
Speaker 1: Ella embraced it pretty much immediately and then persuaded Alexandra
Speaker 1: to also do likewise, so she couldn't have married the
Speaker 1: Sadievitch unless she had adopted Russian orthodoxy. Mm hmm, what's
Speaker 1: And of course, then the the interesting thing that happens
Speaker 1: is that she becomes more Orthodox than the Orthodox. You know,
Speaker 1: sometimes people who adopted or embrace the new religion become
Speaker 1: even more almost fanatical about their new religion as converts
Speaker 1: than if they had been born into it. So she
Speaker 1: she ended her life being profoundly Russian Orthodox. That's beautiful,
Speaker 1: that's perfect. Um. On Nicholas's side, how did he see?
Speaker 1: So that's a great kind of point of contrast, because
Speaker 1: of course he was born not just into Russian Orthodoxy,
Speaker 1: but into the Roman dynasty. Yeah. So if alex is
Speaker 1: at first hesitant and then over the course of her
Speaker 1: time becomes deeply devoted to Russian Orthodoxy and of course
Speaker 1: her family, how did Nicholas approach this legacy that he
Speaker 1: inherits his role as are his place place in the
Speaker 1: Russian Church, in the Romanov family? What did it look
Speaker 1: like from Nicholas's perspective, Well, of course Nicholas originally had
Speaker 1: he had an older brother who should have been so,
Speaker 1: but who died young. Uh. And then, to make matters worse,
Speaker 1: he was thrust into onto the throne unexpectedly when his
Speaker 1: father fell sick with kidney disease, when Alexander the third
Speaker 1: fell ill with kidney disease and died in his forties.
Speaker 1: Now that the problem from for Nicholas right from day
Speaker 1: one was that he should probably had another twenty years
Speaker 1: to prepare for becoming zare So he hadn't learned the
Speaker 1: tools of the trade, He hadn't learned states craft, state craft.
Speaker 1: He was timid and frightened and terrified of the enormous
Speaker 1: responsibility of becoming Zar in his twenties, when of course
Speaker 1: he would have expected it becomes our maybe in his forties.
Speaker 1: So but he took it very very seriously and in
Speaker 1: a very kind of dogmatic and rather narrow way in
Speaker 1: that he simply a decided or a declared rather from
Speaker 1: the moment he became z. But he would preserve the
Speaker 1: autocracy handed to him by his father, Alexander the third,
Speaker 1: exactly as passed down to him. And he was always
Speaker 1: deeply stubborn about not changing anything in the way in
Speaker 1: which Sardom operated as handed down to him. So he
Speaker 1: was never an innovative or forward thinkings are He stuck
Speaker 1: very much to the old way of doing things that
Speaker 1: his father had done before. And you mentioned that Alexandra
Speaker 1: coming in was a deeply pious Christian as a Lutheran,
Speaker 1: and then she joins this family and this new faith.
Speaker 1: Can you say a few words about how her faith
Speaker 1: related to this sense of what it meant to be
Speaker 1: as are? You know? Was she devoted to autocracy as
Speaker 1: a matter of faith? Absolutely? I mean in Russia, autocracy
Speaker 1: and orthodoxy went absolutely hand in hand that that they
Speaker 1: were the cornerstone I mean to be czar, you had
Speaker 1: to be Orthodox, and they had this absolutely implacable belief
Speaker 1: that in the divine right of the czar, pretty much
Speaker 1: like the divine right of kings even in Britain back
Speaker 1: in the seventeenth century. So you know, it was a
Speaker 1: god given role that Nicholas had this duty to perform,
Speaker 1: and he had to perform it in the absolute traditional
Speaker 1: manner in which it had been handed down to him.
Speaker 1: And Alexandra very much believed in this idea that they
Speaker 1: were a little mother and little father of the nation,
Speaker 1: the martush Bartuska, as they were called by the peasantry,
Speaker 1: and that the peasantry looked up to them unquestionably with
Speaker 1: unquestionable loyalty and devotion. And she believed that stubbornly right
Speaker 1: to the very end, that the people really loved them.
Speaker 1: And of course, by the time the revolution, many of
Speaker 1: the people didn't love them at all anymore, and the
Speaker 1: whole kind of a gloss of the protective fathers nar
Speaker 1: had completely gone and being tarnished. But they both believed
Speaker 1: in this god given right to rule and to protect
Speaker 1: the throne and pass it down to their beloved son
Speaker 1: m So that says a little bit about how they
Speaker 1: saw their relationship to the people. In your writing, there's
Speaker 1: a really interesting turn when Alexandra first enters Russia and
Speaker 1: Russian society, where she also has to navigate relationships with
Speaker 1: the Russian court. And you know, maybe she has this
Speaker 1: adamant devotion to autocracy and the sense that it's a
Speaker 1: divine legacy over the people. But it seems she makes
Speaker 1: a mistake, a misstep, maybe with Grand Duchess Vladimir. Well,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say it was a misstep. I think part
Speaker 1: of the problem was Grand Duchess Vladimia, along with the
Speaker 1: Dodger Empress Maria Fjorda Rovna, had been the duyennes of
Speaker 1: high society in Russia and Saint Petersburg, and Vladimir in
Speaker 1: particular was stunningly wealthy, had the most magnificent jewels, probably
Speaker 1: as magnificent as the Zarisa herself, and she was kind
Speaker 1: of Queen Bee of Russian society. Now along comes a
Speaker 1: new young Zarisa um and Vladima expects her to take
Speaker 1: her place in society and be up there hob nobbing
Speaker 1: with the aristocracy and making appearances in Petersburg and you know,
Speaker 1: going to all the right balls and receptions and this,
Speaker 1: that and the other, And from day one Alexandra stubbornly
Speaker 1: resisted all that. She really really did not want to
Speaker 1: be part of Saint Petersburg society. She was extremely reserved,
Speaker 1: almost hostile to what she perceived as very headonistic, aristocratic,
Speaker 1: indulgent society in the big city, in the capital city.
Speaker 1: She didn't want to have a family and bring up
Speaker 1: a family in that environment. So Vladimia was very disapproving
Speaker 1: of Alexander not taking a proper place in society, and
Speaker 1: they did rub each other up the wrong way, particularly
Speaker 1: as Grand Duchess. Vladimia also and her husband, who was
Speaker 1: the most senior Russian Grand Duke, had always had aspirations
Speaker 1: to the throne coming down to them and their their
Speaker 1: children if an air was never produced. So there was
Speaker 1: a certain animosity and antagonism between them. Um, and it
Speaker 1: got worse. But it didn't get worse really until later
Speaker 1: on in the rain. Could you say a few more
Speaker 1: words about the urgency felt by Nicholas and Alexandra to
Speaker 1: produce a male heir. Oh, it was enormous. The pressure
Speaker 1: on them was particularly on Alexandra, I mean her role really,
Speaker 1: I mean, okay, but she had this, she had the
Speaker 1: good fortune to marry for love. But her role essentially
Speaker 1: once she was di Itza was to produce a male heir,
Speaker 1: because in Russia the throne was passed down by male
Speaker 1: children only. This law had been brought in by Sir
Speaker 1: Paul the First because he had hated his mother, Catherine
Speaker 1: the Great so much he wanted to ban women from
Speaker 1: ever inheriting the Russian throne, so he brought in the
Speaker 1: law that it had to go through the male line
Speaker 1: until all male lines in the Romanov family being exhausted
Speaker 1: before it could pass to a woman. So the pressure
Speaker 1: on Alexandra from day one, first of all, was to
Speaker 1: produce children, but particularly to produce a boy. And I
Speaker 1: think gets almost impossible to imagine the enormous emotional and
Speaker 1: psychological pressure on her over a period of ten years
Speaker 1: to produce a boy and to keep having girls. Uh,
Speaker 1: and not only that difficult pregnancies, big babies. I mean,
Speaker 1: she must have suffered physical agonies producing those four girls
Speaker 1: in in fairly quick succession. And then finally this longed
Speaker 1: for boy. And of course all the church bells rang
Speaker 1: and gun salutes were fired all over Russia, and everyone
Speaker 1: was celebrating the Birthard Sarayevitch and then this horrendous tragedy
Speaker 1: befalls them. Now, this longed for beautiful child, and he
Speaker 1: was a very beautiful baby turns out to be hemophilia.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm yeah. Um. To stay with Alexandra for a moment,
Speaker 1: you movingly describe her many ailments over the course of
Speaker 1: her life, from lar pregnancy, sciatica, heart trouble, headaches of
Speaker 1: facial graia, and eventually you note that she kind of
Speaker 1: embraces invalid life as a burden from God. Um. Can
Speaker 1: you describe kind of when she began to experience these
Speaker 1: health challenges where they related to the pressure and stresses
Speaker 1: of the Russian court? Um? And then how did they
Speaker 1: manifest kind of in her day to day life. Well,
Speaker 1: to begin with, I think Alexandra clearly was plagued with
Speaker 1: sciatica from her teens. Because one thing that is very
Speaker 1: interesting when when I looked into the detail of her
Speaker 1: courtship with Nicholas, was that between her mother dying in
Speaker 1: eight she's spent a lot of time back and forth
Speaker 1: doing England, spent a lot of time with Queen Victoria
Speaker 1: when it was announced she was going to marry Nikki
Speaker 1: in April eight four after they got engaged in Coburg
Speaker 1: at a family wedding. That one of the first things
Speaker 1: Queen Victoria arranged when Alexander went back to England with
Speaker 1: her to prepare, you know, for her a future wedding,
Speaker 1: was to get her to Harrogate in Yorkshire for treatment
Speaker 1: for this crippling scietic pain she suffered from. So she
Speaker 1: was sent to Harrogate for a water cure, and and
Speaker 1: that was the first, probably of many later on in
Speaker 1: her life, after she'd had the children. They she went
Speaker 1: more than once, I think, to bad Noihan in Germany
Speaker 1: for again for water cures. So she had always had
Speaker 1: the scietica And I cannot imagine how painful her pregnancies
Speaker 1: must have been. Suffering from sciatic pain and carrying you know,
Speaker 1: ten eleven pound babies to term. She must have been
Speaker 1: dreadfully um consumed by pain at times, and she was
Speaker 1: often I had to be lying down. But on top
Speaker 1: of that, I think a lot of her problems may
Speaker 1: we can't be sure, because there's never any very good
Speaker 1: medical reports about her, and if they were, they were never,
Speaker 1: you know, they were never shared. The documents weren't shared,
Speaker 1: although I did find one that I managed to access.
Speaker 1: I think, you know, it's difficult to judge at what
Speaker 1: point a lot of her problems became psychosomatic as a
Speaker 1: way of avoiding having to go into society. Because time
Speaker 1: and again, I, you know, I saw letters and comments
Speaker 1: or diaries from the girls or members of court. Oh,
Speaker 1: you know, the family would do to go to the
Speaker 1: theater or to something, and Alexander would either drop out
Speaker 1: or go home early because she wasn't feeling well. And
Speaker 1: she was all the always the party pooper, you know,
Speaker 1: the one who you know was indisposed. And so time
Speaker 1: again you see Nicholas taking his girls to the ballet
Speaker 1: or to the opera without their mother, and Alexandra just
Speaker 1: wasn't a presence socially at all. Alexandra, time and time again,
Speaker 1: the girls would say a little note so in their diaries, O,
Speaker 1: mother couldn't come down to lunch because she had a
Speaker 1: headache and she wasn't feeling very well. They lived with
Speaker 1: a sick mother to the point where I think their
Speaker 1: young lives were almost blighted by it. Those girls were
Speaker 1: her care, as as simple as that, and I think
Speaker 1: as time went on, you have to wonder the extent
Speaker 1: to which Alexandra exploited her indisposition and this thing she
Speaker 1: kept claiming about having, you know, her heart beating too fast,
Speaker 1: and then she genuinely had terrible ear infections and me
Speaker 1: grains and oh gosh, there wasn't almost any complaints she
Speaker 1: didn't at sometime suffer from. So that kind of colored
Speaker 1: family life, I think more than perhaps we realize. MM.
Speaker 1: So you've mentioned diaries and medical reports, and of course
Speaker 1: one of the other forms of records that interested readers
Speaker 1: probably know about are the numerous letters that Nicholas and
Speaker 1: Alexandra wrote to each other. Because because they wrote in English, right, well,
Speaker 1: there is a big gap in the letters. We have
Speaker 1: to be careful saying that the real correspondence between Nicholas
Speaker 1: and Alexandra that survives is the warriors correspondence, and only
Speaker 1: by a fluke, because Nicholas didn't get around to destroying
Speaker 1: all the letters Alexandra wrote to him. So the wartime
Speaker 1: correspondence is predominantly her long haranguing letters to Nicholas telling
Speaker 1: him to do this, that and the other, and complaining
Speaker 1: about the girls being hormonal and argumentative and um, you know,
Speaker 1: it's telling him to sack this minister and higher that minister.
Speaker 1: The Warrior letters are very revealing of her controlling influence
Speaker 1: over him. But there there isn't much prior to that,
Speaker 1: because once the revolution broke and Alexandra and the children
Speaker 1: were underplaced under house arrested at Sasol at the Alexander Palace,
Speaker 1: Nicholas was away at the front of army headquarters. Once
Speaker 1: they were locked away there, Alexandra started burning all her journals,
Speaker 1: her letters. The girls burned an awful lot of stuff
Speaker 1: as well. Tragically, she burned all the letters she had
Speaker 1: from Queen Victoria. There was I mean, everything went up
Speaker 1: in smoke except her diaries for the last year or
Speaker 1: so of her life. So we've lost a huge amount.
Speaker 1: But the Warrior Warrior letters between predominantly her letters Nicholas,
Speaker 1: as I said, are fascinating in what they reveal. Mm hm.
Speaker 1: So let's go back to early in their marriage because
Speaker 1: one of these figures that might seem strange, uh and
Speaker 1: and might not have entered the story for someone who
Speaker 1: has briefly read about them, is the figure of Monsieur Philippe. Yes, well,
Speaker 1: he was the kind of precursor to rescue what happened
Speaker 1: with Alexandra being so so desperate and as a woman
Speaker 1: and a mother myself, I can't understand that sense of desperation,
Speaker 1: the disappointment of a fourth daughter when she knows the
Speaker 1: precures and expectations that she's got to produce a son
Speaker 1: and heir. What did she do? She started going to
Speaker 1: alternative practitioners, to an assortment of seer's faith heil as, quacks, gurus,
Speaker 1: all kinds of people were kind of suggested to her
Speaker 1: and pushed in her direction because she, more than Nicholas,
Speaker 1: was clutching at stores, desperate, desperate to find help or
Speaker 1: away of ensuring she had a male heir. And at
Speaker 1: one point she was introduced to Monsieur Philly met Philly
Speaker 1: by fellow relatives within the Romanov family who had also
Speaker 1: been courting him as an alternative faith healer come practitioner.
Speaker 1: They had consulted him about their son who had been ill.
Speaker 1: Now Monsieur Philly was a sort of French of society therapist,
Speaker 1: come faith healer, come guru, not really a trained doctor
Speaker 1: at all, but he kind of blagged his way to
Speaker 1: a position of social interest in France. He'd practiced in
Speaker 1: Leon and developed quite a following there, and word filtered
Speaker 1: through to Russia that you know, he was offering advice
Speaker 1: on how to conceive a male child to women who
Speaker 1: were desperate to do that, and of course he was
Speaker 1: steered in the direction of Nicholas and Alexandra, and for
Speaker 1: a brief while he offered advice. Most of it I
Speaker 1: think was a sort of mixture of cod medicine and quackery.
Speaker 1: The juries out a bit on Metro Philip in that
Speaker 1: more recently, some people, certainly in France and in French sources,
Speaker 1: seemed to have begun to or maybe they have always
Speaker 1: done so, begun taking him a bit more seriously than others. Generally,
Speaker 1: sources from Russia and in English tend to dismiss him
Speaker 1: as being an outright quack. I'm not convinced that he was.
Speaker 1: He might he might have had a few useful things
Speaker 1: to suggest, And of course he he predicted prophetically that
Speaker 1: you know, she would have a boy child eventually, and
Speaker 1: that there would be another one like him, another friend
Speaker 1: who would come along and help her, help Alexandra. So
Speaker 1: he was only around a couple of years and sort
Speaker 1: of effectively was sent packing with lots of extravagant gifts,
Speaker 1: including a huge motor car. Do we know, do we
Speaker 1: know what Nicholas thought of him? Well, the thing with
Speaker 1: Nicholas's interesting. I mean, Nicholas was always kind of a
Speaker 1: step or two behind in the disk, you know, took
Speaker 1: a step or two back from all this because he
Speaker 1: basically pandered to Alexandra because she was pretty neurotic, totally
Speaker 1: bound up and obsessed with having a male child, as
Speaker 1: one could imagine, and once she set her mind that
Speaker 1: the certain practitioner or guru was going to help her,
Speaker 1: she would throw his sy fits essentially if she didn't
Speaker 1: get her way and didn't get to see this person.
Speaker 1: So he was tended to be more tolerant of these
Speaker 1: faith healers and people that Alexandra wanted to consult. So
Speaker 1: I think he perhaps took Metro Philip with a pinch assault,
Speaker 1: as did most people. Um. He once said over us
Speaker 1: spouting later that he would rather have ten ra spoutins
Speaker 1: than one of Alexandra's, who are hysterical fits. He lived
Speaker 1: with a very neurotic sick wife. I think he had
Speaker 1: more than one cross to bear in his life. Really.
Speaker 1: And then, of course the girls they're living, as you said,
Speaker 1: with the sick mother m right, that they inhabited an intimate,
Speaker 1: highly protected, domestic world created by their mama and papa. Yeah,
Speaker 1: in a few minutes describing their world, maybe it's it's routines.
Speaker 1: What were its horizons, how narrow? How could find? Was it? Well?
Speaker 1: I've already said that Alexandra was very disapproved being of St.
Speaker 1: Petersburg society. So the four girls only had occasional trips
Speaker 1: into St. Petersburg to the opera or the ballet, or
Speaker 1: or some event at the occasional, very occasional ball. Nine
Speaker 1: times out of turn it was Nicholas who took them,
Speaker 1: or if Alexandra went, she left early. And they were
Speaker 1: so starved a company of their own age. And you
Speaker 1: can see it when you look at all the photographs
Speaker 1: of the girls in their teens as they're growing up.
Speaker 1: There are endless photographs of them surrounded by the officers
Speaker 1: of the entourage, the older women in the entourage, all
Speaker 1: the men of the regiments of which they had an
Speaker 1: honorary command. And you see these loads and loads of
Speaker 1: photographs of these pretty young girls surrounded by older men
Speaker 1: in military uniform, and I kept asking myself, where are
Speaker 1: the younger people of their own age? They were only
Speaker 1: really ever allowed to associate with a few select of
Speaker 1: this as from the entourage, mainly from the stars escort,
Speaker 1: occasional visits from male and female relatives, not that often.
Speaker 1: I mean the children of their own level that they
Speaker 1: saw probably most often would be their cousins by Nicholas's
Speaker 1: sister Zena and her husband, Grand Duke Alexander. So but
Speaker 1: generally they had to learn very quickly to be sufficient
Speaker 1: unto each other, i to live, to inhabit their own world,
Speaker 1: the four of them, and be self sustaining and self
Speaker 1: supporting them. Because of that, they were indeed very close.
Speaker 1: But there was another big, big reason why they led
Speaker 1: such sheltered lives, quite apartment Alexandra's disapproval of the world outside,
Speaker 1: which she thought would corrupt them. And that was of
Speaker 1: course Alexey. Because once Alexey was born, in for the
Speaker 1: fact that his hemophilia had to be kept an absolute
Speaker 1: state secret, they didn't even tell Nicholas's mother or sisters
Speaker 1: at first, and and and also as soon as he
Speaker 1: was born, they pretty much withdrew from ever spending time
Speaker 1: at the Winter Palace in Some Petersburg. They lived their quiet,
Speaker 1: secluded family life at the Alexander Palace fifteen miles out
Speaker 1: of St. Petersburg, and pretty much drew down the shutters,
Speaker 1: mainly because they had to protect alex A from scrutiny people.
Speaker 1: They didn't want people to see that he was often
Speaker 1: sick or you know, limping because he banged a limb
Speaker 1: or something, and they had to protect him from accidents,
Speaker 1: from running around falling over hurting himself. So they kind
Speaker 1: of had to cocoon that little boy, and they all
Speaker 1: rallied around and pretty much closed ranks. That's why, uh.
Speaker 1: And also I guess there was a third reason why
Speaker 1: the family lived fairly secluded lives, And this was as
Speaker 1: time went on and the revolutionary movement was growing. Attacks
Speaker 1: on the Romanov family, on Imperial Russian officials, on prime
Speaker 1: ministers and ministers and governors, you name it. There are
Speaker 1: assassinations going on left, right and center, including Alexandra's brother
Speaker 1: in law, Grand Dukes a gay who was blown to
Speaker 1: bits in five That was her sister Ella's husband. So
Speaker 1: pretty much after that they again retreated even more because
Speaker 1: quite simply the threat of attack, assassination, kidnap on the
Speaker 1: whole family became really quite serious. So there were lots
Speaker 1: of reasons for them to live a quite secluded life.
Speaker 1: Would you say just a little bit more about why
Speaker 1: they felt so strongly they needed to keep Alexis humophilia
Speaker 1: a secret, because how could you have the young Tsaryevitch,
Speaker 1: who would it was going to inherit the throne of
Speaker 1: enormous Russian empire of god knows how many millions of people.
Speaker 1: I can't remember how big it was at that that time,
Speaker 1: But they couldn't let it be seen that effectively the
Speaker 1: boy had a life threatening, threatening condition that would have
Speaker 1: could and should have killed him by probably in the
Speaker 1: mid teens. That couldn't be known. They didn't want the
Speaker 1: Russian people to know that Saryevitch was sickly. He had
Speaker 1: to be perceived as this godlike, beautiful child who was
Speaker 1: going to save Russia, the hope of Russia, he was
Speaker 1: referred to. So that's why they kept the whole thing secret.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't n til later on when he had
Speaker 1: a very serious flare up of his seem ophelia, But
Speaker 1: it finally got out mainly via the British and American
Speaker 1: pressing impact MHM. And across your books on the Romanovs,
Speaker 1: you note that the daughters were often lumped together as
Speaker 1: a group in in the press. Um you know, the
Speaker 1: the artmath O T m A just kind of crushes
Speaker 1: them all into a mass, while Alexei was given special attention.
Speaker 1: But that was also true within the family as well
Speaker 1: as in the press. Yeah, yeah, it's interesting Alexandra herself.
Speaker 1: You know, you've seen endless pictures. First of all, she
Speaker 1: often the girls often all dressed alike, but right from
Speaker 1: quite an early age here is she split them into
Speaker 1: two groups, the big pair Olga and Tatiana and the
Speaker 1: little pair Maria an Anastasia, and they again, within those
Speaker 1: two groups, tend to dress alike. And she often referred
Speaker 1: to the girls collectively or as the big bear and
Speaker 1: the little bear, and not by name. It was as
Speaker 1: though the girls were just the the adjunct to their
Speaker 1: much more important brother. And in terms of the Russian people,
Speaker 1: you know, they were the pretty set dressing. They looked lovely,
Speaker 1: they turned up at all state occasions looking exquisite, but
Speaker 1: they were just the set dressing. And for this reason
Speaker 1: you get the sense that they had no personalities. And
Speaker 1: that's really what was the primary impetus for me in
Speaker 1: writing The Romano Sisters was I wanted to show they
Speaker 1: were actually four very different personalities, very interesting girls in
Speaker 1: their own right, and not just completely bland and character
Speaker 1: lists and anonymous. And they've been sort of homogenized till then.
Speaker 1: Maybe my way of teasing out a little bit their
Speaker 1: differences and that kind of thing, could you say more
Speaker 1: about out how personally pious was the whole family and
Speaker 1: what did devotion look like for the different daughters relative
Speaker 1: to mother's practices. But they're their own people, So they
Speaker 1: were a very quietly religious family. I think what I
Speaker 1: admire about them if they know perhaps Alexandra would lecture
Speaker 1: some of her friends and ladies in waiting in her
Speaker 1: letters and things about religious faith and belief. But the
Speaker 1: girls were quietly high us and religious and observant, very
Speaker 1: very devoted, all of them were. The religion actually was
Speaker 1: what held that family together. And I have always felt,
Speaker 1: and I think I said in my books, in one
Speaker 1: of my books that it reminded me of a saying
Speaker 1: that was coined during the Second World War. I think
Speaker 1: about Roman Catholics families which was the family that praised together,
Speaker 1: stays together, and religion and their faith. I have no
Speaker 1: doubt it was their religious faith that held them together
Speaker 1: through all the crises over alex A. There you know,
Speaker 1: the times when he had terrible bleeding episodes and nearly died,
Speaker 1: And undoubtedly without their religious faith, I don't think they
Speaker 1: would have got through their captivity um as courageously as
Speaker 1: they did if they hadn't had an absolute power of
Speaker 1: faith and and and acceptance towards the end to get
Speaker 1: a very strong sense of the family in the house,
Speaker 1: the catching book of their acceptance of what may or
Speaker 1: may not happen. I think Alexander certainly was reconciled, became
Speaker 1: much more religious in the last few weeks of our life,
Speaker 1: and the girls really were deeply observant, just like their parents.
Speaker 1: How would you describe the way that Alexei figured into
Speaker 1: the budding relationship between the Romanos and resputed and when
Speaker 1: he comes on the scene, Ah, it's it's difficult with Alexey.
Speaker 1: I found evidence that alex A kind of laughed at
Speaker 1: Respus in a bit behind his back and found him
Speaker 1: a bit odd and weird. But then Anastasia did too,
Speaker 1: and they sometimes giggled because he was a bit strange
Speaker 1: with that deep, sonorous voice and those huge, mesmerizing blue eyes.
Speaker 1: So but I think towards the end Alexey could recognize
Speaker 1: that Rasputin was their friend. You see, they referred to him.
Speaker 1: All of the children predominant and the parents as well
Speaker 1: referred to him as their friend. And this is where
Speaker 1: people get raspute In wrong. They think it's all about
Speaker 1: this miraculous faith feeling which has been wildly misunderstood, overrated,
Speaker 1: and misrepresented. What really mattered about Rasputin to the family
Speaker 1: was that he was one of the very very few
Speaker 1: people they trusted because, like I've said, they lived very
Speaker 1: isolated lives at a time where the revolutionary movement wanted
Speaker 1: them all dead and removed from power. But Rasputin. Rasputin
Speaker 1: was kind of like a wise guru to them. But
Speaker 1: the primary function he performed initially for Nicholas and Alexandra. Sorry,
Speaker 1: my dogs just can haffing and puffing in the background.
Speaker 1: The primary function Rasputin performed initially when Nicholas and Alexandra
Speaker 1: first met him was as a wise counselor. They sat
Speaker 1: and talked to him for hours and hours about matters
Speaker 1: of faith, about the concerns about Russia, the Russian people,
Speaker 1: and religious matters. He would spend time telling the children's
Speaker 1: stories from the Old Testament. They loved him, They really
Speaker 1: loved him as as a as a wise and fascinating personality. Um. Sorry,
Speaker 1: my dog's being noisy. She does come in from a walk, yes. Um.
Speaker 1: So the thing with Rasputin was, initially he was a
Speaker 1: wise girl to the family and a wise counselor, and
Speaker 1: that really was a more important function almost someone she
Speaker 1: did for Alexa Because people have this idea that Rasputin
Speaker 1: was in and out the back door and up the
Speaker 1: stairs and into the Alexander Palace every five minutes, into
Speaker 1: you know ingratiating himself and muttering prayers over Alexey. And
Speaker 1: that's not the case. He only came when he was invited.
Speaker 1: He didn't make that many visits to the Romanos at
Speaker 1: the Alexander Palace, and he often went long period not
Speaker 1: seeing the family or communicated by telephone with them or
Speaker 1: by letter or telegram. Um. But what he did do
Speaker 1: and his really crucial function as far as alex A
Speaker 1: was concerned. When he was suffering episodes of bleeding and
Speaker 1: swelling of the joints. Was he had this incredible auto
Speaker 1: suggestive power, an ability to calm. And one of the
Speaker 1: most important things when a child or a patient, or
Speaker 1: the mother of the child is stressed and anxious, as
Speaker 1: Alexandra was, when Alexey had this terrible attacks of leading,
Speaker 1: was to calm, calm her, and through calming her, that
Speaker 1: was transmitted to the child. And it can't alex say,
Speaker 1: and I think this is one of the key points
Speaker 1: in understanding how what he did worked. I can't explain it.
Speaker 1: He had some kind of also suggestive powers. The best
Speaker 1: equivalent I can give, and and I came to it
Speaker 1: a while back. It's like a horse whisperer, only I
Speaker 1: call him a people whisperer. What rast Booting could do
Speaker 1: was calm and reassure a stressed person, a sick person.
Speaker 1: And in fact, it's very interesting because peasants in Russia
Speaker 1: Light Russia Light rasp Boutin, who had a pleasant background
Speaker 1: in Siberia, had a technique with their animals. If the
Speaker 1: animals hurt themselves and were bleeding, or were anxious or stressed,
Speaker 1: they would they had a talking cure like a horse
Speaker 1: whisperer with animals, and it was called zagavarivat kraff to
Speaker 1: talk to the blood, to calm the blood, to stop
Speaker 1: the bleeding. So this was a technique not unique to
Speaker 1: us Spoutin, but it was Some think that he had
Speaker 1: learned by instincts. His father had been a horse trader,
Speaker 1: and he'd learned it in Siberia as a young young man.
Speaker 1: So I think he had that kind of order, suggestive gift.
Speaker 1: But he also I think the most important piece of
Speaker 1: advice he gave the Romanos was that rust when Alex
Speaker 1: he was in pain, the last thing they should administer
Speaker 1: it to him was aspirin, which had come into use
Speaker 1: as a pain killer, because aspirin, of course thins the blood,
Speaker 1: and the last thing you want to give to him
Speaker 1: of feeling hacks blood thinners. So and he also the
Speaker 1: other advice he always gave them was don't let the
Speaker 1: doctors fuss around him and interfere with him too much.
Speaker 1: And I think this sort of standing back and hands
Speaker 1: off advice seemed to seem to work. It seemed to work.
Speaker 1: Mhm um at what. At one point in your book
Speaker 1: on the Romano Sisters, you describe the student as an opportunist.
Speaker 1: Would you say a little more about what you mean there? Well,
Speaker 1: I I don't mean that really about the Romanos. I
Speaker 1: mean that in that when he first arrived at Petersburg
Speaker 1: and people discovered this wise guru, he became very fashionable,
Speaker 1: and all these society ladies, ladies flock around him, and
Speaker 1: their photographs of him sitting surrounded by admiring women, and
Speaker 1: they brought him gifts, and they gave him beautiful clothes,
Speaker 1: and they fared him and flattered him. And I think
Speaker 1: in that sense he was an opportunist. You know, if
Speaker 1: somebody wanted to give him money or take him out
Speaker 1: for a good dinner, he was more than happy to oblige. Um.
Speaker 1: In terms of the Romanos, he actually complained at one
Speaker 1: point that he only got to go to the palace
Speaker 1: and see them when they ordained that he should go,
Speaker 1: which confirms really what I said earlier about him not
Speaker 1: having the freedom to walk in and out by the
Speaker 1: back door. So he did. He did exploit the fascination
Speaker 1: there was for him initially in Saint Petersburg, and and
Speaker 1: was wined and dined, and you know, very well looked after,
Speaker 1: and entertained and lived well on it for a while.
Speaker 1: You mentioned that Alexey and and the stage that maybe
Speaker 1: they giggled that rescue. What did Olga or Tatiana Maria?
Speaker 1: What did the other daughters think of him? And they
Speaker 1: took him very h Olga in particular, talk took him
Speaker 1: very seriously and even wrote him a note asking his
Speaker 1: advice when she fell in love and and wanted to
Speaker 1: know what to do. So the girls took him more.
Speaker 1: The older two probably took him more seriously than the
Speaker 1: younger two. But Anna state it would make fun of
Speaker 1: everyone and laugh behind people's backs. That was just her
Speaker 1: kind of personality. But they certainly believed in him as
Speaker 1: a friend and couldn't bear all the horrible things that
Speaker 1: were said about him, And of course they were distraught
Speaker 1: like their mother when he was murdered. Mhm mhm. How
Speaker 1: how damaging to Alexandra were the salacious rumors about her
Speaker 1: relationship with him that eventually would reach the press and
Speaker 1: the cord and the public. Well, they were appalling, and
Speaker 1: they were absolutely crucially damaging, because not only within Russia
Speaker 1: was she parried, paraded and demonized and featured in ugly
Speaker 1: sexual cartoons with rasputing some of them quite pornographic. In fact,
Speaker 1: these were in circulation in Russia, but of course this
Speaker 1: spread across the Western press in Britain and America. The
Speaker 1: gossip was appalling, you know, the talk that they were
Speaker 1: having a sexual relationship was utterly absurd, and when people
Speaker 1: ask me about it, I'll say, I'm just not going
Speaker 1: there because it's so ridiculous. But the trouble is all
Speaker 1: that scandal and gossip, and it was absolutely fetid, based
Speaker 1: on the third fourth hand gossip and rumor and innuendo.
Speaker 1: There was not a grain of truth in any of it,
Speaker 1: but of course that kind of mud, if there's enough
Speaker 1: of it, sticks in the end. And it meant that
Speaker 1: what happened during the war years when Russia was an
Speaker 1: ally of Britain and France against Germany, Alexander, because she
Speaker 1: was German, was accused of being a German spy, and
Speaker 1: the the ramification of that was that she and Rasputin
Speaker 1: were both German spies and in the pay of Germany
Speaker 1: and potting to bring down Russian The most hideous calumny
Speaker 1: and really libeless things were said about. They were very cruel,
Speaker 1: they were hideous, actually, and it tainted it tainted the
Speaker 1: attitude of many of the royal houses of Europe when
Speaker 1: it came to trying to get them out. I think
Speaker 1: that was one of the problems, was that kind of
Speaker 1: the royals of Europe really liked Alexandra for various reasons,
Speaker 1: but unfortunately some of them had brought into all that
Speaker 1: appalling gossip. Mhm, that's powerfully powerfully said, thank you. Um
Speaker 1: you describe Alexay's injury in early October nineteen twelve. Uh, Well,
Speaker 1: alexa over the years would go through long here is
Speaker 1: a sort of remission where he wouldn't have a bad
Speaker 1: episode of bleeding, and they would all hold their breath
Speaker 1: and think, Oh, it's wonderful, he's doing really well. And
Speaker 1: it's really tragic because he had had about episode in
Speaker 1: nineteen o seven, But between nineteen o seven and nineteen
Speaker 1: twelve he'd been doing quite well and hadn't had any
Speaker 1: really really bad attacks. But then in nineteen twelve, in
Speaker 1: the autumn of nineve the Romanos went off to one
Speaker 1: of on a trip to what was Poland what is
Speaker 1: Poland now but was then part of the Russian Empire,
Speaker 1: the big forest near Yellowish and they went to one
Speaker 1: of their big imperial hunting lodges there, and it was
Speaker 1: while they were staying there that alex say Alexey was
Speaker 1: always very reluctant to do as he was told, and
Speaker 1: he constantly be told by his minders, and he had
Speaker 1: a couple of minders who were with him all the
Speaker 1: time not to jump and leap around, and he risked
Speaker 1: banging himself, which he did one day getting into a boat.
Speaker 1: He jumped into a boat and bashed his hip and
Speaker 1: it started bleeding in the joints and at the top
Speaker 1: of his spy. And he stabilized within a week or
Speaker 1: so and seemed to be better, and the family moved
Speaker 1: on to their other hunting lodge, as smaller, much more
Speaker 1: modest one at spa In again in Poland, in the
Speaker 1: Polish forest, and he seemed again to be on the
Speaker 1: road to recovery then, but he was really getting very
Speaker 1: fed up with being told by his mother. Dayned out, no,
Speaker 1: you can't do this, You can't go off on the bicycle,
Speaker 1: he can't ride a pony, you can't go off with
Speaker 1: the other children. You just had this terrible episode. You've
Speaker 1: got to get well. And he was constantly complaining and
Speaker 1: fed up with not being able to do anything, so
Speaker 1: in the end Alexander took him out for a coach ride. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: the road was very bumpy and rocky, and within a
Speaker 1: short distance he started screaming in pain because it triggered
Speaker 1: a really bad bleed, a hematoma where he had just
Speaker 1: been recovering from an injury where he banged himself on
Speaker 1: the all lock of the boat. So the next thing
Speaker 1: they know, he is temperature is a rocketing, the bleeding
Speaker 1: into the joint is absolutely uncontrollable. This is now October,
Speaker 1: ve m. The doctors can't do anything. I mean, all
Speaker 1: they could do when he had these hemophilia leads was
Speaker 1: apply ice and pray basically, and there wasn't a lot
Speaker 1: else they could do. And so he's lying there screaming
Speaker 1: in agony. But actually day and night Alexander was sitting
Speaker 1: by his bed and it reached a crisis point on
Speaker 1: the I think it was about the tenth of about
Speaker 1: the tenth of October, and they thought he was going
Speaker 1: to die. They really thought, you know, his temperature was
Speaker 1: up at to nearly forty degrees. I think actually the
Speaker 1: priest came and read the last rites, and they even
Speaker 1: advised the star to prepare an announcement to go into
Speaker 1: the press that evening tenth October, to forewarn, to set
Speaker 1: the scene that the Sario was about to die. And
Speaker 1: at that point, well, and not immediately actually surprisingly I
Speaker 1: thought it was Immagy, but actually a couple of days
Speaker 1: later um in fact, as the temperature was dropping and
Speaker 1: he was beginning to get over the crisis, Alexandra sent
Speaker 1: a telegram to ask Bootin, who was in Siberia a
Speaker 1: long long way away, asking his advice, and he didn't
Speaker 1: get it till around the twelve or thirteen of October
Speaker 1: sent a message back, effectively saying, don't worry, all will
Speaker 1: be well, the little one will not die. Don't let
Speaker 1: the doctors fuss around him too much. And when she
Speaker 1: got that message, of course, she calmed down and became
Speaker 1: the stress sort of vanished from her face. She came
Speaker 1: down to dinner the first time in about two weeks,
Speaker 1: and alex recovered. But as you can see from that,
Speaker 1: he rasped booting was nowhere near. All he did was
Speaker 1: send a telegram, and in fact, the telegram saying that
Speaker 1: Alexey will recovering it all would be okay, didn't In
Speaker 1: fact right till he passed the crisis anyway, So that
Speaker 1: that that whole a miraculous curing of Alexey by us
Speaker 1: Boutin has been ridiculously overhyped um because he was nowhere
Speaker 1: near and he just sent a message. M But we
Speaker 1: can imagine as you just described the effect that the
Speaker 1: relief for Alexandra would have on the household. Absolutely, the
Speaker 1: relief on her, of course, transmitted itself first to the child,
Speaker 1: but to everyone in the household, and so they all
Speaker 1: started believing. Well, ras Boutin says he's going to recover,
Speaker 1: so we'll believe it. And maybe there's a sort of
Speaker 1: power of positivity that was going on. But alex I
Speaker 1: did recover. Let's jump forward in time a little bit. Um.
Speaker 1: Of course, when the war begins, Nicholas is not immediately
Speaker 1: in command, but after some major losses front being pushed back, uh,
Speaker 1: Nicholas does assume command of the army and he leaves
Speaker 1: the family. It goes to Stafka, the headquarters, the army headquarters,
Speaker 1: and Alexandra and Olga and Tatiana they undertake work at
Speaker 1: home as sisters of mercy. Would you describe their efforts
Speaker 1: what it meant to them to be a sister of mercy,
Speaker 1: a nurse. But but but what was the significance of
Speaker 1: that to them? And well, you know kind of how
Speaker 1: the war was affecting the family through those experiences. Well
Speaker 1: that's a bit of a big question, but let me
Speaker 1: try and simplify it down. The The interesting thing about
Speaker 1: the war is was it gave Alexandra an incredible sense
Speaker 1: of purpose and it also tapped into the huge strong
Speaker 1: humanitarian and nursing instincts that she had had passed down
Speaker 1: by her mother, Princess Alice, who had done a lot
Speaker 1: of humanitarian war work during the Franco Prussian War and
Speaker 1: you know in Germany, so and it was a family
Speaker 1: tradition and from her and of course Princess Alice died
Speaker 1: after nursing her children through dip theory and when she
Speaker 1: contracted it herself. So that nursing instinct was very strong
Speaker 1: in Alexandra, and it gave her a sense of purpose
Speaker 1: where she stopped thinking about herself or alex A twenty
Speaker 1: four seven, she immediately threw herself despite a lot of
Speaker 1: physical problems by then the scietic was awful, she threw
Speaker 1: herself into war work. She organized hospital trains. She organized
Speaker 1: ladies at the court to to set up collecting dressings
Speaker 1: and you know, bringing to bringing together sewing garments so
Speaker 1: the wounded. She set up various hospitals in St. Petersburg, well,
Speaker 1: it was in Petrograd in the war, in the capital
Speaker 1: city and out at Sasco see a lot. And one
Speaker 1: of the major things she did which gave her girls
Speaker 1: something to do as well, all pulling together for the
Speaker 1: war effort, was that she set up a hospital little
Speaker 1: at Cis got a lot of the girls was the
Speaker 1: responsibility of the two elder girls. Olga Tatiana helped her
Speaker 1: at that hospital, and then a smaller one was set
Speaker 1: up nearer to the palace, where Maria and Anastasia did
Speaker 1: sort of hospital visiting. Even with Alexey he went along
Speaker 1: with them. And now Alga and Tatiana, because they were
Speaker 1: old enough with their mother, did a crash course, a
Speaker 1: Red Cross nurse course, and and began working properly, you know,
Speaker 1: looking after the wounded, bandaging wounds, and very quickly Tatiana
Speaker 1: proved incredibly talented and capable and was helping assisting in
Speaker 1: operations and and really dealing with some pretty grim war
Speaker 1: wounds and stuff. Alga, however, emotionally found it very hard
Speaker 1: dealing with the trauma of the wounded, and was already
Speaker 1: a bit suffering from depression and withdrawal, since you know,
Speaker 1: with the father being absent and various other things. I
Speaker 1: think she was just very, very sensitive and met a
Speaker 1: bit of a melancholic and she became rather withdrawn, couldn't
Speaker 1: cope with the hospital work, and had to take more
Speaker 1: of a back seat. But Jana was brilliant. She was
Speaker 1: a wonderful nurse. I think had things being different, she
Speaker 1: could have gone on and being a doctor, if not
Speaker 1: a surgeon, if she had not been a royal grand duchess.
Speaker 1: Of course, but the younger children too did their bit.
Speaker 1: They visited the war wounded, they wrote letters home to
Speaker 1: their families for them, They played games of cards and
Speaker 1: board games with them, They talked to them, and when
Speaker 1: some of them died, they visited their grays and took
Speaker 1: flowers um and really the whole female side of the
Speaker 1: family threw themselves into doing something useful during the war,
Speaker 1: and they were very admirable in their efforts. So, as
Speaker 1: you say, could have maybe been a doctor a surgeon
Speaker 1: if she absolutely she had a natural gift for nursing. Yes,
Speaker 1: what was that kind of This isn't in my questions.
Speaker 1: This is just a question that comes to mind. Was
Speaker 1: that kind of assuming a profession that way? Was it
Speaker 1: completely barred too? To the grand duchesses, to the as
Speaker 1: royal grand duchesses, they couldn't have done it, But they
Speaker 1: weren't the only Grand duchess is to do war work.
Speaker 1: Nicholas's sister Oiger also did a lot of exemplary war work,
Speaker 1: worked on the hospital trains. Other Grand duchesses across the
Speaker 1: Roman of family and relatives did did their bit. They
Speaker 1: all really involved themselves. Alexandra did far more during the
Speaker 1: war than people are aware of, mainly because it's not
Speaker 1: really being written about. A friend of mine in America
Speaker 1: has been doing a study of Alexander's war work for
Speaker 1: some time, and I know he wants to hopefully publish
Speaker 1: all his research. But she did a huge amount visiting hospitals,
Speaker 1: visiting hospital trains. She took the children along with her.
Speaker 1: They did their bit for the war Throughout the war.
Speaker 1: The girls all dressed incredibly modestly. From day one. Alexandra said, right,
Speaker 1: that's it. No new clothes, no fancy outfits. We will
Speaker 1: be dressing modestly and enduring, you know, as such privations
Speaker 1: as Romanos in Jue, I mean not many, but you know, nevertheless,
Speaker 1: then you see the photographs of them in the war,
Speaker 1: you never see them dressed up in fancy clothes clothes.
Speaker 1: You see them in cardigans and wooly hats and plain blouses,
Speaker 1: just very modestly. And where they had hand been down,
Speaker 1: they patched their clothes, you know, they did not They
Speaker 1: did their bit for the war effort, they really did.
Speaker 1: There were no there were no Faberge nursing jewels. No, well,
Speaker 1: there were there were one or two. Even the Faberge
Speaker 1: eggs stopped during the war is because Nicholas and Alexandra
Speaker 1: considered it inappropriate. But that I think they did have
Speaker 1: won me with the Red Cross on a Red Cross
Speaker 1: wartime faberg egg. But as such all the Blings stopped,
Speaker 1: all the glamor none of that. They they actually really
Speaker 1: did to throw their weight behind their nursing efforts. Mhmm.
Speaker 1: Part of the mythologizing around especially Alexandra and Respuing, is
Speaker 1: that during the war, Alexandra assumed more administrative control of
Speaker 1: the state because Nicholas was off at stavka Um. And
Speaker 1: in your own writing, the way that you put it
Speaker 1: is that she rapidly began over reaching herself by directly
Speaker 1: influencing the sacking and appointment of key ministers. Can you
Speaker 1: say a little bit more about about that part of
Speaker 1: what she was doing during the war, Well, Nicholas was
Speaker 1: a long way away at Army h Q, and she
Speaker 1: was always very opinionated about who, about what kind of
Speaker 1: ministers Nicholas should appoint. Basically, throughout Nicholas's reign, the only
Speaker 1: good ministers either got murdered or gave up hommies. Stolypien
Speaker 1: was a case in point, he was assassinated. Generally, a
Speaker 1: lot of toady's and yesmen were appointed during Nicholas's reign
Speaker 1: who were often incompetent and weaken ineffectual. But Alexandra was
Speaker 1: the one who wanted to have a retinue of yes
Speaker 1: men who did as she felt, you know, things should
Speaker 1: be done. And she constantly haround Nicholas in her long
Speaker 1: lecturing letters to him at the at the front, pressing
Speaker 1: him into sacking this minister. I don't like that minister,
Speaker 1: and you know you should get rid of so and so.
Speaker 1: And it was normally because they wouldn't tear the line,
Speaker 1: and you know, they tried to bring in a some
Speaker 1: change or do something inventive or you know, use their
Speaker 1: use their common sense in ways that she didn't like.
Speaker 1: I need to act. If anyone tried to act remotely inventively,
Speaker 1: she didn't like it. So basically, in about sixteen months
Speaker 1: of the war that Nicholas was away, four prime ministers
Speaker 1: came and went, five Ministers of the Interior and three
Speaker 1: ministers of war, mainly to do with Alexandra saying sack him.
Speaker 1: I don't like him, appoint someone else. Also, of course,
Speaker 1: though I'm not convinced the extent to which Rasputin had influence,
Speaker 1: but he too would put his pennyworth in and say
Speaker 1: you should get rid of so and so. And this
Speaker 1: is where a lot of the rumor and gossip came about,
Speaker 1: saying that they you know, they were running the show
Speaker 1: and making bad decisions in Nicholas's absence. But ultimately the
Speaker 1: marks stopped with him. He shouldn't have allowed her to
Speaker 1: manipulate him into making bad decisions about government ministers, which
Speaker 1: unfortunately he did. But then he was doing it from
Speaker 1: a distance, and people weren't telling them him the truth
Speaker 1: about what the situation was like in Petrograd. If they
Speaker 1: if they had, if they told him how precipitous everything
Speaker 1: was in February, after the February Revolution in nineteen seventeen,
Speaker 1: he would have come straight back and taken control, and
Speaker 1: the second October Revolution might never have happened. M Can
Speaker 1: you describe, maybe maybe in brief, I don't know, whatever
Speaker 1: extent you'd like, the events that did eventually lead to
Speaker 1: Nicholas's abdication. Nicholas, I feel, was duped into abdicating various
Speaker 1: hundreds of miles away from home, when two members of
Speaker 1: the government, the Duma, came out by train and persuaded
Speaker 1: him that that revolution have broken in Petrograd. There was
Speaker 1: disarray in the army, people the conscript army, lots of
Speaker 1: them were deserting at the front. Morale was low, and
Speaker 1: it was you know, there was so much disaffection with
Speaker 1: the czar and the old imperial regime that the best
Speaker 1: thing he could do save Russia and the country and
Speaker 1: the war effort was to give up the job. I abdicate,
Speaker 1: and because Nicolas loved his country, so passionately he allowed
Speaker 1: himself to be persuaded. I think that his application would
Speaker 1: save Russia, and it would also save the war effort,
Speaker 1: because obviously with the revolution everyone was worried that Russia
Speaker 1: was now going to pull out of the war effort
Speaker 1: as well on the Eastern Front. So Nicolas abdicated, thinking
Speaker 1: that he by his him removing himself as the hated tsar,
Speaker 1: the situation could be saved. Maybe there, I mean, the
Speaker 1: original hope I think was amongst the provisional government in
Speaker 1: back into in Petrograd word that there could poss to
Speaker 1: be a regency for alex A two eventually becomes. But
Speaker 1: of course what Nicholas did when he abdicated was knowing
Speaker 1: full well his child was a hemophiliac whose life expectancy
Speaker 1: was pretty poor. He abdicated on behalf of his son
Speaker 1: as well, because if he had just abdicated for himself,
Speaker 1: he and Alexandra would have been obliged to go into exile,
Speaker 1: leaving Alexey under a regency in Russia. And there is
Speaker 1: no way on God's Earth they would want to be
Speaker 1: separated from him, from their boy, that they wouldn't do that.
Speaker 1: So he abdicated on behalf of alex Say also because
Speaker 1: he'd had private talks with the doctors and they had
Speaker 1: effectively told him that Alexey would be lucky to see
Speaker 1: the age of sixteen. So Nicholas later realized, I think
Speaker 1: in captivity in the last months of his life, that
Speaker 1: he had been tripped into mulcating that it had not
Speaker 1: achieved anything. The Bolshowiks had taken over Russia pulled out
Speaker 1: of the war with Germany in March, and things were
Speaker 1: even worse from Russia for Russia. He hadn't saved Russia
Speaker 1: by abdicating uh And of course the sellout to the
Speaker 1: Germans by the Bolsheviks broke his heart. So the whole
Speaker 1: thing was really tragic when you think about it. So,
Speaker 1: you know, at the beginning of our conversation, you you
Speaker 1: talked a little bit about how you got started writing
Speaker 1: about the Romanovs, and you wrote a detailed account of
Speaker 1: their last days. It's rich with detail and an emotion. Um.
Speaker 1: It includes the horrible events of their death. Um. Would
Speaker 1: you describe their outlook, Nicholas, Alexandra, maybe the girls during
Speaker 1: the time that they were held captive. What do we
Speaker 1: know about what they were thinking the time. The problem
Speaker 1: with knowing what their ownolds were thinking at the very
Speaker 1: end when they're in the Kashenberg in the Party of
Speaker 1: House is that the Bolsheviks stopped them receiving and sending letters. Um,
Speaker 1: So we only know up to a certain point, I
Speaker 1: think in June, and after that, really we don't know
Speaker 1: what was going on in their heads. We have to
Speaker 1: kind of piecings together from what we know from eyewitnesses
Speaker 1: and other people who left accounts. But it's pretty clear
Speaker 1: that to me, in those final weeks of their captivity, Firstly,
Speaker 1: as I've already said, Alexandra just retreated more and more
Speaker 1: into religiosity. Every day the girls, one or other girl
Speaker 1: would have when that they had their brief exercise periods
Speaker 1: morning and afternoon, one of the girls always had to
Speaker 1: stay with mother indoors. She rarely went outside because she
Speaker 1: was so sickly or indisposed. Read the Gospels to her,
Speaker 1: or read the Bible or some pious work. The last
Speaker 1: few letters she wrote were very laden with religious references
Speaker 1: and in a very profound sense I think of reconciliation, acceptance, fatalism.
Speaker 1: Both she and Nicholas were deeply, deeply fatalistic, and you
Speaker 1: get the same thing with Nicholas's last few letters and
Speaker 1: then his sense of utter despair. The last journal entry
Speaker 1: he wrote was about he was the eleventh of July,
Speaker 1: about six days before they were murdered, where he just
Speaker 1: you could sense him giving up. He said, we've had
Speaker 1: absolutely known news from outside. The sense of despair because
Speaker 1: they didn't know what was going on in Russia, how
Speaker 1: their relatives were, what was happening in the rest of
Speaker 1: the world. The sense of abandonment I think was pretty
Speaker 1: profound in Nicholas, and I think he was obvious slee
Speaker 1: deeply religiously resigned to his fate. As well. The girls,
Speaker 1: it's difficult to gauge because they were young, and perhaps
Speaker 1: the younger too. I don't think we're totally aware. Anastasia
Speaker 1: and Maria also they were a bit too friendly with
Speaker 1: the guards and got into trouble for for chatting to
Speaker 1: the guards. But they were bored. They were teenagers locked
Speaker 1: up for hours and hours and hours every day, you know,
Speaker 1: with a sick menopause and mother are very sick brother um,
Speaker 1: so inevitably they're going to get bored and talked to
Speaker 1: the guards. Olga was very very much in retreat by
Speaker 1: the end, very depressive, very depressed, and very thin sick.
Speaker 1: I think because she, of all the girls, sensed that
Speaker 1: this was the end. She had also become very ain't,
Speaker 1: very almost traumatized by the hatred for her parents, particularly
Speaker 1: her father. She was deeply upset that the people had
Speaker 1: turned against her father, a man she adored and loved
Speaker 1: and who had been a very wonderful hands on parents.
Speaker 1: So Tatiana, well, Tatiana carried on putting on a brave
Speaker 1: face and getting things done and not keeping an eye
Speaker 1: on their mother. So we can only guess really what
Speaker 1: was going on in their minds in those last few days.
Speaker 1: But I think certainly Nicholas would have expected that his
Speaker 1: his head would be on the block eventually, because it
Speaker 1: had been said to him that, you know, he was
Speaker 1: going to be taken back to Moscow and put on trial,
Speaker 1: and the inevitable result of that would have been an execution.
Speaker 1: H And of course there they are killed, and you
Speaker 1: know horible manner that you described in your in your book.
Speaker 1: But there were aspects of their death that led to
Speaker 1: an array of enduring this especially the hopeful legends about
Speaker 1: the survival of Anastasia. M Hum, When how did you
Speaker 1: go about sifting truth from rumor and stories when you
Speaker 1: were doing that research? UM not difficult for me because
Speaker 1: I think it's such a nonsense, all these claims of
Speaker 1: miraculous survival and always has been. And once the Soviet
Speaker 1: Union collapsed and some of the documentary evidence relating to
Speaker 1: the murders came out of the archives, it's it's absolutely
Speaker 1: apparent to me from everything that I was able to
Speaker 1: glean and read and check out, that there is no
Speaker 1: way anyone in that family could have escaped the blood
Speaker 1: bath that was that took place on the night to
Speaker 1: the sixteenth, seventeenth July. UM. It's wishful thinking. I think
Speaker 1: part of it is the idea that it's so horrendous
Speaker 1: having to come to terms with the fact that five
Speaker 1: innocent children were murdered in such a brutal and savage way,
Speaker 1: and because of that, people want to hope somehow that
Speaker 1: someone got away, that someone survived. And the real problem
Speaker 1: with these endless Anastasia rumors and all the numerous, numberless
Speaker 1: claimants there have been several Anastasias, in fact, they've been
Speaker 1: claimants to for every member of the family. The reason
Speaker 1: primarily that these rumors carried on was because the Bolsheviks,
Speaker 1: initially for many many years, only acknowledge that they killed
Speaker 1: the czar, and then people pretty much accepted that Alex
Speaker 1: would have been killed as the heir to the throne.
Speaker 1: So the two males were killed. But for many many
Speaker 1: years the Bolsheviks happily lead allowed people in the West
Speaker 1: to to to to disseminate and circulate these stories that
Speaker 1: maybe someone got away, maybe the woman who turned up
Speaker 1: in Berlin in trying to drown herself in the canal
Speaker 1: really was Anastasia. And it's because the Bolsheviks didn't categorically
Speaker 1: deny that they had murdered the children children that this
Speaker 1: this rumor was able to carry on for so long,
Speaker 1: and because there were so many surprising number of aristocrats,
Speaker 1: not really many rominals, but certainly a few aristocrats in
Speaker 1: Europe in the twenties and thirties who are actually ready
Speaker 1: to believe this woman. Um but I even now, I
Speaker 1: mean not now, it's kind of drifted off, but right
Speaker 1: up until the anniversary in two thousand eight, team, even
Speaker 1: though I still occasionally got emails from people saying, well,
Speaker 1: of course, you know, Anastasia got away, or even the
Speaker 1: whole family got away, and they all went to live
Speaker 1: in different parts of Europe and lived happily ever after
Speaker 1: into their old age. But that they're having, having studied
Speaker 1: all the evidence, there's no way anyone could have escaped
Speaker 1: that massacre mhm. And also, so the other thing you
Speaker 1: have to recall, it's not only getting out of the
Speaker 1: house and escaping being murdered, but somehow getting from Siberia
Speaker 1: in the middle of a Russian Civil war which was
Speaker 1: then raging all the way from Siberia out to Western
Speaker 1: Europe through Bolshevik controlled territory. And it's just it's just
Speaker 1: it's just not credible, just not credible. Mhm. Thank you.
Speaker 1: So kind of two sew it all up with two
Speaker 1: big picture questions, kind of thinking about what do we
Speaker 1: hope that listeners will take away. Do you think that
Speaker 1: the fall of Imperial Russia was inevitable in some way
Speaker 1: beyond the personal act pardon, beyond the personal actions and
Speaker 1: limitations of the Romanos, of of Nicholas, of Alexandra and
Speaker 1: the way that they governed. That's the tricky one. Really,
Speaker 1: I'm not totally convinced that it was inevitable. If I
Speaker 1: think the big crucial turning point could have been five
Speaker 1: after you know, the fiasco the Russo Japanese wore terrible
Speaker 1: disaster for Rosia politically after that, and then the bloody
Speaker 1: Sunday protest march where innocent working workers marched without weapons
Speaker 1: or anything on asking for reform and for better working
Speaker 1: conditions when they were attacked and and by Cossack troops.
Speaker 1: When that happened, that turning point, that was the point
Speaker 1: where Nicholas should have introduced major political concessions, if it
Speaker 1: introduced decent, democratic, constitutional government, if he'd allowed the Duma,
Speaker 1: the State Duma, to flourish instead of constantly censoring it
Speaker 1: and shutting it down, then I don't see why Russia
Speaker 1: could not have evolved into the kind of constitutional monarchy
Speaker 1: that was made such a success by King Edward the
Speaker 1: seventh in the years leading up to World War One,
Speaker 1: because Russia was beginning to grow economically, beginning to catch
Speaker 1: up with Western Europe in those terms, and it could
Speaker 1: have flourished differently under a much more benign and democratic
Speaker 1: constitution and our monarch, by the fact is, Nicholas was
Speaker 1: terrified of change, who was terrified of letting go of
Speaker 1: the tight controls of Sarist autocracy, so it could have
Speaker 1: been different. But then even up to nineteen seventeen, when
Speaker 1: the revolution broke in February, if Nicholas had not been
Speaker 1: away at Army HQ, if he'd been in Petrograd, he
Speaker 1: would have clamped down on the revolutionaries much more firmly
Speaker 1: and might have diffused revolution then, because the Bolsheviks effectively
Speaker 1: in October just walked in because not because they were strong,
Speaker 1: but because the provisional government was so weak and so disorganized.
Speaker 1: So there are several moments at which revolution wasn't necessarily inevitable.
Speaker 1: Mhm mhm. Really um, the final question, I mean, you've
Speaker 1: already kind of addressed in what you said. It's, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of what extent where Nicholas or Alexandra a resputing
Speaker 1: directly responsible for the end of the arrest rule. But
Speaker 1: I feel like you've answered that with your last but
Speaker 1: your last answer, do you have anything else you would
Speaker 1: want to say on that point? Or well? That the
Speaker 1: real folly? I think, I think actually, I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't like to pin things onto one thing and make
Speaker 1: a dramatic statement, but I do feel, of course the
Speaker 1: thing that so much hinges on is if Alexey had
Speaker 1: not been born a hemophiliac um, they wouldn't have clutched
Speaker 1: at all these cracks and Charlatan's. And I'm not saying
Speaker 1: Raspision was Charlatan. I don't think he was. I think
Speaker 1: he had genuine faith healing pals or some kind. But
Speaker 1: if they had not attached themselves to us, booting to
Speaker 1: keep Alexey alive in their eyes, because things could have
Speaker 1: been different because alexa Um, because Rasping ought all that
Speaker 1: bad pressless scandal on the monarchy through his association with them.
Speaker 1: So I think the sheer fact of alex Say being
Speaker 1: born at him opheliac history could have been quite different
Speaker 1: if he'd been born a normal, healthy child, but alternative.
Speaker 1: And you could also say if Alexandra hadn't been a German,
Speaker 1: because there was so much hostility towards her, if Nicholas
Speaker 1: had married a Russian wife, things could maybe have been different.
Speaker 1: I don't know. That's it for this week's episode of Unobscured.
Speaker 1: Stick around after this short sponsor break. One last note
Speaker 1: before we wrap things up here, and Unobscured, it has
Speaker 1: been a joy to bring you these deep dives over
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Speaker 1: Slash Presents. Unobscured was created by me Aaron Manky and
Speaker 1: produced by Matt Frederick, Alex Williams, and Josh Thane in
Speaker 1: partnership with I Heart Radio, with research by Sam Alberty,
Speaker 1: writing by Carl Nellis, and original music by Chad Lawson.
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