Most stuff is taken from Wikipedia among other websites. The part on Alexei is from "The Romanovs (Simon Sebag Montefiore)".
Moscow. July 17, 1918.
Doroteya Filippovna Lavrova.
Ivan the Terrible belonged to the Rurik dynasty. He was the first Russian monarch to call himself Tsar, establishing the Tsardom of Russia with Moscow at its center.
Ivan was intelligent and capable, but as his name suggests, prone to anger and cruelty. His dark side became more noticeable after the death of his first wife, Anastasia Romanova, who was capable to an extent of controlling her husband's impulsive and violent behavior.
Romanov means "son of Roman". "Roman" is a Russian-given name that comes from "Romanus", a name original to the times of the Roman Empire.
Anastasia was the daughter of a boyar, a Russian noble. Ivan met her in the traditional bride show, which was a method of choosing a bride from eligible members of the nobility by parading the candidates in front of the Tsar. They usually chose the most beautiful.
When Anastasia died, Ivan ordered to have a great number of boyar nobles tortured and murdered because he suspected them of having poisoned her.
I have seen she was indeed poisoned, but many of the people Ivan ordered to be tortured were innocent.
Ivan ruled his lands with an iron fist. One cruel example of this is what happened to the northern city of Novgorod. The once independent city was now part of the Tsar's domain. For both real and imagined acts of treachery, Ivan ordered his soldiers to punish the entire population, and thus, for over a month, the soldiers murdered, raped, tortured, and robbed the inhabitants without worry over their innocence, sex or youth.
By assaulting his pregnant daughter-in-law, Ivan the Terrible caused the death of his unborn grandchild.
As if more proof of the dark nature of the Tsar's character were needed, Ivan also killed his son and heir in a fit of rage, something that would in time have grave consequences for the future of the young nation.
When Ivan died in 1584, his son Feodor I took the throne, but he did not like ruling and spent most of his time praying. Feodor died with no male heirs, and his younger brother, Dmitri, had died years earlier at the tender age of eight from a seizure that had caught him while he was playing with a knife.
Many people later claimed Dmitri had been murdered, something I know to be untrue.
With the deaths of Feodor and Dmitri came the Time of Troubles, a period of anarchy, war, foreign incursions, and impostors who claimed to be the deceased Dmitri.
For the Time of Troubles to end, it was necessary to elect a new ruler. A parliament made up of members of the nobility, clergy, merchants, and townsmen known as the Zemsky Sobor chose Michael Feodorovich Romanov.
Michael was the grandson of Anastasia's brother, something that made him a good candidate. He was a former prisoner and fugitive in the Ipatiev Monastery, along with his mother, until his life changed completely. The day came when he was convinced to accept the throne and leave for Moscow.
Michael was not a fairytale prince but a normal sixteen-year-old who just happened to be related to the wife of Ivan the Terrible. A young man with a limp and a tic in the eye who barely knew how to read and write, chosen by fate. That was Michael, and he knew this better than anyone.
He also knew that what he was being asked to do was extremely dangerous, that people were willing to kill him for even trying, and so, in tears, the boy refused time and time again to take the throne until he was, or so could be said, blackmailed to do so. Russia would be lost without him, is what he was told, the bloodshed would never stop.
Michael had to accept, but that didn't stop him from complaining all the way to Moscow as he was met with the consequences of the war. Bloody corpses on the roads, stolen jewels and ancient crowns, not enough money to pay for anything... and it would fall on him to fix it.
Oo
The first time my mind traveled back to the beginning of Michael's reign, I heard someone cry in my vision.
"Where are you taking me?" A small voice whispered. It belonged to a scared three-year-old who repeatedly asked this question to the people that were carrying him to the place where he would be publicly hanged.
His cries were silenced with a slap.
His little body was so light it took hours for him to die. The poor baby struggled so much to breathe. He struggled until his face finally became purple, and his body was left hanging for months so that everyone could see he was dead.
The boy was the son of one of the fake Dmitris, and his mother was Marina Mnizech, a Polish noblewoman and religious fanatic that hoped to convert Russia from Eastern Orthodoxy to Roman Catholicism. Marina married not one but two false Dmitris to achieve this, and she condoned the spread of terror and atrocities as well.
I think Marina was like me. I can see things that are happening or happened and occasionally things that will. I have had visions of Marina making the same facial expressions I am told by my husband I do whenever I see something.
My eyes open wide. My entire body freezes, and most often than not, doesn't react to anything that is happening either in my vision or in reality. My soul does, it feels everything.
Dust could get inside my eyes and I still wouldn't blink. It is only when a vision ends that my facial expressions can reveal the nature of what I have witnessed. A dramatic change, impossible to miss. That is what my husband says.
Marina was not a good woman, but she loved her child as fiercely as most mothers do, something I can deeply empathize with now that I am a mother as well. While imprisoned, after she heard the new Tsar had murdered her son, Marina cried for hours, but her sobs immediately ceased when she had a vision, or a series of visions, over the course of a day.
I could tell Marina was almost forcing herself to keep having visions. Her face looked strained by the effort.
I knew she was satisfied with what she had seen when her expression relaxed. She smiled sinisterly, looking way too content for a woman who had just lost her son.
Before she was secretly strangled, she screamed to her jailers, to her would-be killers, to anyone that would hear her:
"Be damned, house Romanov! In Ipatiev Monastery you started, in Ipatiev House you will finish! You began with the death of Tsesarevich, and you will end with Tsesarevich's death!"
She screamed this every hour of every day the week before her death. And hear her they did.
The new Tsar did not take her words seriously or even bother to have anyone write them down, but her curse became a legend among the common people.
To this day there are no documents that can confirm she even cursed the Romanovs, but I know what she said, and I know it sounds like a curse. She was called a witch, but I know she did not have the power to make anything happen. She had fragmented visions that showed her the future of the dynasty, and she tried to use them as a way to hurt the people that had murdered her child the only way she could: with the truth.
For me, the visions come at least once a week. I can see, hear, and sometimes feel or smell things. I can distinguish those divine messages from normal thoughts or daydreaming because I can't control what happens in them, and I know I am not hallucinating because I have had other people confirm the things that happen in my visions.
I can somewhat control what I would like to know about by focusing my mind on it, but even then, the visions are capricious.
Sometimes I get visions when I am not focusing on anything, about people I don't know nor am interested in knowing. Sometimes I am not able to get visions of the things I do want to see.
One thing I am sure of is that Marina did indeed have at least one vision of the future, which makes her exceptional even for people like me. Seeing visions of the future is way more uncommon than seeing the past or present.
I know this because I seldom have visions of the future, and when I do, they consist of random nonsense.
The little voice asking "Where are you taking me?" has haunted my sleep since the first time I had the vision. As if the dreams wanted to tell me that if I want to know about the dynasty, I need to be willing to see everything, the beauty and the horror. I am not allowed to walk away from the horror.
The Time of Troubles did not end with the innocent boy's death. He was just a scapegoat for all the suffering the people were going through, and even a third false Dmitri followed, but he was quickly apprehended and executed.
Allowing the execution of the three-year-old was almost part of Michael's duty. It was done for the sake of his people, for the sake of Russia and his new reign. He must have thought he had no choice.
Oo
After Michael I came his son Alexei I. It is said that Alexei was benevolent towards his subjects but ruthless towards criminals, something that sounds very nice if one does not take into account which people Alexei considered "criminals". During his reign, several individuals who had taken part in protests against him were tortured as he watched and made suggestions.
Most people who knew him agreed that Alexis was a gentle, warmhearted, and popular ruler. His main fault, some claim, was weakness, because throughout most of his reign, matters of state were handled by favorites, some of whom were not the brightest of people. This was, however, not entirely true.
Alexei was one of the best-prepared rulers. An intelligent, restless, and sharp-tongued reformer. He wrote poems, made sketches, and constantly wrote down his ideas about every possible subject. He sought foreign technology to improve his army and palaces, waged war against Poland, and acquired new territories. His rages were dangerous and he was quite capable of thumping a minister in the middle of a council meeting.
The Orthodox Church suffered a schism when the Russian liturgical books, as well as certain rituals, were revised because they had departed from their Greek models. The opponents of the reform were excommunicated, and are nowadays called the Old Believers. They were persecuted and burnt alive for a long time under Alexei. People who knew the Tsar most likely didn't consider those slandered as heretics as worthy of any compassion.
Alexei was as tender as he was cruel. When the steward of his monasteries got drunk, he wrote him a letter calling him a "God-hater, Christ-seller, singleminded little Satan, damned scoffing enemy, wicked sly evildoer". And yet, the man's punishment was simply to read this out in public and to atone for his sins. The punishments he allowed to be inflicted upon his political rivals and the poorest of his subjects were much harsher. The nobility strengthened its hold on the peasants, and disobedience was met with a knout, which was a heavy scourge-like multiple whip made of animal skin. Sometimes metal wire was used to make them.
After his top boyar Prince Nikita Odoevsky lost his son, Alexei comforted him: "Don't grieve too much. Of course you must grieve and shed tears, but not too much". He was one of the most pious Tsars as well. At Easter, he would pray standing for six hours, prostrating himself more than a thousand times. Alexei was cruel towards the boyars who didn't share this piety and used to throw them into the cold river with their heavy clothes on if they happened to be late for mass.
Alexei married twice, and his son Feodor III followed him when he died. Unfortunately, Feodor himself died without children.
Oo
Peter the Great was Alexei's youngest son from a second marriage. Peter's older half-brother, Ivan, was chronically ill and mentally challenged, so a council of Russian nobles chose ten-year-old Peter to be Tsar. This caused a dispute to break between the families of the first and second wives of Alexei I. Little Peter would witness the horrible murders of many of his family members, who were tortured in front of him during these clashes.
Sophia, one of Alexei's daughters from his first marriage, led a rebellion of the Streltsy elite military corps, which made it possible for Ivan V and Peter I to be declared joint rulers with Sophia as regent.
After Sophia's regency, Peter continued to rule with his older brother Ivan V until the latter died.
Peter the Great was exceptionally tall, 203 cm, as many of his descendants would also be. I think he was also handsome, but he made really weird facial movements intermittently. Not because of visions, they were possibly tics. As a boy, he didn't enjoy books, but he loved learning in other ways. He learned about carpentry, the latest advancements in sailing, and had many friends among foreigners and servants, with whom he formed an army of sorts as a child, one that developed as he grew older and taught him about battle strategies.
Through many successful wars, Peter expanded the Russian Empire and transformed it into a great European power. Just like Ivan the Terrible, he was absolutely ruthless at times. During his military campaigns, massacres of all the inhabitants of certain cities were not a rare occurrence.
Peter traveled through Europe extensively and led a cultural revolution that transformed Russia from a medieval society into a modern one by westernizing the political systems. He was quite fanatical when it came to modernizing and seemed to deeply disregard the traditions of his own people, going as far as instituting a beard tax to implement his preferred fashion, which I find kind of amusing. His changes were so abrupt, and his court so full of alcohol, indecency, violence, and even blasphemy, that some common folk believed their Tsar to be the anti-Christ.
One of Peter's reforms was the abandonment of the traditional titles of Tsar, Tsesarevich, Tsarevich, and Tsarina, among others. From then on, the Tsar was officially referred to as the Emperor. It didn't make much difference. Most common people continued to call the sovereigns "Tsars". Any male child of a Tsar is still commonly called "Tsarevich", and the Tsar's heir is still referred to as the "Tsesarevich".
Peter was the one who started building St. Petersburg as a window to Europe. This city would become the capital of Russia.
Legend says Peter chose the spot to build the city because of an eagle hovering on top of it. He then announced he would build the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul there.
Peter called St. Petersburg his new Rome, his paradise. He wanted to take the spiritual leadership of Russia away from Moscow, and for that, he employed clerical publicists to identify St. Petersburg with the New Jerusalem of the Book of Revelation in the Bible.
I am not spared the horror that the city hides either. St. Petersburg was, both literally and metaphorically, built on the bodies of people longing for home. Bodies of fathers, grandfathers, and boys just entering adulthood, whose hope for the future was taken away.
Like many great men often do, Peter the Great had a dark side, his St. Petersburg came to be by using forced labor. Peasants were conscripted and taken by armed guards to the site, but so many of them escaped to go back to their families that only about half reached the place where thousands would die like flies from exhaustion, exposure, or illness. For Peter, these deaths were a minor concern, they were easily replaced by the next draft. It was not much different than slavery.
Many peasants already lived like slaves under serfdom, the medieval practice of indentured servitude and debt bondage. Serfs, just like slaves, could be bought, sold, abused, and murdered. They didn't have any right over their own bodies, were not allowed to leave the land they worked and could marry only with their lord's permission. Unlike slaves though, the serfs could only be sold with the land they were attached to. This state of affairs would not change for a long time.
Because no one wanted to live in this strange new city, its population also had to be conscripted at first, just like the labor.
St. Petersburg eventually became one of the most beautiful cities in Europe, and it is there that the Winter Palace, with its gorgeous blue-green walls, white columns, and elegant interiors decorated with gold, was built. That elegant palace with a baroque style is one of the greatest points of pride of our nation. The abundance of decorations consisting of fanciful cornices and window architraves creates a magnificent combination.
Peter had a son called Alexei. He was probably named after Peter´s father, but Alexei was nothing like Peter or his namesake Alexei I. This new Alexei was surrounded by people who detested Peter´s western inclinations. He was also physically unimposing, a drinker, bookish, sickly, and uninterested in the military.
Peter wished for a different son many times. He considered Alexei weak and unworthy of being Tsar.
Alexei knew how little his father thought of him. He was also deeply self-conscious about his inadequacies and thus offered to give up his claim, running away with his mistress to Austria instead of becoming a monk as his father wanted him to.
Peter begged Alexei to come back, fearing that the Austrians, which were rivals of the Russian Empire at the time, would try to use him. Peter promised his son he would not be punished for his escape. This was a lie.
Upon his return, Alexei and many of his associates were tortured in search of information about a conspiracy that was not as extended as Peter believed. There was no one in Russia involved in it.
There was a conspiracy though.
Alexei had indeed, albeit reluctantly, come to an agreement with the Austrians to possibly lead a revolt in the future, and he easily cracked under torture. His fate was sealed. Alexei died from wounds his own father ordered to be inflicted upon him just like dozens of people before him. Mercy was simply not one of Peter's virtues, and I do not think having refused to help the Austrians would have made a huge difference.
Peter the Great changed the succession laws to make it so each sovereign had to choose their successor, but he died without naming one himself. What followed was a period of palace coups led most by women where the sovereigns had to get the support of the Imperial Guards for success.
Oo
After Peter died, his second wife, Catherine I, seized the throne. She was the first Romanov Empress.
Catherine's story is so amazing it seems taken out of a fairytale. She was born Marta Helena Skowrońska, the daughter of Roman Catholic peasants from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. She took the name Catherine after her conversion to Orthodoxy and marriage to Peter the Great. She and Peter had two daughters that survived childhood: Anna and Elizabeth.
Catherine I died soon after her ascension though, and Alexei's son Peter II followed her.
Young Peter had a short and sad life. His father was tortured to death when he was a baby, and his mother died when he was ten years old. Peter the Great was not interested in young Peter's education or that of his older sister, he had hated his son Alexei after all. Both siblings were kept in seclusion.
Because of his young age and lack of proper education, Peter II showed disinterest in the business of ruling, leaving most of the job to other people. Russia was in total disorder during his reign. He was tragically trapped under the influence of older people as any child monarch is vulnerable to be. A powerful minister called Aleksandr Menshikov used to order him around and demean him until Peter II sent him to Siberia when the man became ill.
As if that were not tragic enough, he was corrupted by so-called friends, some of whom were interested in controlling his political decisions and thus encouraged this corruption. Peter was introduced into living a life of feasting, playing cards, and even becoming addicted to alcohol and women at an age when most boys and girls are only starting to become curious about the opposite gender. I can´t help but wonder why no one thought it was their duty to protect that boy.
I genuinely believe the only true friend Peter II had, with no ulterior motives, was his sister, but she tragically died from an illness a year before he did.
The boy Tsar fell ill from smallpox, and in his delirium, he ordered to be brought to his late sister. Peter died in 1730, the day he was supposed to marry. He was only fourteen, and he was the last male-line descendant of Peter the Great.
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Anna of Russia succeeded Peter II. Anna was the daughter not of Peter the Great but of Ivan V, his mentally challenged older half-brother, the one who had co-ruled with him during the first period of his reign.
Anna of Russia chose the infant Ivan VI as her successor. Ivan VI was Anna's nephew, a great-grandson of her father Ivan V. Anna disbanded the council that tried to restrict her power and invited her Baltic German ally, Ernst von Biron, to help her rule. Ernst´s corruption and the luxurious lifestyle of his German court angered people.
When Anna died, baby Ivan VI´s mother became regent, but she ruled with little support from the nobility. Peter the Great´s daughter Elizabeth, with the help of the Imperial Guard, arrested both the baby and his mother.
The infant Tsar was separated from his mother and spent the rest of his days in prison. The mother gave birth to more children in captivity. They also lived and died in strict seclusion, unable to learn how to socialize or lead normal lives. They were even forbidden from learning how to read.
Elizabeth was crowned Empress, and her 21-year reign was successful. She continued modernizing the country and building St. Petersburg. Her court was as luxurious as that of Versailles in France. Many people have criticized a certain French queen for her excesses, but Elizabeth was not behind. She had thousands of dresses and shoes that the poorest of common people had to pay for in the years to come. The only difference is that the Russian Empress never had to suffer any consequences for her actions because she proved to be a capable ruler.
Elizabeth chose her nephew, who would become Peter III, as her heir. Peter was the son of Anna, Elizabeth's sister and the oldest daughter of Peter the Great and Catherine I.
Elizabeth arranged a marriage for Peter with the German princess Sophie Friederike Auguste von Anhalt-Zerbst-Dornburg, who changed her name to Catherine when she converted to Orthodoxy.
Peter and Catherine disliked each other almost instantly. Theirs was not a happy marriage and both had affairs with other people, but they had a son, Paul.
Catherine had a lover at the time she became pregnant with Paul, so it is impossible to know whether Peter III was the father. The Romanov dynasty could have ended with Peter III, but I do not think that is the case, because Paul looked a lot like Peter, and Marina's words seem to be about to come to pass, which means Paul's descendants were definitely Michael's descendants.
Oo
Most of what people know about Peter III today comes from the descriptions of his much more successful and popular wife, who hated him, so he is remembered as one of the worst Tsars in history.
Peter III was indeed mean at times, incredibly ugly after surviving smallpox, entitled due to his position, brutal with his practical jokes, and a bit childish. He still played with toy soldiers as an adult and was obsessed with military order. He once court-martialed a rat for chewing some of his toy soldiers, and needless to say, he hanged the rat.
Because he spent most of his life in Germany, Peter III loved that country more than Russia, and he absolutely idolized Frederick the Great, the successful military strategist who ruled Prussia at the time as well as one of Elizabeth's worst enemies.
When Elizabeth died during the Seven Years War, a war that involved most European powers, Peter made a peace treaty with Prussia and gave up all of the conquests Russia had achieved. This, quite understandably, infuriated the army that had bled and suffered for those lands.
Peter III decided instead to go to war with Denmark for no clear reason.
Despite this, there was more to Peter than that. During his short reign, he passed many laws, some of them very enlightened in nature. He proclaimed religious freedom, fought corruption in the government, and abolished the secret police, which he abhorred for its cruel torture methods, methods that all the previous rulers, including Elizabeth, had approved of and even encouraged.
It was Peter III, and not one of the Tsars loved most by historians, who made the murder of serfs by landowners punishable for the first time.
One of his best-received laws was allowing the nobility to travel abroad and exempting them from obligatory military service. The parliament offered to build him a gold statue when they heard about this, but Peter refused, saying it would be a waste of gold.
Peter III was overthrown by his wife Catherine with the help of the palace guards, one of whom was Catherine´s lover, Orlov. Peter was arrested, forced to abdicate, and conveniently died soon after in a drunken altercation with one of the officers guarding him.
Catherine, who had already seized the throne for herself becoming Catherine II, certainly benefited from this.
It was during Catherine's reign that the still imprisoned Ivan VI was murdered after a very tragic life in seclusion, away from his family. Empress Elizabeth had ordered the death of the prisoner if any attempt to rescue him was made. There was an attempt.
I do not think Catherine wanted to allow his murder, but she rationalized that it was necessary to avoid a possible civil war, for Ivan's supporters could have caused trouble in his name. She once said that the young man's life was not one worth living anyway, not after having been a prisoner since infancy, and that his executioners would simply be taking the "creature" out of his misery.
It is sad. Ivan VI had learned to read despite not being allowed to, and although a lifetime of imprisonment had indeed damaged his mental state, he had not gone completely insane or anything like that.
I have seen power desensitize the noblest of people to the loss of thousands of human lives, this as long as the loss in question purports to serve a greater purpose. It must be even easier to become desensitized to the loss of one.
It is no wonder Catherine II is called the Great though. She expanded Russia through two Russo-Turkish wars and acquired bits of Poland. There were improvements in public health during her reign, and she was even the first woman in Russia to get a vaccine as an example to others.
Trade was promoted and expanded. Alaska got its first Russian settlers. Catherine encouraged education and philosophy and established elected local governments. She also took measures to prosecute the cruel treatment of serfs by landowners and passed laws that forced the latter to help their peasants in times of famine.
Catherine loved philosophy. The French philosopher Voltaire called her the "star of the north", for she was what some would call an "enlightened despot". Despite this, Catherine wanted to keep the revolutionary ideas that were spreading at that time throughout France and America out of Russia. She did not, however, like the idea of going to war with France, now a republic, to achieve this.
It was during the reign of Catherine II that a certain Monk Abel entered the scene for the very first time. Born in 1757, his many accurate predictions landed him in prison many times, although some of his contemporary sovereigns looked up to him for advice. A true seer, just like me, but better. Amazing.
He predicted Catherine II would rule for 40 years and that it would not be her favorite grandson Alexander succeeding her but her son Paul. Close enough, Catherine ruled for 34 years. She died in 1796, and it was indeed her son Paul who succeeded her.
Now, Paul didn't like his mother very much. He blamed her for his father's death despite barely having known him. That might be one of the reasons why his succession laws, the Pauline Laws, would for years to come exclude women from the line to the throne.
Paul had four sons: Alexander, Konstantin, Nicholas, and Michael.
Oo
Catherine the Great had named her grandson Konstantin after Constantine the Great, the founder of the Eastern Roman Empire, also known as the Byzantine Empire or Byzantium.
When the Roman Empire fell, its eastern provinces stood. They survived and flourished throughout the Middle Ages.
Constantinople was Byzantium's capital. The new Rome. A place of great significance for Orthodox Christians.
In 1453, however, the Eastern Roman Empire fell just like the western Roman provinces had centuries before. The Turks conquered the Byzantine Empire, and the Ottoman Empire has occupied its place ever since.
During her reign, Catherine II hoped to restore the Eastern Roman Empire. She wanted to retake Constantinople, now Istanbul, from the Turks, and make her grandson Konstantin the Emperor of the new and reborn Byzantium.
None of these plans ever came to pass.
Moscow is said to be the third Rome, so it is no wonder that the word "Tsar" means "Caesar".
Oo
Paul, like his father, was considered harsh, militaristic, moody, and traditional, and was referred to by some as the "Mad Tsar". Obsessed with Prussian military order and culture, he would enforce the pettiest and most ridiculous of laws, many having to do with his preferred fashions. Sometimes he would burst into rages and beat people with his cane, humiliating important individuals who would later seek revenge.
His subjects both feared and mocked Tsar Paul behind his back.
Despite disliking his mother, Paul was loyal and refused to participate in any coup intended to remove her from power while she was alive, not even when the would-be conspirators offered to spare her life. Paul and his wife were also interested in learning about subjects that could help their people.
Paul forbid the separation of serf families by landowners, made it so nobles received the same corporal punishments as those given to the common people for the same crimes, and put a box of letters in the Winter Palace so that any Russian could come and write him suggestions. He read and answered as many as he could.
Paul was no liberal though. He also cut off the import of books coming from France to stop the spread of revolutionary ideas and joined the second coalition against revolutionary France. He changed his position drastically, however, when Napoleon became First Consul in France. Paul soon came to admire Napoleon, broke his alliance with the British, and went as far as attempting to invade British India. This, for many, cemented the idea that the Tsar was completely mad.
The Mad Tsar was paranoid throughout his entire reign, and not without reason. One time, when Paul met with him, Monk Abel made a grim prediction:
"Your reign will be short, and I see your fierce end. From the unfaithful servants, you will accept a tormenting death, and in your bedchamber, you will be strangled by villains whom you warm on your royal breast".
The prophecy was fulfilled. Paul was murdered during a coup that his son and heir, Alexander, knew about. The Tsar fought back fiercely and refused to abdicate, but despite his resistance, he was viciously beaten, kicked, and eventually, strangled.
Alexander I succeeded his father. He had not known the coup would include murder and was guilt-ridden for the rest of his life.
Oo
Alexander I is famous for ruling Russia during the period of the Napoleonic wars.
"The Frenchman will burn Moscow", Monk Abel had truthfully predicted years before, "but the Tsar will take Paris from him and he will be called the Blessed. But secret grief will become unbearable for him, and the royal crown will seem heavy, and he will replace the feat of royal service with the feat of fasting and prayer."
Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812 was a total disaster, and the Russian winter haunted the invaders during their retreat. As part of the winning coalition against Napoleon, Russia gained territories in Finland and Poland.
Alexander is said to have died without legitimate children, so his brother Nicholas I succeeded him. I say he is said to have died because it is known that Alexander faked his own death and became a starets out of guilt for not having stopped the murder of his father.
Starets are wise holy men who live a life of prayer in monasteries or wander from place to place, living humbly out of charity. It may have been perfect penitence in Alexander's eyes.
Not everyone was happy about Nicholas ascending the throne though because he had an older brother, Konstantin. Konstantin, however, had given up his claim to the throne.
"The beginning of Nicholas's reign will be marked by a fight, a rebellion", Monk Abel had prophesied.
Liberal army officers used Nicholas's ascension as an opportunity to revolt, hoping to get Konstantin, who did not wish to rule, on the throne, and thus control him. Because the revolts took place in December, they would be called the Decembrist revolts.
The Decembrist officers wanted changes in society, like a constitution and more say in the government. These desires were borne out of their experiences during the Napoleonic wars and exposure to French liberal ideas as well as having witnessed the everyday hardships average people endured.
The United States Declaration of Independence inspired the Decembrists to a certain extent, but the Decembrists were against slavery, still prevalent in America, and in consequence, they were also against serfdom.
There was no constitution or abolition of serfdom under Nicholas I though, and most Decembrists were sentenced to a life of hard labor in Siberia.
Oo
A war broke out between Persia and Russia during the reign of Nicholas I. The Persians had wanted to regain lands lost to Russia in previous conflicts, but Russia was victorious again.
A rebellion in Poland also broke out. The Poles were not happy with their situation. Years ago, their territory had been split between various European powers, one of them, Russia. The rebellion failed, and Nicholas decided to close down Polish universities and abolish the Polish parliament in retaliation.
Nicholas started to encourage the Poles to speak Russian. Not only the Poles, but also the Ukrainians, Belarusians, and other minorities within the Empire were pushed to talk Russian in what would be called a "russification" campaign. Nicholas I wanted to unite all of his lands in "Orthodoxy, autocracy, and nationality". This did not sit well with said minorities, especially the ones that practiced different religions such as Catholicism.
Nicholas I did not like serfdom, but he felt that if he abolished it the nobility would turn against him. Instead, Nicholas ordered the general in charge of the Crown Estates, the lands belonging to the Tsar, to enact changes that would improve the lives of the serfs living and working there. Poorer serfs were given more lands and schools were built for the children, for example. Nicholas hoped other landowners would follow his lead.
During his reign, the Crimean War also started.
The Crimean War was a conflict Russia lost to an alliance made up of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom, and Sardinia. The rights of Christian minorities living in the Holy Land, which belonged to the Ottoman Empire, were the immediate cause of the war for the Russians, or as some might say, an excuse. Britain and France feared Russia would gain even more territory and power at the expense of an already declining Ottoman Empire.
By the end of his reign, Nicholas was disliked and considered by many a warmongering bully filled with almost melodramatic self-importance and dreams of military glory.
Many books were censored during the reign of Nicholas I, who treated several great authors despicably, in part due to the nature of their works. Nicholas made Fyodor Dostoyevsky go through a mock execution for his writings before exiling him to Siberia, for example, and years before, the entitled man had shamelessly flirted with Alexander Pushkin's wife even though the poet was supposedly one of his friends.
Nicholas was too busy waging wars to worry much about industrializing his nation, and even then he failed to modernize the army, leaving the military far behind those of the other world powers.
Nicholas I had seven children, four of whom were boys eligible for the throne. He died in 1855, and his son, Alexander II, succeeded him. During his last hours, realizing the conflict in Crimea was about to be lost, Nicholas cried for the many men fallen in battle and begged everyone to forgive him for having failed his army due to a lack of intelligence. He also made his son Alexander promise he would abolish serfdom like he had failed to do.
"Maybe I loved war too much", the dying Tsar even admitted.
Oo
Alexander II came to the throne when Russia had just lost the Crimean War, so it fell on him to agree to the humiliating terms imposed by the Allies. Russia would need a lot of time to recover from this defeat.
Before he died, Monk Abel said of the coming Tsar: "He is destined to be the Tsar Liberator, he will give freedom to the serfs, and free the Slavs from the yoke of the Turks. The rebels will not forgive him for these great deeds. They will start a hunt and kill him in the middle of a clear day in the capital".
Alexander II is best known for abolishing serfdom, and because of that, he is called "Alexander the Liberator", but it was not an easy transition. Many of the freed peasants did not enjoy any improved standards of living after obtaining their freedom. The prices of land were too high.
Alexander tried to help the peasants as best as he could but only managed to make them indebted to the government.
Curiously, Alexander II was a contemporary of Abraham Lincoln, the president of the United States during the Civil War which ended in the emancipation of their slaves.
During the American Civil War, the Russian Navy wintered in New York to help the Union in the event that Britain or France were to help the Confederacy. Britain and France were Russia's rivals at the time, and it was suspected they sympathized with the South.
Alexander II also sold Alaska to the Americans so that the British would not take control of it.
Oo
Alexander II was responsible for several liberal reforms such as abolishing corporal punishment, setting up elected local judges, promoting local self-government, ending some of the privileges of the nobility, and promoting university education.
The Tsar Liberator fought a brief war against the Ottoman Empire, helping the Serbians after an uprising.
The Turks had ruled over, abused, humiliated, and exploited the Serbians for many years, but as a result of this war, Romania, Serbia, and Montenegro achieved their independence from the Ottomans, and Russia annexed some territories in the Caucasus.
There was another Polish rebellion during Alexander's reign. It included some terrorist attacks. Initially, Alexander II wanted to tackle the problem with a conciliatory approach, so he offered the Poles more autonomy. This did not work.
The Poles were tired of foreign rule and the rebellion spread to Lithuania, Belorussia, and Ukraine. Alexander then crushed the rebellion by force. He substituted Polish officials for Russian ones. Russian language in schools became compulsory, and he banned the printing of anything written in Polish, Ukrainian, Lithuanian, or Belarusian. He remained benevolent with Finland though, and he even encouraged its nationalism and autonomy, maybe because it remained loyal during the uprisings. Even today, many people in Finland consider him a good Tsar.
Alexander II had eight legitimate children with his first wife, Maria Alexandrovna: Alexandra, Nicholas, Alexander, Vladimir, Alexei, Maria, Sergei, and Paul.
Later on, Alexander had three more children with his last mistress, a woman he married after his wife's death. Alexander caused her wife a lot of pain with his numerous affairs, and Maria did not have anyone to talk to about it because haughty ladies would ridicule her at court for being bothered by her husband's antics.
Alexander's daughter Alexandra died at a young age, but Maria grew up to marry one of the sons of Queen Victoria. All of Alexander's sons had a good claim to the throne, and many came to have male children of their own that were themselves eligible.
The heir, Nicholas, was incredibly smart, and his tutors claimed he would someday become the most brilliant and liberal Tsar in history. He became engaged to a Danish princess in a love match. Her name was Dagmar.
Nicholas had been collecting her pictures before even meeting her. When they did meet, the young couple started exchanging letters. Nicholas even gave Dagmar her first kiss after confessing his love for her.
Dagmar became popular in Russia the moment she arrived. She was loved by the people for being sociable and graceful, and Nicholas noticed this. Very regretfully, Tsesarevich Nicholas died in 1865 of meningitis before he could marry Dagmar, but knowing what a great Empress she would make one day and worried about her future happiness, he expressed on his deathbed the wish for his bride to marry his younger brother, Alexander.
Alexander was the opposite of Nicholas. Robust instead of lean and completely uninterested in academic or cultural subjects. Some even viewed him as clumsy or stupid. He didn't want to marry Dagmar at first because he had a lover he was very much in love with, but Alexander II pushed him to do so.
Alexander, now the Tsesarevich, married Dagmar in 1866 after she had changed her name to Maria Feodorovna and converted to Russian Orthodoxy. In the family, Maria was referred to as "Minnie".
Alexander and Minnie made a strange but loving pair. They bonded over the loss of Nicholas, as both had loved him very much. They even cried for him the day of their official engagement.
Alexander was blue-eyed, tall and robust, about 190 cm, and had a big brown beard. He lacked any elegance, his manners were rough, and he possessed incredible strength. Alexander was proud of his roughness and simple tastes, claiming they made him similar to the humblest of people in Russia. A true Russian should have just a bit of roughness in him, Alexander thought. It is true to some extent. Many times in the past Western Europeans have complained about the harsh and exotic manners of important Russian visitors and ambassadors.
Minnie, on the other hand, was a pretty small brunette with big brown eyes and hair. She was polite, delicate, and comfortable in high society.
Alexander was strong enough to bend spoons and liked to show visitors his ability, but not in front of his petite wife, who did not appreciate him ruining them. There was no adultery in their marriage, something rare for the Russian aristocracy, as almost all the previous Tsars had allowed themselves to take in mistresses. Minnie immediately made it her duty to learn the language and customs of her new country and was immensely happy with her husband.
Alexander and Maria had six children: Nicholas, Alexander, George, Xenia, Michael, and Olga.
Oo
According to the old calendar, Nicholas was born on the 6th of May in the Alexander Palace, a small and simple residence when compared to the ostentatious Winter Palace. The Alexander Palace had been commissioned to be built by Catherine II for her favorite grandson, Alexander I.
The feast of St. Job the Long-suffering happens to fall on the 6th of May.
St. Job is a saint known for being an extremely righteous, God-fearing, and wealthy man with lots of children who abruptly lost all of his wealth and family through a series of attacks by enemies and natural catastrophes. All of Job's children died, and Job himself was later afflicted with a terrible illness that disfigured his face. Despite this, Job never once complained or cursed God, for God had given him everything he had once possessed.
As a reward for Job's devotion, God cured him, restored all of his wealth, rewarded him with even more possessions than he had previously owned, and blessed him with more children.
When a nurse took notice of the date of Nicholas's birth, saying that maybe it was an omen, Minnie looked shocked and concerned. She took baby Nicholas from his crib, and as she cuddled him, told the nurse not to say such nonsense.
Alexander, the second son of Alexander and Minnie, died in infancy, causing his parents and a very sensitive little Nicholas a lot of pain.
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Tsesarevich Alexander had become estranged from his father, Alexander II. Not only had the Tsar broken his wife's heart, but his political opinions were also drastically different from those of his son.
Alexander II was still close to his grandchildren though. He would call Nicholas "sunray".
Nicholas and his brother George used to play in their grandfather's study while Alexander II worked. One time, Nicholas was greatly amazed by the way his grandfather had remained calm and crossed himself piously during a fierce thunderstorm. From that day on, Nicholas was no longer scared of thunderstorms. Just like Job, he knew he had to believe in the mercy of God.
Young Nicholas was a good-natured boy who loved history and birds. Once, when a bird fell from its nest, he prayed for it not to die, for God had enough of them. Nicholas was by nature quick-tempered but possessed huge self-control. Barely anyone ever saw him angry. His uninquiring mind, however, worried his tutors. His brother George was more spirited and imaginative, and despite being younger, he was also the undisputed leader among his siblings. George often made Nicholas participate in unruly games at the dinner table such as throwing bread at their parents, and one time, he even tripped a butler during one of his mother's tea parties.
Oo
At this time, revolutionary ideas had already started to take root in Russia, and many underground revolutionary groups were present, some of which condoned the use of terrorism.
Despite his many liberal concessions, Alexander II suffered many assassination attempts. This, understandably, made him slightly paranoid and reactionary by the end of his reign. Even then, Alexander II planned to create a consultative committee made up of elected representatives to advise the monarch and toyed with the idea of granting the people a constitution.
In 1881, before he could go ahead with any of those plans, the Tsar's carriage was attacked by members of an organization called "People's Will". The first terrorist threw a bomb at the Tsar's horse-drawn carriage as it was crossing a bridge.
Alexander II survived the explosion and was unhurt, but many bystanders, including a delivery boy, were injured, and one of his bodyguards, a Cossack, died almost immediately. The Tsar thanked God for his luck and went to see the wounded to offer moral support. As he was approaching them, another terrorist yelled that it was too soon to thank God and then threw a second bomb at the Emperor. Alexander was fatally wounded.
"To the palace… to die", is what the Tsar Liberator said before he was carried to the Winter Palace. The terrorists were apprehended.
Thirteen-year-old Nicholas and his brother George were having breakfast and planned to go ice skating with their mother later when a servant ran in and informed them that an accident had occurred. He explained that the heir, Alexander, had ordered his sons to rush to the Winter Palace immediately.
Nicholas and George traveled in a carriage. When they arrived, everyone had pale faces, and there were spots of blood on the carpets. All of the members of the Emperor's family that were close at the time of the incident were in the study. Alexander II was lying on a camp bed, the one where he always slept, and he was covered with a military coat.
"Papa", Alexander said as he led his son Nicholas to see his wounded grandfather, "your sunray is here". Alexander II opened his eyes, tried to smile, and pointed a finger at his grandson. He recognized him but was unable to say anything. The fatally wounded man was given communion for the last time, and all of his family fell to their knees. The Tsar Liberator died quietly. His son, Alexander III, succeeded him.
Oo
I was born in 1894, during the final year of the reign of Alexander III.
I had my first vision when I was four years old. It was that of my mother arguing with a man about the price of a cow. I was at home when that happened, and my mother was in the market trying to sell our cow.
I told my mother I agreed with her, that the cow was worth a lot more. I loved that cow as if she were my dog. My mother opened her eyes widely, not believing her ears. I did not understand at the time what was so strange.
My family loved me even with my peculiar ability, but they tried to hide it away. They said people would not understand. Sometimes I felt lonely because I could not talk to anyone about it, I thought there was something wrong with me.
Whenever I could not help myself and I did talk about my visions, my neighbors accused me of spying or getting into other people's business because most of my visions were about people I knew, people close to me. Whenever I discovered someone was lying I felt it was my duty to talk about it. I hate lies, but revealing them would only get me into more trouble.
I could not keep having visions about my neighbors, so I learned to control my ability by focusing on famous people instead, people whose pictures I saw in the newspapers whenever my siblings and I traveled to bigger villages. I surprised them by knowing a lot about those people even though I could not read.
My two younger sisters and older brother would find out I was right about everything when someone who knew how to read and write offered to read the newspaper for us. It is very common for kind people to do that.
Sometimes they read something that contradicted what I said, and my siblings took that as proof I was bluffing, but for me it was proof people lie all the time. That is how much I trust my visions.
My visions of people close to me gradually decreased until they were so uncommon they did not bother me anymore. Around that time, I started focusing on the Romanovs like a very nosy newspaper reporter, only I knew and know for sure what I have seen is true.
My family and I were just peasants, and my sisters and brother still are. We lived in a typical small hut with a stove, table, and chairs. We used candles to illuminate our evenings. We all slept on the floor or on top of the stove. My parents, grandparents, siblings, and I.
I used to have more than three siblings. I predicted the deaths of the ones who left us too soon.
My sisters and I worked as hard in the fields as my brother, and once a week we worked for someone else in exchange for our piece of land. I loved more than anything to do needlework while chatting with my sisters near the stove after a hard day.
We venerated the Tsar as the father of our people. A picture of Nicholas II rested next to our many religious icons. My brother said that the Tsar met with God once a week to discuss what was best for the country, but thanks to my visions, I learned that was not true. The veneration my family had for the Tsar is one of the reasons I started focusing so much on him and his relatives. I used to tell my loved ones stories about him, his wife, and his children.
The taunts and the gossip did not stop when I somewhat learned to control my visions though. Many people still called me a witch. I did not have any friends, and most of the children in the village made terrible jokes and songs about me, which they said and sang out loud so I could hear. Their parents did not even allow them to play with me.
Everything changed when I became friends with the priest of our nearest church. I talked to him about my visions during confession. His name is Gerasim.
Gerasim said many priests would have thought my ability came from the devil, but that he knew it was a gift from God. How did Gerasim know my ability was a gift from God? He told me he knew because of my name, Doroteya, which means "gift of God". He said my sight must be so then. Gerasim taught me that given names can have prophetic meanings when parents pray to God for guidance before naming their children. He said he knew my parents had indeed prayed before naming me because he was friends with them.
The name Gerasim means "respectable", or "honorable elder". I think Gerasim's parents also prayed before naming him.
That church became my favorite place. I would travel there every week. After mass, I would talk with Gerasim about God and history as if he were my grandfather. He taught me how to read and write. He also taught me most of what I know about Russian history today. The visions are a nice addition sometimes, but I rarely know what is happening in them or who it is that I am seeing. The older the visions are, the more confusing. Gerasim helped me put into context many of the visions I was having and even gave me a history book to borrow.
Despite this valuable tool, I still had trouble understanding most of the things that happened in my visions, especially those of the older Romanovs. I knew no French, which was the main language of the Russian court for a long time. I didn't want to give up though, so I told Gerasim I would learn French one day and started doing so as soon as I got married.
I still go with my husband and daughter to visit Gerasim whenever we have free time, but the poor man is so old now he can barely see.
Men of God were respected in my village, so Anna became my first friend when her parents finally allowed her to play with me. They trusted Gerasim.
Our friendship began when were ten years old. Anna and I played a lot together, even games that were too childish for our age. I was making up for the lost time. She also defended me from all of my bullies. I really loved her.
The visions I have of my contemporaries are way more reliable and understandable than the ones I have of people who lived centuries before. I was awakened today at 2:08 AM by one of those fairly accurate visions of the family I have grown to love. They don't know me, but I know them. They are walking down the stairs towards the basement of Ipatiev House. I wish this vision weren't reliable.
They may be executed, or they may suffer a similar fate to that of the brothers and sisters of Ivan VI: forever imprisoned, but at least together. The visions I had of the terrified thirteen-year-old boy who is now the head of that family are also reliable.
Dressed in his sailor coat, Nicholas watched as everyone around him wept and wailed for his grandfather.
"Strenght, boy!" Alexander reprimanded his heir when the child started sobbing as well.
Minnie was still holding her children's skates in her hands.
Oo
Alexander III thought his father's murder a lesson on what happened when you lowered your guard, when you allowed yourself to be seduced by liberal ideas.
"My father tried to compromise, look what he got in return!" He once exclaimed.
Liberals could not be appeased, they did not want reasonable solutions to the country's problems. They only wanted the destruction of all of Russia's traditions, the destruction of Orthodoxy, the destruction of the monarchy, and thus, his family. The revolutionaries wanted blood. They were willing to kill as many people as necessary to succeed. Collateral damage was of no concern to them.
The Russian people needed to be protected, and to do so, Alexander III needed to be firm and uphold the values of autocracy, of absolute monarchy.
At least that must have been Alexander's train of thought. He tried to make his son Nicholas see things as he did, but the young Tsesarevich did not need much convincing to think like his father. Watching his tender-hearted grandfather bleed to death in front of him had left a profound impact on Nicholas, and early life experiences have a way of remaining with people forever. The fate of Russia was almost sealed.
The name "Nicholas" means "victory of the people", a sad irony.