When I become the Tsar, there will be no poor and unhappy people.
I want everyone to be happy.
—Tsarevich Alexei
Tsarevich Alexei in 1913 On August 12 (July 30) 1904, with a gun salute from the Peter and Paul Fortress, the birth of the Heir to the Throne, Tsarevich Alexei, was announced to the world by Emperor Nicholas II and his consort Alexandra Feodorovna.
Tsarevich Alexei was a long-awaited child. The four previous pregnancies of the Tsarina had resulted in the births of daughters: Olga (1895), Tatiana (1897), Maria (1899), and Anastasia (1901).
Previously, Alexandra Feodorovna suffered from the fact that the Lord had sent them only daughters, while Russia needed an heir to the throne to avoid dynastic crises. On July 18, 1903, the royal couple was present in Sarov during the celebrations dedicated to the canonization of St. Seraphim of Sarov and prayed fervently for the birth of an heir. Their prayer was answered, and on the tenth year of the reign of St. Nicholas II, Alexandra Feodorovna blessed her husband with the birth of a son. The monarch wrote in his diary:
“Friday, July 30 (August 12): A great, unforgettable day for us, which revealed all the boundless mercy of God. At a quarter past one in the afternoon, Alix gave birth to a son, whom we have named Alexei. Words cannot express our gratitude to the Lord for this consolation...”
Nicholas II with his son Alexei Out of joy, the Tsar declared an amnesty for political prisoners; all those under investigation were released; and whipping for minor offenses was abolished forever. Shortly after the birth of her son, the Empress wrote to her husband:
“Oh, the Lord is truly generous to send us this Ray of Sunshine, now that we need it so much.”
The baby was named Alexei, in honor of the Holy Hierarch Alexei, Metropolitan of Moscow. On August 11, 1904, the sacrament of Baptism was performed by the Imperial Family’s father-confessor, Protopresbyter John Yanyshev, at the church of the Grand Palace of Peterhof.
“During the Baptism a remarkable incident occurred to the baby that attracted the attention of all those present,” Igumen Seraphim (Kuznetsov) wrote. “When the newborn Tsarevich was being anointed with holy myrrh, he raised his hand and stretched out his fingers, as if blessing those present.”
Tsarevich Alexei in 1907 However, the joy of the baby’s parents was short–lived. When he was not even two months old, it appeared that he had a terrible disease—hemophilia, which he had inherited from his mother, Queen Victoria of Britain’s granddaughter. The disease affects blood clotting, so the slightest bruise leads to the rupture of a blood vessel and accumulation of blood, which presses on the nerve, thereby causing terrible pain. When the blood got into his joint, it started destroying his bones, so the Tsarevich would at times say: “Mama, I can’t walk today,” or, “Mama, I can’t bend my elbow today.”
In the autumn of 1912, during a trip to Spala (in eastern Poland), Alexei bruised his hip badly while jumping into a boat, resulting in a huge hematoma, and the child’s condition was critical. The alarmed Emperor wrote to his mother, the Empress Dowager Maria Feodorovna:
“The poor Little One suffered terribly, the pain seized him in spasms and was repeated almost every quarter of an hour. He was delirious from fever day and night, sat up in bed, and pain would immediately begin from movement. He could hardly sleep and couldn’t cry either—he just moaned and uttered, ‘Lord, have mercy.’”
Pierre Gilliard, Alexei’s tutor and mentor, recalled:
“The Tsarevich is lying in bed, moaning plaintively, pressing his head against his mother’s hand, and his thin, beautiful and bloodless face is unrecognizable.”
Tsarevich Alexei on a yacht The Tsarina’s lady-in-waiting Anna Taneyeva (Vyrubova) testified:
“The following weeks were incessant torments for the boy and for all of us who had to hear him screaming in pain continuously. For eleven long days, his terrible screams were heard in the corridors, near the room, and those who had to pass there to perform their duties closed their ears… His waxy face with its pointed nose looked like that of a dead child; the look of his huge eyes was meaningless and sad… His parents thought that Alexei was dying, and he himself, in rare moments of consciousness, told his mother. ‘When I die, install a small stone monument in a park in my memory...’”
His poor mother did not leave the bedside of the young martyr throughout the long hours of his agony. The child survived, but later he had such recurrent episodes quite often.
Tsarevich Alexei and the boatswain “Uncle” Derevenko in Friedberg (Hesse) Sometimes Alexei Nikolaevich could not walk, and in such cases, he was carried in the arms of the boatswain A.E. Derevenko with assistants K.G. Nagorny and I.D. Sidnev, sailors from the imperial yacht Standard.
When he was not ill, Alexei was an ordinary child. The Tsarina called her son “Sunbeam”, “Baby”, “Little One”, “Agunyushka”. In his diary the Emperor called him “our little treasure.” According to contemporaries’ reminiscences, he was a very handsome boy, but too thin due to the disease. Alexei’s character was easy-going, he was kind, cheerful, and adored his parents and sisters.
The life of the Tsar and the Tsarina was permeated with love for God.
“Religious education is the most expensive gift that parents can give to their child,” Empress Alexandra Feodorovna wrote in her diary. “God comes at first to children through motherly love, because a mother’s love embodies God’s love, as it were.”
The royal children absorbed this love for God from childhood. All of Alexei’s relatives noted his piety. The Tsarevich’s letters have been preserved where he greeted his kin on the great feasts, including his poem, “Christ is Risen!”, which he sent to his grandmother, the Empress Dowager Maria Feodorovna. In 1910, Patriarch Damian of Jerusalem, knowing about the Heir’s piety, presented him with an icon of the Resurrection of Christ with particles of stones from the Holy Sepulcher and Golgotha for Pascha.
The royal children’s upbringing was strict. There were no excesses in food, and pastries were rarely served at the table. Clothes and shoes were passed on from the older to the younger children. Alexei Nikolaevich would wear his sisters’ old nightgowns. I. Stepanov, an acquaintance of Pierre Gilliard, described the Tsarevich’s “quarters” in this way:
“The whole interior of the Tsarevich’s two rooms was plain and did not give any idea that a future Russian Tsar lived and received his primary education there. There were icons and maps on the walls, bookcases with books, several tables and chairs, but all this was simple and modest in the extreme.”
Let us give the floor to those who were in close contact with the Royal Family.
The lady-in-waiting Anna Taneyeva testified:
“Alexei Nikolaevich’s life was one of the most tragic in the history of the royal children. He was a charming, affectionate boy, the most beautiful of all children. His parents and his nanny Maria Vishnyakova would spoil him very much in early childhood. And this is understandable, since it was very hard for them to see the young boy’s constant suffering; whenever he hit his head or his hand on some furniture, a huge blue swelling would appear instantly, indicating an internal hemorrhage that caused him severe suffering. When he grew up a little, his parents explained the specifics of his disease to him, asking him to be careful. But the Tsarevich was very lively, loved typical boyish games and amusements, and it was often impossible to keep him from playing them. ‘I want to have a bike,’ he used to ask his mother. ‘Alexei, you know you can’t ride it!’ ‘I want to learn to play tennis like my sisters!’ ‘You know you dare not play it.’ Sometimes Alexei Nikolaevich wept, repeating: ‘Why aren’t I like other boys?’”
Alexei with his mother, Alexandra Feodorovna, 1913
Anna Taneyeva recalled from exile:
“Whenever any of the servants got into trouble, the Tsarevich ardently interceded for them... Alexei Nikolaevich did not calm down until he really helped them. I remember that once for some reason a kitchen boy was refused a job. Alexei Nikolaevich learned about this and pestered his parents all day long until they ordered for the boy to be taken on. He defended all his people with might and main.”
Pierre Gilliard recalled:
“Alexei Nikolaevich had a very lively mind and judgment and was very thoughtful. He sometimes struck me with his questions beyond his age, which testified to his delicate and sensitive soul. In a small, capricious creature, as he had seemed to be at first, I discovered a child with a heart that was naturally loving and sensitive to suffering, because he himself had already suffered a great deal... Alexei Nikolaevich was the center of a closely-knit family, where all attachments, all hopes focused on him. His sisters adored him, and he was the joy of his parents. As long as he was well, the whole palace seemed transformed; it was a ray of sunlight that lit up both things and people... Happily gifted by nature, he would have developed quite properly and evenly but for his disease.”
Tsarevich Alexei with his father, sister Tatiana and his cousin Nikita Alexandrovich behind him. Tsarskoye Selo, early 1915
The Englishman Charles Sidney Gibbes (later Archimandrite Nicholas), the English teacher of the royal children, and then the Tsarevich’s tutor, recalled:
“He had a cheerful disposition and was a frisky boy. He was very fond of animals and had a kind heart… He was a smart boy, but he didn’t particularly like books. His mother loved him to distraction. She tried to be strict with him, but she couldn’t, and he got most of what he wanted through his mother. He endured unpleasant things in silence, without grumbling.”
Protopresbyter George Shavelsky said about the Tsarevich:
“The Lord endowed the unfortunate boy with wonderful natural qualities: a strong and quick mind, resourcefulness, a kind and compassionate heart, and charming simplicity. His spiritual beauty matched his physical beauty.”
Tsarevich Alexei in full dress uniform, 1911 The lady-in-waiting S.Ya. Ofrosimova wrote in the Crimea:
“The Tsarevich had a very gentle and kind heart. He was deeply attached not only to those close to him, but also to ordinary servants around him. He became especially attached to ordinary people. His love for his ‘Uncle’ Derevenko was tender, spirited and touching. One of his greatest pleasures was playing with the latter’s children and being among common soldiers… He often exclaimed, ‘When I become the Tsar, there will be no poor and unhappy people. I want everyone to be happy.’”
According to Yulia Dehn, the Tsarina’s friend, though still very young, Alexei already realized that he was the Heir to the Throne. One day, when he was playing with the Grand Duchesses, he was informed that officers of the regiment under his patronage had arrived at the palace and asked for permission to see the Tsarevich. Leaving his sisters instantly, the six-year-old child said pompously, “Girls, go out! The Tsarevich will be receiving others.”
Claudia Bitner, who gave the Tsarevich lessons in Tobolsk, remembered him thus:
“He combined the traits of his father and mother. He inherited his father’s simplicity. There was absolutely no complacency, arrogance or self-conceit in him. He was simple. But he had a strong will and would never yield to outside influence.... He was withdrawn and reserved. He was terribly patient and careful, self-disciplined and demanding towards himself and others alike. He was kind, like his father, in the sense that his heart was incapable of hurting others unjustly...”
“Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich was a boy of fourteen, intelligent, observant, sensitive, affectionate and buoyant... He had a strong will and obeyed only his father… He disliked court etiquette, loved to spend time with soldiers and learned their language, using in his diary common expressions he had overheard” (From the investigator Nikolai Sokolov’s notes).
Russian Army Supreme Commander Emperor Nicholas Alexandrovich and Lance Corporal of the Russian Army Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich at the position of military units. 1916
The Emperor introduced his son to Russian military history, the structure of the army and the distinctive features of its life. He managed to instill in the son not only the love for military science, but also reverence and respect for ordinary Russian soldiers. Alexei loved his soldiers and was aware of his responsibilities to them (even as a very young child). He was often present at troop reviews. The Tsarevich was very fond of everything related to the army. He enjoyed spending time with soldiers. Tsarevich’s favorite food was “shchi, porridge and brown bread, which my soldiers eat”, as he used to say. Every day, shchi and porridge were brought to him from the military kitchen of the palace guard regiment; Alexei would eat everything up and lick his spoon, saying, “It is delicious, unlike our lunches!”
At the end of May 1912, together with his parents, Alexei visited Moscow for the first time, where he attended the unveiling of the monument to his grandfather Alexander III. There, as the Heir to the Throne, he was given a very solemn and warm welcome. A copy of the Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God, painted especially for his arrival, was presented to him in the Kremlin.
In 1913, during the celebration of the Tercentenary of the House of Romanov, the sick Tsarevich was carried in the arms in front of the troops.
“His arm was hugging the neck of a Cossack, his thin face was transparently pale, and his beautiful eyes were full of sadness...”
From 1913 on, in the intervals between bouts of his disease, the Tsarevich’s more or less regular classes began. The Law of God was taught by the Imperial Family’s father-confessor Archpriest Alexander Vasiliev, the Russian language by Privy Councilor P.V. Petrov, arithmetic by State Councilor E.P. Tsytovich, the French teacher and tutor was Pierre Gilliard, English was taught by Ch. Sidney Gibbess and St. Alexandra Feodorovna herself.
To be continued…
