Livadia in the Reign of Alexander II

by Greg King

Of all the Romanov palaces scattered along the southern coast of the Crimea, none was more fabled than Livadia, the Sovereign's personal estate, situated some five miles west of Yalta, high on the cliffs above the Black Sea. Although it remained an Imperial estate for less than sixty years, Livadia was rich with events of historical importance in the last three Romanov reigns. It was here that Alexander III died in 1894; that his son succeeded him as Nicholas II; and that the former Princess Alix of Hesse and By Rhine converted to the Russian Orthodox Church.

The story of Livadia, however, begins not with the Romanovs, but with the wealthy, aristocratic Potocki family from Poland. Colonel Feodor Revelioti, Commander of the Balaklava Greek Regiment, who worked closely with Count Michael Vorontzov, first developed the property at the beginning of the 19th Century. Revelioti built a small villa here, surrounded by vineyards reaching north to the lower slopes of Mount Mogahbi. He christened the estate "Livadia," a Greek word meaning "meadow" or "open field."1

In 1834, Revelioti sold Livadia to Count Lev Potocki, a member of one of Poland's most distinguished, aristocratic families. The Potockis were Poland's wealthiest family, similar in position to the Yusupovs in Russia. By marriage, they were related to the Radziwills, Zamoyskis, and Czartoryskis, three of the most illustrious Polish families with close connections to the Russian Court. They owned more than two dozen estates in Poland itself, including five of the country's most important houses: Wilanow, Lancut, Natolin, Zofiowka, and Baranow. There were also further palaces in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Berlin, and Vienna, where Potockis often served in important diplomat positions.2

At this time, the Livadia estate consisted of ninety acres, divided in half by the new Sevastopol-Simferopol Highway. The northern half of the estate remained a vineyard, but Potocki transformed the land along the crest of the hillside into a carefully landscaped park. A Russian horticulturist named Delinger was commissioned to lay out the garden, with an Orangerie, graveled paths, fountains, cypress and yew walks, and lawns dotted with classical statuary, purchased in Italy and Greece and set on granite plinths. In the middle of this garden, architect Karl Eshlimann built a two-storeyed wooden villa, surrounded with balconies overlooking the Black Sea.3

In 1860, following Count Potocki's death, his heirs decided to sell Livadia. Far away in St. Petersburg, Alexander II was at that time pondering a personal dilemma. In 1841, he had wed Princess Marie of Hesse and By Rhine. "The first time I set eyes on the Grand Duchess," wrote one courtier, "she was already twenty-eight-years-old, but she still looked very young. She retained that youthful appearance all her life; when she was forty, she could have been taken for a woman of thirty. Despite her tall, shapely figure, she was so thin and fragile that she did not at first strike one as a belle femme; but she was unusually elegant.... Her features were not perfect, but her beauty lay in her wonderful hair, the delicate color of her skin, and her large, slightly protruding, blue eyes which were both gentle and penetrating. Above all, hers was an extraordinarily sincere and deeply religious soul, a soul which, like its corporeal shell, seemed to have come straight out of the frame of a medieval painting.... She seemed almost out of place and uneasy in her role as mother, wife, and Empress. She was tenderly attached to her husband and children, and conscientiously fulfilled the duties which her family and exalted rank demanded of her.... The Empress's mind was like her soul: subtle, refined, penetrating, extremely ironic, but lacking in ardor, breadth and initiative."4

While Alexander II moved easily through the world of the Imperial Court, his wife was never comfortable in her illustrious role; in many ways, her tenure as Empress foreshadowed that of her great-niece, another Darmstadt Princess, Alix of Hesse, who became consort to Nicholas II. The similarities in their characters were pronounced: both women were deeply religious and highly introspective, essentially shy and serious, with a bourgeois sense of morality which from the very beginning thrust them into conflict with the hedonistic Russian Court. Marie Alexandrovna, writes John van Der Kiste in a short character sketch which could equally apply to Empress Alexandra, "was inclined to be stiff, and smart members of St. Petersburg society complained that she seemed cold and distant, lacked charm, had no conversation and no taste in dress. Behind her back they called her 'la petite bourgeoise Allemande,' making fun of her religious fervor and fondness for music and poetry."5

Alexander and Marie had eight children. The eldest, a daughter who they named Alexandra, died from tuberculosis at the age of seven. The Emperor was so distraught at the loss of his first child that, for the rest of his life, he slept with her small nightgown tucked beneath his pillow. The birth of Alexandra in 1842 was followed by Nicholas, in 1843; Alexander, in 1845; Vladimir, in 1847; Alexei, in 1850; Marie, in 1853; Serge, in 1857; and Paul, in 1860. These frequent pregnancies took their toll on Marie Alexandrovna's health. Never physically strong, she grew more delicate and prone to fits of melancholy; she found the endless round of receptions and balls an increasingly crushing burden. Her health steadily declined; as a child, she had suffered from tuberculosis, and the harsh Russian winters did nothing to ease her sufferings. The birth of her last child, Paul, in 1860, left the Empress so weakened that she was forced to spend several months resting on a couch in her Boudoir in the Winter Palace.

That winter, a chill set in, followed by uncontrollable bouts of coughing and fluctuations in her temperature. Marie Alexandrovna suspected that her tuberculosis had returned, but refused to consult with any doctor. Finally, her health deteriorated so much that her husband summoned Serge Botkin, perhaps the most famous doctor in the Empire and the head of a medical dynasty whose members faithfully served the Romanovs until the end of the Empire. Botkin faced an immediate problem: the Empress absolutely refused to undress and submit to an examination. "I am a very private person," she protested. "But, Your Majesty," Botkin replied, "I cannot examine you through your robes." This went on for several minutes until finally the Empress relented. Botkin indeed confirmed the Empress's worst fears: she had tuberculosis, a disease that had killed her first daughter.6

Botkin warned Alexander II that if his wife remained in St. Petersburg, she would almost certainly worsen and die. She needed to spend substantial time in a warmer climate, not only to effect an initial cure, but each year, to prolong her life. Traditionally, tubercular patients flocked to the South of France, but the Empress expressed a preference to remain in Russia if at all possible. It was Botkin who first suggested the Crimea as a suitable alternative to Alexander II; the climate was similar to that of the Cote d'Azur, and sanatoriums had already been built in Sevastopol, Guruzov, and Feodosia.7

Alexander II began to examine properties along the Black Sea. Not far from Oreanda, which had belonged to his mother, lay the Potocki estate of Livadia; on learning that it was for sale, the Emperor instructed the Department of the Imperial Appanages to purchase the property. The Crown paid 350,000 rubles, but this included not only Livadia but also an adjoining 700 acres stretching from the Black Sea to Mount Moghabi.8

The following year, Alexander and Marie visited Livadia for the first time. They traveled by train to Sevastopol, arriving on 26 August 1861, then boarded one of the smaller Imperial yachts, Tiger, for the voyage round the Crimean coast to Yalta. With them were their children Alexei, Serge, and Paul, who eagerly took in the new, wild scenery of this exotic land. On landing in Yalta, the Emperor, Empress and their children were met by delegations of local Tartars, who accompanied them on the carriage drive through the town and up the hillside to gates of Livadia. The Empress was enchanted with the garden, the sunshine, and the sparkling Black Sea. Together with her husband, she visited the local Tartar villages, attended services in a small Orthodox Church near Yalta, and spent many hours driving in the hills, stopping to talk with those she encountered. By the end of the stay, the Empress was describing "my dear Livadia" in a letter, and agreed to follow Botkin's advice and live here for several months each year.9

Karl Eshlimann's wooden villa had been more than adequate to house Count Potocki and his visiting relatives, but it was altogether too small to provide for the establishment of the Imperial Family, their children, and members of the Suite. In 1862, therefore, Alexander II embarked on an extensive building program, commissioning the rebuilding of Eshlimann's villa and the erection of a second, smaller palace, and adding nearly thirty additional houses and pavilions for members of the Suite and household. At the same time, plans were drawn which called for the complete transformation of the gardens and landscaping of the surrounding park.10

Alexander II himself had little interest in the estate; instead, he commissioned Count Vladimir Adelberg, Minister of the Imperial Court, to make the arrangements and supervise the work. Adelberg was charged with selecting an architect, submitting the plans to the Empress, and advising any requested changes. Initially, some 260,000 rubles were set aside for the construction and landscaping; by the time the work was completed, the total cost had soared to nearly 600,000 rubles.11

Adelberg, with the Emperor's approval, selected the Russian architect Ippolite Antoniovich Monighetti to undertake the Livadia commissions. Born in Moscow in 1819, Monighetti had completed his education at the Stroganov Institute and entered the Program of Architectural Studies at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts in 1837. Here, he studied under Alexander Bruillov, a brilliant architect whose most important commission was the restoration of the Winter Palace following the disastrous fire of 1837. Bruillov specialized in the extravagant neo-rococo and Baroque interior fashionable at the time, but Monighetti disliked the endless swags and boiseries characteristic of the period. His early designs showed a preference for traditional Russian forms, influenced largely by folk art and rural architecture. In 1839, Monighetti graduated from the Imperial Academy of Arts with a 1st Degree in Architecture; he had also won the prestigious Gold Medal, awarded to the most promising student. Over the following decade, he visited Italy, Greece, Turkey, and Egypt, studying both classical and Eastern architectural forms.12

When he returned to Russia, Monighetti received several important Imperial commissions at Tsarskoye Selo from Nicholas I, including the Turkish Bath House and the Children's Farm; he also restored the Lyons Hall and Turkish Drawing Room in the Catherine Palace, drawing on his first-hand knowledge of Arabian and Islamic architecture. The Yusupov family also hired Monighetti to completely redecorate their Palace on the Moika Canal in St. Petersburg; Monighetti built the magnificent, white marble Grand Staircase, laid out the principal reception rooms, designed the Large and Small Ballrooms, and a cluster of intimate apartments decorated in the Pompeiian manner; he was also responsible for the fabled Moorish Room on the Ground Floor, with its alabaster fountain, jalti screens, screen of polylobate columns, and walls covered with intricate mosaics decorated with stylized Arabic inscriptions from the Koran. The family was delighted with the result, and asked Monighetti to build them a small villa at Tsarskoye Selo as well; this was a less successful project, in which the architect was forced to bow to the demands of his wealthy clients and erect a little Baroque building modeled after Rastrelli's exuberant Hermitage in the Catherine Park at Tsarskoye Selo, complete with the festoons, columns, and swags he so despised.13

Monighetti stood at the forefront of a new artistic movement in Russian architecture, a return to the country's traditional forms. "At this period," writes Eugenia Kirichenko, "there was a persistent link between the function of a room and the style in which it was decorated. Reception rooms were customarily in Renaissance-revival style, boudoirs in rococo, men's studies and bathrooms in Moorish style, and libraries in Neo-Gothic. The Russian style was reserved for dining rooms and less frequently bedrooms."14

These new interiors, which first appeared in Russian houses in the late 1850s, became "more than ever a kind of self-portrait," writes Kirichenko. "Individual preferences, social position, one's line of business, one's personal values, were deliberately emphasized by the decoration and furnishing of the home, although naturally this individualization was subject to the conventions of the period. Within the Russian theme in interiors, two sub-categories or tendencies coexisted: the peasant look, and the boyar-the choice of effect depending on the social status of the owner of the home concerned. The boyar tendency naturally predominated in circles close to the Emperor, among the civil service, aristocracy, and among the merchant class."15

Monighetti also worked extensively on interiors for the Palace of Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich in St. Petersburg. The Palace, whose exterior was built in the Florentine Renaissance style, contained a diverse mixture of decorative elements within, from the medieval Entrance Hall, the French Renaissance Grand Staircase, the rococo Ballroom, and Russian baronial Dining Room. It was in the apartments of the Grand Duke, however, and particularly the bedroom, that Monighetti fully utilized his talent at interpreting traditional Russian elements. "The bedroom," writes Kirichenko, "is dominated by the ceramic stove and the profusion of fretwork. Monighetti was known for his striking use of strongly contrasting colors and here, together with visual references taken from a peasant izba, among them the hanging decorative towels, are reminiscences from the Moorish style fashionable earlier in the century."16

The architect brought this same traditional sense to the decoration of the Imperial yacht Derzheva. His interiors aboard the yacht were notable for their heavy, ponderous woodwork, beamed ceilings, and massive walnut and mahogany furniture in the neo-Renaissance style. Ornaments including raised beading, carved wainscot, and stamped and pierced bronze lamps; he also designed the new china service for the yacht, a bold combination of green, black, gold, and blue, woven together in geometric designs and incorporating ropes and anchors painted along the rims.17

At Livadia, Monighetti would bring all of these elements together in his Imperial commissions. Much of Eshlimann's old wooden villa was razed, and a new stone foundation laid. Monighetti's Great Palace, built between 1862-1866, lay at the end of a long, graveled drive, perched near the edge of the cliff. It was a relatively small, square, two-storeyed building of dark wood and stone; the lower floor was ringed with covered arcades, surrounded by flower beds, hedges, and small cypress trees; wild roses, ivy, and honeysuckle grew over the fretwork columns to envelop the loggias and walls, covering windows and hanging in tendrils from the arches. Above the arcades were open balconies, protected by balustrades of stone and wooden fretwork, and set at intervals with plinths topped by urns filled with roses and Yucca. Several sections of the second floor balcony were covered with canopies resting on carved wooden columns, their arches draped with awnings of white canvas to provide shelter from the sunshine. The window frames were of carved, dark-colored stone, with heavy wooden shutters attached at their sides and each fitted with a canvas awning; above, the roof was rimmed with a balustrade of fretwork set between plinths holding urns filled with flowers.18

This profusion of shrubbery, ivy, honeysuckle, and awnings left the interior of the Great Palace unusually gloomy. Walls were paneled in dark mahogany and oak, windows filled with stained glass, and ceilings built low. The effect, even on the sunniest of days, was somber. The Drawing Room, paneled in mahogany, had a coffered wooden ceiling inset with carved crests and arabesques. Slender columns, flanked by delicate fretwork screens, supported an arch draped with heavy velvet portieres which opened to the Reception Room, with oak wainscot and a busy floral paper reaching to a carved cornice. The Dining Room was the largest and lightest room in the Palace, rising just over one-and-a-half storeys, with arched windows looking out onto the main driveway. Every detail in the interior followed Monighetti's taste, with inlaid marquetry floors, wall panels, and doors; massive, carved furniture covered with a profusion of scarlet and purple brocades and velvets or dark Moroccan leather; strapwork ceilings crossed with imitation wooden beams painted with colorful arabesques; fretwork screens across windows; walls upholstered in stamped and gilded leather or velvet; and copper and brass chandeliers inset with stained glass panels.19 The effect was opulent, oppressive, extremely bourgeoise, and redolent of the 19th Century taste for decorative clutter. Author Mark Twain, visiting in 1867, wrote that his party spent an hour "idling through the Palace, admiring the cozy apartments and the rich but eminently home like appointments of the palace."20 Others, however, were less impressed: "Dark, damp and unattractive" was how Anna Vyrubova described the rooms.21

In 1864, on the southwestern side of the Great Palace, Monighetti built the Church of the Exaltation of the Cross, a Byzantine-style structure whose shining white limestone walls stood in stark contrast to the dark Palace facade. An existing model in Georgia, with a single, circular drum and dome above the sanctuary and iconostasis inspired the design of the Church. Like his Palace, the Church was fitted with dark, carved wooden panels, above which the walls and ceiling were covered with colorful frescoes. A few paces from the West Door was the Belltower, a low, arched, Byzantine-style structure intricately decorated with arabesques.22

A short distance from the Great Palace, nestled against a hillside thick with pines, was the Maly Palace. Also erected by Monighetti between 1864-1866, it was an elaborate little villa intended as the Crimean residence for Alexander II's heir. A square, two-storeyed building of light pink brick with contrasting decorative details in both dark red and white stone, it sported balconies with delicate fretwork arcades and windows hung with white canvas awnings.23 A separate garden was laid out here by Grand Duchess Marie Feodorovna, wife of the future Alexander III, with brick walks, carpets crossed with beds of Marshal Ney roses, and classical statuary and splashing fountains.24 According to Princess Paley, "The utmost simplicity prevailed in it."25 The rooms were decorated by Marie Feodorovna in English chintzes and light, pastel glazes, and furnished with overstuffed sofas and chairs. Alone of the buildings at Livadia, it was a bright, sunny house, with unobstructed views to the sparkling Black Sea.26

Neither of the two palaces fit comfortably into their tropical setting. Even at the time they were built, the buildings were out of fashion. The lovely views and lush gardens contrasted sharply with the low, cramped rooms and dark hallways of the Great Palace, and few of the Romanovs were fond of it. Alexander II lived comfortably enough here, but Alexander III always stayed in the smaller but less oppressive Maly Palace.

When Nicholas II came to the Throne, his wife made a number of changes to the Great Palace in an effort to modernize it and lighten its atmosphere, but even these attempts were half-hearted and ultimately unsuccessful; when, in 1909, Nicholas and Alexandra decided to pull the Great Palace down, no one mourned its loss.

The greatest glory at Livadia, however, was its magnificent garden. Three miles west of Yalta an elaborate, wrought iron fence--decorated with gilded arrows and double-headed eagles--marked the boundaries of Livadia. Beyond this fence, protected by tall gates and the watchful eyes of Imperial sentries, lay eight-hundred acres, its naturalistic perfection as contrived as anything created for Peter the Great and his successors at Peterhof or Tsarskoye Selo.

To landscape the area surrounding the new buildings, the Emperor hired Clement Hekkel, who worked with Monighetti in laying out the grounds; he closely followed the existing garden which Delinger had cultivated for Potocki in the 1840s, but expanded them to include the new land acquired by Alexander II.27 Hekkel created sweeping lawns dotted with ancient Greek and Roman marble statuary, and antique Italian fountains. Gravel walks, lined with thick borders of roses and wisteria, led to formal parterres, edged with golden box, and to long avenues of pleached lime, clipped yews, or tall beech trees, stretching to classical pavilions and temples designed in the Turkish style. From the Conservatory, where orchids and other exotic, delicate plants were carefully nourished, a two hundred foot long pergola stretched toward the sea, completely covered with wild roses and honeysuckle. Set within this park, in addition to the Great and Maly Palaces, Monighetti also built a number of service buildings: the Suite's House; the House of the Ladies-in-Waiting; the Gardener's Villa; stables; and a little Turkish Tea House, set precariously atop an arched tunnel through which the main driveway passed.28

The lawns, shaded by thousand year old oaks, cedar, cypress, palm, sequoia, juniper, and pine trees, were ringed with herbaceous borders planted with roses, lilacs, jasmine, and rhododendrons.. Fragrant magnolias spread over glades reached by narrow, twisting paths banked with laurel and azalea; marble benches, statuary, fountains, and wishing-wells dotted the stepped terraces perched along the hillside. From the top of the cliff, wide marble stairs, their balustrades overgrown with ivy and wildflowers, led down to the protected beach of small pebbles, with a little bathing pavilion in the Turkish style nestled against the shore of the Black Sea.29

Midway up the slope of Mount Moghabi, Alexander II had a third house built as a gift to his wife. Called Eriklik, this was a simple, one storey villa, designed by architect A. I. Rezanov, and set amidst the pine-clad cliffs. The villa backed up against the hill, but the other three sides were wrapped with terraces and covered balconies, where the Empress could relax in the shade and enjoy the magnificent, panoramic views over the entire Livadia estate and the Black Sea.30 Although the situation was exquisite, the Empress found the long, rough carriage ride up the winding mountain roads an ordeal, and is said to have spent only fifteen days here.31 Later, a small farm was built in a nearby meadow, and the estate became a favorite destination, for picnics by the adults, and excursions to the farm for the children of Nicholas II, who spent hours playing with the sheep, Shetland ponies, and goats their father kept here.

Although they visited the estate throughout the construction process, Alexander II and his wife spent their first holiday at Livadia in the late summer of 1867. By this time, much had changed. Tsesarevich Nicholas, their eldest son and heir, had died two years earlier, leaving their second son, Alexander, to succeed in his place. In 1866, Tsesarevich Alexander had married his late brother's fiancée, Princess Dagmar of Denmark, daughter of King Christian IX, but this new addition brought little comfort to the Empress, who never ceased to mourn the loss of her beloved "Nixa," as she had called her eldest son. Her "dear Livadia" had become another hollow shell in a life rapidly draining of meaning and vitality. "Dear Sasha and Minny have arrived," the Empress noted in a letter to a friend, "and moved in to the poor little house! It is so sad to think of what might have been, and one's heart bleeds for poor Minny, who must feel it so, stepping over the threshold of the home she had planned so delightfully with another!"32

While the Empress spent her days reclining on a chaise-longue beneath the sheltering awnings of the Great Palace, her husband rode over the adjacent mountains, leading hunting parties in search of deer, elk, wild boar, mountain goat, and gazelles, or fishing in the icy rivers cascading down the slopes for salmon and trout. The Emperor had a special retinue of local Tartar guides, outfitted in scarlet coats decorated with silver and gold ribbons, which accompanied him on these expeditions, to act as beaters or help haul the day's catch back down the mountains. Berries, grapes, and wild mushrooms were picked, the latter placed into a small kettle over a makeshift open fire and boiled into a rich soup, or roasted on skewers, and eaten for lunch, washed down with a bottle of wine from a neighboring vineyard. Occasionally, Alexander would stop in a little Tartar village, find a household, and join the owners for lunch or tea; inevitably, after he left, an equerry was dispatched with a few gold rubles to thank the villagers for their hospitality.33

A vivid portrait of Alexander II and his family at Livadia was left by American author Mark Twain, who visited Yalta in August 1867. Accompanied by the American Consul from Odessa, Twain and his party were delighted to learn that Alexander II was eager to receive them. The Consul spent a good deal of time instructing the group what to do:

"Doubtless we should be received in summer fashion-in the garden; we would stand in a row, all the gentlemen in swallowtail coats, white kids, and white neckties, and the ladies in light-colored silks or something of that kind; at the proper moment, 12-the Emperor, attended by his Suite arrayed in splendid uniforms, would appear and walk slowly along the line, bowing to some and saying two or three words to others. At the moment His Majesty appeared, a universal, delighted, enthusiastic smile ought to break out like a rash among the passengers: a smile of love, of gratification, of admiration, and with one accord, the party must begin to bow-not obsequiously but respectfully and with dignity; at the end of fifteen minutes, the Emperor would go in the house and we could run along home."34

"At the appointed hour," Twain recalled, "we drove out three miles and assembled in the handsome garden in front of the Emperor's palace. We formed a circle under the trees before the door, for there was no one room in the house able to accommodate our threescore persons comfortably, and in a few minutes, the Imperial Family came out, bowing and smiling, and stood in our midst. A number of great dignitaries of the Empire, in dress uniform, came with them. With every bow, His Majesty said a word of welcome."35

Twain noted the Emperor's mechanical, methodical greetings: "Good morning," "I am glad to see you," "I am gratified, "I am delighted," "I am happy to receive you."36 The party took off their hats and bowed to the Emperor as instructed, then listened as the Consul "inflicted the address on him. He bore it with unflinching fortitude, then took the rusty looking document and handed it to some great officer or other, to be filed away among the archives of Russia-in the stove. He thanked us for the address and said he was very much pleased to see us, especially as such friendly relations existed between Russia and the United States. The Empress said the Americans were favorites in Russia and she hoped the Russians were similarly regarded in America."37

"The Emperor," the author wrote, "wore a cap, frock coat and pantaloons, all of some kind of plain white cotton or linen-and sported no jewelry or insignia whatever of rank. No costume could be less ostentatious. He is very tall and spare and a determined looking man, though a very pleasant looking one nevertheless. It is easy to see that he is kind and affectionate. There is something very noble in his expression when his cap is off."38

Marie Alexandrovna, in contrast to her usual demeanor, was charming and interested in her American visitors. At her side, shyly examining the group with clear curiosity, was her only daughter, Grand Duchess Marie Alexandrovna. "The Empress and the little Grand Duchess wore simple suits of foulard (or foulard silk, I don't know which is proper), with a small blue spot in it; the dresses were trimmed with blue; both ladies wore broad blue sashes about their waists, linen collars, and clerical ties of muslin, low-crowned straw hats trimmed with blue velvet, parasols, and flesh-colored gloves. The Grand Duchess had no heels on her shoes. I do not know this of my own knowledge but one of our ladies told me so. I was not looking at her shoes. I was glad to observe that she wore her own hair, plaited in thick braids against the back of her head, instead of the uncomely thing they call a waterfall, which is about as much like a waterfall as a canvas-covered ham is like a cataract.... She was only a girl, and she looked like a thousand others I have seen, but never a girl provoked such a novel and peculiar interest in me before. A strange, new sensation is a rare thing in this hum-drum life and I had it here."39

The Empress, according to Twain, "went round and talked sociably (for an Empress) with various ladies around the circle; several gentlemen entered into a disjointed general conversation with the Emperor; the Dukes, and Princes, Admirals and Maids-of-Honor, dropped into free and easy chat with first one and then another of our party, and whoever chose stepped forward and spoke with the modest little Grand Duchess Marie.... Everybody talks English.... After talking with the company for half an hour the Emperor of Russia and his family conducted us all through their mansion themselves. They made no charge. They seemed to take a real pleasure in it."40

Ironically, Marie Alexandrovna's first holiday at Livadia in 1867 would also prove to be her last visit unclouded by the strains of her tortured marriage. Although the Empress did not yet know, her husband had already fallen in love with another woman, a situation that would lead to both heartbreak and tragedy, and virtually tear the Imperial Family apart.

"Although he was not influenced by men, Alexander II had an unusual weakness for women," noted one government official. "His intimates, who were sincerely devoted to him, used to say that in the company of women he became a completely different person. He had a passion for visiting girls' schools where the pupils would crowd around him and he would shower them with compliments."41

It was perhaps inevitable that, given his wife's illness and withdrawal from society after the death of Tsesarevich Nicholas, he would follow in the footsteps of his Romanov predecessors and take a mistress. Marie Alexandrovna became increasingly moody, subject to uncontrollable fits of weeping, and her already fragile health steadily declined. Amongst members of the Court, persistent rumors also suggested that the Empress was slowly going mad, that she "suffered from a form of religious mania, and labored under the delusion that her August and amiable consort was the incarnation of his Satanic Majesty."42 While this seems most unlikely, there can be little doubt that the Empress fell into a deep depression, nourishing a growing fatalism unknowingly fed by the ministrations of the Court priests who surrounded her. Trapped in her gilded palace, the Empress slowly withered away, losing all interest in her husband and in life.

Under such circumstances, then, did the Emperor seek comfort in the arms of another. His first affair, with a certain Countess Albedinsky, was brief.43 Then, during a routine visit to the Smolny Institute for Girls in St. Petersburg, Alexander was presented to Princess Catherine Dolgorukaia, a beautiful seventeen-year-old pupil. She was a descendant of a poor branch of one of Russia's most illustrious families, who traced their ancestry back to Prince Yuri Dolgoruky, the founder of Moscow.

Catherine's father, Prince Michael Dolgoruky, had been a close friend of Alexander II; he had managed to squander what little money the family had and, at the time of his death, his gambling debts were considerable. Before he died, the Prince asked the Emperor to become his children's guardian. After Dolgoruky's death, Alexander II sent the sons to one of St. Petersburg's military academies, and the two daughters, Marie and Catherine, to the Smolny Institute, paying the annual fees himself. At the age of eighteen, Marie Dolgorukaia was presented at Court, and appointed Maid-of-Honor to Empress Marie Alexandrovna; within a few months, she had become the Emperor's mistress as well. The liaison was discrete, and lasted less than a year before the Emperor turned his attentions to Marie's younger sister.

Alexander, immediately smitten, arranged further meetings, and, soon, he and Catherine were lovers. Soon after they began their affair, Alexander told Catherine, "From now onward, I regard you as my wife before God."44 In 1870, the Emperor had Catherine, like her sister before her, appointed as one of his wife's Maids-of-Honor, and gave her a suite of rooms in the Winter Palace, just above the apartments of the Empress.

In the fall of 1869, the Empress suffered a serious a serious relapse of tuberculosis, and had to go to the Crimea to recuperate. Although by this time she knew of her husband's affair and resisted leaving the capital, Dr. Serge Botkin was adamant. Alexander II accompanied his wife to Livadia, but urgently summoned his brother-in-law, Prince Alexander of Hesse, to the estate; fearing the worst, the Prince rushed to Livadia, expecting to find his sister on her deathbed, only to learn that the Emperor had called him so that he himself might return to St. Petersburg and his mistress. "Look after Marie," Alexander II told his brother-in-law, "I count on you to keep her happy and amused."45 With that, the Emperor climbed into a carriage which sped him off to the Imperial yacht which lay at anchor in Yalta, ready to sail to Sevastopol and return by train to the capital.

The Empress recovered from her illness, but as soon as she returned to St. Petersburg, Court gossip ensured that she learnt the unsavory details of her husband's hasty departure. Stoically, she revealed nothing, but continued to absent herself from most Court ceremonies on the pretext of her ill health. The situation grew more serious on 11 May, 1872, when Catherine gave birth at the Winter Palace to the Emperor's son, George, who the couple called "Gogo." In a Palace bristling with servants and courtiers, it was inevitable that news of the birth would reach the Empress, particularly as her husband's illegitimate son was born in a room directly above her own bedroom. She said nothing, but declined into a deep depression, and her days in bed greatly weakened her lungs. Once again, Botkin advised that she should rest in the Crimea; this time, Alexander II did not bother with even a hint of concern, instead dispatching his wife on the Imperial train, alone except for her Suite, and sending a cable to her brother Alexander, again imploring him to stay with Marie Alexandrovna at Livadia and look after her.46

At Livadia, for the first time, the Empress broke down and told her brother what he already knew, describing her husband's infidelities, his flaunted mistress, and his new, bastard child. Princess Maltzov, one of the Empress' Ladies-in-Waiting, poured out all the sordid details; she hated Catherine Dolgorukaia, and kept a notebook filled with dates and times of the Emperor's visits to her apartments in the Winter Palace. Still, there was little the Empress could or would do: she was unwilling to confront her husband over the issue, perhaps resigned to the role of martyr which, if truth be told, she seemed to relish.47

In the fall of 1872, Alexander II finally joined his wife at Livadia, but there was little benevolence behind the gesture. By the beginning of the 1870s, two of the Emperor's brothers, Grand Dukes Konstantin and Nicholas Nikolaievich, had both established their ballerina mistresses in Crimean villas, and Alexander II soon followed suit: on one of his afternoon rides around Livadia, he purchased a small, three-room villa called Kuchak Sarai, less than a mile from the Imperial estate, for Catherine Dolgorukaia; whenever the Imperial Family was in residence in the Crimea, the Emperor was thus be ensured of the presence of his mistress.48

Thereafter, the Emperor faithfully accompanied his wife on her annual holidays to the Crimea. The beautiful, charming Catherine Dolgorukaia always followed a few days later, with her son and a handful of servants. By the summer of 1873, she was once again pregnant. Alexander decided that she needed a more suitable residence, and purchased a much larger house, Biuk Sarai, not far from Livadia.49 Each morning, as Vera Shebeko, Catherine's maid, recalled, an equerry would ride up to the house, bearing a love letter tied with a red rose from the Emperor. Catherine would hand over her response, and the officer galloped away in a cloud of dust. And, every afternoon, precisely at four, Alexander himself arrived on horseback, accompanied by two Cossacks. "He was always gay and kind," recalled Shebeko. The two lovers took tea, then disappeared for several hours into her private apartments before Alexander was forced to return to Livadia for dinner.50 Occasionally, he managed to sneak away from his duties at Livadia, taking advantage of his wife's indisposition to return to his mistress. "I am sending you the strawberries which I forgot just now," Alexander wrote in one hastily dispatched letter to Catherine, "and am utilizing the occasion to announce that I have managed to make arrangements to dine with you, who are my idol, my treasure, my life. Be it thus and nothing else."51

That November, at Biuk Sarai, Catherine gave birth to Alexander's second illegitimate child, a daughter they called Olga. "My Most Adored, Darling Wife," the Emperor wrote to her from Livadia, "in soul and spirit I rush to your side at our blessed news! God bless you, My Sweet, My Treasure, and angels guard our slumbering little family, which is the greatest gift bestowed on me."52 As Alexander crept away from Livadia, Marie Alexandrovna lay in her apartments on the second floor of the Great Palace, still deathly ill from tuberculosis. Over the next five years, two more children would follow: Boris, who died a few days after his birth in 1876; and Catherine, born in 1878 at Biuk Sarai.

The annual visits to the Crimea continued throughout the 1870s, with the sick and melancholy Empress ensconced in the Great Palace at Livadia, Catherine Dolgorukaia and her bastard children at nearby Biuk Sarai, and Alexander II engaged in a constant progress between the two. In the process, the Court increasingly fell victim to the Emperor's romantic whims, a situation made more apparent in the Crimea. "In the second half of the 1870s," writes Richard Wortman, "the Imperial Family increasingly shrank from the public eye, their whereabouts and their ceremonial activity remaining unknown.... In addition to long periods abroad, the Imperial Family spent considerable time at the Palace of Livadia in the Crimea in the later summer and fall.... The languorous isolation of the Crimea deprived these activities of symbolic meaning. The courtiers, left idle, spent much of their time in intrigue and rumor; the level of mutual antagonism rose. Only the Tsar remained above these animosities, and he, absorbed as he was with his mistress, lent no force or unity to life on the estate."53

The situation with Catherine Dolgorukaia was an open secret at Court; everyone knew what was taking place, and the Empress received much sympathy. Marie Alexandrovna accepted it all with quiet resignation, remaining hidden away in her private apartments. All of her children supported her, and eventually relations between the Emperor and his sons became so strained that they met only on ceremonial occasions, when duty forced the Romanovs to participate in a charade of family happiness.

Alexander II scandalized his family and entire Court by allowing his bastard offspring to use his name as their patronym. An Imperial Decree of 23 July 1874, conferred on them the title of Prince or Princess Yurievsky, after their famous ancestor, and raised them to the rank of "Highness."54 The Emperor further provoked both public and private opinion by housing them, his second, unofficial family, under the same roof as his first.

By the fall of 1879, the Empress was again seriously ill. The Emperor rather callously took advantage of the situation to suggest that she should move permanently to Livadia; he made no secret of his intention to marry Catherine when the opportunity presented itself. Instead, Marie Alexandrovna defiantly journeyed to Cannes, where she spent several months. The trip considerably weakened her, however, and by the time she returned to Russia, it was obvious that the tuberculosis had progressed. When her daughter Marie, Duchess of Edinburgh visited her that spring, she was so indignant to find her father's lover housed in the same Palace as her dying mother that she managed to convince him to move Catherine Dolgorukaia to the country estate at Tsarskoye Selo.55

On 2 June 1880, Empress Marie Alexandrovna lapsed into a coma and died in her sleep. The last sounds she heard were her husband's illegitimate children, playing noisily in their nurseries over her sickroom. With her final conscious breath, the Empress pleaded, "Why is there no one to check those unruly bastards?"56 The following morning, her children were told that their mother had died; only her husband was absent, cavorting with his mistress at the Alexander Palace at Tsarskoye Selo, some fifteen miles south of the capital.57

The week that followed was distinguished by blow falling on blow. During the ceremonies at the Winter Palace, Countess Marie Vorontzov caught sight of Catherine Dolgorukaia, standing in the gallery and watching as the coffin was carried out of the Palace. "What boundless effrontery!" the Empress's brother Prince Alexander of Hesse noted indignantly in his diary. Tradition called for a month of official liturgies, a laying in state, and solemn memorial services; Alexander II ordered that it all take place within the space of a week. Even the cortege from the Winter Palace to the Cathedral of the Fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul, where the Empress would be interred, was stripped of much of its ceremonial: the route was severely curtailed, and the number of official participants cut in half.58

The entire Imperial Family was outraged by the Emperor's selfish and insensitive behavior. The Heir to the Throne, Tsesarevich Alexander, was particularly angered. Having seen his mother hurt and humiliated by the affair, he broke off all communication with his father, and threatened to renounce his rights to the Throne and move to Denmark with his family.59

In the midst of this domestic strife, Alexander II found himself a marked man. It was one of the ironies of his reign that Alexander, the most liberal and reform-minded of all Russian Emperors, should also be the most despised. Liberals and revolutionaries, given hints of freedom, pushed for further accommodation; when the reforms stopped, the anarchist movement began. In 1866, while walking through St. Petersburg's Summer Garden, Alexander had been attacked by an unsuccessful assassin; a year later, on a visit to Paris, another revolutionary threw a bomb, which left the Emperor shaken but unharmed. A plot to blow-up the Imperial Train in Moscow was discovered and averted, but no one knew with any certainty the extent of the conspiracy. "Am I such a wild beast that they must hound me to death?" the Emperor exclaimed on learning of the attempt.60

These pressures, internal and familial, pushed Alexander ever closer to danger and disaster. Faced with the family threats, the Emperor retaliated by marrying Catherine Dolgorukaia in a secret ceremony at Tsarskoye Selo on 18 July 1880, just forty days after the Empress's death. Russian Orthodox custom decreed that, out of respect for the dead, a widow or widower should wait a year to remarry, but Alexander flaunted his disregard of tradition by arranging a morganatic marriage in so short a time. In a letter to his sister Olga, Queen of Wurttemberg, the Emperor declared: "I should certainly not have married again before the end of the year's mourning if the times in which we live had not been so critical, and if I had not every day to run the risk that a fresh attack would successfully put a sudden end to my life. I am concerned, therefore, to secure as soon as possible the future of the being who has lived only for me during the past fourteen years, as well as of the three children which she has borne me. Despite her youth, Princess Catherine Dolgorukaia preferred to forgo all the pleasures and amusements of society, which generally mean so much to young people of her age, in order to devote her whole life to surrounding me with love and care. She therefore has every right to my affection, my esteem, and my gratitude. She has literally never seen anyone except her only sister, and never mixed herself up in anything, in spite of many temptations to do so. Indeed people have had the impertinence to use her name without her knowledge or permission. She lived for me alone and devoted all her time to bringing up our children, who have hitherto been an unadulterated joy to us.... I can assure the family that Catherine completely understands her position as a morganatic wife, and will never make any claims which do not correspond with my wishes as head of the family and as sovereign. I only hope that other members of the family will remember this and not force me to remind them of it."61

No one within the Imperial Family knew of the marriage; that it remained a secret throughout the summer, especially given the nature of the Russian Court with its penchant for gossip and intrigues, was remarkable. In late August, Alexander II made arrangements to travel to the Crimea for his annual holiday at Livadia; his morganatic wife and children were to follow a few days later. Then, a few days before his scheduled departure, Alexander received an anonymous letter, warning that the Princess and her children would be murdered along the route; the Emperor immediately ordered Catherine and their children into the Imperial train and set off for Livadia. It was as good as a public admission of what many already suspected: that the Emperor had secretly married his mistress. Before he left St. Petersburg, Alexander II informed the Minister of the Imperial Court that all of his family should join him at Livadia. He was not to tell them of the marriage; the Emperor himself would do that in the Crimea.62

At Livadia, for the first time, Alexander II moved his new wife into the Great Palace; to add insult, she was ensconced in his late wife's suite, which was newly decorated according to Catherine's own tastes. Members of the Suite and Household were the first to learn of the marriage, told that the former Princess Dolgorukaia was now to be known as Princess Yurievskaia, and addressed within the Palace as "Serene Highness." The stage was now set for what promised to be a memorable confrontation.

Tsesarevich Alexander and his wife Marie Feodorovna arrived at Livadia on 19 October with their four children and moved into the Maly Palace as usual. That night, arriving at the Great Palace to dine with the Emperor, they were shocked to find Catherine standing proudly at his side. Very quickly, Alexander II informed them of his marriage and his morganatic wife's new title. From the beginning, the reaction was one of shock. Not only had the Emperor lowered himself, in their eyes, by contracting a morganatic marriage, but he had also defaced the memory of the late Empress. Marie Feodorovna, according to one source, was positively "glacial" toward the Princess.63 After the dinner had ended, she remarked that, had she known of the marriage and the presence of the Princess, she would have taken another boat back from Yalta to Sevastopol that same night.64

Nor was Marie Feodorovna alone in her outrage. Her sister-in-law Marie Pavlovna, wife of Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich and a woman with whom she shared little in common, wrote to Prince Alexander of Hesse: "This marriage of the Tsar, six weeks after the death of our dear Tsarina, is hard enough to bear in itself. But that this woman, who for fourteen years has occupied such a very invidious position, should be introduced to us as a member of the family, surrounded by her three children, is more painful than I can find words to express. She appears at the family dinners large or small, and also in the private chapel before the whole Court. We are forced to receive her and to visit her. The Tsar goes on visits with her in a closed carriage, though not yet in a sleigh. Since her influence is very great, things go a step farther every day, so that one cannot see where it will all end. Since the Princess is very uneducated and has neither tact nor intellect, you can imagine the kind of life she leads. Every feeling, every sacred memory, is trodden under foot, we are spared nothing. The Tsar has commanded us as his subjects to be friendly with his wife; if not he would force us to it. You can imagine the internal conflict that agitates us all, and the perpetual struggle between feelings, duty, and external pressure. The new wife is nearly always ill-humoured, treats her husband very badly, and without the least consideration, and he takes it all smiling. I have hardly ever heard her speak a kind word; she has something unpleasant to say of everybody and since he believes everything she says, she is doing incalculable harm.... Things occur which I cannot bring my pen to set down. They would pain your fraternal feelings too greatly."65

While still at Livadia, the Emperor wrote a letter to his eldest son, which the latter cannot have welcomed: "In case of my death, I confide to you my wife and children of mine.... My wife received no inheritance whatsoever and thereafter all that she owns now is her own, with her relatives having no rights or claims to it in any shape or form. For security's sake she has willed everything to me. My wife's capital, until our marriage will be officially proclaimed, is in my name.... All objects which she gave me must after my death be returned to her, I wish that in this case the living quarters in the Winter Palace should be reserved for her and her children...these are my last wishes which I am certain will be fulfilled by you conscientiously."66

The drama dragged on for the next five months. On returning to the capital, Alexander issued an Imperial ukaze announcing his marriage, and moved Catherine and their children into Marie Alexandrovna's former apartments in the Winter Palace.67 The Emperor's children made little effort to hide their resentment. On one occasion, the entire Imperial Family attended a Liturgy in the Cathedral of the Winter Palace. At the end of the service, the Emperor stood just outside the Cathedral doors, waiting to greet his family. As usual, Princess Yurievskaia accompanied him. Ordinarily, she stepped back, to avoid any unwelcome confrontation with her husband's family but, on this day, Alexander motioned for her to stand at his side. As Marie Feodorovna left the Cathedral, the Emperor said to her, "Come, my dear, say how do you do to the Princess." Marie Feodorovna curtsied to the Emperor, and kissed him, but pointedly turned her back to Princess Yourievskaia and walked away.68 Such incidents led Alexander II to confront his daughter-in-law: "Sasha is a good son," he once told Marie Feodorovna, "but you--you have no heart."69

"At sixty-four," recalled his nephew, Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich, "Alexander II acted as a boy of eighteen. He whispered words of encouragement into her small ear; he wanted to know whether she liked the wine; he agreed with everything she said; he looked at his relatives with a friendly smile inviting them to enjoy his idyllic happiness, and joked with me, and my brothers, extremely satisfied that at least we youngsters had taken a fancy to the poor Princess."70

In June, 1881, the year-long period of official mourning for the late Empress would be over; Alexander II began to hint that he intended to take his new wife to Moscow and stage a coronation ceremony in which she would be crowned Empress. Hearing this, Marie Feodorovna declared that if Catherine was crowned Empress, she would leave Russia along with her husband, Tsesarevich Alexander, and their eldest son, Grand Duke Nicholas Alexandrovich, the Heir Presumptive, and never return.71

In the end, the long, tortured family drama, with so many scenes set against the bucolic splendor of Livadia, came to an appropriately tragic climax. On 13 March, 1881, the Emperor visited his wife's rooms in the Winter Palace before leaving to attend a review; according to Catherine, Alexander had seized her "in a moment of passion, threw her on a couch, and took her roughly."72 Four hours later, he was blown to pieces by a terrorist's bomb.

Source Notes

1. Lashenko, 10.

2. Pratt, 289.

3. Lashenko, 10.

4. Tiutcheva, 78-80.

5. Van der Kiste, 13.

6. Botkine, 31-32.

7. Ibid. 32-33.

8. Fromenko, 9; and Zemlyanichenko, 36.

9. Fromenko, 9-10; Zemlyanichenko, 37.

10. Lashenko, 11; Fromenko, 10; Zemlyanichenko, 38.

11. Fromenko, 10-11; Zemlyanichenko, 38.

12. Demindenko, 202.

13. Ibid. 202-203.

14. Kirichenko, 121.

15. Ibid. 127.

16. Ibid. 122.

17. Kirichenko, 122; Enamenov, Larionov, and Nosovich, 136-45; Demindenko, 195.

18. Zemlyanichenko, 37-8; Fromenko, 11-12.

19. Fromenko, 12.

20. Twain, 290.

21. Vyrubova, 38.

22. Lashenko, 11; Fromenko, 11-13; Zemlyanichenko, 38-9.

23. Fromenko, 13.

24. Lowe, 282.

25. Paley, 16.

26. Vyrubova, 41-42; Lowe, 282.

27. Zemlyanichenko, 38-9.

28. Fromenko, 13.

29. Ibid. 14.

30. Grand Duchess George, 48.

31. Zeepvat, 2.

32. Letter from Empress Marie Alexandrovna, September 17, 1867, in private collection.

33. "Krymskii Vestnik," 22 June, 1917.

34. Twain, 281.

35. Ibid. 282.

36. Ibid. 282.

37. Ibid. 282.

38. Ibid. 282-83.

39. Ibid. 283.

40. Ibid. 282-84.

41. Chicerin, 18.

42. Brayley Hodgetts, 2:41.

43. Corti, 211.

44. Tarsaidze, 98.

45. Corti, 197.

46. Ibid. 211.

47. Ibid. 211.

48. Almedingen, 240; Tarsaidze, 155.

49. Tarsaidze, 156.

50. Ibid. 155.

51. Ibid. 158.

52. Alexander II to Catherine Dolgorukaia, undated letter of November, 1873, in Private Collection.

53. Wortman, 119-120.

54. "Marie Feodorovna," 132.

55. Ibid. 132.

56. "Russian Court Memoirs," 283.

57. Corti, 268.

58. Ibid. 268.

59. Crankshaw, 267.

60. Cowles, 131.

61. Alexander II to Olga, Queen of Wurttemberg, letter on 20 January/1 February, 1881, in the Erbach-Schonberg Archives, cited in 272-73.

62. Corti, 269.

63. Almedingen, 337.

64. Naryshkin-Kuryakin, 67-8.

65. Grand Duchess Marie Pavlovna to Prince Alexander of Battenberg, quoted in Corti, 271-72.

66. Tarsaidze, 239.

67. Ibid. 240.

68. Vassili, 112.

69. Naryshkin-Kuryakin, 70-1.

70. Alexander Mikhailovich, 50.

71. Tarsaidze, 233-34.

72. de Grunwald, 364-67.

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