Railways, many large enterprises are nationalized and, guided by competent officials, begin to bring profit to the state. Thanks to economic growth and open policy, Russia is gaining a decisive voice in European affairs. A small omission – the fall of Bulgaria from an alliance with Russia, even its war with Serbia. It is interesting that the King of Serbia Milan the First, sending conscripts to the battlefield, stated that they are going to help Bulgaria against Turkey; but in the end they still had to shoot at the Bulgarians. Russia does not interfere in this anemic conflict – but acquires the friendship of the influential Porte.
Alexander the Third prevents the military conflict between France and Germany – declaring a «customs war» against aggressive Germans. In the end, the «iron chancellor» Bismarck concedes, the relations between Russia and France are rising to unprecedented heights.
In 1888, injuries sustained in the wreckage of the Tsar’s train, provoke Alexander’s development of kidney disease. And, on November 1, 1894, the king, sitting in an armchair, dies.
An hour and a half later, in Livadia Palace (Crimea), his son Nikolai the Second takes the oath of allegiance to the throne.
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1. Nikolai Second Alexandrovich, the Emperor of All Russia, the King of Poland and the Grand Prince of Finland with his wife, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna. Birth: 1868, Tsarskoe Selo (Petersburg), the eldest son of Emperor Alexander the Third and Empress Maria Feodorovna. Home schooling is thirteen years old. At the same time, eminent scientists who lecture do not have the right to ask questions to the student, and, therefore, to obtain comprehensible answers in order to verify the mastery of the material. Next – the service of a junior officer in the ranks of the Preobrazhensky regiment, a trip around the world on the cruiser «Memory of Azov», receiving two blows with cold weapons during a visit to Japan. The main credo of Nicholas II – Regis voluntas suprema lex esto (radis voluntas suprema lex esto) – «The desire of the king becomes law.» In combination with the conditions prevailing at that time, and the character of the «unrequited» monarch, by July 17, 1918, this principle leads him to the basement of engineer Ipatiev’s house (Ekaterinburg, in Soviet times – Sverdlovsk), under the bullets of the Chekists.
2. Alexey Romanov, Heir Tsesarevich and the Grand Duke. Birth – 1904, Peterhof, son of Emperor Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra Feodorovna. Since childhood, he has hemophilia: even a minor trauma, instead of the usual bruise, causes profuse internal bleeding, forming hematoma, the size of an apple. Often the joints of the hands and feet swell; in this case the heir is carried by the servant on his hands. Danger of nasal bleeding, while external cuts can be closed.
The people (and the whole world) do not know about the illness of the Tsarevich, they do not sympathize with the royal family; all this secrecy goes to the Imperial House in a minus.
The emperor and his family were canonized (ranked saints) in 1981 by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (RZPTs), in 2000 they were glorified as martyrs by the decision of the Bishops’ Council of the Russian Orthodox Church.
3. Rasputin Grigory Efimovich, 1869 – 1916, a peasant, a friend of the Russian emperor’s family, a native of the village of Pokrovskoe of the Tobolsk province (now the Tyumen region). It is believed that he entered with women from the so-called «high society» into an intimate relationship, but there is no evidence to that. Actually, Gregory – the only man with whom you can talk – just talk about things, for the ladies of this circle considered the strictest taboo.
…The new emperor marries Victoria Alice Elena Louise Beatrice of Hesse-Darmstadt, daughter of the Grand Duke of Hesse (German Empire) Ludwig the Fourth and the Duchess of Alice, the daughter of Queen Victoria of England. The name of the princess is composed of her own (Alice), the names of mothers and sisters. Suffering from remorse, now Alexandra Feodorovna, replaces the Lutheran faith in the Orthodox faith, but then, as it seems, is fully mastered. The wedding and the honeymoon take place less than a month after Alexander III’s death, on November 26, in an atmosphere of mourning and requiem. Subsequently, the spouses are born children – four daughters and who received a gene for hemophilia from Queen Victoria, son Alex.
Relations Alexandra (simply – Alix) with the Russian imperial court, in general, the surrounding people do not add up; The empress considers herself infallible, and intolerant of someone else’s opinion. A born Dane, popular in the world, the influential widow of Alexander III, dislikes the Germans (who at one time brought a lot of suffering to their historical homeland), this feeling also extends to the «daughter-in-law» who came after the coffin. At one time he did not approve of the German Emperor’s enthusiasm for the father, but Nikolai insisted on choosing, having threatened to renounce the throne, to accept a monastic order.
Nevertheless, becoming a monarch and not a monk, the young emperor in a speech before the deputies of his loyal subjects, points to «inadmissibility of meaningless dreams about the fate of zemstvo representatives in matters of internal management.» The speech of the «anointed» is greeted with applause, but it is this speech that becomes the starting point for the growth of discontent.
The coronation takes place on May 26, 1896, in Moscow. After 4 days, on May 30, the Khodynka field is organized, including the distribution of gifts, solemn events. Gingerbread, pound bread, sweets, 200 g of sausage, nuts, raisins, prunes and porcelain goblet are wrapped in a cotton scarf. At five o’clock in the morning on a field in a square kilometer are going to 500 thousand (according to other sources, up to a million) people. A rumor spreads through the crowd that the barmaids give out gifts «only to their own». The people rush to the wooden buildings, 1,800 policemen can not contain them. The direction of the flow of people – along the ravine and the pits, left from the dismantled pavilions. People fall into depressions, new human waves are rolling through them. The number of deaths, according to official figures – 1,383 people, according to unofficial – 4,000, in addition, about 1,500 injured and injured.
By noon, the place of the catastrophe has been cleared of traces of drama that has taken place. At two o’clock on the field comes Nicholas II, he is met by new crowds and sounds of the orchestra. In the evening, festivities continue in the Kremlin Palace, then crowned wives are dancing at the ball of the French ambassador. For reasons of the king, although the Khodynka disaster is the greatest misfortune, it should not overshadow the bright coronation holiday. The entry in the diary of Nicholas II; «I learned about this at 10 1/2 o’clock before the report of Vannovsky; A disgusting impression left of this news. … Skirting tables, went to the Kremlin. … Let’s go to the ball to Montebello. It was very beautifully arranged, but the heat was unbearable.»
The imperial family sacrificed 90,000 rubles to the victims (100 million were spent for the coronation all over the country) and 1,000 left after all the banquets and bottles of Madeira.
The principle of building relations between the royal family and the people is quite clearly represented from the correspondence of Alexandra Feodorovna with her grandmother, the British Queen Victoria:
Victoria: «I’ve been ruling for more than 50 years, and yet, every day I have to think about what I need to do to keep the love of my subjects and make it stronger… Your main duty is to win their love and respect.»
Alexander-Alisa:
