Peter Tchaikovsky (1840–1893), the Romanovs’ most admired composer
Nikolai Chernyshevsky (1829–1889), a radical writer who influenced Lenin
Alexander III (1845–1894), who clamped down on revolutionaries
Painting (1885) by Ilya Repin depicting a revolutionary refusing final confession and communion
Nicholas II (1868–1918), the last Romanov to rule
Ballerina Mathilde Kschessinska (1872–1971), notorious for her affair with Nicholas when he was heir to the throne
Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924), who displaced Nicholas II as Russia’s autocratic ruler. He disliked opera and ballet. A sketch (1920) from life by Natan Altman
A young Anton Chekhov (1860–1904), a favorite writer of both Nicholas II and Lenin
The Bronze Horseman by Etienne Falconet—a dynamic Peter the Great on a rearing steed, erected by Catherine II in 1782
The official unveiling of the statue of Alexander III by Paolo Trubetskoy in 1909
The “private” portrait of Nicholas II (1900) by Valentin Serov. It depicts the last tsar sympathetically, but underscores his lack of leadership.
Introduction
The Romanov dynasty holds the central place in Russian history. It ruled the country for more than three hundred years, from 1613 to 1917. In that time, Russia became an enormous Eurasian empire, covering a sixth of the world’s surface and instilling fear and sometimes awe in its neighbors, who were beckoned by its vast expanses and the exotic mores and costumes of the ethnic groups inhabiting it, and later surprised and delighted by their amazing cultural achievements—Russian novels, music, ballet, and drama.
The majestic and often tragic history of the Romanovs has long attracted historians, and the flood of books and studies keeps increasing. Much has been written as well on the various cultural aspects of the Romanov era, but this book is the first to present an integrated narrative history of the complex and dramatic relations between the Romanov dynasty and Russian culture in all its multiplicity: not only with literature (the most researched theme until now) but also with art, music, ballet, and theater.
In that sense, this book is a “prequel” to my previous work, The Magical Chorus: A History of Russian Culture from Tolstoy to Solzhenitsyn, which began where the present book ends; thus, together they form a history of Russian culture from Archpriest Avvakum to the present day.
Many still believe that the Romanovs allegedly “demonstrated an amazing indifference to all the arts except ballet, where their mistresses danced, and Guards military exercises, where their lovers marched.”1
That is a caricature, of course. Yes, the Romanov men were first and foremost military by profession, which is understandable, but as most of them were people of excellent education, they took a lively interest in literature, architecture, music, painting, and theater, and some of them (especially Peter the Great, Catherine the Great, and Nicholas I) took a hands-on approach to culture building.
For the Romanovs, culture was the political instrument par excellence, and they may not have given much thought to the fact that Russian literature and art were arguably their greatest treasure. History, however, has confirmed the connection between control of the cultural process and stability: the more involvement by a Russian ruler with the culture, the stronger the regime.
In an autocratic state, which Russia was, personal relations between monarchs and the cultural elite inevitably took on greater significance. The rulers listened closely to the counsel of Gavrila Derzhavin, Nikolai Karamzin, and Vassily Zhukovsky—even though their advice often irritated them.
Nicholas I called Alexander Pushkin “the wisest man in Russia” and tried to direct his work, albeit with mixed success. Ivan Turgenev’s A Sportsman’s Sketches are rumored to have given emotional impetus to Alexander II’s decision to emancipate the serfs. Alexander III read Fedor Dostoevsky’s novels avidly, loved the music of Peter Tchaikovsky, and collected the paintings of the Wanderers, whom he supported as truly national artists.
Created under the aegis of Nicholas I, the ideological slogan “Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality” became an effective tool for cultural and political control for many years. The unwillingness or inability of the last Russian tsar, Nicholas II, to modernize the cultural policy of his predecessors was, I believe, one of the essential causes of the collapse of autocracy in Russia.
As Ralph Waldo Emerson observed, there is no history, only biography. In this book I describe the relations between the Romanovs and “their” writers, poets, composers, and artists as the interaction of living people—gifted, ambitious, vain, impatient, capricious. Both sides clearly imagined themselves onstage, under the floodlights of world history, and acted accordingly.
Victor Shklovsky, one of the fathers of Russian formalism and biographer of Leo Tolstoy, told me in a conversation in Moscow in 1974 that his circle believed that personal dealings with major creative figures (and Shklovsky had known, among others, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Sergei Eisenstein, and Boris Pasternak) help you better understand the great writers of the past.2
When you see for yourself how the private emotions and public statements of cultural leaders correlate, Shklovsky maintained, you can make sounder judgments about the diaries, letters, and reminiscences of years past. Comparing the giants of yore with people you knew, you have greater focus in your perception of the legendary figures (for all the conditionality of such parallels), who are then no longer never-erring cardboard “geniuses” but real characters capable—as we all are—of making terrible mistakes and glaringly unjust statements.
I had many opportunities to see the wisdom of the old paradoxalist Shklovsky’s idea. Personal contact with Anna Akhmatova, Dmitri Shostakovich, George Balanchine, and Joseph Brodsky helped me, I hope, to research and interpret historical materials on Russian culture in a less prejudiced way.
Shklovsky’s hypothesis applies even more to Russia’s leaders. Traditionally they have been considered to be “rulers from God,” in the words of Ivan the Terrible. Only members of the inner circle or specially selected and vetted “representatives of the people” could have access to them. What were the chances of a Russian Jewish intellectual like me looking the tsar in the eye, even for a second? None.
In Soviet times, the leaders of Russia managed to retain that aura of inaccessible omnipotence for a long time. Joseph Stalin was extremely successful in this regard (having learned much—especially in the sphere of cultural politics—from Nicholas I). His successors gradually lost that political capital.
There were so many jokes about Nikita Khrushchev in the last years of his reign. And yet … I remember the excitement I felt in September 1964 in Leningrad when, as a twenty-year-old conservatory student, I found myself in the crowd surrounding Khrushchev (security in those days was rather lax) as he entered the Kirov Theater on Teatralnaya Square with President Sukarno of Indonesia.
Khrushchev (who would be ousted by Leonid Brezhnev in a few weeks) passed by me just half a step away, smiling broadly; his face, contrary to what I read later about his depressed mood in those days, radiated energy and confidence. I was struck by the contrast between his tanned face and his snow-white short-cropped hair around a large bald spot: it literally glowed in Leningrad’s unusually bright autumnal sun, creating the effect of a halo.