It was not surprising then, as the years went by, if some liberal young nobles began to feel that their angelic Tsar had cheated them. Their minds were opened by the Enlightenment; the great patriotic victory over Napoleon and, in some cases, contact with mystical Freemasonry, had filled them with a romantic fervour towards the fatherland. Yet while Tsar Alexander’s Holy Alliance might inspire them as they looked outward, at home Russia seemed increasingly dominated by the stern authoritarianism of General Arakcheyev. So it was, in the years after the Congress of Vienna, that a loosely knit group began to form, dedicated to change and even revolution.
They were quite alone. Within their own class, an idealistic few. The middle, merchant class, still small, was conservative and uninterested; the peasants completely ignorant.
Nor had they an agreed plan. Some wanted a constitutional monarchy on the English pattern; some, led by a fiery army officer, Pestel, down in the south, wanted to kill the Tsar and set up a republic. In secret they planned, plotted, hoped, and did nothing.
And then, quite unexpectedly, in November 1825, Tsar Alexander was no more. A sudden fever had apparently carried him off, and he had left behind no son. The succession fell to the Tsar’s two brothers: Constantine, the grandson Catherine had hoped would rule in Constantinople, and a younger brother, a well-intentioned but unimaginative fellow named Nicholas.
While the conspirators wondered what they should do, a series of bizarre events took place. Grand Duke Constantine, commanding the army in Poland, had already married a Polish lady and renounced his rights to the throne. Tsar Alexander had accepted this and issued a manifesto designating Nicholas the heir – which was so secret that not even poor Nicholas had been told. Now, therefore, Constantine immediately swore allegiance to young Nicholas; while Nicholas and the Russian army naturally swore allegiance to him! When at last the confusion was sorted out, it was agreed that everyone should, in December 1825, swear allegiance all over again, this time to the bemused Nicholas.
It was now that the conspirators, rather confused themselves, decided to stage a coup. There were only a handful of them: most of their colleagues had panicked at the thought of real action. They decided to incite a mutiny by persuading the troops to support Constantine against the new Tsar. After that – no one was quite sure. There were two groups of conspirators – one in St Petersburg and one, under Pestel, down in the Ukraine. They were badly coordinated and had different aims.
On the morning of December 14, when the army and the Senate were to take the new oath, a group of officers led some three thousand confused troops into the Senate Square. They arrived late, after the senators had already taken their oath. On the conspirators’ instruction the troops began to shout: ‘Constantine and Constitution.’ It was believed that the soldiers supposed that this strange word, constitution, must be the name of the Grand Duke’s wife.
Nicholas, wanting to avoid bloodshed, had them surrounded; but at dusk, when they did not budge, some rounds of canister were fired and several dozen men killed. Then it was over. Soon afterwards, in the south, Pestel’s rebellion was strangled at birth. Five ringleaders only were executed.
This was the Decembrist revolt. Aristocratic, amateurish, slightly absurd. Yet despite – perhaps even because of – the heroic folly of these nobles, they came to be seen as an inspiration, like the Christian martyrs of ancient times, for those revolutionaries who came after them.
To the new Tsar, Nicholas, the revolt was a shock. He was a simple man who believed in service. He assumed his nobles did. What possible reason could there be for these fellows to betray their sacred trust? He had all their confessions copied and bound in a book which never left his desk and which he studied carefully. From it he learned of Russia’s need for laws, liberty and a constitution. He was not a clever man, but he thought about it.
First, however, there must be order.
1827
Summer was beginning and Tatiana was contented: for now, suddenly, in place of silence and sadness, the house was full of happy voices. And as she looked forward to the coming summer months’, it seemed to her that nothing more was likely to shatter their tranquillity. My children, she thought, smiling, have come home.
In the year and a half since Alexander Bobrov had died, she had often been lonely, with only Ilya – who seldom went down to his Riazan estate – for company. In that time, too, tragedy had struck the family twice more. A year ago, Olga had lost her handsome husband – killed while on service – leaving her with one baby and pregnant with another. Thank God, at least, she was well-provided for, the Smolensk estate being large. Then, late last autumn, poor Alexis had lost his wife in a cholera epidemic, just before he was due to go off with his regiment; and one winter’s morning, a sled had arrived at Bobrovo containing – small, cold and miserable – his five-year-old son Mikhail, to be taken care of by his grandmother. ‘Just until Alexis marries again,’ she told Ilya.
Tatiana had been philosophical. Old Arina had been brought back into service as nanny, with her niece to help her. And under their care little Mikhail – Misha, they called him – turned out to be a gentle, sweet-tempered version of his father. Arina found him a child of his own age from amongst the serfs in the village – Ivan Romanov’s youngest son, Timofei – and soon the two little boys were playing happily together each day and old Arina pronounced confidently: ‘He’ll mend.’
And then, in spring, had come good news. Olga and her two babies would come there for the summer. And a week later a letter arrived from Alexis. A new campaign against the Turks was expected that autumn. But for the summer, he had obtained three months leave: ‘Which I intend to spend with you and my son,’ his letter declared.
‘So we shall have our hands full,’ Tatiana told the old nanny cheerfully.
Indeed, of all her children, only Sergei would be missing. ‘And that,’ Tatiana had to confess, ‘is probably just as well.’
At first, Olga saw no danger. She certainly meant no harm.
How happy she was to be back in the simple green and white house, and to gaze down the slope to the river bank where the sweet-scented pine trees grew. It was a return to her childhood and her family. And how good it was to see her two baby girls safely in the hands of the two Arinas. Her old nanny had only three teeth left now, and a hint of beard on her dear, round face; but her niece – young Arina, they called her – was a pretty, cheerful girl of sixteen who was quickly learning all the older woman knew. Olga would spend happy hours sitting out on the verandah with them, accompanied by young Misha, listening to old Arina’s wonderful stories.
The pain of her husband’s death, terrible though it had been, was passing; and in the huge, silent, Russian summer, she felt a sense of healing.
Indeed, there was an atmosphere of particular gentleness in the house that summer. Alexis, too, had suffered a loss and it had softened him. ‘I’d always supposed,’ he confessed to her, ‘that if I were killed – as I may be this autumn if we go to war with Turkey – Misha would at least have his mother. Now, I’d leave him an orphan.’ And though he did not care to show it, Olga knew that he treasured each day that he spent there with the little boy.
There might, perhaps, have been more laughter. Often as she sat with old Arina, she thought of Sergei, and his infectious gaiety. She had not received his usual letter for several weeks now, and she wondered idly what he was up to. But she was grateful, all the same, that he was not there.