Alexandra Fyodorovna, having been raised in the pious rules of evangelical-Potsdam absolutism and having flourished in the dogmas of Orthodox-Petersburg autocracy, could not immediately recover and was at a loss after the royal demise. It was painful for her to see the liberal tendency of the new emperor; she was bothered by the malicious idea of amnesties and the outrageous thought of the emancipation of the serfs. She saw with horror as the majestic supports on which the Nicholaevan dam rested (those German and Russian Kleinmikhels) grew unsteady. The specter that had haunted her for thirty years had risen once more from the moats of the Peter Paul Fortress, from beneath the Siberian snows, and it pointed an accusing finger at the Phrygian cap.2 In fact, how could she not tremble when terrorists like Lanskoy and Sukhozanet were taking the helm of the ship that had been run aground by her dear departed and could not be refloated without Anglo-French assistance?3 Foreseeing another 10th of August and 21st of January, mourning the loss of the Nicholaevan style of uniform and the comrades-in-arms of the "unforgettable one," the empress left the revolutionary palace and proceeded to Berlin.4
A new blow awaited her there from her nearest and dearest. Her brother the king, with a poor understanding of the roles of the sexes and befuddled by drink, suddenly awarded the empress—can you guess what?—the rank of colonel of the dragoons.5 And in her old age she had to "take off her black attire" and dress up in a costume of which the Prussian newspaper said: "it was half unreal, half dragoonish!" Thus she presented herself—as a venerable androgyne and a widow-dragoon—to the officer corps, who were moved to tears, which one might have expected from Germans.
What would happen if the empress on her side had named him, her affectionate and crowned brother, the venerable headmistress of the Smolny Monastery? Would we see him appear at the assembly in decollete with bare arms and riding breeches, or in the uniform of the former Kaiser- Nicolaus regiment, in a starched skirt with crinolines and. ornamental braid! Let him see for himself what it means to confuse the sexes.
This opened the eyes of the empress, and with every step in Europe she came more and more over to our side, and from an empress-colonel is becoming a citizen-empress. [. . .]
Having democratically spent some time with various Piedmontese officials and advisers to the authorities in Nice, our Orthodox Protestant went to see the pope. Pius IX recalled his youth, how he himself had served in the Guardia Nobile, so he put on his best cassock and, like a polite gentleman, assumed a dignified air and went off to visit her himself. No one knows anything about their pious tete-a-tete; maybe he asked the empress to convert Russia to Catholicism, and maybe he explained the benefit and advantage of his discovery of the immaculate conception!6
We are most pleasantly surprised that in Rome, in this oldest of cities, the venerable invalid flutters about like a butterfly. We are, it is true, beginning to think that devotion and blind love dreamed up danger to the health of the imperial widow—after all, where is the proof? In Petersburg until the age of fifty she danced, got dressed, laced herself up, and had her hair curled. In Nice there were picnics, breakfast on yachts, music, pleasurable strolls—and I do not know what else. In Rome she went here and there, vanity of vanities: whether it was the same old illumination of St. Peter's or the lighting of fireworks, our Alexandra Fyodorovna was there. [. . .]
When Nicholas was in Rome, after leaving his comrade-in-arms and friend the Neapolitan king,7 he inspected St. Peter's Basilica, found everything in order, and wrote on the cupola: "I was here on such-and-such a date and prayed for Mother Russia." Although it was not entirely appropriate and not at all good form for the head of the Eastern church to disturb God in someone else's quarters, evidently he prayed fervently, and not just about Mother Russia but also about the mother of his children, and God heard his royal prayer! [. . .]
Notes
Source: "Avgusteishie puteshestvenniki," Kolokol, l. 1, July 1, 1857; 13:13-18, 489-93.
Justus von Liebig was a German scientist interested in the soil, and Jacob Mole- schott was a Dutch physiologist. The dowager empress Alexandra Fyodorovna spent the winter season of 1856-57 in Nice, renting three villas for her large entourage, which included many German nobles.
A symbol of liberty in ancient Rome, eighteenth- and nineteenth-century France, Ireland, and in the Americas.
Herzen is being ironic; S. S. Lanskoy quit a Decembrist group long before the uprising, and N. O. Sukhozanet was a member of the guards unit that mounted a defense against the Decembrists on Senate Square. The former was appointed minister of the interior in 1855 and the latter became minister of war the following year. The "Anglo- French assistance" was that by defeating the Russians in the Crimea, emancipation became a necessity for Alexander II.
On August 10, 1792, the French monarchy was overthrown, and on January 21, 1793, Louis XVI was executed. Alexander II ordered new uniforms for the military and dismissed several of his father's ministers. His mother left on a year-long trip to Europe in May 1856.
In place of the deceased Nicholas I.
In 1854, Pope Pius IX had announced the doctrine of Mary's immaculate conception.
The tsar visited Italy in 1845 and met with the king of the Two Sicilies, Ferdinand II.
^ 12 +
The Bell, No. 2, August 1, 1857. A French translation of "Revolution in Russia" appeared in the Brussels newspaper La Cloche on October 1, 1862. As fundamental reform began to be discussed in his homeland, Herzen expressed a strong preference for a peaceful path forward over any kind of revolution, something he had already made clear in From the Other Shore. Nevertheless, he had no patience for reactionary forces, who threatened further delay and stagnation. Herzen knew relatively little about the new tsar, but was willing to place his hopes in anyone who was not Nicholas, as well as in the inevitable consequences for the country of the unsuccessfully fought Crimean War. For Russia, the time for change had come.
In the same issue, Herzen included the essay "Moscow and Petersburg" (1842), which he wrote in Novgorod during his second period of exile. Although his views had somewhat altered, he felt it would be wrong to censor himself. "I left the article as it was, through a sense of respect for the past." The satirical juxtaposition of the two capitals ends with feigned excitement over the railroad that is soon to join them. Herzen predicted that in the future, caviar would be cheaper in Petersburg, and Moscow would find out two days sooner which foreign periodicals had been banned (Gertsen, Sobranie sochinenii, 2:33-42).
Gentlemen, it is better that these changes came from above than from below.
—Alexander II, a speech to the Moscow nobility
We are not only on the eve of great upheaval, we have already entered into it. Necessity and public opinion carried the government to a new phase of development, change, and progress. Society and the government came up against questions that suddenly acquired the rights of citizenship and became urgent. This excitation of thought, agitation, and renewed striving to solve the main tasks of governmental life, and to dismantle the historical forms through which it has functioned—is the essential soil of every fundamental period of upheaval.