Alexandra Feodorovna, as the wife of the Emperor, was expected to be the mother of an heir to the throne of Russia. And even here long years of enduring pain and travail were before her, for four girls were born before a son came to them. When the first child was born, in November, 1895, there was disappointment throughout the Empire. But the Tsar said a splendid thing at that time: “I am glad,” said the Royal father, “that our child is a girl. Had it been a boy he would have belonged to the people, being a girl she belongs to us.” One year and a half after the birth of the Grand Duchess Olga the second daughter was born, and she was named Tatiana. Marie followed in another two years, and Anastasie exactly two years later. More than three years then elapsed before Alexis, the son and heir, made his appearance. During these three years the aid of all kinds of soothsayers and charlatans was invoked to influence the sex of the child. An old priest of the interior who had been dead seventy years was canonised in the hope that the miracle of a boy might be worked! This is a story by itself, however, and it would be premature to tell it now.{135}
It is wellnigh impossible for people in America to understand the disappointment and vexation of the court when girl after girl was born—four of them—before the long wanted son. The Tsaritsa fell more and more into disfavour, and the aristocracy—especially those who were the friends and followers of the Dowager—took advantage of the simple, superstitious peasants to point out to them that the Empress was not beloved in heaven or she would have borne a son.
When finally a son was born many people loudly asserted that the boy was a substitution and not the Tsaritsa’s child at all. This was a very malicious thing to say and was, of course, entirely untrue. The rumour persisted, however, and received certain credence until it was pointed out that the Dowager Empress was far too watchful, and too much at enmity with the Empress to allow any such imposition to be perpetrated.
Until the birth of the son the Tsaritsa took little part in public activity. Indeed, it was not until the war year of 1904 (which was also the year of the birth of a son) that she undertook to participate to any extent in work for the nation.
At the breaking out of the war between Russia and Japan the Tsaritsa undertook to assist the work of the Red Cross Society. I have seen several of the rooms in the Winter Palace which were turned over to the work of preparing bandages and warm clothing for the wounded soldiers in the hospitals{136} at the front. In connection with this work the Tsaritsa was conspicuous before the people for the first time since her coronation as Empress in an undertaking properly belonging to the nation. She gathered together hundreds of young ladies of the court, organised working parties, and before long among the women of aristocratic circles it was distinctly the thing to do to belong to one of the Empress’s working groups, to prepare warm caps, and mufflers, and stockings and bandages for the army. The Empress herself worked indefatigably. And so did the two older Grand Duchesses, Olga and Tatiana. They both sewed and knit till their little fingers were stiff and sore.
The earnest spirit of patriotic pride and sacrifice exhibited by the Empress at this time was inspiration to thousands of young women in St. Petersburg and Moscow, and on the big estates of rich noblemen throughout the Empire. One group of fashionable St. Petersburg girls presented themselves in a body to the Empress with the request that they be sent to the front to serve as volunteer nurses. But the Empress replied: “You are not experienced enough for that work, nor strong enough to endure the hardships of life in Manchuria. What you may do is to serve in the hospitals of St. Petersburg, thus enabling the regular trained nurses to go to the front.” Almost without exception these young ladies acted upon this suggestion, and many of them did most excellent service, eventually becoming as useful as nurses who
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THE FIVE CHILDREN OF THE TSARITSA.
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had undergone the usual training in preparation for such work.
Some idea of the extent of this work may be gathered from the single fact that in the year 1904 the depot at Kharbin alone received from the Winter Palace headquarters, over which the Empress presided in person, no fewer than eleven million eight hundred articles. In addition to these things more than a million dollars in money was collected and forwarded for the purchase of surgical instruments and such other things as were sorely needed by the badly equipped Russian forces. Some seventy ambulance trains were organised, and a number of chapels and libraries.
In thanking the corps of women who had assisted her in this work the Empress said: “I am happy to know that through the efforts of the workers in my depot my most ardent desire to give relief to our dear troops has been satisfied.” And in a telegram to one of the generals commanding at the front she said: “Inform the troops in the Far East that I rejoice that it has been given me to lighten even to a slight extent the lot of the unhappy victims of a cruel war, who have so self-sacrificingly shed their blood for the honour of the Throne of Russia. United in prayer with you all I lift up to the Highest my ardent petition that He may comfort all who have suffered on the field of battle and continue to keep alive in the hearts of the valiant and heroic Russian warriors, the feeling of devotion to their duty, their oath and their love to the Fatherland.{138}”
The Empress also organised the famous “Dog Detachment,” by which, with the help of dogs especially trained in Germany, the overlooked wounded were sought out after the tides of battle had swept the Manchurian plains and hills. Unfortunately this detachment was never given proper opportunity for activity, as the fields of battle almost invariably remained in the hands of the enemy.
Besides the Red Cross work, the most important public undertaking of the Tsaritsa has been the establishment of Labour Aid Institutions. This is really an incipient charity enterprise and is being gradually extended to different parts of the Empire.
Viewed as the charity organisation of a great nation the whole scheme is a ridiculous farce, but viewed as the work of an individual its proportions seem substantial. A complete list of these institutions practically means a complete list of the charities of the Empire, and includes temporary nurseries for babies, homes and asylums for children, lodging-houses for workless men, old people’s homes, lying-in hospitals, institutions for the insane, libraries and reading-rooms and various depots where simple work is provided for those who are able.
I visited a number of these institutions and satisfied myself that, however satisfactory a catalogue of this work might be, that the work itself had small value. It is the crudest and most careless organisation of charity I have seen anywhere in{139} the world, and carried on on such a trifling scale as to be practically valueless. If the time ever comes when the Russian Government can take up the work thus begun it will be given a value—the value that ultimately accrues to all pioneer work.
There are more starving peasants in Russia every year than in any country of the western world. The numbers annually mount up into the millions—in 1906 there were twenty-seven millions in the famine belt. The beggars and workless, the maimed and the crippled victims of the war fill the streets of all the large cities. A lodging-house for fifty or a hundred men in a city where fifty thousand are in want is the merest drop in the bucket. The schools for girls are better equipped and better endowed than any of the other institutions embraced in this work, and this is owing to the personal interest of the Empress in girls.
This interest of the Tsaritsa’s in girls is doubtless owing to the fact that she has so many daughters of her own. Many of the schools which she has helped to start and to support have been named after her own little girls. The “Olga Children’s Homes” in St. Petersburg and Moscow were first inaugurated in 1898 and now are on a firm foundation.
In Russia, the Labour Aid Institutions are treated lightly. Even friends of the Empress speak of them as trivial. Judged by their present capacities they are trivial. They are badly managed. They offer rich opportunities for what is{140} variously called “protection,” “patronage” and “graft”—opportunities which are fully taken advantage of, as I saw for myself in several of the places which I visited. There were elaborate offices, luxuriously fitted with selected furnishings, and small regiments of young aristocrats and noblemen (like all public servants of rank in Russia, called “chinovniks”) serving as clerks and directors. Positions of absolute sinecure carrying rich emoluments. Not one of these institutions—outside of the orphanages—would stand the test of scientific charity or philanthropy. For all this I am inclined to give the work a higher value than do the Russian people for, after all, Russia will one day be a modern nation in forms and institutions, and then all of this work will needs be developed. It will then be good to have this little experiment scattered about the country. It may prove the foundation for a work of worthy proportions. And I am glad that the Empress may claim credit for most of what has been done. There are schools and institutions of one sort or another named after each of the children, as well as after the Empress herself, and to all of these the Empress contributes annually from her private purse.
In no sense can any, or all of these enterprises be considered a great work, but they are all characteristic of the Tsaritsa. It is indicative of simple, human sympathies, it is quiet and unostentatious—almost timidly so—but the idea underlying it all is real.{141}
The court of Nicholas II does not entertain nearly so frequently nor so lavishly as the preceding Courts of the last hundred years. This is partly owing to the temperament of the present Tsar, and the retiring characteristic of the Tsaritsa, and also because of the troubled and distraught condition of the Empire during the last several years. Several court balls each winter are required, however, and on these occasions the Tsaritsa is always a conspicuous figure. Her own enjoyment at these Royal functions may well be questioned. In the first place, there are certain aged ministers,............