The Private Life of the Romanoffs

Seth Traill

Description

This is an English translation of “The Private Life of the Romanoffs”, originally published in German and written by Bernhard Stern. Within this volume, Stern explores the idea of the Romanoffs as tyrants, focusing on the various influences upon the rulers by their 'mistresses and favourites'. A fascinating insight into the lives and loves of the Romanoffs, this volume is not to be missed by those with an interest in Russian history and the events that led to the revolution of 1917. Contents include: “Manners, Customs and Domestic Life Under the First Romanoffs”, “Marriage and Amours of Peter the great”, “Catherine the First and Her Lovers”, “The Marriage of the Love Affair of the Tzarevitch Alexis”, “The Children of Peter the Great and Catherine the First”, “The Brides of Peter II”, “Empress Anna and Biron”, “the Empress Elizabeth and Her Lovers”, “Marriage and Amours of Peter the Foolish”, etc. Many vintage books such as this are increasingly scarce and expensive. It is with this in mind that we are republishing this volume now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition complete with the original text and artwork.

Sujets

• Lettres et linguistique
• Biography
• Royalty
• Peter the Great
• Autobiography

Informations

• Publié par: Read Books Ltd.
• Date de parution: 14 juillet 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781528766746
• Langue: English

Extrait

THE
PRIVATE LIFE
OF THE ROMANOFFS
TRANSLATED FROM
THE GERMAN OF BERNHARD STERN
BY
SETH TRAILL.

The Romanoffs are reproached with having been tyrants. The truth is that these so-called autocrats of all the Russias have been nearly always slaves-slaves of their bejewelled mistresses and favorites .
Copyright 2018 Read Books Ltd. This book is copyright and may not be reproduced or copied in any way without the express permission of the publisher in writing
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
CONTENTS
Manners, Customs and Domestic Life Under the First Romanoffs.
Marriage and Amours of Peter the Great.
Catharine the First and Her Lovers.
The Marriage and the Love Affair of the Tzarevitch Alexis.
The Children of Peter the Great and Catharine the First.
The Brides of Peter II.
The Empress Anna and Biron.
The Empress Elizabeth and her Lovers.
Marriage and Amours of Peter the Foolish.
Catharine the Second and Her Favorites.
Episodes from the Life of Paul the Eccentric.
The Descendants of Paul the Eccentric.
MANNERS, CUSTOMS AND DOMESTIC LIFE UNDER THE FIRST ROMANOFFS.

Russia s Misery.-Rescue by a Prince and a Serf.-Rise of the Romanoffs.-Michael Feodorovitsch, the first Romanoff Tzar.-The Patriarch Philaret Romanoff, the Bane of Russia.-Origin of the Romanoffs.-Commencement of the Romanoff Tyranny.-A Heretic Romanoff.-The Tzar Alexis Michaylovitch, the Enlightened. -The Romanoff System of Favorites.-Tzarina and Doctor.-Marriage Customs of the Tzars.-Alexis Michaylovitch and Natalia Nary- schkiua.-Feodor Alexejevitch.-Ivan Alexejevitch, the Feeble.-Sophia Alexejevina, the Ambitious, and her favorite, Galitzin.-Peter Alexejevitch, the Great.-His Creations and Innovations.-Customs and Habits of His Epoch.-The Old and the New Times, a Masquerade.-A Wedding of Dwarfs.-Peter the Great and the Clergy.-The Papal Marriage.-Election of a New Pope by Besotted Cardinals.-Domestic Life in Old Russia.-Oriental Seclusion of Women.-Their Emancipation.-Ancient Marriage Ceremonies.-Enforced Marriages.-The Rod as a Dowry.-Assemblies.-Something About Drinking.-A Little Chapter on Immoralities.-A Comedy.
BLACK clouds overhung the Muscovite Empire after the terrible end of the terrible Ivan, after the fall of the false Dmitry. Tumult followed tumult. The cities fell into ruins, the villages became heaps of rubbish, fields and forests wasted into wildernesses. In the upper classes all was dissension, disloyalty and greed; in the lower, slavish fear and fatalistic inactivity. Moscow fell into the hands of the Poles, who cruelly revelled and raged there. They destroyed the Ivremlin-City of wood and stone, the churches and monasteries, profaned the health-bringing relics of the miracle workers, broke open the tombs of the saints and demolished their images. And when the patriarch dared to approach them with words of remonstrance, they dragged him off to prison and left him to perish miserably.
It was a mournful spectacle, and the Russian people longed for the day of their deliverance, longed for the hero who should bring order out of chaos and put an end to the strife.
At last a miracle was wrought. A Prince and a Serf, the Knjas Posharsky and the serf Kosma Minin, united for the rescue of Russia, incited the people to revolt and expelled the invaders. Then the two great Council Chambers assembled, the Bojar Chamber and Provincial Chamber, and the representatives of the whole Empire, Metropolitans, Archbishops, Bishops, Archimandrites and Igumes, Woywods, Bojars, Okolnitchy, Tschaschniky, Stolniky, Kossacks, Streltzi, Elders, Attamans, Gosty and Burghers-in short, the best strongest and most intelligent of the people- on February 21, 1613, chose Michael Fedorovitch to be their Tzar.
The Romanoffs were descendants of the Kambila, who migrated from Prussia and Lithuania in 1280, and soon gained a prominent position in the Russian Empire. Under Dmitry Donskoi, a Feodor Romanoff was Voyvod, and by the marriage of his daughter to the Prince of Tver, he became allied to the house of Rurik. Anastasia Romanovna, the first wife of Ivan the Terrible, was the mother of the Tzar Feodor, the last sovereign of the house of Rurik. Feodor Nikititsch Romanoff was the father of Michael, who was born the 12th of July 1596.
On the 19th of April, 1613, the old Kremlin-City, after her long sufferings, saw once more a happy day. Bright and beneficent was the spring-time sun that ushered in the first Romanoffs, bringing to the Empire the promise of peace and prosperity. The streets put on their gayest dress, the people shouted for joy. A few days before his entrance into the capital city the young Tzar had subscribed an act binding himself to protect religion, to hold the welfare of the people above all personal considerations, to leave the old laws unchanged and to make no new ones, to determine all weighty questions, not according to his own judgment, but by the laws of the land, to engage in no war and to conclude no peace without the consent of the Council Chambers, and for the avoidance of dissension, to transfer to other hands his private domains, or to make them over to the State as the property of the Crown.
Michael was by nature humane and benevolent, not devoid of magnanimity or unwilling to grant to the country and the people the liberty which was their right. He wished, rather, to reign as a constitutional sovereign, than which nothing better can be desired.
But, unhappily for Russia and for himself, he had a father-a father whose ambition knew no bounds. The latter, on becoming patriarch, had changed his burgher name of Feodor for that of Philaret. He soon succeeded in overshadowing his young son, the real Tzar. The patriarchate was as powerful as the throne. On nearly every document the name of Philaret appeared beside that of Michael. He not only took a share in all political matters, but put out ukases in his own name, to which as patriarch he had no title, and which even Michael would not have dared to do without the consent of the Council Chambers.
Philaret reigned in the Empire as absolutely as on his own domains, which he gradually enlarged and caused to be respected by the pious as church property, although they were in truth his own private benefices.
Thus arose the Romanoff despotism, the autocracy of the Tzars.
And the people, the good, unsuspecting people, knew nothing. The oaths which Michael had sworn on ascending the throne were forgotten; no one reminded him of them. Ere yet its loss was discovered the promised freedom was gone. The Romanoff era, so auspiciously begun, grew darker year by year. The laws had not brought to the people freedom and action, they had been transformed into shapeless knotty scourges, which subverted all free life, which stifled thought and feeling. Trade and intercourse were restricted; moral and physical distress were hermetically sealed up in a frozen silence.
And when Philaret at last, was no more, Michael continued to walk in the path which his father had pointed out. The Tzar who had ascended the throne with pledges to reign constitutionally, the liberal Tzar, was become an unbending autocrat. The Tzar is all, and all is his. Not only the people, not only the country. No, all products of the soil, all work of the hands, the air, the water and the light, are his.
Does the Tzar want workmen? He winks. And lo! out of all corners of the Empire, out of pathless space, out of the Asiatic wastes, from Siberian deserts, from the southern Steppes, from the fruit provinces of the West, they pour forth, slaves to work for their master, by day and night, and night and day, in winter and in summer, in the icy frost, under the burning sun, they come to work for him, unrequited. Unrequited, for the monarch pays no hire. Rejoice, wretched mortal that the great, the noble Tzar permits you to do and to suffer for him.
You are hungry, thirsty? You would fain rest after your toil? What is that to him? The poor commune may give you food and raiment, a place to sleep.
Trade is the monopoly of the Tzars. Earnings, also, are the monopoly of the Tzars.
No one must deal in any article until the Tzar has acquired his stock of the commodity on advantageous terms. Goods arriving from foreign countries must first be announced and offered to the crown. It has the right of purchase, it determines the price, or the goods that it will give in exchange. Only when it has been first satisfied may the gosty (merchants) be permitted to have what remains, which they are obliged to offer to the commercial houses of the Tzar, and before and above all things to care for his interests in preference to their own. Woe unto the man who is caught overreaching the throne!
Some there are, however, bold enough to engage in speculation, who even rise to a certain degree of affluence. But the prodigy is no sooner accomplished, a demamd for something is no sooner created, than an imperial ukase is issued establishing a monopoly for that article; the commodity is lowered in price, bought up and the value is then raised. All striving to rise is thus rendered futile, vain and useless all earnings, all acquisitions. The success of an industry in any place becomes its ruin. Immediately the imperial officials appear, and for weeks and months the hapless city must give its work unremunerated to the crown-must work until ruin comes upon it and the Tzar is forced to seek another place for his commissions. They are wisest, therefore, who live in idleness, or who content themselves with just so much labor as will enable them by a bare subsistence to win a reprieve from destiny.
Superstition holds the men of Russia enchai