On December 12, 1777, the most mysterious emperor of Russia, Alexander, was born
Two centuries ago, Alexander I, the fourteenth Russian emperor, approved the proposal of engineer-colonel Haeckel to build the Dinaburg fortress.
On the eve of the Patriotic War of 1812, the emperor conferred the status of a first-class fortress on it, still unfinished. By his order, the fortress church was transformed into an Orthodox church, destroyed during the Second World War. Alexander the Blessed (as Alexander I was often called among the people) personally visited Dinaburg, inspected the construction site and the esplanade, approved a plan for the placement of fortifications on the approaches to the fortress.
Throughout its history, Russia has not known a more mysterious ruler. Many prominent historians and public figures tried to understand the personality of this emperor, but the mysteries only became more and more.
Please reign
Alexander I came to the throne at twenty-four years after the assassination of his father, Paul I. The future emperor knew about the impending conspiracy, but he did not want his father's death - he thought that he would simply be arrested. A night full of nightmare and infinity, Alexander would very much like to forget, but he could not. No matter how he tried to calm himself (they say, we are trying not for ourselves, but for Russia), his hands betrayed his excitement. Heart ached painfully. Alexander shuddered at the slightest
rustle, and suddenly … Stomp, terrible scream and silence … General Pahlen came in saying something, but Alexander did not immediately understand. Father?! Killed ?!
"Everyone will think that I killed Paul …" - this thought gave a pain in my head. Alexander woke up from the fact that the general roughly shakes him like a rag doll: “Your Majesty, be a man! Please reign!"
Alexander imagined the pale face of his now dead father and sobbed. A few days later, when the remains of Paul were not yet buried, several decrees were issued, signed by Alexander. The Secret Expedition was destroyed, and many prisoners of the Peter and Paul Fortress, hastily left their dungeon. More than ten thousand subjects, the young emperor returned the rights taken from them under Paul. There was a special police decree "not to hurt anyone." Private printing houses closed under Paul began to operate. A month later, the gallows with the names of the guilty nailed to them disappeared from the city squares. The military uniform of the Prussian model was replaced with another.
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In a tangle of contradictions
Thus began the twenty-five-year reign of Alexander I - a quarter of a century of his struggle with himself, with his irresistible and passionate desire to abdicate the throne. Somehow, unable to bear it, the emperor wrote to his friend, Count Kochubei: “My position does not satisfy me at all. It is too brilliant for my character, who likes only silence and calmness. The life of the court was not created for me. Every time I suffer when I have to appear on the court scene, and the blood spoils in me at the sight of the baseness committed at every step to obtain external differences that are not worth a dime in my eyes. I feel unhappy in the company of such people whom I would not like to have with me as lackeys, but meanwhile they occupy the highest places here."
He was lonely, and around him there was brilliant indolence and vile intrigues. He dreamed of limiting the monarchy, but was met with fierce opposition and misunderstanding from his closest associates. He dreamed of silence, and was forgotten in the arms of beautiful ladies.
Women adored him, and his beloved wife was indifferent to him. His life was as if woven from an unthinkable tangle of contradictions: a gentle and kind person by nature, Alexander decided on the most cruel palace coup, which ended with the murder of his father. He never tried to please, but for more than 20 years he was the leader and idol of the people, the army, and harsh military generals. He died in his prime, at the 48th year of his life, having never been ill with anything before. Alexander died in small provincial Taganrog, where he went unexpectedly and secretly, without the usual royal retinue.
The country was literally shocked by his death
Sources differ regarding the disease leading to death. Some argue that it was cholera, others are inclined to consider the disease as a severe cold. Alexander fell ill, apparently after visiting the grave of Madame de Krudener. Despite the malaise, the emperor did not cancel the planned visit to Sevastopol and other cities. Historian A. Vallotton, setting out a point of view close to the official historiography, writes: “Having waved his hand to treatment and not paying attention to the icy wind blowing from the Caucasus, Alexander spent day and night in the saddle and returned to Taganrog in a strong fever. His powers were quickly dissipating. On Sunday, November 14, Cathedral Archpriest Fedotov was urgently summoned to him. "The emperor confessed, received the Holy Communion, and received unction." Out of respect for religions and following the will of God, he agreed to take medicines, which he had refused until now. On November 17, the sun flooded the room of the dying man, who exclaimed: "How wonderful!" Then the delirium resumed and, despite all the efforts of the doctors and what the tsarina constantly saw at his head, His Majesty Alexander I died on November 19, 1825 at a quarter to eleven in the morning”[3]. Empress Elizabeth herself closed her husband's eyes, tied his jaw with a handkerchief, burst into tears and fainted.
8a a few days before the king's arrival in Taganrog, a courier Muskov died there, outwardly very similar to Alexander I. Hence the version arose that instead of the king, Maskov was put in the coffin; according to other sources, it was not Maskov, but a non-commissioned officer of the 3rd company of the Semenovsky regiment Strumensky, even more similar to Alexander I. However, if the substitution took place, then, of course, not with the help of Maskov's body, since the courier died at the beginning September, and the emperor, according to the official date, more than a month later.
The death certificate of the emperor was signed by the physicians who treated him, James Willie and Stofregen, as well as by Baron Diebitsch and Prince Volkonsky. Cholera was declared the cause of death. Meanwhile, in the protocol describing the body of the king, it was said that his back and buttocks are purple-gray-red, which is very strange for the pampered body of the autocrat. But it is known that Strumensky died from the fact that he was marked to death with gauntlets. There is also a legend that in the early morning of November 18, 1825, that is, the day before Alexander's death, a sentry outside the house in which the emperor was housed saw a tall man making his way along the wall. According to the sentry's assurance, it was the king himself. He reported this to the chief of the guard, to which he replied: "You are out of your mind, our emperor is dying!"
One way or another, life-doctor Tarasov opened the body of the real or imaginary emperor, took out the entrails and made the embalming. He so abundantly nourished the body with a special composition that even the white gloves pulled over the hands of the deceased turned yellow. The deceased was dressed in the uniform of an army general with orders and awards.
The body was transported to St. Petersburg for two whole months. On the way to the capital, the coffin was opened several times, but only at night and in the presence of very few confidants. At the same time, General Prince Orlov-Davydov drew up the inspection protocol. Prince Volkonsky on December 7, 1825, wrote from Taganrog to St. Petersburg: "Although the body is embalmed, the face turned black from the local damp air, and even the facial features of the deceased have changed completely … why I think that there is no need to open the coffin in St. Petersburg" … And yet the coffin was once opened in the capital - for members of the imperial family, and although the mother of the sovereign Maria Feodorovna exclaimed: "I recognize him well: this is my son, my dear Alexander!", But still found that the face of her son lost a lot of weight. The coffin with the deceased stood for another week in the Kazan Cathedral, and then the burial was performed.
The legend of the burial of the false emperor was continued after 11 years. In the fall of 1836 in Siberia, in the Perm province, a man appeared who called himself Fyodor Kuzmich. His height was above average, his shoulders were wide, his chest high, his eyes were blue, his features were extremely regular and beautiful. All over, one could see his uneasy origin - he knew foreign languages perfectly, was distinguished by the nobility of posture and manners, and so on. In addition, his resemblance to the late Emperor Alexander I was noticeable (this was noted, for example, by the chamberlains). The man who called himself Fyodor Kuzmich, even under threat of criminal punishment, did not reveal his real name and origin. He was sentenced for vagrancy to 20 lashes and exiled to a settlement in the Tomsk province. For five years Fyodor Kuzmich worked at a distillery,but then the excessive attention of others made him move to a new place. But there was no peace either.
A. Vallotten cites an episode when an old soldier who saw Fyodor Kuzmich shouted: “Tsar! This is our father Alexander! So he's not dead?"
Fyodor Kuzmich denied the legend of his imperial origin, but did so in an ambiguous way, further strengthening the suspicions of his interlocutors on this score. After some time, Fyodor Kuzmich took monastic vows and became an elder known throughout Siberia.
Eyewitnesses testify that the elder showed an excellent knowledge of St. Petersburg court life and etiquette, as well as the events of the late 18th - early 19th centuries, knew all statesmen of that period. However, he never mentioned Emperor Paul and did not touch on the characteristics of Alexander I.
At the end of his life Fyodor Kuzmich, at the request of the Tomsk merchant Semyon Khromov, moved to live with him. In 1859, Fyodor Kuzmich fell ill quite seriously, and then Khromov turned to him with a question: would he reveal his real name?
- No, it cannot be revealed to anyone. Bishop Innokenty and Athanasius asked me about this, and I told them the same thing that I am telling you, punk.
The elder said something similar to his confessor:
- If I had not told the truth about myself in confession, heaven would have been surprised; if he had said who I was, the earth would have wondered.
On the morning of January 20, 1864, Khromov once again came to visit Fyodor Kuzmich, who was seriously ill. At that time, the elder lived in a cell built specifically for him near Khromov's house. Seeing that the life of Fyodore Kuzmich was fading away, Khromov asked to bless him.
“The Lord bless you and bless me,” the elder replied.
- Declare at least the name of your angel, - asked the merchant's wife, to which he replied:
“God knows that.
In the evening Fyodor Kuzmich died.
Before his death, he managed to destroy some papers, with the exception of a sheet with encrypted notes and the initials of A. P.
There is a semi-legendary confession that was allegedly made by a former soldier of the company of His Imperial Majesty Nicholas I. One night, along with three comrades in the j№, according to the order, he replaced the coffin with the body of Alexander I in the Peter and Paul Cathedral with another, brought in a closed military van. Nicholas I himself watched this mysterious operation.
Of course, many people had the idea to conduct a study of the remains stored * in the tomb of Alexander I. The famous scientist IS Shklovsky once turned with such a proposal to MM Gerasimov, a sculptor-anthropologist who became famous for the reconstruction of sculptural portraits historically; figures on their skulls. There is one problem. Mikhail Mikhailovich, - said Shklovsky to Gerasimov, - which can only be solved by Prince. Still, the question of the reality of Elder Fyodor Kuzmich … is completely unclear. The circumstances of the death of Alexander I are shrouded in mystery.
With whom is this suddenly healthy young (47 years old!) Man who behaved so strangely in the last years of his reign, quite unexpectedly dies in God-forgotten Taganrog? Here, perhaps, not everything is all right. And who, if not important. Mikhail Mikhailovich, to open the tomb of the emperor, which is in the Cathedral of the Peter and Paul Fortress, to restore the face of the deceased on the skull and compare it with the richest iconography of Alexander I? The question will be removed once and for all! " Gerasimov somehow laughed unusually venomously. “Look what a smart guy! I've dreamed about it all my life. I applied to the government three times, asking for permission to open the tomb of Aleksadr I. The last time I did this was two years ago. And every time they refuse me. No reasons are given. Like some kind of wall!"
Shklovsky was surprised. Perhaps this position of the authorities is a confirmation of the veracity of the version about Elder Fyodor Kuzmich. Surely the reason for the refusal was not ethics. After all, they did not hesitate to open the tomb of Tamerlane in June 1941, the day before the start of the war. The conversation with Gerasimov took place in 1968. And ten years later, Shklovsky met a man named Stepan Vladimirovich, who told him that in his youth he participated in the opening of the graves of the Russian nobility. “As is well known,” Shklovsky writes, “during the famine of 1921, Lenin's famous decree was issued on the confiscation of church treasures. It is much less known that there was a secret clause in this decree, which ordered the opening of the graves of the royal nobility and nobles for the removal of valuables from the burials for the fund to help the hungry. My interlocutor - then a young Baltic sailor - was in one of these "coffin-digging" teams that opened their family crypt in the family estate of the Orlovs in the Pskov region. And so, when the tomb was opened, before the amazed, blasphemous team, the count appeared completely untouched by decay, dressed in ceremonial clothes. No special treasures were found there, but the count was thrown into a ditch. “By the evening he began to turn black quickly,” Stepan Vladimirovich recalled.- Stepan Vladimirovich recalled.- Stepan Vladimirovich recalled.
But I didn't listen to him anymore. “So that's the thing! - I thought. - So that's why Mikhail Mikhailovich was not allowed to open the royal tomb in the Cathedral of the Peter and Paul Fortress! There is simply nothing now - just like in the crypt of Count Orlov! "Since the question of the authenticity of Alexander I and Fyodor Kuzmich worried the public in the" dark years of tsarism ", at the beginning of the century, experts tried to solve this issue with the help of a comparative analysis of the emperor's handwriting and the elder. But if there are enough papers written by Alexander's hand, then almost nothing was found from the papers of Fyodor Kuzmich. For research they took an envelope with the inscription: “To the gracious Emperor Simion Feofanovich Khromov. From Fyodor Kuzmich ". The experts acknowledged that there was not the slightest similarity in both the handwriting and individual letters. However, one should also take into account thatthat the inscription on the envelope could have been made not by the hand of Fyodor Kuzmich, but by someone else, that the experts could be mistaken, that after emotional upheavals, a person's handwriting could change significantly, etc.
However, if Fyodor Kuzmich is still not Alexander I, then who is he? Grand Duke Nikolai Mikhailovich suggested (albeit with some reservations) that it could have been S. A. Veliky, the bastard son of Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich and S. I. Chertorizhskaya. There is no reliable information about his death. According to some reports, he died while serving in the English Navy, according to others, he drowned in Kronstadt.
Thus, the death of the Russian emperor remains a mystery behind seven locks.