As many myths have been created about a single Russian tsar as about the latter, Nicholas II. What actually happened? Was the sovereign a lethargic and weak-willed man? Was he cruel? Could he have won World War I? And how much truth is there in black fabrications about this ruler?..
Gleb Eliseev, Candidate of Historical Sciences.
Black legend of Nicholas II
Many years have passed since the canonization of the last emperor and his family, but you are still faced with an amazing paradox - many, even completely Orthodox, people dispute the validity of the canonization of Tsar Nikolai Alexandrovich to the canon of saints.
No one has any protests or doubts about the legitimacy of the canonization of the son and daughters of the last Russian emperor. I have not heard any objections to the canonization of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna. Even at the Council of Bishops in 2000, when it came to the canonization of the Royal Martyrs, a dissenting opinion was expressed only regarding the sovereign himself. One of the bishops said that the emperor did not deserve to be glorified, for "he is a state traitor … he, one might say, sanctioned the collapse of the country."
And it is clear that in such a situation the spears are not broken at all because of the martyrdom or the Christian life of Emperor Nikolai Alexandrovich. Neither one nor the other raises doubts even among the most rabid denier of the monarchy. His feat as a passion-bearer is beyond doubt.
The point is different - in a latent, subconscious resentment: “Why did the sovereign admit that there was a revolution? Why didn't you save Russia? " Or, as AI Solzhenitsyn remarked soberly in his article “Reflections on the February Revolution”: “Weak tsar, he betrayed us. All of us - for everything that follows."
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The myth of the weak king, who allegedly voluntarily surrendered his kingdom, obscures his martyrdom and obscures the demonic cruelty of his tormentors. But what could the sovereign do in the circumstances, when Russian society, like a herd of Gadarin pigs, rushed into the abyss for decades?
Studying the history of Nikolaev's reign, one is amazed not at the sovereign's weakness, not at his mistakes, but at how much he managed to do in an atmosphere of whipped up hatred, anger and slander.
We must not forget that the sovereign received autocratic power over Russia completely unexpectedly, after the sudden, unforeseen and unforeseen death of Alexander III. Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich recalled the state of the heir to the throne immediately after the death of his father: “He could not collect his thoughts. He knew that he had become the Emperor, and this terrible burden of power pressed on him. “Sandro, what am I going to do! he exclaimed pathetically. - What will happen to Russia now? I am not yet prepared to be King! I cannot rule the Empire. I don't even know how to talk to ministers.”
However, after a short period of confusion, the new emperor firmly took the helm of government and held it for twenty-two years, until he fell victim to an elite conspiracy. Until a dense cloud of "treason, and cowardice, and deceit", as he himself noted in his diary on March 2, 1917, began to form around him.
The black mythology directed against the last sovereign was actively dispelled by both emigrant historians and modern Russian ones. And yet, in the minds of many, including those who are completely church-going, our fellow citizens stubbornly settled down evil tales, gossip and anecdotes that were passed off as truth in Soviet history textbooks.
The myth about the guilt of Nicholas II in the Khodynka tragedy
It is customary to begin any list of accusations tacitly with Khodynka - a terrible crush that occurred during the coronation celebrations in Moscow on May 18, 1896. You might think the Emperor ordered to organize this crush! And if anyone is to blame for what happened, then the uncle of the emperor, the Moscow governor-general Sergei Alexandrovich, who did not foresee the very possibility of such an influx of public. At the same time, it should be noted - they did not hide what happened, all the newspapers wrote about Khodynka, all of Russia knew about it. The Russian emperor and empress, the next day, visited all the wounded in hospitals and defended a requiem for the dead. Nicholas II ordered to pay a pension to the victims. And they received it until 1917, until the politicians, who for years speculated on the Khodynskaya tragedy, made it so that any pensions in Russia stopped being paid altogether.
And the slander, repeated over the years, sounds very mean, as if the tsar, despite the Khodynka tragedy, went to the ball and had fun there. The sovereign was really forced to go to an official reception at the French embassy, which he could not help but visit for diplomatic reasons (an insult to the allies!), Paid his respects to the ambassador and left after spending only 15 (!) Minutes there. And out of this they created the myth of a heartless despot who revels while his subjects die. Hence the absurd nickname "Bloody", created by the radicals and taken up by the educated public.
The myth about the guilt of the monarch in unleashing the Russo-Japanese war
They say that the sovereign dragged Russia into the Russo-Japanese war, because the autocracy needed a "small victorious war."
Unlike the "educated" Russian society, confident of inevitable victory and contemptuously calling the Japanese "macaques", the emperor knew all the difficulties of the situation in the Far East and tried with all his might to prevent war. And don't forget - it was Japan that attacked Russia in 1904. Treacherously, without declaring war, the Japanese attacked our ships in Port Arthur.
The defeats of the Russian army and navy in the Far East can be blamed on Kuropatkin, Rozhdestvensky, Stessel, Linevich, Nebogatov, and anyone from the generals and admirals, but not the sovereign, who was thousands of miles from the theater of military operations and nevertheless did everything for victory. For example, the fact that by the end of the war 20, and not 4 military echelons a day went along the unfinished Trans-Siberian Railway (as at the beginning) is the merit of Nicholas II himself.
And also on the Japanese side our revolutionary society “fought”, which needed not victory, but defeat, to which its representatives themselves honestly admitted. For example, representatives of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party clearly wrote in their appeal to the Russian officers: “Every victory of yours threatens Russia with the disaster of strengthening order, every defeat brings the hour of deliverance closer. What is surprising if the Russians rejoice at the successes of your enemy? The revolutionaries and liberals diligently fanned confusion in the rear of the belligerent country, doing so with Japanese money as well. This is well known now.
The Myth of "Bloody Sunday"
For decades, the tsar's on-duty accusation remained “Bloody Sunday” - the shooting of an allegedly peaceful demonstration on January 9, 1905. Why, they say, did not leave the Winter Palace and fraternize with the people devoted to him?
Let's start with the simplest fact - the Tsar was not in Zimny, he was in his country residence, in Tsarskoe Selo. He did not intend to come to the city, since both the mayor I. A. Fullon and the police authorities assured the emperor that they had "everything under control." By the way, they did not deceive Nicholas II too much. In a normal situation, troops on the street would have been sufficient to prevent riots. Nobody foresaw the scale of the January 9 demonstration, as well as the activities of the provocateurs. When the SR fighters from the crowd of supposedly "peaceful demonstrators" started shooting at the soldiers, it was not difficult to foresee the retaliatory actions. From the very beginning, the organizers of the demonstration planned a clash with the authorities, not a peaceful march. They did not need political reforms, they needed "great upheavals."
But what does the sovereign himself have to do with it? During the entire revolution of 1905-1907, he strove to find contact with Russian society, went for specific and sometimes even overly bold reforms (like the position under which the first State Dumas were elected). And what did he get in return? Spit and hatred, calls "Down with autocracy!" and encouraging bloody riots.
However, the revolution was not "crushed". The rebellious society was pacified by the sovereign, who skillfully combined the use of force and new, more thoughtful reforms (the electoral law of June 3, 1907, according to which Russia finally received a normally functioning parliament).
The myth of how the tsar "handed over" Stolypin
They reproach the sovereign for allegedly insufficient support for the "Stolypin reforms". But who made Pyotr Arkadievich prime minister, if not Nicholas II himself? Contrary, by the way, to the opinion of the court and the immediate environment. And, if there were moments of misunderstanding between the sovereign and the head of the cabinet, then they are inevitable in any intense and complex work. The allegedly planned resignation of Stolypin did not mean a rejection of his reforms.
The myth of the omnipotence of Rasputin
Tales about the last sovereign cannot do without constant stories about the "dirty man" Rasputin, who enslaved the "weak-willed
king. " Now, after many objective investigations of the "Rasputin legend", among which A. N. Bokhanov's "Truth about Grigory Rasputin" stands out as fundamental, it is clear that the influence of the Siberian elder on the emperor was negligible. And the fact that the sovereign "did not remove Rasputin from the throne"? Where could he have removed it? From the bed of his sick son, whom Rasputin saved, when all the doctors had already refused from Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich? Let everyone think for themselves: is he ready to sacrifice the life of a child for the sake of stopping public gossip and hysterical newspaper chatter?
The myth about the guilt of the sovereign in the "misconduct" of the First World War
Emperor Nicholas II is also reproached with the fact that he did not prepare Russia for the First World War. Public figure I. L. Solonevich wrote about the efforts of the sovereign to prepare the Russian army for a possible war and about the sabotage of his efforts by the "educated society": "The Duma of Popular Wrath, as well as its subsequent reincarnation, rejects military credits: we are democrats and we do not want a military clique. Nicholas II arms the army by violating the spirit of the Basic Laws: in the manner of Article 86. This article provides for the government's right in exceptional cases and during parliamentary holidays to pass temporary laws even without parliament - so that they would be retroactively introduced at the very first parliamentary session. The Duma was dissolved (holidays), loans for machine guns passed without the Duma. And when the session began, nothing could be done."
And again, unlike ministers or military leaders (like Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich), the sovereign did not want war, he tried to delay it with all his might, knowing about the insufficient preparedness of the Russian army. For example, he spoke directly about this to the Russian ambassador to Bulgaria Neklyudov: “Now, Neklyudov, listen to me carefully. Do not forget for one minute the fact that we cannot fight. I don't want war. I made it my immutable rule to do everything to preserve all the advantages of a peaceful life for my people. At this historical moment, everything that could lead to war must be avoided. There is no doubt that we cannot get involved in a war - at least for the next five or six years - until 1917. Although, if the vital interests and honor of Russia are at stake, we can,if absolutely necessary, accept the challenge, but no earlier than 1915. But remember - not one minute earlier, whatever the circumstances or reasons, and whatever position we are in."
Of course, many things in the First World War did not go as the participants planned. But why should the emperor be blamed for these troubles and surprises, who at the beginning was not even the commander-in-chief? Was he able to personally prevent the "Samson catastrophe"? Or the breakthrough of the German cruisers "Goebena" and "Breslau" into the Black Sea, after which plans for coordinating the actions of the Allies in the Entente went to waste?
When the will of the emperor could correct the situation, the emperor did not hesitate, despite the objections of ministers and advisers. In 1915, the Russian army was under the threat of such a complete defeat that its Commander-in-Chief, Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolayevich, literally sobbed in despair. It was then that Nicholas II took the most decisive step - not only stood at the head of the Russian army, but also stopped the retreat, which threatened to turn into a panicky flight.
The sovereign did not imagine himself to be a great commander, he knew how to listen to the opinion of military advisers and choose successful decisions for the Russian troops. According to his instructions, the work of the rear was adjusted, according to his instructions, new and even the latest technology (like Sikorsky bombers or Fedorov assault rifles) was adopted. And if in 1914 the Russian military industry fired 104,900 shells, then in 1916 - 30,974,678! So much military equipment was prepared that it was enough for five years of the Civil War, and for the armament of the Red Army in the first half of the twenties.
In 1917, Russia, under the military leadership of its emperor, was ready for victory. Many wrote about this, even W. Churchill, who was always skeptical and cautious about Russia: “Fate has never been as cruel to any country as to Russia. Her ship went down when the harbor was in sight. She had already endured the storm when everything collapsed. All sacrifices have already been made, all work has been completed. Despair and betrayal seized power when the task was completed. The long retreats were over; shell hunger defeated; armament proceeded in a wide stream; a stronger, more numerous, better equipped army guarded the huge front; rear assembly points were overflowing with people … In the government of states, when great events are happening, the leader of the nation, whoever he is, is condemned for failures and glorified for successes. It's not aboutwho did the work, who drew up a plan of struggle; blame or praise for the outcome prevails on the one who holds the authority of supreme responsibility. Why should Nicholas II be denied this ordeal?.. His efforts are understated; His actions are condemned; His memory is defamed … Stop and say: who else was fit? There was no shortage of talented and courageous people, people who were ambitious and proud in spirit, courageous and powerful. But no one was able to answer the few simple questions on which the life and glory of Russia depended. Holding the victory in her hands, she fell to the ground alive, like ancient Herod, devoured by worms. "His memory is defamed … Stop and say: who else was fit? There was no shortage of talented and courageous people, people who were ambitious and proud in spirit, courageous and powerful. But no one was able to answer the few simple questions on which the life and glory of Russia depended. Holding the victory in her hands, she fell to the ground alive, like ancient Herod, devoured by worms. "His memory is defamed … Stop and say: who else was fit? There was no shortage of talented and courageous people, people who were ambitious and proud in spirit, courageous and powerful. But no one was able to answer the few simple questions on which the life and glory of Russia depended. Holding the victory in her hands, she fell to the ground alive, like ancient Herod, devoured by worms."
At the beginning of 1917, the sovereign really failed to cope with the united conspiracy of the top of the military and the leaders of the opposition political forces.
And who could? It was beyond human strength.
The myth of renunciation
And yet the main thing that even many monarchists accuse Nicholas II of is precisely renunciation, "moral desertion", "flight from office." That he, according to the poet A. A. Blok, "renounced, as if the squadron had surrendered."
Now, again, after the scrupulous works of modern researchers, it becomes clear that the sovereign did not abdicate the throne. Instead, a real coup d'état took place. Or, as the historian and publicist M. V. Nazarov aptly noted, it was not a "renunciation" but a "renunciation" that took place.
Even in the wildest Soviet times, they did not deny that the events of February 23 - March 2, 1917 at the tsarist General Headquarters and at the headquarters of the commander of the Northern Front were a summit coup, "fortunately" that coincided with the beginning of the "February bourgeois revolution" started (of course but!) by the forces of the St. Petersburg proletariat.
With the inflated Bolshevik underground riots in St. Petersburg, everything is now clear. The conspirators only took advantage of this circumstance, excessively inflating its significance, in order to lure the sovereign out of the Headquarters, depriving him of any connection with any loyal parts and the government. And when the tsarist train with great difficulty reached Pskov, where the headquarters of General N. V. Ruzsky, the commander of the Northern Front and one of the active conspirators, was located, the emperor was completely blocked and deprived of communication with the outside world.
In fact, General Ruzsky arrested the tsarist train and the emperor himself. And severe psychological pressure on the sovereign began. Nicholas II was begged to give up power, to which he never aspired. Moreover, this was done not only by the Duma deputies Guchkov and Shulgin, but also by the commanders of all (!) Fronts and almost all fleets (with the exception of Admiral A. V. Kolchak). The Emperor was told that his decisive step would be able to prevent unrest, bloodshed, that this would immediately stop the Petersburg riots …
Now we know very well that the sovereign was basely deceived. What could he think then? At the forgotten station Dno or on the sidings in Pskov, cut off from the rest of Russia? Didn't he consider that it is better for a Christian to humbly surrender the royal power than to shed the blood of his subjects?
But even under the pressure of the conspirators, the emperor did not dare to go against the law and conscience. The manifesto compiled by him clearly did not suit the envoys of the State Duma, and as a result, a fake was concocted, in which even the signature of the sovereign, as A. B. Razumov proved in the article "The Signature of the Emperor: Several Comments on the Manifesto on the Abdication of Nicholas II", was copied from the order on the acceptance of the high command by Nicholas II in 1915. The signature of the Minister of the Court, Count VB Fredericks, who allegedly assured the abdication, was also forged. About which, by the way, the count himself clearly spoke later, during interrogation: "But for me to write such a thing, I can swear that I would not do it."
And already in St. Petersburg, the deceived and confused Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich did what, in principle, he had no right to do - he handed over power to the Provisional Government. As AI Solzhenitsyn noted: “The end of the monarchy was the abdication of Mikhail. He is worse than he renounced: he blocked the path to all other possible heirs to the throne, he handed over power to an amorphous oligarchy. His abdication turned the change of the monarch into a revolution."
Usually, after statements about the unlawful overthrow of the sovereign from the throne, both in scientific discussions and on the Web, shouts immediately begin: “Why did Tsar Nicholas not protest later? Why didn't he denounce the conspirators? Why didn't he raise the loyal troops and lead them against the rioters?"
That is, why didn't you start a civil war?
Because the sovereign did not want her. Because he hoped that with his departure he would calm down the new turmoil, believing that the whole point was in the possible hostility of society towards him personally. He, too, could not help but succumb to the hypnosis of the anti-state, anti-monarchist hatred that Russia had been subjected to for years. As A. I. Solzhenitsyn correctly wrote about the “liberal-radical Field” that swept the empire: “For many years (decades) this Field flowed unhindered, its lines of force thickened - and penetrated and subjugated all the brains in the country, at least somewhat touched enlightenment, even its rudiments. It almost completely owned the intelligentsia. More rare, but his lines of force were permeated by state-bureaucratic circles, the military, and even the priesthood, the episcopate (the whole Church as a whole is already … powerless against this Field), and even those who fought the most against Paul:the rightmost circles and the throne itself."
And did these troops loyal to the emperor exist in reality? After all, even the Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich on March 1, 1917 (that is, before the sovereign's formal abdication) handed over the Guards crew subordinate to him to the jurisdiction of the Duma conspirators and appealed to other military units to “join the new government”!
The attempt of Tsar Nikolai Aleksandrovich by means of renouncing power, with the help of voluntary self-sacrifice to prevent bloodshed came across the evil will of tens of thousands of those who did not want the pacification and victory of Russia, but blood, madness and the creation of a "paradise on earth" for a "new man", free from faith and conscience.
And to such "guardians of humanity" even the defeated Christian sovereign was like a sharp knife in the throat. He was intolerable, impossible.
They could not help but kill him.
The myth of how the king was shot so as not to give it to the "white"
From the moment Nicholas II was removed from power, his entire future fate becomes crystal clear - this is indeed the fate of a martyr, around whom lies, anger and hatred accumulate.
The more or less vegetarian, toothless early Provisional Government limited itself to the arrest of the emperor and his family; Kerensky's socialist clique achieved the exile of the sovereign, his wife and children to Tobolsk. And for months, until the Bolshevik coup, one can see how the dignified, purely Christian behavior of the emperor in exile and the vicious vanity of the politicians of the "new Russia" who sought to "for the beginning" bring the sovereign into "political oblivion" contrast with each other.
And then an openly God-fighting Bolshevik gang came to power, which decided to transform this non-existence from “political” into “physical”. Indeed, back in April 1917, Lenin declared: "We consider Wilhelm II the same crowned robber, worthy of execution, like Nicholas II."
Only one thing is not clear - why did they delay? Why didn't they try to destroy Emperor Nikolai Alexandrovich immediately after the October Revolution?
Probably because they were afraid of popular indignation, they were afraid of public reaction under their still fragile power. Apparently, the unpredictable behavior of "abroad" was also frightening. In any case, the British ambassador D. Buchanan warned the Provisional Government: "Any insult inflicted on the Emperor and His Family will destroy the sympathy caused by March and the course of the revolution, and humiliate the new government in the eyes of the world." However, in the end it turned out that these are just "words, words, nothing but words."
And yet there remains the feeling that, in addition to rational motives, there was also some inexplicable, almost mystical fear of what the fanatics planned to do.
After all, for some reason, years after the Yekaterinburg murder, rumors spread that only one sovereign was shot. Then they declared (even at a quite official level) that the king's killers were severely condemned for abuse of power. And later, almost the entire Soviet period, the version about the "arbitrariness of the Yekaterinburg Council" was officially adopted, allegedly frightened by the white troops approaching the city. They say that the sovereign was not released and did not become the "banner of counter-revolution", he had to be destroyed. Although the imperial family and their entourage were shot on July 17, 1918, and the first white troops entered Yekaterinburg only on July 25 …
The fog of fornication hid a secret, and the essence of the secret was a planned and clearly planned savage murder.
Its exact details and background have not yet been clarified, eyewitness testimonies are surprisingly confused, and even the discovered remains of the Royal Martyrs still raise doubts about their authenticity.
Now, only a few unambiguous facts are clear.
On April 30, 1918, Tsar Nikolai Alexandrovich, his wife Empress Alexandra Feodorovna and their daughter Maria were escorted from Tobolsk, where they had been in exile since August 1917, to Yekaterinburg. They were placed in custody in the former house of engineer N. N. Ipatiev, located at the corner of Voznesensky Prospect. The rest of the children of the emperor and empress - daughters Olga, Tatiana, Anastasia and son Alexei, were reunited with their parents only on May 23.
Judging by indirect data, at the beginning of July 1918 the top leadership of the Bolshevik Party (primarily Lenin and Sverdlov) made a decision to "liquidate the royal family." At midnight on July 17, 1918, the emperor, his wife, children and servants were awakened, taken to the basement and brutally killed. In the fact that they were brutally and cruelly killed, all the testimonies of eyewitnesses, which are so different in other respects, coincide in an amazing way.
The bodies were secretly taken out of Yekaterinburg and somehow tried to destroy. Everything that remained after the abuse of the bodies was also secretly buried.
The brutal, extrajudicial murder was one of the first in a series of countless executions that soon fell upon the Russian people, and Tsar Nikolai Alexandrovich and his family were only the first in the host of numerous new martyrs who, with their blood, imprinted loyalty to Orthodoxy.
The Yekaterinburg victims foresaw their fate, and it was not for nothing that the Grand Duchess Tatyana Nikolaevna, during her imprisonment in Yekaterinburg, crossed out the lines in one of the books: “Those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ went to death, as if on a holiday, facing inevitable death, retained the same wonderful peace of mind, which did not leave them for a minute. They walked calmly towards death because they hoped to enter into another, spiritual life, opening up to the person behind the grave."
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PS Sometimes it is noticed that "here is de Tsar Nicholas II, by his death, atoned for all his sins before Russia." In my opinion, this statement reveals some kind of blasphemous, immoral twist of public consciousness. All the victims of the Yekaterinburg Golgotha were "guilty" only of stubborn confession of the faith of Christ until death and fell a martyr's death.
And the first of them is the sovereign-passion-bearer Nikolai Alexandrovich.
Sergey Kononenko