Re: [Leica] The Tsar's last picture show - BBC channel 4

[Marc James Small <msmall@infionline.net>]

At 10:51 AM 2/29/04 +0000, Gerry Walden wrote:
>Marc
>
>I have no idea at all because this came as a bit of a surprise to me - I 
>had always just assumed that she was French and that her ancestry was 
>likewise. She told me that when the Bolsheviks took over and executed 
>the Tsar etc. her family (as 'minor' royalty) were allowed to leave 
>Russia on foot with just one suitcase each. The album went into the 
>suitcase and the family ended up in Paris as the French were sympathetic 
>to them at the time, and her mother had lived there ever since.
>

Gerry

Michael's widow did get out of Russia with their daughter:  I believe the
son was already there.  (There is a good and fairly new biography of Grand
Duke Michael Alexandrovich but I do not have it at hand to consult:  it is
in my attic.)  The son died in a car crash in 1931 or '32, while the
daughter married an Englishman after her mother's death after the end of
World War II.  

The List Archives should contain some discussion on this topic from around
2001 or so, when this exhibit first opened.

The Bolsheviks were most uncertain how to treat the Romanovs.  Most were
killed off but those held in Crimea at their estates were taken over by the
Royal Navy without any resistance and were moved on HMS IRON DUKE to Malta,
where they split up, most going to France and a few to the UK and the
Dowager Empress to Denmark, her natal home.  The fate of those who were
killed is just one more clinker in the long line of atrocities committed by
the Communists over the past century.  (Nicholas II, for instance,
desperately wished to be a county squire in England but felt that "God" had
called him to the head of his nation, so that he had to carry out duties
for which he was absurdly misfitted.  Had his father, Alexander III, lived
longer than he did (dying in 1894 at the age of 49 from nephritis), it is
difficult to see him entrusting the Russian Empire to Nicholas:  I would
suspect either Micheal would have been made the heir or, as his
relationship with his wife was "irregular", he might have opted to his
younger brother, Vladimir, whose great-grandson is now the Romanov claimant
for the throne.)

There are some fascinating web sites on the question of the Romanov
succession.  We often speak of "Byzantine complexities" and "Byzantine
bureaucracy" and "Byzantine conspiracies" but these web sites are simply
absurd.  Under both International Law and the Romanov Law of Succession,
Cyril Vladomirovich became the Tsar upon the abdication of Nicholas II and
Michael IV, his brother.  Cyril died in 1938, and his son, Vladimir
Cyrilovich, became the Tsar until his own death fifteen years or so ago.
At this point, either his duaghter, or her son, became the monarch.  This
is not rocket science, despite the efforts of many to pollute the waters.
The best solution, of course, is that advocated by the Dowager Empress:
when the Russian People wish the return of a Tsar, allow them to select one
from the Romanov family.  (And, yes, there is quite a fervent monarchist
movement in Russia today:  we might yet see a return to the Romanovs in
Sankt Peterbourg!)

One minor problem does occur:  the body of one of the Grand Duchesses
(probably Tatiana but, possibly, Anastasia) and the Tsarevich, Alexis, were
not found in the Imperial depository at Ekaterinaburg when it was
investigated by forensic types after the fall of the Bolsheviks.  There is
a Russian researcher who makes a creditable case for having met Alexis in
the 1960's, after long incarceraton in mental asylums.  I would like to
belive that these two Romanovs survived, but, at this remove, who knows?  I
do not know whether the putative Alexis left heirs but, if was genuine and
if he did have progeny, they would, of course, be the proper claimants for
the Imperial throne.

Marc

msmall@infionline.net  FAX:  +540/343-7315
Cha robh bąs fir gun ghrąs fir!


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