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Alexei also strengthened the connection between noble status and service to the crown, rewarding the nobility with the right to own serfs, thus institutionalising a pattern which became a mainstay of the Russian system: servility to those above, tyranny over those below. Taken together, his reforms ensured that Muscovy would develop in a different direction from all other European states.
Alexei’s son Peter the Great was determined to modernise his kingdom along the lines of what he had seen on his travels through western Europe. The magnificent showpiece city of St Petersburg testifies to his success in one respect. But while he strove to civilise his subjects, prescribing the clothes they should wear and how they should drink tea, he himself indulged in epic bouts of drunkenness, bestial depravity and juvenile profanity, involving giants, dwarves and grotesquely disfigured cripples cavorting in ribald farce. He was also capable of breathtaking cruelty. He even tortured his own son to death. And his introduction of the table of ranks, which effectively turned every individual into a cog in the machine of state, brought Russia closer to the structure of the horde of Genghis Khan than to any other European society.
Peter’s reign was followed by a murderous merry-go-round, as rival factions backed various members of the Romanov family and the succession leapt from one branch to another until there were none left. The last actual Romanov ruler was Elizabeth, who was succeeded at her death in 1761 by her nephew Peter III, a Holstein-Gottorp. He in turn was succeeded by his wife, Catherine II, originally Sophia of Anhalt-Zerbst, and from then on the dynasty was effectively German, and almost certainly without a drop of Romanov blood.
The German influence attenuated the savagery and put an end to the spasms of violence which had characterised life under the Romanovs. But though Catherine the Great corresponded with Voltaire and basked in the admiration of Enlightened European opinion, her successor was nevertheless bludgeoned to death in his own palace by his courtiers. His son, Alexander I, also won the admiration of Europe for his part in the defeat of Napoleon and his liberal leanings. But he failed to steer his empire in the direction these suggested. At a moment when Russian society was drawing closer to Europe, he backed away. He abandoned his plans to abolish serfdom, the principal obstacle to reform, and, turning to mysticism, clamped down on all expressions of liberalism.
His successors embraced the concept of Russian exceptionalism; that Russia was by its very nature destined to be an autocracy whose only legitimate ruler was one prepared to rule as an autocrat. The 19th-century ‘Romanovs’ thus present a pathetic spectacle of decent, hard-working German royals struggling to personify the soul of Russia. While the parricidal struggles and rackety Rabelaisian revels of the previous centuries gave way to automatic succession and familial gemütlichkeit, these essentially kind and sensitive men nevertheless felt obliged to preside over a repressive and cruel system.
Convinced that a tsar must show military prowess, they embarked on wars that only served to demonstrate the weakness and incompetence of their military machine. Catastrophic defeat in Crimea forced on Alexander II some reforms and the emancipation of the serfs. But that did not prevent him from being blown to pieces by a terrorist bomb. Denied any legal means of expressing opposition, dissenters increasingly turned to terrorism. The intrusive and brutal secret police, the Okhrana, were unable to provide security, and government officials as well as members of the imperial family were assassinated wholesale.
Dodging the bullets and bombs of assassins, the genial, bear-like Alexander III reasserted the prestige of the monarchy by ruling like a real autocrat, controlling every aspect of life throughout his realm. But this only served to set a trap for his pathetic successor Nicholas II, who was simply not up to the job but felt a strong sense of duty to fulfil what he saw as his divinely ordained mission. He also reached for war as a means of enhancing the prestige of the throne, but humiliation by the Japanese, ‘yellow monkeys’ who were expected to crumble before Russian might, fatally weakened it. The development of the navy — which steamed into catastrophe at Tsushima in 1905 — had been entrusted to the flashy dresser Grand Duke Alexei, whose predilection for fast women was accompanied by the delivery of slow ships.
Once again, reforms had to be conceded and representative bodies sanctioned. But Nicholas resolutely clung to the role of autocrat. Reading about his well-intentioned, bungling progress towards his tragic and squalid death is almost unbearable.
With its sordid power struggles, violence and brutality, its cast of magnificent monsters, tragic victims and grotesque ‘holy men’, this is an extraordinary and gripping tale. Simon Sebag Montefiore has plumbed a remarkable range of hitherto unused archives which shed valuable new light on the private lives and behaviour of his subjects, and help explain their vulnerabilities and the source of much of the otherwise inexplicable violence and cruelty.
By turns horrific, hilarious and moving, but ultimately tragic, this is essential reading for anyone interested in Russia or simply puzzled by the workings of the Russian state. It provides ample evidence that whoever is in power, and however incompetently or cruelly they may be governed, the Russians are dedicated to autocracy.
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