A people's tragedy

The rituals began with a solemn thanksgiving in the Kazan Cathedral led by the Patriarch of Antioch, who had come from Greece especially for the occasion, the three Russian Metropolitans and fifty priests from St Petersburg. The imperial family drove out from the Winter Palace in open carriages accompanied by two squadrons of His Majesty’s Own Horseguards and Cossack riders in black caftans and red Caucasian caps. It was the first time the Tsar had ridden in public view since the 1905 Revolution, and the police were taking no chances. The route was lined by the Imperial Guards gorgeously turned out in their feathered shakos and scarlet uniforms. Military bands thumped out the national anthem and the soldiers boomed ‘Oorah!’ as the cavalcade passed by. Outside the cathedral religious processions from various parts of the city had been converging from early in the morning. The vast crowd, a forest of crosses, icons and banners, knelt down as one as the carriages approached. Inside the cathedral stood Russia’s ruling class: grand dukes and princes, members of the court, senators, ministers, state councillors, Duma parliamentarians, senior Civil Servants, generals and admirals, provincial governors, city mayors, zemstvo leaders, and marshals of the nobility. Hardly a breast without a row of shining medals or a diamond star; hardly a pair of legs without a sword. Everything sparkled in the candlelight — the silver iconostasis, the priests’ bejewelled mitres, and the crystal cross. In the middle of the ceremony two doves flew down from the darkness of the dome and hovered for several moments over the heads of the Tsar and his son. Carried away by religious exaltation, Nicholas interpreted it as a symbol of God’s blessing on the House of Romanov.

Meanwhile, in the workers’ districts factories were closed for a public holiday. The poor queued outside municipal canteens, where free meals were served to mark the anniversary. Pawnshops were beset by crowds after rumours spread of a special dispensation allowing people to redeem their valuables without interest payments; when these rumours turned out to be false, the crowds became angry and several pawnshops had their windows smashed. Women gathered outside the city’s jails in the hope that their loved ones would be among the 2,000 prisoners released under the amnesty to celebrate the tercentenary.

During the afternoon huge crowds walked into the city centre for the long-awaited son et lumière. Stalls along the way sold mugs of beer and pies, Romanov flags and souvenirs. There were fairs and concerts in the parks. As darkness fell, the Nevsky Prospekt became one solid mass of people. Every face turned upwards as the sky was lit up in a blaze of colour by fireworks and lights that criss-crossed the city, sweeping over roofs to land for a moment on significant monuments. The golden spire of the Admiralty burned like a torch against the black sky, and the Winter Palace was brilliantly illuminated with three huge portraits of Nicholas II, Peter the Great and Mikhail Romanov.

The imperial family remained in the capital for another week of ritual self-congratulation. There were pompous receptions at the Winter Palace where long lines of genuflecting dignitaries filed through the state rooms to present themselves to Nicholas and Alexandra in the concert hall. There was a sumptuous ball in the Noblemen’s Assembly attended by the imperial couple and their eldest daughter, Olga, in one of her first social engagements. She danced the polonaise with Prince Saltykov, who caused a stir by forgetting to take off his hat. At the Marinsky Theatre there was a gala performance of Glinka’s patriotic opera, A Life for the Tsar, which retold the legend of the peasant Susanin, who had saved the life of the first Romanov Tsar. The tiers of boxes ‘blazed with jewels and tiaras’, according to Meriel Buchanan, the British Ambassador’s daughter, and the stalls were filled with the scarlet uniforms of the court officials, who swayed in unison ‘like a field of poppies’ as they rose to greet the arrival of the Tsar. Mathilde Kshesinskaya, Nicholas’s former mistress, came out of retirement to dance the mazurkas in the second act. But the sensation of the evening was the silent appearance of the tenor, Leonid Sobinov, standing in for Shaliapin, who walked across the stage at the head of a religious procession dressed as Mikhail Romanov. It was the first (and the last) occasion in the history of the imperial theatre when the figure of a Romanov Tsar was represented on the stage.1