The Romanovs 1818–1959

replied in angry terms to a letter of condolence from Vienna. Instead of finding in the Austrian Emperor a faithful friend and ally, wrote Alexander, the late Tsar ‘saw you follow a political course which brought you ever closer to our enemies and which will still bring us inevitably, if that course does not change, to a fratricidal war, for which you will be accountable to God’.6

British Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston, had advised Queen Victoria that it was ‘possible that the new Emperor may revert to the peaceful policy which he was understood to advocate in the beginning of these transactions, but it is possible on the other hand that he may feel bound to follow out the policy of his father’.5

Yet the reign of Tsar Nicholas was not destined to end on a note of triumph. By now foreign diplomats in St Petersburg sensed an increasing arrogance in the bearing of the Tsar, who appeared to regard himself as omnipotent. To him true glory meant an expansion in Russian territory, and he saw himself imbued with a mission to fulfil his grandmother Catherine the Great’s dream, namely the acquisition of Constantinople and the Straits.

Despite Tsar Nicholas I’s time-honoured reactionary image he was an advocate of reform, albeit at a cautious pace, and described serfdom as a ‘flagrant evil’, though taking steps to eradicate it was probably not high on his list of priorities.

As a young man the Tsarevich had seen much of this with his own eyes, and Turgenev’s powerful writings, it was said, ‘illuminate[d] for him the unquenchable humanity which somehow managed to survive that degradation’.17

Turgenev’s writings did more than anything else to bring home to them awareness of the terrible living conditions, squalor and sheer misery of those who had the misfortune to be born into a way of life (if not living death) which con

The stark portrayal of Russian peasant life in Sovreménnik (Sportsman’s Sketches), particularly in the short story Khor and Kalinich, made a deep impression on him and his wife when he read it aloud to her – and on many others.

is tall with a fine figure, a pleasing open countenance without being handsome, fine blue eyes, a short nose and a pretty mouth with a sweet smile’.13 While she acknowledged that Tsar Nicholas I ‘was not a person to be trusted or encouraged’, she admitted that she found his son ‘certainly irresistible’

bad weather should not be allowed to interfere with a soldier’s journey. Zhukovsky’s fears were soon justified, for his young charge was left with persistent bronchial trouble which developed into a painful and chronic asthmatic complaint from which he suffered throughout his life.