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Shadows cast on
the renaissance of Russia's last czar
In the basement of Moscow's most iconic church, levelled to
dust by the Soviets and later rebuilt after communism collapsed, a new exhibit
about the doomed Romanov family is drawing crowds.
“I want to know everything about them,” said 17-year-old
Praskophya Chekmaryova, staring intently at a framed snapshot of the photogenic
Romanov royal family during a seaside vacation. “I didn't have a lot of
information so I decided to come here.”
Her introduction to the lives of Russia's last imperial
family may have been less complete than she knew. Absent from this exhibit are
any traces of Czar Nicholas II's well-documented human foibles, including the
family's infamous association with the manipulative mystic Rasputin, as well as
his wife Alexandra's fondness for expensive jewels.
This rosy portrayal of the Romanov family has prompted
observations that Russia, particularly the Orthodox Church, has begun to deify
the fallen czar, methodically airbrushing his faults from the public record
just as aggressively as the Soviets demonized him.
Like the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, the refurbished
church in which the popular exhibit now sits, the Romanov family reputation has
been fully restored since the collapse of the Soviet Union 17 years ago.
But some say that this rehabilitation has drifted too far
and that Russians are wrongly lionizing their former monarch, who abdicated in
1917 on the eve of the Bolshevik revolution. A year later, Nicholas and
Alexandra and their five children were executed by firing squad in a
Yekaterinburg cellar on the orders of Vladimir Lenin.
Ninety years later, with the backing of the Russian Orthodox
Church, which canonized the entire family in 2000, many Russians now view the
czar as a martyred hero and great statesman.
In fact, Nicholas is now running neck and neck with Josef
Stalin in popularity in a television program that is running a contest to judge
Russia's greatest historical figures.
Some historians say the Orthodox Church is the driving force
behind attempts to withhold negative publicity about the Romanovs.
Archivist Elena Chirkova, who helped with the current
exhibit, said two photographs of the royal family pictured with Rasputin were
ordered removed from the exhibit by church officials.
Ms. Chirkova said she believes church attempts to idealize
the family are a mistake, every bit as misplaced as the Soviet efforts to
denigrate them. She thinks the czar was just an ordinary man who made mistakes
in office, but loved his wife and children.
“During Soviet times, they were depicted as bad people. For
70 years, that's what people were taught. Now it's the opposite – they are
idealized. The truth, I think, is somewhere in the middle. They were human
beings.”
Previous exhibits in the 1990s, she said, provided more
complete versions of the lives of Nicholas and Alexandra.
The current exhibit, entitled Crown of the Czar, is
sponsored by the Orthodox Church's Yekaterinburg diocese, the Russian Archives
and the Moscow Museum.
A spokesman for the Yekaterinburg diocese confirmed that the
church nixed the Rasputin photos, but denied that it was censoring negative
images from the exhibit.
In a telephone interview, Father Maxim said the photos were
removed because they didn't fit the theme of the exhibit, which was to show the
czar's political, social and military activities.
However, the priest stressed that he does not believe
Nicholas II had any significant weaknesses and was a true “hero of Russia.” In
the future, he said, the church will seek to further elevate the czar's status
and accomplishments in office.
“He was a great emperor and he did a lot of good things for
Russia,” Father Maxim said in a telephone interview from Yekaterinburg.
Despite the spat about the exclusion of some photos, the
Russian appetite for all things Romanov is large. Nearly 40,000 people have
visited the exhibit, which features some never-before-seen documents and
artifacts, including the bayonets that were used to kill some family members
and the yellowed telegrams from the Soviet executioners, ordering litres of
acid, which they doused over the bodies before burying them.
There are also documents detailing a peace conference in The
Hague which the czar initiated in 1899.
Earlier this month, thousands of pilgrims flocked to
Yekaterinburg, the Urals city about 1,300 kilometres east of Moscow, to mark
the 90th anniversary of the family's death. Interest in the royals was also
buoyed by the recent discovery of the remains of Crown Prince Alexei and Grand
Duchess Maria. Their parents and siblings' remains were discovered in a mass
grave outside the city in 1991. Last summer, an amateur historian discovered
the second gravesite and subsequent DNA tests have confirmed their identities.
Since their deaths in 1918, the lives and deaths of Russia's
Romanov family have inspired books, films and pretenders to the throne the
world over. The most infamous was a claim from a Polish peasant, Anna Anderson,
who said she was the Grand Duchess Anastasia, the czar's youngest daughter. DNA
tests after her death discredited her claims.
The official Soviet narrative, taught to schoolchildren, was
that Nicholas II was a weak and violent ruler who destroyed Russia and deserved
to die.
Western historians were kinder, although the consensus was
that he was a naive leader, ill-equipped to steer a massive empire on the verge
of a Bolshevik revolution.
Some older visitors to the Moscow exhibit seemed overwhelmed
by the discrepancy between the czar's current reputation and the version that
was drummed into them during the Soviet era.
“We were taught that all of them were enemies of the
people,” said visitor Galina Glabokova, 52. “What we were told wasn't true. It
was a tragedy. Our new society began with the blood of this family.”
Liudmila Mukhamedova, a curator with the Moscow Museum, went
further. She described the doomed czar as a visionary leader who faced his
death with “Christian humility.”
“He thought about his family, which he adored,” she said.
“But I think he thought more about Russia's future. He was ready to sacrifice
himself for his country.”
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