Alexander the First: The Origins of a Legend
Alexander I
A Little About the Prosaic, or On the Way from Taganrog to St. Petersburg
The outgoing year was marked by an anniversary in Russian stories – the bicentennial of Alexander I's death. P.A. Vyazemsky and Napoleon called him a sphinx, unsolved to the grave. This is partly true, since every person is a sphinx both for those around him, including his loved ones, and for himself.
At the level of mass consciousness, the image of the emperor, with his nickname "Blessed," which is strange given the circumstances of his ascension to the throne, seems the most mysterious of all Russian monarchs, largely due to the legend that the tsar did not die on November 19 in Taganrog, but, overcome by a sense of guilt, albeit indirect, for the murder of his father, chose the path of a repentant wanderer.
I believe the legend's origins have a rather prosaic explanation: the funeral procession left Taganrog only on December 29, 1825. To make matters worse, the embalming was poorly done, and upon arrival in St. Petersburg two months later, the body had darkened.
Upon encountering his brother's remains in Tsarskoye Selo, Nicholas I wisely ordered that they not be shown to anyone. Consequently, rumors began to circulate: the Tsar hadn't been particularly ill, and he hadn't even turned fifty yet. Such rumors were whispered in taverns and louder in salons.
And in Rus', as the historian A. N. Bokhanov noted, they believe in things that don't exist and can't exist. I'll add to this the people's love for wanderers, wandering pilgrims, miracles, various prophecies, and dreams of Kitezh-grad.
Why is Bokhan's "cannot" correct in the case of Alexander I? Before answering and reflecting on the legend, I'll note that I'm not categorically asserting that the emperor and the elder are not the same person, but I don't believe the former is gone, although it's clear that Fyodor Kuzmich's identity is fraught with mysteries, at least in terms of his origins—he was clearly of the tax-paying class.
Righteous Feodor of Tomsk
But at the same time, I repeat, I would not equate her with the emperor who died in Taganrog. I will present an argument, literally in one quote, but quite convincing, in my opinion.
In 1826, a detailed report on the funeral procession was published in St. Petersburg. A modern study based on the report concludes:
Regular inspections of the body by a special committee were conducted daily at midnight. To ensure constant monitoring, a valve-like opening was made in the coffin, through which the integrity of the body could be verified at all times. When the temperature dropped to 2 or 3 degrees Celsius (-2 or -3 degrees Fahrenheit), boxes of ice, ammonia, and table salt were kept under the coffin to maintain the cold.
Funeral cortege with the body of Alexander I
And yet, the sudden death of the Tsar gave rise to myths. Let's talk about them.
Did Alexander I believe that his father would be spared?
Alexander I is, of course, to blame for the death of the unfortunate Paul I, as he was among the conspirators who intended to overthrow his father. And contrary to popular belief, according to historian N.V. Korshunova:
From about mid-1799 to the end of 1800, Grand Duke Alexander Pavlovich was drawn into the conspiracy and also became one of its leaders.
Leaders. This definition renders Pushkin's famous lines historically inaccurate: it was no accident that fame graced Catherine II's beloved grandson.
Paul I with his family, on the left in the painting are the brothers Alexander and Constantine
And if we are talking about the glory of Alexander I the politician, then here too it is impossible to speak of its accidental nature, nor to see him as a weak ruler - in difficult negotiations with Napoleon, discussions with K. Metternich, the sovereign demonstrated diplomatic skill and will, although a number of his steps on the international stage seem controversial - the creation of the Kingdom of Poland with the preservation of the army, which had been - the corps of Marshal J. Poniatowski - until recently the support of Bonaparte, and officers who had not parted with dreams of the revival of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, since the collapse of which only twenty years had passed.
And the behavior of Alexander I in the critical situation for him after the fall of Moscow, reflected in the correspondence with his sister Catherine Pavlovna, does not provide grounds for accusing the emperor of lack of willpower.
A cunning ruler? Louis XI responded to this same accusation—in my opinion, it's strange to even consider it a political one—with:
He who cannot pretend cannot reign.
Alexander I was a master of dissimulation, which is not least why Russia, under him, remained at the pinnacle of its geopolitical power, the height to which Catherine the Great had elevated it. In 1826, a decline began, culminating in the collapse of 1917.
However, in this article we are talking about a myth. Regarding Alexander I's policies, see:Echo of the Holy Alliance. Will Russia save Europe?».
So, the conspiracy and its tragic outcome. Alexander I apparently believed in his father's willingness to heed the arguments of the drunken, armed, and violent conspirators and abdicate the throne in favor of his son. Perhaps he didn't so much believe it as convince himself of it, for someone has rightly observed: our mind always arrives at the point where we make an appointment with it.
Otherwise, Alexander I should have foreseen the snuffbox flying at his father's temple and the officer's scarf around the neck of the dying autocrat—or rather, the man who tried to be one, for with the death of Peter I, there was, in fact, no autocracy in Russia. The capital's nobility ruled.
The Mikhailovsky Castle, built by order of Paul I, was the scene of a tragedy on the night of March 11-12, 1801.
Some believed the physical elimination of the unfortunate tsar was necessary. The 18th century, with its tragic fates of Alexei Petrovich, Peter III, and Ivan Antonovich, gave reason to consider this scenario the most likely.
Yes, the circumstances of death for all three were different, but the fundamental reason for their murder was the same: to eliminate the prospect of them occupying the throne, in the case of Paul I’s father – a second time, either by him or his possible heir in the future.
After all, if we imagine that the deposed Holsteiner had managed to reach his homeland and marry, then the boy born to the couple would formally have had rights to the Russian throne, since it would not have been difficult to prove that the abdication was not voluntary.
Of course, we are talking about the legal side of the problem, and not about the hypothetical expectation of the Russian nobility with open arms to welcome a new Holstein prince.
Accordingly, it was easier for the conspirators to kill Paul I than to create a precedent for the future succession to the throne: who knows, the former monarch, left alive, might flee abroad and there declare that his abdication was invalid.
The mysticism of power and the prose of political calculation
But these are details. We are more interested in the conflict of worldviews—did Alexander I take this into account? The point is this. The mystically inclined Paul I saw a sacred character in the royal ministry and considered himself a priest. I will dwell on this in more detail.
The eminent philologist and historian B.A. Uspensky writes about the identification of the emperor with Christ among some of the elite, that is:
Thus, in the ode “The Solemn Coronation and Confirmation of His Imperial Majesty Paul the First, April 5, 1797,” V.P. Petrov says of Paul: “Do not touch; He, Christ, is the Lord’s!”
Accordingly, it is not surprising that such ideas about royal service led the monarch to the following thought: in the absence of the institution of the patriarchate, he is the head of the Church.
Paul I had a similar vision of the essence of royal power like no other Russian monarch:
Catherine II was the first to refer to herself as the head of the church, though only in private correspondence with foreigners. Then, writes B.A. Uspensky, in 1797, Paul formally legitimized this title in the Act of Succession to the Throne, which stated that "the sovereigns of Russia are the heads of the Church."
Since the king is the head of the Church, he can perform priestly service:
B. A. Uspensky notes that the belief in the charismatic basis of the monarch's functions as head of the church can manifest itself in the monarch being perceived as a cleric. According to Joseph de Maistre (a French thinker and politician – I.Kh.), among Russians, "it is the emperor who is the patriarch, and it is not surprising that Paul I had the fantasy of celebrating mass."
Or this:
Likewise, Fyodor Golovkin notes Paul's desire to serve the liturgy immediately after his coronation "as the head of the Church." Paul also wanted to become the confessor of his family and ministers, but the Synod dissuaded him, arguing that "the canon of the Orthodox Church forbids a priest who has married a second time from performing the sacraments." A similar statement is found in Grivel (referring to the French writer G. Grivel – I.Kh.), who reports that Paul expressed a desire to serve the liturgy on Easter, citing his status as the head of the Russian Church and, therefore, the authority to do what the clergy under his command did. Grivel believes that it was precisely in this instance that the Synod pointed out to Paul that a priest who had been remarried could not perform services. Thus, the Synod – at least in words – recognized the emperor as a priest.
And all this occurred against the backdrop of the secularization of the consciousness of a significant portion of the elite, who no longer viewed royal service in a sacred light. The liberal morals at the court of Catherine II—and her predecessors, beginning with Peter I, were no ascetics—facilitated this.
An episode from the coronation of Paul I, Alexander stands on the right
In general, the era of palace coups led to the desacralization of ideas about monarchical power in the eyes of the nobility, which from 1762 became a privileged class and was rapidly transforming from a serving class into a parasitic one – by historical standards, the path from the Grinevs to the Nozdrevs turned out to be not so long.
The Russian Empire itself entered the 19th century only nominally as an absolute monarchy, but in essence, I repeat, it had become a noble one, something that Paul I, who thought in medieval categories, failed to notice, for which he paid with his life.
Regarding the Middle Ages: in the West, theologians and philosophers wracked their brains over the nature of monarchical power: was the king a layman or a sword-girt cleric? This was discussed in the article "Charles X: A Forgotten Rite or the End of the Long Middle Ages."
For Paul I, I believe, such a question didn't arise: his royal service was akin to theurgy. What's important for us, however, is that the examples cited by B.A. Uspensky were, I believe, also known to Alexander I. And—and here I'll leave it at that, refraining from making any assertions—he must have understood that his father wouldn't abdicate at the demand of his subjects?
And it is difficult to imagine the active Paul I, who spent 26 years – half of which were spent in political confinement in Gatchina – dreaming of the throne, full of plans, just getting a taste for power, which he thought he would use for the good of Russia – abdicating.
The assassination of Paul I
Here it is worth remembering another side of Paul I’s personality – his vision of himself as a knight:
“Alas, the eighteenth century,” wrote military historian A. A. Kersnovsky, “was not the twelfth, and the Russian Empire was not the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
And what should a knight do in a moment of danger? Run? Especially when his subjects revolt? Didn't Alexander I understand that his father wouldn't run? Yes, he'd be afraid, but he wouldn't renounce the crown bestowed by the Creator, even if he were to accept martyrdom, which is precisely what happened.
Did Alexander I push the thought of possible assassination from his mind? Did he trust P.A. Pahlen that his father would be spared? Incidentally, Pahlen, who outlived Alexander I, never seemed to suffer pangs of conscience.
The ancient roots of the legend
Alexander I, however, apparently suffered in the following years, giving rise to a legend. Its shadow also fell on the emperor's wife, Elizabeth Alexeyevna, who allegedly secretly went into seclusion.
Empress Elizabeth Alexeyevna
And just as her husband, according to rumors, revealed himself to the world as the elder Fyodor Kuzmich 11 years after his supposedly staged death in Taganrog, so his wife revealed herself as an ascetic in Tikhvin eight years after her recorded death. History has known her as Vera the Silent, a recluse of the Syrkov Convent.
Psychologically, I repeat, such myths are inherent to the Russian people, at least until the recent urbanization of the period. The most recent well-known one is the identification of A.N. Kosygin with Tsarevich Alexei, although this is less biased than the stories of the False Anastasias.
I'll venture a controversial guess: the legend of Fyodor Kuzmich is partly rooted in Indo-European mythology, which tells of a king sleeping under a mountain, as well as in later ideas about a repentant monarch.
Hence the legend of King Arthur, or of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, who didn't drown at all, but merely fell asleep. Related, though less well-known, is the legend of King Olaf Tryggvason, who claims he didn't die in the naval battle at Svolder in September 1000, but joined the ranks of sleeping heroes.
True, I read somewhere long ago—I can't remember where now—that the king became abbot of a monastery in the Holy Land. In any case, the legend is quite late, as Olaf died almost a hundred years before the First Crusade, though pilgrimages had been made before that, and the Saracens didn't interfere.
Such pilgrimages to the Holy Land, after its reconquest from the Muslims, were not uncommon among nobles. For example, according to legend, one was made by Gytha of Wessex, the wife of Vladimir Monomakh and mother of the last prince of a unified pre-Mongol Rus', Mstislav the Great. She was the daughter of Harold II, who died at the Battle of Hastings. Incidentally, three weeks before his death, he widowed Elizabeth, the daughter of Yaroslav the Wise and the wife of Harald III Hardrada, who was killed at the Battle of Stamford Bridge. This battle is generally considered to have ended the Viking Age.
Some readers will note: “The narrative has strayed too far from Alexander.” No.
In terms of similar motivations, could Alexander I's departure be linked to the legend of Olaf's pilgrimage, compared to the pilgrimage of Gytha, or, for example, Robert the Devil—the father of William the Bastard, who transformed himself into the Conqueror on the English soil he conquered? Pilgrimages by nobles weren't always associated with abdication of power, but they were associated with abdication of their former way of life—as Robert's story suggests. A motivation similar to Alexander's, you'll agree.
The Penitent Duke Robert of Normandy
Next: what unites the characters of the legends of the sleeping king and the stern rulers who went to Palestine to repent for their crimes? Belonging to a military corporation—the way of the sword transformed into a feat of prayer.
Military glory, in a sense, also became the breeding ground for the legend that identified the Tomsk elder with the emperor who died in Taganrog. I myself saw a large icon in Moscow's Church of the Descent of the Holy Spirit at the Lazarevskoye Cemetery, depicting the righteous Feodor of Tomsk in the center, and on the side panels, Alexander I entering Paris.
Icon of the Righteous Feodor of Tomsk. Note the hallmarks depicting Alexander I.
He is associated with the victory over Napoleon, the Parisian triumph of 1814 and the Holy Alliance, born under the auspices of Russia.
I anticipate the objection: “The Parisian triumph is the merit of Alexander I’s generals, not his.”
Of course, the Emperor cannot be compared to Field Marshal M.B. Barclay de Tolly, who is unfairly overshadowed by another Field Marshal, M.I. Kutuzov: Mikhail Bogdanovich, I believe, was equal to Mikhail Illarionovich in military talent. However, he lacked, as did, incidentally, Generalissimo A.V. Suvorov, the talent of a courtier.
By the way, in one of her letters, Grand Duchess Catherine Pavlovna wrote to her brother:
I consider you as capable as your generals, but you must play not only the role of a commander, but also the role of a ruler.
Could Alexander I be called a military man in his inner workings? I believe so, although perhaps a bit of a stretch. This is evidenced by his personal participation in the Battle of Fère-Champenoise on March 25, 1814.
But Alexander I distinguished himself in the military arena not only by his bravery, but also, I cautiously admit, by his ability as a strategist: during the Russo-Swedish War of 1808–1809, the idea of crossing the ice of the Gulf of Bothnia in order to transfer military operations to enemy territory belonged to him.
For the sake of objectivity, regarding Alexander I's abilities as a strategist, my assessment is not shared by all researchers:
"Now," writes historian V.S. Parsamov, "he (referring to Alexander I's departure from the army after Napoleon's invasion of Russia—I.Kh.) was no longer required to possess the special military talents necessary for a commander." And if previously their absence had left the tsar feeling inadequate and instilled self-doubt, now, from the heights of his new calling, he could confidently speak of it. In a conversation with Madame de Staël, which took place upon the tsar's return from Moscow to St. Petersburg, Alexander expressed regret that he lacked the talent of a commander.
To sum it up: the legend of Alexander I and the righteous Feodor Kuzmich corresponds to medieval notions of a monarch either abdicating power or making a pilgrimage to the Holy Land—and for our ancestors from the 16th century onward, Russia was such a place—for the purpose of repentance. To some extent, albeit a stretch, the legend also contains echoes of the myth of the sleeping warrior king.
References
Baranskaya A. Fyodor Kuzmich – Siberian Life After the Death of Emperor Alexander I: The History of a Legend
Korshunova N.V. The regicide of March 11, 1801: our own or others?
Monasteries and parish churches of Torzhok and their attractions / [compiled by D.I. Sambikin]. Tver, 1903. Pp. 32–33.
Parsamov V.S. Alexander I: Searching for a Role
The Tomilovs. A Book of Remembrance. Preparation for publication and comments by Doctor of Historical Sciences N.V. Sereda. // Merchant diaries and memoirs of the late 18th – first half of the 19th centuries. Moscow, 2007. Pp. 341–342
Uspensky, B.A. Selected Works, Volume 1. Semiotics of History. Semiotics of Culture. Moscow: Gnosis Publishing House, 1994.
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