Alexander II: The Last Great Tsar by Edvard Radzinsky; Antonina Bouis

Author:Edvard Radzinsky; Antonina Bouis
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9780743284264
Publisher: Free Press
Published: 2006-11-14T00:00:00+00:00

A GAME FROM THE GRAVE

Indeed, by then it had already begun.

This happened on New Year’s Eve:

In the Church of the Protective Veil of the Virgin, where the family went on the first day of Christmas of the first revolutionary year, under convoy, the holiday service was coming to an end in the overfilled church when suddenly some very familiar, not yet forgotten words were heard. The deacon solemnly proclaimed: “Their Excellencies the Sovereign Emperor and the Sovereign Empress,” followed by the names of their children and all their old titles. At the end the deacon’s bass uttered powerfully: “A long life!” Thus in the Tobolsk church, for the first time since the February Revolution, the ancient “wish for a long life” for the tsar’s family was proclaimed.

The church responded with a rumble. The senior officer of the convoy and Commissar Pankratov waited till the end of the service and called for the deacon, who cited the instructions of his superior, Father Alexei. “Drag him out of the church by his braids!” the convoy’s rifleman raged.

The next day the Tobolsk Soviet proclaimed by the Bolsheviks formed a commission of inquiry. They blamed Pankratov and demanded that he harshen the regime, and for the first time the call was heard: “To prison with the Romanovs!” The Soviet even went after the priest. But Archbishop Hermogen did not give Father Alexei up for punishment—he sent him to a remote Tobolsk monastery.

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