Anastasia

by Carolyn Meyer

  This evening we’re having a dance. I wish Mama would allow me to wear my hair up, but I know she won’t.

  3/16 July 1914

  Last night was so much fun! The balalaika orchestra played for dancing, and we all got to choose our partners. Olga, who didn’t even want to dance and said she’d stay in her cabin and read, ended up coming to the dance after all. And she chose the redheaded officer as her first partner! Naturally Tatiana couldn’t say a word and had to ask someone else. I could hardly keep from laughing.

  I picked Papa. He says I dance very enthusiastically.

  6/19 July 1914

  Peterhof

  Today our cruise ended, and we’re back at the farm. Mama and Anya are in a better mood because Mama has a letter from Father Grigory. He’s in his village in Siberia recovering from his wounds, but he writes that he’s feeling strong again.

  Not everyone is happy. Olga is glum, and Tatiana was sorry to see her officer sail away. Actually he hasn’t gone far, because we’ll continue to take short cruises.

  I searched everywhere I could think of for her diary, to see if she wrote anything about kissing him, but the dratted girl has hidden it very well. I still think she kissed him.

  15/28 July 1914

  More news that has everyone worried. The Austrians have attacked Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, to get even with the Serbians for what happened to the archduke. Papa spends lots of time in meetings with his advisers, trying to decide what to do. The Serbians are our allies, and we have promised to help them if they are attacked. That means there might be a war, and we must get ready for it.

  16/29 July 1914

  Papa sent a message to his generals ordering our Russian soldiers to prepare for war. He is so brave and looks so anxious — the pouches under his eyes are bigger than ever. Papa and Cousin Willy could actually end up fighting against each other if there is a war. Papa showed us on a map: Because Russia must help Serbia fight Austria-Hungary, Germany would side with Austria against us. Then France and Great Britain, who are our allies, would fight on our side against Germany.

  We all pray for a miracle to stop the war, because Papa says many men will lose their lives when the fighting begins. Now we’re waiting to see what Cousin Willy, the kaiser of Germany, will do.

  19 July/1 August 1914

  What a terrible day! I shall never forget it.

  Papa stayed shut up in his study for hours with his advisers. When he finally appeared, he was as white as a ghost. “We are going to war,” he said, leaning against the doorway. “Germany has declared war on Russia.” Then we all began to weep, including poor, dear Papa, because we’re so upset by the news and so frightened of what lies ahead.

  20 July/2 August 1914

  St. Petersburg

  Yesterday is still kind of a jumble. We ate a hurried meal, changed our clothes, and left for St. Petersburg. Alexei had to stay in Peterhof because he can’t walk, and Papa thought this was a bad time for people to see the tsarevitch in such a condition. So it was Papa and Mama and the four of us and our usual suite.

  I had been feeling so sad and afraid, but it was quite thrilling to find the crowds outside the Winter Palace all cheering and singing. “Batiushka,” they were shouting (that means “Father of Russia”), “lead us to victory!” And they sang, “God Save the Tsar” in a voice like a mighty roar.

  The cheering went on and on. Dr. Botkin and Gleb were there, and Gleb kept going on about how great a thing this war was going to be for Russia. When I asked him if he wasn’t frightened, he said, “The Germans don’t know how to fight! They only know how to make sausages!” He says all we have to do to defeat them is throw our caps at them.

  Dear Gleb, his excitement was so great that I began to feel excited, too. But one look at Papa’s face tells me it may not be as easy as Gleb believes.

  30 July/12 August 1914

  Peterhof

  This is Alexei’s tenth birthday. Papa works constantly now, conferring with his generals about how to win the war, but he did take time to celebrate.

  Of course everyone knows it’s the tsarevitch’s birthday, and so gifts have been arriving from people everywhere — except from Cousin Willy! Alexei’s favorite is his new toy train, an exact replica of the Trans-Siberian Express. He also has several model boats for sailing on the lake.

  Dressed in his sailor’s uniform, Alexei relentlessly orders everyone around. My sisters and I always take care not to burden our servants, and we go to great pains not to give orders. Alexei doesn’t believe in that at all! He is forever sending someone scurrying off to fetch him sweets. But it’s understandable, because often he can’t walk and must be carried around. I suppose I would be giving orders, too, if I had to sit still. Nagorny and Derevenko seem to take it in good humor.

  1/14 August 1914

  Papa says it’s an ancient tradition to go to the Kremlin, the citadel in Moscow, to ask God’s blessing on Holy Russia at the beginning of a war, so we’re leaving for Moscow in a day or two.

  4/17 August 1914

  Moscow

  The crowds that welcomed us here were even bigger and noisier than the ones in St. Petersburg. At least a million people jammed the streets and hung from balconies and tree branches for a look at us as our procession slowly moved along. Every church bell in the entire city was ringing and making a terrific din.

  Poor Alexei is terribly upset, because he wants to appear beside Papa before the crowds, but he can’t walk even a single step. Papa is determined that he’ll appear tomorrow anyway.

  5/18 August 1914

  Everybody is going absolutely wild, so happy to be Russian and so happy to have a tsar like Papa to lead us to victory. When we arrived here yesterday, Papa made an impressive speech at the Kremlin. We were all wearing our best dresses and hats and jewels, except Mama’s sister Ella, who is the abbess of a convent here in Moscow and wore a plain gray habit. A Cossack soldier carried Alexei.

  Then we all went to Assumption Cathedral, where Mama and Papa were crowned a long time ago, to pray before the icons and the tombs of important dead Russians. There was always much excitement and deep emotion.

  I can hardly wait to see old Cousin Willy beaten!

  9/22 August 1914

  Ts. S.

  We’re happy to be back home, because a scary thing happened to Alexei while we were in Moscow. He and M. Gilliard decided to go for a drive in the country in a motorcar. But hundreds of people recognized the tsarevitch and tried to get close enough to touch him. Finally some policemen rescued them from the jostling crowds, but Alexei was terrified, and Mama was angry at M. Gilliard for sneaking off like that.

  13/26 August 1914

  Papa has made a big decision: He’s changing the name of St. Petersburg, which sounds German, to Petrograd. It means the same thing in Russian.

  Everyone is very patriotic, and no one more than Papa. That’s why the telegram from Father Grigory made him so angry. Father Grigory, who is still recovering from the assassin’s attack, sent Papa a wire, which Anya delivered to him. I was there when Anya rushed into Mama’s boudoir. “Father Grigory urged Nicky not to go to war,” Anya cried. Then she said Papa was so angry, he tore the telegram into a dozen pieces.

  Mama tried to calm Anya down until she could find out from Papa what was going on. Usually Papa and Mama agree with everything Father Grigory says, but not this time. Papa says Father Grigory has no business giving such advice and should stick to being a holy man.

  23 August/5 September 1914

  St. Petersburg Petrograd

  It’s hard to remember that the name has been changed.

  I was afraid I’d miss everything, being out at Tsarskoe Selo, because I heard from Gleb Botkin that every day here is filled with the sound of men marching off to war. But dear Aunt Olga proposed that OTMA should observe this stirring sight. She brought us into the city in her carriage so that we co
uld witness the spectacle of our brave soldiers marching down Nevsky Prospect to the railway station, where they board trains headed for the front. There were lots of wives and children weeping and waving and cheering as their husbands and fathers went off to war. It was sad but thrilling.

  24 August/6 September 1914

  Luncheon at Grandmother’s at Gatchina Palace. She forbade all talk about the war and instead turned her bright eyes in my direction and asked me to tell her about my study of French poetry.

  That was a disaster, of course. But after luncheon, when we went back to Aunt Olga’s, it was a different story. All the young men talked of nothing but the war. Lieutenant Boris plans to take his dress uniform with him when he leaves for the front, so he’ll be ready for the victorious parade through the streets of Berlin. No one seems to give the least thought that he might get wounded or even killed. They expect to be home by Christmas.

  28 August/10 September 1914

  Ts. S.

  Papa left this morning for Stavka, the headquarters of the army. He’s going there to consult with Grandfather’s cousin, Grand Duke Nicholas Nicholaievitch, the commander-in-chief of the armies. Papa says it’s important to keep up the morale of the men with visits from the tsar, and also to make sure that all is going well. So far we have lost one big battle but won a bigger one.

  30 August/12 September 1914

  Mama has shocked us all. Three weeks ago she ordered the Catherine Palace to be turned into a hospital for wounded soldiers, and now she’s decided to become a Red Cross nurse! We’re all amazed because Mama has never done this sort of work before, and her own health is never very good. Only a few weeks ago she had to be carried ashore from the Standart in a wheelchair, and now she’s going to be a nurse!

  1/14 September 1914

  I’m spitting mad. Not only is Mama training to be a nurse, but so are Olga and Tatiana. But not Mashka and me. No! We are too young!

  Mashka is so good, always so sweet about everything, and she has tried to make me feel better about being left out. “At least it’s both of us, the Little Pair,” she said, and then suggested that maybe we could find other good work to do for the soldiers. She’s such an angel, I’m not sure we’re truly sisters.

  Mama says indeed we can be of great help, we can visit the sick and injured. But — we will not get to wear uniforms, and I did so much want to!

  6/19 September 1914

  Papa’s home again. Things seem almost normal when he’s here.

  22 September/5 October 1914

  Papa is back at Stavka, and we immediately started missing him horribly. Mashka and I went to Anya’s for tea. She has such a sweet little house in the park near our palace. Father Grigory was there, completely recovered and dressed in a bright yellow silk shirt. He poured tea and talked about things that seemed to interest everyone but me. Anya hangs on every word he says.

  27 September/10 October 1914

  Our life here has turned completely upside down. We’re not used to having Papa away so much, and Mama is becoming a different person. She used to lie in bed until noon, but now she’s up every morning for seven o’clock Mass, breakfast at eight, and by nine o’clock she and Olga and Tatiana are dressed in their gray uniforms and white aprons with a red cross on the bib, and they’re on their way to the hospital. And they’re gone for the whole day!

  Meanwhile Mashka and I stay here with our tutors, and Gilliard, Gibbes, and Petrov complain they have never seen such inattentive pupils as Mashka and Alexei and I. This is because we all are yearning to be somewhere else: Alexei at Stavka with Papa, and we two leftover sisters at the hospital with Mama.

  Every time Mama finds one of her friends with an extra palace or mansion, she shames them into giving it to her for a hospital. She tells them, “You must do this for Holy Russia.” Under her direction, eighty-five palaces have been made into hospitals for wounded soldiers and ten trains have been made into traveling emergency clinics.

  Mama and the Big Pair are still in training. It will be another month until they are certified war nurses, but they are already in the thick of it. At teatime they come home filthy and exhausted, and they swallow their tea and gobble up their bread and biscuits before they have even bathed and dressed properly. Then they go on with their tales of terrible bloodshed and gore — fingers taken off because of poison in the blood; smashed bones; awful-smelling wounds; men shot to bits who still hang on to life.

  In the evenings after dinner, Mama writes pages to Papa, and so do my sisters.

  I have nothing to write about to Papa except to tell him how much we love him and miss him.

  30 September/13 October 1914

  Anya brought Tatiana a little French bulldog. He’s named Ortino. He is absolutely adorable! Mama’s dog Eira hates him passionately.

  My sisters play cards by the hour, but I find it dull. I’d rather paste pictures in my album to show Papa when he comes home.

  7/20 October 1914

  The only thing even faintly amusing these days is Ortino, who races around like a mad thing and sometimes leaves small piles of you-know-what on the carpet, so that we must always keep a little shovel handy. Such bad manners! (Even Eira is appalled!)

  15/28 October 1914

  Seven classes today! It’s just too much. How do they expect me to keep all of this in my head? Professor Petrov is reading us a story by Turgenev, his favorite writer. He thinks I’m taking notes, but I’m really writing in my diary and will begin a letter to Papa if the professor doesn’t catch me first!

  Ortino has eaten one of Mama’s shoes and is in disgrace — again.

  30 October/12 November 1914

  Mama, Olga, and Tatiana have completed their nurse’s training. We’re so proud of them! Mashka and I visit the wounded soldiers at Feodorovsky Gorodok, a small palace that Papa had built in the imperial park to resemble a traditional Russian village. It’s been made into a small hospital. The soldiers are far from home and very lonely. Some can’t even write their own names, poor things, peasants from the countryside who never learned their letters, and they ask us to write home to their mothers and sweethearts. We also read to them and feed those who are too weak to feed themselves. They’re so grateful for every small thing we do.

  3/16 November 1914

  Olga’s nineteenth birthday. She was too busy for even a tiny party.

  5/18 November 1914

  Mama is worried about her brother, our uncle Erni, the grand duke of Hesse, who lives in Germany and is an officer in the German army. They write to each other through their cousins in Sweden. People are saying awful things about the Germans, and some even say that because Mama was German, she must be awful, too. “All my heart is bound to this country,” she says, and it doesn’t matter where she was born. How dreadful people are.

  8/21 November 1914

  On the imperial train

  We’re on our way to Stavka to see Papa. He’s back at headquarters after a visit to the southern Caucasus to inspect our troops who are fighting the Turks. Anya came with us. She wouldn’t miss a chance to see what Stavka is like.

  10/23 November 1914

  Stavka

  Papa was delighted to see us and could not give us enough hugs and kisses. We’re having a terrific time. Olga finally got a chance to celebrate her birthday. Nothing like last year!

  Stavka is southwest of Petrograd on the Dnieper River, in the middle of a dense forest. Several army trains have been pulled up in the midst of the birch and pine trees, a roof put over them, and wooden sidewalks laid down. It’s really quite cozy, like a little village.

  At noon the motorcars drive us to a mansion in the town of Mogilev to have luncheon with the officers. I tease Mashka about finding a husband here.

  “Don’t be vile,” she says, but she’s blushing. She doesn’t suspect I’ve read her diary and know she dreams of a soldier husband and twenty children.

  It’s
grand to visit, but Papa seems even more worried than before. So many men have been killed, far more than anyone expected, and now it seems that the war won’t be over by Christmas after all.

  28 November/11 December 1914

  Ts. S.

  We are all outraged! The Holy Synod of the Church has banned Christmas trees because they’re originally a German custom. Mama has written to Papa about it. She says it’s narrow-minded to outlaw something that brings so much pleasure to children and to the wounded men in the hospital. But Anya says there’s not much she and Papa can do, because so many people call Mama Nemka, “the German woman,” and believe she’s a traitor. This makes me terrifically angry, but there’s nothing I can do.

  20 December 1914/2 January 1915

  Aunt Olga came today and told us that the windows of German bakeries in Petrograd have been smashed. I remember how I wanted to go into a dear little candy shop on the Nevsky Prospect, but now it has been destroyed because the owners are German. How awful it all is!

  One good thing: I don’t have to study my German lessons anymore! Of course that still leaves Russian, English, and French. What a bore. Why couldn’t I have been born already knowing all these languages!