{Sometimes Pascal the existential Russian blue cat cannot believe his luck. While deep in the weeds of Eric Voegelin’s lengthy explanation of the 'Crisis' of the modern West, Pascal stumbled upon a surprising reference to Tsar Alexander I of Russia. He quickly tracked down some relevant information and composed what follows. He remains puzzled, however, as to why Eric Voegelin credited what appears to have been nothing more than a typical Russian legend.}
According to the late Eric Voegelin (in From Enlightenment to Revolution), the 19th-century Russian Tsar Alexander I, conqueror of Napoleon, was, toward the end of his life, “a soul in anguish; his search for the peace of his soul, which induced his contacts with representatives of various sectarian movements, did not come to an end before his strange disappearance from the throne in 1825 and (which seems at present the most probable assumption) his withdrawal to Siberia.”
"Strange disappearance"? Most historians seem satisfied that Alexander decided in the fall of 1825 to winter, along with the Tsarina, in the village of Taganrog on the Sea of Azov, south of Moscow. While there, Alexander overtaxed himself, exploring the region on horseback; at some point, he contracted an illness referred to as “Crimean fever,” which was rampant in the region. He died in Taganrog on December 1, 1825: which is to say, his “disappearance” coincided with, and would seem to be sufficiently explained by, his death.
So where did Eric Voegelin get the idea that Alexander had instead slipped away in secret to Siberia? I will allow Wikipedia to shed light on the situation:
Many believe that Tsar Alexander I faked his death and lived as a hermit by name of Feodor Kuzmich, although this fact is debated by historians and some reject the legend; however, popular writers often resurrect it. The main claim for the involves the curious similarities between Alexander and Kuzmich. Svetlana Semyonova, president of Russian Graphological Society, analyzed both Alexander's and Kuzmich's handwriting and concluded that they were the same. Furthermore, there were rumors that Alexander's wife also faked her death a year after his death and became a nun in Saint Petersburg. The priest attending Feodor Kuzmich on his deathbed reportedly asked him if he was, in fact, Alexander the Blessed. In response, Kuzmich said, "Your works are wonderful, Lord. There is no secret which is not opened."
Despite the certifiably dead body of the Tsar having been examined by ten physicians (some from the royal court and others from the imperial garrison in Taganrog), many Russians, out of either grief, reverence, or boredom, refused to let Alexander go. Alan Palmer, (Alexander I: Tsar of War and Peace), takes on the legend:
Among simple people of all classes one of the most primitive instincts of folk fable began to assert itself: Alexander, it was said, had not died but was living out a life of prayer in some distant monastery. Neither for the first time nor the last, the credulous and superstitious refused to accept the fact of mortality in the Russian Imperial dynasty.
Russian history is dotted with tales of tsarist pretenders and imposters, claiming to have foiled usurpers, to have escaped death, and to be the legitimate leader of the nation.1 Alexander’s death had been followed by uncertainty over who would succeed him on the throne; Constantine and Nicholas were the two candidates, but neither of them seemed to want the job. While they squabbled, and in the immediate aftermath of Alexander’s demise, a group within the Russian military decided the time had come to overthrow the Romanov regime and to set up a constitutional government. The “Decembrist Revolt,” as it came to be known, took place on December 26, 1825, and was ended the same day by troops from the palace guard; instigators and participants were later tried and executed or exiled.
Even though he had died on December 1, Alexander’s state funeral was not held until February. In Palmer’s telling, “The long funeral procession wound its way slowly northwards through the snow to Kharkov, Kurst, Orel, and Tula; silent crowds, sad and apprehensive, watched the great funeral coach go by. On February 15, the procession reached Moscow.” The royal coffin was carried through the city “along the same route Alexander had followed for his coronation. For two days, the coffin rested within the Kremlin, at the Cathedral of the Assumption where earlier Romanovs were buried.” Naturally, “The people of the city wished the body to be exposed so that they could honor the sovereign who had refused to make peace with Napoleon in the epic days of 1812.” However, “the authorities would not open the coffin, and there was nearly a riot.”
The authorities were not being unreasonable. “It was, by now, two and a half months since the unskilled morticians in Taganrog had sought to embalm the corpse,” a task for which they were apparently not qualified. Due to their incompetence, Alexander’s corpse had been decomposing and putrefying for weeks; it was all but unrecognizable, and those who had the misfortune to have viewed it in the interval called the experience “macabre” and “terrible”. Regardless, the refusal to allow Alexander’s body to be viewed by the public helped give rise to the ensuing legends.
One rumor which circulated claimed that Alexander, while in the village of Taganrog, had decided to abdicate the throne and to pursue life as a wandering monk (an inclination which, given Alexander’s increasing preoccupation with spirituality, was not entirely out of the question). “A substitute corpse was brought into the sick room at Taganrog while the real Alexander was smuggled out and put aboard an English yacht, which then conveyed him through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles to the Holy Land.” The implausibility of such a charade likely prevented that rumor from getting traction.
What did get traction, however, and what seemed credible to Eric Voegelin (among others) even in the 1950s, were “tales of a Siberian ‘starets,’ or holy man, who began to excite attention in the early 1840s. This starets—tall, with a stoop, middle-aged, and possessing an impressive presence—was not a dabbler in miracles, like the later Rasputin; he was an austere practitioner of a life of prayer and meditation, and he was known as Fyodor Kusmich. Nobody was certain of his true age or his background; but he was someone with connections at court, he enjoyed recalling the reign of Catherine II, and it was believed by those who met him that he occasionally received visits from eminent figures in the Empire. By the late 1850s, when Kusmich settled in a village near Tomsk, many people were convinced he was in reality Tsar Alexander, expiating his sins by prayer as a voluntary exile in the wastes of Siberia.”
Alan Palmer makes clear that he does not for a second believe that Fyodor Kusmich was Tsar Alexander, but he also notes, “There is still one peculiar circumstance for which there is no ready explanation. On at least two occasions, and possibly more, Alexander’s tomb in the fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul has been opened and found empty. Either no corpse was ever buried in it or the body that was laid in the sarcophagus was subsequently removed; and there is indeed a story that a body was taken from the tomb in 1866, at the direction of Alexander II, and secretly buried in the graveyard of the Nevsky Monastery.” Would such a reburial, had it taken place, have bolstered the case for Kusmich-as-Alexander? Or would it have been further evidence that Russians are as careless with the dead as they are with the living?
I have said it before: Russian history is endlessly fascinating and profoundly weird.
------------------------------------------
Alexander I of Russia - Wikipedia
1 Witness the long-standing rumors about Anastasia Romanov, who supposedly survived the Bolshevik massacre of her family and lived to become, um, Ingrid Bergman.
Posted by: |