Book contents
- Frontmatter
- INTRODUCTION
- Contents
- PART ONE
- PART TWO
- PART THREE THREE AND EPILOGUE
- 24 The Tsar Visits London, 1874
- 25 Dostoevsky in Bad Ems
- 26 Sophia Perovskaya, Radicalism and the Russian People
- 27 A Mystic in the Desert
- 28 The Tsar at the Front
- 29 The Death of Nekrasov
- 30 A Visit to a Monastery
- 31 Tolstoy Apologizes
- 32 “Prophet, Prophet”: Dostoevsky's Pushkin Speech
- 33 A Death and a Marriage
- 34 Two Conspirators
- 35 Bombs and Blood
- 36 The Trial
- 37 Two Appeals
- 38 A Spectacle on Semenovsky Square
- Epilogue
- Who's Who?
- Chronology
- Endnotes
- A Note on Principal Sources
- Bibliography of Print Materials
- Index
24 - The Tsar Visits London, 1874
from PART THREE - THREE AND EPILOGUE
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 March 2012
- Frontmatter
- INTRODUCTION
- Contents
- PART ONE
- PART TWO
- PART THREE THREE AND EPILOGUE
- 24 The Tsar Visits London, 1874
- 25 Dostoevsky in Bad Ems
- 26 Sophia Perovskaya, Radicalism and the Russian People
- 27 A Mystic in the Desert
- 28 The Tsar at the Front
- 29 The Death of Nekrasov
- 30 A Visit to a Monastery
- 31 Tolstoy Apologizes
- 32 “Prophet, Prophet”: Dostoevsky's Pushkin Speech
- 33 A Death and a Marriage
- 34 Two Conspirators
- 35 Bombs and Blood
- 36 The Trial
- 37 Two Appeals
- 38 A Spectacle on Semenovsky Square
- Epilogue
- Who's Who?
- Chronology
- Endnotes
- A Note on Principal Sources
- Bibliography of Print Materials
- Index
Summary
On a sunny but cool Wednesday in the middle of May 1874, Emperor Alexander II of Russia was in the English Channel on his yacht Derzhava, headed for Dover. Accompanying him was an entourage of more than a dozen aides and officials including his oldest son, the Tsarevich Alexander, by now himself the father of two boys. The Tsar's wife, Maria, was not with him. She seldom was any more, and the emotional ties which once bound husband and wife had long since come undone.
As far as the Tsar was concerned his true wife was Catherine Dolgorukova, whom he still loved passionately eight years after first consummating his love with her that July night at Peterhof. After their rendezvous in Paris and return to Russia, their lives became more and more intertwined. Although he tried to remain discreet, his love for Katia was not easily hidden. He provided her with an apartment in the capital and arranged for nearby quarters for her when he was at Tsarskoe Selo, Peterhof, Livadia in the Crimea, or Bad Ems in Germany. In 1870, she had become a lady-in-waiting to the Empress and therefore had an excuse often to be around the royal family. Her duties, however, did not oblige her to travel with Maria when she went off, as she often did, to take the cure in Europe. On such occasions Alexander could arrange their rendezvous a little more easily. In recent years Katia occasionally had even surreptitiously made her way into the Tsar's quarters at the Winter Palace.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Russia in the Age of Alexander II, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky , pp. 149 - 155Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2002