Edward Radzinsky: The authorities are entertaining themselves with the story of “Matilda”. Edward Radzinsky: The authorities are entertaining themselves with the “Matilda” story. Even a personal royal visit was perceived as an official event. Was it possible under such conditions to even hide
In the year of the 100th anniversary of the revolution, historians analyze the events of a century ago, speculating how the country could have developed if the Bolsheviks had not come to power. Author of books on the history of Russia, which have become world bestsellers, Edward Radzinsky visited St. Petersburg to talk about the tragedy of those days, the role of the main historical figures and the inevitability of certain events that shook the country at the beginning of the 20th century.
About the main “revolutionary”
- Revolution is a universal theater. Here yesterday's lawyer leads the assault, yesterday's artist leads armies, and a nonentity becomes in power. Many have heard the formula that “the revolution is conceived by romantics, carried out by fanatics, and used by scoundrels.” But here the mention of the main revolutionary is wisely omitted. The revolution is conceived by romantics, carried out by fanatics and... power! The main revolutionary, as Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich wrote to the unfortunate Nicholas II, is our government, which is doing everything to make it happen.
During the February events in Moscow, a huge group of blind beggars somehow gathered at the place of execution. They sang songs of the Time of Troubles... In the country at that time, only the blind understood what would happen.
The most skillful in making money, the most cunning, adapted to live illegally for years, the Russian bourgeoisie was always separated from the authorities. Having received this power, she did not know what to do with it. Trotsky famously said: after the revolution we do not have dual power, we have dual anarchy. Everyone got busy with the normal thing: they bought palaces, got busy with money, but they had to take care of the country. The country, to horror, turned out to have a mediocre elite.
Edward Radzinsky: “The country, to horror, has a mediocre elite.” Photo: AiF / Maria Sokolova
On the inevitability of the abdication of Nicholas II
Nicholas II understood what was happening. The atmosphere in the country was appropriate. Even the head of the monarchists, Vladimir Purishkevich, speaking in the Duma, said: the threads from the ministers are in the hands of Rasputin and Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna, who “remained German on the Russian throne, alien to the country and people.” What did Alexander Guchkov and Pavel Milyukov say? The word “treason” circulated throughout the army. The king understood perfectly well that he had two options - either the queen or abdication. There was no other way out. He was called “a crazy driver who is leading the country into the abyss”... Then it will be said that the great princes were waiting for the Duma to initiate action, and the Duma was waiting for a normal dynastic coup. Therefore, sooner or later, the renunciation had to take place.
About the role of Matilda Kshesinskaya
One of the achievements of a modern political strategist is to force the country to discuss not the revolution, but Matilda. This is amazing, I'm ready to applaud! What did the young man do when he wrote in his diary: “He left little K in the morning”? Clearly, I was talking to her about the fate of Russia!
If you make a list of which of the great princes lived with ballerinas, it will be long. Such a hussar tradition.
About the Great French Revolution
Revolutions have a peculiarity - they are all similar. The Bolsheviks took methods from the times of the Great French Revolution. They even began to prepare terror earlier, because they remembered that this saved the case in France. The artists repeated the style of Jacques-Louis David and made a giant canvas with Trotsky, depicting a meeting of the section of the International. Interestingly, David could not exhibit his painting because everyone was guillotined. The same thing happened with the canvas on which Lev Davidovich was depicted. The painting was exhibited once and was soon banned.
Revolutions are similar in their end - they all kill their children without fail. Therefore, the entire triumphant hall is usually sent to the execution wall or a direct path to the guillotine.
On the role of spies in the development of the revolution
What is the price of an empire that can be overthrown by spies - English, German or Japanese? It so happens that we are never to blame, we always blame others who treat us badly, who live outside our borders. And we are unhappy. True, the question arises, who did all this? Who knocked down crosses from bell towers and hung red ribbons? It’s not us, it’s all the spies who have given us the idea.
About predictions
Every year I write myself predictions for the next 12 months and don’t show them to anyone. It makes me very happy and sad at the same time that they are coming true. I tell the story so that readers can make these predictions for themselves. Unfortunately, when talking about the past, I talk not only about the present, but sometimes also about the future. That's the problem. Therefore, I continue this work.
About Rasputin
After the publication of the book about Nicholas II, they put pressure on me to immediately write about Rasputin. But I could not start work, because I understood that there was no Rasputin, there was only a political figure who was dressed depending on the need.
At that moment, Mstislav Rostropovich bought a collection of documents at Sotheby's - investigative files about Rasputin. Perhaps they left Russia because they contained testimonies of those who loved Gregory, were his supporters or fanatics. After looking at them, I realized that the portrait may turn out that I can show him alive on the pages. And I took up the book. It became a bestseller, but it was hard to read. The fact is that in the minds there was already another image of Rasputin and he was more powerful than this one.
Working with documents, I tried to catch the real him. It was surprising that people couldn't describe him the same way. Some said “he has bread teeth”, others that his teeth fell out and only black spots remained. Some claimed that he was huge, others that he was squat and hunched over. And these are people who watched Rasputin every day. He changed like a chameleon. As I was writing this book, on page 300 I admitted that I couldn’t catch him, that I was always catching some of his disguises.
But one day he sat on the bed of his publisher’s daughter and said: “Why don’t you drive me away from her? I'm the devil." He's telling the truth here. He suffered. This is a man who walked and drove the devil away from himself.
Edward Radzinsky: “Rasputin is a man who walked and drove the devil away from himself.” Photo: AiF / Maria Sokolova
All these records shocked me. But even then, after the book was published, Rasputin did not let me go. From Ukraine they sent me another volume from the same case. And these are amazing things. They tell how officials and their wives came to him through the back staircase, because he had already become a symbol of dark forces. How Witte’s wife went to him, how they agreed to return Witte (which might have saved the empire). This is terribly interesting, but you need to escape from this captivity, because immersing yourself there again for three years is difficult.
Famous writer, historian, playwright Edward Radzinsky called the scandalous events surrounding the film, which has not yet been released, stupidity and madness “ Matilda", for and against which a large-scale information campaign was launched. "We were born to make Kafka come true"- Radzinsky said in an interview Vladimir Pozner on Channel One in the program “ Posner”.
Answering Posner’s question, the writer noted: “You want me to say our favorite formula: I haven’t seen this film, but I want to tell you...”
“A woman, a lovely, beautiful woman - you ask me on the eve of Valentine’s Day how I feel about a beautiful woman about a film that she has not seen - I answer you: a beautiful woman is always right, even if she is a prosecutor.”, - said Radzinsky, not without irony.
“Then comes our story, because it is charming,” the playwright continued with a smile. “Many zealots of the faith for some reason interfere with a novel that happened a hundred years ago with complete fury... They also have not seen the film. This is charming: they want to stigmatize a film they haven't seen".
Radzinsky also added that he would like to see a court hearing, where, among other things, there would be a lawyer who also had not seen this film. “I’m ready to be a witness - a film that I haven’t seen either, I’m also ready to defend it, or attack it”, - he noted and seriously added that this whole situation indicates that "we were born to make Kafka come true".
"You understand, this is madness that is gradually taking over...", - emphasized Radzinsky.
In this regard, he recalled the scandal surrounding the exhibition Vadim Sidur, where young people committed a pogrom. "Muscular young men come and begin to destroy. Sidur, unfortunately, cannot defend his works. He died. He died a little early, because he fought and was very wounded in the war... He cannot explain to them that Christ , whom he imagined - this is the Christ who saw Auschwitz, who saw Babi Yar... that he seems to be so imaginary to him"- said Radzinsky.
According to him, it doesn’t matter at all that the pogromists don’t go into such details, but he is very frightened that no one seems to be interested in this.
Radzinsky believes that those who raided that exhibition should not be sent to jail. “You just take money from them. Because we live in this scary world, which is called the world of money. Take money from them for a sculpture - it costs a little - 70 thousand dollars, I found out. And I assure you, suddenly faith, silence - everything when it comes, no one will need to be taught", - he said.
“Ending this nonsense... I received my first history lessons while standing outside the door. Yuri Karlovich Olesha came to my father, they talked, and I quietly eavesdropped. And there, among other things, Olesha said a quote, and I am 14 years old, unfortunately and he remembered in horror. He said: It was good for Noah, there was only one flood in his life. True, then Ham came, but we also have only one Ham.", concluded Radzinsky.
Scientists are sure: it all started long before director Alexei Uchitel began working on the film “Matilda,” where the main characters are the last Russian Emperor Nicholas II and the outstanding ballerina Matilda Kshesinskaya.
According to sociologists, the scandal in which the film was at the center is, in part, the product of an ideology that the power elite created for a long time, playing on inflating archaic and illiberal sentiments among the masses.
Historians, in turn, believe that Nicholas II is not a sacred image for the Russian people. As for his canonization, he was canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church for accepting martyrdom, and not because of the sanctity of his life, experts say.
After this, a prayer rally was held in Omsk against the release of “Matilda” in wide release. And before that, several frankly shocking incidents occurred.
Unknown activists, speaking on behalf of the Orthodox, set fire to a cinema in Yekaterinburg, attacked the Teacher's studio in St. Petersburg, and threats were made to the distributors that if the film was shown, viewers might suffer.
Historian and television journalist Nikolai Svanidze, in a conversation with TVK News, compared these incidents to acts of terrorism. In his opinion, the affair between the 22-year-old future heir to the throne and the young 18-year-old ballerina has nothing to do with the fact that Nicholas II was subsequently canonized.
Svanidze emphasized that the Russian Orthodox Church canonized the tsar for accepting martyrdom. In his opinion, government officials should put an end to the conflict:
“If people call themselves Orthodox believers, this does not mean that they should have the right to speak on behalf of all Orthodox believers. You never know who will call themselves what. And these people behave like terrorists, they impose their will on other people. What does their faith have to do with it? Their faith has nothing to do with whether they are Orthodox, Muslim, Buddhist, or they believe in a roadside tree stump, it doesn’t matter at all. They pit themselves against other people, they don't allow them to watch the movies that people want to see. They terrorize film authors, artists, directors. Strange people who are dangerous to society. And this conflict must end with the intervention of the state, which, in accordance with the law, will put an end to this and that’s it.”
However, now stopping the escalation of the situation is not an easy task for the government, says social psychologist and expert at the Center for Political Technologies Alexey Roshchin.
“We see a strong grassroots movement that is essentially opposing the government and the president. Why is all this happening? I think that our power elite has been playing short for quite a long time, playing on inflating the most base, archaic, anti-liberal sentiments among the masses. Believing that this helps to unite the poorly educated and illiberal-minded part of the population around the government, and this dark mass will be a good scarecrow and ally to repel the attacks of hidden liberals in the government and generally keep the country under control. In general, history shows that almost always this kind of tame dark masses at some point stop obeying their puppeteers and begin to dictate their own agenda. This is, in fact, what is happening in Russia now. I don’t think that the government will be able to crush the movement of these Tsarebozhtsy, since it is the very flesh of these people. Perhaps they will win this battle, but whether they will win the war with the growing forces of obscurantists - practically the Black Hundreds - is already a big question,” Roshchin explained.
In this whole story, the position of the Russian Orthodox Church remains not entirely clear. On the one hand, representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church condemned the extremist manifestations of opponents of the film, and on the other hand, they accused Minister Medinsky of inciting the conflict.
However, apparently, there is no consensus in the Russian Orthodox Church regarding the situation around “Matilda”. Thus, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk said that he is against the ban on the film and against censorship. But at the same time he noted that he had seen the film and did not like it.
At the same time, another representative of the Russian Orthodox Church, Deputy Synodal Department for Relations between the Church and Society and the Media, Alexander Shchipkov, openly stated that the Matilda scandal was Medinsky’s “political mistake.”
And finally, the third position is the position of the chairman of the Synodal Department, Vladimir Legoyd, who called on all parties to “remain calm.”
According to Roman Lunkin, a religious scholar and head of the Center for the Study of Problems of Religion and Society at the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences, this is explained by internal political disagreements within the church itself:
“This is a strange collision - different points of view are presented within one synodal Department. But in general, within the church there are different ideas about what kind of society we want to build in Russia. On the one hand, democratic, open, with strong Orthodoxy. The other is completely lawless, based on unknown corporate rules and denies liberalism and democracy as something hostile. This is in Shchipkov’s statements, in his articles and books.”
How this conflict will end, and whether the state will be able to put an end to it, none of the experts can definitely answer this question.
However, what comes to mind here is the story of the opera “Tannhäuser” by the Novosibirsk Opera and Ballet Theater, which was opposed by representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church. Despite the fact that the production was supported by the local Ministry of Culture, the performance was removed from the program, and the theater director was fired.
In the Russian Empire there was not a single person who would stand up for the emperor, and in the Russian Federation there are more than enough such well-wishers
In the Russian Empire there was not a single person who would stand up for Nicholas II, and in the Russian Federation there are more than enough such well-wishers
Russia is not childish. In psychiatry this would be called schizophrenia. In politics they call it an attempt at reconciliation and agreement with one’s past, present and future. The trouble is that all temporary states are changeable. Because of this, today we have to reconcile and agree with what was stigmatized only yesterday. The most recent example is the passion around Alexei Uchitel's film "Matilda" about the carnal love of the ballerina KSHESINSKAYA and NICHOLAS II. Today this king is considered by us to be both Bloody and Saint. As anyone likes. But a tendency is visible that tomorrow we will be forced to consider him exclusively a saint. Therefore, while we can, we remind you of the human nature of the sovereign, and at the same time of his bloody life path to heaven.
A certain movement “Royal Cross” called on the people to unite against the historical film “Matilda” directed by Alexey Uchitel and sign an appeal addressed to the Prosecutor General with a request to ban the release of the film on the screen. In fact, no one has seen the film yet. His commercial caused public excitement.
The reason is this: “bed scenes are included in the picture with incredible audacity Nicholas II With Matilda Kshesinskaya“, and this “is not only criminal in relation to the believing citizens of the country, but also in relation to the state, since it is aimed at undermining national security.”
A deputy unexpectedly found himself at the head of the anti-Kseshin movement Natalia Poklonskaya. According to her, Nicholas II is in fact “a kind and merciful sovereign who has radically improved the well-being of his people.”
It’s stupid to check a film that hasn’t been released,” the Minister of Culture commented on Natalya Poklonskaya’s parliamentary request to the prosecutor’s office. Vladimir Medinsky.
The blind readiness of the heroine of the “Crimean Spring” to lay down her life for the Tsar caused shock among many of her fans.
I just can’t understand why what is considered the first love all over the world suddenly turns into a “vicious relationship” for Poklonskaya, offending the religious feelings of the Orthodox? - asks a journalist who is not at all liberal Oleg Lurie.
The move to Moscow from the deep provinces, the crazy parliamentary prosperity that fell on his head, coupled with a sea of free time, may have unsettled the former prosecutor. In addition, we must make allowances for the fact that she studied history at school using Ukrainian textbooks. And there it is written...
Family toy
It is believed that the cheerful Polish woman Matilda Kshesinskaya was given to his phlegmatic son Niki by his father. On March 23, 1890, after the graduation performance of the Imperial Theater School, which was attended by himself Alexander III with the heir to the throne, a gala dinner was given. The Emperor ordered that Kshesinskaya be seated next to the future Emperor Nicholas II. The family decided that it was time for Niki to become a real man, and ballet was something like an official harem and relations with ballerinas were not considered shameful among the aristocracy.
In the jargon adopted by the Russian Guard, trips to ballerinas for the sexual satisfaction of their violent passions were called “potato trips.” The heir was no exception under the name of hussar Volkova I went to Matilda for potatoes for several years. Until he married Alice of Hesse.
Wanting to keep the secret of his intimate adventures, Nicholas did not allow Matilda to fall into the hands of lustful merchants and noble perverts. He left her in the “family”, transferring her to the care and comfort of his grandson NicholasI- to the Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich. The new “owner” was single and also became interested in a gorgeous woman. Sergei Mikhailovich made Kshesinskaya the prima of the Mariinsky Theater and one of the richest women in Russia. Her palace in Strelna was not inferior in luxury to the tsar’s, which greatly crippled Russia’s military budget. The same one to which the great princes, and in particular Sergei Mikhailovich, had access.
Official matters did not allow him to pay enough attention to Matilda, and he asked to “keep an eye” on the beauty of the Grand Duke Andrey Vladimirovich, grandson Alexandra II. Both lovers knew about each other, but peacefully took turns cohabiting with the “witch”, never quarreling, and each considered Vladimir, Matilda’s son, his own. He actually bore first his patronymic name Sergeevich, and then Andreevich.
After the revolution, already in immigration to France, Kshesinskaya married Grand Duke Andrei Vladimirovich and received the title of His Serene Highness Princess Romanovskaya.
Alien place
One day Nicholas II told the Minister of Foreign Affairs Sazonov: “I try not to think seriously about anything, otherwise I would have been in a coffin a long time ago.” It is this phrase that most accurately characterizes the style of Nicholas' rule. His place was not on the throne, but under Kshesinskaya’s skirt and at the family table. The patriarchal custom of inheriting power not by merit, but by seniority, became a trap for tsarism. The rapidly changing world could no longer be held together by rotten bonds: “Orthodoxy, Autocracy, Nationality.”
It is customary to say about Nicholas that he personally carried out reforms, often in defiance of the Duma. However, in fact, the king rather “did not interfere.” He didn't even have a personal secretariat. Nicholas II personally never wrote detailed resolutions; he limited himself to notes in the margins, most often simply putting a “read sign.” In principle, he was not involved in government affairs. Didn't take them to heart. For example, his adjutant said that, having received the news about Tsushima, the king, who was playing tennis at that time, sighed heavily and immediately took up his racket again. In the same way, he perceived all the bad news about the unrest in the country and the news of defeats in the war.
As a result of such a reign, by the beginning of the First World War, Russia's external debt was 6.5 billion rubles, and there was only 1.6 billion of gold in the treasury.
But Nicholas II spent 12 thousand rubles a year on sweet photographs with his family. For example, the average household expenditure in the Russian Empire was about 85 rubles per year per capita. The emperor's wardrobe in the Alexander Palace alone consisted of several hundred military uniforms. When receiving foreign ambassadors, the king put on the uniform of the state from which the envoy came. Often Nicholas II had to change clothes six times a day.
The figure of the king, primarily through his own fault, turned out to be purely decorative. It was precisely this circumstance that caused general discontent.
All economic growth in 1913 came from the private bourgeois and capitalist sector. While the mechanisms of power have practically stopped working.
They couldn’t, since all the control levers were in the hands of one person who was unable to move them. Tsarism, therefore, simply outlived its usefulness.
Nicholas II became the Bloody not when, during his coronation on May 18, 1896, 2,689 loyal subjects were killed and maimed in a stampede. He became Bloody because, of all the methods of governing the state, he decided to use only the simplest - repression.
The worse the situation became, the more often they resorted to them. The 1905 revolution was preceded by a famine of 1901 - 1903, as a result of which more than three million adults died. Tsarist statistics did not count children. To suppress peasant uprisings and workers' uprisings, 200 thousand regular troops were sent, not counting tens of thousands of gendarmes and Cossacks.
And then on January 9, 1905, Bloody Sunday occurred in St. Petersburg - the dispersal of the procession of St. Petersburg workers to the Winter Palace, which was intended to present the Tsar with a collective petition about workers’ needs. The working people, “like the entire Russian people,” have “no human rights. Thanks to your officials, we became slaves,” the workers wrote in the petition.
The troops met them with cannon and rifle fire. Everywhere the reprisal was carried out according to the same plan: they fired in volleys, with or without warning, and then cavalry flew out from behind the infantry barriers and trampled, chopped, and whipped the fleeing.
Government message: of those who went to the king, 96 were killed, 330 people were wounded. But on January 13, journalists submitted to the Empire's Minister of Internal Affairs a list of 4,600 killed and fatally maimed. Later newspapers wrote that more than 40 thousand corpses with bayonet and saber wounds, trampled by horses, torn by shells and other similar wounds passed through the hospitals of the city and its environs.
Thus, the people's faith in the good Tsar-Father was trampled upon. The wave of general discontent could no longer be stopped. During 1905 - 1906, peasants burned down two thousand landowners' estates out of 30 thousand existing in the European part of the empire. Jewish pogroms claimed the lives of at least 10 thousand more people.
In October 1905, the All-Russian political strike spread throughout Russia. The Sevastopol uprising ended with the execution of the sailors of the Black Sea Fleet - the cruiser "Ochakov" and other rebel ships. Funeral prayers for tens of thousands of innocent victims had no time to subside when crop failure hit Russia. The church, landowners, and tsarist officials refused to share the grain, and as a result, the massive famine of 1911 claimed the lives of 300 thousand people. Strikes and executions began again. The fact remains: in 1914, doctors examined conscripts into the army and were horrified - 40 percent of the recruits had traces of Cossack whips or ramrods on their backs.
Triumph of the will
Beginning in the autumn of 1916, not only the left radicals and the liberal State Duma, but even the closest relatives - the 15 Grand Dukes - stood in opposition to Nicholas II. Their common demand was the removal of the “holy elder” from governing the country. Grishki Rasputin and German queens and the introduction of a responsible ministry. That is, a government appointed by the Duma and responsible to the Duma. In practice, this meant the transformation of the state system from autocratic to constitutional monarchy.
The Russian officers made a decisive contribution to the overthrow of Nicholas II. His attitude towards the Tsar-Father can be judged by the derogatory name of the popular snack - “Nikolashka”. Her recipe was attributed to the king. Sugar ground into dust was mixed with ground coffee; a slice of lemon was sprinkled with this mixture, which was used to snack on a glass of cognac.
Confidant of the Chief of Staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, Adjutant General Mikhail Alekseev - general Alexander Krymov in January 1917 he spoke to the Duma members, pushing them to a coup, as if giving guarantees from the army. He ended his speech with the words: “The mood in the army is such that everyone will joyfully welcome the news of the coup. A coup is inevitable, and they feel it at the front. If you decide to take this extreme measure, we will support you. Obviously, there are no other means. There is no time to waste."
The Imperial Headquarters was, in essence, a second government. There, according to the professor Yuri Lomonosov, who was a member of the engineering council of the Ministry of Railways during the war, dissatisfaction was brewing: “At the headquarters and at Headquarters they scolded the queen mercilessly, they talked not only about her imprisonment, but also about the deposition of Nicholas. They even talked about it at the general's tables. But always, with all this kind of talk, the most likely outcome seemed to be a purely palace revolution, like the murder of Paul.”
In March 1917, it was the military commanders of the fronts who forced the Tsar to sign his abdication. The last order of Nicholas II was the appointment of a general Lavra Kornilova Commander of the Petrograd Military District.
A few days after this, by decision of the Provisional Government, Kornilov left for Tsarskoe Selo to carry out the decree on the arrest of the former Empress Alexandra Feodorovna and the entire royal family.
By the way, today the same people who go to rallies hugging the icon of Nicholas II and singing “God Save the Tsar” have erected a monument to his jailer, General Kornilov, in Krasnodar. And they regularly hold commemorations near him, to which they bring an icon of Nicholas II.
After his abdication, Nicholas II turned out to be such a useless person that his existence was simply forgotten for some time. Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Provisional Government Pavel Milyukov tried to send the royal family to England in the care of the king's cousin - George V, but the king chose to abandon such a plan.
Not knowing what to do, the Provisional Government sent Nicholas II and his family deep into the country. The exile became his triumph of will. Not a sovereign, but a man, from the moment of his abdication until the day of his death he showed much more character than during his entire reign. How did you speak about him? Edward Radzinsky, there are monarchs who do not know how to rule, but who know how to die with dignity.
