TOADTalk: A Passion for the Romanov Dynasty

Good morning, everyone!

 

I was fully not expecting to be giving another TOADTalk. Ever. So I was at a loss of what to share with you today. It is close to the holidays, but I used that theme last year. Then I thought that I could talk about college admissions, perhaps Varsity Blues? Or how your path changes but it is always a super journey no matter the road you take. But I feel like I’ve told many many seniors that over the past few months. I needed new material. Especially for the last TOADTalk of the decade.

 

Then it hit me. The Romanov Dynasty.

 

Yes, I know. Sex. Intrigue. Hypnosis. Family. Magic. War. What else could be more interesting?

 

I’ll let you know how it all started.

 

When I was in high school, I was a nerd, but a pretty lovable one. And popular. So much so that I was voted Teacher’s Pet in my high school yearbook. And it was a big public school. I was a linguist—taking French and Spanish. And I was a history buff. I discovered my strengths early on. My senior year of high school, I dropped science to continue to double up in language and in history. I was living the dream.

 

September of senior year, I walked into “Russian History, 1900-1950.” The class was packed as this particular history teacher was set to retire soon and he was a legend. And from that first moment of that first class, I was hooked. Thus began my obsession with World War I. With the Romanovs. With the tit-for-tat Willy-Nicky letters that changed the course of history. That class altered my academic career in ways I hadn’t even imagined yet. And, in class, we only got up to 1918. So there was some really good stuff in there.

 

Let me set the scene. Queen Victoria, empress of the Great British Empire, great-great-grandmother of Queen Elizabeth II, being the smart, capable leader she was, knew that England had a strong navy, but it was a little country with a big empire. She needed to marry off her offspring across Europe to secure land holds. So that’s exactly what she did. Come 1900, Queen Victoria, the grandmother of Europe, and her descendants reigned over the Continent. Not a bad accomplishment for her to hang her hat on, huh? To name a few—her granddaughter Alexandra married Tsar Nicolas of Russia. Her daughter, Victoria, married Frederick of Germany, producing a son, Wilhelm, the Kaiser of Germany. And her son Edward produced King George V. This set up three male cousins - Nicolas of Russia, Wilhelm of Germany, George of England—ruling the three biggest empires in the world. The intricate family dynamics fascinated teenage Courtney. I devoured The Guns of August, Edward Massie’s Nicolas and Alexandra and any other book I could get my hands on about the Great War and those rowdy cousins. It all seemed so tragically, inevitably leading towards disaster.

 

So fully immersing myself in this Russian history class, I was greeted with the personalities of Alexandra and Nicholas. And, of course, Rasputin.

 

Growing up, I was an avid Disney movie watcher. For some reason, Sleeping Beauty reigned supreme, even though very little happens in that movie. I would do unnecessary chores like Cinderella around the house. I practiced reading and walking at the same time like Belle.

 

But when I saw the movie, Anastasia, something changed. My fascination grew exponentially. Who knew there could be secret princesses out there with horrific family pasts? It was all too much to handle. And Rasputin! He was depicted as the villain in the movie, and all subsequent reading I did about him concurred. He was evil. A “man of God” with unorthodox traditions and practices. He was the fall of the Romanov Dynasty.

 

So I got to college and decided to major in political science. I was going to be a spy after all. But a wise mentor told me that rather than forcing myself to major in something useful for a future profession, I should major in what I love. Which was French and history. This meant that I would be more interested in my classes, would work harder, earn better grades, and have a better quality of life. He was not wrong.

 

When senior year of college came around, I knew that I would be teaching French in some capacity after graduation, so I decided to write a senior history thesis - my swan song to my study of history. But, I was unsure of what to pick for my thesis. The Anschluss? I did love The Sound of Music. Marie-Antoinette and the French Revolution? Let them all eat cake. Then a friend mentioned Rasputin. And I knew that was it. I was going to revert back to high school Russian history obsessed me. To childhood Anastasia obsessed me.

 

But what happened was even more fun.

 

Throughout the course of my research, I focused on how personality plays such an important role in history. Particularly Tsar Nicolas’s lack of charisma and his familial worries. He was unable to step up to be the leader Russia needed because his attention was diverted elsewhere. Was that really his fault? Was he to blame for the demise of his family’s dynasty because he was a nice guy? He was a good person. He needed to focus on his ailing son. The size of his kingdom. The double-crossing cousins in Germany and England. And then the straw that broke the camel’s back. Rasputin. Nicolas’s wife, Alexandra, I argued in my thesis, should be credited with Rasputin’s appearance on the scene, and therefore the fall of the Romanov dynasty. Desperate for a cure for her hemophiliac son, she was willing to do anything necessary to treat him and keep him alive. That included inviting a Russian peasant, a self-professed medicine man, into her family’s life. Alexandra became the conduit between Rasputin and her husband, asking the Tsar to write to his cousins, the King of England and the Kaiser of Germany, to do things that Rasputin suggested. Nicolas, so desperate to appease his wife, his cabinet (or Duma), his family, obliged. Alexandra held all the cards. Historians argue that various different people or circumstances “started” World War I (even including the limo driver that missed his turn and allowed a sniper to get a second shot and murder Archduke Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary). But, effectively it was Alexandra that brought about the start of World War I and the fall of the Romanov dynasty.

 

Once I decided to focus on this for my TOADTalk, I dug deep into my computer archives to find the actual senior history thesis. What a fun find (and super fun finding a typo in my introduction). I quote myself from 2010 (this may be the only time I am ever quoted, so bare with me): “The end of the Romanov dynasty highlighted the importance that individuals have on the past. Although challenging circumstances, such as social movements and political turmoil, dominated Russian society and government at the turn of the twentieth century, the choices made by and reactions of individuals defined this era...Nicholas did not have an easy job. He was a tsar unprepared to rule... Nicholas’s personal relationships affected his leadership abilities. Specifically, Alexandra, his loving wife, influenced his political decisions in the years leading to the 1917 Revolution. The end of the Romanov dynasty was not caused by the power and organization of revolutionaries, but rather by Nicholas’s incompetence as a leader during a trying time for European politics, an incompetence that Alexandra exploited.”

 

Okay, the thesis itself was a little bit of a stretch, but it was fun to theorize and research. History has been shaped by personalities. By charismatic individuals. By individual choices. By reactions to events. And this tells us that people matter. You matter in your story and in someone else’s. Always.

 

But besides my ode to figures that have shaped history and how interesting 1900-1918 is in Russian History, my point is: let yourself get carried away by your passions. Go down the Wikipedia rabbit hole when watching a Netflix show (like I did with The Crown a few years back). Take a class on something you are truly interested in (I took a pottery class in 2016). Watch a random documentary (I watched one on Russian models. Their life is so scary and sad). Read an article. Surround yourself with what piques your interest. You never know when you have a senior thesis (or a Senior Ex) in the making.