THE CZARINA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 11239, 7 December 1899, Page 6

THE CZARINA.

MOST UNFORTUNATE OP QUEENS. According to Russian superstition, the loveliest young sovereign in the world is the victim of relentless supernatural vengeance. The ikons, the miracle-working images, the saints and deities of the Russian Church, \ i have turned their faces from her in divine j I implacability. And the worshippers of the | j ikons throughout all the Russias, from po- ! itntate to serf, are now devoutly doing their | best to make Alexandra Feodorovna, Em- i press of all the Russias, realise that she! is under the ban of heaven, the Church, and her adopted country. This situation has been developing ever since Princess Alix of Hesse, fresh fromthe baptismal rights of the Greek Church, became a bride and an Empress within a I week of the late Czar's death, and went to take her place in a court hung with mourning and heavy with gloom. And the events of her career as Empress explain to some e.\tent the ilhvill with which an ignorant and superstitious people has come to regard her. There are, according to well-informed Russians, two conceivable remedies for the unfortunate situation of ihe unloved Empress. One is the fulfilment of the recent rumour of the fear's abdication, which would insure a male heir for the throne and compel both the Cziir and Czarina to apply their modern, radical, and therefore tin-Russian, notions to private life rather than to the affairs of a throne. The other is the birth of a son to the Czar. The latter would go further than outsiders can believe toward reconciling the Russians to Iheir Empress. As for the reasons for the superstition and dislike of which the beautiful, clever, and conscientious Czarina, is the victim, any thoughtful person can easily call them to mind. The Czarina is decidedly Western—far more English than Gorman—in her training J and tendencies. She not only has no sympathy with Russian traditions, but is a friend to all innovations and reforms. She was an unwilling convert to the Greek Church. f>he was, according to rumour, an unloved bride, and she was wedded at a time of mourning, a circumstance in itself sure to bring ill-luck. In a land where women rulers are detested she has dared to give birth to three daughters. And she is openly disliked by three powerful persons— the Dowager Empress, the Grand Duke Vladimir, head of the military pnrty, and the great cleric l'obiedonostzev, the lied of tin' church. For these reasons the Czarina is as much an alien as on the first day she entered Russia.

The disfavour of these personages antedates the Czarina's marriage, as readers accustomed to trace the tangle of European State marriages will remember. It was no secret to Russia, particularly to the head of the Russian Church, that tho Princess Mix was an intelligent woman and a liberal Protestant. The religion of Russia involves the persecution of the unorthodox. Naturally, Pobiedonostzev feared Alix's influence as sovereign, us she would particularly favour tin- unorthodox. Moreover, he wished the Czarevitch to marry a .Slavonic princess. The (jrand Duke Vladimir, who hopes one day to be Emperor, would perhujM dislike any woman likely to bear ->.n heir lo the throne. The Dowager's dislike is said to he. founded on jealousy. Nevertheless few women could be better Qualified for an imperial position than the Czarina. Queen Victoria, whose favourite grandchild Alix was. saw this, and it was largely through her influence that thn marriage was brought about. There is hardly an accomplishment that (Vlix docs not possess. Tier beauty and bearing are queenly. She is so sweet natural that until her marriage sho was always known by the pet name of " Sunny." Her sympathy with the poor iind with individual unfortunates is rare and her help prompt. All movements and atwi .lions for the grind of women receive her he, , rty patronage. Her intelligence, say her en?inies. is too keen, for they accuse her of ireddling with affairs of state, or at least stroigly influencing her ml too iintocrntic hiwliMid. The first thing the Russians knew about the Czarina was that she refused to aid in the persecution of Protestants or to condemn her former religion. They then suspected, her of far too great liberality of view in regard In politics and reforms. This having become generally understood, there was an example of her narrow personal prejudice in the. famous cigarette smoking incident. All the ladies of the Russian Court, as in many other courts of Europe, were accustomed lo smoke freely. The Dowaeer Czarina favoured the custom. Suddenly the young Czarina announced that a cigarette in a woman's mouth was more obnoxious than an oath in a man's, and that the practice must be discontinued. This single act wen an incalculable number of enemies for the Rnglish-bred sovereign. Meanwhile the Czarina lias presented the Russian people with two possible future nileir—the Grand Duchess Olga and the Oram! Duchess Tatiana. They could not forgive her this. The fact that tho Czar was mil a strong man and that his b'-nthers were weaklings increased the apprehension for the nation's future.

1-css than a year it became known that (he Czarina was to give birth to a third child. Had the new little Grand Duchess Maria, proved to be a boy it might have been believed that the ikons had relented. As it is. the majority nf uneducated Russians will tell you that the Czarina, cherishes a wicked antipathy to the Russian Church and that tho ikons' refusal to give her a son was their means of punishing her. Within the past, few months the hostility toward her has become bitterer than ever before. Then (hero must not be overlooked the Czar's famous Universal Prcice proposition, which, in Russia, as being distinctively unRussian, was traced to the Czarina—a foreign influence. And, most recently of all, his rumoured abdication, Iras seemed to a suspicious empire to denote instability, perhaps also due to the "Englishwoman's" interference. Just how English the Czarina is may be inferred from an account of her training. She spent a large part of her childhood with her English cousins. In her own family English was spoken more than German. Her teachers and attendants were all English, the main charge of her education being in the hands of Miss Orchard, a worthy Englishwoman and protege of Queen Victoria, who superintended tho training of Alix unci all her sisters. And when the new Empress went as a bride to Russia she took with her —and this was another irritant to the Russian Court—this some Miss Orchard, who had vowed never to leave her "Sunny." If anyone imagines that all this bitterness, secret suspicion, and open opposition is unknown to the young Empress, let him study one of her photographs. It was said of her sister Elizabeth, the ill-used wife of the Grand Duke Sergius, uncle of the Czar, that she had the saddest face ever seen on a woman, and with good reason. But the Czarina's face is sadder still. Her face, though still beautiful, has lost every trace of youth. The happiness of being wife, mother, and queen seems to have been overshadowed by her misfortunes. One might fancy that she had borne the sorrows of an empire rather than having been, nominally, tho leader of its pleasures. "Sunny" Princess Alix has become a silent, saddened queen, martyr to jealousy, intrigue, bigotry, ignorance," and persecution. And as for Nicholas, the autocrat of all the Rtissias and the greatest sovertign in the world, he is powerless to alter the situation by a jot. The Empress' issue from her mysterious accumulation of misfortunes rests with fate.