HOUSE OF ROMANOFF

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 281, 19 April 1913, Page 10

HOUSE OF ROMANOFF

TERCENTENARY CELEBRATIONS. STORY OF THE RISE OF THE DYNASTY. London, March G. There is great resounding of church bells and guns in Russia to-day (March oth.) The Empire of the Czars is celebrating the three-hundredth anniversary of the accession of Mikhail Feodorovitch, the first Romanoff, to the Moscow throne, students of history know the genealogical fiction which vitiates the tradition of the dynastic continuity of the Russian Imperial House. All the Czars, beginning with Alexander I. (1801-1825), are the descendants of Paul 1., but Paul 1., though the son of his mother, Catherine ,the Great, was not the son of his father,, Peter 111., and Peter 111. himself though the nephew of his predecessor on the throne, Elizabeth, was neither a Romanoff nor even a Russian. He was the son of Elizabeth's sister, Anne, who had been married to a Prince of Holstein, and was therefore himself a Holstein. These are important facts from a dynastic point of view. Politically, however, they are immaterial, and are only mentioned here as a matter of historical curiosity.

Who, then, are (or were) the Romanoffs, and what was the part they played in Russian history ? They came to' power in troublous times. The old Rurik dynasty having come to an end in 1598, six Czars,, including even a Pole and a Catholic, were tried by the Boyar oligarchy in succession, but without success. The great desideratum was a Czar strong enough to assert his authority over the people, yet willing enough to serve as a tool of the Boyars.

None of the six Czars just mentioned satisfied the two conditions, and the Boyars at last decided to exact from the future candidate only one qualification. Their choice accordingly fell upon the "young and silly" (as he was attested by his proposers) son of the Metropolitan Philaretys, Mikhail. The choice was exceedingly lucky, for both the new Czar and his two successors proved exceedingly pious men, with no taste or capacity for State affairs, and the Boyars did pretty much what they wanted. The peasants wore attached to the soil; its repeated risings were suppressed in torrents of blood: Oukraine was annexed on the pretext of being saved from Polish domination; and a new criminal coda .the most barbarous Russia ever had, was issued. But then came Peter 1., and took his revenge. He, too. was no friend of the people, whom he Tiveted still, more firmly to the servile yoke, but neither ■was he a friend of the Boyars. whose power he soon curbed with an iron hand, Peter was the true successor of Ivan the Terrible in the work of establishing the autocracy of the Ozardom, and he was also like 'him in character, wild and cruel; his own and only son Alexis suffered death at his hands after long torture in prison. But Peter was a genius. He forced Russia into new paths, and determined her foreign- policy for centuries to come, as the embodiment of her endeavor to reach the warm sea.

Who were liis successors? A whole phalanx of figures, men. women and even children pass before our eve®, one more unlovely than the other, with one sole exception. There was Catherine T.. Peter's widow, a German woman of low birth and loose morality, drinking heavily from njorning till night, and unable even to sign her name. There was Peter 11.. the son of the murdered Alexis, a •vicious b'oy of thirteen, who soon died. Then there was a niece of Peter the Great, another German, who did not know a word of Russian, a certain Duchess of Cou.rland who ruled the Empire through one of her favourites, also a German of low birth, named Rnhren. Then we cateh a glimpse of a one-year-old infant, Tvan Antonovitcli, who was soon deposed, thrown into ,the Schlusselburg fortress, and there eventually put to death bv order of Catherine TT. Then we see Elizabeth, the pre-nuptial daughter of Peter the Great and Catherine, ascending the throne with the lieln of the palace guards and scandalously lazving away on the throne for twenty years. Then we see the above-mentioned Peter ITT., an imbecile and drunkard.

reigning for five months, and then deposed and murdered bv courtiers acting on behalf of his highlv gifted and cul-

tured wife. Catharine TIT., who now ascended the throne. This was the second remarkable figure 011 the Russian throne —a Messalina. it is true, and to this day remembered with execration by the people of Oukraine whom she deprived of their personal liberties, but witlvil a genius in statecraft.

l.ftr successor, however, Paul, of hseire parentage, was a lunatic and ilso h.i'l to be "removed." In this case, it wf <? his own son. Alexander T.. with win,so knowledge and permission the dark deed was accomplished. That, however, was the turning point, in the history of the Russian throne. Alexander I. was an attractive personality*, though ho turned afterwards a mystic. Kicholas T. was a ruthless desnot. but his personal character was blameless. Alexander TT. was animated with good intentions, but he lacked decision, and this proved the tragedy of his life and death. On the other hand, his son. Alexander TTT.. was an autocrat to the tips of his fingers and of great power of will, while the present Czar combines the chief traits of his two predecessors. Three hundred years are a la rare span of time, hut the historian's eve discerns but. few bright spots in the long record of the reigns which fill th«m.--London "Daily News and Leader."