IN 1894, Victoria’s granddaughter Alix married Alexander II’s grandson, the future Tsar Nicholas II. Nicholas’s uncle Sergei had already married Alix’s sister Elizabeth, a convert to the Russian Church, and between her restraining influence* and the family’s ties to Britain hopes rose on both sides of a lasting friendship. British merchants brought profitable mining and retail businesses to Russia (Moscow’s flagship department store was Muir and Mirrielees) and Russians caught football fever from Scottish expats.*
Even the Great War strengthened the bond.* More than four million Russians gave their lives as allies of Britain and France against the German Empire’s aggressive expansion. Yet, to Lenin’s Marxist revolutionaries Europe’s distress was an opportunity. After slipping into Russia from Germany,* in 1917 Lenin masterminded the murder of the entire royal family in a bloodthirsty coup, and a thousand years of history ended with a pistol-shot. Over the centuries Tsars had done some terrible things; but they paled by comparison with what followed.
Today she is venerated as a saint of the Russian Orthodox Church. See posts tagged St Elizabeth the New Martyr.
Read how Herbert Bury told the Tsar that the English were in Russia ‘Not to Exploit, Sir, but to Help’. See also a quick history of the Moscow department store Muir and Mirrielees, and the remarkable sporting career of Arthur MacPherson.
See Herbert Bury’s recollections of a Russian choir singing Rule, Britannia! for him during the Great War, in Prav’, Britaniya!.
See Winston Churchill on Germany’s Secret Weapon.
Related Video
God Save the Tsar!, set to music by Alexei Fyodorovich Lvov (1799-1870), and performed by the Mikhailovsky Theatre orchestra and choir, at the State Hermitage, St Petersburg.
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