The
1881 Turning Point in Russian History
Helena P. Blavatsky
Helena P. Blavatsky
“View of Moscow Kremlin”, a painting by Piotr Vereshchagin (1836-1886)
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
Editorial Note:
The following article was first published at “The
Pioneer”,
Allahabad, India, in its edition of April 9, 1881. Boris de
Zirkoff - the compiler of the H.P.B. Collected
Writings - reports:
“This article is pasted in H.P.B.’s Scrapbook, Vol.
XI, p. 67, now
in the Adyar Archives. Though unsigned, it is most
likely from
her own pen.”
We reproduce the text from “Collected
Writings
of Helena P. Blavatsky”, T.P.H., volume III, pp.
121-125.)
(Carlos Cardoso Aveline)
0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
The
great voice of the Giant Bell of the Kremlin at Moscow, called “Ivan Velikiy,”
whose heavy tongue has uttered no sound for the last twenty-six years, was
heard once more on the morning of March 2nd (14th). It appears from the Moscow Gazette and other papers that the
masses of the people had heard of the attempted assassination, but were not yet
aware of the Emperor’s death. They were accordingly thrown into great panic
upon hearing the first of the bell’s three long and solemn peals; and thick
crowds at once began to gather round the eminence, in the heart of the ancient
metropolis where the Kremlin stands. Before the third and last stroke - immediately
echoed by the four hundred gold-domed churches of the “holy, white-walled
mother city,” as Moscow is called by the patriots - had died out in the air,
there had collected a compact mass of bareheaded, haggard, “black people,” as
the peasants and poorer classes are called, which surged to and fro, completely
blocking the adjacent streets and squares. The voice of Ivan Velikiy (the
great) had resounded three times, and it meant the death of the Emperor. The
Czar-kolokol (Czarbell) speaks only to announce imperial deaths and
coronations.
It is
in the midst of such large and spontaneous popular gatherings that the national
pulse of Russia can be best felt. Here, there is no premeditation, no organized
loyalty, no forcible assembling by the police. A crowd of fifty thousand men
can never act a part. The descriptions given below are not taken from official
papers, but are extracts from letters written by private individuals and very
moderate patriots as regards the Imperial family, as almost all the ruined
Russian nobility now are. One of these writers says:
“Never
did I witness such a sincere, unanimous grief. Never did I think that a ragged
crowd, 50,000 men strong, composed mostly of our working factory heads,
peasants, and beggars, vicious and half-starved as the Moscow populace now are,
could stand for two long hours, suffocating each other around the many Kremlin
churches and weep, as I have seen them weep today. . . . It seemed as if their
hearts were breaking. . . . It was a terrible strain upon one’s nerves. ‘We are
orphans, orphans! . . . Our father has left us!’ were the exclamations most
heard. ‘To whom hast thou abandoned us!’ was the cry of a thousand voices in
simple forgetfulness of their traditional duty to shout le Roi est mort - vive le Roi! . . . There was hardly a street
beggar in Moscow today while the solemn Liturgy for the Dead was chanting but
dragged out a long-hidden copper to buy a wax taper with, and placed it lighted
with tearful prayers before the image of St. Alexander Nevsky, the patron saint
of the dead Emperor - ‘for the eternal rest of Father Czar’s soul.’ . . .”
Whatever,
then, the secret feelings of the better classes - and the sympathy of even
those, we are sure, was in most cases sincere - the grief of the millions of
serfs liberated by the late unhappy reformer was profoundly sincere. It is
already evident that Alexander II is destined to figure in the calendar of
Russian Saints. The elements are not wanting. He is certainly followed to the
tomb by a loving popular adoration, which will speedily make his weaknesses of
character to be forgotten. The term “martyr” is already applied to him. He has
fallen a victim to his kindness of heart. Instead of seeking safety in the
shelter of his closed carriage as supplicated, his chief thought was for the
mangled guards and other victims that strewed the pavement. An officer of the
guards, who was an eyewitness, reports the following conversation with Count
Gendrikoff, who was in attendance on the Emperor. After the explosion of the
first bomb, the Count rushed to the Czar, and finding upon inquiry that he was
uninjured, he exclaimed, “Sire, Sire! don’t leave the carriage!” The Emperor
replied, “Don’t disturb yourself about me. I am safe. I must get out to see the
wounded: it is my duty!” [1]
A
sinister fate seems to have pursued the Romanoffs, of whom not one, as alleged,
has met a natural death, since Peter the Great. Peter II died in youth,
poisoned. Anna, his successor, died under very suspicious circumstances. Ivan
VII, a child of only a few months, was dethroned by Elizabeth and - disappeared.
Elizabeth Petrovna, Peter the Great’s daughter, died very suddenly, and was
succeeded by Peter III, her sister’s son, who, after a reign of only a few
months, lost his life by a court revolution headed by his own daughter
Catherine II. That Empress, as public rumour - always restrained in Russia - gives
it, though not altogether a Romanoff by blood, died of slow poison. Her son,
the Emperor Paul, was strangled in his bed. Alexander I died poisoned, in 1825,
at Taganrog. [2]
Nicholas
I forced his confidential physician, Dr. Mandt, to give him the poison he
needed, and committed suicide, sacrificing his life to Russia, that his son and
heir might end the disastrous Crimean war, which his sense of dignity and pride
prevented him from doing himself. And now the tragic event of March 1st (13th)
closes the dreary list of Imperial catastrophes. There is a superstition in
Russia that none of the family can survive his sixty-fifth year. The late Czar,
it is known, lived under perpetual apprehension from this idea - one now seen
to be too well-founded.
Among
the sympathetic telegrams that came pouring in, from all parts of the world,
was one, couched in very eloquent terms, from Mr. Blaine, the present American
Secretary State. With good taste and tact, Mr. Blaine made it a condolence from
“the millions of free American citizens to the Russian millions made free, in
their great bereavement for the loss of their liberator.” Those who love to
study coincidences must be deeply impressed by the fact that both Lincoln and
Alexander, the liberators of the enslaved, died the same wretched death at the
hands of assassins. [3]
NOTES:
[1] The event of the
assassination is described in detail in the book “Memoirs of a Revolutionist” by
Piotr Kropotkin. Kropotkin was a
non-violent anarchist. (CCA)
[2] Note by Boris de Zirkoff: This
is most unlikely. It is not at all certain that Alexander I did actually die at
Taganrog on November 30, 1825, as has been alleged. Did he die or did he
disappear, with the connivance of his wife and a few close friends, after
arranging that some other body should be placed in his alleged coffin and
buried as his? Was he the hermit Feodor Kusmitch, who died in Siberia in 1864,
as many persons, including several members of the Imperial Family, believed?
When the Soviet Government opened the sarcophagus in the Cathedral of the Peter
and Paul Fortress in St. Petersburg, where the Emperors lay buried, it was
found that the coffin was empty. Rumor has it that Alexander III had had the
previous coffin removed (with whatever body was in it), and another coffin
substituted.
As to
Feodor Kusmitch, after some years of wandering in various localities, like the
Province of Perm, for instance, he later settled in the vicinity of Tomsk, and
was visited on many occasions by very influential people with whom he is
reported to have talked in some foreign language.
There
exists considerable evidence to the effect that Alexander I was very tired of
his responsibilities and greatly discouraged; he also experienced deep-seated
remorse for having indirectly contributed to the assassination of his own
father, Emperor Paul I, an event which he could have forestalled. It would appear
that he had decided to withdraw from the outer world and devote the rest of his
life to religious contemplation and self-study. See in this connection the
following works: “Le Mystère d’Alexandre
I”, by Prince Vladimir Baryatinsky (Paris, 1925; 2nd ed., 1929; there exist
also two Russian editions: St. Petersburg, 1912 and 1913); and “Emperor and Mystic”, by Francis Gribble
(New York E. P. Dutton, 1931).
[3] The same happened
to Mahatma Gandhi, who led the struggle for the national independence of India
in the 20th century. (CCA)
000
In September 2016, after
a careful analysis of the state of the esoteric movement worldwide, a group of students
decided to form the Independent Lodge of
Theosophists, whose priorities include the building of a better future in
the different dimensions of life.
000
