Grand Duchess Tatiana Nikolaevna of Russia - Relationship With Grigori Rasputin

Relationship With Grigori Rasputin

Tatiana, like all her family, doted on the long-awaited heir Tsarevich Alexei, or "Baby," who suffered frequent attacks of haemophilia and nearly died several times. Tatiana and her three sisters, like their mother, were all potential carriers of the hemophilia gene; the Tsarina was a granddaughter of Queen Victoria, from whom the trait was inherited. Tatiana's younger sister Maria reportedly hemorrhaged in December 1914 during an operation to remove her tonsils, according to her paternal aunt Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna of Russia, who was interviewed later in her life. The doctor performing the operation was so unnerved that he had to be ordered to continue by their mother, Tsarina Alexandra. Olga Alexandrovna said she believed all four of her nieces bled more than was normal and believed they were carriers of the haemophilia gene like their mother. Symptomatic carriers of the gene, while not hemophiliacs themselves, can have symptoms of hemophilia including a lower than normal blood clotting factor that can lead to heavy bleeding.

The Tsarina relied on the counsel of Grigori Rasputin, a Russian peasant and wandering starets or "holy man," and credited his prayers with saving the ailing Tsarevich on numerous occasions. Tatiana and her siblings were also taught to view Rasputin as "Our Friend" and to share confidences with him. In the autumn of 1907, Tatiana's aunt Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna of Russia was escorted to the nursery by the Tsar to meet Rasputin. Tatiana and her sisters and brother were all wearing their long white nightgowns. The children appeared to be friendly with Rasputin and comfortable in his company. Rasputin's friendship with the children was also evident in some of the messages he sent to them. In February 1909, Rasputin sent the imperial children a telegram, advising them to "Love the whole of God's nature, the whole of His creation in particular this earth. The Mother of God was always occupied with flowers and needlework." Eleven-year-old Tatiana wrote a letter asking Rasputin to visit her and telling him how hard it was to see her mother ill. "But you know because you know everything," she wrote.

However, one of the girls' governesses, Sofia Ivanovna Tyutcheva, was horrified that Rasputin was permitted access to the nursery when the four girls were in their nightgowns; she wanted him barred. Rasputin's contacts with the children were, by all accounts, innocent in nature, but Nicholas did ask Rasputin to avoid going to the nurseries in the future. Young Tatiana was aware of the tension in the nursery and afraid of her mother's reaction to Tyutcheva's actions. "I am so afr(aid) that S.I. can speak ... about our friend something bad," the twelve-year-old Tatiana wrote to her mother on 8 March 1910. "I hope our nurse will be nice to our friend now." Alexandra eventually had Tyutcheva fired.

Tyutcheva took her book to other members of the family. Nicholas's sister Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna of Russia was horrified by Tyutcheva's story. She wrote in her diary on 15 March 1910 that she couldn't understand the family's regard for Rasputin as "almost a saint" when she viewed him as only a "khlyst" Tyutcheva told Grand Duchess Xenia that the starets visited when Olga and Tatiana were getting ready for bed and sat there talking with them and "caressing" them. The girls hid his presence from their governess and were afraid to talk to her about Rasputin. Maria Ivanovna Vishnyakova, another nurse for the royal children, was at first a devotee of Rasputin, but later was disillusioned by him. She claimed that she was raped by Rasputin in the spring of 1910. The empress refused to believe her, Vishnyakova told investigators, and said everything Rasputin did was holy. Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna was told that Vishnyakova's claim had been immediately investigated, but "they caught the young woman in bed with a Cossack of the Imperial Guard." Vishnyakova was dismissed from her post in 1913.

It was whispered in society that Rasputin had seduced not only the Tsarina but also the four grand duchesses. Rasputin had released ardent, though completely innocent in nature, letters written by the Tsarina and the four grand duchesses to him. They circulated throughout society, fueling more rumors. Pornographic cartoons circulated that depicted Rasputin having relations with the empress, with her four daughters and Anna Vyrubova nude in the background. Nicholas ordered Rasputin to leave St. Petersburg for a time, much to Alexandra's displeasure, and Rasputin went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Despite the rumors, the imperial family's association with Rasputin continued until Rasputin was murdered in 1916. "Our Friend is so contented with our girlies, says they have gone through heavy 'courses' for their age and their souls have much developed," Alexandra wrote to Nicholas on 6 December 1916. Tatiana was rumored to have been present at Rasputin's murder on 17 December 1916, "disguised as a lieutenant of the Chevaliers-Gardes, so that she could revenge herself on Rasputin who had tried to violate her." It was also rumored that Rasputin was castrated in front of Tatiana, wrote Maurice Paléologue, the French ambassador to Russia, in his memoirs. Paléologue was skeptical at the time about the truth of the wild rumors and attributed them to the hatred of Rasputin held by people in St. Petersburg. In his memoirs, A.A. Mordvinov reported that all four grand duchesses appeared "cold and visibly terribly upset" by Rasputin's death and sat "huddled up closely together" on a sofa in one of their bedrooms on the night they received the news. Mordvinov reported that the young women were in a gloomy mood and seemed to sense the political upheaval that was about to be unleashed. Tatiana attended Rasputin's funeral on 21 December 1916, and Rasputin was buried with an icon signed on its reverse side by Tatiana, her mother and sisters.

Tatiana later kept a notebook in which she recorded Rasputin's sayings: "Love is Light and it has no end. Love is great suffering. It cannot eat, it cannot sleep. It is mixed with sin in equal parts. And yet it is better to love. In love one can be mistaken, and through suffering he expiates for his mistakes. If love is strong—the lovers happy. Nature herself and the Lord give them happiness. One must ask the Lord that he teach to love the luminous, bright, so that love be not torment, but joy. Love pure, Love luminous is the Sun. The Sun makes us warm, and Love caresses. All is in Love, and even a bullet cannot strike Love down."

Tatiana, like her mother, was deeply religious and read her Bible frequently. She also studied theology and struggled with the meaning of "good and evil, sorrow and forgiveness, and man's destiny on earth." She decided that "One has to struggle much because the return for good is evil, and evil reigns." A.A. Mosolov, a court official, felt that Tatiana's reserved nature gave her a "difficult" character, but one with more spiritual depth than her sister Olga. Her English tutor, Sydney Gibbes, who later became a Russian Orthodox priest, disagreed and felt that religion for Tatiana was a duty rather than something she felt in her heart.