Did Alexander the First of Russia really die at Taganrog in 1825?
This week there has been new evidence suggesting that Richard the Third may not after all have murdered his nephews, Edward and Richard, in order to cement his position as King of England. This is not the first time that people have attempted to exonerate Richard from the crime. Josephine Tey in her novel, The Daughter of Time, made a good case that the perpetrator was not Richard, but Henry Tudor, later Henry the Seventh, who had an equally good, if not better, motive.
Coincidentally this week, in the interests of my own ‘research’, I have been considering the facts surrounding the death of the Russian Emperor, Alexander the First, the man who received the keys of Paris after victory over Napoleon.
Officially, in mid November 1825 (Old Style), almost 200 years ago, Alexander died far from St Petersburg, in Taganrog, a port on the sea of Azov. His death, which sparked a constitutional crisis and failed rebellion, raised uncertainties and questions that have led some historians to believe that he staged his own death. It is argued that he wanted to escape the responsibilities of a role which was becoming increasingly onerous to him. Moreover, he might have felt continued guilt about the assassination of his father, Paul the First in 1801, in which he was very probably complicit.
The story goes that the body that was transported back to St Petersburg for burial was not Alexander’s, but that of an imperial courier. The 47 year old Emperor was spirited away to Siberia while very much alive. It is speculated that he left Taganrog on a yacht owned by the Earl of Cathcart, former British Ambassador to the Court of St Petersburg, and reappeared some years later as a holy man known as Fedor Kuzmich.
The evidence presented to support this tale relies on the fact that eye witness accounts of the death of Alexander are so contradictory that they cannot be true. It is also the case that when the Soviets opened Alexander’s coffin during the Revolution it was found to be empty (no one knows what happened to the courier.) Those who met Kuzmich in Siberia said he had knowledge of court life in St Petersburg that suggested first hand experience. In addition it was said that he was visited by Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich, Alexander’s younger brother.
If this last story were true, the Russian Royal Family were well aware of the deception and played along with it. I don’t find this improbable, since prior to 1825 they kept the secret of Alexander’s brother Constantine’s renunciation of the right to become Tsar for several years.
The whole story was set out in detail in an article of 1945 by Leonid Stakhovsky an academic, at that time working at Harvard University. It can be read in the American Slavic and East European Review. (Vol 4, no ½, August 1945, pp.33 to 50). I am not sure whether Professor Stakhovsky’s assertions have since been disproved, but, true or not, his article is certainly thought provoking and entertaining.
(Picture: Equestrian Statue of Alexander the First by Franz Kruger. Hermitage Museum)