Romanov Riches: Russian Writers and Artists Under the Tsars

In 1937, Trubetskoy’s work was concealed in the courtyard of the Russian Museum (founded by Alexander III). Now, the monument-caricature stands outside the Marble Palace of St. Petersburg.

The fate of Serov’s portrait of Nicholas II was even more dramatic. During the capture of the Winter Palace in 1917, the revolutionary soldiers found the portrait in the family’s private quarters and dragged it out to Palace Square, stabbing it with their bayonets, trying to tear it into pieces.

A few young artists were nearby and they appealed to the soldiers, telling them it was the work of the famous Serov and should be preserved for the museum. The soldiers, surprisingly amenable, gave up the portrait they had been attacking so furiously (they had already poked out both eyes). In that piteous state, the portrait was given to the Russian Museum. Fortunately, the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow retained an unharmed author’s copy of Serov’s masterpiece.

A politician’s cultural baggage may be his weapon and capital, but it can turn into a huge weight around his neck. Lacking natural political instincts, Nicholas II came to dubious conclusions while reading Russian literature. His diaries suggest that he read like an ordinary consumer of culture.

Lenin, on the contrary, read Russian literature with a political scalpel in his hand—that was the way his mind worked. He may have consciously deprived himself of the “culinary” pleasure (in Bertolt Brecht’s phrase) of reading, but his pragmatic approach to culture worked better from a political point of view and fed his revolutionary activity.

These contrasting approaches resulted in contrary readings of Tolstoy by Nicholas and Lenin. For Nicholas II, Tolstoy was primarily a patriotic military writer. Nowadays that may seem incongruous, since we know the late Tolstoy as a man who passionately rejected all forms of violence and hated war. Also, in his later years, Tolstoy often repeated Samuel Johnson’s aphorism about patriotism being the last refuge of a scoundrel. This did not mean that he did not consider himself a Russian patriot. But official patriotism as an instrument of state policy sickened him.

These positions coupled with his rejection of official Russian Orthodoxy brought Tolstoy into conflict with Russian autocracy. He wrote harsh accusatory letters to Alexander III and to Nicholas II. His works were strictly censored and often banned. But that had not always been the case.

Tolstoy made his name as a war writer. After his first novellas (Childhood and Adolescence), the works that had the greatest impact on the Russian public were his Sevastopol Stories, about the defense of Sevastopol in 1854–1855, during the Crimean War against the British and French.

Alexander II particularly liked one of the stories, “Sevastopol in December,” and he gave orders to keep Tolstoy out of the line of fire. Tolstoy’s first book, which included the Sevastopol tales, was simply called War Stories. Tolstoy was planning to publish a special magazine for soldiers, Military Leaflet, to inculcate patriotic feelings, but Nicholas I did not approve the idea.

In general, the young Tolstoy treated his military service with great enthusiasm and ardor, and until the end of his life, despite his rejection of violence and war, he continued to consider himself a military man. In that particular sense, he and Nicholas II were on the same wavelength.

Nicholas II read Tolstoy’s War Stories to his heir, eight-year-old Alexei, not only about Sevastopol but also “The Raid” and “The Wood Felling” (early stories about the war in the Caucasus, where Tolstoy also fought). Apparently, the emperor used those tales as edifying material—for he saw his son (despite his hemophilia) as a future brave officer: a true Romanov simply could not be a civilian.

War and Peace is Tolstoy’s most celebrated work, but when it was first published in a magazine in 1865–1866, it was first of all perceived as a highly controversial account of the war against Napoleon and was roundly criticized from that point of view.

Tolstoy was a historical determinist. Therefore, in describing Russia’s battles with Napoleon in 1805–1807 and then the Patriotic War of 1812, he insisted that their outcome and the course of historic events in general did not depend on emperors or military leaders or their orders, as was traditionally believed: “In order for the will of Napoleon and Alexander (the people on whom events seemed to depend) to be executed, a coincidence of endless circumstances was necessary.”

For Tolstoy, both Napoleon and Alexander I were just puppets who thought that they were puppeteers; they were only “the unconscious weapon for the achievement of historical universal goals.”

According to Tolstoy, Napoleon and Alexander I considered themselves to be national leaders, practically demigods, and therefore the writer presented them in a caricatured way in the novel. Tolstoy’s sympathy was with the phlegmatic Russian commander Kutuzov, who “understands that there is something more powerful and significant than his will—it is the inevitable course of events.”

For him, Kutuzov’s highest wisdom was his historical fatalism. Viktor Shklovsky, a Tolstoy biographer, commented that the real Kutuzov was no fatalist, he was merely an aging man who husbanded his strength.³⁹ But Tolstoy turned him into the spokesman of his idea, and now we see Kutuzov through the prism of War and Peace.

Despite irritated reviews by military experts who accused the writer of distorting historical facts, Tolstoy’s interpretation of Commander Kutuzov found resonance with Nicholas II, who was a religious fatalist. When he was twenty-six, he wrote to his mother, “God alone wills all, He does everything for our good, and we must accept His holy will with prayer!” His invariable calm response to the apocalyptic predictions and moaning of his officials and entourage was “It’s all God’s will.”

His identification with Kutuzov as depicted in War and Peace is obvious here. When, in 1915, Nicholas took on the command of the Russian army that was waging war against the Germans, he behaved exactly like Tolstoy’s Kutuzov: he didn’t interfere in tactical decisions, concerning himself mainly with improving the morale of soldiers and officers. He earnestly believed that would guarantee victory in the war.

Nicholas II thought he understood the Russian people, understood his soldiers, and knew how they would behave in a difficult moment. He was sure they all shared his profound faith in God and supported the emperor’s divine right to rule Russia.

His mistaken belief was created in part by his perception of Tolstoy’s War and Peace.

Every reader of War and Peace remembers its protagonists: the delightful Natasha Rostova and her noisy, silly, and charming family; Natasha’s fiance, the ambitious and brave Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, and his eccentric father; the fat, clumsy, and kind Pierre Bezukhov. Tolstoy’s creations remain with you forever as you go through life.

But one of the most memorable characters (despite the relatively few pages devoted to him) is a peasant soldier, Platon Karataev, whom Pierre Bezukhov befriends while in French captivity. For Tolstoy, Karataev is a symbol of the Russian people: he is pious, patient, and gentle. No trials or temptations can confuse his clear mind and Christian soul.

Nicholas II imagined that the Russian nation and the Russian army consisted of millions of peasant Karataevs,