RUSSIA: Opera Bouffe

Opéra Bouffe

“His Majesty” Cyril I, “Tsar of All the Russias,” decided to convoke a “Crown Council of all Russian Grand

Dukes who recognized him as Emperor.” At the same time, His Majesty appointed Grand Duke Dmitri Pavolovitch as his representative in Paris with Count Igor Sacken and Count Tolstoy Miloslavsky respectively as Military and Civil Counselors. These facts were published by Possledny Novosti, Russian newspaper printed in Paris.

The comic behind these grandiloquent phrases was that the “Tsar of All the Russias,” known as “Cyrille Égalité” (TIME, Nov. 17), is recognized by only a handful of Grand Dukes. Last September, he took the singularly inconsequental step of proclaiming himself Tsar, as if Tsar, crownless and throneless, had any significance.

Her Majesty the Dowager Empress Marie Féodorovna, who lives in Denmark, disputed his claim to the throne in a momentous letter addressed to Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaievitch, to whom she referred as head of the House of Romanov, thereby implying that he was the rightful successor to her son Nicholas. As she has never been able to bring herself to the point of believing that the Tsar was murdered at Ekaterinoslav, the question of the succession, out of deference to the Dowager Empress, to outward appearances has been a dead issue for the Grand Duke Nikolai. He has preferred to remain quiet and believes with his cousin (the Dowager Empress) that “our future Emperor will be designated by our fundamental laws in union with the Orthodox Church and the Russian people.”

As a bean geste, Grand Duke Cyril’s attitude is distinctly amusing; as a serious movement, it seems wholly devoid of sense. Meanwhile, it must be a source of laughing satisfaction to the Bolsheviki to know that the ranks of the Royalist Russians are so hopelessly split.