Foreign News: Matoushka Tsaritsa

RUSSIA

“Matoushka Tsaritsa”

With savage humor the Soviet news organ Besbozhnik (The Atheist) informed the sovereign proletariat of Moscow, last week, that Death had come to “BullNecked Alex’s Old Woman.”

Outside of Soviet Russia “BullNecked Alex” is better known as the late Tsar of all the Russias Alexander III (reigned 1881-1894).

The strapping Autocrat’s “Old Woman,” who died last week in Copenhagen, Denmark, was the onetime Tsaritsa Maria Feodorovna, sister of the late British Queen-Empress Alexandra, sister of the assassinated King George I of Greece, aunt of the present Kings of England, Norway and Denmark, and mother of Tsar Nicholas the Last. To millions of Russians she was once “Matoushka Tsaritsa,” their “Dear little Mother-Empress.”

As she lay on her death bed, last week, the Dowager Empress whispered a wish to say farewell to the chief of her still faithful Cossack Guard. With tears streaming uncontrollably down his cheeks the giant Cossack came and knelt at her bedside. “God and all his Holy Angels receive you!” he cried, “I shall not survive you long, Matoushka Tsaritsa! I shall come to serve you in Heaven. . . .”

What the dying Empress whispered in reply could not be heard, but she managed to smile in farewell, and the big Cossack was led away by her physician, sobbing like a broken-hearted child. Present when Death came were the Empress’s daughters, Grand Duchess Olga and Grand Duchess Xenia; with the latter’s son Prince Vessli, members of the Danish Royal Family, and lastly Prince Dolgouriki, grizzled Major Domo, lifelong friend, faithful servitor.

“Tsaritsa of Tears.” Strange accidents, assassinations, and blasted hopeswere the almost constant portion of Maria Feodorovna.

As a young girl, she and her sister Alexandra had to scrimp and make over their old dresses, so poor was their father Prince Christian of Holstein-Glücksburg. Then by astounding good fortune the Great Powers adjusted the vexed Schlesvig-Holstein question by elevating impoverished Prince Christian to be Crown Prince of Denmark, later King Christian IX.

Up to this time all Princesses who had become by marriage Tsaritsas of Russia had been exclusively of German origin for a century and a half. But now this precedent was shattered, and the Grand Duke (Crown Prince) Nicholas of Russia chose to wed the little Danish princess. There is no question that they were infatuated. But he was stricken with paralysis before the nuptials could take place. On his death bed the Grand Duke Nicholas called in his fiancee and his bull-necked brother, the Grand Duke Alexander, and bade them wed. They obeyed.

Alexander and Maria Feodorovna became Tsar and Tsaritsa upon the assassination of his father, and reigned for 13 years. “Bull-Necked Alex” was then officially known as, “The Orthodox and Pious and Christ Loving, the Absolute Autocrat and Great Lord, Crowned and Elevated by God, Alexander Alexandrovich, Emperor and Autocrat of all the Russias. . . .—*

With the marriage of the Tsaritsa’s son to a German princess and his ascension as Nicholas II, the life of Maria Feodorovna entered its final and increasingly tragic stage. In vain she strove to prevent the Last of the Tsars, her son, from becoming the dupe of Rasputin and his other degenerate councilors. Once she said to him, “Come Nicholas, be Tsar!” But spirit was not in the weakling. When the Empire collapsed Maria Feodorovna removed to the Crimea, later departing on a British gunboat to seek sanctuary with her sister, the Dowager Queen-Empress Alexandra.

Finally, some seven years ago, King Christian X of Denmark welcomed home to Copenhagen his Imperial Aunt, and there last week ended the saga of the “Tsaritsa of Tears.”

*And furthermore: His Tsaric Majesty of Moscow, Kiev, Vladimir, Novgorod, Tsar of Kazan, Tsar of Astrakhan, Tsar of Poland, Tsar of Siberia, Tsar of Chersonesus in Tauria, Tsar of Georgia, Lord of Pskov and Great Duke of Smolensk, Lithuania, Volhynia, Podolia and Finland, Duke of Estland, Lifland and Kourland, and of Semigallia, Samogitia, Bialostok, Karelia, Tver, Jugoria. Perm, Viatka, Bolgaria and others, Lord and Grand Duke of Novgorod in the Low Country, Tchernigov, Rjasan, Polotzk, Rostov, Jaroslavl, Bialosero, Udoria, Obdoria, Kondia, Bitebsk, Mstislavl and Lord of All Northern Lands and Lord .of Iveria, Kartalinia and Kabarda and Hereditary Lord and Master of the Provinces of Armenia, Circassia and of the Mountain Princes and others, Lord of Turkestan. Heir of Norway, Duke of Schlcsvig-Holstein, Stoonmark and Oldenburg.