THE MARTYRED FAMILY
In this group, photographed four years before their death, the Tsar Nicholas II, the Tsaritsa Alexandra Feodorovna, and their youngest daughter, the Grand Duchess Anastasia, are seated in the centre; behind them stand (from left to right) the Grand Duchesses Maria, Tatiana and Olga. The Tsarevich Alexis, then ten years old, wears a sailor suit. Nicholas II is in the uniform of the Fusilier Guards. The Mother and Daughters have on some of the matchless pearls afterwards stolen from their dead bodies by the murderers.
RASPUTIN—WOUNDED AT HIS VILLAGE HOME
Just before the outbreak of hostilities in 1914 the “saint” had been stabbed by a peasant girl whom he had wronged, and was being nursed by his wife and daughters at Pokrovskoe (Tobolsk province). Here he received the only letter that he ever had from Nicholas II, and here he boasted that if he had been in Petrograd at the time, he would have stopped the war. Nicholas and Alexandra had no suspicion that “Grishka” was a German agent. On this portrait, the “saint” has inscribed some of his pious reflections, translated as follows: “What of tomorrow? Thou art our Guide, O God. How many Thorny paths in this Life?”
ALEXANDRA’S DESPAIR OVER RASPUTIN’S DEATH
Facsimile of a letter in which the Empress for once betrays her feelings. The closing sentence, written disjointedly, refers to his “murder” which occurred a week before, and her anxiety for the safety of the Tsar, showing that she knew of a plot against his life. “Besides everything, try for a moment to realise what it is to know a friend in daily, hourly danger of also being foully murdered. But God is all mercy.”
EMPRESS ALEXANDRA FEODOROVNA AND THE TSAREVICH ALEXIS NIKOLAEVICH IN LIVADIA (CRIMEA)