Did the “political testament” of Emperor Alexander III to heir Tsesarevich Nikolai Alexandrovich exist? Raising the problem
Abstract
In those sources that are available now, there are no indications that Emperor Alexander III, dying in Livadia in October 1894, gave any instructions to Heir Tsesarevich Nikolai Alexandrovich which can be regarded as a sui generis “political testament”. However, there exist opposite opinions in historical essays and fi ction. This question has not yet been specifi cally studied in historiography. This article, drawing on documents of personal origin that belong primarily to those who witnessed the last days of Alexander III, reconstructs the events that might have been interpreted as facts confirming the reality of this “political testament” and giving rise to various rumours and talks. Attention is paid to the contardictions as to some pressing issues that appeared among certain representatives of the dynasty. The article draws parallels between such events and their interpretations and shows the reasons for the changes in evaluation. Particular attention is paid to tracing a dependence between the unstable health condition of Alexander III and the situation in his milieu. The latter, as is seen, served as a nourishing soil for various political assumptions and forecasts. The conclusions of the study do not allow one to either confi rm the existence of the “political testament” or deny it, but they let us trace the origins of some rumours that came to be wide-spread afterwards.
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