Alexei Nikolaevich, Tsarevich of Russia

Alexei as an infant in 1904

Alexei (right) with his sailor nanny Andrei Dereven'ko aboard the Imperial yacht Standart (1908)

Alexei was born on 12 August [O.S. 30 July] 1904 in Peterhof Palace, St. Petersburg Governorate, Russian Empire. He was the youngest of five children and the only son born to Emperor Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra Feodorovna. His older sisters were the Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia. He was doted on by his parents and sisters and known as "Baby" in the family. He was later also affectionately referred to as Alyosha (Алёша).

Alexei was christened on 3 September 1904 in the chapel in Peterhof Palace. His principal godparents were his paternal grandmother and his great-uncle, Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich. His other godparents included his oldest sister, Olga; his great-grandfather King Christian IX of Denmark; King Edward VII of the United Kingdom, the Prince of Wales and William II, German Emperor. As Russia was at war with Japan, all active soldiers and officers of the Russian Army and Navy were named honorary godfathers.[5]

The christening marked the first time that some of the younger members of the Imperial Family, including some of the younger sons of Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich; the Grand Duchesses Olga and Tatiana; and their cousin Princess Irina Alexandrovna, attended an official ceremony. For the occasion, the boys wore miniature military uniforms, and the girls wore smaller versions of the court dress and little kokoshniks.[6] The sermon was delivered by John of Kronstadt. The baby was carried to the font by the elderly Princess Maria Mikhailovna Galitzine, Mistress of the Robes. As a precaution, she had rubber soles put on her shoes to prevent her slipping and dropping him.

Countess Sophie Buxhoeveden recalled:

The baby lay on a pillow of cloth of gold, slung to the Princess's shoulders by a broad gold band. He was covered with the heavy cloth-of-gold mantle, lined with ermine, worn by the heir to the crown. The mantle was supported on one side by Prince Alexander Sergeiovich Dolgorouky, the Grand Marshal of the Court, and on the other by Count [Paul] Benckendorff, as decreed by custom and wise precaution. The baby wept loudly, as might any ordinary baby, when old Father Yanishev dipped him in the font. His four small sisters, in short Court dresses, gazed open-eyed at the ceremony, Olga Nicholaevna, then nine years old, being in the important position of one of the godmothers. According to Russian custom, the Emperor and Empress were not present at the baptism, but directly after the ceremony the Emperor went to the church. Both he and the Empress always confessed to feeling very nervous on these occasions, for fear that the Princess might slip, or that Father Yanishev, who was very old, might drop the baby in the font.[7]

The former palace of Russian emperors in the Polish Białowieża Forest, where Alexei had a particularly grave crisis, early October 1912.

The Imperial family in 1913, in Rostov

Pierre Gilliard and Alexei

Alexei and boatswain Derevenko

Nicholas II rows his son on a boat in the Alexander Park (1911).

Alexei inherited hemophilia from his mother Alexandra, a hereditary condition that affects males, which she had acquired through the line of her maternal grandmother Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom. It was known as the "Royal Disease" because so many descendants of the intermarried European royal families had it (or carried it, in the case of females.) In 2009 genetic analysis determined that Alexei had suffered from hemophilia B.[8][9]

It was then known that people with hemophilia could bleed easily, and fatally. Alexei had to be protected because he lacked factor IX, one of the proteins necessary for blood-clotting. According to his French tutor, Pierre Gilliard, the nature of his illness was kept a state secret. His hemophilia was so severe that trivial injuries such as a bruise, a nosebleed or a cut were potentially life-threatening. Two navy sailors were assigned to him to monitor and supervise him to prevent injuries, which still took place. Sometimes the disease caused pain in his joints, and the sailors carried Alexei around when he was unable to walk. His parents constantly worried about him. In addition, the recurring episodes of illness and long recoveries interfered greatly with Alexei's childhood and education.[10]

In September 1912 the Romanovs were visiting their hunting retreat in the Białowieża Forest. On 5 September Alexei jumped into a rowboat, hitting of the oarlocks. A large bruise appeared within minutes but in a week reduced in size.[11] In mid-September the family moved to Spała (then in Russian Poland). On 2 October, after a drive in the woods, the "juddering of the carriage had caused still healing hematoma in his upper thigh to rupture and start bleeding again."[12] Alexei had to be carried out in an almost unconscious state. His temperature rose and his heartbeat dropped, caused by a swelling in the left groin; Alexandra barely left his bedside. A constant record was kept of the boy's temperature. On 10 October, a medical bulletin on his status was published in the newspapers, and Alexei was given the last sacrament.[13] According to the Tsar, the boy's condition improved at once. (According to historian M. Nelipa, Robert K. Massie was correct to suggest that psychological factors play a part in the course of the disease.)[14] The positive trend continued throughout the next day.[15] (About this time, either 9,[16] 10 or 11 October, the Tsarina asked her lady-in-waiting and best friend, Anna Vyrubova,[17][18] to secure the help of Rasputin, a peasant healer who was out of favor at the court.) According to his daughter, Rasputin received the telegram on 12 October[note 2] Rasputin responded to the Tsarina the next day with a short telegram,[20] saying: "The little one will not die. Do not allow the doctors [c.q. Eugene Botkin and Vladimir Derevenko] to bother him too much."[21] On 19 October Alexei's condition was much better and the hematoma disappeared. The boy had to undergo orthopedic therapy to straighten his left leg.[22]

According to Pierre Gilliard's 1921 memoir,

The Tsar had resisted the influence of Rasputin for a long time. At the beginning he had tolerated him because he dare not weaken the Tsarina's faith in him – a faith which kept her alive. He did not like to send him away for, if Alexei Nicolaievich had died, in the eyes of the mother he would have been the murderer of his own son.[23]

Observers and scholars have offered suggestions for Rasputin's apparent positive effect on Alexei: he used hypnotism, administered herbs to the boy, or his advice to prevent too much action by the doctors aided the boy's healing. Others speculated that, with the information he got from his confidante at the court, lady-in-waiting Anna Vyrubova, Rasputin timed his "interventions" for times when Alexei was already recovering, and claimed all the credit. Court physician Botkin believed that Rasputin was a charlatan and that his apparent healing powers were based on the use of hypnosis. But Rasputin did not become interested in this practice before 1913 and his teacher Gerasim Papandato was expelled from St. Petersburg.[24][25] Felix Yusupov, one of Rasputin's enemies, suggested that he secretly gave Alexei Tibetan herbs which he got from quack doctor Peter Badmayev, but these drugs were rejected by the court.[26][27] Maria Rasputin believed her father exercised magnetism.[28]

Writers from the 1920s had a variety of explanations for the apparent effects of Rasputin. Greg King thinks such explanations fail to take into account those times when Rasputin apparently healed the boy, despite being 2600 km (1650 miles) away. For historian Fuhrmann, these ideas on hypnosis and drugs flourished because the Imperial Family lived in such isolation from the wider world.[29] ("They lived almost as much apart from Russian society as if they were settlers in Canada."[29][30]) Moynahan says, "There is no evidence that Rasputin ever summoned up spirits, or felt the need to; he won his admirers through force of personality, not by tricks."[31] Shelley said that the secret of Rasputin's power lay in the sense of calm, gentle strength, and shining warmth of conviction.[32] Radzinsky wrote in 2000 that Rasputin believed he truly possessed a supernatural healing ability or that his prayers to God saved the boy.[33]

Gilliard,[34] the French historian Hélène Carrère d'Encausse[35] and Diarmuid Jeffreys, a journalist, speculated that Rasputin may have halted the administration of aspirin. This pain-relieving analgesic had been available since 1899 but would have worsened Alexei's condition.[36] Because aspirin is an antiaggregant and has blood-thinning properties; it prevents clotting, and promotes bleeding which could have caused the hemarthrosis. The "anti-inflammatory drug" would have worsened Alexei's joints' swelling and pain.[37][38]

Alexei and his sisters were taught by their mother to view Rasputin as "Our Friend" and to exchange confidences with him. Alexei understood that he might not live to adulthood. When he was ten, his older sister Olga found him lying on his back looking at the clouds and asked him what he was doing. "I like to think and wonder," Alexei replied. Olga asked him what he liked to think about. "Oh, so many things," the boy responded. "I enjoy the sun and the beauty of summer as long as I can. Who knows whether one of these days I shall not be prevented from doing it?"[39]

Alexei on horseback in the uniform of the Nijni Novgorod Dragoons. In the background parts of the Alexander Palace can be seen. 1911

Alexei in uniform of the Jaeger regiment of the Imperial family

According to his French tutor, Pierre Gilliard, Alexei was a simple, affectionate child, but the court spoiled him by the "servile flattery" of the servants and "silly adulations" of the people around him. Once, a deputation of peasants came to bring presents to Alexei. His personal attendant, the sailor Derevenko, required that they kneel before Alexei. Gilliard remarked that the Tsarevich was "embarrassed and blushed violently", and when asked if he liked seeing people on their knees before him, he said, "Oh no, but Derevenko says it must be so!" When Gilliard encouraged Alexei to "stop Derevenko insisting on it", he said that he "dare not". When Gilliard took the matter up with Derevenko, he said that Alexei was "delighted to be freed from this irksome formality".[40]

"Alexei was the center of this united family, the focus of all its hopes and affections," wrote Gilliard. "His sisters worshipped him. He was his parents' pride and joy. When he was well, the palace was transformed. Everyone and everything in it seemed bathed in sunshine."[41] He bore a striking resemblance to his mother, and was tall for his age, with "a long, finely chiseled face, delicate features, auburn hair with a coppery glint, and large grey-blue eyes like his mother,"[42] Though intelligent and affectionate, Alexei had frequent interruptions to his education, and he was spoiled because his parents couldn't bear to discipline him. His parents appointed two sailors from the Imperial Navy: Petty Officer Andrei Derevenko and his assistant Seaman Klementy Nagorny, to serve as nannies and to follow him about so he would not hurt himself.[43] He was prohibited from riding a bicycle or playing too roughly, but was naturally active.

As a small child, Alexei occasionally played pranks on guests. At a formal dinner party, Alexei removed the shoe of a female guest from under the table, and showed it to his father. Nicholas sternly told the boy to return the "trophy", which Alexei did after placing a large ripe strawberry into the toe of the shoe.[44]

Gilliard eventually convinced Alexei's parents that granting the boy greater autonomy would help him develop better self-control. Alexei took advantage of his unaccustomed freedom, and began to outgrow some of his earlier foibles.[45] Courtiers reported that his illness made him sensitive to the hurts of others.[46] During World War I, he lived with his father at army headquarters in Mogilev for long stretches of time and observed military life.[47] Alexei became one of the first Boy Scouts in Russia.[48][49]

In December 1916, Major-General Sir John Hanbury-Williams, head of the British military at Stavka, received word of the death of his son in action with the British Expeditionary Force in France. Tsar Nicholas sent twelve-year-old Alexei to sit with the grieving father. "Papa told me to come sit with you as he thought you might feel lonely tonight," Alexei told the general.[50] Alexei, like all the Romanov men, grew up wearing sailor uniforms and playing at war from the time he was a toddler. His father began to prepare him for his future role as Tsar by inviting Alexei to sit in on long meetings with government ministers.[46]

The Tsar's Colonel Mordinov remembered Alexei:

He had what we Russians usually call "a golden heart." He easily felt an attachment to people, he liked them and tried to do his best to help them, especially when it seemed to him that someone was unjustly hurt. His love, like that of his parents, was based mainly on pity. Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich was an awfully lazy, but very capable boy (I think, he was lazy precisely because he was capable), he easily grasped everything, he was thoughtful and keen beyond his years ... Despite his good nature and compassion, he undoubtedly promised to possess a firm and independent character in the future.[51]

Portrait of Alexei, dressed in the soldier's coat, cap and shoulder-boards of a corporal

During World War I, Alexei joined his father at Stavka, when his father became the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army in 1915. Alexei seemed to like military life very much and became very playful and energetic. In one of his father's notes to his mother, he said "…Have come in from the garden with wet sleeves and boots as Alexei sprayed us at the fountain. It is his favorite game…peals of laughter ring out. I keep an eye, in order to see that things do not go too far." Alexei even ate the soldiers' black bread, and refused when he was offered a meal that he would eat in his palace, saying "It's not what soldiers eat". In December 1915, Rasputin was invited to see Alexei when the 11-year-old boy was accidentally thrown against the window of a train and his nose began to bleed.

In 1916, he was given the title of Lance Corporal, which he was very proud of. Alexei's favorites were the foreigners of Belgium, Britain, France, Japan, Italy, and Serbia, and in favor, adopted him as their mascot. Hanbury-Williams, whom Alexei liked, wrote: "As time went on and his shyness wore off he treated us like old friends and… had always some bit fun with us. With me it was to make sure that each button on my coat was properly fastened, a habit which naturally made me take great care to have one or two unbuttoned, in which case he used to at once to stop and tell me that I was 'untidy again,' give a sigh at my lack of attention to these details and stop and carefully button me up again."