by Susan Flantzer  © Unofficial Royalty 2018

• Unofficial Royalty: Russian Titles and Patronymics

Although he was born to succeed his father as Emperor of All Russia, it was not to be. Tsesarevich Nicholas Alexandrovich was born on September 20, 1843, at Alexander Palace at Tsarskoye Selo near St. Petersburg, Russia. He was the eldest of the six sons and the second of the eight children of Alexander II, Emperor of All Russia and Princess Marie of Hesse and by Rhine (Empress Maria Alexandrovna). Nicknamed Nixa, he was named after his grandfather Nicholas I who was Emperor of All Russia at the time of his birth. According to the memoirs of his aunt Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna, Nicholas I was so moved that his grandson, now second in the line of succession, was given his name that he ordered his three youngest sons to kneel before the newborn Nicholas’ cradle and swear an oath of allegiance to him.

Nicholas had seven siblings:

• Grand Duchess Alexandra Alexandrovna (1842 – 1849), died of meningitis at the age of six
• Alexander III, Emperor of All Russia (1845 – 1894), married Dagmar of Denmark (Maria Feodorovna), had issue
• Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich (1847 – 1909), married Marie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (Maria Pavlovna), had issue
• Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich (1850 – 1908), had illegitimate issue via an affair with Alexandra Vasilievna Zhukovskaya
• Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna (1853 – 1920) married, Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh and Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, had issue
• Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich (1857 – 1905), married, Elisabeth of Hesse of Hesse and by Rhine (Elizabeth Feodorovna), no issue
• Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich (1860 – 1919), married (1) Alexandra of Greece and Denmark (Alexandra Georgievna), had issue (2) Olga Valerianovna Karnovich, had issue

Nicholas’ tutors thought him to be intelligent and humane and saw him as the ideal person to be Emperor of All Russia. He was closest to his next brother Alexander, the future Alexander III, Emperor of All Russia, who was two years younger. In 1855, when he was twelve-years-old, Nicholas’ grandfather died. His father became Alexander II, Emperor of All Russia and Nicholas became Tsesarevich, the title of the heir apparent to the Russian throne.

In 1860, Count Sergei Grigoryevich Stroganov became Nicholas’ tutor. Stroganov played a significant role in the development of Russian education during the nineteenth century. In the early 1860s, Nicholas, accompanied by Stroganov, made exploratory trips around Russia to prepare him for his future role as Emperor of All Russia. Starting in 1863, Boris Nikolayevich Chicherin, professor of law, instructed Nicholas in governmental matters. Chicherin’s assessment of Nicholas was that he showed the promise to become the most educated and liberal monarch, not only in Russian history but all over the world.

Unfortunately, Nicholas’ travels and the harsh Russian climate were hard on him physically. He increasingly complained of back pain. The doctors could not agree on the cause of the pain. Some said the pain was caused by an injury to Nicholas’ spine when he fell off his horse and others suspected some kind of rheumatic Illness.

Princess Dagmar of Denmark had been on the list of possible brides for Nicholas since she was twelve-years-old when Nicholas had been given a photo of her. Her Highness Marie Sophie Frederikke Dagmar of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, known as Princess Dagmar and called Minnie in her family, was born in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1847. Dagmar was the daughter of Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg and Princess Louise of Hesse-Kassel. Prince Christian became heir to the childless King Frederik VII of Denmark in 1852. In 1853, he was given the title Prince of Denmark and his children then became Princes and Princesses of Denmark. Christian succeeded to the Danish throne in 1863 and reigned as King Christian IX. Dagmar’s sister was Queen Alexandra, wife of King Edward VII of the United Kingdom. Her eldest brother would succeed their father as King Frederik VIII of Denmark. In 1852, another brother had been elected King of Greece and reigned as King George I.

In 1864, Nicholas was to visit the Danish Royal Family at Fredensborg Palace in Denmark during a European tour. Nicholas had fallen in love with her after seeing her photo and had been collecting photos of her since he had received that first photo in 1860. During an afternoon walk on September 28, 1864, Nicholas proposed to Dagmar. The newly betrothed couple spent a couple of idyllic weeks together before Nicholas had to leave for Germany and Italy.

One cloud over Dagmar’s happiness was her concern for Nicholas’ health. She was aware of the fall from his horse and of the pain he was experiencing in his spine. When the couple had been riding together in Denmark, Nicholas was forced to slow down because of the pain in his back. On November 22, 1864, Nicholas arrived in Florence, Italy where he was bedridden for six weeks.

On January 1, 1865, Nicholas traveled to Nice, France where his mother was spending the winter. Empress Maria Alexandrovna thought the climate of the French Rivera was beneficial to her health and so she hoped it would benefit her son’s health. Nicholas and Dagmar corresponded but as his condition worsened his letters to Dagmar arrived less frequently. On April 7, 1865, Dagmar wrote that she could not understand why she had not heard from him since March 20. She joked that perhaps he had fallen in love with a beautiful Italian girl and had forgotten about her.

On April 17, 1865, the Danish Royal Family received a telegram saying that Nicholas’ condition had deteriorated. He had suddenly become nervous, feverish, and complained of blurred vision. Nicholas then suffered a cerebral hemorrhage leaving one side of his body temporarily paralyzed. After six doctors consulted with each other, they determined that Nicholas had cerebrospinal meningitis and that his condition was serious. It was the same disease that had claimed the life of his elder sister Alexandra Alexandrovna when she was just six-years-old.

Another telegram arrived a few hours later with the news that Nicholas had been given the Last Rites. Dagmar and her mother prepared to leave for Nice and at the same time, Alexander II and his sons Vladimir and Alexis left Russia. Nicholas’ next brother Alexander was already on his way to Nice. All the regular passenger trains were stopped to allow the royal trains to pass.

Within a few days, Dagmar was sitting by the bed of her dying fiancé. A doctor arrived from Vienna on April 23, 1865, and confirmed the diagnosis of cerebrospinal meningitis. There is an uncorroborated story that shortly before he died, Nicholas clasped together the hands of Dagmar and his brother Alexander, begging them to marry. The couple did marry in 1866 and had six children including Nicholas II, the last Emperor of All Russia, who was named in honor of his deceased uncle.

On April 24, 1865, Tsesarevich Nicholas Alexandrovich of Russia died at the age of 21 at the Villa Belmont in Nice, France. After an Orthodox Mass in the room where Nicholas had died, his coffin was carried by torchlight for a funeral service at the Church of St. Nicholas and St. Alexandra which had been built in Nice to honor the deceased Nicholas I and his wife Alexandra Feodorovna, Nicholas’ grandparents. On April 28, 1865, Nicholas’ coffin was placed on board the Russian frigate Alexander Nevsky and transported to St. Petersburg, Russia where he was buried at the Peter and Paul Cathedral near his sister Alexandra Alexandrovna, and later his parents.

Nicholas’ parents bought the grounds and villa in which their son had died. They tore down the villa and built a memorial chapel in the exact location where Nicholas’ deathbed had been.

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Works Cited

• https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Alexandrowitsch_Romanow_(1843%E2%80%931865) [Accessed 22 Feb. 2018].
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Alexandrovich,_Tsesarevich_of_Russia
• En.wikipedia.org. (2018). Nicholas Alexandrovich, Tsesarevich of Russia. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Alexandrovich,_Tsesarevich_of_Russia [Accessed 22 Feb. 2018].
• Hall, Coryne. (2006). Little Mother of Russia – A Biography of Empress Marie Feodorovna. Teaneck, N.J.: Holmes & Meier.

• Unofficial Royalty. (2018). Dagmar of Denmark, Maria Feodorovna, Empress of All Russia. [online] Available at: https://www.unofficialroyalty.com/dagmar-of-denmark-empress-maria-feodorovna/ [Accessed 22 Feb. 2018].