Early years '' in 1908 Alexei was born on at
Peterhof Palace,
St. Petersburg Governorate,
Russian Empire at 12:30 PM. He was the youngest of five children and only son of Emperor
Nicholas II and Empress
Alexandra Feodorovna. His father was the eldest son of
Emperor Alexander III and
Princess Dagmar of Denmark, and his mother was the sixth child of
Louis IV, Grand Duke of Hesse, and
Princess Alice of the United Kingdom. His paternal great-grandparents were
Alexander II of Russia,
Princess Marie of Hesse,
Christian IX of Denmark and
Louise of Hesse-Kassel, while his maternal great-grandparents were
Queen Victoria and her husband
Albert, Prince Consort. His older sisters were the Grand Duchesses
Olga,
Tatiana,
Maria, and
Anastasia. Alexei's birth was greeted with widespread joy because he was the first son Nicholas had had after four daughters. When she woke up from the
chloroform, Alexandra saw the happy faces around her and exclaimed: "Oh, it cannot be true. It cannot be true. Is it really a boy?" Nicholas wrote in his diary that today was "a great and unforgettable day for us . . . there are no words to thank God enough for sending us this comfort in a time of sore trials." According to
Grand Duke Constantine Constantinovich of Russia, Nicholas's younger brother
Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich "was radiant with happiness at no longer being heir." St. Petersburg "was ablaze with flags" and "the people gave themselves over to public rejoicing." Nicholas granted political amnesty to prisoners and set up a fund for military and naval scholarships. Nicholas named Alexei after
Alexis of Russia, his favorite emperor. His doting family called him "Baby." He was later also affectionately referred to as Alyosha (Алёша). As soon as he was born, Alexei was granted the title of
tsarevich and heir apparent to the Imperial Throne of Russia. An official announcement read, "From now on, in accordance with the Fundamental Laws of the Empire, the Imperial title of Heir Tsarevich, and all the rights pertaining to it, belong to Our Son Alexei.". 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
Wilhelm 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.
Hemophilia Alexei inherited
hemophilia from his mother Alexandra, an X chromosome hereditary condition that typically 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
hemophilia B. At first, Alexei seemed like a healthy, ordinary baby. He weighed 11 pounds at birth. His paternal aunt
Xenia wrote that "he's an amazingly hefty baby with a chest like a barrel and generally has the air of a warrior knight." After his
umbilical cord was cut, his navel continued to bleed for hours, and his blood did not clot. Nicholas wrote that Alexei lost "1/8 to 1/9 of the total quantity" of his blood in 48 hours. Nicholas reflected in his diary that "Alix and I were very alarmed by the bleeding of young Alexei that came at intervals from his umbilical cord until evening. How painful it is to experience such anxieties!" Nicholas and Alexandra decided not to reveal what Alexei's disease was to the Russian public or even to family members. After Alexei's first bleeding attack, Alexandra wrote, "Oh, what anguish it was... not to let others see the knife digging in one." According to his French tutor,
Pierre Gilliard, the nature of his illness was kept a state secret. There were rumors about what Alexei's disease was because of the secrecy around it. Guesses ranged from a "certain form of infantile
tuberculosis which gives rise to acute alarm" to "one of the layers of his skin was missing." An American magazine ascribed Alexei's "ill health" to "the misfortune that so many residences of the Tzars leave much to be desired from the point of view of sanitary science." After Alexei's life-threatening hemorrhage at Spala, the American press speculated that Alexei had been stabbed "during an unguarded moment" by a "
nihilist."
The Times observed that the "incomprehensible silence of the Court bulletins" gave "free scope to the sensation-mongers." When he was 5, Alexei was assigned two navy sailors who monitored him at all times to ensure that he wouldn't injure himself. His parents appointed two sailors from the Imperial Navy: Petty Officer Andrei Derevenko and his assistant Seaman
Klementy Nagorny.
Anna Vyrubova, Alexandra's friend, remembered that "Derevenko was so patient and resourceful, that he often did wonders in alleviating the pain. I can still hear the plaintive voice of Alexis begging the big sailor, 'Lift my arm,' 'Put up my leg,' 'Warm my hands,' and I can see the patient, calm-eyed man working for hours to give comfort to the little pain-wracked limbs." His hemophilia was so severe that trivial injuries such as a bruise, a nosebleed, or a cut were potentially life-threatening. His parents constantly worried about him. In addition, the recurring episodes of illness and long recoveries interfered greatly with Alexei's childhood and education. Nicholas and Alexandra believed that
Grigori Rasputin, a peasant monk, had the power to heal Alexei. Due to the secrecy around Alexei's condition, there are few records about Alexei's attacks and how often Rasputin treated him. In the autumn of 1907, Alexei fell and hurt his leg while playing in Alexander Park. The fall triggered an internal hemorrhage. His paternal aunt
Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna of Russia reflected that "the poor child lay in such pain, dark patches under his eyes and his little body all distorted, and the leg terribly swollen." The doctors could do nothing. Alexandra telegraphed
Princess Anastasia of Montenegro and asked her to find Rasputin. Rasputin prayed over Alexei and told Alexei, "Your pain is going away. You will soon be well. You must thank God for healing you. And now, go to sleep." Soon after Rasputin left, the swelling in Alexei's leg went down.
Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna of Russia was amazed by Alexei's swift recovery, and she wrote that the next morning Alexei "was not just alive – but well. He was sitting up in bed, the fever gone, the eyes clear and bright, not a sign of any swelling on his leg." In September 1912, Alexei and his family visited their hunting retreat in the
Białowieża Forest. On 5 September, Alexei jumped into a rowboat and hit his groin on the oarlocks. A large bruise appeared within minutes but in a week reduced in size. In mid-September, the family moved to
Spała (then in
Russian Poland). On 2 October, Alexei accompanied his mother on a drive in the woods. The "juddering of the carriage had caused a still-healing hematoma in his upper thigh to rupture and start bleeding again." He had to be carried out of the carriage in an almost unconscious state. His temperature rose, his heartbeat dropped, and he hemorrhaged in his upper thigh and abdomen. For 11 days, he screamed, "O Lord, have mercy on me!" and begged Alexandra, "Mama, help me!" He asked Alexandra to "build me a little monument of stones in the woods" and asked "When I'm dead, it won't hurt any more, will it?" Alexei's tutor,
Pierre Gilliard, wrote to his children, "Pray, my children, pray daily and fervently for our precious heir." On 10 October, a medical bulletin announcing Alexei's impending death was published in the newspapers. On 9 October, Alexandra asked her
lady-in-waiting and best friend,
Anna Vyrubova, to secure the help of Rasputin. According to his daughter, Rasputin received the telegram on 12 October. On 9 October, Alexandra received a short telegram from Rasputin: "The little one will not die. Do not allow the doctors [c.q.
Eugene Botkin and
Vladimir Derevenko] to bother him too much." Alexei's temperature dropped, and he began to improve. According to General Mosolov, the doctors "seemed in utter consternation" at Alexei's sudden recovery. On 10 October, Doctor
Eugene Botkin wrote to his children that "our priceless patient" was "undoubtedly significantly better." The positive trend continued throughout the next day. 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. Feodorov confirmed that Alexei's recovery was "wholly inexplicable, from a medical point of view." According to Pierre Gilliard's 1921 memoir, 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.
Robert K. Massie suggested that Rasputin used hypnosis to calm Alexei during medical crises, which some modern physicians say is effective in managing hemophilia. 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.
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.
Maria Rasputin believed her father exercised
magnetism. 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. ("They lived almost as much apart from Russian society as if they were settlers in Canada.") 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." Shelley said that the secret of Rasputin's power lay in the sense of calm, gentle strength, and shining warmth of conviction. Radzinsky wrote in 2000 that Rasputin believed he truly possessed a supernatural healing ability or that his prayers to God saved the boy. Gilliard, the French historian
Hélène Carrère d'Encausse 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. 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. According to historian M. Nelipa,
Robert K. Massie was correct to suggest that psychological factors play a part in the course of the disease.
Childhood During
World War I, he lived with his father at army headquarters in Mogilev for long stretches of time and observed military life. Alexei became one of the first
Boy Scouts in Russia. 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. 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.
Stavka 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 "[I] 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, of which he was very proud. 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 of 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."
Imprisonment of the Imperial family The imperial family was arrested following the
February Revolution of 1917, which resulted in the
abdication of Nicholas II. When he was in captivity at
Tobolsk, Alexei complained in his diary that he was "bored" and begged God to have "mercy" on him. He was permitted to play occasionally with Kolya, the son of one of his doctors, and with a kitchen boy named
Leonid Sednev. As he became older, Alexei seemed to tempt fate and injure himself on purpose. While in
Siberia, he rode a sled down the stairs of the prison house and injured himself in the groin. The hemorrhage was very bad, and he was so ill that he could not be moved immediately when the Bolsheviks relocated his parents and older sister Maria to
Yekaterinburg in April 1918. However, neither Nicholas II nor Empress Alexandra mentions anything about a sledding accident in their diaries, and in fact, primary resources such as letters of Empress Alexandra and the diaries of both Nicholas II and Alexandra state that the haemorrhage was caused by a coughing fit. On 30 March (12 April) 1918, Empress Alexandra recorded in her diary: 'Baby stays in bed as fr[om] coughing so hard has a slight haemorrhage in the abdom[en]. Every day from then onwards until her removal to Yekaterinburg, Alexandra recorded Alexei's condition in her diary. Alexei and his three remaining sisters joined the rest of the family weeks later. He was reliant on a wheelchair for the remaining weeks of his life.
Death aboard the steamship
Rus that took them to
Yekaterinburg in May 1918. The Tsarevich was murdered on 17 July 1918 aged 13 in the cellar room of the
Ipatiev House in
Yekaterinburg. The killings were carried out by forces of the
Bolshevik secret police under
Yakov Yurovsky. According to one account of the execution, the family was told to get up and get dressed in the middle of the night because they were going to be moved. Nicholas II carried Alexei to the cellar room. His mother asked for chairs to be brought so that she and Alexei could sit down. When the family and their servants were settled, Yurovsky announced that they were to be executed. The firing squad first killed Nicholas, the Tsarina, and the two male servants. Alexei remained sitting in the chair, "terrified," before the assassins turned on him and shot at him repeatedly. The boy remained alive and the killers tried to stab him multiple times with bayonets. "Nothing seemed to work," wrote Yurovsky later. "Though injured, he continued to live." Unbeknownst to the killing squad, the Tsarevich's torso was protected by a shirt wrapped in precious gems that he wore beneath his tunic. Finally Yurovsky fired two shots into the boy's head, and he fell silent. For decades (until all the bodies were found and identified,
see below) conspiracy theorists suggested that one or more of the family somehow survived the slaughter. Several people claimed to be surviving members of the Romanov family following the assassinations. People who have pretended to be the Tsarevich include: Alexei Poutziato, Joseph Veres,
Heino Tammet,
Michael Goleniewski and Vassili Filatov. However, scientists considered it extremely unlikely that he escaped death, due to his lifelong hemophilia. ==Discovery and identification of remains==