CZAR AND MYSTERIOUS HERMIT.

King Country Chronicle, Volume IX, Issue 742, 3 February 1915, Page 7

CZAR AND MYSTERIOUS HERMIT.

JPrinca V. Bariatinsky in, the "Forfr* aig-htly Review" disousses the fate of Alexander I. of Russia, and gives reasons to show that the Emperor died in 1864 in Siberia under the name of the! hermit Fedor Koozmich. Summing 1 up the reasons which led him to this decision, the Prince says: (1) Koozmich undoubtedly, was a well-bred and highly-educated man; he was aware—-in detail—of all questions of State and of history, especially in ■connection with the end of the eighteenth century and the reign of Alexander I.; he knew perfectly fordigft languages; he had served in the army, or, at least, had worn'a uniform; he knew all about the Court life and ceremonial and high-class life in St. Petersburg-.

(2) He took the oath to remain silent on his antecedents and his real name; he retired from the world in order to atone for a heavy sin that tortured him all through his life; he was very religions, not in the "clerical" but in the "mystic" meaning of the word. (3) Not one ofr the testimonies of people who knew him contradicted the possibility of his' being Alexander I. ; on the contrary, they all seem to support this point of view, and.many of them even consider it a fact. The exterior, the figure, the height, the age, the deafness of one ear, the corns on the knees (from praying on the *knees), the habit of holding the hands on the hips, the, habit-of receiving visitors standing, and almost always the back to the these signs •strongly indicate a striking resemblance of Koozmich to the Emperor. (4) Fedor Koozmich was in correspondence with many people (we do not know exactly with whom), and sometimes he used even a cypher for his correspondence; these people communicated to him»all that happened in Russia, and,' therefore, he was always aware of all political and social questions of the day. We know, for instance, for sure, thaf; he was in correspondence with General Count OstenSacken (the father of the late Ambassador of Russia in Berlin), and introduced through him a young Siberian girl, whom he protected, to the Emperor Nicholas I. Osten-Sacken preserved the hermit's letters in a separate parcel, and ■this parcel disappeared after the Count's death, just in the same way as disappeared the documents in connection with the last years of Alexander's reign. We have to confess that if the mystery of Alexander's death was not very well concealed—the mystery of the hermit's life was. Nothing remains from Koozmich except the. .house where he died, and on the walls of which' are ,har irig—as a protest against the mystery—the, .portraits of Alexander and the hermit.

(5) Pour persons who saw Alexander recognised him as Koozmich —two soldiers, a lady (the wife of an official), and a retired servant.

A few lines more. Fedor Kaozmich died on January 20th (February Ist) 1864, in a house built for him by a rich merchant (Hromoff) near Tomsk. When asked, before his death, to tell his real name, he answered: "God knows my name,"*and pointing out a little bag beside the bed, "There is my secret." In the bag were found two documents, one containing several lines of religious character (quotations from psalms and prayers), the other quite incomprehensible, sixteen words and a kind of key to a cypher, obviously the cypher he used for his secret correspondence, the whole dated March 26th, 1837, the day "of his arrival in Siberia. This document has not been deciphered up to the present. Such is the thrilling and tragic story of Emperor Alexander' I. and the Siberian hermit, Fedor Koozmich. Tlie tombs of'both are carefully preserved, and drew many visitors—l daresay even pilgrims—but in which of them has found eternal peace the victorious enemy of Napoleon . . . that is the question!