EMPEROR HERMIT

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 928, 22 March 1930, Page 5

EMPEROR HERMIT

FAKED OWN DEATH? ALEXANDER I. OF RUSSIA Did Tsar Alexander I. of Russia really die in 1825? Or did this powerful Emperor fake his own death, slip away to Siberia, become the hermit Fedor Kusmitch, and live in obscurity I until 18*14? In all the strange history of the Romanoff dynasty there is no mystery more thrilling than the fate of this Muscovite sovereign who was the great opponent of Napoleon. As drama, where can one find a more gripping theme'than an ‘Autocrat of All the Russias,” disguised as j a poon religious hermit, humbly ministering for nearly 40 years to the convicts and political exiles lie had deported to Siberia? Of Grand Dukes, Crown Princes and bishops going to visit this hermit and prostrating themselves before him? Of common soldiers, who had actually seen Tsar Alexander, falling in a faint when they confronted the religious man? Of secret correspondence in code with St. Petersburg ? Officially, Alexander I. died of a fever while on a visit to Taganrog, in South Russia, on November ID, 1925. The body, or at least the coffin, was taken to St. Petersburg and buried with great pomp in the imperial tombs in the fortress of SS. Peter and Paul. But from that, very day rumours spread like w ildfire throughout Russia that the Tsar had not. actually died, but had simply staged his own decease in order to retire from the world and spend the rest of his life virtually in solitude. The peasants along the route were so excited that the authorities had to send a veritable army with the funeral cortege to prevent them seizing and opening the coffin. The legend still persists to this day. Hundreds of books have been written ill an attempt to clear up the mystery. Extensive inquiries have been made. In later years even some members of the imperial family accepted the theory of Alexander's reappearance in Siberia, although the majority of them scouted it. According to Grand Duke Andrew, now living on the French Riviera, the casket of Alexander I. was secretly openind in 1866 and found to be empty. It is an absolute fact that in their search for jewels the Bolshevists opened the Tsar’s tomb in 1927 in the presence of many officials and newspapermen and found it empty. The bodies of Peter the Great, Catherine JI„ and other noted Russian rulers were found in their rightful places, however.

Now, after ail these years of doubt, Prince Vladimir Bariatinsky, a distinguished Russian nobleman and member of the Russian Historical and Genealogical Society has first written a book, “The Mystery of Alexander 1.,” published by Payot, Paris, in which he presents a vast amount of evidence to show that the hermit Fedor Kusmitch, who died in Siberia iu 1864. was actually Alexander I. Prince Bariatinsky has been investigating this mystery for 40 years and had published several books on the subject in Russia before the war. He has had exceptional opportunities to study the secret archives of the State and interview members of the Romanoff family, for his father was an aide-de-camp to more than one Tsar.

“Here are the three points that I have tried to clear up,” Prince Bariatinsky explains in his preface: “First, had Emperor Alexander I. manifested the intention of abandoning the throne and retiring from the world? “Second, if that was his intention, did he realise it during his stay at Taganrog, or did he die before he could put. it into execution? “Third, if he did not die at Taganrog and succeed in disappearing, can he be identified as the hermit Fedor Kusmitch ?” The Prince quotes a dozen or more letters and utterances of the Tsar between the years 1817 and 1525. in which the latter declared openly that, lie wished to abandon the throne. For example, the Tsar wrote to his brother. Grand Duke Constantine, Viceroy of Poland, in 1819: “I must tell you, my brother, that I wish to abdicate. I am fatigued and : X no longer have the strength to bear the heavy burden of power.” Prince Bariatinsky attributes this desire of the Tsar to a “fervent aspiration to lift his soul to the sublime by this heroic act and to satisfy the profound appeals of his noble heart,” meaning that he wanted to go and live the simple life of his people. Incidentally, other historians who have investigated this enigma attribute his alleged disappearance to other causes, but all agree that he was a religious mystic. A certain Baroness Krudener, who had played a strange role in his life, had turned violently mystic and had had much influence over him. She died in South Russia a year before Alexander staged his mystery disappearance there. Concerning the question whether the Tsar literally slipped out of his own. deathbed at Taganrog —Prince Bariatinsky remarks at the outset that an impenetrable veil of mystery has been thrown around the Tsar s journey to South Russia and that an invesigator literally is forced to grope about in the darkness. There are hundreds of testimonies as to this cultured hermit, who spoke many languages and who had a remarkable knowledge of European affairs. Many of them have been gathered and verified by serious historians soon after the “staretz s’ death in 1864, and these leave no doubt that Kusmitch was a very great personage incognito, and that he bore a very striking resemblance to Alexander 1. Several times he gave letters of introduction to the highest nobles in the land to young girls who were going off on religious pilgrimages or other missions. He frequently exchanged letters in code with the court it St. Petersburg. Incidentally, the hermit was of the same age and the same build as the Tsar, and had eyes of the same shade of blue. In conclusion, Prince Bariatinsky declares that he is absolutely convinced that Alexander I. did not die at Taganrog, but became Fedor Kusmitch, tne hermit and vagabond of Siberia.