Letters to the Editors

To the Editors:

The latest issue of Russian Life has arrived today just ahead of our first snow of the season!

This year and next will be rich in material and reflection.

I would respectfully like to draw your attention to #13 in the ‘17 Myths of the Revolution’ section on page 37. Surely it is Emperor Alexander II’s assassination that is being referred to.

With my appreciation and Best Wishes to ALL,

DeeAnn Hoff
Bend, Oregon

DeeAnn,

Yes, many readers caught that extra Roman numeral, which we wrote as III, but should have been merely II.

– The Editors

To The Editors:

I enjoyed the “Myths/Reality” in the Nov/Dec Issue, especially #17 “The Tsars Family could be saved”.

Is it a myth that Kerensky, following his arrest of the tsar and family, had contacted King George V of England, his [Nicholas’] cousin, to let the tsar and family seek asylum in England;  and the king refused them?  At that time the tsar’s younger brother Michael was living in England?

Thank you,

A.V. Schwan
by email

Dear A.V.:

According to Kerensky’s diaries, on March 6 (19), 1917, the provisional government offered to transfer the imperial family to England. The next day, the British ambassador in Petrograd, George Buchanan, “sent a verbal message to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Provisional Government, P.N. Milyukov that His Majesty the King and His Majesty’s government are happy to offer refuge in England to the former Russian Emperor.”

But then Kerensky says that “internal difficulties arose,” that it was logistically impossible to get the tsar and family safely to the port in Murmansk (war, after all, was still raging in Europe). Kerensky also intimates that the British government was cool (as were liberal elites) on the idea of offering refuge to an autocrat. And other sources indicate that by spring King George himself began to cool on the idea, by which time “extraction” had become even more logistically challenging.

–The Editors