Alexander II monument in Moscow
On 3 March 1855 Alexander II “the Liberator” took the throne as the Emperor of the Russian Empire after the death of his father Nicholas I. He ascended in the midst of the Crimean War, a devastating conflict for Russia, and at a time when change was desperately needed for his country to survive. The new Tsar introduced numerous reforms, the most important being the emancipation of the serfs.
“It is better to abolish serfdom from above than to wait for it to abolish itself from below” is a famous quote from Alexander II.
Alexander had many mistresses during his marriage to Maria Alexandrovna, but fell passionately in love with Catherine Dolgorukova, a beautiful descendant of one of Russia’s oldest families. He moved his young mistress into quarters close to St. Petersburg’s Winter Palace with a secret staircase connecting her rooms with his. They exchanged erotic love letters to each other for over 14 years.
“I believe I have shown you, by coming to see you twice, despite your sulking… you know perfectly well what the only reason for it is and you cannot dare to doubt the being who belongs to you body and soul and who only breathes through you,” one letter from Alexander reads.
“I saw in your eyes that you wanted to throw yourself on me to forget everything and enjoy our 'bingerle',” he continues, using the word ‘bingerle’ as their secret code for ‘love making.’
Catherine already had four children before they were married in 1880, shortly after the Tsarina’s death. Their union lasted less then a year before Alexander was assassinated. Catherine later settled in France and died in 1922. A handful among thousands of letters they had written to each other was auctioned off in recent years in France and Germany.
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