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Below are the memories of Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich of his childhood. Discipline, military drill, no entertainment and tenderness — a completely Spartan upbringing, and this was the norm for almost all the monarchs of Europe at that time.
Following in the footsteps of his father, Emperor Nicholas I, a man of exceptional straightforwardness and firmness of views, my father considered it necessary that his children be brought up in a military spirit, strict discipline and a sense of duty.
Therefore, it was not surprising that the joys of a carefree childhood suddenly ended for me on the day when I was seven years old. Among the many gifts brought to me on this occasion, I found the uniform of a colonel of the 73rd Crimean Infantry Regiment and a saber. I was overjoyed because I imagined that now I would put on a military uniform.
My father smiled and shook his head. Of course, I will sometimes be allowed, if I am obedient, to put on this shiny uniform. But first of all, I must earn the honor of wearing it by diligence and many years of work.
My face fell, but the worst was yet to come.
“From tomorrow,” my father announced to me, “you will leave the nursery. You will live with brothers Michael and George. Learn and obey your teachers.
All night I wept into my pillow, not listening to the encouraging words of my good uncle, the Cossack Shevchenko.
From that day until the age of fifteen, my upbringing was like military service in a regiment. My brothers Nikolay, Mikhail, Sergey and Georgy and I lived like in the barracks. We slept on narrow iron beds with the thinnest mattresses laid on wooden boards. I remember that many years later, after my marriage, I could not get used to the luxury of a wide bed with a double mattress and linen and demanded back my old camp bed.
We were woken up at six in the morning. We had to jump up at once, since anyone who would risk «sleeping for another five minutes» was punished in the most severe way.
We read prayers, kneeling in a row in front of the icons, then we took a cold bath. Our morning breakfast consisted of tea, bread and butter. Everything else was strictly forbidden, so as not to accustom us to luxury.
Then there was a lesson in gymnastics and fencing. Particular attention was paid to practical exercises in artillery, for which there was a gun in our garden.
From 8 o’clock in the morning to 11 and from 2 to 6 we had to study. We studied the Law of God, Russian grammar and literature, the history of foreign literature, the history of Russia, Europe, America and Asia, geography, mathematics (which included arithmetic, algebra, geometry and trigonometry), the languages of French, English and German and music. In addition, we were taught how to handle firearms, horseback riding, swordsmanship and bayonet charge. Because of the slightest mistake in the German word, we were deprived of sweets. An error in calculating the speeds of two oncoming trains — a task that has a special attraction for mathematics teachers — entailed kneeling with their nose to the wall for a whole hour. Once, when we were brought to tears by some injustice of the teachers and tried to protest, a report was sent to my father with the names of the instigators, and we were severely punished.
Breakfasts and dinners, so pleasant in the life of every family, did not add variety to the strict routine of our upbringing.
The Viceroy of the Caucasus was supposed to be the representative of the Sovereign Emperor in relations with millions of loyal subjects living in the south of Russia, and at least 30 or 40 people sat at our table every day.
We, the children, had to take care of ourselves during breakfasts and dinners and not start talking at all until we were asked. How often, burning with the desire to tell my father about what a wonderful fortress we built on a mountain top or what Japanese flowers our gardener planted, we had to restrain ourselves, be silent and listen to an important general who ranted about the absurdity of Disraeli’s latest political plans.
The arrangement of places at the table excluded for us children any possibility of laughing at one or another oddity of the guests, or of whispering among ourselves. We were never allowed to sit together, but placed between the adults. It was explained to us that we had to behave towards our neighbors as our father would behave. We had to smile at the unfortunate witticisms of our guests and take a special interest in political news.
If we were approached with any question, which, of course, was done out of a sense of subservience to the Viceroy of His Majesty, then we had to answer within the limits that strict etiquette prescribed for us. If they asked me what I would like to be, then I could not want to be either a fireman or a machinist. The choice of my career was very limited: it lay between the cavalry, artillery and navy.
Brother Georgiy somehow timidly expressed his desire to become a portrait painter. His words were met with an ominous silence from all those present, and Georgy realized his mistake only when the footman, who was serving dessert to the guests, passed by his device with raspberry ice cream.
Rising from the table, we could play in my father’s study for an hour after breakfast and twenty minutes after dinner. Exactly at nine, we had to go to our bedroom, put on long white, night coats (pajamas were not yet known in Russia at that time), immediately go to bed and fall asleep. But even in bed we remained under strict supervision. No less than five times during the night the tutor on duty came into our room and cast a suspicious glance at the beds, in which five boys lay curled up under the blankets.
Around midnight we were awakened by the jingle of spurs announcing the arrival of our father. To my mother’s request not to wake us up, my father replied that future soldiers should learn to sleep, in spite of any noise.
“What will they do next,” he said, when they had to snatch a few hours to rest, to the sound of a cannonade?
The mere thought of going to my father and bothering him with vague talk for no particular purpose seemed like madness. Our mother, for her part, directed all her efforts to destroy in us the slightest outward manifestation of a feeling of tenderness. In her youth, she went through a school of Spartan education, in the spirit of that time in Germany, and did not blame her.
…Recalling my childhood, the severity of upbringing and treatment of us, I must say that all this had the most beneficial effect on my entire subsequent life. I must add that all the monarchs of Europe seemed to come to a tacit agreement that sons should be brought up in the sober fear of God for a correct understanding of the future responsibility to the country.
It is curious: with all the strictness of such upbringing and the inconveniences personally experienced, Alexander Mikhailovich gives this type of upbringing a completely positive assessment, despite the fact that in families with a much warmer attitude of parents, children often grow up dissatisfied with their parents, and with the way they were brought up, and with themselves. Why? What does it depend on? We would name two factors: format control and the status of educators.
With the status of educators, it’s basically clear: if parents are respected by others, if other children envy the fact that you have such parents, especially if your dad is a king and your mom is a princess, then you usually like education from such dads and moms more, than if dad is an electrician at the factory, and mom is a laundress. Children appreciate the status of their parents.
However, format control seems to play an even bigger role. By format control, we mean the control of the body corset, the control of facial expressions, and the control of conversations that comment on the process of interaction between pupils and educators. If the pupils are given orders, and the children at this time grimacing, building dissatisfied and offended faces and accompanying what is happening with ironic remarks, this is fixed as a negative game-habit: the child will be dissatisfied with what is happening. If, on the other hand, a handsome general gives an order during which the children stand upright, with their shoulders back, with a confident expression on their faces and confirm: “Yes, it will be done!”, then positive suggestion of the body will give the child a vision that he has a great life and a wonderful childhood. Demanding parents get the title of cruel when they are not demanding enough, namely, they are not attentive enough to the format and allow disgruntled faces. Paradoxically: forbid more — and the children will be happy …
Similarly, in soft and free upbringing: if it turns out that the warmth of the parents evoked the reciprocal warmth of the children, that is, the communication between the parents and the child was accompanied by the joyful face of the child, the warm hugs of beloved parents and the words: “Beloved mommy!”, Then years later, already an adult former child will remember his childhood with the most sincere warmth. If, however, loving parents fell into the fact that, in response to their warmth, the child grimaces and builds muzzles, then years later, their matured child will easily come up with the idea that his parents still didn’t give him enough.
Parents, watch your kids!
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