Paintings, engravings and magazine illustrations about the Romanovs and their brides, emperors and grand dukes and princesses. What group pre-wedding portrait depicts the empress's lover, and not the future one, but the then one? Which bride had a thinner waist - Catherine the Great or Alice of Hesse? Paintings from the Hermitage and the Queen Victoria collection - let's appreciate the details.
Let's start, predictably, with the first Russian emperor Peter the Great.
And here is the first almost truly imperial wedding: Peter is married to his old love and the mother of his children, Ekaterina Alekseevna (although not yet taking the imperial title).
In the painting of images, this is not the case (because multi-figure secular painting developed very slowly in the "new" Russia anyway). But on the other hand, they already knew how to make engravings very well.
And here are the images of the wedding of Peter and Catherine in this technique.
Rather, this is not a wedding ceremony itself, but a banquet.
Alexey Fyodorovich Zubov. The wedding of Peter I and Catherine on February 19, 1712
I recommend looking at magnification - then you can see a lot of details, for example, that the ladies are all with fashionable high hair-fountains.
By the way, there is an assumption that this is not a documentary image, but an engraver's fiction about how this wedding could look like (link is a large interesting article).
Engraving fragment
"Under the first canopy": in the center - Peter I; to his left: Vice Admiral K.I. Kruys ("in the father's place"), shipbuilder ("Bas") I.M. Golovin ("in a brotherly place"), on the right - the commander of the rowing fleet, Rear Admiral I.F. Botsis ("in the father's place"), shipmaster F.M. Sklyaev (“in a brotherly place”), “Aglinskaya Ambassador Witvart” and “Polish Minister Count Fitztum”, is the “Marshal” of the wedding A.D. Menshikov; "against His Royal Majesty" - Senator Count I.A. Musin-Pushkin; left - SL. Raguzinsky; on the right - "Count Fitztum's nephew Elk", B.I. Prozorovsky, R.V. Bruce, M.P. Gagarin.
The wedding portrait of the newlyweds was not created, because the genre of group portraits has not yet reached Russia either.
But from the history of Romanov weddings in art, this can also be cited as an example.
Medal in memory of the wedding of Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich and Princess Charlotte Christina Sophia Princess of Brunswick-Lüneburg in Torgau. 1711. GE
Peter II did not have time to marry, Anna Ioannovna was a widow, and no one bothered to imprint her wedding back in Peter's time. Ivan VI was also somehow unlucky, and Elizaveta Petrovna was a bachelor. However, they gossip about her secret wedding with Razumovsky and the birth of Princess Tarakanova in a legal marriage, but for that it is all secret, so that it does not leave a trace in the history of art.
Peter III and Catherine the Great
Only in 1745, after a long break, did the wedding of the first row finally take place, though not the emperor, but the heir to the throne, Peter Alekseevich, but we know that this is the future Peter III, so it is counted.
A kind of wedding (or pre-wedding) portrait has been preserved, painted in the year of the wedding of Grand Duke Peter and Catherine.
G.K. Groot (?). Portrait of Grand Duke Pyotr Fedorovich and Grand Duchess Ekaterina Alekseevna. 1745(?). timing
In Odessa, there is a version of the picture, where the bride was dressed up brighter. 
The ceremony itself is again absent in art for us, and neither is the banquet.
But!
But the real wedding dress of Catherine the Great has been preserved. It's in the Armory. What was her waist in her youth, ah.
Silver glazing, silk, silver embroidery, embroidery. (The photo is not very good, a lot of yellowness)
Somehow, this is how it looked complete with everything else
Unknown thin OK. 1758
Here is a replica of the dress made by theater props. Note that the side is almost flat. Added lost lace sleeves and other details (my photo). 
Oh, sorry, there is another picture on the topic - the school of engravers remained strong.
Grigory Kachalov. Fireworks on the Neva on the occasion of the marriage of Grand Duke Pyotr Fedorovich and Grand Duchess Ekaterina Alekseevna. 1745. GE
And it was a holiday in the bride's homeland.
Fireworks burned in Zerbst on the occasion of the marriage of Grand Duke Peter Feodorovich with Grand Duchess Ekaterina Alekseevna
Having become a widow, mother Catherine, they say, married Potemkin, but there is no particular evidence of this either. As well as pictures about it.
This is my own collage of anonymous and Rokotov.
How Paul, her son, married both times, visually we do not know again.
Medal for the first marriage of Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich. 1773. GE
At midnight the bright south shines,
The blood flows more alive in the heart,
And autumn, like spring, pours
Natalya with Pavel in the chest love.
(Derzhavin)
They still couldn’t invent a normal wedding genre ... Or get it from Europe.
G. Kozlov. Altar of Hymen. An allegory for the marriage of Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich and Grand Duchess Maria Feodorovna. 1776. Timing
Medal for the second marriage of Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich on September 26, 1776
Engravers I. Eger (obverse), I. Vechter (reverse).
Alexander I and Elizaveta Alekseevna
Grandmother Empress Ekaterina Alekseevna chose the German princess Louise of Baden for the marriage of her beloved grandson and heir Alexander.
And finally we have an oil painting associated with this event. However, it depicts not the ceremony itself, but the previous episode - Louise's conversion to Orthodoxy and her adoption of the name Elizaveta Alekseevna.
Evstafiy Moshkov (Mashkov). Confirmation of Grand Duchess Elizabeth Alekseevna. 1795. Timing.
You can see the following persons (from right to left): Grand Duchess Maria Feodorovna, Tsarevich Pavel Petrovich, V.K. Konstantin Pavlovich, V.K. Alexander Pavlovich (closest to the audience), Empress Catherine, Metropolitan Gabriel, Princess Louise, Abbess A.M. Shubina, Bezborodko, favorite of the reigning Empress-grandmother Platon Zubov, Budberg.
I don’t know where the repetition comes from, but here the details are more distinguishable
It seems that drawing fireworks was much more interesting for them. Well, really, royal persons here they are all the time here, looming before our eyes, and when you see the little lights.
Fireworks on the occasion of the marriage of Grand Duke Alexander Pavlovich and Grand Duchess Elizaveta Alekseevna.
Medal for the marriage of Alexander Pavlovich. 1793. GE.
Alexander II and Maria Alexandrovna
But finally, the full-fledged "Victorian" XIX century came with its passion for carefully capturing the family. Why Tsarevich Alexander (II) was not painted under such conditions in 1840 and Maria Alexandrovna - I don’t understand.
Medal in memory of the marriage of the heir to the Russian throne, Grand Duke Alexander Nikolaevich, later Emperor Alexander II and Princess of Hesse-Darmstadt, who took the name Maria Alexandrovna.
Since everything is so black and white and poor so far, we take the weddings of the Grand Dukes and Princesses, for lack of fish.
Well, that's also interesting.
The wedding of Grand Duke Mikhail Nikolaevich and Cecilia of Baden. 1857.
Magazine (?) illustration. This seems to be the earliest image of the actual ceremony that I have been able to find.
The ceremony this time, as in most subsequent illustrations, takes place in the palace church of the Winter Palace.
Alexander III and Dagmar
They married during the life of the father-emperor.
The visiting Hungarian Zichy was the court painter of the Romanovs and made many such album sketches depicting everyday life and holidays, balls and funerals.
Mihai Zichy. Wedding of Grand Duke Alexander Alexandrovich and Grand Duchess Maria Feodorovna in 1866. State Hermitage
There are several successive episodes of marriage in the composition.
Left: Protopresbytor Bazhanov performs a wedding act, the Tsarevich's younger brother Vladimir holds a crown over him, and Danish Crown Prince Frederik holds a crown over his sister's head; near Grand Duke Alexey Alexandrovich and Prince Nikolai Maximilianovich - Duke of Leuchtenberg.
Fragments 
In the central part of the sheet, Alexander II and Empress Maria Alexandrovna. 
To the right, in the lower part of the sheet, court ladies, members of the Synod, a choir of singing boys are depicted. In honor of the bride and her Danish relatives, the emperor, grand dukes, crown princes, generals in uniform with a blue ribbon thrown over the right shoulder (a distinctive mark of the Danish uniform).
And here is another picture, simpler, from "History of the reign of Emperor Alexander II in pictures".
N. Bogdanov. Marriage of Grand Duke Alexander Alexandrovich and Grand Duchess Maria Feodorovna.
Somewhere in the reign of Alexander III, jewelers created a marriage (wedding) crown, which they began to use at weddings of the 2nd floor. XIX century and before the revolution, not only for emperors, but also for the great princes, who divorced innumerable. The Bolsheviks sold her abroad, without dismantling them for scrap, she was lucky. Now it is in the American Hillwood Museum.
Wedding photos where the newlyweds pose together are easy to identify by her, usually she stands second next to the bride's diadem. 
The most boring bw drawings in my selection are actually 19th century cover stories.
"World Illustration" (1874. Vol. 12, September 21 (No. 299). Marriage of Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich with the daughter of the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin Maria Pavlovna. The royal cortege on the main staircase in the Winter Palace. Drawing by K. Brozh
They, on several. minutes early. 
But thank God, the Romanovs still ordered color for the family archive.
Nicholas Chevalier. Marriage of Duke Alfred of Edinburgh and Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna, 1874.
With the English prince there was at first an Orthodox wedding.
Then Anglican
The wedding of Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich and Princess Elizabeth Mavrikievna. 1884.
The wedding of Grand Duke Peter Nikolaevich and Milica Chernogorskaya in 1889 in Peterhof.
They don't get married in the Winter, because they are allowed to rank lower. 
The wedding of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich and Elizabeth Feodorovna in 1884
By the way, Afanasy Fet wrote this:
"For the wedding of Grand Duke Pavel Alexandrovich and Grand Duchess Alexandra Georgievna"
Do not sing, do not praise
Grand Duke's porphyry, -
Tell me your first love
And raise with the strings of the lyre:
Who is the heart of a young maiden
For the first time made you tremble?
Aren't you, daring knight,
Handsome, royal horseman, Pavel? ()
Mihai Zichy. Marriage of Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich and Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna, daughter of Alexander III, in the Cathedral of the Grand Peterhof Palace on July 25, 1894.
detail 
K.O. Brozh. Ink drawing on the same theme. Hermitage
(preparatory to creating a magazine illustration) 
Nikki and Alix
They married when Nicholas had already become emperor.
Ilya Repin. "Wedding of Nicholas II and Alexandra Feodorovna". 1894. GRM
Repin is of course a great artist, but any bride for the wedding album still preferred not him, but the next, now almost forgotten master, the Dane Tuxen.
Lauritz Tuxen. Wedding of Emperor Nicholas II and Grand Duchess Alexandra Feodorovna (1894). GE
From left to right - King Christian IX of Denmark, Empress Maria Feodorovna, Grand Duke book. Olga Alexandrovna, Ksenia Alexandrovna, Olga Konstantinovna Grecheskaya, Prince of Wales (Edward VII), grand. book. Georgy Alexandrovich and Prince Henry of Prussia.
Fragment
By the way, I remind you that despite the fact that (according to rumors) the film "Matilda" shows us, the wedding of Nicholas to the kingdom and his wedding with the bride did not occur simultaneously (and without fainting). He married on November 14, 1894 in the palace church of the Winter Palace, and was crowned on May 14, 1896 in the Assumption Cathedral in Moscow.
In the British royal collection there is a repetition of Tuxen's painting (because Victoria is the bride's grandmother). Nearby is a postcard (?) or a magazine reproduction from this picture (I put it for the kit).
Alix's wedding dress has also been preserved in the Hermitage. Yes, the waist of German princesses is no longer the same as in the 18th century ...
And then it was all over.
Nicholas II Sad wedding
Came from different countries numerous august relatives, having buried the emperor-father, immediately began to rebuild in a new way, because exactly one week after the burial, the wedding of the emperor-son was to take place.
Nikolai, of course, like any young lover, burned with impatience to quickly unite with a young, beautiful and loving wife, but at the same time, three weeks of mourning could not but make the most depressing impression on him, for he passionately and sincerely loved his father and was very sorry for his mother, with whom even fainting occurred when remembering the deceased.
Foreign princes and princesses, who were waiting for wedding celebrations, involuntarily annoyed Nikolai, for it was difficult to imagine a more ridiculous situation when, in complete confusion of feelings, immediately after the death of a beloved father, it was necessary to make preparations for the wedding. Nicholas is a Christian loving son and a well-bred man - could not help but understand the absurd inconsistency and odiousness of the situation, and yet on the seventh day after the funeral, on Monday, November 14, 1894, the day of the wedding came.
No one thought then that the wedding would be the last highly solemn act when the Russian emperor would marry the Russian empress.
It should be noted that over the three centuries of the existence of the Romanov dynasty, rarely any of the tsars and emperors went down the aisle after ascending the throne.
For the first time, this happened to the founder of the Romanov dynasty, Mikhail Fedorovich, who, having already been crowned, married twice - in 1624 with Princess Maria Vladimirovna Dolgoruky and in 1626 with Evdokia Lukyanovna Streshneva.
The same story happened to Mikhail's son, Alexei, who also married twice after Monomakh's barms, the royal crown, scepter and orb belonged to him: in 1648 he married Maria Ilyinichna Miloslavskaya, and in 1671 - Natalia Kirillovna Naryshkina .
And, finally, two more tsars - brothers Ivan V and Peter I - married, having royal dignity, in 1684 and in 1689 the young ladies Praskovya Feodorovna Saltykova and Evdokia Fedorovna Lopukhina, however, it should be borne in mind that Ivan and Peter became kings in 1682, when Ivan was 16 and Peter was only 10 years old.
The wedding of Nicholas II and Alexandra Feodorovna cannot be called magnificent, rich and cheerful.
Here is what Nikolai wrote about this in his diary: “After a common coffee, we went to get dressed: I put on a hussar uniform and at 11 1/2 went with Misha (younger brother. - V. B.) in Winter. All along the Nevsky there were troops for the passage of Mama and Alix. While her toilet was taking place in Malahitovaya, we all waited in the Arab Room. At 10 minutes past one, the exit to the Great Church began, from where I returned a married man! My best men were: Misha, George, Kirill and Sergei (Uncle Sergei, brother Mikhail and cousins Prince of Greece Georgy Georgievich and Kirill Vladimirovich. - V. B.). In Malahitova we were brought a huge silver swan from the family. Having changed, Alix got into a carriage with a Russian harness with a postilion with me, and we drove to the Kazan Cathedral. There were an abyss of people on the streets - they could hardly get through! Upon arrival in Anichkov, a guard of honor met her in the yard (Alix. - V. B.) Life Guards Ulansky Regiment. Mom was waiting with bread and salt in our rooms. We sat all evening answering telegrams. We dined at 8 o'clock. We went to bed early because she had a bad headache.”
Even the fact that not the big and pompous Winter Palace, but the modest Anichkov, where Alexander III lived - an unpretentious and modest person in everyday life, was chosen for the wedding celebrations, spoke for itself.
And about his feelings that washed over him on the day of the wedding, Nikolai later spoke in a letter to his brother George: “The wedding day was a terrible torment for her and me. The thought that our dear, selflessly beloved Papa was not between us and that you are far from the family and all alone, did not leave me during the wedding; I had to exert all my strength so as not to burst into tears here in church in front of everyone. Now everything has calmed down a bit - life has gone completely new for me ... I cannot thank God enough for the treasure that he sent me in the form of a wife. I am immeasurably happy with my darling Alix and I feel that we will live just as happily until the end of our lives.
Ten days after the wedding, Nikolai wrote: “Every day that passes, I bless the Lord and thank him from the bottom of my heart for the happiness he has given me! A person has no right to wish for greater or better well-being on this earth. My love and reverence for dear Alix is constantly growing.”
Twenty years will pass, and Nikolai will write almost the same thing: “I can’t believe that today is the twentieth anniversary of our wedding! The Lord has blessed us with rare family happiness; if only to be able to be worthy of His great mercy during the rest of my life.
Do you believe in wedding signs? Nut there, for example, what eldest daughter must marry first, and if the youngest marries first, she will be childless. Or there, that after the bride leaves for the wedding from the parental home, you need to immediately wash the floors, otherwise she will return.
In the old days, they believed in such signs, and if the wedding was accompanied by bad signs, then people sighed sadly: “ It won't end well...».
From the painting by L. Tuxen "Wedding of Nikolai Alexandrovich and Alexandra Feodorovna"
Exactly 119 years ago, on November 14 (hereinafter according to the old style), 1894, the marriage of Nikolai Romanov, the 26-year-old son of Alexander III, took place with Princess Alice of Hesse-Darmstadt, who, after chrismation, took the name of Alexandra Feodorovna. Their honeymoon took place in the atmosphere of memorial services and funeral visits (" My wedding was a continuation of the funeral, only I was dressed in white", - Alexander will say later).
In early October, in Darmstadt, Alix received a telegram urgently calling her to the Crimea, and she arrived in Livadia just in time for the death of the groom's father. And then Alix entered Petersburg for her wedding, following the coffin of these protracted imperial funerals, and in Russian Empire then a year of mourning was declared.
K. Brozh "The funeral of Alexander III in the Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg"
Alexander III was buried on November 7 and literally a week later his son's wedding took place. Why were they in such a hurry with the wedding and did not even wait for the forty days prescribed in Orthodoxy after the death of the groom's father? November 14 was the last day before the beginning of the fast, which was supposed to last until the beginning of January. So the wedding would have to be postponed for a long time, and the lovers Nikolai and Alix were impatient.
They found a loophole - the marriage ceremony coincided with the birthday of the tsar's mother, Empress Maria Feodorovna, when Orthodox tradition allowed to somewhat weaken even the most severe mourning. And "there is no blessing without good" - it was not necessary to invite guests, since many first persons of European houses arrived in St. Petersburg for the funeral of Alexander III
But connoisseurs of signs considered this all a bad omen ...
The mystical feeling - the predestination of misfortune, generally lived in Nikolai from childhood. It is widely known that Nicholas even considered the very date of his birth, “the day of Job the Long-suffering,” as an indication of a terrible future.
The feeling of impending doom also haunted the nervous Alix. And therefore, the modest Hessian princess, in response to the proposal to become the wife of the heir to the Russian throne, suddenly burst into causeless tears. "O she cried all the time and only from time to time said: “I can’t ...”, Nikolai wrote in his diary.
Painting by I. Repin “Wedding of Nikolai Alexandrovich and Alexandra Feodorovna”
And the bad omens did not end with the wedding itself. When Nicholas ascended the throne, much was expected of him - the eternal Russian expectation of a new good tsar. An image had already been created: as an heir, he tried to slip away from the palace in order to calmly take a walk (which means he longs for freedom). His first woman was a Jewess (which means she will not oppress foreigners). He put the chief of police in a guardhouse for a day (this means an end to the self-will of the police) ... These hopes gave birth to endless petitions from the zemstvos - for all sorts of reforms.
And on January 17, 1895, the new emperor and empress appeared for the first time to the country with a speech prepared by Pobedonostsev, who convinced Nicholas to lay siege to the ardor of the suffering reformers. Representatives of zemstvos, cities, and Cossacks met in the Anichkov Palace. The sight of the many people who, according to Pobedonostsev, harbored sedition and whom he was supposed to besiege, plunged the shy Nikolai into confusion. He began to read too loudly, in a broken falsetto: AT recent times in some zemstvo assemblies, the voices of people carried away by senseless dreams were heard ...»
From embarrassment, he suddenly shouted the last phrase of the speech, looking point-blank at the old man closest to him, a representative of the Tver nobility. At a regal shout, the old man flew out of horror from the hands of a golden dish with bread and salt, which, according to ancient custom, the Zemstvo were preparing to present to the new Sovereign.
The golden dish tinkled and rolled across the floor, the bread fell apart, and the golden salt shaker embedded in it rolled after the dish. And the new tsar did what a well-bred young man had to do when something falls from the old man's hands: Nikolai tried to pick up the dish, which completely embarrassed everyone. They lifted the dish and the salt shaker, but the connoisseurs of signs again sighed sadly.
L. Tuxen. "Coronation of Emperor Nicholas II"
According to custom, before the solemn entry into Moscow for the coronation, the Sovereign and Empress had to visit the greatest shrine of Russia - the Trinity Sergius Lavra. But in the Lavra ... no one met them. They realized it when the king had already entered her territory.
All this happened, of course, due to the inconsistency of the organizers of the coronation celebrations, but experts again noted: Sergius of Radonezh did not accept the new king.
V. Makovsky "Khodynka"
And then there was a stampede in the early morning of May 18 on the Khodynka field and it was a new bloody omen: first the wedding after the funeral, and then the funeral after the coronation, this mystical wedding of the new tsar with Russia. And the next day, 1282 out of 1389 bodies of the dead were placed at the Vagankovsky cemetery for identification.
All this by no means prevented Grand Duke Vladimir, the Prince of Naples and other persons close to the imperial crown from having fun shooting at pigeons at the Vagankovsky cemetery on the same day. It was rumored in Moscow that the Prince of Naples killed, in addition, a kite, which was considered bad omen.
Yes, and in shooting at pigeons, as innocent as the people who died on Khodynka, there was also something sinister, and all this was considered a gloomy omen for the reign of Nicholas II. In 1908, Konstantin Balmont conveyed the then general mood in society in this way: Whoever began to reign over Khodynka will end up standing on the scaffold».
And so it all happened - so don’t believe after that in the signs for the wedding. Do you believe?
The last wedding of the monarchs of Russia - the wedding of Nicholas II and Princess Victoria Alice Elena Louise Beatrice of Hesse-Darmstadt, baptized under the name Alexandra Feodorovna - took place on November 26 (November 14, old style) 1894. Due to certain circumstances, she was not lush and chic: after the wedding there were no balls and the newlyweds did not go on a traditional honeymoon trip. Everything was extremely modest, by the standards of such an event in the Imperial House of Romanov.
Laurits Tuks Wedding of Nicholas II and Alexandra Feodorovna, studio version 1895
In 1892, the future Nicholas II wrote in his diary: I dream of marrying Alix someday. I have loved her for a long time, but especially deeply and strongly since 1889, when she spent 6 weeks in Petersburg. All this time I did not believe my feeling, did not believe that my cherished dream could come true ...". Dreams, dreams, and before the wedding and the wedding, Nikolai's parents had to be persuaded to approve this marriage, and the bride herself was persuaded, because she categorically did not want to change her religion.
Finally, on April 8, 1894, the engagement of Nikolai and Alix took place. On October 20, 1894, Emperor Alexander III died in Livadia, on October 21, Alix converted to Orthodoxy with the name Alexandra Feodorovna. The funeral of the late Alexander III took place in the Peter and Paul Cathedral on November 7, and the country plunged into mourning for a whole year. The wedding was also postponed for a year. But still they decided to speed up the process and officially strengthen the position of Alexandra in Russia. They chose a day that, according to religious rules, gave some relief - November 14th. It was the birthday of Empress Maria Feodorovna.
Repin I.E. Wedding of Nicholas II and Grand Duchess Alexandra Feodorovna 1894
And so on November 14, 1894, the long-awaited wedding finally took place. The wedding of Nicholas and Alexandra took place in the Cathedral of the Savior Not Made by Hands in the Winter Palace (Great Church of the Winter Palace). The temple had its own shrines: the icon of the Savior Not Made by Hands, golden reliquary crosses, particles of the Crown of Thorns, the robe of Christ, and the Life-Giving Tree. It also contained unique things collected by emperors. Russian state. These were the shrines donated by the Order of Malta to Paul I - an ark with a part of the robe of the Lord, the right hand of John the Baptist, the icon of the Filemskaya Mother of God, which, according to legend, was painted by the Apostle Luke himself, as well as a number of amazing icons from the collection of the Romanov family and the old Ostrog Gospel. On the this moment divine services in the temple take place according to a special schedule, taking into account the museum status of the premises.
Gau E. Big Church of the Winter Palace 1874
Laurits Tuks Wedding of Nicholas II and Alexandra Feodorovna in the church of the Winter Palace 1895
Well, now the word to the writers, vividly telling about how the wedding took place, or rather about how the bride and groom looked at this ceremony.
Henri Troyat "Nicholas II": "On the morning of November 14, Nikolai put on the red uniform of a hussar colonel with a gilded galloon on his shoulder. Alexandra wore a dress of white silk embroidered with silver flowers, and a mantle of golden brocade, the train of which was carried by five chamberlains, and an imperial diadem adorned with diamonds crowned her head. In this decoration, she shone with a fragile and pure beauty. Tall, with regular features, with a straight graceful nose, gray-blue eyes, dreamy, with thick golden hair falling over her forehead, the newlywed acted gracefully and majestically, but at the same time blushed every moment, like a child caught at the scene of a crime. Blinded by love, Nikolai calls her "sunny" - "sun"."
Diamond wedding crown of the Romanov dynasty
Greg King "Empress Alexandra Feodorovna": "Her wedding dress was a magnificent creation; the outfit was so intricate that it took almost an hour for Alexandra to get it on. Her stockings were made of lace, her shoes were decorated with exquisite embroidery. The dress consisted of several skirts: a rigid underskirt and a wide top, with a special cut, revealing another skirt of silver fabric trimmed with fur. A beautiful low neckline showed off the neck and shoulders, and the short-sleeved dress had a stole with ermine edges. The bodice was fastened with diamonds that sparkled with every movement. Alexandra wore a golden imperial robe trimmed with ermine. These clothes were so heavy that four people had to help her carry them. The bride's hair was slicked back to emphasize her graceful neck and shoulders. Curls were attached to the side. On the head were a tiara in the form of a kokoshnik made of diamonds and the marriage crown of the Romanov dynasty. The dress had a number of diamond brooches and a chain of the Order of the Holy Apostle Andrew the First-Called, decorated with precious stones. On the neck is a string of pearls. All of these jewels and the tiara were wedding gifts from the late tsar, valued at around 300,000 rubles ($150,000). In addition, the bride wore heavy diamond earrings, a necklace and a red ribbon of the Order of St. Catherine through her dress."
The celebrations of the coronation of Nicholas II took place on May 14 (according to the old style), 1896. This year, May 26 marks the 115th anniversary of the event, the meaning of which is much more serious than a tribute to tradition. Alas, in the minds of subsequent generations, it was obscured by the Khodynka disaster. One has to make an effort on oneself so that, turning mentally to May 1896, to think not only about Khodynka. And yet: what is the anointing to the kingdom? Is it only a rite, as if confirming the already accomplished fact of the accession to the throne of the new Sovereign? What did it mean for Nicholas II? What did the Khodynskaya tragedy mean in the future of the next, twentieth century?
The tsar arrived in Moscow on his birthday, May 6 (OS), and stayed at the Petrovsky Castle, which was then on the outskirts of the capital. On May 9, the tsar's solemn entry into Moscow took place. The royal couple settled in the Alexandrinsky Palace (the current building of the Academy of Sciences of the Russian Federation on Leninsky Prospekt) and spent all the days remaining until the coronation. May 14 (O.S.), 1896, arrives, and the clergy meet the Sovereign and Empress on the porch of the Assumption Cathedral. Metropolitan Sergius of Moscow (Lyapidevsky; †1898), having blessed the tsar and tsarina, delivers a speech addressed to the Sovereign and, according to tradition, instructive and not just welcome. He says in it: “You enter this ancient sanctuary in order to place a royal crown on yourself here and receive holy chrismation.<…>Confirmation is granted to all Orthodox Christians, and it is not repeated. If, however, you are to receive new impressions of this sacrament, then the reason for this is that, just as there is no higher, so there is no more difficult on earth royal power, there is no burden heavier than royal service. Through the visible anointing, may an invisible force be given to you, acting from above, illuminating your autocratic activity for the good and happiness of your faithful subjects.
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In the order of the wedding, a proverb is read (Is. 49.13-19) about the protection of God over the king (“I drew you on My hands; your walls are always before Me”), the Apostle (Rom. 13.1-7) - about obedience to kings, and the Gospel ( Matt. 22.15-23), as if in addition to the previous reading - about the reward of Caesar's to Caesar, and God's to God. One of the most important moments of the coronation is the laying on of the hands of the metropolitan on the royal head and the offering of a prayer that the Lord would anoint the king "with the oil of joy, clothe him with strength from on high, ... give him the scepter of salvation in his right hand, seat him on the throne of truth ...". After this prayer, the Sovereign took the crown brought to him on a pillow by the Metropolitan and, in accordance with the rank, placed it on himself, then placed a small crown on the head of the queen, who knelt before him.
Having confessed the faith and accepted the burden of power, the Tsar knelt down and, holding the crown in his hand, offered the coronation prayer to God. It contains the following words: “... I confess Your unsearchable watching over me and, thanks to Your majesty, I worship, You, Master and my Lord, instruct me in the matter, where Thou hast sent me, enlighten and guide me in this great ministry. May the Wisdom that sits on Your Throne be with me. Send me Thy saints from heaven, so that I may understand what is pleasing before Thy eyes, and what is right according to Thy commandments.
Having finished the prayer, the Sovereign stood up, and then immediately all those present in the cathedral knelt down. Metropolitan Pallady, on his knees, read on behalf of the people a prayer for the king:<…>Show him victorious to enemies, terrible to villains, merciful and trustworthy to the good, warm his heart to the contempt of the poor, to the acceptance of the strange, to the intercession of the attacked. Governing the government subordinate to him on the path of truth and truth, and reflecting from favoritism and bribery, and all the power of His people handed over to You in unhypocritical fidelity, create it about the children of the rejoicing one ... ”You stop at such words, knowing what followed after 21 years, you think bitterly: exactly the opposite has come true, and you cannot refrain from exclaiming: did the Lord not support?After the prayer, Metropolitan Pallady from the pulpit addressed the Sovereign with a lengthy greeting, ending with the words: “You, the Orthodox Tsar, crowned by God, trust in the Lord, may your heart be established in Him: by faith and piety, kings are strong, and kingdoms are unshakable!”. Attention is drawn to the seriousness and absence of any eloquence both in the texts of the coronation prayers and in the texts of speeches addressed to the Anointed on behalf of the Church.
After the coronation rite, the Divine Liturgy began. At the end of it, before the acceptance of the Holy Mysteries of Christ, the chrismation of the Tsar and Tsaritsa took place. According to B.A. Uspensky, the repetition of a sacred action, which in principle should not be repeated, gave the person (in this case, the king) a special status, special charisma: the king became belonging to a different, higher sphere of being, and his legal powers turned into charismatic powers (quoted by V. Semenko. Charisma of power).According to Archpriest Maxim Kozlov (see the article “His sincere self-sacrifice was committed for the sake of preserving the principle of autocracy”), “the meaning of this sacred ceremony was that the Tsar was blessed by God not only as the head of the state or civil administration, but, above all, as the bearer of the theocratic ministry, church ministry, as the vicar of God on earth. Moreover, the Tsar was responsible for the spiritual state of all his subjects, for, being the supreme patron Orthodox Church, was the guardian of the spiritual traditions of other religious communities. In the same article, Archpriest Maxim Kozlov also recalls the teachings of St. Philaret of Moscow about royal power and the faithful disposition of Orthodox subjects towards it, recalls the words of the saint: “The people that honor the Tsar, please God through this, for the Tsar is the dispensation of God.” Archpriest Maxim Kozlov writes: “The Tsar, according to the teachings of St. Philaret, is the bearer of the power of God, the power that, existing on earth, is a reflection of the Heavenly Sovereign Power of God. The earthly kingdom is the image and the threshold of the kingdom of heaven, and therefore it naturally follows from this teaching that only that earthly society is blessed and contains the seed of the grace of God, spiritualizing and sanctifying this society, which has as its head the supreme bearer of power and anointed one - the Tsar.
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Nicholas II is usually looked at now as a "good man" with the addition of "but". Following the "but" may contain an accusation of all our troubles of the twentieth century, or may not be contained, however, in any case, the following is implied: "a good man, but an insolvent sovereign." His successes, recognized even by enemies, are hushed up, and they do not think about his responsibility at all, they take it for granted. At the same time, in terms of responsibility, Tsar Nicholas II can be considered a model of the Sovereign. It is known that he did not make any decision without presenting it to God, he never went against his conscience. Neither single word coronation prayers, thus, he did not utter in vain and did not pass by his ears. Yes, later he was forced to recant, but this did not mean the notorious “weakness” attributed to him by his contemporaries and to this day idly appropriated.
It was not about “weakness” that the sign was given to him already during the coronation. Which sign? Hegumen Seraphim (Kuznetsov) writes about this little-known episode in his book The Orthodox Tsar-Martyr (M. 1997): (The Sovereign) stumbled and lost consciousness for a while. To such a case, which remained almost unnoticed by anyone, hegumen Seraphim attaches symbolic meaning: “What happened after the Sovereign was exhausted during the coronation? A bloody catastrophe, the people crushed and strangled each other. Didn't the same thing happen, how the king fainted under the weight of the cross, forcibly removed from him by part of the people? Here hegumen Seraphim spoke about the loss of self-consciousness, which cost us millions of lives.Let us turn to the events on the Khodynka field on May 18, 1896. From early morning and even from night, a huge number of people gathered here: more than half a million people. Waiting for distribution royal gift, which was the following set: a commemorative mug (painted aluminum) with the monograms of their majesties, half a pound of sausage, fruit bait, Vyazma gingerbread with the coat of arms and a bag of sweets and nuts. Until six in the morning everything was completely calm. Around six, a rumor suddenly spread: there won’t be enough gifts for everyone, the bartenders say they are making supplies for themselves ... Then, according to an eyewitness, “the crowd suddenly jumped up like one person and rushed forward with such swiftness, as if fire was chasing after it ... on the front, those who fell were trampled on, having lost the ability to feel that they were walking on still living bodies, like on stones or logs. The crash lasted only 10-15 minutes. By the time the crowd came to their senses, it was already too late.”
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But we already had an anointed one, and at the same time such an anointed one who “endures to the end” and becomes a holy intercessor for his hard-headed people before God. His union with us was accomplished - "wedding bonds".