The image of the revolutionary nihilist moved from Russia to the West, where the press gave broad coverage to Russian terrorism, the assassination of Alexander II, and the subsequent government repressions. The nihilists became a modern symbol, much like the Soviet dissidents a century later. Oscar Wilde wrote the drama
The murder of Alexander II also served as an impetus, however oblique, for the creation of a specifically Petersburg artifact in jewelry. It occurred as a clever court jeweler, the Russified François Fabergé, puzzled over Alexander III’s commission for a pleasant Easter surprise for his wife, who could not get over the assassination of her father-in-law. Fabergé came up with a charming, quite expensive toy, which fully embodied the Russian tsar’s idea of a nice Easter surprise: a golden chicken egg that could be opened to reveal a miniature golden chick.
The virtuoso work of the court jeweler so charmed the empress that the next Easter the commission was repeated, and Fabergé put a completely different surprise in the new egg. And so the imperial Fabergé Easter eggs became a tradition, interrupted only by the revolution of 1917. Of the 55 or 56 legendary eggs created by Fabergé, presumably only 43 or so survived; for many obsessed collectors they represent, perhaps along with Diaghilev’s ballet productions, the most opulent and refined achievement of imperial Russia. This is, of course, a matter of personal taste. In any case, the Fabergé eggs amply demonstrate the exquisite mastery exhibited by the jewelers of Petersburg, as well as the wealth of Fabergé’s august clients.
In general, however, Alexander III was a rather stingy monarch, perhaps in imitation of Peter the Great. But neither he nor, later, his son, Nicholas II, begrudged their loved ones the enormous sum of fifteen thousand rubles, the cost of each of those Easter eggs. If not for the revolution, this expense might have turned into a prudent investment, since in our day the value of the eggs is incalculable.
Many historians insist that Alexander III was an uneducated, coarse, and brutish man, albeit with a lot of common sense. But these assertions contradict some of the facts of the emperor’s involvement with Russian culture. A passionate patriot, even a chauvinist (he was a pathological anti-Semite), Alexander III became one of the leading patrons of the Wanderer artists. His rich collection of Russian paintings served as the basis for his museum of visual and fine arts, open to the public in 1898 in the Mikhailovsky Palace, renamed the State Russian Museum under the Bolsheviks.
Alexander III greatly increased the subsidy to the imperial theaters. The orchestra of the Russian opera grew to 110 members and the choir to 120. The stagings of both ballet and opera were lavishly produced, with huge sums specifically allocated for costumes and scenery.
Every spring Alexander III personally approved the repertoire for the opera and ballet, often making significant changes; he did not miss a single dress rehearsal in his theaters. The emperor was involved in all the details of new productions—and not just from whim or pleasure; his motivations were also political. He knew that the imperial theaters—opera, ballet, and drama—were the mirror of the monarchy; the brilliance and opulence of their productions reflected the majesty of his reign. Therefore he correctly viewed the attacks in the liberal press, especially after the repeal in 1882 of the imperial monopoly on theater productions in Petersburg, as veiled attacks on his regime, noting once that the newspapers pounded his theaters “because they are forbidden to write about so many other things.”51
On the emperor’s personal orders, the Maryinsky Theater presented Meyerbeer’s
