The Brave Romanov, 1935

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The little Romanov used to love flying her kite in the summertime, when the family would decamp to the Yalta coast. Her cousin, Nicolas, made fun of her when she told him she wanted to be a pilot. He would one day become the tsar of Russia, and did not worry for his future. But his cousin was as determined as she was courageous. She butted heads with their grandmother, whom they called Babushka, when the old woman instructed her to show more studiousness at the piano, at painting, and in good manners. “Whatever do they teach you at that school in Saint Petersburg?” the old woman cried as she watched her granddaughter lift her dress to run along the coast beneath her kite.

Her cousin, Nicolas, would rule Russia, and she had decided to make an unusual request of him. He had unlimited power, and he was the only one who could help her. “I want to be a pilot! I want to join the royal flying squadron!” she told him point blank, during a lavish masked ball he was hosting at the Winter Palace. Nicolas II did not take her seriously. How could a woman of the royal family become a pilot? But at tea time in their villa at Yalta, the Romanovs discussed all manner of topics, from the economy to the condition of the Russian people, from the wars in Japan to the splendour of St. Petersburg. The ambition of Nicolas II’s cousin officially became family business when she refused to see or court any of the suitors introduced to her. “The girl isn’t built for marriage, nor for the church,” Babushka often remarked. The Romanov cousin wanted to be free, to be responsible and to grasp her independence. She dreamt of a life in the clouds, of adventure and the blue skies over Russia, and all this she explained to Nicolas.  

Then the Great War broke out, and the brave Romanov learned to fly. She was trained by the Russian Imperial Air Force, one of the most powerful in the world. None of her comrades looked down on her, as the Romanov cousin had fought to earn the respect of her peers. She was a woman of royal blood, and they called her “the brave Romanov.” She never flinched at danger, and was every bit as skilled as her male colleagues. Soon she was flying a top-class bomber, the Ilya Muromets. It had four steel-bladed Renault engines, and could transport up to eight hundred kilos of bombs. The plane had originally been designed as a luxury transport craft. It even had a heated lounge, a cabin and a bathroom, but at the outbreak of the war it had been re-fitted as a bomber. The Russians had sold the design to the British and the French, with whom they were allied, but there was no question of the Germans getting their hands on its plans. The Brave Romanov sailed high over the landscapes. The fields rolled by beneath the bomber, and the country folk saluted her. She was proud. Suddenly, she spied an enemy plane slicing through the clouds. The Brave Romanov decided to perform a taran against the Austro-Hungarian plane. She pulled the throttle and flew straight toward her enemy. Her heart was pounding in her chest. The Ilya Muromets shuddered under the pressure, the wind whistling through the cabin. The plane would soon collide with the enemy. The sound of clashing metal rang out, and the Romanov lost control of the plane. Her wing was gone, but the enemy was down. She looked for a moment at the spectacular explosion, then turned her attention to performing an emergency landing. She spotted a wood on the edge of a field, and hurried to steer the Ilya Muromets into its branches. The Brave Romanov emerged from the taran safe and sound. The country folk helped her out of the plane. She was injured, but a heroine.

The Brave Romanov was decorated in the presence of the royal family at the Winter Palace. The Russian people were moved at the sight of a Romanov returning injured from combat – a Romanov who served proudly in the Imperial Air Force; the cousin of Tsar Nicolas II who had emerged triumphant in battle.

Alan Alfredo Geday