Film on czar’s affair sparks furor in Russia

Some see betrayal by a part of Russian elite

MOSCOW The Russian government often suppresses dissident artists, but now it finds itself on the side of protecting a controversial film opening Thursday about the country’s last czar that religious hard-liners want banned.

Christians and groups sympathetic to the country’s czarist rule are outraged over Mathilda, which details a pre-marital affair that future Czar Nicholas II had with ballerina Mathilde Kschessinskaya.

The affair involving Nicholas — who abdicated during the Russian Revolution in 1917 and was executed by the Bolsheviks in 1918 — is backed up by letters and historical accounts. But that doesn’t satisfy opponents who plan to continue their protests after the scheduled premiere.

“We believe that this film is the result of betrayal by a part of the Russian elite who, just as they did in 1917 with the overthrow of Czar Nicholas II, are now preparing the overthrow of President (Vladimir) Putin,” Andrei Kormukhin, the head of a fundamentalist Orthodox Christian organization, told USA TODAY.

Kormukhin, who noted that Nicholas was later made a saint by the Russian Orthodox Church, called the film an assault on Russia’s government, the church and the country’s heritage.

“The film, by presenting a saint of the Russian Orthodox Church, Nicholas II, as a fornicator, and the czarina, Alexandra, as a witch, aims to desacralize the Russian Orthodox Church and to desacralize state power in Russia.”

KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV, AFP/GETTY IMAGES Russian film director Alexei Uchitel has come under attack for his film Mathilda, which details a pre-marital affair of Nicholas II.