Eugene Botkin

Who was Eugene Botkin?

Yevgeny Sergeyevich Botkin was the court physician for Tsar Nicholas II and Tsarina Alexandra and, while in exile with the family, sometimes treated the hemophilia-related complications of the Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich of Russia.

Botkin went into exile with the Romanovs following the Russian Revolution of 1917 and was murdered with the family at Ekaterinburg on 17 July 1918. Like them, he was canonized as a passion-bearer by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia in 1981.

Famous Quotes:

• The day before yesterday, as I was calmly reading ... I saw a reduced vision of my son Yuri's face, but dead, in a horizontal position, his eyes closed.
• This vindicates my last decision ... when I unhesitatingly orphaned my own children in order to carry out my physician's duty to the end, as Abraham did not hesitate at God's demand to sacrifice his only son.
• I am making a last attempt at writing a real letter -- at least from here -- although that qualification, I believe, is utterly superfluous. I do not think that I was fated at any time to write to anyone from anywhere.
• I will probably never hear that voice so dear or feel that touch so dear with which my little children so spoiled me ...
• My voluntary confinement here is restricted less by time than by my earthly existence. In essence I am dead -- dead for my children -- dead for my work ... I am dead but not yet buried, or buried alive -- whichever, the consequences are nearly identical ...
• If faith without works is dead, then deeds can live without faith ...
• Yesterday, at the same reading, I suddenly heard a word that sounded like "Papulya". I nearly burst into sobs. Again -- this is not a hallucination because the word was pronounced, the voice was similar, and I did not doubt for an instant that my daughter, who was supposed to be in Tobolsk, was talking to me ...
• “You would need to have a mind as perverted as theirs and a disordered soul to defeat all of their unbelievable plots. I have decided I am old enough to dare to be myself. I will do the things which I believe to be right and am ready to stand up and defend my actions because they are really my own, and have not been forced upon me”.
• How strange! Am I already dead?”