Early Life and Medical Family
Eugene Botkin was born on 27 March 1865 (Old Style) at Tsarskoe Selo, near St. Petersburg, the fourth son of Sergey Petrovich Botkin (1832–1889) and Anastasia Alexandrovna Krylova. His father was court physician to Tsars Alexander II and Alexander III and is regarded as a founder of modern Russian medicine: he introduced triage, pathological anatomy, and post-mortem diagnostics to Russia, established the country's first experimental medical laboratory, organized its first medical courses for women in 1872, created the St. Petersburg system of Duma doctors for the poor, and founded the infectious-disease hospital later renamed for him. His students included the future Nobel laureate Ivan Pavlov.
His brother Peter later remembered Eugene as 'infinitely kind,' a man who 'came into this world for the sake of helping people,' possessing 'a delicate, inner sweetness of extraordinary soul' and a horror of any kind of struggle. After graduating from the 2nd Petersburg Classical Gymnasium in 1882, Botkin studied at St. Petersburg University before entering the Military Medical Academy. There, as one of five elected class elders, he was temporarily expelled for petitioning Tsar Alexander III on behalf of fellow students; all five were eventually readmitted, and they vowed to reunite each year on the anniversary of the expulsion, a gathering Botkin attended from 1889 through 1916.
He graduated from the Academy with honors in 1889. Declining an immediate appointment as physician to Tsarevich George Alexandrovich, he pursued further study at universities in Berlin and Heidelberg before returning to Russia to lecture at the Academy of Medicine and serve as chief physician at St. George's City Hospital in St. Petersburg. In 1891 he married Olga Vladimirovna Manuilova; they had five children, one of whom died in infancy. His book on the Russo-Japanese War was read and admired by Empress Alexandra for what she called its 'Christian, loving, infinitely compassionate heart and unshakable faith in God.'
Court Physician
During the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905 Botkin volunteered aboard the St. George Red Cross hospital train, treating Russian and Japanese wounded alike. He returned decorated with six military awards, including the Grand Cordon of the Order of St. Anne, and was appointed Chief Commissioner of the Russian Red Cross. On Easter Sunday, 13 April 1908, Nicholas II appointed him physician to the imperial court and personal physician to Empress Alexandra, a position Botkin, by one account, received 'with astonishment almost amounting to dismay,' understanding it as 'a great burden, a responsibility towards not only the family, but the whole country.'
His calm and personable manner suited the empress, who held firm opinions about her health. Where she believed she suffered from a heart condition, Botkin attributed her symptoms to nervous strain and anxiety and adjusted her regimen accordingly. He visited her twice daily, often conversing in her native German and sometimes serving as an interpreter for foreign visitors. The imperial children were especially fond of him, making a game of tracking him through the palace by the scent of his imported perfume. Contemporaries noted that his own political views leaned liberal and were not those of the imperialists, but his personal devotion to the family rendered such differences unimportant.
Botkin kept his distance from court intrigue and from Grigori Rasputin, whom he declined to befriend; after examining him he told Rasputin to stop calling. In the autumn of 1912 at Spała he witnessed the crisis in which the hemophiliac Tsarevich Alexei, gravely ill after an injury, recovered following a telegram from Rasputin — a turn Botkin and the other physicians could not explain. His devotion to the court cost him his marriage: his wife left in 1909 and divorced him in 1910, after which he retained custody of their children. His son Dmitri was killed in action on the eastern front in December 1914. In his later years Botkin grew increasingly spiritual, concerning himself with his patients' souls as well as their bodies.
Exile and Martyrdom
After the February Revolution of 1917 the empress and children were placed under house arrest, and Botkin visited the Alexander Palace daily, supporting Nicholas through his abdication in March. When the family was exiled to Tobolsk in Siberia in August 1917, Botkin went with them, bringing two of his own children, Gleb and Tatiana, who lived nearby. At Tobolsk he tutored the imperial children, acted as intermediary between the family, their guards, and the townspeople, arranged priestly visits and exercise periods, and treated local residents. He argued unsuccessfully to the head of the Provisional Government that the Crimea would be healthier for the family than Siberia.
In the spring of 1918 the household was moved to the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg; Botkin's own children were forbidden to follow. During the roughly seventy-eight days of confinement there he spent his evenings with Nicholas and Alexandra in conversation and cards, and after the removal of Alexei's attendant he often slept in the boy's room. In the early hours of 17 July 1918 the commandant, Yakov Yurovsky, woke Botkin and had him rouse the prisoners with the explanation that they must move to the basement because the White Army was approaching. Botkin's bewildered response — 'So they aren't taking us anywhere?' — was among his last recorded words. About forty minutes later the entire group was shot by a firing squad; Botkin was struck in the abdomen, legs, and forehead.
The Unfinished Letter
White Army investigators who reached Yekaterinburg found an unfinished letter Botkin had been writing to his brother Alexander on the night of 16–17 July 1918. In it he described himself as already 'dead — dead for my children — dead for my work,' confined less by time than by his earthly existence, and recounted vivid impressions of his absent children that had moved him nearly to tears.
The letter closes with his theological justification for remaining with the family: reflecting that 'if faith without works is dead, then deeds can live without faith,' he wrote that his decision vindicated itself, for '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.' The document, recovered with the family's effects, remains the fullest surviving statement of the conviction that led him to stay.
Relics & Shrines
Botkin's remains were identified through dentures recovered from a mine in 1918 and a skull exhumed from the Koptyaki Forest mass grave in 1991, with confirmation aided by DNA supplied by his granddaughter Marina Botkina Schweitzer. On 17 July 1998, the eightieth anniversary of the execution, his remains were interred alongside the imperial family and their servants in the Catherine Chapel of the Cathedral of the Fortress of Saints Peter and Paul in St. Petersburg.
The first church dedicated to St. Eugene Botkin was consecrated on 25 March 2016 by Bishop Panteleimon of Moscow at Moscow City Clinical Hospital No. 57.
Glorification and Legacy
In 1981 the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia canonized Botkin as a New Martyr together with the imperial family. When the Moscow Patriarchate glorified the imperial family as passion-bearers on 19–20 August 2000 at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow, Botkin was not separately canonized. On 3 February 2016 the Bishops' Council of the Russian Orthodox Church canonized him individually as 'Righteous Passion-Bearer Eugene the Physician,' the only non-Romanov member of the household so honored by the Moscow Patriarchate.
In 2009 the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation rehabilitated Botkin among a group of imperial associates subjected to repression. He has been portrayed in film and on television, including in the 1971 film Nicholas and Alexandra and the 1996 television movie Rasputin: Dark Servant of Destiny, and figures in David Logan's play Ekaterinburg.
