So apparently the mods at bonehurtingjuice decided to protest by becoming a commie sub, but actual commies are now posting and commenting, pushing out all the normal content.
The reaction is hilarious, if you have time and want to engage with reactionaries, come check out and support our comrades on that sub. Assuming you still have reddit.
Tsar did speak Russian just fine, but his wife did not even after 20+ years of being in Russia. Royal family spoke english among themselves and in every case where she was present, and this was probably source of the contempt Russians had for them in that regard.
You maybe confused it with Prussian king Friedrich the Great who hated German and insisted everyone speak French in his presence (except soldiers).
Another fun monarch was the “good king” Richard Lionheart who hated everything about England, didn’t know english (generations after Norman conquest!) and wanted to sell London but nobody would buy.
Oh, I meant “speak” in the physical sense, as he legitimately refused to speak Russian to the degree where his courtiers noted that the few times he did, he had a foreign accent in Russian by softening several letters incorrectly. He mostly only spoke English. His family on the other hand didn’t even know Russian as you yourself said.
I think I confused him somewhat with Alexander the first, who was literally a French worshiper who refused to speak anything but French.
Also Lionheart was a moron. He spent the vast majority of his life in the Middle East getting his shit pushed in by Saladin, then spent a few years galloping around France while England was burning in the background. His brother was the icing on the cake that legitimately almost destroyed the Bri’sh royalty and led to the Magna Carta.
Ah yeah Alexander I was one of them too.
And Richard and John are incredibly ironic story. Lionheart was probably the worst monarch England ever had, iirc he also rebelled againt his father twice and quite possibly had him murdered, but he went into folklore as a hero, and John who was definitely least bad of all siblings and really seemed to care about his job got not only to eat shit after Richard but also got remembered as a villain.