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237 reviews for:
Nicolau e Alexandra: O relato clássico da queda da dinastia Romanov
Robert K. Massie, Angela Lobo de Andrade
4.28 AVERAGE
237 reviews for:
Nicolau e Alexandra: O relato clássico da queda da dinastia Romanov
Robert K. Massie, Angela Lobo de Andrade
4.28 AVERAGE
A minha primeira biografia... e que estreia!
Já tinha uma visão geral, dada pelos livros de História, daquilo que levou à queda da última família Imperial da Rússia (o massacre do Domingo Sangrento, a influência de Rasputine, a 1ªGuerra Mundial, a vida de luxo oposta à fome do povo...) mas, finalizada esta leitura, não há como não concordar que Nicolau II, tendo cometido vários erros como czar, era um bom homem que amava a sua pátria. Não sabia era governar. Noutras circunstâncias o destino da Rússia podia ter sido bem diferente.
"If there had been no Rasputin, there would have been no Lenin", disse Alexander Kerensky, o último primeiro ministro do Governo Provisório constituído após a abdicação do czar. O autor do livro vai mais além: "If this is true, it is also true that if there had been no hemophilia, there would have been no Rasputin. This is not to say that everything that happened in Russia stemmed from the illness of a single boy. It is not to overlook the backwardness of Russian society, the clamor for reform, the strain and battering of a world war and the wrong decisions of the last Tsar. All of these powerfully affected events. But then, as if to ensure a terrible ending, Fate introduced hemophilia and Rasputin. It was a blow from which Nicholas and Imperial Russia could not recover".
O livro ganha muito com o seu tipo de escrita. Não é nada cansativa uma vez que tudo é contado quase como se de uma história se tratasse. As personagens, fiéis à realidade, não são apresentadas como meros peões da História mas como seres humanos, com os seus defeitos, virtudes, sentimentos, motivações e histórias pessoais...
Cabe também destacar o facto de apresentar algumas teorias interessantes relativas aos poderes curativos de Rasputine, o que não impede que ainda exista muito por explicar... Certo é que, não sendo completamente mau, também estava longe de ser santo...
Sem dúvida, um must-read para os interessados pela família Romanov!
Já tinha uma visão geral, dada pelos livros de História, daquilo que levou à queda da última família Imperial da Rússia (o massacre do Domingo Sangrento, a influência de Rasputine, a 1ªGuerra Mundial, a vida de luxo oposta à fome do povo...) mas, finalizada esta leitura, não há como não concordar que Nicolau II, tendo cometido vários erros como czar, era um bom homem que amava a sua pátria. Não sabia era governar. Noutras circunstâncias o destino da Rússia podia ter sido bem diferente.
"If there had been no Rasputin, there would have been no Lenin", disse Alexander Kerensky, o último primeiro ministro do Governo Provisório constituído após a abdicação do czar. O autor do livro vai mais além: "If this is true, it is also true that if there had been no hemophilia, there would have been no Rasputin. This is not to say that everything that happened in Russia stemmed from the illness of a single boy. It is not to overlook the backwardness of Russian society, the clamor for reform, the strain and battering of a world war and the wrong decisions of the last Tsar. All of these powerfully affected events. But then, as if to ensure a terrible ending, Fate introduced hemophilia and Rasputin. It was a blow from which Nicholas and Imperial Russia could not recover".
O livro ganha muito com o seu tipo de escrita. Não é nada cansativa uma vez que tudo é contado quase como se de uma história se tratasse. As personagens, fiéis à realidade, não são apresentadas como meros peões da História mas como seres humanos, com os seus defeitos, virtudes, sentimentos, motivações e histórias pessoais...
Cabe também destacar o facto de apresentar algumas teorias interessantes relativas aos poderes curativos de Rasputine, o que não impede que ainda exista muito por explicar... Certo é que, não sendo completamente mau, também estava longe de ser santo...
Sem dúvida, um must-read para os interessados pela família Romanov!
Never thought, that I’d enjoy a full on history book, but this was good.
It was interesting, I learned a lot and the people became real to me.
The last part fell apart a bit. It was more about faceless politicians and one duma after the other. I couldn’t follow and didn’t care. Considering, that the Romanovs met a particular cruel end, the ending should have been better... but he wrote a book about the end of the Romanovs, so maybe that is something to read in the future.
It was interesting, I learned a lot and the people became real to me.
The last part fell apart a bit. It was more about faceless politicians and one duma after the other. I couldn’t follow and didn’t care. Considering, that the Romanovs met a particular cruel end, the ending should have been better... but he wrote a book about the end of the Romanovs, so maybe that is something to read in the future.
This is not a book someone should be reading if they are interested in a general overview of the Russian Revolution. I shouldn't even have to say that, since it's incredibly upfront about its focus (I mean, look at the title?) but some other reviews seem to suggest otherwise. This is a book about a family and an illness and a way of life, and outside influences are delved into only when necessary - if you don't know anything about Bolshevism, this won't teach you.
Which is fine! Because it's a meticulously-researched, wonderfully-written book, and it probably did a lot to humanize the Romanovs when it was published. In 1967. The tone is kind of comically wistful at times, because, of course, Massie was writing about an empire that had been turned into the terrifying gray monolith known as the USSR. Something was lost forever. I mean, this was pre-Prague Spring, even - nobody had any idea that the USSR was ever going to crumble. So the tone of nostalgia here is pretty heavy, and Massie comes across as a staunch monarchist. At one point he mentions that the first attempt on Rasputin's life happened right around when Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated, and encourages the reader to speculate about how the 20th century would have preceded if the outcomes had been reversed. You can practically hear him crying over the thought of the Hapsburg and Romanov dynasties proudly carrying on. And his ultimate conclusion is that, if it had not been for hemophilia, for Rasputin, for WWI, Russia probably would have gone the way of England - Nicholas, he says, would have made a wonderful constitutional monarch. I'm probably coming across as pretty snide. I actually thought this was a great book - it is a product of its time, and its a time I'll never fully understand, because the Berlin Wall came down when I was too young to know what was going on.
Basically, this book makes the Romanovs human - the crazed Empress is just a terrified mother, trusting the only person she thinks can help her son with a horrifying disease. The malicious (or useless, depending on the source) Tsar is a loving father and husband, unprepared for the enormity of his task. The Grand Duchesses are separate people, not interchangeable little girls (Tatiana and Anastasia are, I think, given more attention than Olga and Maria, but you take what you can get), and Alexis, who is often reduced to the-one-with-hemophilia, is given a personality beyond his disease. And these are all important things. Just because the Romanovs weren't the only players in this part of history doesn't mean they weren't important ones - and their story is often boiled down the barest facts, which inevitably misrepresents a story that requires nuance (if, for instance, you don't know how scary hemophilia is when untreated, and you don't know that Alexandra was shy, and you don't know the details of Rasputin's behavior around her vs. around everyone else, etc. etc. then yeah, you probably will dismiss her as crazy and unfairly blame a lot of what happened on her). But its biases are clear, and shouldn't be ignored.
Which is fine! Because it's a meticulously-researched, wonderfully-written book, and it probably did a lot to humanize the Romanovs when it was published. In 1967. The tone is kind of comically wistful at times, because, of course, Massie was writing about an empire that had been turned into the terrifying gray monolith known as the USSR. Something was lost forever. I mean, this was pre-Prague Spring, even - nobody had any idea that the USSR was ever going to crumble. So the tone of nostalgia here is pretty heavy, and Massie comes across as a staunch monarchist. At one point he mentions that the first attempt on Rasputin's life happened right around when Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated, and encourages the reader to speculate about how the 20th century would have preceded if the outcomes had been reversed. You can practically hear him crying over the thought of the Hapsburg and Romanov dynasties proudly carrying on. And his ultimate conclusion is that, if it had not been for hemophilia, for Rasputin, for WWI, Russia probably would have gone the way of England - Nicholas, he says, would have made a wonderful constitutional monarch. I'm probably coming across as pretty snide. I actually thought this was a great book - it is a product of its time, and its a time I'll never fully understand, because the Berlin Wall came down when I was too young to know what was going on.
Basically, this book makes the Romanovs human - the crazed Empress is just a terrified mother, trusting the only person she thinks can help her son with a horrifying disease. The malicious (or useless, depending on the source) Tsar is a loving father and husband, unprepared for the enormity of his task. The Grand Duchesses are separate people, not interchangeable little girls (Tatiana and Anastasia are, I think, given more attention than Olga and Maria, but you take what you can get), and Alexis, who is often reduced to the-one-with-hemophilia, is given a personality beyond his disease. And these are all important things. Just because the Romanovs weren't the only players in this part of history doesn't mean they weren't important ones - and their story is often boiled down the barest facts, which inevitably misrepresents a story that requires nuance (if, for instance, you don't know how scary hemophilia is when untreated, and you don't know that Alexandra was shy, and you don't know the details of Rasputin's behavior around her vs. around everyone else, etc. etc. then yeah, you probably will dismiss her as crazy and unfairly blame a lot of what happened on her). But its biases are clear, and shouldn't be ignored.
I continually struggle with reading non-fiction... I love learning about history, but there are very few non-fiction history books that I've actually gotten through. But, this one was so interesting that I had no trouble with it!! It moved quickly and tall the info/facts were interesting. I am looking forward to reading more books by this author!
Rasputin scares me!! I totally get what was said about his eyes, just creepy. I wish I could meet him, even though it would be scary. I would want to know what he thought...
Well written!
Rasputin scares me!! I totally get what was said about his eyes, just creepy. I wish I could meet him, even though it would be scary. I would want to know what he thought...
Well written!
The portraits that Massie paints in this book of the last emperor of Russia and his wife are both sad and unflattering. Nicholas II was a peace loving man, an ill-suited leader unprepared for command of a massive empire after the death of his father Alexander III, a case of “shoes too big to fill” following in the tradition of impressive figures such as Peter the great, Catherina II and Alexander I.
Alexandra, although a tender wife and devoted mother was a liability as a political advisor and certainly unwise in her choice of friends, she was totally dominated by the charismatic wily peasant and “holy man” Rasputin. By the end of the book, the reader can appreciate the isolation of Tzar Nicholas and feel the helplessness of the imperial family to the tragic climax when the winds of change swept them away.
In my view, the thesis of the author, that it was Alexei’s hemophilia that doomed the empire, although romantic is not entirely credible. The concerns around the Tsarevich health, the consequent demands on the family and fear for the future of Russia’s imperial succession are undisputed. There are many “if only” in history but the fact that the heir was born hemophiliac can be only a factor and not the main one, in the demise of the Romanov dynasty.
The internal situation in Russia in late 19th and early 20th century combined with the concurrent international political turmoil (the need to change the old regime into modernity requiring both political and economical reforms, the imprudence and arrogance of the ruling class, the demands of the industrial revolution, the questionable appointments to critical foreign government and Duma posts, the start of WWI for which Russia was unprepared and its prolonged timeframe etc.) bear a lot more weight than the illness of the Tsarevich towards the disintegration of Russian old regime.
Reading about the imperial family ignorance and negligence about the many workers’ strikes and unrest by the poverty stricken and disaffected peasants, and, what’s more, the insistence and belief in the Tasarist autocracy as God given right, the one cannot but conclude that the collapse of the Russian imperial government and the following Revolution were largely inevitable.
Massie is an extraordinary non-fiction writer bringing to life the splendor of the jeweled nobility and their refined palaces and estates contrasting them to the squalor and poverty of the peasant life and the horror of the battlefields. I personally didn’t enjoy this book as much as did [b:Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman|10414941|Catherine the Great Portrait of a Woman|Robert K. Massie|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1403395276s/10414941.jpg|15319151] which I highly recommend, nonetheless it was a worthy read for me.
Recommended to readers interested in the history of Russia. 3.5 stars
Alexandra, although a tender wife and devoted mother was a liability as a political advisor and certainly unwise in her choice of friends, she was totally dominated by the charismatic wily peasant and “holy man” Rasputin. By the end of the book, the reader can appreciate the isolation of Tzar Nicholas and feel the helplessness of the imperial family to the tragic climax when the winds of change swept them away.
In my view, the thesis of the author, that it was Alexei’s hemophilia that doomed the empire, although romantic is not entirely credible. The concerns around the Tsarevich health, the consequent demands on the family and fear for the future of Russia’s imperial succession are undisputed. There are many “if only” in history but the fact that the heir was born hemophiliac can be only a factor and not the main one, in the demise of the Romanov dynasty.
The internal situation in Russia in late 19th and early 20th century combined with the concurrent international political turmoil (the need to change the old regime into modernity requiring both political and economical reforms, the imprudence and arrogance of the ruling class, the demands of the industrial revolution, the questionable appointments to critical foreign government and Duma posts, the start of WWI for which Russia was unprepared and its prolonged timeframe etc.) bear a lot more weight than the illness of the Tsarevich towards the disintegration of Russian old regime.
Reading about the imperial family ignorance and negligence about the many workers’ strikes and unrest by the poverty stricken and disaffected peasants, and, what’s more, the insistence and belief in the Tasarist autocracy as God given right, the one cannot but conclude that the collapse of the Russian imperial government and the following Revolution were largely inevitable.
Massie is an extraordinary non-fiction writer bringing to life the splendor of the jeweled nobility and their refined palaces and estates contrasting them to the squalor and poverty of the peasant life and the horror of the battlefields. I personally didn’t enjoy this book as much as did [b:Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman|10414941|Catherine the Great Portrait of a Woman|Robert K. Massie|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1403395276s/10414941.jpg|15319151] which I highly recommend, nonetheless it was a worthy read for me.
Recommended to readers interested in the history of Russia. 3.5 stars
Read this when it was quite new and enjoyed it a lot. Don't remember that much about it except that it was a good read.
An interesting account of the lives of Nicholas and Alexandra - a little too sexist at times, it was written in the late 60's - and it seemed a bit too re-hashed to me. If you know hardly anything about their lives and infamous death, this would be a great choice. If, however, you do know the basics, this might be a bit too much drawn-out information to keep your attention rapt. 3.5 stars
A very complex time politically and a wide cast written very touchingly. I look forward to reading more of Massie's works in the future
The book captures the whole picture of the Romanov from the beginning to the end. But the title is a bit inaccurate because I was expecting it to be a book about the dynamics of Nicholas and Alexandra’s marriage. I have already read a lot of biographies on the Romanovs so this did not add much to my knowledge. But it was still good.
This is a profound and devastating story of how another good man found himself on the throne but wasn't able to keep the attention of his nation. Great man, poor Tzar.