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linwearcamenel 's review for:
Nicholas and Alexandra
by Robert K. Massie
OK so I know that historically when a queen or empress is blamed for her husband's downfall it's usually plain old sexism but can we make at least a partial exception for Tsarina Alexandra because she was literallythe worst?
Now that I got that out of the way...
There are some historical events that just capture public imagination and don't let go (the sinking of the Titanic for instance). The downfall and execution of the Russian royal family is definitely one of these and it's really not hard to see why. It's got all the makings of a fantastic drama - tragedy, glamour, romance, mystery and above all else it's simply just all-out bizarre. It's also, arguably, one of the most historically significant moments of the modern world (along with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and Hitler taking over the Reichstag). It's really difficult to see where history would have gone had Nicholas II not been deposed, but it's really easy to see what wouldn't have happened. The disappearance of the Soviet Union would have changed the entire twentieth century.
This account is rightly considered a classic, and it's easy to see where much of the popular image of Nicholas and his family come from. The image of the family-centered Russian Tsar is one that's come down through the years, and it's probably due a lot to this account. Certainly it was based in truth - Nicholas and his wife were deeply in love, unusually for royal couples, and they were highly focused on their family and not just because of their son's hemophilia. That's one of the things this book does very well - you absolutely feel like you know these people when you've finished this book, and because the characters (and the children) are genuinely tragic and sympathetic figures you start to wonder whether it would really have been so bad to let Tsar Nicholas retire quietly to the Crimea or Livadia with his family, or escape to asylum in England.
That's where this (admittedly out of date) account falls a little short. The author doesn't hide the various atrocities Nicholas was responsible for but while acknowledging them, he does sort of hurry past them as if it wasn't really what he was interested in or they were somehow inevitable because of the events happening around the Tsar instead of as a result of his own decisions (or, you know, lack thereof. Nicholas was a lot of things but a decision-maker he was NOT). Yes, much of Russia's problems went back much farther than Nicholas's reign but he was a more active player than this account would have you believe and Massie does sort of gloss over things like Nicholas's stupid decision to sign a treaty with Germany against his ally France as if they couldn't be helped. Or the way he held a party after the massacre at his coronation. I still maintain that he and Alexandra should have stood trial for what they were accused of and that the children should have been granted asylum in England (the other thing this account does is let George V and the British government mostly off the hook for not pushing harder to rescue their Russian cousins, which I will grant is partly because the documents telling the full story were still classified at the time of publication).
The same holds true for Rasputin, who he does portray in all his bizarre fame only to then sort of excuse the multiple rape allegations against him. In all fairness the book was written in 1967 but reading it in 2020, this does NOT look good. It also only serves to make Alexandra look worse, which is really saying something, because there he doesn't gloss over her terrible decisions at all. I knew that she bordered on religiously delusional and should never have been allowed anywhere near power at all but being taken through her decisions really throws into focus how much the entire calamity really could have been avoided, simply by not picking Cabinet members based solely on whether they liked Rasputin or not. She's a genuinely sympathetic figure in many ways but this book really makes it clear why so many people absolutely hated her.
And that is really where the books succeeds. I've never read a nonfiction book that captures the atmosphere of a time and place so well. You feel the charged atmosphere of St. Petersburg, straining through years of terrible leadership and war. You also feel the cloistered atmosphere of the palace that meant the Imperial family was so closed off from the country they had no idea how to rule it. You feel the vastness of the Russian steppes and the loneliness of Siberia, the prison of the houses they were taken to and the tense atmosphere of raising Tsarevich Alexei. It's incredibly evocative.
There are, of course, some factors that are out of date. When the book was published the Soviet Union was still a strong world power and many of the players in this drama were still alive. Many more were still in living memory. The book ends with the discovery of the remains of the Tsar's family, but of course the last two bodies were not discovered at all until 2007, so rumors were still flying at the time of publication that one or more of the children had escaped. Even so, there were things I hadn't known. I didn't know, for example, that Lenin was spirited through Germany by the Kaiser and the German government to weaken Russia after the Revolution. That changes EVERYTHING as far as I'm concerned, and it's really remarkable how little remembered the Kaiser is at this point in time (getting overshadowed by the sheer outright evil of the next generation of German leaders will do that) but he really was a piece of work.
Still a highly recommended account, even with the couple of caveats I mentioned. It's probably best read along with more recent accounts of the Revolution and the deaths of the family. Luckily the history is interesting enough that when you're done with this you'll probably only want to read more about it.
Now that I got that out of the way...
There are some historical events that just capture public imagination and don't let go (the sinking of the Titanic for instance). The downfall and execution of the Russian royal family is definitely one of these and it's really not hard to see why. It's got all the makings of a fantastic drama - tragedy, glamour, romance, mystery and above all else it's simply just all-out bizarre. It's also, arguably, one of the most historically significant moments of the modern world (along with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and Hitler taking over the Reichstag). It's really difficult to see where history would have gone had Nicholas II not been deposed, but it's really easy to see what wouldn't have happened. The disappearance of the Soviet Union would have changed the entire twentieth century.
This account is rightly considered a classic, and it's easy to see where much of the popular image of Nicholas and his family come from. The image of the family-centered Russian Tsar is one that's come down through the years, and it's probably due a lot to this account. Certainly it was based in truth - Nicholas and his wife were deeply in love, unusually for royal couples, and they were highly focused on their family and not just because of their son's hemophilia. That's one of the things this book does very well - you absolutely feel like you know these people when you've finished this book, and because the characters (and the children) are genuinely tragic and sympathetic figures you start to wonder whether it would really have been so bad to let Tsar Nicholas retire quietly to the Crimea or Livadia with his family, or escape to asylum in England.
That's where this (admittedly out of date) account falls a little short. The author doesn't hide the various atrocities Nicholas was responsible for but while acknowledging them, he does sort of hurry past them as if it wasn't really what he was interested in or they were somehow inevitable because of the events happening around the Tsar instead of as a result of his own decisions (or, you know, lack thereof. Nicholas was a lot of things but a decision-maker he was NOT). Yes, much of Russia's problems went back much farther than Nicholas's reign but he was a more active player than this account would have you believe and Massie does sort of gloss over things like Nicholas's stupid decision to sign a treaty with Germany against his ally France as if they couldn't be helped. Or the way he held a party after the massacre at his coronation. I still maintain that he and Alexandra should have stood trial for what they were accused of and that the children should have been granted asylum in England (the other thing this account does is let George V and the British government mostly off the hook for not pushing harder to rescue their Russian cousins, which I will grant is partly because the documents telling the full story were still classified at the time of publication).
The same holds true for Rasputin, who he does portray in all his bizarre fame only to then sort of excuse the multiple rape allegations against him. In all fairness the book was written in 1967 but reading it in 2020, this does NOT look good. It also only serves to make Alexandra look worse, which is really saying something, because there he doesn't gloss over her terrible decisions at all. I knew that she bordered on religiously delusional and should never have been allowed anywhere near power at all but being taken through her decisions really throws into focus how much the entire calamity really could have been avoided, simply by not picking Cabinet members based solely on whether they liked Rasputin or not. She's a genuinely sympathetic figure in many ways but this book really makes it clear why so many people absolutely hated her.
And that is really where the books succeeds. I've never read a nonfiction book that captures the atmosphere of a time and place so well. You feel the charged atmosphere of St. Petersburg, straining through years of terrible leadership and war. You also feel the cloistered atmosphere of the palace that meant the Imperial family was so closed off from the country they had no idea how to rule it. You feel the vastness of the Russian steppes and the loneliness of Siberia, the prison of the houses they were taken to and the tense atmosphere of raising Tsarevich Alexei. It's incredibly evocative.
There are, of course, some factors that are out of date. When the book was published the Soviet Union was still a strong world power and many of the players in this drama were still alive. Many more were still in living memory. The book ends with the discovery of the remains of the Tsar's family, but of course the last two bodies were not discovered at all until 2007, so rumors were still flying at the time of publication that one or more of the children had escaped. Even so, there were things I hadn't known. I didn't know, for example, that Lenin was spirited through Germany by the Kaiser and the German government to weaken Russia after the Revolution. That changes EVERYTHING as far as I'm concerned, and it's really remarkable how little remembered the Kaiser is at this point in time (getting overshadowed by the sheer outright evil of the next generation of German leaders will do that) but he really was a piece of work.
Still a highly recommended account, even with the couple of caveats I mentioned. It's probably best read along with more recent accounts of the Revolution and the deaths of the family. Luckily the history is interesting enough that when you're done with this you'll probably only want to read more about it.