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emcfeely 's review for:
Nicholas and Alexandra: The Classic Account of the Fall of the Romanov Dynasty
by Robert K. Massie
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.