Messages

1

Books about the Romanovs and Imperial Russia / Re: Four Sisters by Helen Rappaport

« on: March 03, 2019, 06:38:22 AM »

Good find James, thank you for sharing! I’m listening to it now. Bought the book 2+ years ago but only ever got through a few chapters.

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Films and TV shows about the Romanovs and Imperial Russia / Re: Anastasia the Musical: Inaccuracies

« on: January 28, 2019, 10:11:35 PM »

Great disdainful review there GDSophia in you’re typical witty biting sarcasm :-)

It is interested that by extension of the myth & fairytale versions of Anastasia we’ve been subjected to
through the years that there seems to be an acceptance of painting the entire revolution a Romanov regicide as something cartoonish.

And you’re right. It would be hard to get away with this if talking about a subject like Anne Frank and Naziism.

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Anastasia Nicholaievna / Re: Illnesses of Grand Duchess Anastasia

« on: December 25, 2018, 09:37:00 PM »

Interesting minor historical nugget here, and thanks for sharing.

I was mostly unaware of this. Is it known how sick little Nastya was and for how long? Contracting diphtheria if you were a member of the Russian aristocracy would seem rare & highly unlikely. I’ve read there was a pre-antibiotic death rate in the 5-10% range but would have to imagine the odds were even lower for Anastasia given the quality of medical treatment (for the time) she would have received.

There seems to have been some pretty serious measures taken by the IF and their handlers from ever being exposed to this again. Doesn’t surprise me given the frailty of Alexei’s condition and Alix’s generally paranoia towards illness & injury.

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Research Russian Roots / Re: A little help please!

« on: November 21, 2018, 10:06:12 PM »

Sorry for your loss. He sounds like an impressive gentleman

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Alexandra Feodorovna / Re: Alexandra - Slandered and Hated

« on: July 31, 2018, 09:57:39 PM »

As we see time and again in politics the perception of our leaders (or those closely associated with them such as Alexandra) can turn on a dime as a situation deteriorates. People want scapegoats when times are hard. In the midst of a losing war, bread lines, a rising socialist revolution, and controversies surrounding Rasputin & royal intrigue it's not hard to imagine how N&A went from beloved to reviled by a majority of the Russian people within a few short years.

George H.W. Bush's approval rating stood at 89% after the success of the first Gulf War in early-1991. A year later his rating had plummeted into the 30s and he failed to win reelection in November of 1992. Why? As Bill Clinton once said, "It's the economy stupid!" The US fell into recession, the debt/deficit ballooned, urban plight & crime rates soared, and before long the good feelings surrounding Iraq's defeat in the Gulf War and the Soviet's throwing in the towel on the Cold War dissipated.

Churchill's conservatives got thumped in a shocking defeat to Clement Atlee's Labour Party in the 1945 parliamentary elections in the UK. It would have been hard to find a Brit more popular or respected than Churchill upon the end of WW2 and Allied victory. Yet a majority of British voters didn't think he or his party were the right people to lead England through the post-war rebuild and peace the way they were relied upon to win the War.

My point is that attitudes can change rapidly even when a country isn't in crisis. Considering the state of affairs in Russia after 1914 it's not hard to see why the population would have turned so viciously against an Empress who was never beloved in the first place.

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The Final Chapter / Re: One Hundred Years On

« on: July 16, 2018, 09:06:46 PM »

Lisa) I was in contact with Helen a while back about this trip she put together & hosted. It looked like a dream and was surprisingly affordable. I gave some serious thought to attending but ultimately it wasn’t doable with my little guy Andrew having been born 14-months ago...I hope they’re having an amazing time and can relay some of their experiences to who aren’t able to attend.

Laura O) Lovely thoughts and I concur with you 100%. Im staying up late tonight and taking the morning off work tomorrow. I’ve been immersing myself in some Romanov themed material for the first time in quite a while. Putting a positive spin on an otherwise solemn anniversary.

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Films and TV shows about the Romanovs and Imperial Russia / Re: YouTube - Romanovs and Other Royalty

« on: July 16, 2018, 04:22:22 PM »

A short video by me for nearing 100th anniversary:

The Romanovs | 100 years

Geez Nena, those gun shots are jarring!

For a split-second after the first one I thought it was going to kick in to "Shotgun" by Jr. Walker :-)

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The Final Chapter / Re: People Being 'Horrified' by OTMAA's Murders?

« on: July 16, 2018, 02:08:38 PM »

Slightly off topic but I always found it interesting and, being a Romanov fan, heartening, to hear that Frenchwoman Jeanne Calment, the longest living person ever recorded (1875-1997) considered the execution of the Russian Imperial Family to be the most significant historical event in her lifetime.

This is someone who met Vincent Van Gogh, saw the invention of electricity, the automobile and airplane, lived through two World Wars and was still around when the World-Wide Web was first launched...and yet it was the death of the Romanovs that stood out above all else. Pretty impressive!

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The Final Chapter / Re: One Hundred Years On

« on: July 16, 2018, 01:59:20 PM »

Nice to hear. I can only wish to have been there myself on this hallowed anniversary. I feel like everything in Romanov fandom has been building up to this moment for many years now...and here we are, a full century since their murders and the announcing of the 'Red Terror' to the world.

Any estimates on crowd size for the procession? I hear more than 60,000 showed up last year and, with the combination of it being the hundredth anniversary along with the throngs of foreign guests still in Russia for the recently concluded World Cup, I'm wondering if this year's attendance could push past 100,000!

For those Romanov devotees out there who might be checking into this page today and tomorrow, are any of you present at Ekaterinburg/Ganina Yama? If so please don't spare us photos/news/stories of the events taking place.

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The Final Chapter / Re: People Being 'Horrified' by OTMAA's Murders?

« on: July 06, 2018, 08:11:25 PM »

If individuals in Britain, France and Germany were asked in 1918 something like 'Do you think that the murder of the Romanovs was a terrible crime?', then probably 99 out of 100 would have answered yes.

But how much the murders affected people when they read about them in newspapers at that time is another matter.
Britain with about 18 million households took approaching 2.7 to 3 million casualties during the war.
France with about 16 million households took 6 million casualties during the war.

Given the scale of suffering it hard to think that the murder of the Romanovs had a major effect on people in the major combatant nations.

Perhaps public reaction was different in countries like the USA that were comparatively unaffected by the war.
Who knows?

Sort of what I was getting at there. The US/Canada would have had the luxury of focusing on a very specific, individual tragedy such as the fate of the Romanovs since, by and large, far fewer families suffered their own loss and since the American economy and system of governing wasn't thrown into turmoil by the effects of the war.

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The Final Chapter / Re: People Being 'Horrified' by OTMAA's Murders?

« on: July 02, 2018, 02:21:57 PM »

I wonder if this was one of those somewhat rare instances where foreigners were more appalled than Russians - the ones generally sympathetic to the IF & monarchy but perhaps not arch-monarchists - themselves.

In the midst of a Civil War, inflation and food shortages it’s easy to get preoccupied by other things than the fate of a deposed former ruler and his family. For those of us in the West the plight of Russia as a whole was less relevant making this tragedy stand out.

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Tatiana Nicholaievna / Re: Tatiana Photographs III

« on: July 02, 2018, 02:05:26 PM »

Nice find Sophie! New to me.

13

Having Fun! / Re: How did you become interested in the Romanovs?

« on: June 30, 2018, 08:33:21 PM »

I haven’t seen much of it sadly. Though you never know what sort of media coverage there will be and whether they Spurs on a surge of interest after the fact.

I’ll be commemorating in my own special way. I hope Romanov fans everywhere will do the same even for just this one day.

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Maria Nicholaievna / Re: Anniversary of Maria's birthday -- post memorial messages & tributes here!

« on: June 26, 2018, 04:48:32 PM »

Happy Birthday Mashka!

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The Final Chapter / Re: William Lincoln archive

« on: May 10, 2018, 09:55:21 PM »

That’s interesting indeed! I’ll have to catch that episode...thanks for sharing.