I find it interesting, Belochka, that the quotes you have here presented as arguments to support your cause wind up, in fact, subverting it. As you went through the time to parse it out, so shall I.
]It is very apparent that the authors have attempted to offer a different fate to the Romanov Family than that which we have accepted it to be.
@ p 528 they state:
1. "The inadequacies of Alexander III and Marie Fedorovna ..."
The greatest inadequacy of Alexander III was his utter failure to train his son and Heir to become Emperor. Nicholas himself, from everything I've read, knew he was ill-equipped to assume that huge role. The entire tragic end of the Dynasty and the decades-long Soviet holocaust may have been prevented had Alexander simply been astute enough to provide his son the confidence, intelligence and astuteness borne of training.
2. ".... have been washed away in lovingly painted portraits of a happy family."
Take a look around this board. How many threads and posts are dedicated to the
family life of the Emperor? We see thread after thread comparing smiles and tennis rackets and myriad other familial inconsequences. And yet, when someone (bravely) attempts to discuss the political realities of Nicholas II's reign, the discussion becomes heated and the "he was a good, religious family man with an ill son!" card gets played time and time again as a way to rationalize or justify the Emperor's actions and those of his regime.
3. "The marked immaturity and bad behavior of the tsesarevich fall away when compared to his horrible pain and suffering."
The boy was murdered at thirteen, for goodness sake. Of course he was immature. However, post after post here is dedicated to the horrors of his disease (and they were real and horrific). When his "bad behavior" was mentioned here months ago (or perhaps years, I can't remember), many members cast up their voices in denouncing the very possibility of such episodes because he had suffered so very much, how could he possibly wish for others to suffer. It is precisely because of his own pain, psychologically speaking, that he may have wished to inflict some on others from time to time. It is a very human thing to do. And let us not forget that none of us are nice and well-behaved 100 percent of the time.
4. "The sad and thwarted lives of the four grand duchesses ... disappear in the haze of the revolver smoke."
How has X affected your life? Have you seen that thread? The simple truth is she could not possibly have affected your life, yet testimonials rise like floodwaters. Their lives
were sadly thwarted. The captivating thing about these young women is their glamourous lives and tragic deaths. Because of the astonishing brutality of their deaths, though, any truly
human traits they may have exhibited or possessed are routinely downplayed or denied by legions of ardent fans who wish to cling to the saintly aura that surrounds these
very real, very flawed, very human young women.
5. "The resonance of the ultimate fate ... has stripped them of their humanity, shrouded them in mystical mantles, and washed from their faces that now adorn icons any trace of reality."
See above, but also truly think about this from a detached perspective. I find them much more interesting as 3-dimensional human beings than as 1-dimensional saintly caricatures.
6. "Perversely, in death, the once despised emperor and his family have become all things to all people, embodying romance, sentiment, nostalgia, national pride, religion, and myth. This is the true fate of the Romanovs."
This may simply be the most brilliant comment I read in that book. It is undeniably true. The "things" you questioned in your original post, by the way, are those items listed after the word "people."
Perhaps their answer may be found in their words on the previous page (@ 527):
"Nicholas the inept ruler, the weak-willed husband, the brutal authoritarian dictator who ruthlessly crushed the 1905 Revolution, the virulent anto-semite, the passive observer of his empire's martydom - all of these historic truths have been subsumed by the romantic nostalgia ... "
AND
"The Ekaterinburg massacre transformed Nicholas II and his family into powerful symbols, evoked to this day by elements ... the remnants of the Russian Communist Party to rabid monarchists and the Orthodox faithful in an eighty-five-year-old propaganda war[/u]."
AND
"As a result, rumor replaced fact, legend becomes enshrined as truth, and those involved in the final drama of the Romanovs are subsumed in a polarized mythology carefully crafted according to varied agends."
Once again, the very excerpts you provide do nothing but bolster the authors' position. You can argue the remainder of the book (the uncomfortable information provided, the verascity of the sources, etc.) all you want, but these that you have chosen are undeniable.