I have finished Helen Rappaport's "The Last Days of the Romanovs" and wish to provide my general impression.
First of all, I would highly recommend. It is very well-written and researched. The focus on the last fourteen days of captivity is a little misleading; she cleverly uses the events of each day as a narrative vehicle to explore in depth the broader issues of their imprisonment, thus covering the full spectrum from a wide lens. I found this to be a unique and refreshing approach to what I initially imagined would have been very well-traveled ground.
I had no issue with the footnote criticism, for two reasons: (1) having previously pored over much of the source material on my own, I was never uncomfortable with her interpretations and analysis of them; and (2) there were very few instances where she referenced source information I had not had access to from previous sources.
What did I like about it? I loved her scholarly intuition. I liked very much that it was not a romanticized account; that she provided full details, warts and all, making the story far more human and my understanding of the IF's dynamic more vivid. Vivid is a good word to use, actually, because her focus on simple, everyday aspects of their imprisonment resonated enough to create empathy in a reader nearly a century and half a world removed.
What didn't I like about it? As much as I truly enjoyed her sense of psychology - she possesses an intuitive perception of character and self - I did feel that from time to time she was just a touch heavy handed with it. But that is hardly a criticism, more an opinion. Generally as an artist she has a very good sense of when to pull back; her description of the execution is written very matter-of-fact, thankfully not clouded over with floury prose. Like any good writer, she lets the horror of the events speak for themselves.
From the point of view of scholarship, I was most impressed by her compelling case linking the execution directly to Moscow. A central tenet of FOTR, as we all know, concerns a theory that the Ekaterinburg Soviet acted alone. After reading this book I am satisfied that assertion is false. The Goloshchekin-Sverdlov-Lenin connection, discussed in detail, added a great deal of clarity to the relationship between Moscow and Ekaterinburg. That is not to criticize; much of how we now understand this relationship can and should be credited to King and Wilson: I think they were the first to demonstrate the presence of tension between Ekaterinburg and Moscow, as well as the difficulties in telegraph communication, etc., but from there I believe they became a bit overzealous in their conclusions. Topic for a separate thread.
In short, of the many non-fiction Romanov books I have read, this one ranks very high. Highly recommend.
