I got my copy yesterday, thanks to the sneakiness and generosity of Laura Mabee!
Basics: The text itself is more lively than you've probably been led to believe over the years, but at the same time an odd combination of engrossing and boring. On one hand, I don't think I've ever read so many tennis scores in my life(!) but on the other, I couldn't help staying up until nearly 2:00 am last night to finish. It is FAR less tedious than Alexandra's last diary, for example, and I'm fairly confident that serious Romanov devotees will not be disappointed. The 12 photographs inside are not likely to be new to AP members.
A word to the wise: the pink dye on the back cover is prone to rubbing off. I covered my copy with contact paper to prevent staining, and reinforce the binding.
Overall, I'm thrilled to have access to a full year of Olga's diary. However, being accustomed to thoroughly annotated volumes like
The Complete Wartime Correspondence and
The Last Diary of Tsaritsa Alexandra, I'm somewhat disappointed with a few of what you might call the academic aspects of the presentation. For instance, there's no index, very few notes, and dozens of unfamiliar names are not identified -- lots of officers and guests at Olga A's weekend parties, as well as nicknames I'd never heard of like "Aunt Mops" and "Aunt Minnie." There's apparently some kind of family code referring to Alexandra's heart complaints ("Mama's heart is #2" for example) which isn't explained or addressed. In December Olga also began using a code to write about Voronov, but I was disappointed that the few coded lines have been omitted. (Though you can find a brief discussion of them in
At Home with the Last Tsar and His Family, which includes a few deciphered lines.)
*I don't know if I'd call these "spoilers" but I'm going to get into a few specifics now. Avert your eyes or consider yourself warned...*
Things that surprised me:
1. Olga's overall lightheartedness. Now that I have some solid context for her pre-war personality, I'd really like to read the wartime diaries and letters so I can gauge her changing state of mind.
2. The state of Alexandra's health, even out of the public eye. There's a virtually daily litany of headaches, backaches, and heart complaints, and it's clear that Alexandra's health is more worrisome to Olga than Aleksei's. It's frankly amazing that Alexandra worked in the lazaret as often as she did.
3. How many ballets, plays, circuses, and operas Olga attended during the social season (New Year's through lent). It's not a daily thing by any means, but I didn't realize how often the older girls were able to attend cultural events of this sort.
4. How little fanfare the 1913 tercentenary celebrations claim in Olga's diary.
5. Just how much seasonal physical exercise NOTMA took -- sledding, skiing, horseback riding, kayaking, swimming, hiking, tennis, etc. It's one thing to be told they exercised a lot, but quite another to see how prominently outdoor activity figured into their daily lives.
6. Olga's delight, at age 17, in playing childhood games (hide and seek, slap-on-hands, etc.) with officers as much as 5-15 years her senior at Olga A's.
7. How rarely Maria, Aleksei, and to some degree Anastasia are mentioned by name (unless there was a doubles tennis match). Olga's diary provides almost no hints into her siblings' personalities, and solidly reinforces the idea of a Big Pair-Little Pair split.
8. Some readers may disagree with me, but IMO, Olga's relationship with Pavel Voronov wasn't much more than an intense teenage crush. Infatuations with three other officers also flare and then fade within the course of the year. (I was amused to discover that 33-year-old Sablin was one of them.) For example, near the end of the year her affection for "S" (Voronov) even seems to wane a bit as another fellow called "Sh" takes prominence.
9. There's no entry on Olga's 18th birthday. (Drat!)
10. Her adoration of Olga A -- "sweetheart Aunt Olga."
Things that didn't surprise me:
1. Olga's social life. A fair number of theatrical performances in the early winter months, followed by the relatively quiet domestic life we've come to expect from the IF. Yes, there are occasional visits with Ksenia's family, lots of outdoor exercise, and lively afternoons at Olga A's home capering with officers, but to me, none of these habitual acquaintances stood out as a real friendship. Rita K is never mentioned, for example. Olga clearly treasures those afternoons at her aunt's house, but in a sense even that comes off as sad to my modern social sensibilities. There appear to have been a few cousins and other young people invited (it's hard to tell for sure in the absence of identification or biographical info), but Olga's attention is always devoted to the officers. She's basically drinking tea and playing hide-and-seek with men who might be nearly twice her age, and it's the highlight of her week. To my mind, that actually reinforces the notion of the OTMA's naivete and insulation rather than contradicting it.
2. Olga's lack of introspection. She writes plainly of being happy, sad, bored, etc. and you can infer her state of mind from the overall tone, but IMO there's little depth. It's all surface emotion, though her entries aren't quite as laden with pet names and endearments as I'd expected.
3. Olga's intellect. We know from the courtiers' memoirs that she was a quick study, had a good memory, played complicated piano pieces well by ear, and liked to read. But if she was also exceptionally thoughtful and perceptive, it doesn't come across in her 1913 diary. Matter of fact, this diary reminds me a bit of the beginning of Anne Frank's diary -- for all her eventual wisdom and insight in captivity, Anne was a perfectly typical teenager at the beginning, and so is Olga throughout 1913. Again, I'm left REALLY wanting to read the girls' wartime diaries to see how their outlook changes.
*end of potential spoilers*
Overall, the diary hasn't drastically changed my view of Olga, but I'm still thrilled with it in a dorky fangirl way. There is definitely a valuable sense of context and continuity to gain by reading an entire, uncut year. As I said initially, as an academic reference it has some shortcomings, but for a glimpse into the daily life of the IF, this book is a treasure.
Thanks again to Laura for such a treat!
