First Book you read about the Imperial Family, and your minds after reading?

[Sarushka]

Sarushka, would I be able to buy the Ipatiev Guard Duty book? That would be an interesting book to add to my bookshelf.

The Guard duty book is reproduced in Alekseyev's Last Act of a Tragedy, which is very difficult to find. However, I've typed up the entries as a Word file. Hopefully Bob & Rob will upload it to the main APTM site, but in the meantime I can email the doc to you if you PM me with your address.

[Grand Duchess Jennifer]

Thank you Sarushka!

I PMed you.

[Janet Ashton]

By the way, as far as Massie goes, I think that a lot of writers who grew up with his book feel almost a parricidal tendency towards him, in the sense of having a desire to prove him wrong on some things: he is regarded popularly as being the be-all and end-all of writing on the family of Nicholas II, and yet his book was based entirely and rather uncritically on published material. It was beautifully written, but certainly not the last word about anything.....

I agree that Massie is no longer the last word, but it seems to me that this shift in attitude many Romanov fans have acquired regarding Nicholas and Alexandra is lacking context. Massie wrote his book in the midst of the Cold War, with the sources available to Americans at the time. Given the limited accessibility of material other than memoirs, and the political climate between Russia and the USA at the time, how could he have written his book differently?

My main issue with Massie has always been that he failed to use one invaluable source available to him then but which is lost to us now - that of human memory. He could potentially have obtained interviews, by post if nothing else, with Kerensky, Kschessinska, and much of Xenia's family. Because my main interest was always in Alexandra I also found his use of her correspondence as a source rather superficial, and was irritated by such statements as "Alexandra did not care whether any minsiter had any aptitude or expertise for his role. What mattered was that he be acceptable to the Man of God." There is also the suggestion that the whole of the infamous "ministerial leapfrog" was her doing in her attempt to clear out all those who opposed Rasputin - he makes no attempt to look around it at other factors and individual decisions as other historians at that time were doing (including Martin Kilcoyne, whose review of nicholas and Alexandra pointed out some errors in the treatment of politics). In fairness, Massie had about a year to write his book, and I have the distinct impression that he knew what it was going to say before he started it: it would be the story of how haemophilia toppled an empire. I think it succeeds in telling this story, but if he'd set out to write a different book - e.g. a genuine in-depth biography of N and A - he might have approached his material differently. JMHO.

[Sarushka]

Thanks Janet -- all good points.

[Romanov_fan]

By the way, as far as Massie goes, I think that a lot of writers who grew up with his book feel almost a parricidal tendency towards him, in the sense of having a desire to prove him wrong on some things: he is regarded popularly as being the be-all and end-all of writing on the family of Nicholas II, and yet his book was based entirely and rather uncritically on published material. It was beautifully written, but certainly not the last word about anything.....

I agree that Massie is no longer the last word, but it seems to me that this shift in attitude many Romanov fans have acquired regarding Nicholas and Alexandra is lacking context. Massie wrote his book in the midst of the Cold War, with the sources available to Americans at the time. Given the limited accessibility of material other than memoirs, and the political climate between Russia and the USA at the time, how could he have written his book differently?

My main issue with Massie has always been that he failed to use one invaluable source available to him then but which is lost to us now - that of human memory. He could potentially have obtained interviews, by post if nothing else, with Kerensky, Kschessinska, and much of Xenia's family. Because my main interest was always in Alexandra I also found his use of her correspondence as a source rather superficial, and was irritated by such statements as "Alexandra did not care whether any minsiter had any aptitude or expertise for his role. What mattered was that he be acceptable to the Man of God." There is also the suggestion that the whole of the infamous "ministerial leapfrog" was her doing in her attempt to clear out all those who opposed Rasputin - he makes no attempt to look around it at other factors and individual decisions as other historians at that time were doing (including Martin Kilcoyne, whose review of nicholas and Alexandra pointed out some errors in the treatment of politics). In fairness, Massie had about a year to write his book, and I have the distinct impression that he knew what it was going to say before he started it: it would be the story of how haemophilia toppled an empire. I think it succeeds in telling this story, but if he'd set out to write a different book - e.g. a genuine in-depth biography of N and A - he might have approached his material differently. JMHO.

Would they have wanted to be interviewed though? I think at least Xzenia's family would have and also Mathilde K. How good was her memory in her later years?  She wrote memoirs though, although I've never read them. Kerensky also wrote memoirs, although I've never read them either. I guess their memoirs are the closest we will ever come to human memory. Some people make better interviews than others. I was just reading Hessian Tapestry and it quotes Victoria Milford Haven's memoirs quite a bit, and she really described things well, makes you feel like you are there. But some people's memories distort things over time, and others don't always write or say the truth. Grand Duke Alexander's memoirs have been said tp be exaggerated I believe. To some extent, it all depends on who you are interviewing how good a resource human memory is.

[Puppylove]

*enthusiastically applauds imperial angel's post*

Would Massie's book have benefited from those living sources Janet mentioned? I'd like to think it would. But so many of the major players were so rife with agenda we'd need God himself to sort out fact from fiction, forget the very human Robert Massie.

[Robert_Hall]

Be all this as it may, Massie remains the most read popular history of the Romanovs and has led many into further research about them. That will be his legacy and I think it is worthy, despite the so-called faults of his research. It is dated but thorough for the time he wrote it.
 As for live interviews. Most  people who had anything to say already had in their own books. Others simply did not wish to be bothered and had made their feelings well known. Even Vorres has said it took a lot of effort to get GD Olga to tell her story, she had remained quiet about it for so long. I suppose Anna Anderson would have been happy to blab on, as well as some of the other quacks and frauds, but what would be the point for his book? I think N&A remain a standard, basically reliable work to begin with, and  Final Chapter is a decent appendix.  Of course, in time with more access to archives, both  in Russia and elsewhere, there will be  more information to come out.  I t  is inevitable in this age.

[Puppylove]

Even the Anna Anderson traveling circus managed to draw innumerable persons to Imperial Family history who otherwise might not be here, so I suppose she served some purpose.

[Robert_Hall]

You are so right, PL.  To me, the best book on her is Kurth's.  Almost had me convinced, but it did not work, I said "almost".  But yes, it did indeed bring  new readers to the subject of the Romanovs for better or worse.

[Janet Ashton]

Be all this as it may, Massie remains the most read popular history of the Romanovs and has led many into further research about them. That will be his legacy and I think it is worthy, despite the so-called faults of his research. It is dated but thorough for the time he wrote it.
 As for live interviews. Most  people who had anything to say already had in their own books. Others simply did not wish to be bothered and had made their feelings well known. Even Vorres has said it took a lot of effort to get GD Olga to tell her story, she had remained quiet about it for so long. I suppose Anna Anderson would have been happy to blab on, as well as some of the other quacks and frauds, but what would be the point for his book?

He might have obtained some unique information, even if it was just a cousin's anecdote about a piece of misbehaviour in one of the children. At the time he was writing, the sources he DID consult might well have been considered rare books, and he put the information in them out there for the world - but today anyone with access to ebay or an internet boookseller can potentially obtain them, whereas they can't obtain the recollections of the Alexandrovich princes - who WERE in truth willing to talk (Dmitri Alexandrovich had plenty to say about his Uncle Bimbo, for one, to Jamie Cockfield), but who no-one really consulted, possibly because at that date their childhood memories would not have been considered of genuine historical value. As I say, I don't think Massie had time to do this - but as a biographer I would at least have been curious to hear their views, and I think Massie was too, because when he later got to know a number of people with personal memories of Nicholas's family he mentioned these in subsequent books.
Kerensky's prolific and contradictory memoirs have been called "self-serving" - Kschessinka also was somewhere short of truthful in hers, and Olga Alexandrovna left memories which Vorres committed to paper and yet Massie clearly didn't believe (an example is her assertion that "both Nicky and Alicky knew very well what Rasputin was", which runs hugely counter to Massie's claim that R "deliberately exploited" "blindness, weakness and ignorance"). In interview, people can not only be asked directly about such problems, but also have the general added spontenaiety of conversation, and can - frankly - be put on the spot. Verbal memory is far from being perfect as a historical source, but I don't see a difference where bias or reliability is concerned between this sort of material and that left by people in memoirs produced for a purpose under commercial constraints. Both are equally sucseptible to pressure and false memory, but the spoken word might just in the right situation be deemed more "honest". This I suppose is why institutions now devote vast resources to trying to record it through oral history projects and so on, giving voice to people whose views might otherwise be considered unimportant.

[nena]

Well, I think that N&A didn't know Rasputin as all figure(who exactly he was). And, to we, readers, things come almost to be critic, because some some facts are not as our minds are, or as we want to be, or read different things/sources about same think. Also, movie 'Nicholas & Alexandra' from 1971, was released from Massie's book, as far I remember. So, I mean -- Massie did good work, with some 'unpublished' details and ever photos, but whole story is something different, I can consider from yours posts.

Ok -- that's all from me. Since I told what book was my first one to read about IF, second one was 'N&A'-- from Helena Barkashov, I'd guess, from series of books --' Greatest loves in the World from History'. It includes Napoleon and Josephine, M.M and J.F.K., Elisabeth Taylor and R. Barton, etc.  .

[Romanov_fan]

I don't know if live interviews would have added anything to his book. I think we'd like to think they would. If these people were less than truthful in their memoirs, I doubt they'd have been any more forth coming in person, it's usually the same. To some extent, there's a lack of truthfulness in every one's memory- that's why it's always important to get two sides to a story. Also, people who don't want to be put on the spot usually refuse interviews, and it's hard to know if some of these people would have wanted to be put on the spot, or taken the chance. Olga A's memories were verbal- commited to paper by someone else, so that's essentially an interview. I think we want to believe that verbal memories would have opened up a whole new world, but in truth, they might not have been different than these people's memoirs. I think Massie used some memoirs in constructing the book, I maybe wrong, it's been forever since I read it. I think Massie did a good job for the time- today we have so much more access to info, and different viewpoints. Also, one reason Massie may not have used oral interviews is he didn't know the people involved and may have been hesitant about approaching them as he hadn't gotten his book published yet and didn't have all the connections he later had. He may have believed they didn't want to talk, or had already said what they had to say, it's hard to know.

[Olga Maria]

I'd reply directly to the topic...
The 1st book I've read is that of Aleksei Volkov. From there, I knew, most of their servants suffered terribly in those Reds' Times.
I also knew something new about the IF"s imprisonment. I feel sorry for them even more.

[Michael HR]

Whilst for me it was N and A that brought me to the Romanov's all those years ago it was also the Anna Anderson debate at the time that I also found interesting (this was the late 60's) and I suppose that Anna Anderson may have brought many people into the arena and therefore she served some purpose I suppose. It would have been nice to have real memories as well but hey ho...

[Ian (UK)]

Well, your fisrt read book about IF was...?

I read first 'The Kitchen boy'- by Robert Alexander.

After reading, cause book affected me, I was very expressed by Fate of IF.  . But end is so interesting.

The first book I read with an imperial family connection was "the file on the tsar" updated 2002 version. I thought the perm incident or incidents were the most intriguing part of the book. It makes you wonder what was going on there, was this some kind of stunt by the reds, & who benefited. Anyway I think we have a thread on this so I will have to do some reading up. As for AA who features much in the work, did I think she was the GDA even as late as 2002 ? Well the DNA results of october 1995 I thought gave more room for manoeuvre than those of today, and we had the missing remains to consider, so I thought it possible. The most flattering photo of her was the one in the berlin clinic, ok so it didn't look like GDA but I thought at the time it resembled what would have been her aunts Olga & Xenia at about the same age. On the whole the book was a good if rather strange introduction to the world of the romanovs, and since then my library has grown & my views on AA have changed. However I still have difficulty in letting go of the odd radical view, even despite recent events.