The Letters of the Romanovs

[Rachael89]

Hi Everyone

Ugh. Just give me a moment to vent, I was the high bidder on copies of the letters of Nicholas and Alexandra, and then, at the very last moment, I was outbid. I feel very dissapointed, they were quite cheap and in the end they only sold for £21.01, a penny more than my highest bid. Normally, the books are ludicrously expensive so I dobut I will get another oppurtunity to purchase them for an affordable amount, oh well, at least I have the copies in my university's library for now.

Just in case I do get a chance to buy the letters again, could anyone tell me what is the best version to get? There are many diffirent versions and I don't know whether or not they are all the same.

Anyway, moving on, I would just like to ask for people's opinions on the various correspondances that are avaliable. Luckily, I managed to order a copy of the correspondance of Maria F and Nicky very cheaply and I am sure it will be good. I have recently developed a fascination for old letters and diaries etc. so if anyone has any interesting ones they could recommend I would be grateful.

I have looked for threads on the correspondances, but have only really seen one for that shared between Nicky and Alix and I would be interested to see what (if any) letters besides theirs are avaliable.

Rachael

[Silja]

I think Fuhrmann's The Complete Wartime Correspondence of Tsar Nicholas II and the Empress Alexandra is an excellent version. The annotations are very helpful and enlightening.

[Sarushka]

I think Fuhrmann's The Complete Wartime Correspondence of Tsar Nicholas II and the Empress Alexandra is an excellent version. The annotations are very helpful and enlightening.

Complete Wartime Correspondence is indeed probably the best, but very rare and expensive. I haven't seen one for less than $500 in over a year.

A Lifelong Passion is a much more affordable option -- used copies go for as little as a few dollars. It includes letters and diary entries from a wider variety of imperial family members from 1894 to 1918, but the majority of the documents are from N&A and their children.


If you read Russian, I can suggest a few other titles as well.

Are you also interested in the IF's diaries, or only their letters?

[s.v.markov]

You might find the following of interest Rachael ~ I've managed to find copies over the past few years here in UK, two of them in Oxfam book shops!
1) Letters of the Tsaritsa to the Tsar 1914 - 1916, intro by Sir Bernard Pares (Duckworth & Co., 1923)
2) Letters of the Tsar to the Tsaritsa 1914 - 1917,  translated by A.L.Hynes (John Lane, 1929)
3) Letters of Tsar Nicholas and Empress Marie, edited by Edward Bing (Nicholson & Watson, 1937)

Sometimes I just open one of the books at random and read a few letters. E.g. just a moment ago.....'but I fully believe in our Friend's words that the glory of your reign is coming, ever since you stuck to your decision, against everybody's wish, and we see the good result. Continue thus, full of energy and wisdom, feeling more sure of yourself and heeding less to the advice of others...' (A to N, 16.9.15)

Oh dear, how wrong could she be.........?

[Rachael89]

Hi Everyone!

First of all, thanks for all of your replies!

Silja - Thankyou for the recommendation, I will keep my eyes out for that specific version!

Sarushka - I looked up The Complete Wartime Correspondance and found a copy for £100 on the WHSmith's website, that is more than I can afford, but £100 certainly seems cheap in comparison to how much you have been seeing it for!

I have A Lifelong Passion and it is very good, it is just frustrating though because I know I am only seeing a few very deliberately chosen examples of the Romanovs letters etc. It is interesting as a general overview, but I am interested in reading more.

I cannot read Russian, but I would nonetheless be very interested in finding out what of the diaries/letters has been exclusively published in that language. I am especially interested in OTMA's letters and diaries, as all I have ever seen of them has been fragments.

I would say I am more interested in the letters than the diaries, mainly because I have heard that most of their diaries are just simple accounts of what they did during the day, with little indication of feelings or opinions. Nonetheless, I am interested in whatever I can get my hands on!

s.v.markov - Thanks for your input, I was actually bidding on reprints of the first two (those were the ones I got outbid on) and I successully brought a copy of Maria and Nicholas's correspondance from Amazon, it is a Royalty Digest reprint, but at £4.00 I thought I had found a bargain!

Your right about how interesting it is to flick through them, I was reading the Maria/Nicky correspondance and I was amazed at how childlike Nicholas's letters were. At the age of 26, he was writing about how an official pooh-poohed everything said to him. The letters are proving to be very revealing about their authors...

Rachael

[Sarushka]

I cannot read Russian, but I would nonetheless be very interested in finding out what of the diaries/letters has been exclusively published in that language. I am especially interested in OTMA's letters and diaries, as all I have ever seen of them has been fragments.

In that case you would probably be most interested in:
Royal Sisters of Mercy
Pered Rasstrelom

Divnyi Svet also has a number of letters between Alexandra and her daughters.

I have not seen this book myself, but it's also largely made up of letters.

[ppatane]

I have another book of letters called Letters of the Tsar's Family from Captivity.  it was published in Russian in 1974 by the Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville NY.  It is something I've really treasured.  Pat