Did the Romanov kids read L Frank Baum?

[1130 WNEW]

Did the Romanov children read the "Oz" books?

If they did, I wonder what they thought of the boy Tip becoming Princess Ozma?

[edubs31]

Impossible to know what they thought of something unless they commented on it in one of their letters/diary entries, or if their response was recorded by someone else in their presence. However I too am curious about some of their readings...particularly the great fantasy novels of their time period that millions of children the world over would have read. I know we have a list of some of their books but I'm wondering if there were others.

How much did Alexandra and (to a lesser extent) censor their children's reading material?

[amartin71718]

I mean, there is the popular anecdote about Olga taking Alexandra's books from her shelves and saying along the lines of "You must wait, Mama, until I find out if this is a suitable book for you to read!"

[RetroRaiderD42]

In the second book, "The Marvelous Land of Oz," Tippetarius "Tip" is a boy runaway, who is revealed to actually be Princess Ozma, transformed by magic into the wrong gender by an evil witch so that she couldn't take the throne. So yeah, the children's fantasy book from 1904 has a transgender hero. Really. It's certainly interesting to wonder if OTMA read it (they were popular enough) but I'm not clued up on their reading lists. Though I only know the synopsis I gave from other people, I'm actually going to be reading MLoO soon, w/a view to possibly adapting Ozma and her situation into my story.

[Sarushka]

I've never run across any mention of Baum's work in the IF's papers.

[Georgiy]

It is certainly possible that they read the Oz series. In Soviet times, a Russian version of the stories came out with a number of changes but more or less the same  general idea. TimM if your only exposure to Oz is Judy Garland, you have missed out on some great childhood books!

[Forum Admin]

Everything new published was placed in the Library for Nicholas and the family to select, the rest were sent to the Tsarskoe Selo public library, as well as selections from abroad, including the US.  An inventory was made by Lukomski of everything on the shelves, including the Children's rooms, so if one of the Oz books was there, it may be in the inventory. 

I've never seen the Oz books mentioned, though I know they had read Mark Twain.

[TimM]

Didn't Mark Twain actually visit Livadia once?

[Suzanne]

Yes, in The Innocents Abroad!

[DNAgenie]

I don't think that books published in the US would have been available in Russia unless they had also been published in the UK, and I don't think Baum's books had worldwide currency.

[TimM]

Guess we'll never really know.