The Diary of Olga Romanov: Royal Witness to the Russian Revolution

[Suzanne]

I really enjoyed the book - as matushka notes, there are a few corrections required for the footnotes but it's wonderful to read about Olga's life in her own words. As I mention in my review, the diary challenges longstanding stereotypes including the idea that the Czar's daughters had little social life and were constantly supervised by their parents.

Here's my full review

http://www.royalhistorian.com/the-diary-of-olga-romanov-royal-witness-to-the-russian-revolution-by-helen-azar-review/

[helenazar]

I really enjoyed the book - as matushka notes, there are a few corrections required for the footnotes but it's wonderful to read about Olga's life in her own words. As I mention in my review, the diary challenges longstanding stereotypes including the idea that the Czar's daughters had little social life and were constantly supervised by their parents.

Here's my full review

http://www.royalhistorian.com/the-diary-of-olga-romanov-royal-witness-to-the-russian-revolution-by-helen-azar-review/

Thanks, Suzanne! Everything will be fixed in the 2nd edition, don't worry! In fact, I understand that the publisher retained a fact checker to  review the MS to make sure all is 100% correct for the next edition

[Georgiy]

How annoying. Amazon UK now tells me it won't be shipped until January. I have been so looking forward to this book...

[helenazar]

How annoying. Amazon UK now tells me it won't be shipped until January. I have been so looking forward to this book...

Sorry Georigy! You may still get it before then because that's what happened here in US with amazon. Not sure what's going on!

[Georgiy]

Yikes, it gets worse Helen. Now there is an email from Amazon saying it has cancelled the order. Should have stuck with ordering from the US in the first place.

[KarinK]

I received the same email about my order. Amazon UK lists no other sellers, so it looks like creating an Amazon US account and ordering the book from them might be the safest thing to do.

[Ortipo]

... I am going to put together a list of things that need to be corrected for the 2nd edition...

тяв-тяв!

Bob's surname!

[Helen]

Helen, thank you very much for this wonderful book! My copy arrived without any delay, and I've enjoyed reading it so far. I think it a valuable source. One thing that struck me is that frictions between Olga and her mother did not find expression in the diary entries included. And touching how she signed many letters to her father "your loyal Elizavetgradetz".

I noticed a question mark after "Uncle Mekko" on page 72, Olga's diary entry for November 30, 1916.  "Uncle Mekko" was probably "Uncle Mekk" / Nicholas Karlovich Mekk.  According to the information in the biographical index of Joseph Fuhrmann's "The Complete Wartime Correspondence of Tsar Nicholas II and the Empress Alexandra",  Nicholas Karlovich Mekk was a "member of Elizabeth Feodorovna's committee to aid families of those called to Russian military service in the war, glasnaya of zemstvo of Moscow gubernaya, chairman board Moscow-Kazan Railroad Co."

[Kassafrass]

I received a giftcard to Amazon for Christmas and this was the first book I went to order (the second was "Four Sisters" by Helen Rappaport). I am now anxiously awaiting and checking the tracking number constantly as I can't wait for it to come.

Reading the own words of my favorite grand duchess will surely be a treat.

[helenazar]

Helen, thank you very much for this wonderful book! My copy arrived without any delay, and I've enjoyed reading it so far. I think it a valuable source. One thing that struck me is that frictions between Olga and her mother did not find expression in the diary entries included. And touching how she signed many letters to her father "your loyal Elizavetgradetz".

I noticed a question mark after "Uncle Mekko" on page 72, Olga's diary entry for November 30, 1916.  "Uncle Mekko" was probably "Uncle Mekk" / Nicholas Karlovich Mekk.  According to the information in the biographical index of Joseph Fuhrmann's "The Complete Wartime Correspondence of Tsar Nicholas II and the Empress Alexandra",  Nicholas Karlovich Mekk was a "member of Elizabeth Feodorovna's committee to aid families of those called to Russian military service in the war, glasnaya of zemstvo of Moscow gubernaya, chairman board Moscow-Kazan Railroad Co."

Thank you very much Helen for this info!

[helenazar]

I received a giftcard to Amazon for Christmas and this was the first book I went to order (the second was "Four Sisters" by Helen Rappaport). I am now anxiously awaiting and checking the tracking number constantly as I can't wait for it to come.

Reading the own words of my favorite grand duchess will surely be a treat.

Wonderful, hope you enjoy it!

As for cancelled orders, I think that has been resolved? Please let me know if anyone else comes across this issue. Happy New Year!

[Helen]

Olga's diary entry for 30 November 1916 may be more interesting than I thought :
Grand Duchess Elizabeth stated that she had a final, decisive conversation about Rasputin with the Tsar and Tsarina in December 1916. Rasputin was killed on 16/29 December 1916. In telegrams to Zinaida Yusupova and GD Dmitri Pavlovich, GD Elizabeth stated that she had returned on 17 December from a ten-day retreat in a convent. This reduces the window for the last meeting between the Empress and GD Elizabeth to 1-7 December. In chapter 25 of his “The Great War”, Spiridovich claimed that this visit took place on 3 December. However, neither Tsar Nicholas nor Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna mentioned such a visit on 3 December in their diaries. I haven't found any evidence of such a visit on 2-7 December in “Avgusteyshie Sestry Miloserdiya” either, nor in Tsar Nicholas' diaries nor in the wartime correspondence between Tsar Nicholas and his wife. On the other hand, Tsar Nicholas, Olga Nikolaevna and Maria Nikolaevna do mention that GD Elizabeth visited them on 30 November / 1 December. This suggests that the date mentioned by Spiridovich may not be correct.

According to the diaries of GD Olga and Tsar Nicholas, GD Elizabeth arrived from Moscow in the afternoon of 30 November, early enough for her to have tea with the family. She then had dinner with them and seems to have left only around dinner time on the next day. If the last meeting between the Empress and GD Elizabeth actually took place on 30 November / 1 December, GD Elizabeth's allegation that she had been “kicked out like a dog” seems rather exaggerated, considering the length of her stay and the fact that she had invited herself at such a difficult time and had not come for a pleasant chat, but to criticize her sister.

Helen, do you have Olga's diary entry for 1 December 1916? Did she provide any further details with regard to GD Elizabeth's and/or the Empress's activities during 1 December?

[helenazar]

All good points, Helen. This is why IMO, diaries are so much more relaible than memoirs or autobiographies, as we all misremember things years later, but when you are keeping a diary, it's all done on the same day and is much more accurate!

I will have to check which diary entries I have in my posession right now as I had to return the photocopies of the diary pages which I used for translating to the person who originally got them for me; later I ended up requesting some of my own copies directly from GARF, but not all of them, so I may not have the December 1, 1916 entry... I do know that Olga's very last diary book started on December 11th, 1916  and ended about 1/3 of way on March 15, 1917 - I had all the pages from that one. But I am not sure if I ever even had all the pages from the previous book which contained the first week of December, 1916, because the diary copies from the rest of the books were handed to me with most pages out of order, they were a huge mess and it took me weeks to just get them in some sort of a workable order... Unfortunately a good number of the diary pages turned out to be missing once I did that... I will double check though and let you know!

[rudy3]

Besides diaries and memoirs there still is another good source: the daily newspapers. In this matter we can read in Novoe Vremya December 1st 1916 page 7, that GD Elizaveta Feodorovna had arrived by train from Moscow on November 30th. From the railway station she first went to the St Peter and Paul Cathedral to pay her respects to the grave of Alexander III. Then she visited the Chapel of Our Savior (on Nevsky Prospekt, between the Gostiny Dvor and the Municipal Council (Gosudarstvennaya Duma), it was demolished in 1929), the Kazan Cathedral, also on Nevsky, the Ioannovsky Convent (founded by St John of Kronstadt, still excisting, on Karpovka canal), and the Nikolo-Alexandrovsky church (on Prospekt Bakunina, demolished in 1932),and only after these visits she went to Tsarskoe Selo.

In next day's paper, on page 7 there is a short notice: On Dec 1st GD Elizaveta Feodorovna had left for Moscow.

In Russia, before the Revolution, and later, in the Soviet Union, people learned to read between the lines. Maybe in this case, due to the shortness of this second notice, they could understand, that the visit of GD Elizaveta had not been a success?

Rudy

[Kassafrass]

All these different sources are absolutely invaluable. Newspapers, diaries, letters, memoirs.. they all bring something new to the table and in many different ways.

I received my book today and I can't wait to start reading it. There are so many different events that we know of from letters from other people (such as when Olga broke the window and Maria wrote about it in a letter) and I'm looking forward to seeing if Olga mentions any of them in her diaries.

It also warms my heart to see Helen and Sarah mention so many people fro AP in their acknowledgements.