'Romanov. Countess Natasha Brasova’ Kindle

[Превед]

To me, Spanish often appears as some kind of very rustic, antiquated French patois. :-)

Something which gives me an idea: You, like many other Romanov writers, should rather write an earthy book about the relationship / gulf between Mikhail and Natalia and the peasants at Brasovo, which you already have shown an admirable interest in, free from all false sentimentality and ludicrous pretensions of being a kitschy Proust.

[Kalafrana]

I am getting a bit confused.

I assumed this book was a novel, but the reference to photographs makes me think it is a serious biography.

Does it appear on Kindle as the author wrote it, or is she suffering from a truly terrible translation?

Seriously Cristina, if you do want to write a historical novel, there are people on the Forum who can tell you not only what an officer visiting Nicholas would do with his cap (leave it in the cloakroom, so he would bow three times to Nicholas instead of saluting), but which train he should catch from Petrograd to the Stavka (the sleeper to Kiev, stopping at Moghilev mid-afternoon), and so on. I'm a geek for details, but there are lots of people here who out-geek me!

A smallish point. I understood that the Slavophile Nicholas preferred Tsar to Emperor.

Ann

[Превед]

Does it appear on Kindle as the author wrote it, or is she suffering from a truly terrible translation?

She wrote it as it appears, in Spanish.

A smallish point. I understood that the Slavophile Nicholas preferred Tsar to Emperor.

One can probably create quite an interesting thesis of schizophrenic identity about how NII wanted to be a Tsar, especially to the people using "Tsar" instead of "Emperor", but due to narrow conservatism ended up being a mere Emperor to the educated people who said "Emperor" instead of "Tsar". He thought like a Tsar, but acted like an Emperor, you could say.

[Kalafrana]

Msge 2:

I have horrible visions of having to change 'Tsar' to 'Emperor' in every conversation between my aristocratic characters.

Ann

[Maria Sisi]

On the whole "Tsar vs. Emperor" one thing that always confused me was that many writers in their books/articles would call Nicholas Tsar and then Alexandra Empress, not Tsarina. Many times even in the same exact sentence. You normally see Nicholas written as Tsar and Alexandra as Empress.

In the beginning before I learned the titles I always got confused when they would write, "Tsar Nicholas II and his wife, the Empress Alexandra." I knew Emperor is a higher title so I didn't understand why Alexandra, a consort, had a higher title then her husband the ruler. It was only later that I realized they could switch between the two and that both were correct. 

 

[Kalafrana]

Yes, I've noticed that as well. I'd also worked out that Tsaritsa is correct for a Tsar's consort, not Tsarina.

Whatever the inconsistency, Tsar Nicholas rolls off my tongue in the same way as Kaiser Wilhelm, yet their respective consorts are both Empress. Equally, Emperor Franz Josef, Not Kaiser Franz Josef.

I do the same with names, depending pretty much on how I first encountered them. Kaiser Wilhelm, but Philip II of Spain.

Oh well

Ann

[Carolath Habsburg]

BTW a russian friend on Tumblr corrected me and said it was not TSARINA the right term, but TSARITSA  and Tsarina was something about a farm.  Is that right?

[Превед]

BTW a russian friend on Tumblr corrected me and said it was not TSARINA the right term, but TSARITSA  and Tsarina was something about a farm.  Is that right?

Correct.

(Interesting that the faux German-Italian "tsarina" actually is a word in some Slavic languages (not Russian): In Macedonian and Serbo-Croatian царина, i.e. tax owed to the цар, means "customs" and in Ukrainian царина, as in dominion, I suppose, means the outlying part of the village, the pasture or the gate leading to it.)