Recommended reading/Valid sources/Advice for beginners on Romanov books

[Sarai_Porretta]

For an *excellent* online bookstore offering many interesting and even rare books on the Romanovs (and other royalty), be sure to check out the following:
http://www.angelfire.com/pa/ImperialRussian/grb/main.html

This site even has copies of the ultra-rare M. Eagar book "Six Years at the Russian Court," which I have found nowhere else. I just got my copy from them last week and it was great!

[anna]

Why do many of you dislike Massie's books??

Why do you think that? Massie's book "The final chapter"
is fascinating. And everybody knows "Nicholas and Alexandra". For many people it was the first book getting to know the Romanovs (and the film (1971) was based on it). You better put some questions by the books written by Edvard Radzinsky. I find him sometimes
very dramatising (as if he was personnaly involved).
For example the way he writes about Alexandra. Okay the woman was sick, but in his eyes she was completly mad! He's really convinced she had an affair with Rasputin. Anyway I hope you enjoy the final chapter. Anna.

[Silja]

Hi, anna,

Interesting to read that you're correponding with Janet Suzman. I also think her performance in "Nicholas and Alexandra" was outstanding!
I also became interested in the Romanovs through the film, and then really fascinated through Massie's book. It's still my favourite.

Hm, I also have problems with Radzinsky's style. His book is not one I really like. It's good, no doubt, but you can tell he's also a playwright. "Dramatic" is quite an apt  discription in this respect. Not really my cup of tea.


I also really like Dominic Lieven's study on Nicholas II. The best political biography on him so far  in my opinion.

Regards,
Silja

[anna]

Hi, Silja,

Thanks for sharing the same opinion about Radzinsky.

I must say, I really enjoy this discussion Board, didn't know there where so many people interested in the Romanovs. Members are growing day by day. It's a pitty so few from Holland. Here you can hardly find any book about this subject. I must order al my books abroad. (Good for my english!) I'm still waiting (three month's!!)
for Greg King's book about Empress Alexandra. It has to come frome Belgium but it's not availible yet.

Kind regards,

Anna

[Silja]

Hi anna,

Well, I know there are really loads of people on the www. who are fascinated with the Romanovs, but I'm also very, very pleased with this forum. It's high time it was established. A big thank you to the webmasters for that!!!!!!

Regarding the availability of books, here in Germany it's not much different. I also ordered most of my copies from the U.S. and Britain. There's little available in German. But I prefer the original copies anyway.

[James Hogland]

Reply to NAAOTMA regarding "The Kitchen Boy". I hope you were given the book as a gift and didn't spend money on it. It is a totally fictional account of the three months or so the family spent in the Ipatiev House. The main character is loosely based on the young kitchen assistant to the family's cook Kharitonov, Leonid Sednev. The 14 year old was an actual person, who also was a playmate to Alexis. The day before the execution he was told a relative was ill and he was to be sent home. He spent the night and next day in custody of the Bolsheviks, then was sent to his family. He disappears from history, which is a pity as his testimony could have been very valuable. The book takes a fictional account of his life in the house. He is a gobetween the family and groups that were arranging a rescue. I won't spoil the final plot lines, but it has something to do with a swap, a rescue of two members of the family and their fate.  It was fairly interesting when dealing with the daily life of the family, then got totatly fantastic. Not worth the money, but as a gift you can spend a few hours with the book as a way to pass time.

[anna]

To Naaotma,

I agree with J. Hogland, this novel doesn't add anything to what we already know. The characters are very undue. Too many quote's from letters and diaries. Well, it's nice reading on a rainy day.

[royalist]

One of the best online databases for books is
www.bookfinder.com

Bookstores from throughout the world are cataloged and their inventories are available to anyone.    And all you need is a title or a author.     Everything from mom and pop stores to Amazon is there.

One should be careful about security before sending your bank card info.  

Good books about the Russian court and high society that are a little rare include

Memories of a Shipwrecked World by Countess Kleinmichel,   her salon was the most renowned in pre war St. Petersburg.  

The Dissolution of an Empire by Meriel Buchanan  ---the daughter of the last British Ambassador.

Something more recent is
Bread of Exile by Dimitri Obolensky ---a chronicle of never before published memiors by members of a family that were close to the throne throughout the last three reigns.  

Anyway, there are many books and everyone has their favorites.     Good Hunting!

[Almedingen]

I enjoy reading about the Romanovs and other royals in the monthly magazine "Royalty Digest".

http://www.picrare.com/Royalty_Digest/

[Almedingen]

What do you think of the book My Empress by Marfa Mounchanow?  Who do you think really wrote it?  Do you think it gives an accurate portrait of Alexandra?  Do you think Alexandra's maid, Madeline Zanotti, wrote it?

I have read the book and found it to be very interesting, but I find myself wondering how accurate it is and wondering who might have written it.

[BobAtchison]

"My Empress" is a fake - there was never a woman by this name in attendance on Alexandra and it is full of huge errors regarding the real life of the Empress.  I think I remember a funny story of how Alexandra supposedly removed the lace from her nightgowns and only wore them once.  There was another one about her storing Faberge desk sets in closets.  In another place "Marfa" says she is present during the events of the abdication, yet she gets the her facts wrong.

I have wondered if the book was not based, in part, on interviews with some servant and then expanded.  However, the newspapers amd magazines of the time were full of enough stories on the Romanovs that you could construct a convincing book from them.

I think Nick Nicholson told me he he discovered who the real author was - but I have forgotten who it was.  Maybe he will come in her and tell us.

It's to bad Caroly Erickson (or her research staff) fell for this book and she references it in her book on Alexandra.

Bob

[BobAtchison]

I forgot to mention that I have wondered about a Zanotti connection, because she spoke English, had a big mouth at times, and she would seem to have been an easy person to approach for such a book.  "Marfa" has something of an angry and resentful tone toward the Emporess which Zanotti's testimony to the Provesional Government on Alexandra would seem to mirror.

However, I have never found anything to really support attributing any specific parts of "Marfa" to her, only many errors on everyday life in the palace that she would have known to be false and would not have made.  Of course another ghost writer could have taken an interview with her and expanded it...

I wish I knew more about what happened to her after the revolution...

[Lanie]

Hm, do you think she was Radzvilli, or was "Marfa" too nice to Alexandra to have been Radzvilli?  When I went to Stanford to check out some stuff (I am such a lame example of a teenager; my idea of fun is to go researching, haha!) I looked at Radzvilli's book but didn't feel like going to another library to get "Marfa"'s.

[Artti]

There are many good books on Tsar Nicholas II. I own a number of them myself, so much so that I can't find any others in any of the three local barnes and nobles stores, I bought them out it seems! I definitely suggest "Nicholas and Alexandra" its marvelous. I also recommend Edvard Radzinsky's "The Last Tsar: The Life and Death of Nicholas II." There is also another book, a much older book (but they have reprinted" called "The Fall of the Russian Monarchy" by Bernard Pares. This book however is very political and due to the time it was written (1930's), it lacks many newly found information. For an excellent picturesque I recommend Peter Kurth's "Tsar: The Lost World of Nicholas and Alexandra." It has amazing, many never before published, pictures of the royal family. Another excellent book is the newly printed "The Fate of the Romanovs" by Greg King and Penny Wilson. If you're interested in the murder investigation, Massie's "The Romanovs: The Final Chapter" is a must own. Perhaps the best book on the dynasty as a whole, beginnig with Tsar Michael and ending with Tsar Nicholas II is W. Bruce Lincoln's "The Romanovs."

[royalist]

I have had questions about the "maid's" book.   Thanks very much for the info....